Hip to Be Square: Moral Saints Revisited
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/eps.6.1.5235Keywords:
Moral saints, moral visionaries, exemplars, non-moral values, moral motivationAbstract
I defend the continuing importance, and attraction of, moral saints. The objective of this paper is twofold; firstly, to critique Wolf’s definition of sainthood, and secondly, to argue against her view that one should not desire to be a moral saint, nor emulate them. In section 1, I argue that moral saints are highly complex moral agents, and that Wolf’s definition does not capture this complexity. My second argument is that Wolf’s account that there are two kinds of saints, loving and rational, leads to a tension. Either: (1) the distinction between loving and rational saints is justifiable; but then arguments against the benefits of sainthood ought to be directed independently against each kind of saint which, Wolf does not do; or (2) the distinction is not justifiable, in which case the division is explanatorily impotent. In section 2, I will present Wolf’s argument for why one should not want to be a moral saint, nor even know one. I counter that Wolf over-emphasises non-moral values, to the point that these values have a monopoly on what constitutes a well-rounded life. Wolf must provide a more definitive scope for non-moral values, as the distinction between moral and non-moral values is ambiguous. Finally, I argue that moral saints can serve as moral exemplars and visionaries. By admiring and emulating them, we can adapt our own moral behavior, and by example, moral saints can discover new and better ways of pursuing moral goods.
References
Appiah, K. A. (2010). The Honor Code. W.W. Norton & Company.
Aquinas, T. (1975). Summa Contra Gentiles. C. J. O’Neil, A. C. Pegis, J. F. Anderson, & V. J. Bourke (Trans.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj7fpk
Aquinas, T. (2012). Summa Theologiae. J. Mortensen & E. Alarcón (Eds.). Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Trans.). (Vol. 13-20, Latin/English edition of the works of St. Thomas
Aquinas). Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine.
Bowman, L. J. (1975). The Cosmic Exemplarism of Bonaventure. The Journal of Religion, 55(2), 181–198. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/486424
Braddock, M. (2013). Defusing the Demandingness Objection: Unreliable Intuitions. Journal of Social Philosophy, 44(2), 169-191. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12018
Bruckner, D. W. (2016). Quirky Desires and Well-Being. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 10(2).
Carbonell, V. (2009). What Moral Saints Look Like. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 39(3). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cjp.0.0057
Chesterton, G. K. (1987). St. Francis of Assisi. Image Publishers.
Crane, T. (2013). Unconscious Belief and Conscious Thought. In U. Kriegel (Ed.), Phenomenal Intentionality (pp. 156–173). Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199764297.003.0009
Croce, M., & Vaccarezza, M. (2017). Educating through exemplars: Alternative paths to virtue. Theory and Research in Education, 15(1), 5–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878517695903
Dennett, D. C. (1978). Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1st ed.). Montgomery, VT: Bradford Books.
Doolan, G. T. (2011). Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes. Catholic University of America Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt284wgq
Frankfurt, H. (1999). Autonomy, Necessity, and Love. In Necessity, Volition, and Love (pp. 129–141). Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511624643.012
Hawthorne, J., Rothschild, D., & Spectre, L. (2016). Belief is Weak. Philosophical Studies, 173(5), 1393-1404. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0553-7
Hooker, B. (2015). On Jones’s “Practical Dualism.” Aristotelian Society, 3.
Kant, I. (1997). Critique of Practical Reason (M. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511809576
Kennett, J., & Fine, C. (2009). Will the Real Moral Judgment Please Stand Up? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 12, 77-96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9136-4
Kidder, T. (2003). Mountains Beyond Mountains. New York: Random House.
Kotsonis, A. (2021). Moral Exemplarism as a Powerful Indoctrinating Tool. Journal of Value Inquiry, 1-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09844-8
LaFollette, H. (1996). Personal Relationships: Love, Identity, and Morality. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Press.
Lichtenberg, J. (2010). Negative Duties, Positive Duties, and the “New Harm”. Ethics, 120(3), 557-578. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/652294
McElwee, B. (2016). Demandingness Objections in Ethics. The Philosophical Quarterly, 66(263). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqw020
Mellema, G. (1991). Beyond the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and Offence. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Mulgan, T. (2009). The Demanding Future. In T. Chappell (Ed.), The Problem of Moral Demandingness: New Philosophical Essays (pp. 1-10). Palgrave MacMillan.
Papineau, D. (2012). Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets (1st ed.). Oxford University Press.
Pietraszewski, D., & Wertz, A. E. (2021). Why Evolutionary Psychology Should Abandon Modularity. Perspectives on Psychological Science. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7syvr
Quilty-Dunn, J., & Mandelbaum, E. (2018). Against Dispositionalism: Belief in Cognitive Science. Philosophical Studies, 175(9), 2353–2372. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0962-x
Quine, W. V. O. (1995). From Stimulus to Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674042476
Shanley, B. J., O. P. (2008). Aquinas’s Exemplar Ethics. The Thomist, 72(3), 345–369. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tho.2008.0012
Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(3).
Smith, M. (1994). The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sobel, D. (2007). The Impotence of the Demandingness Objection. Philosopher’s Imprint, 7(8).
Solomon, R. C. (2002). Reasons for Love. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32(1), 1–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5914.00173
Street, S. (2009). In Defense of Future Tuesday Indifference: Ideally Coherent Eccentrics and the Contingency of What Matters. Philosophical Issues, 19(1), 273-298. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2009.00170.x
Thomas, A., Archer, A., & Engelen, B. (2019). How admiring moral exemplars can ruin your life: The case of Conrad’s Lord Jim. In A. Archer & A. Grahle (Eds.), The moral psychology of admiration (pp. 233–248). Rowman and Littlefield International.
Unger, P. (1996). Living High and Letting Die. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0195108590.001.0001
Urmson, J. O. (1958). Saints and Heroes. In A. Melden (Ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
van de Ven, N., Archer, A., & Engelen, B. (2019). More important and surprising actions of a moral exemplar trigger stronger admiration and inspiration. J Soc Psychol, 159(4), 383-397. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2018.1498317
Williams, B. (1973). Deciding to Believe. In Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956-1972. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621253
Williams, B. (1981). Moral Luck. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165860
Williams, B. (1993). Postscript. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral Luck (pp. 181–204). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Willigenburg, T. V. (2005). Reason and Love: A Non-Reductive Analysis of the Normativity of Agent-Relative Reasons. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 8, 45–62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-3299-z
Wolf, S. (1982). Moral Saints. The Journal of Philosophy, 79(8), 419-439. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2026228
Zagzebski, L. T. (2017). Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190655846.001.0001
