Friday Evening
Jack and Mick have settled into their chairs in Doc’s office.
Mick: I’ve been trying to make sense of my reaction to the view you attributed to Augustine. As I indicated, I think there must be a way to establish that the good isn’t unchanging. The notion of immutability really doesn’t sit well with me.
Jack: On the basis of what you said last night, it seemed like you wanted to say it is somehow incoherent.
Mick: Yes, that was my initial inclination, but I’m having difficulty articulating why or in what sense. I tried to think of other incoherent concepts that would be analogous since I thought that might help me think about this topic.
Doc: That’s a good strategy.
Mick: Maybe, except I couldn’t think of an example! Or at least not one that was analogous.
Jack: Hmm. Well, sharing your thought process and where you were getting stuck might help us think along with you.
Doc: I agree. What were some other examples you came up with of confused or incoherent concepts, even if they ultimately didn’t help?
Mick: Well, I think the most obvious examples are things like “circular squares” or “immaterial bodies.”
Doc: Okay. The first is obvious: a figure can’t be both a square and exhibit circularity so that’s clearly an incoherent idea. But is an immaterial body really incoherent in the same way?
Mick: Well sure! A body is a thing that takes up space — it’s a three-dimensional object — and the matter is just whatever stuff a body is composed of which causes it to take up space. So the idea of a body that lacks matter is incoherent.
Doc: Hmm. Something about that doesn’t seem quite right to me. Can’t we conceive of a body that doesn’t have any constitutive matter?
Mick: Well, what I’m suggesting is that we can’t!
Doc: What about ghosts? Even if we don’t think they actually exist, we can conceive of them. They’re like a unicorn or Pegasus in that sense. I don’t think Pegasus actually exists or ever did, but I know what the concept of Pegasus is.
Jack: I think I’m with Mick on this one, Doc. The reason we can conceive of a unicorn or Pegasus is that we can imagine a horse having different body parts, either a horn or wings.
Doc: And we can do the same thing with respect to bodies: we can conceive of a person as lacking a body or leaving their body behind. Every ghost story hinges on the fact that we can imagine this possibility. No one could make a movie featuring a circular square, but they could, and certainly do, make movies about ghosts. Wouldn’t you grant that there are stories about ghosts just like there’s a story or legend about Pegasus?
Mick: That’s the issue! I don’t think I am willing to grant that. People call certain stories “ghost ” stories, but I don’t think the idea is coherent in the same way the idea of a winged horse is.
Jack: Ah, I think we can reveal where you two are disagreeing if we first get clear on what Doc means by “ghost.”
Mick smiles and dramatically folds her arms in satisfaction as she leans towards Doc. Jokingly—
Mick: That’s right, mister! You need to explain what you mean!
She relaxes back into her chair.
Mick: But first you guys have to promise me that we’ll get back to immutability. I don’t want to get sidetracked too much!
Doc: Absolutely. I don’t want us to either.
Jack: Agreed, and I suspect this will actually help us quite a bit. So—
He turns to give his full attention to Doc and crosses his legs.
Jack: Tell us, my friend, what do you mean by a “ghost”?
Doc: Well, the idea of a ghost is of a disembodied soul. We can use our imagination to come up with this idea really easily. In the case of Pegasus, we use our imagination to put together the idea of horse and the idea of wings. In the case of a ghost, we imagine a soul that leaves or escapes the body. It’s almost like the body is a vehicle and the soul “steps” out of it.
Mick: Ah, see! You think you’ve made your case, but you’ve actually just revealed the problem!
Doc: Oh? Do tell!
Mick: You said earlier that you could imagine an immaterial body, but now you’re asking us to imagine a bodiless soul!
Doc: Oh, damn! You’re right!
He laughs and then bites his lip as he contemplates his options.
Jack: I think those two things are easily confused, but Mick’s right. They are distinct concepts.
Doc: Yes, I have to admit I was conflating those two things.
Mick: Let’s not get into whether the idea of a bodiless soul is possible — at least not right now! But I think I can now explain why the concept of an immaterial body is incoherent. Basically, it is a way of trying to talk about a bodiless body.
Doc: Hmm. Indeed. You’re absolutely right, and that is clearly incoherent.
Jack: I’ll add one proviso: “immaterial body” is only incoherent on the assumption that body means a spatiotemporal entity, which is how Mick was using it. If there’s a different sense in which “body” can be used, the notion of an immaterial body might not be incoherent.
Mick: I thought you were with me, Jack!
Jack: Haha, I am! I’m just being careful.
Mick gives him an exaggerated side-eye.
Mick: We shall see. I suspect you’ve got something brewing in that head of yours.
She chuckles and then takes a deep breath, running her hand through her hair.
Mick: Okay, so last night when I was thinking this through, the analogy to the concept of an immaterial body wasn’t helping me, but now I think it is. If the concept of an immutable good is incoherent in a similar way, it must be that the property expressed by the adjective can’t be coherently attributed to the subject expressed by the noun.
Doc: Right, though there are other ways in which a concept can be incoherent.
Mick: Yeah, yeah, yeah. (Waves her hand dismissively.) Don’t get me off track!
Doc smiles and gestures for her to proceed.
Mick: Here’s my first stab at it: fundamentally, anything that is good is an activity — the idea of something being, quote-unquote, the good is the idea of it being the best activity. So, the idea of an immutable or unchanging good is incoherent. It is the impossible idea of an inactive activity.
Doc quickly stands up and dramatically bends over, acting as if he’s picking something up from the floor. Mick looks baffled and then chuckles.
Mick: What the hell are you doing?
Doc: Oh, sorry, you just blew my mind, so I’m picking up the pieces.
Jack slaps his knee.
Jack: Haha, yes, that is really well put, Mick!
She leans back and smiles.
Mick: I can’t deny feeling satisfied, but surely you guys will put my argument through the wringer.
Jack: Oh, absolutely! You can count on it.
Doc settles back into his chair, assuming a relaxed posture, clasping his hands behind his head.
Doc: This doesn’t bear on whether your argument is sound, but one aspect of it that I find appealing is that it could be understood as a corrective to what Aristotle says about the good while nevertheless being closely related to it.
Jack: Ah, yes. In the Nicomachean Ethics he says, in effect, that every action and pursuit aims at some good, so the good ought to be understood as that at which everything aims.
Mick furrows her brow in contemplation for a moment.
Mick: Hmm. I guess I see what you mean, but that seems pretty different than what I have in mind. It sounds like he was saying that the good is something external to the activities or actions — like how a target is different than the arrow aimed at it — whereas I meant the good is, itself, and activity.
Doc: Yes, that’s what I took you to mean, but my understanding is that Aristotle also suggests that goods are internal to activities or that they are activities.
Jack: Intellectual contemplation would be the exemplar.
Mick rolls her eyes.
Mick: Of course a philosopher would claim that intellectual contemplation is good!
Jack: Haha. The gusto with which you engage in it suggests to me that you don’t really disagree.
Mick: No, I suppose not.
Doc is thoughtfully tapping the eraser of his pencil against his desk.
Doc: So, let’s see. An “inactive activity” is confused on the face of it, but it occurs to me that there is a potentially significant difference between it and the confused notion of a bodiless body. Bodies are things — entities — and every entity has real properties. Actions aren’t really things. I mean, they aren’t substances. So they wouldn’t have properties, at least not in the same way. We can say things about them — why they are undertaken, how successful they were, and so on — but these are simply assessments, not attributions of real properties internal to the activity.
Mick: Sure, I think I agree. Does that really undermine what I'm saying?
Doc: No, I suppose not. What I have in mind is that attributing the so-called property of being inactive to an activity may very well be mistaken, but it’s because it isn't the sort of thing we can meaningfully say about an action.
Jack: I guess I took that to be Mick’s point. Or, at least, it’s another way of stating it.
Doc: Yeah, I can see that. It’s just a clarification. (Pauses.) But what about “good” and specifically the goodness of an action? Mick, you were saying that anything that is good is an action, and while it seems meaningful to say the good is immutable, the idea of saying an activity is immutable doesn’t make sense. Given the identity of the good and actions, it follows that it ultimately doesn’t make sense to say the good is immutable, despite our ordinary ways of speaking.
Jack looks over at Mick and raises a skeptical eyebrow.
Jack: I think he just needed to talk through it on his own terms.
Doc: Yeah, sorry. I am curious to hear more about how you are conceiving of the good, Mick. I presume you don’t take it to be a synonym for action.
Mick: No, I don't. I take it that there are both good and bad actions.
Jack: So, would it be accurate to say you meant that good and bad are assessments that only apply to actions?
Mick: Yes, I think that’s what I was driving at, or at least should’ve been driving at. (Pauses.) Of course, we describe people as good or bad, too, but I think in order for a person to be good they have to be inclined to do good actions.
Jack: Okay, so then the question becomes on what basis are we justified in attributing goodness or badness to an action — or rather, as Doc clarified, when is it appropriate to assess them in this way?
Doc: Maybe it would be helpful to first clarify what you have in mind when you refer to an action. I say this because I know some people think that everything we do is an action whereas other people think that we can choose to not engage in action or, in other words, to engage in non-action.
Mick: Oh, that’s interesting. I think of an action as whatever follows from a conscious choice.
Doc: Does that mean that during every waking moment we are acting in some way, or are there moments when we are not acting?
Mick: Hmm. I hadn’t explicitly thought about it before, and I would have been inclined to say that when someone is just laying around or sitting down they aren’t doing anything, but now that I am thinking about it, that doesn’t seem right. Clearly, they are doing something: specifically, laying down or sitting.
Doc: Right, so it seems that whatever someone is consciously doing is an action.
Jack: And we could allow that a person who is unconscious isn’t really acting at all, right?
Mick: Yes, I think that seems right. We could say they were acting when they went to bed, but once they are unconscious, they are no longer acting, even if their body engages in unconscious movement.
Doc: I have a second, related question before we go on to consider when we would be justified in attributing goodness or badness to an action. Can actions occur over a great length of time or do you think they are rather short-lived?
Jack: I was just wondering the same thing. If I resolve to renovate a room in my house, for example, is the whole effort an action, or are the actions the more simple steps I take in the process of doing so?
Mick: In a sense, the whole project is an action since it is a conscious choice. However, I think the word “project” is a better term. A project is composed of various actions, and each of those actions has a conscious intention that causes them, but they are all also aiming at the completion of the project as a whole.
Jack: That’s a helpful distinction. A project is a set of ordered actions. But actions themselves are ordered, right?
Mick: Yes, though I suppose some actions aren’t very tightly ordered. Or at least they aren’t ordered toward longer-term goals.
Doc: Right, like blowing my nose or twiddling my thumbs.
Mick: Haha, yes, exactly.
Jack: Okay, let’s get back to the main question that we were going to explore: when is it appropriate to say that an action is good or bad?
Mick: Well, there was a lot going on in my head when I initially formulated the idea that actions are the types of things that can be good or bad. First I was thinking that only actions are the sorts of things that can be evaluated as useful or not. When an action fails to bring about the thing that we aim at, it is a bad action, and when it brings about what we aimed at, it is a good action.
Doc: I think that would force us to claim that all sorts of actions are good that we otherwise think are bad: for example, a serial killer effectively stalking their victim. If they succeed in doing so, the action would be good, which isn’t correct.
Mick: Right. I thought of something like that too, but I didn’t get so morbid! But yes, that’s why I revised my own thinking. I realized that the end goal itself must be good.
Jack: Ah! But doesn’t that mean that it isn’t actions per se that are good or bad, but rather the things they aim at?
Mick: Yes, but what I have in mind is that everything an action aims at is itself an action. There is no meaningful sense in which what we aim for is a state of complete and utter inaction, stasis, or absolute entropy.
Doc: Whoa! That’s quite a way of putting it. I think you’ve thought this through more than you initially let on.
Mick: Haha, well, yes. I turned over quite a few ideas and even wrote them down. However, they weren’t hanging together in my mind until just now. But that’s definitely what I want to say: the highest good we aim at is not itself something static, but rather dynamic. It is a life, and life is necessarily active.
She pulls out a sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolds it.
Mick: Here’s one of the things I wrote down: Life itself is activity, phase changes, movement, reorientation. The highest good is a life that we can fully endorse. It’s the sort of life and universe we want to see realized. (Pauses.) I’ve got it! Actions are good in the significant moral sense when they contribute to or are part of the project of helping the world flourish. That seems at least plausible, right?
Doc: Yes, and it is beautifully stated! Also, I think I can see a way in which we can can say it is even more deeply opposed to what Augustine suggests. He thinks that the changes we experience in this life—loss, illness, death, et cetera—rob it of lasting value. So, he places his hope in something stable and unchanging.
Jack: Right. “Eternal rest” becomes his ultimate object of desire.
Mick: Okay! This is helpful! That’s precisely what I think is ridiculous. We should not desire eternal rest. That’s not the grand project. We should desire and seek to realize a sustainable life and we should accept that any such life is going to have tragic elements within it. In the face of the insecurities of life we should say, “yes,” not “no.”
Doc: Haha, something like “Bring it on!”
Mick: Exactly!
Jack: Here’s the rub, though. What you are saying is that we should desire and orient ourselves in a particular way, but you can’t really argue an Augustinian into that position. The view remains an incommensurable alternative.
Mick: I don’t see how. We just walked through the reasons for rejecting Augustine’s static desire and hope: it is a confused notion. A life of “eternal rest” is incoherent. Life is activity, not rest.
Jack: Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you in large part. But I don’t think the idea is incoherent in the way you’ve put it. What Augustine wants is a life that is not marked by death, loss, and decay. Or perhaps to be fairer to him, he wants to relate to life in the way God must: through the lens of eternity, where death and loss do not constitute the horizon of our lives.
Mick: But isn’t that just an imagined possibility that cannot be actualized? A pipe dream? How can there be life without change, decay, and even death? I’m totally with Baldwin on this: we have to accept life as it is, not turn our backs on it and imagine ourselves trying to achieve some pure, unchanging, heavenly state.
Doc: That, I think, is the existential issue that cannot be answered with any amount of argumentation but must instead be lived. Our response to the question of how to live can only be borne out in our lives.
Jack: Exactly. The incommensurability cannot be rationally overcome. We must simply choose. The fact that we can genuinely choose between incommensurable options is just another way of saying that we are free.
Doc: But free in the sense that Jean-Paul Sartre described it: “we are condemned to be free.” We must choose; there is no way of being in the world without choosing.
Mick: Oof. It’s time for a drink.
Doc laughs and opens his desk drawer.