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Rethinking Happiness: the Role of Hope in Virtue Ethics

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Rethinking Happiness: the Role of Hope in Virtue Ethics RETHINKING HAPPINESS: THE ROLE OF HOPE IN VIRTUE ETHICS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by David Elliot ________________________________ Dr. Jean Porter, Director Graduate Program in Theology Notre Dame, Indiana July 2014 © Copyright 2014 David M. Elliot RETHINKING HAPPINESS: THE ROLE OF HOPE IN VIRTUE ETHICS Abstract by David Elliot The rise of virtue ethics has led to many treatments of the cardinal and theological virtues. But often due to fears that it is too “otherworldly,” the theological virtue of hope has languished in obscurity. Drawing upon St. Thomas Aquinas, I correct this oversight, arguing that hope makes a key contribution to happiness in the next life – and in this one. In common with many virtue ethics and eudaimonist thinkers, I propose that the happy life is the characteristically enjoyable virtuous life. Yet as Aristotle and contemporary virtue ethics suggest, happiness is vulnerable to suffering, sickness, injustice, decline, and death. Limiting the extent to which even the virtuous may be happy, such ills constitute a somewhat depressing “eudaimonia gap.” Since the virtue of hope encourages the agent with the prospect of perfect and lasting beatitude, I argue that the gap leaves room for the virtue of hope to be recognized as “good news” rather than just “curious news” within virtue ethics and in human life generally. Hope sustains us from the sloth, cynicism, and despair that threaten amid life’s trials, it provides an ultimate meaning and transcendent purpose to our lives, and it assures us that the desire for permanent and complete happiness can be fulfilled. David Elliot Encouraged by the anticipation of perfect beatitude whose first fruits begin in this life, the Christian should therefore “rejoice in hope.” Yet many critics regard hope’s joyfulness as narcissistic and view hope as a “selfish” virtue which cares only about heaven and lets the world fester. In contrast, I argue that Thomistic hope partners with charity and is applied to justice, seeking virtue and happiness not just for the self but for the earthly city of which the hopeful remain committed members. Indeed, the vice of presumption opposed to hope consists precisely in the refusal to perform virtuous works of social justice and mercy in the “presumption” that promoting the common good is optional to those seeking eternal life. To give specific form to my claims, I turn to the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount and argue that they represent the paradigmatic form of the happy life shaped by the virtue of hope. As a practical application of hope, I develop the ars moriendi or “art of dying” as a resource for end-of-life care in an aging society where death is often seen as unintelligible and approached with despair. Dedicated in loving and grateful memory to my grandmother, Mary Lannigan, whose support and generosity made higher education a possibility for me. “Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter's day with your thanes and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows, we know nothing. Therefore, if this new doctrine has brought any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should follow it.” - The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England, Bk II “And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it” - Rev 21:26 Nis Angelcynn bedæled Drihtnes halgena - Ælfric, Life of St. Edmund ii CONTENTS Acknowledgments................................................................................................................v Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Virtue, Happiness, and the Eudaimonia Gap ...................................................25 1.1 Virtue and Happiness .......................................................................................25 1.1.1 Desire, Appetite, and the Will...........................................................25 1.1.2 The Ultimate End of Happiness ........................................................35 1.1.3 The Relationship Between Virtue and Happiness ............................47 1.2 The Eudaimonia Gap .......................................................................................55 1.2.1 Aristotle and the Limits of Happiness ..............................................56 1.2.2 Philippa Foot .....................................................................................64 1.2.3 Rosalind Hursthouse .........................................................................71 1.3 Conclusion .......................................................................................................83 Chapter 2: Thomistic Hope ................................................................................................93 2.1 St. Thomas Aquinas on Grace .........................................................................93 2.2 Thomas Aquinas on Hope ..............................................................................110 2.3 Is Hope a Liability? ........................................................................................136 2.4 Conclusion .....................................................................................................168 Chapter 3: Contribution of Hope .....................................................................................170 3.1 Rejoicing in Hope ..........................................................................................170 3.1.1 The Desire for Fuller or Ideal Happiness ........................................170 3.1.2 A Life of Praise and Thanksgiving .................................................196 3.2 Presumption, Merit, and the Gift of Fear .......................................................202 3.2.1 Emersonian Piety and the Vice of Presumption .............................204 3.2.2 Complacent Presumption ................................................................217 3.2.2.1 The Gift of Fear .............................................................. 233 3.3 Patient in Tribulation .....................................................................................243 3.3.1 The Beatitudes and Imperfect Happiness .......................................243 3.3.2 Stoic Hope? .....................................................................................255 3.3.3 The Consolation and Reliance of Hope ..........................................263 3.4 Conclusion .....................................................................................................268 iii Chapter 4: Homo Viator and the World ...........................................................................271 4.1 “In” the World But Not “of It”? .....................................................................271 4.1.1 Worldliness and Gentle Despair .....................................................276 4.1.2 Homo Viator as Dual Citizen ..........................................................295 4.1.3 Hope for the Earthly City ................................................................310 4.2 Hope and the Art of Dying.............................................................................337 4.2.1 The Traditional and Contemporary Ars Moriendi ..........................337 4.2.2 Christ the Hopeful Moriens? ...........................................................351 4.2.3 Practices of Hope ............................................................................358 4.2.4 The Christian Ars moriendi and Those without Hope ....................370 4.3 Conclusion .....................................................................................................376 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................384 Notes ................................................................................................................................394 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to render grateful thanks to the many teachers who made an academic life and this dissertation possible. To Michael Horton, who first drew me into the life of the mind; and to Rabbi David Novak, whose great influence and inspiring example led me into Moral Theology. I am also immensely grateful to David Clairmont, who taught me the importance of community in practical reason; to Gerald McKenny, whose excellent criticisms and suggestions sharpened any iron I had with his much greater iron; and to Joseph Wawrykow, to whom I am indebted for almost all of my understanding of grace and whose teaching first inspired me to study the virtue of hope. I cannot possibly thank my adviser Jean Porter enough. Whatever I may know about virtue and happiness is thanks to her, and what more important things can be taught? I knew something of her extraordinary stature
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