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The Concept of Virtue and Its Role in Political Life in the Writings of Yves Simon

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The Concept of Virtue and Its Role in Political Life in the Writings of Yves Simon THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA The Concept of Virtue and its Role In Political Life in the Writings of Yves Simon A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Philosophy Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy © Copyright All Rights Reserved By Patrick Lafon Washington, DC. 2013 The Concept of Virtue and its Role In Political Life in the Writings of Yves R. Simon Patrick Lafon Ph.D. Director: Robert S. Sokolowski Yves R. Simon (1903-1961) gives a modern formulation for many classical philosophical concepts such as authority, the common good, and natural law. These topics have received extensive attention from scholars. Simon also discusses the nature of human virtue, moral and intellectual, but this topic has been less studied. Yet the idea of virtue, and in our case virtue in political life, runs through, and is fundamental to any understanding of Simon’s works. Through a close study of Simon’s works and the relevant secondary literature, this dissertation explores Simon’s definition of virtue in order to highlight its originality, and show how he weaves the need for it into the fabric of three facets of political life, namely, the common good, the virtue of the ruler and the ruled, and law. After indicating why modern substitutes for virtue—specifically the recourse to natural spontaneous goodness by Rousseau, Descartes and Emerson, the psycho-technology of Freud, and the social engineering of Charles Fourier—fail, Simon returns to classical sources in order to explain what virtue means and how it relates to politics. Regarding how the common good is to be understood, a theme central to all political discourse, Simon’s contribution is remarkable. He sees the common good, not just in material terms, but places virtue and the primacy of the ethical at its heart, especially in the many interactions between the common good and valid shades of individual and personal interest. As to the ruler, Simon highlights his role in the volition and intention of the common good formally and materially considered, as among the reasons requiring virtue and wisdom, rather than just technological expertise in him. With regard to the ruled Simon is convincing in explaining how the bad name of obedience may be redeemed. He also successfully argues for a nuanced role for the ruler in matters of truth, particularly transcendent truth. We conclude the dissertation with Simon’s significant contribution as to the role of virtue in the knowledge of the existence and functioning of natural law, natural moral law, and positive law. Simon’s demonstration of how natural law is rooted in God has been described as a “tour de force .” This dissertation by Patrick Lafon fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Philosophy approved by Robert Sokolowski, Ph.D., as Director, and by V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D., and Angela McKay Knobel, Ph.D. as Readers. ___________________________________ Robert Sokolowski, Ph.D., Director ___________________________________ V. Bradley Lewis, Ph.D., Reader ___________________________________ Angela McKay Knobel, Ph.D., Reader ii To the memory of My father, Joseph Noni Lafon (1920 – 2004) My mother, Angela Wiysungrin Lafon (1926 – 2003) And my brother, Edwin Banye Lafon (1954 – 1999) who were great servants of the Lord. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………….....................viii INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1 THE DEFINITION OF VIRTUE PART I: MODERN SUBSTITUTES FOR VIRTUE AND THEIR INADEQUACY …………………………………………………. 6 The Recourse to Natural Goodness ……………………………………….. 8 The Work of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Ralph Waldo Emerson …… 8 The Role of Childhood Accidents ……………………………………. 13 Spontaneity and Experience ………………………………………..... 14 Spontaneity and Reason ……………………………………………… 15 Social Engineering ………………………………………………………… 19 The Birth of the Science of Society ………………………………... 19 Charles Fourier as an Advocate of Social Engineering ……………. 21 Forms of Sociability or Different Ways of Becoming Socialized ….. 24 Psycho-Technology …………………………………………………….. ... 28 Sigmund Freud and the Behaviorists …………………………….… 28 The Distinction between Nature and Use ………………………… 32 PART II: TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF VIRTUE …………………..... 38 Problems of Translation regarding Hexis …………………………………. 39 Virtue is not Habit ………………………………………………………. 40 Habit as Intermediary Potency ……. …………………………........... 42 Habit Requires Stabilization through a Repetition of Acts …………… 42 Habit as Subjective Necessity………………………………………… 44 Habit Excludes Voluntariness and Freedom…………………………... 45 Habit and Virtue……………………………………………………….. 46 Virtue is not Grounded in Opinion ………………………………………..... 49 Virtue is not Science …………….. ………………………………………... 53 The Value-Neutrality of Science …………………………………….. 53 Qualitative Readiness and Existential Readiness ……………………. 55 Disposition …………………………………………………………… 57 PART III: UNDERSTANDING ARISTOTLE’S DEFINITION OF VIRTUE 59 Distinguishing Virtue from a False Intention and from Vice.………………. 59 The Intellectual and Moral Virtues in Practice ……………………………… 61 iv Prudence………………………………………………………………. 63 Justice…………………………………………………………………. 64 Fortitude and Temperance…………………………………………. 65 The Interdependence of the Virtues: The Aristotelian and Stoic Positions…. 66 The Definition of Moral Virtue …..……………………………………..…….68 Knowledge of Moral Axioms through Instinct …………………………….. 70 Chapter II VIRTUE IN PUBLIC LIFE: SIMON’S CONCEPT OF THE COMMON GOOD PART 1: BRIEF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW………………………………..73 Introduction……………………………………………………………………73 The Birth and Evolution of the Concept: Ancient Greek Philosophy to Medieval Times………………………………………………………………..74 The State of the Concept in Modern and Contemporary Thought…………….80 PART II: THE THREEFOLD CLASSIFICATORY SCHEME OF VIRGINIA HELD AS OUTLINED IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST AND INDIVIDUAL INTERESTS AND HER CONCEPT OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST…………………………………………………………90 Preliminary Considerations………………………………..…………………..90 The “Preponderance Theories” of Hobbes, Hume and Bentham……………...95 Hobbes’s Preponderance of Force……………………………………....96 Hume’s Preponderance of Opinion...…………………………………...97 Bentham’s Superior Sum………………………………………………..99 The “Public Interest as Common Interest” Theory ………………………….102 Rousseau: The Common Good and the General Will…………………103 Pareto’s Criterion of Optimality……………………………………….105 The “Unitary Conception”……………………………………………………106 Traditional Theories: Plato and Aristotle………………………….......107 Medieval and Modern Representations: Aquinas, Hegel, and Marx…..111 Contemporary Advocates: Jacques Maritain…………………………..113 Virginia Held’s Proposed Constituent Elements of the Common Good……..114 Critique of the Three Groups of Theory……………………………….114 Proposed Ethical System………………………………………………117 PART III: SIMON’S CONCEPT OF THE COMMON GOOD…...………...120 Two Misconceptions of the Common Good…………………………………122 Simon’s Concept of the Common Good……………………………………..131 Preliminary Considerations and Definition……………………………131 The Individual Good and the Common Good………………………....136 The Distinction between the Individual and the Person as the v Fundamental Basis for thinking about the Common Good………...138 The Relationship between the Individual Good (Interest) and the Personal Good (or Relations within the Particular Good)………….138 The Relationship between the Individual Good and the Common Good………………………………………………………………...140 The Relationship between the Personal Good and the Common Good………………………………………………………………...141 The Personal Good as Ethically Superior to the Common Good in Matters Concerning the Supernatural Order………………………...142 Drawing the Threads Together………………………………………………..143 Chapter III VIRTUE IN PUBLIC LIFE: THE VIRTUE OF THEORETICAL TRUTH AND THE VIRTUE OF THE RULER AND THE RULED…………………….....147 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...147 PART 1: THE VIRTUE OF THEORETICAL TRUTH……………………… 149 The Truth Value of Witness……………………………………………………149 The Truth Value of Science…………………………………………….………151 The Truth Value of Creative Freedom…………………………………………153 Freedom of Intellect: The Trouble with the Position of the Liberals…………..155 Truth and the Market Place of Ideas…………………………………………...163 The Role of Authority in Teaching Transcendent Truth……………………….165 PART II; THE VIRTUE OF THE RULER AND THE RULED………………168 Rule by the Virtuous……………………………………………………………168 Rule by the Experts or by an Elite……………………………………………...181 Freedom from Self: Obedience as Perfective…………………………………..186 Chapter IV VIRTUE IN PUBLIC LIFE: VIRTUE AND LAW……………………….….198 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………...198 PART I: VIRTUE AND THE IDEA OF NATURAL LAW AND PHILOSOPHICAL CHALLENGES TO THE IDEA…………….….200 The Idea of Natural Law………………………………………………….....…200 Philosophical Challenges to the Idea of Natural Law:…………………………205 The Indeterminacy of the Epicureans and the Existentialists……………205 The Mechanism of Descartes and Others………………………………..208 vi The Misuse of Natural Law as Ideology………………………………....212 PART II: VIRTUE AND FACETS OF POSITIVE LAW AND NATURAL LAW……………………………………………...…………...…….218 On the Existence of the Just by Nature…………………………………………218 On Knowledge of Natural Moral Law………………………………………….222 On Law as Premise and Conclusion: The Role of Virtue………………………230 On God as the Author of Natural Law and Natural Moral Law………..………234 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….240 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….246 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS If a good number of human undertakings would be impossible without the help of others, this is even more so in the
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