It’s been about week since my little green book came out. Of all the feedback I’ve so far received, it seems one part in particular has found itself continually resonating in people’s ears. That part is within chapter two, where I discuss the principle of freedom for excellence and its effect upon human flourishing, or what may be commonly thought of as “happiness.”
The point can be summarized as follows: Each of us are our own free agents. This does not mean that we can, by a sheer act of positive thinking alone, transcend all our environmental circumstances or genetic limits; it only means we have the ability to make choices that are not previously determined by prior, causal events. We are free only in that sense, but also in that sense are we really free. We are not moist robots or computing meat or whatever else those confused materialists would like to see humanity reduced to. We have agency, and we all know it, even if that agency is pressed upon by influences and retrained in the selection of things it can choose from at any one point. No one would deny that, and certainly not I. But still within us–mysteriously, and somewhat unfathomably–is our ability to make decisions for ourselves. To select either A or not-A, indeed, autonomously. This is the libertarian account of human freewill, and I believe it to be correct. Not only for theological reasons, but philosophical, as well. Some have even suggested that science can make the argument for freewill, because of what we observe in quantum mechanics. But I do not feel it is necessary, or even productive, to go in that direction, because I do not believe freewill, by the nature of what it is, is something science can tell us about, for even if all of physics came out as deterministic (as the Newtonian atomists believed), this does not close the door on freewill–nor would it have all that much of anything to say about freewill, generally–so long as we maintain there is something about ourselves as humans that is not part of the physical system. Something immaterial. Something very much like a soul.
Ultimately, your perspective of freewill ought not depend upon how you interpret the laws of physics, but rather your overall metaphysics: Do you believe that only physical things exist, or do you think there is something transcendent included in reality? Surely, this is a matter that only a philosopher can wrestle with, even if science–say, from the observations of fine-tuning, to the beginning of the universe, and even near death experiences (podcast episode on all that here)–offers strong indications that there might very well be, and almost seemingly has to be, something beyond the physical.
So, we start from the commonsense view that humans really do have at least some, free ability to choice. And it is from this view that many powerful and productive opportunities arise, predominantly and most especially, the notion of personal responsibility. Anybody who is a determinist has left humans in a state of helpless wallowing and victim-hood. If a person is purely the result of all prior, physical events which preceded them, then a person can have no say in any matter they find themselves in; in fact, only matter has had a say. This not only strangles any notion of individual responsibility but of moral development, as well. We don’t get frustrated at puppets for not minding their manners or refusing 10% to charity, because puppets act only in the ways they’re commanded to by their puppet master. If determinism is true then humans are puppets, and the laws of physics our master. But humans are not puppets. We are capable of taking responsibility and developing morally.
But autonomous self-direction (libertarian freewill) is not a sufficient means for human flourishing, even if it is a necessary one, and this is the point I make in the book. Our ability to choose does not entail we are going to choose well. We may choose poorly, and a lot of us do. And this, I believe, is where the question of human choice becomes most interesting: not whether we have the ability to chose, but whether there are better or worse choices to make. The enemy is not nihilism, so much as relativism, because there yet hangs this pervasive assumption in our everyday, modern atmosphere that all people’s choices are somehow equally valid. Part of this is due to the patently absurd, political clubbing device of political correctness; and part of it is people just not wanting to deal with the hassle of making an argument for something which is they know is obviously wrong, so long as that something is not directly affecting them.
This idea–and it’s unfortunate we even need to argue the point–is most obvious in the extreme, and especially in relation to the people we love. We do not say to our child upon discovering they have been driving drunk of how especially glad we are over the fact they’ve been able to make decisions for themselves. What we say to that child, if we say anything at all, is they are behaving like a damned fool and better shape up, or else. Same with the person who puts needles in their arm for recreation. We do not think this is a good choice. All of us are well aware, in the most basic and immediate way, that some choices are better than others; that some choices are really good for others, and others really bad.
So, there is clearly some objectivity in decision making. Things are not good just because a person desires them (drunk driving is still bad, even if a person wants to do it, and so is shooting heroin), rather some things are really good, and those are the things we should desire, even if we don’t currently. This is how most of the classical thinkers talked about the so-called laws of nature, which to them more of a moral code, not equations of physics. Up until about Spinoza, from Plato on down through Aristotle and Augustine and Aquinas, etc, virtuous living was not only affirmed, but made the very center and purpose of life. People thought not in terms of what was owed to them by society simply because they live and breathe and can screech loudly, but rather how they should conduct their lives and what sort of duty they owed to others and themselves and to God. They thought of how they could develop morally, since through virtuous living alone could they really flourish, really be most of the kinds of creatures they are. That is the whole point of virtue ethics: to pursue what is really good for you.
This is where freedom for excellence comes in: to discipline our desires to make what is really good for us, at first accessible, and then, effortless. To make better decisions. To chose wisely rather than wantonly. This, I suppose, makes my little, green self-help book radically different than most of what’s on the market today, the majority of which suggest (wrongly) that self-actualization is something we can experience only by becoming authentic, true self, whatever the hell that means. To call this line of thinking nonsense is to pay it the highest compliment I am capable of. Because when in such rare instances the statement is not utterly ambiguous (which it almost always is), it is often wholly ridiculous, and a tried and true failure. People do not find happiness just by choosing to live life according to their own terms: In fact, that is about the most demonstrably verified recipe for unhappiness we can think of. It’s been tested, believe me, and it doesn’t work. We cannot simply decide what is going to make us happy. Rather, we can only decide if we are going to pursue what really does make us happy, or not.
It is hard to have these discussions without entering into theology at some point, but we can at least get along a certain way before having to bring God into it. But perhaps we should not even try. Because then we are only trying to make sense of weather without reference to the sun. But weather cannot be made sense of unless we not only acknowledge not only the sun’s existence, but also what the sun is there for. Now, replace weather with existence and the sun with God. If we try to think about existence–and especially of human existence–without God, we are just as hopelessly lost and interminably confused as anything. We will never have a clear and complete picture of things. We’ll simply be ambling about, with all kinds of silly looks on our faces, thinking we know something when we really do not. We’ll then write self-help books with words like manifest in them.
The point I am here getting at is that every human person is here for a purpose and unless we gain absolute clarity on what that purpose is, we have very little shot at ever finding our fulfillment and very little chance at ever being truly happy. As humans we are aimed at, or directed toward, our perfect happiness: perfect beauty, love, justice, peace, and home. But there is only one thing in all of reality which can give us that. That thing–that being, we should say–is not of this world, but it is within this world where we have the chance–the opportunity, and perhaps the only opportunity–to make better decision, and so orient ourselves such that when we depart from this physical, earthly realm, we will be in a proper disposition to be perfectly happy in what’s to come.
This is the point of living virtuously. To live a life that is disciplined and focused on doing, knowing, and making good things. A life that is loving and charitable and attentive to the needs of others. A life where we give thanks and prayers to God and help others and accept help ourselves. A life where we care for our bodies and develop our minds and eat just enough, but not too much. A life where restraints are imposed (preferably voluntarily) to stop us from going off into morally muddy areas, and getting stuck. A life where we forgo the garbage television dramas for something productive, like a book–perhaps even a little, green book.
Making these kinds of choices then gives us the freedom for excellence, or the ability to express ourselves at a higher mode of existence. We live a life with voluntary restraints so we can ultimately live a life that is more fully free; free of impulses and addictions and attachment to cellphone apps, football teams, and Nacho cheese. A life that is free to love others and to receive love perfectly from God.
God can only give us what God has. But God wants to give us everything He can, the most of which is Himself. That is how He designed us. We cannot be happy any other way, and nor should we want to be.
– Pat