MORTIMER
J. ADLER ON ARE THERE CRITERIA BY WHICH WE CAN JUDGE
OUR CENTURY AND OUR SOCIETY?
WE can have objective
criteria for judging our century and our society only if value judgments have
validity—only if we know what is really good for man as man. The objective truth
of moral philosophy thus enables us to transcend what the anthropologists and
social scientists like to call the “ethnocentric predicament.” We could not
extricate ourselves from that predicament if there were no way of judging the
value-system of another culture or the institutions of another society without
assuming the validity of our own. But if that were the case, we could not even
assess our society
or culture without begging the question. (Let me again say in passing that some
of the professors in our universities who appeal to the ethnocentric
predicament seldom hesitate to pass harsh moral judgments—often in a tone of
high certitude—about our own society and culture.) However, since there are real
goods that correspond to natural needs, things that are good for every human
being because he is human, without regard to the social or cultural
circumstances under which he lives, we are in a position to judge the
value-systems and institutions of particular cultures and societies —our own as
well as others—by using the scale of values that our teleological ethics sets
up as a measure of their goodness or badness.
We have already done
precisely that when, at an earlier point, we considered the external factors or
circumstances that affect the individual’s pursuit of happiness in its relation
to the good of others and the good of the community. In this connection, I
distinguished between ideal or pathological conditions of society. I explained
that I meant by pathological conditions the social or economic circumstances of
civil strife or external war, of poverty and destitution, of chattel slavery or
back-breaking toil. I pointed out that the conditions of social life may be so
poor and so primitive that no man can make a good life for himself and that when the social conditions are still far from ideal but
the pathology is less extreme, the opportunity of making a good life may be
open only to the few. To recognize, as we must, that in the whole of human history the
social conditions of human life have been, in varying degrees, defective from
the point of view of human happiness is to judge all historic societies by
reference to the real goods that constitute a good human life as a whole. To do
this is to transcend the ethno-centric predicament by reference to a scale of
values relative only to the nature of man, and not to any historic culture.
One other earlier
point is relevant here. Man’s basic natural right is his right to the pursuit of happiness;
all subsidiary natural rights are rights to the partial goods that are means to
the end of a good life. We have in these natural rights the objective and
trans-cultural standard for measuring the justice of governments, and the
justice of economic and social institutions as well. A just government is one
that secures to every man his natural rights and protects him from injury by other
men. In addition, in order to be fully just, a government, by shaping the
economic and social arrangements of society to this end, must promote the
general welfare in which all men participate equally, thus helping each and
every one of them to attain real goods that they need but that are not wholly
within their power to get for themselves.
We are now in a
position to formulate in summary fashion the standard by which we can judge the
relative merits of different societies and cultures. One society and culture
is better than another in proportion as its technological conditions, its
political, economic, and social institutions, and its actual value-system
promotes or facilitates a really good life for a larger
percentage of its human beings. One society and culture is worse than another
in proportion as its various components (those just mentioned) work in the
opposite way—to deprive a larger percentage of its members of the
external conditions they need in order
to make good lives for themselves, or to impede, interfere with, or even
discourage their efforts in this direction. The ideal, of course, is a society
and culture that provides all its members—all without
exception —with the external conditions they need, and at the same time
encourages them in their pursuit of the good life.
In these summary
statements, I have not separated political, economic, and social conditions, on
the one hand, from cultural conditions, on the other. Since these two sets of
conditions do not operate in the same fashion—since, in fact, there may be a
large gap between the promise held out by the one and the degree of performance
promoted by the other—it is necessary to deal more fully with each set of
conditions by itself.
What should
government do, in shaping the political, economic, and social institutions of a
society, to safeguard, facilitate, and advance the pursuit of happiness by all its people?
On the conceptual
plane, there can hardly be a better statement of the objectives of government
than the one made in the Preamble to the Constitution of the
Taken together with
the proposition in the Declaration of Independence, that all men, being by
nature equal, are equal in all their natural rights, rights that a just
government must attempt to secure equally for all, the objectives set forth in
the Preamble provide a standard for measuring the goodness of any government,
including our own at various stages in its history from the beginning to the
present day.
Let us now consider
these objectives in relation to the parts of a good life—the constitutive and
instrumental means that the individual must employ in his effort to make a
whole good life for himself. For the present purpose, I am going to set forth
these elements or factors in a fashion somewhat different from earlier
enumerations of them. There are, in this enumeration, seven classes of
goods.
(1) Goods of the body, such as health, vigor, and the pleasures of sense.
(2) Goods of the mind, such as knowledge, understanding, prudence, and even a modicum of
wisdom, together with such goods of the mind’s activity as skills of inquiry and
of critical judgment, and the arts of creative production.
(3) Goods of character, such aspects of moral virtue as temperance and fortitude, together
with justice in relation to the rights of others and the goods of the
community.
(4) Goods of personal association, such as family relationships, friendships, and
loves.
(5) Political goods, such as domestic tranquility—both civil and external peace—and
political liberty under constitutional government, together with the protection
of individual freedom by the prevention of violence, aggression, coercion, or
intimidation.
(6) Economic goods, such as a decent supply of the means of subsistence; living and
working conditions conducive to health; medical care; opportunities for access
to the pleasures of sense, as well as to the pleasures of play and aesthetic
pleasures; opportunities for access to
the goods of the mind through educational facilities in youth and in adult
life; and enough free time from subsistence work, both in youth and in adult
life, to take full advantage of these opportunities.
(7) Social goods, such as equality of status, of opportunity, and of treatment in all
matters affecting the dignity of the human person.
Of these seven
classes or categories of goods, the first four belong to the inner or private
life of the individual. They are acquired and preserved by him as a result of
the way in which he conducts himself, employs his faculties, and husbands his
personal resources.
Whether or not he
acquires and accumulates these goods in the course of his life depends mainly
on him. This is particularly true of the goods of character and of personal
association; these are the least dependent on the good fortune of beneficent
external circumstances.
With regard to his
acquirement of the goods of the body and the goods of the mind, the individual
is more dependent on favorable external conditions—on conditions conducive to
health and provisions for medical care, in the case of bodily goods; on
opportunities for schooling, learning, and creative work,
and on having enough free time to take advantage of these opportunities, in the
case of the goods of the mind. So with regard to all the goods subsumed under
the first four categories, the actions of government can do no more than abet
the pursuit of happiness indirectly by the action it
takes in the sphere of political, economic, and social goods. The last three
classes of goods are environmental or external in the sense that the
individual’s possession of them is mainly dependent on the outer or public
conditions of his life. Thus, unless he is fortunate
enough to live in a
republic—under constitutional government or a government of laws—and unless he
is among those who are enfranchised as citizens with suffrage under that constitution,
he will be deprived of political liberty. Unless he has either income
—producing property
or what I am going to call the “economic equivalents of property,” he will not
have, through forms of wealth and the things wealth can provide, the economic goods
he needs for the pursuit of happiness—things that are good not only because
they maintain his life and health, but because they facilitate his acquirement
of other goods, especially the goods of the mind or the goods of leisure.
Unless he enjoys equality of status, opportunity, and treatment, he will, in
varying degrees, be deprived of access to the goods he needs for his personal
development and for the enhancement of his dignity as a person.
Therefore, insofar as government
can shape and control the political, economic, and social institutions of the
community, it secures the individual’s right to make a good life for himself
largely through measures that directly affect his possession of political,
economic, and social goods and, indirectly, through them, other goods that are
not wholly within the power of the individual. It cannot do anything about the
acquirement and possession of the goods that are wholly within the individual’s
own power, such as the goods of character. And with respect to the goods of the
body, the goods of the mind, and even the goods of personal relationships, it
can contribute only indirectly through the external or environmental goods that
minister to them.
Thus, it may be
practicable now, though it was not always practicable in the past, for a
government to see that no individual starves or is under-nourished; but no
government, now or ever, can see to it that he is temperate and does not ruin
his health by gluttony.
Similarly, it may be
practicable now for a government to provide adequate educational facilities for
every child and even for every adult; but no government can prevent an
individual from neglecting these opportunities, or compel him to acquire and
use the goods of the mind. A government can give every man suffrage and,
therewith, political liberty, but it cannot give him the civic virtue whereby
he uses that freedom well, just as it cannot make him just in his use of other
forms of freedom that it grants him and safeguards. In the light of the
foregoing, let us look once more at the objectives of government, set forth in
the Preamble, in relation to the individual’s right to the pursuit of
happiness, and his right to the life and liberty he needs to pursue it.
We can now see that
security of life and limb, political liberty, and freedom from coercion and
intimidation are themselves among the environmental goods that contribute to
the individual’s making a good life for himself. We can see, furthermore, that
with respect to these political goods, the individual’s pursuit of happiness
can be directly promoted by government. This also applies to the political good
that is peace, both domestic and foreign. All these goods are covered by the
clauses in the Preamble that mention domestic tranquility, the common defense,
and the blessings of liberty as fundamental objectives of government. But
security of life and limb does not exhaust the meaning of the right to life,
for that involves economic as well as political conditions. Nor do political
liberty and freedom from coercion or intimidation exhaust the meaning of the
right to liberty. That also involves economic factors, conditions that provide
the freedom of a man’s time from subsistence-work and a certain degree of
independence from other men with regard to his hold on the means of
subsistence. These economic aspects of the right to life and liberty, together
with all the other economic goods that are elements of human happiness and are
involved in its pursuit, are covered in the Preamble in the clause concerning
the promotion of the general welfare—both economic and social welfare.
Add to this the
clause calling for the establishment of justice, and the picture is completed.
Justice is concerned with the distribution of economic and social as well as
political goods. If justice requires a government to treat equals (that is, all
human beings, equal in their specific nature) equally, and to render to each
what is due him by natural right, then to establish justice a government must
establish social and economic as well as political democracy. It establishes
political democracy by the institution of universal suffrage, whereby it grants
to every man the equal status of enfranchised citizenship and, with that, the
political liberty and a share in the sovereignty to which all are equally
entitled. It establishes economic democracy by whatever measures or
institutions promote the general economic welfare in such a way that every man
has at least the indispensable minimum of economic goods he needs for a good
life. It establishes social democracy by its efforts to remove all forms of
ethnic and racial discrimination, and by eliminating whatever residual class
distinctions may remain after the division of society into political and
economic classes has been overcome. By all these institutions, measures, and
efforts, a just government moves toward the ideal of the classless society, in
which alone an
equality of
conditions is fully achieved for all men.
So much for the obligations
of government to safeguard and promote the attainment of human happiness. In
what ways does the culture of a society—especially the value-system that
underlies its mores—encourage the individual’s efforts to make a good life for
himself, or impede and frustrate those efforts?
Earlier I quoted
Plato’s remark that what is honored in a society is likely to be cultivated
there. Few individuals can be expected to have the heroic virtue to be such
complete nonconformists that they will seek what they ought to seek in their
own lives, against the over-bearing pressure of social disapproval or even
social disinterest. It is extremely difficult for the individual to seek for
himself the things that are not honored or valued in a society, or completely to
turn his back on the things that are honored there, though wrongly so.
Another quotation
relevant here is the passage from Pericles’ Funeral Oration, in which he praises the culture of
Pericles says first: “Our
constitution . . . favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called
a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their
private differences class considerations not being allowed to interfere with
merit; nor again does poverty bar the way . . . The freedom which we enjoy in
our government extends to our ordinary life . . . But all this ease in our
private relations does not make us lawless as citizens.”
Then he goes on to
make the following observations about Athenian culture: “We provide plenty of
means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games . . .
all the year around, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a source of daily pleasure . . . We cultivate
refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we
employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not
in owning to the fact, but in declining to struggle against it . . .In short, I
say that as a city we are the school of Hellas.”
Partly by
paraphrasing the words of Pericles and partly by
extending his remarks, let me now briefly summarize the criteria for judging
one culture as better than another by reference to its favorable or adverse
effects on the pursuit of happiness. One culture is better than another
(1) if it regards
wealth always as a means to an end, and so does not look upon the continual
expansion of the economy, beyond the production of useful wealth, as an end in
itself, to which everything else should be sacrificed or subordinated;
(2) if it
subordinates business to the pursuits of leisure, the production and
consumption of wealth to the goods of the mind;
(3) if it provides
ample means for the mind to refresh itself from business, through the pleasures
of play, through the enjoyment of the arts, through the advancement of the
sciences, and through all forms of learning and of creative work;
(4) if it
subordinates the goods of the body to the goods of the mind, and places its
disapproval upon unlimited indulgence in sensual pleasures or even upon excessive
preoccupation with amusements and recreations that do not contribute to the
growth of the mind or the improvement of the individual as a person;
(5) if it cultivates
the refinements of life and even a modest degree of elegance, but at the same
time censures extravagance and the lust for luxuries, or even creature comforts
and conveniences beyond all reasonable needs;
(6) if it honors the
man of private and civic virtue above the man who succeeds, by foul means or
fair, in the rat-race for power, fame, or wealth;
(7) if, in short, it
esteems intrinsic human excellence above any and every form of merely external
or worldly success.
How does a society
honor the things that should be cultivated if its members are to be aided and
abetted in their pursuit of happiness? One part of the answer lies in the
cultural institutions that it creates, maintains, and develops at the public
expense—its libraries, its museums of art and of science, its theaters, its
public parks, and so on. But the heart of the answer lies in that one of its
cultural institutions that most directly affects every individual—its
educational system, not only its schools, colleges, and universities, but also
the educational facilities it provides for continued learning in adult life.
I am not concerned
here with equality of educational opportunity, but rather with the quality of
the schooling and other educational opportunities afforded both young and old,
if, for example, all children were given an equal number of years of schooling
from kindergarten through college or university and if, in addition, they
enjoyed equal educational facilities during those years, but the schooling they
received was directed mainly toward technological and economic advances rather
than to the pursuits of leisure and the development of human excellence, the
educational system would operate against rather than for the individual’s
making a good life for himself.
To know whether the
culture of a society is favorable to the pursuit of happiness, one need look no
further than the scale of values embodied in its educational system—the
objectives it is designed to serve. Only if an educational system subordinates
every mode of specialized, technical, professional, or vocational training to
discipline in the liberal arts and to all forms of humanistic learning for
their own sake—only if it places truly liberal education first, and relegates
all merely utilitarian programs of education to second place—does it reflect a
scale of values that accords with the order of real goods in the pursuit of
happiness. Then and only then do we have a persuasive sign that the culture of
a society is beneficent because it honors the things that should be cultivated
there for the sake of a good human life.