An Order of Loving
By ROBIN DENNISTON Mlle study of ethics has been underrated. In I philosophy schools it always comes second to pure philosophy or theory of knowledge. In the Church it has ceased to be a set subject for the General Ordination Examination. And when it comes to public discussion of matters on which some knowledge of moral philosophy would seem indispensable, we rarely get more than exhorta- tions to the faithful or disgusted breathings from our distinguished moral theologians. All of which seems to me a pity, because behind it is the assumption that the philosophical study of the motivation of our actions—as opposed to its psychological study—has ceased to be important. And this is not only not true, but ordinary people who have to try and make sense of their own moral problems know it is untrue because to the best of their ability they often do try to work it out for themselves. Into this resounding silence I, for want of anyone else, propose to enter.
Let us try to reduce things to simplicity. Since Freud and Jung have shown that many apparently bad actions are explicable not in terms of bad- ness but of illness and also that some good actions, or what appear to be good, may be selfish in their motivation and deeply harmful in their effects, the public has been divided; into the majority that take these conclusions as sufficient reasons for committing adultery and fornication when terribly tempted to do so, and the minority, who cry in vain and often with a note of hysteria in their voices for the re-establishment of the rules. There are various commando units operating in between these entrenched forces, and one of them is ably led by John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich. Now I must declare myself; I am Pr the Bishop of Woolwich, though not all the way. His view of the love-v.-rules problem, which is essentially that of Bonhoeffer, is that Jesus is not God because he claimed to be but because he was the perfect man, the man in whom selfness had dis- appeared, the totally transparent man, the man in whom love glowed total and pure. None of us is this level of love, but we can and must try to approximate to it. This is called the pro- cess of sanctification. As, more and more, love informs our thoughts and our actions and our whole selves, so the need for rules of conduct recedes. Love God and do what you like, St. Augustine said. Well, I don't suppose the en- trenched minority would cavil at this assessment of Jesus, nor of the corollary that we must be, so far as grace is given us, Christ-like. But they know, and the Bishop knows, that this level of sanctity is given to very few, inside or outside the Church; it is a policy of perfection and this is insufficient for ordinary men leading ordinary lives. Here is our starting point.
This theory of love, and almost all modern ethical utterances, presuppose a particular order of things—one, that a certain state of mind exists; and two, that thereby certain actions are done. If we are in a state of love, or virtue, then thereby our actions will be virtuous. This order is com- mon to many ethical theories and there is a particular reason why it should be insisted on• with peculiar force in this day and age; this is because the Victorians were rightly accused of being hypocritical—appearing to be virtuous when they were not, using, for instance, mis- sionary activity as an excuse for enriching the coffers and enlarging the " empire of the mother country—and so on. What they did was not consonant with their actual motives; what they appeared to wish to achieve was not what they actually wanted to achieve. If you went from their actions to their motives there was no appar- rent relationship; and thus this order—action first, motive second—itself falls into disfavour.
The other order of events contains a built-in guarantee against hypocrisy, for you start with the reality and then go on to the appearance; you cannot be misled by false appearances. I want to suggest it is worth reviving this out-of-fashion theory, not because I hold any brief for hypocrisy but out of stark necessity, since the insistence on the other order (look to the motive and the action can look after itself) has led us into the moral problems whose very names dog us—illegitimacy rate, juvenile delinquency, divorce rate, preva- lence of pre-marital intercourse, etc. Perhaps this last sentence might be challenged—how can an abstract theory be the cause of these far-from- abstract facts? Well, of course, not the sole nor the sufficient cause, but undoubtedly a relaxation in the rules—in itself a desirable thing—has not been accompanied by much increase in the sanctifying love-quotient. So something like stark necessity dictates that we take a look at the second order of events again.
What is the cash value of this statement? This : instead of thinking that a pure, loving, virtuous condition of mind is the essential prerequisite of a virtuous action or a virtuous life, one must start by deliberately doing—trying to do and succeeding in doing—virtuous acts in the hope and belief that this may help to make us virtuous, loving, Christian. Supposing we are full of hatred and lust, as we often are, and instead of analys- ing this state just take a deep breath and do a good thing, may we not, as well as being accused of hypocrisy by many, also be brought nearer to the state of regulation-free love and understand- ing NA:rich the Bishop of Woolwich writes about? The fact is that it is too difficult to have pure motives now; it is very difficult, but not quite impossible, to do acts despite the motives, which one might suggest could be left to God.
Take a case which few who work in offices for long can be unaware of. There are two facts : one is that older men retain their sexual appeal longer than women (it seems incredible perhaps, but it is still true); another is that young girls often prefer older men to boys of their own age (again, unlikely but true). You then have, or can have, a permanent tension in which great and mutual sexual attractions have to be dealt with one way or the other. The easiest.way, no doubt, is to give in to them. The only practical piece of advice I have come across comes not from a • moral theologian but from no less an authority on modern life than Professor Northcote Parkinson, who says. that an older brother younger sister relationship should be deliberatelY aimed at; this canalises and sublimates otherwise awkward em- otions without removing evidence of normal affection. Perhaps Kant's act as if theory gives some furthei respectability to this plea : which is that in such a case as I outline, chosen for its commonness and the fact that it is totally ignored by any manual of morals I have ever encountered, it is less good trying to analyse or otherwise dispose of the feelings en' gendered; you must simply do things inconsistent with your real motives; you must pretend, for the moment, to like as a brother someone you are erotically entranced by; in the hope that in the act of doing there may come sanity and virtue into the appalling state of your mind. Do what the rules tell you, even though they are almost forgotten, and never mind how bitterly and desperately you do them; through the doing comes relief. If your character is such that you cannot act in it, act out of it.
People, we know, can, by doing things, be con- ditioned to be different; brainwashing is an ex- treme example. Normally it is assumed that the process must be evil; but surely this depends on the end aimed at; and where the end is clearly g00(1 the process must also be good if it also represents the only way ahead. This is not to say it is as good as the ideal adumbrated by St. Augustine, the Bishop of Woolwich, etc., and carried through with remarkable success by the Quakers. Jestls said that people who lusted after other people in their hearts had already committed adultery with them. This statement is quite simply beY°11u us now—we must be reconciled to lusting aftcr other people and by an effort of will not try to commit adultery with them—it is an inglorious but surprisingly effective process.
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