After having completed a work on political philosophy, our hope was to do a work on ethics. In thinking the matter through, however, we found it was not so easy to simply begin a discussion of ethics. We discovered that although everyone pays lip service to the notion that ethics and politics are distinct, understanding how and why they are so is not so easily accomplished. Indeed, it turns out that the structure of typical ethical arguments today is integrally like the structure of most normative political arguments. Both tend to culminate in what we call a juridical form of normativity. The sort of ethical theory we desire to advocate, by contrast, takes on a different structure. We were thus required to say more about political theory in order to find a space for ethics. In our work on political theory, Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), we link politics largely to what we call “metanorms”—or norms that provide a context for the exercise of actions in accordance with ethical norms. Such norms do take a juridical form. But how to move from metanorms to norms? That, we argue, requires a fuller appreciation of the nature of a perfectionist ethics. To make that turn, it was necessary to traverse still more political theory, because rather than taking its cue from ethics, almost the reverse seems true today: ethics is taking its cues from the political.

Hence, besides laying out our framework, much of the early part of this book is involved in showing how what we term “individualistic perfectionism” can be employed as both an alternative ethical theory and as a basis for criticism of other political and ethical approaches. By contrasting our individualistic form of ethical perfectionism with some currently predominant frameworks, we can expose the doubtable assumptions and implications of these other approaches to ethics and politics while making room for our own approach.

In the second half of this book we attempt to defend the foundations we have employed in the first half and to give some indication of their meaning in practice.

In order to fully grasp the exact character of individualistic perfectionism, we think it is worthwhile to contrast the theory we have developed with the thought of two very important philosophers: Stephen Darwall and Mark LeBar. We have chosen these thinkers because they are, in some fashion or other, advocates of constructivism— that is to say, the metaethical view that evaluative or normative claims are seen as true or false because they are based on principles that are constructions of moral thought, and not because they are discovered, detected, or grounded in anything real apart from such thought. We have benefited from considering these thinkers, because they have been instrumental in our clarifying the ways in which the individualist perfectionist position we hold stands apart. What follows indicates some of our reflections and conclusions in this regard.

Darwall

We take the works of Stephen Darwall to be one of the most prominent examples of the paradigm of respect. Anyone familiar with Darwall's work has learned from it, and we ourselves have come to understand our own views better in light of it. It would be folly to suppose that we could provide a full analysis of Darwall's views here. Instead, we seek to contrast some of his major tenets with our own, more as a way of further clarifying our own position, and less as a criticism of Darwall. The spirit with which we undertake the following reflections is thus one of illumination rather than depreciation.

There seem to be three major points of comparison between Darwall's work and our own.

In Norms of Liberty (NOL), while in the process of arguing for the moral necessity of a political/legal order whose fundamental structural principles are individual basic negative rights, we discovered that there is much confusion about the role and function of universality in ethics and political philosophy. Moreover, we discovered that the role and function of universality varied greatly, depending on how one conceived not only the nature of what is good and obligatory, but also deeper issues in philosophy. We were thus drawn to questions about the nature of ethics and the difference between practical and epistemic universals—matters applicable to both politics and ethics.

Avoiding Modernity's Pitfalls: The Four Constraints

It is our contention that we need to free ourselves from certain epistemological and metaethical assumptions of Modernity—to wit, the following interrelated claims (to be referred to as “the Four Constraints”): (1) in order for moral or ethical claims to qualify as knowledge, they must have the same form as those of theoretical or speculative science; (2) universality is necessary for objectivity; (3) universality can replace objectivity; and (4) the ethical is essentially legislative. As we shall see, both in this chapter and in the ones to follow, our conclusions with respect to the Four Constraints will affect our arguments in both the political and the ethical realms. Moreover, by indicating how we may not actually be bound by these constraints, we will be taking some necessary steps toward our goal of liberating ethics from modalities more appropriate to politics.

In order to bring about this philosophical liberation from the Four Constraints, it is necessary first to consider the proper use of abstractions. Our starting principle is that although abstractions are tools for knowing reality, they are not the realities themselves; and thus we should be careful not to ascribe their form or mode to the realities they disclose.

When all is said and done, perhaps the problem nagging all forms of eudaimonistic virtue or perfectionist ethics within the Aristotelian tradition might be the problem of “big morality.” Given the focus in such theories upon the agent's own flourishing, one wonders whether this type of ethics can ever capture moral experience that seems to be “global” in proportions. Here we might be thinking of something like an evil so great, it does not seem possible to appreciate its depth by saying that it results from a “failing to flourish,” or that it exemplifies actions which “impede flourishing.” The examples of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao come to mind. The horrific nature of their actions is so profoundly devastating that it seems almost insulting to our moral sensibilities to think that the depth of their evil can be measured by reference to a lack of flourishing. The reverse may hold as well. There could be some moral goods that go beyond what seems necessary to support or even encourage flourishing of particular individuals or groups of them. Perhaps Jesus, Socrates, or some other saint-like person in one's pantheon of moral exemplars would come to mind in this connection. Either way, flourishing, especially when it is as individualized as we would have it in our foregoing arguments, seems somehow small when paired with the kind of evil or goodness that transcends particular circumstances and times and places.

The problem of big morality thus resurrects the old charge leveled against eudaimonistic ethical theories that, by not appreciating the other and by being too focused upon the self, they are too narrow. Various ethical theorists in the eudaimonistic tradition, including ourselves, have given responses to this charge; and these responses are, in their own way, no doubt adequate and successful. But with big morality, there seems to be a remainder. Yes, sociality is both necessary and important for flourishing, but we are talking here about deeds that go beyond the encouragement or destruction of sociality. Eudaimonistic theories may be adequate for ordinary moral discourse, but that's precisely the problem: How well do they really do with the extraordinary?

The deliberately provocative title of this chapter is not meant to suggest that business is somehow a superior form of activity relative to other occupations. The value of any pursuit, as should be clear by now, is a function of individuals and their various talents and circumstances. Rather, our point will be that although we have been operating at a theoretical plane throughout this work, moral theory is meant, finally, to issue in action—and, therefore, that some of the essential features of market entrepreneurship are also essential components of ethical conduct as we have been advancing it here. So, the question now becomes: What general models of action are best suited to the type of moral theory we are advocating? We noted in the last chapter that Darwall claims that modern ethical theory and practice is essentially juridical. This claim is no doubt accurate; but it does not follow that it represents the only, or even the best, way to understand morality. We have tried to offer in the preceding chapters an alternative perspective—one that might be called an “evaluational” approach to moral action, in opposition to the “juridical.” The contrast between the evaluational and the juridical forms may generally map onto our two basic paradigms of an ethics of responsibility and an ethics of respect, with the juridical being more likely to be found in the latter and the evaluational in the former.

In general, the juridical form seeks to render ethical prescriptions in terms of universal claims or rules grounded in a theory of value that is at least partially agent-independent, if not directly agent-neutral. The object of moral action, then, is to find the rule or norm that covers the kind of case at issue and to direct one's conduct according to that rule or norm.

Imagine a scenario much like Plato describes at the end of the Phaedo, where Socrates, in his jail cell, surrounded by friends, having been condemned to death by the court of Athens, is about to receive the hemlock. Suppose, further, that Socrates, as in Plato's dialogue, drinks the hemlock, but does not die. Instead, a messenger rushes in to announce to those present that Socrates was pardoned from his sentence and that the messenger has an antidote, which he then administers and which will restore Socrates back to his former state of health. The only catch is that Socrates is no longer allowed to practice philosophy in any way or form. Being both obedient to law and opposed to suicide and self-exile, Socrates continues his life without philosophy. He can make love to his wife, play with his children, and chat with people about the weather and politics; but he can do no philosophy—either publicly or in private. We might suppose that Socrates has an immense capacity for philosophy and a compelling disposition toward doing it. But he is equally strong-willed, and each time he is tempted toward philosophy, his daimon says no, he must obey the law. It would be commonly said of this Socrates that he now cannot live up to his potential, that he no longer is able to perfect himself. But would we necessarily say he has lost the ability to achieve well-being or human flourishing? Could Socrates not obtain well-being or human flourishing by taking up some other activity with pleasurable and satisfying dimensions, even if they are not philosophical activities? To what degree can one's perfectibility be separated from one's well-being or human flourishing, and how might the latter be dependent upon the former, if it is at all? Is someone's good necessarily good for that person?

Consider another scenario regarding Socrates and the hemlock.

This chapter is about the need for tethering, and more specifically about the practice of political philosophers over the last few decades of untethering political philosophy in particular from the rest of philosophy generally. Following John Rawls, the current practice often involves a rejection of what is called “comprehensive philosophy,” in favor of a self-contained domain of political theorizing. It is this untethering of political theory from philosophy generally to which we object and which we reject. The effort to avoid comprehensive philosophy has given political theory a false sense of independence and a false sense of practicability. There are a number of causes for these problems, but the two in particular that seem most important are: (1) the belief that doctrines or principles are separated or separable if there is not a direct and immediate implication among them; and (2) the apparent belief that consensus constitutes both justification and rationality. In the end, we shall see that certain sorts of comprehensiveness are not avoided, but simply taken for granted by political theorists—as for example, not only in the case of Rawls, but also Martha Nussbaum and, to a lesser degree, Amartya Sen. Another way of stating the last point is to say that political theories are in fact tethered, and the issues are whether a theorist recognizes these deeper ties and takes some responsibility for what is involved in recognizing them. In what follows, we shall try to indicate some of the reasons why we believe that “tethering” and some form of comprehensiveness is unavoidable, and that the current trend in political theorizing does not actually establish its own self-sufficiency. In the broadest sense, mainstream political theory is tethered to the framework of an ethics of respect and thus does not avoid its own bête noire of a controversial comprehensive framework. Perfectionism, as we present it here, has at least the advantage of keeping its tethered aspects out in the open for all to see, as will hopefully become evident as we move along.

In this chapter, we will continue for a moment our exploration of tethering by considering two more thinkers who are less reticent about identifying their positions with more comprehensive frameworks— namely, Gerald Gaus and Steven Darwall. We should bear in mind that all the theories in both this and the preceding chapter share the tendency to employ the legislative model of ethics. By combating these positions, we hope we are contributing to our main task of liberating ethics from that particular comprehensive context.

Gaus

While we have complained in Chapter 3 of some authors being either unwilling to acknowledge, or in denial about, that to which their doctrines are tethered, Gerald Gaus is not the least bit reticent to tie his views to basic philosophical positions. In his monumental and sophisticated work, The Order of Public Reason, Gaus explicitly distances himself from the very roots of the type of position we would defend. His work is about what he calls “social morality,” which involves “rules that we are required to act upon and which provide the basis for authoritative demands of one person addressed to another.” Or further, Gaus understands social morality as “the set of social-moral rules that require or prohibit actions, and so ground moral imperatives that we direct to each to engage in, or refrain from, certain lines of conduct.” The chief and defining problem for social morality is: “How can free and equal moral persons claim authority to prescribe to other free and equal moral persons?” (We shall call this the central concern of social morality.) Hence, social morality is, for Gaus, imperatival in nature, and not concerned with what is good or desirable for a human being—that is, with what is attractive. Its core notions—right, wrong, duty, and obligation—are seen as independent of what is attractive; and these notions Gaus takes to be definitive of Modernity's approach to morality, because its ultimate concern is with what actions and forbearances we can justifiably owe to, or exact from, strangers.

It might seem that Mackie's wonder as to what it is that provides the basis or “because” for the moral evaluation of wanton cruelty as wrong is nothing more than the continuation of a line of reasoning often attributed to Hume: since there is a logical gap between statements of what is and what ought to be (the reasoning goes), there is an ontological gap between what is and what is valuable or choiceworthy. But does the existence of an ontological gap even follow from the existence of a logical gap? As Hume observed:

Perfectionism is a normative theory that treats the actualization of human nature as pivotal to an account of human good and moral obligation. Particularly for the Aristotelian perfectionist tradition, eudaimonia—happiness, or human flourishing—is the ultimate good or telos (end) for human beings; and living in a practically wise and virtuous manner is the primary obligation dictated by that end. Succinctly stated, human flourishing is understood by us to mean “the exercise of one's own practical wisdom.” Though there are some, as we shall see in “The Perfectionist Turn” chapter of Part II, who think that human flourishing and the goods and virtues that constitute it can be adequately understood apart from the actualization of human nature, we do not. As we shall argue there, we do not think that there is an ontological gap between what is a good human being and what is good for a human being. Indeed, we believe holding that human flourishing is the ultimate end and good for human beings is compatible with there being many diverse forms of human flourishing and with self-direction being vital to the very actuality of human flourishing, and we emphasize both in what follows. Finally, we further believe that acknowledging the self-directed and individualized character of human flourishing is compatible with its being both real and socially achieved. We thus seek to advance a neo- Aristotelian account of human flourishing, in which human good is characterized by these interrelated and interpenetrating features: (1) objectivity, (2) inclusivity, (3) individuality, (4) agent-relativity, (5) self-directedness, and (6) sociality.

There are stories one remembers till the end. Stanley Hoffmann, renowned Franco-American political scientist and a friend, died recently. He passed on many stories but one stands out in my memory that serves as a retrospective beacon, a story illuminating our future in spite of our present European predicament. In the story, Stanley is fifteen and hiding with his mother in Lamalou-les-Bains, a charming village at the foot of rolling hills in the south of France. The village is occupied by German soldiers, most of whom are barely older than him by the end of the war. In the story, Stanley and his mother, originally Austrian Jews and the only ones in the village to understand German, manage to listen to their occupants as they open letters from home, letters full of catastrophic news of bombardments and death. And so Stanley and his mother pass on the message to the villagers, that in truth the boys in Nazi uniforms are malheureux comme des pierres (as sad as stones), and the villagers in turn send instructions to their sons in the maquis of the surrounding hills not to shoot. When the village was liberated in 1945, he recalls, not one drop of blood was shed. It was not like this everywhere.

Can this testimony inspire new generations who witness their own wars and atrocities, to believe in the possibility of a more ethical world – malgré tout? Can we not together project ourselves back to the numerous pockets of deep humanity that were left even at the end of such an atrocious war (are they not all?!) and to these ineffable attitudes that made reconciliation possible after the war? And if we do, can we not share Stanley’s gaze and suppose that the European Union was made possible, at least initially, from sparks like these? Ripples of empathy in the mist of Inferno.

Like other intellectuals who grew up in wartime, Stanley spent his life trying to understand a century which witnessed in its first half a collapse of all the restraints put on war in previous centuries, and in its second half a frantic search for new more drastic restraints.

2008

For centuries the West has dominated the world. By removing barriers, developing trade and getting continents to communicate, Western Europe, followed by the United States, as rivals or associates, have extended their hold and acted as examples, as authors of international rule and masters of its sanction.

Today, the West is both divided and threatened. History is being written without it, and one day history may turn against it. To be sure to avoid this Westerners need to be aware of the risk of convincing themselves that affirming a greater solidarity among themselves is the only way. They are united in their traditions, cultures and ideals, and economically, morally, politically and strategically close as well. They are most threatened by the disorder of the world and the emergence of new powers that do not share the same values, whose notions of life, humans and society are different. A real union between Europe and the United States would see them reinforcing each other.

Europe and the United States do not have good relations. When problems arise, Europe and the United States still do not understand that the dangers threatening them are largely same ones, and that they must show a united front: conflicts in Africa between insecure states with contested borders, instability in Latin America, upheavals in the balance of power in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, UN weakness, constant violations of the actual foundations of international law, economic instability, monetary disorder, and today a financial crisis of an unprecedented seriousness, energy shortage fears, massive movements of populations fleeing poverty, an increase in ethnic and religious conflicts, the arms race, temptation of withdrawal, fear of the future, and so on. The military Alliance that is supposed to unite them is unbalanced, as Americans stay sedentary and Europeans, resigned.

Without the West, will the world build balance on new foundations?

The West faces competition, an unprecedented situation for many centuries, which gradually diminishes its place and influence. Today, not only the marginalisation of the West is taking place, but also its rejection. How many nations contest not only its material, economic and military domination, were it declining, but also its entire moral values and principles of collective life?

1984

1.

In November 1956, the director of the Hungarian News Agency, shortly before his office was flattened by artillery fire, sent a telex to the entire world with a desperate message announcing that the Russian attack against Budapest had begun. The dispatch ended with these words: “We are going to die for Hungary and for Europe.”

What did this sentence mean? It certainly meant that the Russian tanks were endangering Hungary and with it Europe itself. But in what sense was Europe in danger? Were the Russian tanks about to push past the Hungarian borders and into the West? No. The director of the Hungarian News Agency meant that the Russians, in attacking Hungary, were attacking Europe itself. He was ready to die so that Hungary might remain Hungary and European.

Even if the sense of the sentence seems clear, it continues to intrigue us. Actually, in France, in America, one is accustomed to thinking that what was at stake during the invasion was neither Hungary nor Europe but a political regime. One would never have said that Hungary as such had been threatened; still less would one ever understand why a Hungarian, faced with his own death, addressed Europe. When Solzhenitsyn denounces communist oppression, does he invoke Europe as a fundamental value worth dying for?

No. “To die for one's country and for Europe” ‒ that is a phrase that could not be thought in Moscow or Leningrad; it is precisely the phrase that could be thought in Budapest or Warsaw.

In fact, what does Europe mean to a Hungarian, a Czech, a Pole? For a thousand years their nations have belonged to the part of Europe rooted in Roman Christianity. They have participated in every period of its history. For them, the word “Europe” does not represent a phenomenon of geography but a spiritual notion synonymous with the word “West”. The moment Hungary is no longer European ‒ that is, no longer Western ‒ it is driven from its own destiny, beyond its own history: it loses the essence of its identity.

“Geographic Europe” (extending from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains) was always divided into two halves which evolved separately: one tied to ancient Rome and the Catholic Church, the other anchored in Byzantium and the Orthodox Church.

Europe is a continent without a future. Not because of the structural fault lines and increasing dysfunctionality of the EU ‒ the crisis of its currency, the influx of refugees or the threat of a European break-up ‒ it has no future because its societies and leaders have chosen not to have one. Future means change, and change, we have learned, is mostly negative: climate change, collapsing social systems, threats to social cohesion, the likely loss of Europe's global position, the problems of demography, and the limits of growth. European societies have therefore decided not to have a future, but to drag out the present as long as possible. Our civilisatory goal appears to be to retreat into an oasis of wellness and conspicuous consumption.

We have to accept a considerable degree of cognitive dissonance to maintain this blessed state. We are the first generation in history to have a good idea of what the consequences of our actions will be. Scientific models and analyses have been applied to crucial scenarios, most significantly linked to global warming, the rise of global populations and the decline of European ones, to the automatisation of work, the consequences of unsustainable consumption, and the extremes of reckless capitalism, and while there is a range of interpretations, the general direction of the developments affecting our future is clear. It is also transparent that our room for action is narrowing with every passing day, but instead of imagining and constructing the societies we want to live in thirty years hence, we are closing our eyes to the necessity of change. We allow change only where there is an immediate threat of being overwhelmed by current events. We have, to all intents and purposes, abolished our future in order to cling to the status quo of unsustainable wealth and artificial social peace.

The Little Ice Age

There can be no doubt that the European model has been extremely successful, and this success was based not on Christianity, but on an economic and social model which emerged from what historians term the great crisis of the 17th century, when the Little Ice Age cooled down the northern hemisphere by some two degrees Celsius.

As it stands now, Europe has lost its self-confidence, its energy and its hope that the next century will be the “European century”. From Beijing to Washington – and even in Brussels itself – the Old Continent is widely viewed as a spent geopolitical force, as a great place to live but not a great place to dream. These days the European Union is less a declining power than a “retired power” – wise but inactive, prosperous but elastically accommodating. The perversity of the situation is that the European model has fallen victim not to its failure but to its success. The shock that Europeans experience today recalls the shock of the Japanese technology companies of a decade ago when they suddenly realised that although they manufactured the world's most advanced cell phones, they could not sell them abroad. Consumers elsewhere simply weren't ready, since Japanese devices relied on advanced technologies, such as third-generation e-commerce platforms, that were not widely used in other countries. Japanese cell phones, in other words, were too perfect to succeed.

Some dubbed this phenomenon Japan's “Galápagos syndrome”, referring to Charles Darwin's observation that animals living in the remote Galápagos Islands, with their unique flora and fauna, had developed special characteristics not replicable elsewhere. Much the same could be said of today's Europe, which evolved in an ecosystem shielded from the wider world's rougher realities – and has consequently become too advanced and too particular for others to follow. So, is Europe's attractiveness rooted in the universal appeal of its culture and institutions or in its unique nature? The current refugee crisis in Europe suggests an interesting answer to this question.

A decade ago, the Hungarian philosopher and former dissident Gaspar Miklos Tamas observed that the Enlightenment, in which the idea of the European Union is intellectually rooted, demands universal citizenship. But universal citizenship requires one of two things to happen: Either poor and dysfunctional countries become places in which it is worthwhile to become a citizen, or Europe opens its borders to everybody. Not one of these two is going to happen soon, if ever. Today the world is populated by many failed states nobody wants to be a citizen of and Europe neither has the capacity to keep its borders open nor will its citizens-voters ever allow it.