The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief (S U N Y Series in Philosophy)

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David Wisdo

Copyrighted material

The Life of Jrony and the Ethics of Belief

SUNY Serie, in Philosophy George R. lucas, Jr., editor

The

Life of Irony and the

Ethics of Belief

David Wisdo

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

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Puhllsbleraity of New YOI'k All "",U ..HI oul PriDlod in the Uniml S.. ,,,. of AmeriC' No pan of.hi. book may be U..,.J O'C "'Produced in any mmDC. whal.lOnOC' wilbout writt ... pumiwioo

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Wiodo, Dovid. 1957_ 1M lile of irony and the ethica 01 belief I Dnid Wiodo. p. em. _(SUNYsm.. 1n ~y) Include. bihli.... phical re/e",ncCI and in
10 II 8 7 6 S •

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Ill. Serles.

FOR LAURIE

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In grown·up philosopby, the problems ~ h~ve nm4in answerable only lhrougb groWth, DOt Ihroup. nplanations o r definitions. The i
traditional term~y more than we can accept philOllOflhical questions and amwenugiVl!n. Su.nley Cavell from Themu Out of School

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Contents

Acimowledgrncntl f

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I Self_Th IS' and [be Etbics of Be li ef I I

2. The Ethics of Be.lid and Ptnonal Knowledge 1 13 3. The Ethi cs of Belief and the Meaning of Life 137 4. Re ligious Bc.li d and Self· Understanding I 55

5. Self-Decep tion and the Ethics of Belief I 73 6. The Fragility of Faith 187 7. Red ucti oni s m .nd t he Etb icS Of Belief I !as

8. Bc.tween Objecti vity and Subjectivity: The Life of Irony I 127

Bibliography 1 141 Index I 149

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Copyrighted material

Acknowledgments

E

ven if every book does not teU a stOl}', every book SWl'ly has one. This book's fim incarnation took shape between 1987 and 1989 dUling my appointment as a Henry R. Luee fbst·Doctotal Fellow at the 01· villity School elYale UniveIllity wb~ I bad tbe OfJPOftunity to explore many of these ideas in my ""mioar on the HEthic:& 01 Belief. I would like to thank the students enrolled in that OOUIlle, as weH as the faculty and adm inistration for their encouragement and suppon for Ihis project. (n particular, I would like 10 Ihank David Kelsey who read an earlier vemon 01 the mlOU5Cript and provided thoughtful criticisms and comments. Othen al Yale who provided inspiralion and enCOUlagement in. more informal way include Loui. Dupre, George Lindbeclr., Gene Dulka, MarpIeI Farley, Richard Fern. Kathryn Tanner, and the late Hans mi. finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention thll many el lhex idea. wen: initially developed during Hcdfee hour N discussions with Russell Reno, who took a .~ial interest in many 01 the..,questions. I am especially grateful for hi, thoughtful conversation and compani<Jn$hip. I would also like to thank my leacheIll, particularly Wayne Proud· foot and Scott Davis, boIh of whom helped me slape and define many of the issues discussed here. AI my advisor and mentor at Columbia Uni· versity, Wayne Proudfoot has been a model of careful scholanhip and has provided thoughtful guidance and encouragement on this project as well iii others. Scott Davis has proven to be art endie:;l source of peripatetic wisdom, and for this I am truly l1ateful.In addition, I would like to ClI' presti my appreciation for the support and eommenu provided by 'ames Weucl, Edward Mooney, and Gordon Marino, all of who m have t,usht me much about the vinues and pleuUlei of thoughtful coovet5lltion, The final incarnation of the manU5Cript took shape at SUSQuehanna Universi ty wh~ I have had the privilqe to hold the Weber Chair in the Humanities for the past two ~an. I would like to thank both the ad· miniStration for providing me with this opportunity and my coll eague. in the Philosophy and RcIi~oo Department for their encouragement. H

Brief """tions of tw\! ch.pte~ appear c1""where in a slightly differen t ronn. Pan olChaptu 5 appean a. "Sdf·OcceptiDn and the Ethi cs of 8elief, ~ in thefoumal {or Value Inquiry; October 1991, and is reproduced bc:n: with the pennission 01 K1 uwer Academic Puhlishers. Pan of Chaptet 6 appean as "The Fragility of Faith : Toward a Critique 01 R£formed EpistemolOJY - in ~ligious Studiu, September 1988, and is reproduced bc:n: with permission 01 Cmlhridge University Pre". Finally, I want to tmnk my family, especially Laurie, for ber patience, Jove, and editorial common senK, and Emily and Ale.u.ndc:r, who, in theil"childhood wisdom, would rather play with their tays.

1

SeU-Trust and the Ethics of Belief

Men seem 10 be COIlSIitutionally believers and unbeJicYl:n. There i, no bri~e WI can cnllj.5 from 11 mind in one stale to a mind in the otha. All my opinions, affections, whimsies, are tinced with bdid,-incline 10 WI side. All thai itscnClQUS, ciepnt, rich, wise, looks tiLl! way. BUll ~nnot gi\'!!: n:a.!oOn.!I to

a penon 01. diHereOI pellluasion thai ~ adeqU
I.,., ....

Ralph W~1do .Emmon'

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ol'riQ about whelher or nOi WI: can defend our deepest and mOAt cherished beliefs need not arise lIQldy bec.ouse
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othen, they may still find tNt their faith unshUm and undis· turbed. In the journal entry cited above, for eumpie, written in 1833 dunn,; hi.I Mt eICUI5ion 10 Europe, Ralph Waldo Emcn<)n celebrues his unqualified confidence by notins that the !lrmgth of hi. faith does not depend on hi, ability 10 make himself understood by CYef)'OOe. Like his Danish coolemporary Soren Kierkepord, Emerson is well aware thaI there an limits to our ability to defend and. illSlify our hasic concems aDd. convictions .nd that true inw.niness demands courage IS well as a witlingnell to we the risk 01 "becom iol subjective.- Aclmowled&ing what oiIen seems to be the unbridpble chum that separates believe ... from noobelieven, Emerson voitel! wha! ;$ clearly 11 Kierkepardian

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Self-Tnm and .he ElhiC$ of &.li4

insight concerni", the difficulty of making the basis lor one's religious beliefs intelligible to others. It is tempting. of course, to view Emerson's observation about the impossibility of meeting such challenges toone's beliefs 1$ an apologetic ploy that might en.oble him to ignore or dismiss the claim. of othe,., who might demand a $Iricter standord of int ellectual accountability. The 'uspicion 15 that hi. ",marks concerning the limit. of argument might actually be nothlnS more than a subtle rationalization intended to forestall any criticism of bis own views. fur iJ the beliCYft and unbeliever discover that tbey cannot understand the force of each other 's convictions, rusooed debate W'Otlld seem to be impossible; one's beliefs would DOt be vulnerable to the c:ha1Ienp of those who did nO! share one's views. If Emenon is right, then belie""", would appear to h."" no reasou to fur th.ll! an inability to defend or juStify their ",Iigiou, convictions might lead to the ew.ion or 10$5 of their faith. Emenon, however. i. obviously no apologist and exprcsses throughOUt hi. writings I firsthand knowledjl:c of the vulnerability of rdigious belief. In fact, wbat at first appe .... to be the upreasion of an optimistic and nal"" confidence i. actually the hard-"""," resull of hi. nwn struggle with religiousdoubt.1 From thecri. i.of 1831, when he begin'loexp'es" . UDnJ; doubts .bout Ihe I.lml-. Supper, to the end of his hfe, Emerson wrestl es with meanin30f faith as he.ttempl5tocomc to lenns with the changes and uanMonn.tions in his owo religious beliefs. In the world acconhr>& to Emerson then, the mOSt difficult and formidable challenge to. person's faith is DOl thedcmand for ..,me kind of justification Ihat might be acceptable to eYl:ry<)ne-worries concemins the flaplity of faith do nO! ari"" primarily as a ",action to one's failu", to justify one's bclieb to othel'$. Rother, tM cri. is that n:ndel'$ belief vulner· able is the diSCOVCl)' thu one's basic beliefs no longer makc any ""nse in the contut of one's life viewed II a whol e. fur Emeraon then the ethics of belief is OOt primarily a question of whether people arc: able or willi'>S to ju.tify theu beliefs to othe,." but is ruher a matter of cuilivatin& what he calls the vinue of self-tru&! . The ideal of-Man"Th.inkin& ~ for inslance, which he anicuiuca in his wellknown address ~ The American Scholar, ~ provides US with a p.aradigm of the kind of pcn.on for whom inquiry is a malterof lubj.ectiv.: reOection, a IDalter of the hean . This does not mean, of course, that ""If-tru.u isan ideal 111.11 excludes any reference 10 intellectual accountability. On the conuary, Emerson's ideal of - Man Thinkin&wponrayed in nThe American Scholar" is akin to Friedrich Nieuscbe's " free spirits" whose vocation demands the almost impossible abililY to ~Jance self-trust with an austere suspicion of themsel""s and theu beliefs:

s.t./f-1hwllndtheEthicsoj!Wie! I 3 LanK he muS! Stammer in his Spttclli often forgo th~ livin,g for the d~ad_ Worse yet, he muSt aC«'Pt-how often! poverty and solitude_ fur the case and pleasure of treading the old road, acceptin,g the fUIDol15, the educltion, the reliKiOfl of society, he takes the c ross of making his own, and, of OOUI'Se, the selfaccusatioo, the f.int hean , the frcqueot uocertaimy and IllMof time which are the neltles and tanKlin,g vines in the way of the self-relying nd KIf..:lirected_ , . .3 Self·trust then does not ncccs.sarily e mail a blind dogmatism or a stubborn refus;alto usess critically onn way of life. Quite the OOIllTary, there is a sense in which th~ vinue of Klf-trust is baMd on an unoonditional desire for truthfulness and a willinp!ess to sacrifice security for, life of discovery. In shon, self-trust should OOt be confused with intellectual com placency. It is, rather, I demandin,g task pursued in solitude: Hin silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, 1~ 1 him hold by himself, add ob$erwtion ro obserwtion, patient of neKle<:t, p;ltient of reproach, and bide his own time,-h,ppy enough if he can ''''isfy himself alone that his dliy he has seen something truly. H ' On the one hand then EmefSOtl recognizes that a meaningful human life requires a cenain pTlIctica! self-confidence. This claim i5 based on the lactthat it is difficult if DOt impossible to sustain our faith in our life proje<:tl unless we are willing ro clllim them as projectS for which '"' arewillinK to assume mlponsibility. s By the same token, how· ever, Emenon is suspicious of those who ensure the stabilit y of their be· liefs and commi tmeolS by espousing a kind of Hexistential dopnatism. n.c problem with such strategies is that they are motiVllted by a desire to render ~~ p;lnicular worldview invulncTllble to any challenge. The mlult is an irut bility to emertain or .clr.nowl~e new life-possibilities. The ltind of pTllctical seU- truSt that Emet"$Oll reoommends throu&hout his writIDp requires the cuitiVlltion of a m~an betWNll confidence in one'll own commitments and the insi&bts of a moderate skepticism . In shon , the ethiQ of belief is a mailer of b.alancinK self-trust and creatiyc flexibility, for it is o nly by virtue of our practical self-confidence that '"' can aclr.nowl~e wi thout fear strange and unfamiliar ways of thin king aoou tlife: H

Keep the b.1bit of the observer, and, as faSt as rou can, break off yuur a5!OCiation with your p"norutlity and identify yourself with the Universe. Be a tootballto time and chance, the more kicks, the bette!, sothat you inSpcclthe who!e game and know its uttermost law. As true is Ihis ethics for trivial as for calami 10"" days,6

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I Sdf-thJ51 and the Elltic.s of BeUef A$ this shan ","..sage from Emenon'1l journal indicates, one of the

ways we might articulate the notion of self-trusl is to sptak of keeping the habil of the observer, a habit thl! requires a willingness to be challe1l&ed by the unexptcted and uruamiliu, to "be" football" to time and chance. This remark is imponant 10 the extent that Emerson characlerizes inquiry 001 in lerms of some methodol theory of humin understanding thll mi&hl insure knowledge but ralher in terms of a cenain kind ofhabil that might enlble one to balance ptactica.1 self·confidence with a willi"",e" 10 explore new ideas. The assumption underlying this E.mef3Onian insight, an insi&hl J &h.a.ll explore and defend throu&hou t this essay, is that genuine inquiry depends ~ on OUl abili ty to formull te or de~nd I theory of knowledge, but on Ihe cultivlltion of I cenain kind of chlractCI and Ityle of thinlting. The w.lue of Emerson's remarks on inQuity is the suggestion that the ethics of belief is not primarily an epiSlemological COncern. Like the Iatel Heide"er, who invites us to tum our attention from the traditional philnsophical preoccupation with the problem of knowledge and reap-Pl'OJlrilie instead the more original notion of thinking. Emerson advocu9 " more holisl ic piclure of phiiOOIOphy and insists Ihat thinking must in-."IYe serious reflection lboul ordinary life. RcieclillS the tradi· tional views of those: philOOIOphers and theologians for whom the ethics of belief is primarily a problem of the iustifjcatioo of religious knowl· edge, Emerson emphasizes whal his conlemporary Kierkegaard call. edificalion and insislI thlt spirilual inquiry is primarily a mlltct of the way we understand our life· views and appropn"ale them by c1aimillS them as oun . In order to appreciale the radical implications of a p!l)posalsuch as that offered by EmeI30ll or Kierkegaard, we need only remind ourseJves of Ihe CXl ent to wh ich both call into Qucstion Ihe traditional picture of inquiry dat ms back 10 DUCIncs and Locke. Aooording to this tradi· tional approach, t he ethics of belief has generally been caSI I S aD epistemological issue. ThUl, the Queslion 01 whethet ~ person ill entitl ed 10 hold. religious belief has, until recently, beeD regarded as I queltioD of whether the position can be ,Ulufied or defended by Ihe application of some reliable and uniYenally accepted method. As we shall see in the ncxt chapter, the paradi~lic example 01 this appro.och can be found in the work of John Locke, whose: Es$ay Concuning Hum/UI Undemand· Ing setS the atemla fm the devo:lopmenl of the ethics of belief by ITamillS the problem of religious belief as an epilltemological wony. It was not long though before this narrow characreriza tion of the ethi ... of belief set fonh in the work of [Llde began 10 ehcit critical responses from those: who saw his epistemOlogical protecl.sa threat to rdi,;iou. belief. Since the dew:lopment of thill deb.ale anlocg IDCke's im·

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Sdf·Ttu5t and th~ Ethics of 8di~f I 5 mediate cont~mporarie& hn bun explored in detail elsewhere,' I will examine the responSQ of two later tilliTeS who attempt to broaden the term, of the debate. In paniclilar, I am intereated in the way thinkers such as !iamllel Taylor Coleridge and John Henry Newman rethink the problem of th~ ethics of belief by seriously coruiciering th~ puoonal component of relipOUll belief often overlooked by Locl<e and hi' follow· e~. A$ we .hall 11«, both thinkers gi-..e llSgood reunn to be waryof any approach to the ethics of belief that ignores or systematically discowltl the complex ways that personal consider:ations about the pwpose of life figl.Jre intn the rea"-lm one might ha-..e for one's relipous beliefs. After a brief discusaion of Coleridge and Newman it will come as no surprisc that I intend to delelld throughoUt the remainder of this book the view that the ethics of belief is DOl primarily an epistemolOSical con· cern bul rather all issue of charaeter and Critical self·reflection. In the lhird chaptet we shall II« that il i5 jllSI this insis!>1 that informs the work of Ludwig Wiltgenstein, who want. to rethink the ethics of belief in such I way as to • ..,id the problenn r:ai5ed by tr:adilionai formulations of the issue. Much, of roune, has been written about Wittgcnstein'J; views oa religion and it would be impossible to do justicc to aU of the controver· sial issues r:aised by his work.. My focul will be much more narrow and will inVl)I-..e the simple thesis that relipous beliefs should not be con· strued as i"-llued claims but r:ather as holistic interpretations about the meaning of life that enable us to make sense of our emotionl and desires as well as our utirudes about suffering and dellh. Although il might appear 10 make linle difference whether we view a peQOtl'J; n:ligious convict ions as in..,lving ccrtain judgments about the meanina: ofliu, there an: important consequences in construing re· ligious beliefs in this fashion. For eumple, it is impossible toassesl such life·views in any ilr:aightlorwatd way with respect 10 their Mplam truth~ because ow pr:actical deliber:ations about life's meaning are, as David Wigsins claims, #cognitiYely undenktennined. ~I Thi. n(>tion of Kcogni· ti-..e undetd~termin.ationP is important because it suggests that our views about the meanina: of life differ in at least one imponant ~spect from SCientific thCQrieo . In short, altho""" our judgment' about life'J; meanina: in..,l-..e an attempt to make sense of certain - existent ial data H such IS l~, suffering, and death, we do not expect our jucl&mcoll about the meanin3 of life w con-..efIC in the .... me wly that we expect OUr !!Cien· tifie theories to oonYerge. In other words, Wigginl's ICCQUnl 'uggests thlt it is l imply a mutake to suppose that there might be. 5ina:Je in· tCIpretation of life that is Mlrue" by virtue of the way the world i•. In the end then."..,o tho""" discussion abou l the question of the meaninl of life has become Wlwhionable in lIQrne philOSOphical and theolOSi<;a1 d r· dU,9 we Cannot amid the concllliion that if religious beliefs iOWlI-..e

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6 I Sell -Trust ood the EtruQ 01 Beli~f iud&menu about life's meaning. and if such judgmentS fall short of pl.in troth, then re1i~us bdieb .15(1 WI short of plain lIuth. Now although such a c:ondu. ion might appear to M a liability, it ill, upon tioscr examilllltion, • Iibuating and fruitful .ull8e5lion. for one thing, ooce we acknowledge the connection MtW«ll the e!hies of belief and I person's ha.ic questions about the meaniJl& of life, we will be in a better positioolO granl the utem 10 which our religious convictions are tied to the way thu we unokrstand oursel~ in light of OUr fundamental commitments and proje<:t._ Since there are limit. to a purdy fonnal dillcus.ioo oilhi. issue, I wi.llity 10 elucidate !his claim in the founh chapter by drawiJl& upon literary works, inciudiJl& Leo Tolstoy's Anna Ki>renioa, that mighl illuminate in a more concrete f.shion how the elhies of belief ill tied to a persOn'l atlempl to COme to SOme seU-underotandin,g about the mUlling of life. Moat imponandy, by auendins 10 the way such issuC"ll arc upl o",d in literature, we shall dilleover Ihal the crit eria for assessing a person's particular imup"'talion about 1ifc:'I meanilli have mo", in common with th e aesthetic criteri a we employ 10 undemand characlerJ In a no~l than they do with the impersonal epis' temological crileri. to which m.ny philosophers of religion appeal in their IItempt 10 85eS1J the intelligibility and defensibility of. penon's reli&ious Mlieb . Once we granl the importance of more flexible crileria for the asses.ment of a penon's beliefs, we will aloo M in a Miler p<'lIIilion to understand how the pursuit of practical ..,U-undenlandilli shapC"S and authorizes a I'C'non's ",ligioU$ be1ieb. On the One hand, SOme thinkers, .uch II Se"'-O Kierlr.cgaard, have . uggested thu the'" are important conn«tion. between the cultivation of faith and self-examination. Now while thill Socratic approach provides a helpful model fo, undentandin& the dynamies of the life of faith, we might still wonde' whether a penon's "'ligious commitments might place certain limits andoonstraiots 00 the form. tbi. JlIlISuit of seU-undentandiJl& might uke. One might 1Ilr., for example, whether it is dH: case thac the pursui t of self-undersu.ndint can ",rnetimes put a I'C'nQII.'s faith at risk. I. il the case that cuuin fonn, of ..,U-",flection, lUch as PI')'ciIo.onaiysis, might IIC!W to challenge and ~n undermine the stability of a person's ",ligioul conv;ctioM by offerin& altel"lUti~ pDSsibilitieli for makilli sense of lifel And if this ill a JlO55ibility, o;Q\lld one malr.c the case that it;s appropriate to draw pnetical limits co ellher the type Or scope of self-inquiry in Qnkr to avoid plaeing one'll particular ",Jigious identity ac rilH 111.,.., are juS! a few of the issues thac I reexaminllion of the ethi Ci of Mlid mlJht hdp us understand. Anothercloaely ",Iated prohlem i. the issue of seU-dcccption: both the calle of theiStS who are llelf-deceived in their faith as well as athei. ts,

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SUf-Trust. and the £thjes of Belief I

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such as Ivan Karamazov, who might be said 10 be deceived in tbeirunbelief_ Since I will explore this topic in rno", dtto.illater on, I will just mention IWO a.peetl of the problem bere_ Fim, any attempt to do justice to the ethics of belief muSt be will.ing to COIlside. whether, consideration of self-deception should be a factor in assessing religious belief. Such an inquiry is complex since it is still ,n opeD question whether self-deception illl/Way' epistemicallyor morally blameWQIthy. But if il rurn50utiO be the cue that self-deceplion i. 50metimes blameworthy, it would appear to be an important consideration in assessinga penon's rdigious convictions_ Second, it seems clear that the only way to do justice to Ihis type of concern is to mow in the direclion th.tt IIlIIl propoling and 10 explon: what iI might mean to assess one's religious beliefs in tenns of one's character as a whole. Of course, Once we begin to take these considerationsinto,ecount, we will al.., be .ble to roUe better sense of what it means for a person to lose bith. Unfortunately, many contemponry philosophers o f religion who rightly criticize Locke's foundatiOlUlism and eVidemj,lism as wdl as the ethics 01 belief Ihey en tail Sl ill present an oYl:rly n:ductionistic picture of rcligiOU5 belief that distorts the dynam ics of the religiouslifc. In particulaI, thinkers such ISAlvin Plantinga and the many others who defend what has come to be known as "refolUled epi$temologyH lailto give lufficien t ,lIention 10 the many waYI' one's loss of bith might be tied to ch.anses in one's most fundamental concerns and interau. Very often, one's 10$11 of I'ith should be intetp",led not.., much in epistcmic telUlS, but nther in terms of the erosion of those h.asic cares and concerns that constitute one's idemity III a beliewr. The pmbl em is thot eYl:n when Hreformed epistemologist8~ do attempl 10 account for the loss of faith, they often succumb 10 the temptation of accounting for this loss of belief in lerms of ~sin •• Unfortunately, this strategy fails to do iustice to the perspective of the penon in question who would most likely reittt such appeala 10 tbe notioo of lin in favmol a mon: naturali"icuplanuion for this loss of f'ith. Once again, I shall mainUlin that any at· tempt to do justice to the ethics of belief must account for this kind of Story. There are, of course, many ways. per5On's faith can be PUI a t risk, but one of the perennial ch.aIlenges to the beliewr'll religious convictions hu been the problem of eviL Tradition,lly, the religious skeptic has posed the question by asking how an omniscient, omnipotent, .nd benevolent God could pennit the existence o f natural and moral evil. At first glance, such a challenge would appear to pose a serious threat to the integriry of the believer'! convictions. More specifically, the atheist':! suggestioo is that anyone who acknowledges the seriOUlnts.s of evil but continues 10 believe in Cod is basically irrational. We sh.1l see though

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I S£If.1hJst Il1Id the EthiCS of Belief

thn it isa mistake tOCOOlitnte the concern in these terms. The question of whether belief in Cod is compatible with the existence of evil is not primlrily I question of whelher lheism is o r is 001 rali""al or l~eally coherent. instead, the prohlem of evil presents an ethical concern and the only way to do justice 10 thil iMue il to uplore how our responses to evil reflect the shape of our characters as a whole. In order to lbow whn might be gained from regarding the problem of evil in ethicalterml rather than as a problem .:•.mcerning the rationalilY of rdigiQW belief, [will characlerize several pOSsible resp;mses. On the one hand, thcisu who manage 10 maintain their fa.ilh in Ihe bce of evil must be wary of 5uccumbin& to the vice of blindn""". Pnt of the problem is WI it is all iooeasy t o evade the difficullies posed by the existence of evil by appealing 10 Iheodicies and o lher facile philOlO<>phical solutions. But even if one eschews the temptations of sum reductio ni!tic throdieies and oplS for more modest means of dealin, with the problem, such as the Free Will De~nse proposed by Alvin Plam inga, oneslil1 tl1IlS the risJr. of ratioruUizing an unacceptable response to the problem. Of course, il is imponanl 10 SUt:SS that the theilit is not Ihe o nly one lusceptible to vice when il comes to the prohlem of evil. The atheist mUll also be on JIIIrd apinst succumbin, to wltal Can be called the vice of defiance. The daMie example of this Iype of response is Dosl~ki 'I famoll$ characler Ivan Karamazov, for whom th£ problem of evil raises whot a ppear to be il1$unnountable worries and difficulties. Unlike the theist who apJlC'als to theodi cy allhe risk of bein, blinded 10 evil, the atheisl, such as Ivan Karamazov, runS the donI'" of apJlC'alin, to the existence of nil as an eICU"", for aYl)idin,g respon$ibility for il. But such defiance il no leN blamewonhy than the blindneM of Ih
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Stlf.Trust dnd th., Ethics of Btl;e! I 9 edges the pO$$ibility 01 such vulnerability, the~ is nothing that might not be lost, including I person's f~ith. After considering the fragility of faith in terms of how the existence of evil and ouffering can chall enge and in some cases undermine a person's ~ligious beliefs, I will take up what bas come to be lr.nown as the problem of ~uctionism and ~ligious belief. Unfortunately, the debate ourIOunding the issue of ~uctionism has traditionally been mot iv:ated by epistemological worties concerning such issues as rationality and rei· ativism. Some thinkers, such as D. Z. Phillip!! and Peter Winch, are wary of social sc ientific approaches to the study of religion on the grounds that such attempts misdescribe and distort what the believer actuall y believes. On the other hand, critics of Phillip!! and Winch, such as Wayne Proudfoot, maintain that such worries about ~uctionism u1lUally conce.al tacit apologetic concems and that what is necessuy is a more subtlc analysis 01 ~uctionism amenabl e to social sciemific approaches 10 the study of rdigion. Although there may be SOme merit in treating reductionism as a worry about rationali ty and relativism, I will argue in the peuultimate chapter of this book that these concerns have no di.n:ct bearing on the problem of the ethics ofbeliel. If we want to make sense of why certain people find religious ~uctionism to be objeclionable, it il belter 10 think nf such objections as ethical ones, in the broad sense of thatlenn. If, 1m ex.o.mpk, we examine the work of Ludwig Wittgenstcin, who addresses this issue in writings such al ~Remarks on Fraur" The Golden Bough, ff we will discover that his argument apinal ~uctionism in religious studies is primarily a moral one. What WiltgenStein finds objectionable about such "scientistic" views is not simply that thq di'!Ort the data by misconstruing or misdescribing particular migious beliefs, doctrines, and practices, rather, the threat is thlt such appmaches will blind USIO the importance of religion for human lifc and !lUI a failure to see that there is something "deep" in religion can lead to a spirituUy impoverished li~. In the final pages of this book I tum to so me recent o;Q05iderations of the problem and suggest thaI the li~ of intellectual vin ue is a life that manages [0 maintain the precarious and difficult balan"" becween objec· tivity and subjectivity. Unlike many notionalistic phil OSOphers of ..,ligion who searcl> in vain for some abstract canon of notionaiity Or some methooleal way of thinking aboUI our lives thaI might ensure our confidence in our basic beliefs and commitments, I will argue for a more radical but liberating proposal. Appealing once again to the work of Ralpb Waldo Emerson, I wi!! suggest chat OUr ability co maintain se U-tnISt without succumbing to the temptation of dogmatism depends on a particular

$Iyle of thinking that balances fub;ectivilY and obj«tivily. Since there is no decision procedure that might enable us 10 avoid the vices 01 dogmatilm or skepticism, we must rely on I kind 01 practical oonfidence governed by openness and flexibility, a style of tltinlting one migbt call "Emcnonian pragmatism." At first glance, it might seem that this kind of propou l is a blatant concession to inteU~tU
No", I. Se!tcr;ons from RiJlph Waldo Emtrson, cd. Stephen E. Whicher IBoston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 19~71, pp. 15-16. '1_ I re1ect the standard lIereotypical rudilli of Emenon that re -

duces him 10 a naively optimistic idealist. ]1 will become clear throughOIJt Ih~ book thaI I want to pn:>pose and defend. pklure of Emerson as a pragmatist wOOsc optimism is tempered by an acknowledgment that optimism is a difficult achievemcnl.ln this respect, my readill3 01 Emenoo draws upon the insighu of Stephen Whicher's classic study Frudom lind !'.lIt . An Inner Lifto{ Ralph Wllldo Emtrson(Philadclphia: University or

Self· Trust lind the Ethics 0{ Billie' I I I hnnsylvania Press, 19531. fur discussioos of the "pragmat ic " strain in Emerson's thought, see Frederic hoes Carpenter, Emerson Handbook (New York : Hendricks House, Inc., 1953), esp. pp. 164--78, IS well as his usay " Willi.m James . nd Emer$(>n " in On Emmon, cd. Edwin Cady and Loui s Budd (DurMm: Duke Uni¥l:'rsity Press, 1988), pp. 43-61. The best discussion of Emerson's pragmatism is Cornel West 's "The Eme rIOnian Prehistory of American Pragmat ism," in Tbe AmlltiC
4. Ibid., p. 63. S. This linc of interpn:ution draws on SunJey Cavell's insightful readill& of Emerson. S« especially In Qu....,t of thll O rdinary; LinM 0/ Supticism and RomlUlticism (Chicago: University 01 Chicago Press, 1988), Thi, Nllw Yel Vnapproornable Ameri",,: Lu/Ure" after Emenon ,,{till WillgllllSlein (Albuquerque: Livin&Batcli Press, 1999), and hi ' recent Cams lect\lrl:S C<mditions Handsome "nd Unhandsome; Emerson', Con· stitution 0/ Perfectionism (Chicago: Univeniry 01 Chicago Press, 1990). Cavell's reading and ,ppmprialion 01 Emenoo's writinp u explored in Russell Goodman's intere.tio,g book Americ.all Philosophy and the Romantic T",dition (Cambrid&!, : Cambridf;e Uni¥l:'rsity Press, 1990(.

6. Sdecdons from J«>lph W"ldo Emerson, p. 81. 7. For an excellent d iscussion 01 the im~t of Locke's epistemological pwia:t on the religious thou&iJt of his day, sec John W. Yoiton, loon l.cJckIl and thll Way of Ideas (Oxford: Oxford Uni~iry Press, 19$6).

8. See David Wiggins, "Truth, Invemionand the Mea.ningof Life, H in Nud&, ValullS. TI-uth (Oxford: Basil Blacltwell, 1987), pp . 87- 137. 9. Recently, h~t, IIOme philosoph.,.,. have expn:ssed. renewed interest in this topic. s.c." for example, Oswald tu.nfling. Tbll QU .... I for Mu minx 10rl0rd: Boil Blackwell, 1988)i John ~ke$, The EX(1min~d Lif~ (lewisburx: Buclmell University Press, 1988)i and Roben Noziclr., The Ex"milled Life: Philosophic.al Muii l
10. The potitionl defend in this book is inspired by Richanl Rorty's Contingency, Irony and 5{)lidarity (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1989). I I. Rony ~Inps this line of thinkio,g in " PriVllte Irony and li bel1ll Hope, H in Contingency Irony. lind Solldllrily, pp. 73-95.

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The Ethics of Belief and Personal Knowledge

1bc modem syltem of phllOlOJlhy hl.l one &rUt IIdvanlage, which mlIKes it difficult to auaek it, with any bope of success, namely, that it is nOI founded on any of the prevailing opinions ornatun\ ~elings of mankind. It rest. upon a sincle principleits boasted superiority over all prejudice. Uruupponed by hell or reason, it is by this circwmtancc alone enabled to uampJ.: upon ~ dictate of the ~rstanding or ~illl of the hean, aI wuk and vui&&r prejudices. In this alone it il secure and invulnerable. To this it OWI:S its giant pcrwu and dreaded name.

William Hazlitr'

A . The ugacy of D~CQTI~ and Locke

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hu become something of a commonplace among secular-minded critia of religiow belief thaI OIle is not entitled 10 bclle.-e in Cod unio:5$ one can offer some kind of pl'OOf or ~iden« 10 support this claim. t

Moreover, there is oneo a taCit l saumption thaI a failure 10 provide evI · dence in I Upport of one" relit;ious view. ;1 001 simply I cos:rutiw: Of imd·

le<::rw.J failure, but, monol one as well. Underlyina: the deWt., between the theist and atheist is an usumption WI belid in God i, morally bbmeworthy unless theists an: ready 10 defend their position by appealing 10 objective reasons which ~ acceptable 10 everyone. Whal m.kes such an aMwnption 110 problematic is the Enlisblenmcnl claim !hI1 that misbt be IOmC neutral eputemological framework whic.b provides the contc:u for settlil1& these kinds of diugr«mentll. AcwrdiI1& to this 13

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Th~

EthiC$ of B~Jj4 and Pmronal Knowledge

way of wnmuing the e!hics of belief, the beli~r and !he noobelie.....r who refuse to submit their beliefs 10 the ubit"' tion of this kind C>f impartial CIlUn can be taken t() task lot g<JVImling !heir beliefs in an inesPQllsible fash ion_The problem is !hat CVl:n thoogh there are good reasons to grail! that there is an e!hies of belief, such traditionalutempu to anicubte this iuue as an epi!ltemological concern often fail to do justice 10 tbe question by QYCrl{)()king the utent to which the ethics of belief is priTrulriiy a question of personal knowledge . The lK:arch for a reliable and impartial way of adjudicating competing knowledge claim s begins wi!h the worries expressed by Rent Desc:artes in his semi-autobiogr:ophical treatise, V "$COO/Se on M~ thod r1637). In ffPart One of !he Visrou,u Oescart~ mn.., !he intere~tiI\& and importan t claim that reuon is a human catw:ity !hat all people share. Unlike some philosophcn who sometimu !!Cern to sug,gest that ru!IQn and intelligt!llce are the prized posscssions of a privileged few, Oescanea expresses confidence thn eY'CryoDe is ~apable of !hinking for themselVl:s. But if !his is true, wonders Descartes, why isit the caJetha! different people come to different conclusions about the same issues11n other words, once we accept an egalitarian view of reason, w.: mu~t first account for !he fact !hat people hold a wide v:arietyof opinions Concerning rcUpon, mo.-ality, md scicnce and !hen tf)' to adjudicate at1lOll3 the competing claims by fonnulating SOIDC way tOdi$C()Vl:f the truth of !he matter. Iu w.: read through the Visoo"""', it soon ~om"" clear that 0<:$o;.an« is pcrpkxed and deeply troubled by the"", diffefencCll of belief. If someone, such II himself, is interested in findi ng answers to these moet imponant questions, whcK should one bepnr In a narnliY'C that amounts to something like " a portrait of the philosopher as a young man, • DcscanCil chartcterizes his pursuit of truth II a kind of quest. He begins, lor example, by-studying the works of the mQlit hleamed - schol an and philosopherll. Unfortunately, he is $O(lII di!lappointcd todiKover that the ...... called lc.omed philosophcrll cannot even agree with each other on these imponant qucstions and lhat they hlY'C little to offer I you", inquiring mind. In the end, he conclude. that !he only thing we can learn from !he scholarll is how ign()f2flt we n:a1ly are; Hl iound myself beset by 100 mmy doubu and errors !hat I came to !hink J had &oi'incd nothin, from my ItlempU 10 become Mucated but inCKa.sing recognition of my il:llO",nce.· l Descartes's aSSC$sment 01 the epi5lemic chaos of his day bepn' with a consi de"'lion of thrology, concerning which he confesses thai although he - .spired II much as anyone elac to n:ach hUY'Cn,,3 he wuld nOt undeTlltand it. Next, he examine$ the writingS of the philosophen only to dillCClVe! that these intelligent people cannot come to any agreeff

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The ElhiC8 of Belief lind Personlll Knowledge I

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ment about the mO$t important qU"tioos of hunan life. In flCt, it be· comes clear to him tlut the diversity of cooflicting philosophical views elIn only K~ to undermine ow confidence in our ability to find the uuth. Descartes recognizes that there are other 5Ciencel, but enminel them only to CQUdude that NnothiD& solid could luve been built upon such shaky foundalions. ff4 finally, 10 make mattera worse, DescartCll notes the despau the !oeC:ker after truth is likely to experience IS he contends with the claims of pseudosciences rangin, from astrology and Iicherny 10 magic. Nol sulprisingiy, the young Descartel comes to IUSpttt that the world of ide.ll is nothing more than a realm of confusioo. How doo:s Oesurtes 'ClIpond to this CQUht$in, situation1 In - Pan One ff of the Disc;oune, he confesKS tlut be decides to close his books and abandon the liie of scholarshi p. This does nOI mean, however, thll Descartes giYCI up his qUell for knowledte. M illUll18 OUt, he hopei thu what he could DO"! find in the solitude of h u. study m;y,t be found in n:aJ. life expo:rience. He Ulveb throughout Europe, meet! many interestina; people, and hopes that common life might provide some answen to his questioos : Resolving to seek no know ledge other than that which could be found io mYKlf or else in thegre.n book of the world, [spent the rest of my youth u1Vlellin& ... testing myself in the situations which fortune offtJed me, and at iii times rcfle<:ting upon what· cver ume my way so IS 10 derift Mlmc profit lrom it. for it !oeC:med to me Ihll much more truth could be found in the reasoninp which a man ma kel concerning mailers that con· cern him Ihan in those which some scholar mlm in his study about spo:culltiVle n1
16 I The Elhic.s of Belief and Penonal Knowledge to epi5lemie crisis of the siIt«nth <:cnNry gathe" momentum with the diSCO'o'!:ry of the writings of Sel;IUS Empiricus, a oecond·c:enNry phi· losopher wboee work became widely available when it was published in 1562.. Acwtding 10 fbpkin, the redisrowry of SalUS Empiricus was eSpeCially impOnant for religious thinke" IUch as Michel Monu.i&ne 11533-92) who lJ&IIe that skepticism can actually be a 5QllICC cl oolacc and consolation to thOK who suHcr from moral and religious doubts. Skeptical fideisu such II Montaigne claim that oocc we al»ndon the futile and fruitlQ' aearch {PI truth, we can dewte our attention to more profitable proiecl$. This does nor mean, however, that we should giw up our moral and religious beliefs. AcC(Irdin& tn the fide.ist, we should ,im· ply accept these beliefs on faith. What i5 Descartes's reaction to this skeptical solution to the problem/ As we read the Discourse, it becomes clear thn he re;tcu it. Unlike those skeptics who despair and abandon the quest fot tlllth, Descanes decides 10
tr

How then mi&blone begin 10 formulate a method that m.isht enable a person 10 acquire cenain knowledgel Descartes suggesu that we should begin by euminill& those methods which do in facI seem to yield this kind of knowledse and asi< whether we can extend the principlcs that sovem these methods 10 olher areas. DescarlQ is especially im· pressed by the imp,rli.li ly of disciplincs such as mathematia and gwmelry that seem to command universal agreement and expresses his hope that these disc.iplincs wsht provide I pandigm for his projecl. Not surprisingly, the p i that Deacanes pUTlIucs throushout the rest of hi. career is the formuluioo 01 a ratiOllalist ')'Siem that justifies itself on the basis 01 sevcnlself·cvident truths concerning the nature and exis· tCD<:C 01. God and the self. It il imporunt 10 remember that the al1empt 10 formuJlle a framewOIk for deciding religious qUCJtionl il DOt limited 10 .... tionalist thinkers such u Descartes. ~haps the IllOIt well·known attempt toar· tieulate the ethics 01 religious belief by appealin& 10 • ncutnl epis' temological fram~k can be found in the work of the empiricist John

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The Elhic.r; of Belief and Personal 1CllI}Wledge I

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I..ocke (1632-17041 whOK E&roy Concerning Human Understanding (16891 provides \IS with the mOSt amhitiOlis project of thi s tYPe. The posi· tion ~oped by Locke, which commonly goes by the name of evidentialism, hoi. come IUlW atude in recent years, h\lt it is important to remember Wt the concern Wt motivates the position appears to be a legitim~te one. for if it is peiUuas.ble to beJiCVI: something on insufficient evidence, one might ask, as John Lockcdoes, how we an: to distingllish the well-rounded ~ligious convielioosof the responsible believer from thl: me~ prej\ldice of enthll$iasts who daim to base their privileged knowledge of God 00 some private e.perienee or int\litionf More specific.ally, Locke w~ms 10 insist that if our ~ is knowledge, it ill bl;lIIlcwonhy to sellie ror either the blind opinioo of the emh\lsi.sl or the innate ideas of the Cartesian. In order todo j\lStice to this concern, Locke himself propo:SCI an approach to religious knowledge and the ethics of ~lief thai mighl hl:lp people to &QVem their ~ligious convic· tions in a more responsible fashion. Puhaps the most importaDl lhing 10 lemember ~bout Locke's pbilO&OPhy of religion il thai il reflects, like his philosopby 15. whole, an a'Sl,UIlption WI inqu.iry iSII! activity that characterizes in an essential way Whlil it means to be a h\lman being. Evt:n though it hu become C\lllOmary to invoke Locke's work u the standard foil ror arguments .gainst evidemialism and rolUldaliOlUlism, it ill imporuOt to remember WI his views concerning human undcntanding an: infurmed by • strong commitmem to what one might call ccnain Hvalues of inq\liry." More specifically, implici t in bia discuMion is the suggeslion that ratio· nality is a normative toocept based On the prel\lpposilion WI uuth il • vaJu.abJc thing thai people ought 10 p\lrs\le. And although many might be tempted to say Wt Locke em try prcsentingan ovcrly inteUe<:tJJaiist acoolUlt of belief, we musl not forsetthal his emire discussion aboul the nature and importance of inquiry preJl\lpp05eS Wt ~Ie should pos. sess both a desire for lruth and inclination to pllmle it. As he himself StaleS al the beginoin8 of his critique 01 religious enthusiasm: "He that would seriously set \lpDn the search ol Truth, ought in the first place to prepare his Mind with a Lo"" of it. For he that loves it not, will nOilne mud! Pains 10 get it . .. .» 9 Any diSC\lsslon of human \lnderstandin8 m\lSt begin wilh the ass\lmption that the cultivation of tht mind i5 motivatNi by a lovt: of truth. The problem, however, is that although. Locke believes tMI human inquiry should be motivated by alovc lor the truth, and thai uuth seek· en should be able 10 read! some kind of ~grcement on the important questions of morality and religion, he i5 fully aware thai we often fail to ~alize these ideala of inquiry. In the nEpistle to the Reider, ~ for exam· pie, Locke recounts the kindsof concerns that originally led him to write

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The Elmes of Belief Ilnd Personlll Knowledge

the Essayin Ihe finl place and noles Ihal he iscspeciallyuoubled by the ilabilily of people 10 ~ge in argum"nl and inquiry in a methOOieal and orderly fashioo. Indeed, il i, interesling to note Ihal evm though Locke i. ulremely crirical of Ihe Canesian ralionalist who wanu 10 eettie such di sageemems by an apreallo innne ideas, his projecl is motivued by wOrries and concerns thaI bear a sttOrJ.g resembiM>ce 10 thOle voiced by [kscartes in the DiS«!.me. Consi&r, iorill$tance, the followilll pau.age in which Locke e:lpTeSKS hi. frostration as he rN:all. one: particularew:ningof con~rsation with his friends: Were it lit to trouble thee with the History of this buy, I should leU thee thaI fi~ or six friends meeting al my Chamber, and discOUlSinI; on a Subject very remote from this, found them· ..,1 .... quickly al a stand, by the Difficulties thaI rose on every side. After we had, while puzzled our selves, withOUI CQming any nearer I Resolution 0/ those doubt s which ""rplned us, it came into myTboughu, that we took a wrong course, and that belore we sel ow selves upon Enquiries of thaI NuW'e , il wu necessary to examine ourQWn AbililiCll, a nd see, what Ob;ecu our Undcl$landilllS were, Or were nOI filled 10 dcal with.'11 AccordiT13 10 this p,ssa,e, Ihe type 0/ dilemma that motivates the entire project of the &wy Can be .""lled OUI in ICI1WI 0/ Ihe iroJullion we lui when the eXpectations thaI Iud us to enga~ in deb.lle and aJKU· menl fail 10 yield knowledge. In order 10 high1i&J>1 th" problem, we mi&J>t be&in by noting the ~lll5sumption that prople who enpge in inquiry and &~te do 110 because th<:y are genuinely interested in acquir· ing a knowledge of the truth . [n addition, we mi&J>t make the man: up. timislic and perhaps more problenutic assumption that knowledge is poMible and therefme I reuonablepl for human beinp 10 punue. BUI if we grant thelC IWO rather commonplace assumpliona, Ihen the IYJlC 0/ frustration that Locke ~ ... ue. in the opening pa&es 01 the &Jay presenlll u, with a senuine di lemmo. For if we assume that knowledge is possible, and that human beinp who eoga", in conversatioo and argomem do 110 in order 10 acquire such knowledge, then we need lOtne explanation thai migln accounl for our failures 10 ..,alize this ,oal. The hope, as l.Qcke sees iI, is thaI such an .rlempllO discovcrlhe ..,asons for our fallures 10 acqui.., knowledg" might abo help us to identify lOme method or philOllOJlhicai thwry tha. could sol'll! the problem and ensure the possihilityot acquiring knowledge. When we lurn to the &.ay 10 QaIIlin e how Locke himself deals with this problem, it l1OOO becomcs clear thaI he of/en twO 'll!rydiflerem ways 01 answering this qut'Slioolbat appear 10 be comp;lIible on the sW'fa« but that ma,k an underlyins lension running Ihrou&J>OUI hi. work..

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The ElhiC$ of Bclicf tJnd PCl'$()nill Knowlrogc J

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In his mo~ optimistic momenu, Locke seems to suggest that the best way to bciliute inquiry and to realize the pI of knowled&e i. to discover !IOmc kind 01 neutral and reliable method that might enable us to reach this gosl. According to this type of approach, people who sather in pXJd faith 10 pursue knowledge fail because they ha~ not undeluken the cueful and painstaking ..... lysis of knowlmge and hLlllU.n understanding that Locke himself offers throughout the Enay. At times Locke Ippean eoofident that if we can manage to giYe I tholougbgoingaccount 01 understandiJt& we can resl a$SurN that OUr inquiries will yield nOl blind opinion or prejudice, but true knowledge. Locke's projecl therefore il motivated both by his concern OYer what often appears to be the intractable natwe of moral and religious deb.1te and by the hope thltl neutral epistemological framework mighl ensun: the possibility for settling such disagreements . In recent )'I:atS, the sillnilicanc:c 01 this hnd of attempt to c~a te a framework for the arbitration of moral and religious disagreement !u.s been explored and criticiud by sew:rallbink era, moslnotably A1.5dair MaclnlyreandJeffrey Sl ou t_11 i.t illuminating to note, for eumple, the similarity between Locke .. approach to the ethic& 01 belief and thc account 01 righu criticized by Alasdlir Macintyre in his well-known study Alrer Virtue." According to Mlclntytt, the bisloryol moral thought since the Enlightenment can be cruracterized in tenns of the el"Ollion and fragmentation 01 our moral language and OUr increasing inability 10 settle mor-Ii questions. Although a deu.ilm discussion 01 Macintyre's subtle diagnosis 01 the present age is beyond the scope of this essay, il seems cle.r thai he sees the language of ri&hu and utility as ways of dealing with this prohlem. Macintyre suggestS that when the moral language of a tradition has deteriorated, the arbitration of conllictin,g moral claims will depend on our ability to di$COVO:r some way to weigh and eval uate them, a= if it in'o'OI"". the creation of w!u.t he would call a moral fiction. Aaording to Maclntytt, the appeal to the notions al "ri&hts" or ~u tilily, which emerges as a response to this kind of problem, i5 iust such an attem pt to diSCl1Ver • neutral epistemological framework for the arbitration of moral connict. Those bmiliar with Macintyre's work are weI! aware that he is rather pessimistic about these post-Enlightenmeot devdapments io moral thousht. As his ClItended critique 01 the work al lahn RawlsdemOIllItratCS, Macintyre himself has serious reservations concerning this ~solutionH to the problem 01 mow conflicI and suggCSts that )lOSt·EnIightenment moral theories are at best unsuccessful attemp ... 10 cope with a rather desperate predicament ." The point I wish to make, boweYeI, is that Macintyre's analysis 01 the motivations thai underli~ the appeal 10 such theories can help us better undentand the concerns ClIpressed by Locke in the Essay. More specifically. Locke's attempl to H

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The Efhic;s 0/ Belief
provide some neutral epi5temologiul imncwollt that might help us Kt" de religious di sputes is motivated by concems suiltinsly similar to thOle that motivate the appeal to rights. Like the appeal to the language of rights, which ia based on the aOliumptinn that therc arc ncutral criteria loT the arbiuation of mnnl conflict, the e thics of belicl debate em~ as the hope that I methodical analysis of the undentanding might PI"Ovide the epistemolOgio;al key fo r sct tling relipous debate. MQrC(M:;r, like the appeal to rights, which 'equires a willingmMOIl tbe p;utof all parties to suspend thei ' own (\'Ilticular interests and to Strive 1m some de~ of impart iali ty, the ethics 01 religious belief, as spelled OUt by Lode, is hued on the view thll all religious knowlcd&e must be hlsed on objeclive and imJJCnOllai OOMideration •. Appeail to penona.! considerations an: ruled OUt by Locke becau"" they are .ymptnmotic of the kind of rcligiow m · thusiasm thai is fundamenlally inimical to methodical and orderly in· quiry. ln abort, LocI<e'll proj«l Sttms 10 be motivated by the hope that a c;lreful analysis o f the undenunding will help us Kille religious debate and acquire true know I~ with a minimum of conflict in the s;une way thai a n appcallo righlS might help us 10 ""lIle moral questions. As I. A. l':i.S$more pOints out, howeve~ there is a second, more pegsimi stic 'UeMment of the problem «mnd, for example, in Locl<e'll critique of rcligious enlhusiasm.i.O As already mentioned, Locke 18sumes thaI any accoool of human undentanding muSI begin with the n surnption that peOple have an inclination In Sttk the truth. The que.tion we might nit, however, is whether this is a reali.tic assumption or whether it is the cue that people are motivaled by other inclinatioru that ovcrnde their in terest in acquirinjj: knowlcda:e. According to this way of addrcS$i"8 the problem, OW" failures to acquire knowledge are due not SO much to a failure to provide a neutral and reliahle method of con· ducting inquiry but IIC, rnhe~ failures of charactcr. BccaUK we an: moti · VlIu:d DOt only by I love of truth but also by a desire to believe what miKht make u. happy, we an: often victinll of OW" own credulity. ror thi! reHOn our dc.ire for knowledge often leads not to truth, bul rathertobhchood and illusi on. [n a word, P'lrt of OUI predicament asloven of tnIth i. that the pursuit of knowledge i. a fragile ente rpri$c fraU&ht with dangers . Locke SuucstS that our failure to acquire a knowlcda:e of the truth can be explained in tWO rather different way •. M we have Sttn, if we assume that pe<.>ple arc motivated by a love for the truth, and that knowlcda:e i. po8$ible, we might be te mpted to attrihute o ur failures to thc po8$ibility that we might be ignorant of the true foundations of knowledge. In luch a c;lSl:, the toalution is rathcr unproblematic and depends 011 our ability to give a tcchnic;llly reliable acOOUllt of human undcnt.andin&and to arrive a t some type of reliable procedure for acquiring knowledge. However, It

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The Erhics of Belief and PUSClnal KIWWledge I 21 times Locke often suspects that not .11 failures t o acqu.i~ knowledge are epiSlemJc failures. Some failures are what ~ m;g.t call /ailur« of maracter. Locke reminds us of the many ways ~ can be led .stray in our pursui t of knowledge, not least of which is our desire to belie"'! what makes us happy, rathel thilD that which is true: quod vo/umU5. facile credemus, as he quotes!mm Caesar." Indeed, if Locke is preoccupied with a search for founlbtiON, it is only ~use of an underlying anxiety that the~ is mum that threatenS OUf human. all tOO human, quest for knowledge. Not surprisingly, Locke's philOSOphy of r.,[igion n:flecu a suspicion that, more ohen than not, OUf dcsin to .lIeviate our epistemological anxiety Iuds us to invent false or fictitious foundations for our religinus claim •. Those: who seek refuge in reli.pous enthusium or the Canesian docuine of innate ideu n."" achieved a kind of epi$ltmological secur· ity-but at a price. Unfonunat ely, they hi'll: unwittingly adOflted strategies that undermine their ability to revise critically their beliefs if they should n.ppen to be false. The
22 I

The EIhIC$ of Belief "nd Personal Knowledge

knowled&". Th~ fint t~ of knowledge, argues Locke, i. whu he call. in· tuitiVl: knowledge. This fundam~ntaltype pmvid~. th~ necuoary ground· work for '-ke's epistemology to the extent thu it CC10sists of th<)51: self· evident principles that serve as the buic axioms of knowledge: !'or if we will reflect on our own Wl)'$ of Thinking,. we shall find, thot sometimes the Mind pcn.:ei...". the A,grttment or Di:
Uke Descartes, Locke believes that intuitive knowledge is the mOISt cer· tain kind because it presenu itself to the mind in the cleare&tlight.'6 For cxomple, the individual's lppn:hcn.oion of his o. he. own existeoce would be a paradigmatic case of intUitive knowledge. Locke is quick 10 poim out, hOWC"o""l'r, that although ~ple haVl: an intuitive knowledgeo! tbeir own existence, it is impossible t o haVl: intuitive knowledge 01 religious claims sucb I ! the claim that God exislS . Knowledge 01 GOO's existCDce, unlike knowledge 01 one's own existence, cannot be ap· prehended by men:ly inspecting the idea. Therefore, Locke needs to propose a se<:Ond altemaliVl:: The next degree of Know ledge is, where the Mind pcn.:c.ive. the Au<:cmem or Oisagrcc.mem of any IdeaJ, but nOI immedluely.... ThO$( interveniog /dcaJ which serve 10 .hew the Ay« ment of any two othen, an: called Proofs; and where the Agr«mcnt or Oiugr«meot is by this muns plainly and clearly perceived, it is called Dcmonsr.ralion." A«:ording to Locke, the claim that God exisu is not a matter of in· tuitive knowledge but is father an example of knowledge by demonsuation . In thi s regard it is importam to remember !lut demolUtrative knowledge is no less certain than intuitive knowledge. So although it is nO'l aD axiom that God exists, the believer's conviction thn God exists is deknsible to the extent that he or she can give ~vidence 10 support this ]",Iid. Since the various premi!;Cll of .uch a demonstration all' th emselves cxomples of iotuitive knowledge, each of which is the object of cer· tainty, !he emm dcmooslnllioo will prescrve !ruth and thereby yield certain knowledge. Giveo this hasie framework then, Locke a!temp" to conStruCt such a dcmoosuatioo in chapter 10 of book four in which he proposes a proof for God 's existence. Beginning with a clarification of thO$( self~ident principles that arc derived from experience, Locke claims !hat we ean rationally demonstrate that God exists and that the conclusion of such a proof yields certain knowledge, Locke's empiricist approach to religious epistemology therefore]"'·

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The Ethics of Belief and Personal Knowledge I 13 sins with the assumption that the ethics 01 bdid is primariiy . qUr:$tion of .... hether a person can offer evidence t o support his or her belief in spedfic reli~ow propositions. for this rulOn, he ....ants to insist that peOflle are DOt entitled to daim thlt they po!I5e$S ~!igious kno .... ledge unless they are in a position 10 provide a c;Onvincins demon' UlIlion to show that God exists. Moreover, Locke SttmS to assume that the only ....ay to urry out this demonstration in a respon.ible ....ay is to begin with a kind of epistemological neutndity. The only axioms to which believers Ire entitled to ,ppell to defend their belieb a~ those that would be ae· ~ptahie to any reasonabl e person inte~sted in whether the proposition "God exi. ts H is true o r false. M many of his critics soon realized, bowever, it is lar from clelrthlt thil narrow empiricist approach to religious epistemology can do iusti ~ to the pe~nal dimcn$ion of a person's religious belids. Locke himself, of course, articubtes the ethics of belid in these terms in order to undermine the claiou 01 those ~Ii&ious enthusiasts who justify their convictions by appealing to innate ideas, intuitioos, Of some Strange inner lIClI5e. However, ",,",n if w.. grallt the legitimacy of Locke's concun, we mi&ht still ask whether hissoiu tion is defensible. As I have sucgested., Locke m. imains that the only way to dell with the problem of religious lanaticil m is to base the ethics 01 beliel 00 neutral epistemological considerltions which eJldude the individual's p.Jrticul. r interests and c;On~rnl. One might wonder, however, whether this kind of approach to ~ligi.ous know ledge makes any sense at all. Aher aU, whit might it mean for a penon 10 assume IUd! a diSinterested and neutnl .un~ with ~sp<:(:ttO hiBor her beliefs l ls it ~asonable to expect a person to defend hiI or her religious convictions without making any reierence to the kind. 01 ~l.igiow questi"". and interests that inform and shape these beliebl Traditional attempts to base the ethics of belid on neutral epistemological COtlsiderltions are doomed 10 fail because we cannot even m.ke sense of what it mighl mean 10 give a reuon in lhis contexi . Ibr this reason I intend to def~nd th~ views 01 Locke's many eritica who wiID 10 acknowled,e the person.1 dimen. ion of religious belief ••• perfeclly legitimate basis for giving reasons in SUpPDlt of one's convictions. Aft er al~ the reiSODS a person might offer to defend his or ber belid in God mighl have little to do with objective and disinteresled plQO".lf, .uch as Ihe ontological, cosmological, or teleological arguments. More often than nor, people are more likely 10 defend their religious COtlvictions by appe·ling to what one might call, following tbe iudof Michael Poianyi, personal rea!lOns.'" One can im'gi"e, lor example, that people mi&hl tend 10 defend their religious belieb solely in term.. of th~ir sense 01 ,in andguHt and thdr need for salvalion. Unfonunueiy, .lnceLoc:ke himself

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14 I The fthic3 of lUlie! and Personal KnowlaJge tends to be ~I')' suspiciolls of such sc:ntimenLS to the e:r.leollh~t Ihey tend to open the way lot teligious enthusiasm, he insists upoD an ~ustere and empirica.l approach 10 religious epistemology that leaves little room for these kind. oi penoo.a.I COIlsidernions. The qllestion then is whether tbe possibility of religious enthusiasm warranu this !'ather extreme epislemologica.l IUpoDSC Of whether there is an accepl~ble w~y to incorpotue penlOllal considerations in our account of religious belief.

B. The Romantic; RapQnse: Samuel Taylor Coleridge In religi0U5 inquiry uch of us can speak only

for himscif, and

for hinucU he has a right to spe.-k. His own nperienCH are enOU&h for himscif, bllt he cannot speak lor omen: he cannoc lay down the Jaw, he can only bring his ...... n nperiences to the common stock of psychological facu. John Henry Nt wmlln,9 Gi~o

the COIlsluinuof locke'a program, il should come ~s no surpri5e why 10 many thinken have expressed di!Ytisfaction with this appmoch and ha~ explored alternative ways of construing Ihe ethica oi helief. Among thc man: well -known contemporary resources I have identified for rethinking this problem are thinkers such as Sunley C~vell. who .pptals 10 the work of Ludwi, Wiltgenslein in an attempt to aniculile the varielY of w~ys "knowled&e ~ is tied to our tacit commitments ..,prding our fundamental valuts and conc.:ms_ In the nnl chapter I will explore in more detail how these considerations can enrich our undc:rstandin, of what it means to "SCI5 a penon's religious con";etions_What is intCf!:l ting to note for 0111 presem pu, poscs, however, i. that even alDDnJ earlier critics, Iheobje.::tions 10 locke's position is often explicated in termsof his failure to~eknowledge the personal dimension of religioos undentanding. II wlS nOt IOP& for eumple, before many religiOUl thinkers ClIpressed their diS5lllisf~ction with his nlIfOWly empiricm approach 10 religious knowled&e and SUggeSled Ihlt il mi&hl he more helpful to aplore the cODnection between reli.gious knowled,e and self-understandinJ. Man: often than nOt , however, the most thoUJbtful and in· si&htful a1tem.tiYe'!l to auch empiricist viewa of rt ligious belief wue offerN not by philosopheno, but !'lither by those thinkersof the Romantic tradition who found tru.t poetic Pillcction might provi& a way of rethink in, in ~ radica.l way whit hid been traditional epistemological concerns_One of the more important and influential ..",pOD" " to the narrow approach to religious knowled,e propo.ed by Locke and his ,uecessors is Samuel Tay lor ColcridVs Aids to &f1u:;uon 118ZSjlO in which

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Th., ElhiC$ af &U.,f and Pusonal Knowl.,dg., I 25 he attempts to offer a more flexible acooullI of belief thai gives due con sider-Ilion to the penorull dimension of ~ligious knowl~_ It is, of course, _11 known that Coleridge'l early religioos views w.:re wped and influenced in large part by tJwsc, ration.olistie philosophers who later became the target of his cri ticisms.1] In his early work, for example, he appeals 10 Ihe rationalistic view. of David Hal dey 10 defend his own w:rsion of determinism and draWl! from the work oi thinkers such as Joscph Priestley to leoosuppon to his unitarian beliefs. H~r, as J. Robert Banh points OUI, a variety of faCtors eW:llIually led 10 the erosion of his rationaliJtic Optimism, l1 and Coleridge came to realize thattraditional .ccoonts of religioos knowledge could hardly do justice to his growins senx that religious beJids must be lied 10 an individual's personal inte~Iil' and concerns. In Ihe end, such considerltions led Coleri. to explore new waysaf claraclerizing thr activilyof religious refle<:lion in terms of 5t:lf-know l~_ Consider, for example, the followinsobservation taken from the preface of the work: READER! - You h,w: been bml in, land aboundins with men, able in arts, leamin&- and knowledges manifold, lhi s man in one, this in anOther, few in many, none in alL But there i$ one an, of which every man should be master, the art of REFLECTION.1f you a~ not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man 'I all1 In like manner, there ill one knowledge, which is ew:ry man's in terest and duty to acquire, namely, SELFKNOWLEDGE: Of to whit end WIS man alone, of all animals, endued by the Cre.o.tO< with the faculty of wf-oonsdQusn£.S$l ll Like his cootemporary Seren Kierkegaard, who has become _II known for his nocorious claim thol ~ truth is sut.;..clivily, Coleridge insists thot it is , mistake to view Christianity as a theory or a phUosophical system. Instead of se<:kins for some disinterested and ob;ectiw: re.SOIU to ground or fUSIUy their faith, people seeking religious iIuigln must begin by r.,flccting on their own interests and com:em •. lbis Kierkepmlian insight is expresaed in no unccn,in terms whcn Coleridge remilks that NChri"i.ni.y i. nol , Theory, or, Specubtinn, bul a Lif~, not a Philosophy of Life, hut I Lik and , Living PJOc
"

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2.6 I The Erhics of Btljef and Personal Knowle4lf,e n:ligious Imowl~dgt simply as a matter of wh~ther people can defend or justify their belieh by appealing to nwtral epistemologiw considerations ac«ptable to everyone_ Such a narrow rationalinic approach to the ethics of belief is a mistake, uys Coleridge, because the real n:asons why people hold ce~in n:ligioUli beliefs an: intimately connected to personal interests and concerns that cannot always be defended by appealing to obj~ctive considerations, that is, consid~ratinns acup{abl~ tn eYl:l)'ODe. Docs this mean thl! such beliefs lack authority! Not at all. However; the only way 10 accnunt forthe authOrity that a n:ligious belief has for p"ople is by n:lercn'" to the categorical inten:sl.ll nf the;" conscience: "ReYClation mUlit haVl! usun:
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Ethit;J of Bfiief and Pmonal KnowlMgt I 27

terize thd . own ~n5O' of spiritual Wlun: in the~ terms, _ midtt begin by asking whether they n:llly understand the li811ificanoe of such Christian concepts as sin and &&Ivation. In the Nln troduetory Aphorisms u at the beginni", of the Aids 10 R4Iu'ion, Q.,leridge indicates Wt this is exactly the kind of concern that underlies his project. In the ""ry fint aphorism, he notu that Ihe pu.pose of this wo.k is 10 rescue truth from ne&iect by elueidnillJll and darifyillJll thO$e conccpts that many take ror granted: In philOSQphy equally as in pOetry, it i8 the highest and mO$t

u5O'ful prerogati"" of genius to produ ce the strongest impres· sions of novelry, while it n:scues admined tru ths from the ne· glect caused by the very circullUtance of thei r univusa.l admission. utremcs Ulttt. Truths, of all othen the mO$t awclul and interesting, arc 100 Men considen:d 00 true, Ihat Ihey lose: all power of truth, and lie bcd·ridden in Ihe dormiwry of th e soul, 5ide by side with the most despised and exploded errors. l1 Once apin il is difficuh to retiSl the lemptation of compUing Ihe con· cerns expn:ssed hen: by Coleridge with those voiced o""r and OYer again by hi. Danish contemporary Son:n Kierkcpard. As aln:ady mentioned, Coleridge sh...,. Kierkcgu nh belief thaI a person's religious convic· tions presuppo!lC' certain n:ligio,,, intuc,u and concerns, such as.n in· terest in an eternal happin ess, and that if one docs IXIt already ha"" thes.e inten:sts, it is not likely one will acquin: them as the ICliUII of argument OI dcmonsunion.. Thuc an: .imply no epistemologically neutra.! w nsid· el1ltions wt might bring a person 10 graD! Ihe imponance and signifi· cance of Christian concepts such as sin and n:demption. However. both Coleridge and Kierkc&nrcl acknowledge and endorse the imponance ri cleanns away the obstacles thaI might prevenl a person from wlutt Kierltcaaard would call the "suhireti"" appropriationff of these notions. In particular, both thinkers are esped ally concerned with the way Christian Cl)ncepuio5e then meaning and si811ificanee ror people when it is assumed that they an: universally aeoepted and taken ror gran ted . The taBk then iii not 10 develop a new type of Christian epi •• emology, bu. r.ther to explon: new ways of anicuiatil1l the dynami CJI of n:ligious undemanding; so as to faeili llle the appropriation of these tn
28 I The Ethic,s of Belief and Penonal Knowledge being.... To resw~ lcommon-place truth to its fiTSt un· common lusl~, you ntt
Needlus 10 say; much mn~ can be said about Coleridge's approach 10 philosophy and ~ligious ~fl«tiOll, ~specially with ~.pecttn th~ Kant· ian distinction he draws belween understandi", and .~aSQD, his view\! conccmi"llhe imagination, the role of the conscience, and the nalure of faith.~ My ]lIlCp05C: has been simply to show lbat ColeridgU ~fl«tions on Ih~ naNn of ~l;pous thinking provide an intcrcsting and defensible al!emati"" to th~ empiricist who insillu thai believers should be taken to task if they cannot defend their views by appealing to nC\ltral epis· temological consider.tion•. Thi. does not mean, of COUIK, thai the be· lie"", is IIOmehow cumpl from Ihe obligation of giving reason. when reHOrul are called for. In an aphnrism taken from the work of Henry More, Coleridge acknowledges that " Every one i. to gi~e a reason of his faith .HJO The poinl, howe"" .. is thai conlrary 10 the Lockeln pictu~ of the ethics of belicf, which requires people 10 defend Iheir beliefs by appeali"ltO obj~cti"" ~ason. acCC'Ptabl~ 10 any reasonable pe.,.-,n, Col· eri~ grants the legitimacy of penooal reasons, that i.,~.uons that al· ~ady p~suppoee religious and spiritual concern •. Of COUIK, once we . llow for personal ~ason.of this kind, it lOOn be· come. cl~ar why ",ligiou5 dd'lIe is ohen inlIactabic. At! we have seen, Locke's approach to the ethics of belid in the EssQ)' ill motivated by such • concern and an anxious du;", to provide .ome type of epilltemologi· cally neutral framework 10 ensure the posaibiliry for settling our diN· &reemenls. Altbou&h Locke himself suspecU lhat some failures of ~• .on are due 10 Ihe factlhat people allow other inclin.tions to cwerride the inclin.tion to pursue lruth, be . till bOpes that a theory of human un&rstanding will provide a reli.ble method for ",achingwmeagretment and achieving knowledge . Coleridge, on the other hand, reje<:u this kind of model of religious th inlUIloC, if we accept Coleridge's approach and "ant the importance thl! penonal considerations haw: io theac:tivityof giving~alK>lls, we should nOt be surprised whcn peofIle eilher do 001 understand each OIher o. fail to Icknowledge the relevaoce of each other's re.son •. In shan, there are limits tOalJUmenl, and there is no reason 10expeci thai Ihe ~uons I offer 10 defend my view. on ",ligion or moraHry will be ICceptable 10 everyone. Such an impossible idcal is based 011 the Lockean d",1Ol of an epistemological ulopi. in which our con""IKtion panneD h."" been "urged of aU Iheir panicul .. and subjecti"" inteTeSU. Locke's

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assumption is W t it is precisely luch particular and subjectiw: interests that make truth-seeJtins impossible. Hillu'picion is th.u once we granl the legitimacy of personal reuom, it be<:omes diffie\ll! 10 see how in· q\liry un yield lroe knowledge. However, as wri«:rs such as Coleridge and Kiedr.egaard remind \IS, far from ~ an obltacle m religio\ls knowledge, our acknowledgment of wbie<;tivity is precisely whal makes troth·secltins possible.

C. IWigious Bdief and Personal KnowJedge: lohn Henry Newman Unfort\lllately, however, Coleridge him.sclf was not primarily a philosopher and as a reswt his iDSidllful criticisms of empiricist epistemol~ lend to be impre$lliODistic and underdeo.tioped. 1! is hearten· ing 10 Iwow then that these WDcem.s are elplon:d with IIlOre pm:ision and rigor by the Victorian thlnlr.er John Henry Newman. who examines these wues in greaterdeu.il.1n his well·known Es.sayin Aid ala Gram · mar 0/ A$.Ienl (18701, for iDIWlce, Newman explores the relationship be· tween h\lrDln ruilOl1ina: and rcligiow belid and insins WI an appeal to penonalknowled.ie play. a legitimate and nc(;csslry role in the ethk.. of belief. Not S\lrprisingly, he criticizes Locke's a\lStere appeal to epistemic neutrality and coneludes Ihll such a standard of ntionaliry is unrealis· tic and im practical. The problem, S~ts Newman, is that Locke's ~p-seated. sllSpicion of religiO\lS enth\llliasm leads him to critici," the natural mle peIllOll.1 cotU.ideulionl play in the shaping of religious be· lid and 10 propose instead an unattainable ideal of human understand· in,. As Newman himxU argiles: R,u""ings and convictions which I deem narunl and lesiti· mate, he apparently wo\lld call irulionaI. enth\lsiastic, per· VI:lSC, and immoral; and that, all I think, becallile he CODlullS his own ideal of how the mind ousht 10 act, inslud of inlenop~ h\lman narun:, as an existing thin&. as it is fO\llld in the world.' Whal then il Newman's a1temati~ 10 Locke's overly rationalistic view 01 ratioDllityl Newman's brief remark oonce:min& Locke would seem 10 indicate that the ethiC5 of belief should bepn with an examination of how rusoning ami argIIDleDl act\lally work in the lives of ordinary people. In this n:spect, Newman anticipates the views of the later Wiusenstein who UJUCI thlt the lundanb of what is 10 COUllt as tuatiJi· cation an: not gil'm a priori. U we want 10 I.Illderstand the IICOpc and limits of what is allowable with respect to the jl1StiJication of religiOUS cl aims, we mllSllook rather to what countsU n:ason·givin&in the con·

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30 I

The Elhics of Belief und Personul Knowledge

texi of a partieular form of life.a• It is simply a mistake to SUppOse, as Locke often docs, Utat jllStifieation in moral and religious matters can be attained by an ap~al to epistemologically neutral oonsiderations. In mosl cases, a ~rson's ability to recognize and acknowledge the fol'CC' of an argumelll presupposes ceRain illleresu and concerns. Wh.at a person is willing to acknowledge with respecl to such matteI! Iherefore depends on the many ways personal concerns inform reasoning and inference. In his di!K:USSion of Pascal's wager, for uample, Newman rightly nOleo Utat the question of whether such argument ean eonvioce in a particular case turns on the individual's intdleetual predisp<)Sition: "that stano:brd will vuy according to the res~cti""! dispositions, opinions, and experiences, of those to whom the argument isaddressed. Thus, its ""Iue i. a person.ol question . . . .nJJ In his attempt to ankulale in more delail a modd of reasoning flexible enough to aecommodate the wide variety of ways argument and jllStification sustain our beliefs, Newman appeals to what he cali the "illative sense." Unfonunalely, such an appeal to an iIIati""! SMse easily lends itself 10 misundenWlding. es~cially in the oontext of the empirieisl framework Ihal underlies Newman's project. The temptation, of C(lUr5e, ;" 10 suppose thai the i!lative sense is some It.ind of special psychological facu1ty that enables people to apprehend spiritual or moral trulhs. Nothing., however, could bcfurthcr from the truth.lnorlier to do justice to Newman's claims concerning the illative sense, we musl remember thai he is onen consuained by the empiricist vocabulary, wbich he inheriu from I..od.e and Hume, and thaI be often uses such terminology 10 undermine the very empiricist assumption. thai underlie uaditiona.l epistemology:'" When Newman s~aks of the illative sense he i. not referring to some It.ind of special facu1ty but is simply trying to identify that as~ct of human understanding Ihat de~nds upon an individual 's penonal coo· cerns: The aspect under which we view things i. often intenldy personal; oay, eYen awfully SO, considering Ihat, from the natllll: of the <:a&c:, il docs oot hring home il5 idiOllyncrasy either 10 OUrsclVl!S or to others. Each of us looks .t the world in his own way, and does not MOW tNt perhaps it is characteristically his ~.' At this point it might be wonhwhile to point out that Newman's empNsis on the iIIa ti""! sense and the imponan ce of ~rson.olltnowl edJ!:e hu troubled nu.ny of his critics who SU5~ct that appeals to such lubjective considerations ultimately lead to an unacceptable fonn of fideism. u Such worries were espedally troublesome to Newman's Vic-

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The Ethics of Belief and PeuOIIol Knowledge I 31 torian contemporaries whose naive empiricism made it difficult for them to rnakc sense of Newnu.n's insightful and innovative claims. Given the spirit of the ~ as well as Newman's cleal and uncquiv.::>Ul langwge, such charges should not surprise us. l1uoughout his writings, however, Nto.wman makes it deal that there il no reason to suspect that a more flexible account of justific.otion necessarily entails a pernicious form of subje<:tivism. He is quick to point OUI, fmn:ample, that although the fon:e of an argumCIlt depends upon penoonal considerations, the truth of the malter is still objective. This is an imponant point to keep in mind since many people often mis· takenly assume that any justific.otioo based on personal concerns ne<:e8.... rily Iuds 10 false or unjustified beliefs. The concern Wt appears 10 underlie the worries of these critics illimilar to Locke's suspicion that an appeal to personal Cotlcerns opens the door to religious enthusiasm. According to such objections, the arbitrary narore of sueb concerns would seem to undermine the po8IIibility of genuine knnwledge. Once we gflInt legitimacy of whal appealll to be personal preference in the de· termination of our belicis, it would seem that "anythinggocl." Cleally, however, such criticisms att themselves suspect. For one thing, it is a mistake to suggest thataoy appealtopersonalknow!edge i5 merely an appeal to an individual's personal preference. One might argue, funhennore, tNt in some cases the ability to re«>gnize and acltnowle
J2 I

The Efhi~ of /klief QlId hnon"l Knowledge

of phron/!$;s o. "jud&mcmHas the basisofhis discussioo. Like Aristotle, ~ bclicVQ thot thcre is no logical dcci~ion procedure to

ensure the truth of our judgments in moral matten. Any utcml'ttO u· plicate Aristotle's moral epistemology would need to begin with the cbim that a penon's capacity for monl knowledge depends on his Of her cbaracter. In a similar fashion Newman Want s to s\lWstthat the illative sense depends to a great extent on the character oIthe individual in ques· tioo. Once ,pin. such I cbim does noc amount to the denial that mete ill a truth of thc WIlier. All it mcan, is that the illati~ IleUse, or the abil· ity to render reuoned judpnems about the truth of religious mallen, will depend 00 tbe shape of the individual 's character in much the same way th.t phrfHlt4i& or reasoned iudpnem in ethical mailers depends on being a penon of a certain SOrt. f*wman mak« this pOint explicitly in the followi", oh$el"Vlltion: Thus in concrete reuoninp we are in great measure thrown back intO that condition from which logic proposed to rescue lUI. We judge for oun<:lves, by Our own !ishl$, and 00 our own princi ples).nd our criterion of truth is OOt $<")much the manip· ulatioo of propositions, as the intellC"Ctual and moral character of the penon maintaining them, and the ultimate silcnt effect of his argumenl$ or condusioos upon OUr minds.J7 Needless to say there i. much more thn ean be said .bout Newman 's thOU&JlI, particu[u[y .bout hi. views 00 such i55ues as inference, ,ssmt, and the distinction between leal and n(Mional assenl.ll and certitude. Un· fonUIl.l tely, [ cannot pretend 10 oifer the kind of Cl)mprehenSive accOUnt thot would do justice to the breadth and SCOpe of Newman's thou"'t. My task ha. been more modest. What ! ha'll: tried to show is that Newman's work provide. imporumt insi&hts into the role of personal knowled&e in the justification of religious beliefs. In p.lrtitulu, we have much to learn from Newman's ap""altO the illati ve,..,nse and his suggestion that our willin&ne •• to UU't the force of an argument depends on a wide range of oonsideratioo. such as OUt fundamental concerns, int(tesls, and emotions. This does nOi mean, howev!:f, that "anytluna goes." The legitimacy of our beliefs does nOl depend 00 mere p.efermce or amilHry whim.. Newman grants the n......s·;ty of epiSlemic conSUainlS but agrees With Aristorle'lluggestion that such CQllSlUin,,;ue primarily a function of the kind 01 people we are: jUOlificalion in religious matlCTll is radically sel1·involvins. In the (Dd, therefme, the ethics of belief is ultimately. quntion 01 character. I wan t 10 ebim then thai Coler i . and Newman are right to emph.· siu the importance of penonal knowledge. There is no way 10 escape the fact thai the m03t impOnant reasons we give to sUPpOrt OUl religious

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The Ethic;.s of Belief and Personal Knowl~dg~ I 33 and moral convictions are personal reasons, in the sense that they ate "self-involving." But if this is the use, we should not expect thai the reasons we gi~ will be ;cceptable to everyone. Onu we grant the legiti· lltacy of penonal coDliiderations.and interests and ;cknowledp me ea· senti;] role they pl;y in shaping our reasons, it should come as no surprise m ; t religious.and moral debate is often intractable. There are limits to argument and sometimes mese limits are simply; manet of our diffeJenccs. Not surprisingly, this is a point thaI Newman .ecognizes when he considers m e ways our characters limit what we caD uy aDd acknowledge in ourdislgreements with others. If personal knowledge is.an indimin;ble feature 01 mis ;ctivity 01 reason-giving, it is no wonder why many argumems end without resolulion: All reasoning from premises, and thOK premises arising (il it so happen ) in their first e1emems from personal char;eteristics, in which men ate in bCI in essential and irrcmcdial vari.ance ODe with momer, the ratioeinati"'! talent can do no more than point OUt where m e difference between them lies, how fat it is immnerial, when it iswonh whilecontlnuingan argument be· tween them, and when not.J& The solution, howe"'!r, is not to di"'!st ourso:l"'!s of these pers
Nares I. From "Self· Low," in Literary Remains (New York: Chelsea House, 1983), p. 12.5.

2. Rene Descartes, Selected Philosopbica/ Writin gs, trans. John Cotlin&hun, Robert Stoothoff, an d Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge: Cam· bridge University Press, 19881, p. 22.

J. Ibid., p. 23 4. Ibid., p. 24.

5. Ibid. 6. Richard Popkin, The History of Skt:pticism from Erasmus to Spinoza IBerkeley: Univmoily of Califomio PTC3S, 19791.

7. Descartes, S£lectul Wrmngs, p. 21.

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The EIhies of Belief and PerS
8. 5«, for e:umpl~, I. A. Pusmore, UI«kr and the Ethics 01 Be· lid, U in RDIiooDIi&m, Empiricism , Dnd Idealism , ed. Anthony Kenny IOaiord: Clarendon Presl , 19861, PSI. 23-46. According to Passman, Locke's extended Gritiqu., of enlhusiasm in later versions of the Ess4y is an attempt to explain why people are more likely 10 J'O'''''' falK belie&. ruher than tlUe 01lC:S. Locke's suggestion, ~laims Passman, iI that people Hbeliew: falsely, OOt as the result of inadequat e evidence, but as I result of 001\& dominaled by f'OW1'rfuI inclinatiool .. . . The nltio:nai man is then the man who is dominated by, passion for the truth, as distinct from party plSsioos H Ip. 461. [would lilte to note lhat my dillCUSlion of Locke is indebted 10 Passmore's insightful analysis of these issuu.

9. John J.x:kc, An

E$sD)' Concerning HumDn Undemanding, ed.

and inuo. Peter H. N idditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 697.

10. Ibid., p. 7. II. Alasdai r Macintyre, Alrer Virtu e,ld ed. INoue Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). 12_ [t is won.hwhlle 10 IKlle that oot evcry<Jl>e sham Macintyre's suggestion that «Incepts sl.lch as Hri&hI5 and HUlility " an: merely conceptuaJ fictiona intended to milk the erosion of our monl language. An ahemative verdiCt on the dew:lopmenl and value of moral philosophy since the En!iJllterunent has been provided by jeffrey StOUt wboaJ&uea Ih,t the SttUlam.alion of public disc:ourse should be riewed a. a respooK to growin& lenaions amOD& C(>mpetin& reJ.isioul groups. A
14. Locke, £ss4y ConCf!tning Human UnduSlandirtg, p. 715.

15. Ibid., pp. S30--31.

16. Ibid., p. 53!. 17. [bid., pp. 531-32.

The fthics of Btlief and Pusonal Knowledge I 35 18. Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge IChiUj!:o: UniW:l!Iity of Chicago Press, 1962) has become somelhinl 01 a minor dusk which has in rum influenced more recent tltemprs!O rethink the impan.m ways knowledge depends on our personal and subjectiw: concerns.

19. John Henry Newm.n, An E.t$tI)' in Aid 0/ a GrammarO/ Assenl, intro. Nicholas Lash (Notre Dame: University of None Dame Press, 1979), p. 300. 20. Although Coleridge's Aid, to Rzf1ection is not widely read among contemporary philo5Ophe B of religion, il is an imponam book that had a profound influence I)ll many Enclish-spe.J1ting thinkers of the nineteenth century induding Horace: Buahnell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Henry Newman, to name just I few. ln America the published book included an essay written by the Congregar>ow.list James Manh, whose discussion of Coleridge had a strOng influence: on the rise of Tflnseendental..ism in New England. I hope my discussion will show that much can be pined from a serious ~x.aminatioo of this work . fur an informative diSCUSSion of Coleridge and M.rsh sc<: Bruce Kuklick,

Churchmen and Phi1<)${)phen from fonarhan fdwauu to fohn Dewey (New Haw:n: Yale Uniw:nity Press, 1985), pp. 146-51. 21. Of the many helpful and insightful discussions o f Coleridge's reo ligious development, the best remains Basil Willey's dlssic study Samutl Taylor Coleridge (New York: W. W. Nanon, 197J). fur more de· tailed tJe.atments of Coleri~e's rdigioos iden see J. Robc:rt B.... th, S.J., Coleridge and Christian Docuine (Cambridge: Hlrvard Uniw:rsity Press, 1969), esp. chapter 2; and Claude Welch, "Samuel Taylor Coleri~e ff in Nine/.Unth CroWl}' /Wigious Thooght in the West, vol. 2, ed. Ninlan Sman, John ClaytOn, Steven T. Kau, and PlItrick Sherry ICam· bri~e: c.mbridge Uniw:rsity I're$s, 1985), pp. 1- 28.

22.

J. Robert Ibn.h, S.J., Co1eridg~ and Chrinian Doclrint, pp. 1- 13.

23. Samuel Taylor Cole ridge, Aids 10 Rzf1tction INew York: Chelsea HouK, 1983), p. xix. 24. Ibid., p. 134. 25. Ibid., p. 120.

26. Ibid., p. 27227. Ibid., p. I. 28. Ibid. 29. For an excellent and thoughtful treumem of these issues sc<:

36

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The Erh;C3 of Belief and Penonal Knowledge

Welch's article NSamuel Taylor Coleridge, " in Nineteenth CentlU)' Religious Though!, pp. 1-28. 30. ColeridJe, Aiih to Ref/urion, p. 96. 31 . Newmln, A Grammarof Assent, p. 139. 32. There has hem I ~val of intc:rest in Newmanil thought alDonaanalytiCli philoaophen which il connected to thc:growing realilItion that his work does forc:5h.dow Wittgenstein's !.oter philosophic.! views. j. M. Cimeron, for eumple, has noted Wt much of what Newman has to say conceroing doubt, belicl, and jUlitifi~tiOll anticipates some of the insi£hts of Wittgcnsteinil On Certainty and that the teDsioru mooing through his work Ire due to the faCt Wt the empiricist m..mewo-rk wbich he inherits from Locke and Hume teods to obscUlC his many impon.aot inlights. Cimeronil discuMioo of these issues can be found in hil essay NJohn Henry Newman and the Tractarian Movement, N iII Nineteenth Cen!1U)' Religious Th0U8ht in the West, 001. 2, pp. 69-109. ~rhapa the bel t discuslion of the many ways Wittgensteinim concern. inform Newmanil work i. M. Jamie Ferreirl's Doubt and Relig· inw CommiUDell[; The Role oflhe will JnNewm,:m "s ThOlJg/lt 10rl0n:i; Cluendon Presl, 1980), in which she IPpeals to the -..Ir. of Wittgc:nl tcin and otheR, IUch u John Wisdom and Stephen Tou1min, to illuminate Newman'a views 011 relipoua belief.

33. Newman, A Grammar 0{ M u m, p. 245. 34. ~e J. M. Cameron, Nj ohn Henry Newman and the "Tractariao Movemc:nt,· esp. pp. 99ff. 35. Newman, A Grammar of Assent, p. 291. 36. Tbc:sc concern. ha~ continued up until the presem day. fur the most recent chancterization of Newman as a 6deistic oolitionalist, II« Louis P. Pojman, RUigious Belief and the Will [Loudon: Roulledl;e and Kegan Paul, 19861, esp. pp. 84-88.

31. Newman, A Grammarof Assent, p. 240. 38. Ibid. , p. 283.

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The Ethics of Belief and the Meaning of Life nl:l'd neYel have ~n" Woody Allen film IQ appreciate the extent 10 which our concerns ahoutlovc, death, and human suffering aR tied 10 the moregcneral question about!h., meaningolhuman existenCl:. AhhoutJt most of U$ do not generally ruminale ..bout such mat ters and are likely to uk., such things for cranled, at one time or another mO'1l of UI will experieoce the wonder or perplexity thaI nooKes b()[h reo liJiow and philosophical queslionuOOut " the meanin3ru il aiL AaAJ· mur Scho~ntauer l'I:II\inds 11$, the human animal "1llU'IO'15 .0.1 il. own works and uks itself what it itself is. And its wonder is the more serious, as here for the finl time il stands COD!lCioudy face 10 face with death, and ~ide, the finiteness of all existence, the \I2IIily and fruitieS$neS$ of all effort force themsdves on it mOft'or less." I Schopenhauer himselfbelieveslhal such concerns support hislbe.is dun human betngsare basi cally " melaphysical animals " and thoIl this need 10 ask metaphysical questions is the distinguishing characteristic of our sp«ies. And although WI: might wonder whether Schopenhauer OYeISutes his case, he is ri&hl 10 highligbl Ihe way our n~ed 10 ask meuphysical qurslions gi"'" rise 10 both religious and philosophicallpeculation. At thil poinllhough, WI: might still ask why a person's bali c 'lueslions .bou t the meanin& of life Ihould Iu~ anythiog to do wilh the ethics of belief. After all, few 01 UI begin our lives by asking such deep and perplexing questions about cosmic issuCi such as God, denh, and human sufferin3. On Ihe colltruy, if mosl religious believers view their lives in lheistic temu, Ihis i, uSllillly nne because Ihey Iu~ ashd Ihe Hhig questions, • but ralher because Ihey ha~ been nurlured in a parlicular religious community wilh sp«ific beliefs and practices. According 10 Ihil picture, our view 01 the world and oun.elycs ilsomething WI: inherit as WI: are .ocialized im o a particular group wh06C stOries and rituals

O

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38 I

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Elhia< of B"Ii~f and Ih~ Mwnlng of Uf~

shape our KIf·interpretatioos. To UK the la~e that hal btt.ome fashionable amon& 50me pbilO$Ophers and theolo&ians, the meaDing of OUI li~s is a matter uun Ita.. already been detcnnined by the p;lnicuiar narrative that defines the KopI: and limits of what my community has to say concerning these: questions. If we want to articulate in more detail such questions surrounding the m~aning of Iiie, we are invited to refine and anorpen chose skills thot might en.oble us to hene. undemand the Story. By leaming to read sacred ICriptUlC5 or by engasing in re1isious practice, believers pin a better apprec:iation of the way such fundamental questions about human lik nove been answered by the tradition. There ii, of COIIfSC, IIOme truth in this picture which situales questions about the meaning nllife Within spedfic tradilions. By the same token, howe~r, such an obs,o,rvation doetI not vitiate the ba.ic pOint I wiah 10 explore throughoot the n:st 0 1 this chapter; nameiy, thai the ethics of religious belief is connected to a person's basic desire to see his life as a meaningful whole. The question is whether we can arti cula te wNt it means to satisfy this metaphysic.oJ urgt' '' and a...... our various and competing solutions 10 the riddle of exiSleoce. We N~ ahudy seen that it is a mistake to ~uire. person to of"'r an impenono.l ;Ustific,lIioo for his or her n:ligious beliefs for the simple bCl that the n:asons a person offen already pfC$Uppo5C reii&ious concerns. But whal e:ucdy does this mean and why i. it importanilln this chapter I will aniwa these que.tions and argue that we should view a penon" n:1i&ious beliefs., constituting • Iik-view that enables people to m,ke sense of their views ,boul Sucb concern. as death, suffering. and love. But since such "existential facts " an: lied 10 a penon's moods, emotions, and dispositions, it is impouible 10diKOver some neultal de5cription of these f~cts. 1"0 use the jargon of the philosophy of K ience, these " existenli~l f.cts ~ are aIlCIdy Hthcory_Lodcn and thus n:fl eci ooc's exiSteUlial posture in the world. What is p.articularly impOrtant with respect wour qUC$tionsabout the ethics nI bclid, howCVl!'r, i!. whether thCle is any way to assess such interpretations about the me~nin& of life. To Wlul kind 01 cri leria ahould we appeal! Docs it make sense, iorexample, tOSUcgesl tlut wecould juslify ~ person's interpretation aboul the meaning of life! M I have already ~cgued, since our li"'-views are allCldy utheory_laden," il i!. difficult 10 specify preci5Cly what neutr~l ";unific.l lion mighl meao in this conleSI. BUI ii we canDO! speak 0/ "justification," is it possible to at leUI speak of the "truth ff oIlhe5C intClprelatioosl And ii our interprelations ~bout Ihe meaning of life an:nO! true in any str. ightforward sc:rtse, whlit miJbt this mean with n:SPCCllO the ethicaof belid! ThroUghOUI the reSI of thi s chapter I would li ke lo uplon: in more detaillhc nalurcol the5C concerns and argue that a penon" religious beU

H

H

Th" Elhic..l

of &1i"f and Ih£ M£aning 0/ Uf£ I 39

lids a~ interp~tations about life's meaning and that they differ from oor other claims about the world insofar as they cannot be evalu.ated u true or false in Iny suaigbtforward way. In order to pretent my cate, I shall appeal to the work of Ludwig Witl&!,nstein who p~KntS, I believe, the most iruightful cue for this kind of claim. It shall aho become clear. I hope, thai those who malign his ",,"ilion and characterize his viCWII as a form of fffidcism ~ I~ grossly mistaken. fur wh en we eumine Witt · genatein's later work in Iighl of David WigiDs's writings on Ihe meaning <Jilik, Ihe ~allOflS for Willgen5tc.in's posilion become clear. In short, al· though a penon's ~Iigious oUllook can best be characterized as an u· tempt 10 make sense of life II • whole by providing. cohereDi accouDi of the Uexistential dala," such acCOUnts a..." to Ute WigVns's iangu""" "cognilively undcrdctcrmined. ff But to say that a set of beliefs is cosni· tively uDdcnklermined iSlo say that they fall short of plain lruth.ln the end, such cODsiderati oos should lead us 10 SUSpecl thai (M:rly rationaliS· tic approaches to the ethiC$ of belief need to be critically appraised and ~placcd by a more holistic position. A. Wittgenstein on Re1Jgious Belief

Influenced perhaps by Schopenhlucr's cl aim Ihl! ...,ligion is a kind of fflolk m etaphysics,,2 aod hy l.eQ Tolstoy's literary exploration s of such Schopenhauerian issues in nov'Cls such as Anna Ka,enina, Ludwig Will&!,ostein maiollins thai ...,ligious beliefs inwlve basic judgments about the meaning 01 life. Although he articulates this basic claim in a variety of diffc...,nt ways thoughout his life, his observations teem to SUWlt the following type olargumenl: I. Religious beliefs I~ judgments about the meaning ollife. 2. JudgmeDis about Ihe meaning of life fall short of plain lruth. 3. The...,forc, religious hf,liefs flil shon of plain truth. As it stands, this kind of argumenl can be interpreled io a wide variety of

ways. Perh.ps the mOllt COmmOo but least defensihle ioterp...,talion of this argument is the pOSitivi$t one which i. baxd on the CQI111'l)Y1:Bial clai m that ...,ligiou. beliefs, like metaphysical and moral beliefs, are meaningless and cannot the...,fo..., be asscs'ed with Tl:5pect to their uuth or falsity. AccOl"dini to this interpretation, religious beliefs are al be.t cx· prcssioos of a pc:B(lo's bl5ic attitudes andemotionaand II such have no cosnitive signifil;,lot<:. Among moral philOSOpheB, this ltiod of thesis that reduces the m eaning of moral and ~ligious claims to cxp...,ssions of a person's basic preferences has led some 10 defend a theory of moral and ...,ligious lan,guage more commonly known as emotivism. 3

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The Elhics o f Beli~f a.nd rhe Mcaning of Lif£

fur bener or worK, emotivism is I m eory of moral language tblt his nOl fara! wdl in recem yean and me CUlTem onbodoxy is that this view is conceptually banbupl.. Since [ aCCqlt me basic critique of emotivism offI:mi by such thinun as A1asdau MacIntyn:,' amona: omen, [ will nOC belabor me pomt by rehearsina: such argumenu in detail. What [ w:antto sbow is ml! even though we ha~ good reasons to Il:jeet emotivism, thell: still mi&ht be an alternative way to mterpll:t the argumem presented ahow:. The hope il that a more nuanced analysis of value SUte· menl$ misht yield similar insiahts concemmg m e charactu of rdipoll\l bdid. So C1'm thoush emotivism might prove to be a dead end, then: migln be alternatives open 10 I UPpon m e general claim that religious be· lid. mvolve practical judgments ,bout me meaning of life and .. such faU $hort of plain truth. In order to see bow this b.asic argument mi&ht lend illelf to a number of diHerent interpll:tations, it mi&ht be helpful to exam.me briefly Ludwig WittgenSlein'!! suggesti..., tbou&h eni&ma tlc writings on the subiec:t. In his udy writmp, such as the Notebock& 1914--1916and the naCfalUS Logiro- PhiJO${)phicU5, Wingenstci n; views 00 religion and ethice are expressed in suggestive but rather opaque renat'" con· cerning God and Ihe meanmg of lile. The temptation of many more sobeT-mmded philO3QPhen is either 10 dismi ss them u a symptom of this philosopher's youthful and thll\l excll\l;lble enmu&asm for Schopenhauel or simply 10 overlook them in order to get on with me more imponam if no less diffi cult task of explicatmg wlut me young Witlgen8t ein has to uy abou tlanpr.age and logie,S However, if we are 10 take Kriowly what WingeDltein has to uy regarding me naelalLlI m an undated letter to his publisher, Ludwig_Ficker, then: is good reaSOn to take hi l enigma tic observnions on the meaning of life much more serio ously. AI Witt&"ostem himself io5il ts: HI wanted to write tho! my work COIIsisl.!l of two pm" Ihe one which is here. and of everything which I have nol writleD. And prccisely this oo:oond pm is the imponant nne. Ibr the Ethical is delimited from within, a. it wete, bymy book, and I'm COlI· vinced thol, strictly speakin& it can O NLY bo: cklim ited in tbi. way.... The point is thai Witlgenstein'!! primary concern in his earlr writing is "emical ~ and Hrcligious, · in the broad sense of these term s. TIle dif· ficult question, however, is whether it is possible to do justice to theae HdeepHproblems wilhouttriviali:in& them . Wittgenstein uptessea, fOl example, his own dissa tisfaelion "'im Ihose who Wlioe meir concern with el hics and rcligion by Nb.abbtin&" about it. In one ""nse then the Il)()(ivation behind the brid enigmatic remarks on these subjecu in his early work is m erapeutic: to show us thai the philO!Klpher qWl phi·

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The EthiC8 of Belief and the M e
41

losopher cannOt help ro answer the question 01 the me.onin,g of lif~. The answer to this question rather has to do with the way one leam one's life . In both th e Notebooks .nd the TraClntu3 Wittgenstein does ~ntU~ to ~ss ~yond what ClIn ~ said if only in the hope 01 pointing the way: to "show" us what it means to think about these strange sons of questions. For eumpl e, with respect to the question of what it means to bo:lieve in God, Wittgenst ein makes the foUowing comments: To bo:lievc in God means to understand the questioo about the meaning of life. To bo:lieve in God means to s« that the facts of the world ate not the end of the mnteT. Th bo:lieve in God means 10 see that life has a meaning.' What i. impotl:lIlt to note is that like his intellectual menton, SchOo pcnhauer andThlstoy, Wiugenstein ~gin5 with the u.umption thai religion is primarily. question of naking sense OUI of oneil life. Once again, at the risk of waxing e.ristential, a person's bo:lief in God cannot ~ understood independently of a person's need 10 view his life I I a meaningful whole. Apparently this i. the point ~hind WiugcnSlein's remark that the who believes in God sees that the "faclS of the wolld are not the end of the m:llIer." In the TraClnfUS this intuition is expressed in terms of the suggestion that even if all questions of fact could bo: answered, there would still be something imporunt left o~r: "We fed thaI even when all possible scien tific questions ha~ been answered, the problems of life remain compleldy untouched .. , .,,9 The young Wingenstein wanlS to ClIll our a ttention to his intuition thai a person's bo:lief in God is not tied to matten of fact, that is, to questions of what is or is nOt the case. Belief in God, rathet; is tied to a person's ability to find meaning in life, something that cannot be decided by :III appeal to the facts. To put it another way: it is not the facts that give meaning to life but r.ther it is the way one leads oneil life thaI make\! the facts meaningful.'D Students of Wittgenstein ha~ repeatedly no ted that his ini tial difficulty in ' it ..... ing religious and moral beliefs stems in p;ltl from th e problema tic distinc tion between fact and value he is forced to d",w on the basis of his so-called " picture-thoory of meaning. .. According to this way of construing Wittgenstein's dilemma, the only propositionstha. possess a $CJlSC ISinn l are those: propositions that can picture a logically possible state of affain. If chi. suggestion were right it surely would be difficult to I « how values could bo: included as p;ln oI.he furniture of the univeIllC. If, fot example, I were to say, "ThCl'l' is a port"';t hanging on the wall,"

person

42 I

The Erhics of Belief and rhe Meaning 0/ Life

my words would po5SC'" ~ sense sinCl: they provid~ a picrure of ~ p<):S$ible state of affairs. U, however, I well: to »y, "The polUait is beautiful, ~ I might fccel.t a loss if asked to spttify in wh~t way the sta temen t could be uid to mirror some p<):S$ible state of affairs. It would seem that such. judgment cannot be, statement of bet becauSC', ~CCQrdillJl to Wingenstrin'a earl y view, _ simply cannot loclte value, including answers to the question of life's meaning, in the world. It is imporunt !O Il:member, though, thaI Wi lrgenStein's worries about valu~ rondttper and need not be uprC"!lsed 1KI1ely asa way of deal· ing with certain problems generated by his picture-theory of meaning. Part of his concern is to show that questions of value, that is, questions C(lnCl:ming ,esthetics, ethics, or religion, are nOI eontillJlenl in the &ame way faCIS are. They do nOI eXpre" whal mighl Or mighl nOt be the else but expr<:ss rather neU'SS.O.ry "truths" .boul life. A. Wingen.lein him· sclf insists in the TracUlfU5, "U ther<: is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphell: of what happens and is the caK _fur all thn happens and is the case is accidental."" An expression of value therefore is nOl a statement about Ihe facts because unliJr.e Ihe facts, value cannO! be !IOmethillJl accidenlal: like logic il muSt be a condition of the wo rld. The problem, however, is that on WingenSlein'a lenos il is impossible 10 admil that a noncontlngent stalement could possess • sense, SO such. stalemenl cannOl even be regarded ••• proposilion. Not surprisin&iy then, WiltgeDSlein concludes that "it is impossible for thell: to be propositions of ethics. ~ 'l In his early work Wiugenstein pll:SCJI1S a very mysterious picture of religious belief that is deuptively similar to a view that some characterize as Wiltgensteinian Fideism.13 When confronted by ~ religious be· lie....,r and I pennn who sees no point in it, all we can say perhaJl5 is that the world of the penon who believes in God is different from the world of tbe persoo who does oot believe in God. Whal is imponant to notice, moreovu; is that in a work such ~s the Ti"acfarus, the limits of what can be uid with fC1lpect 10 rdigious questions are tn:ated as problems that ariK primarily becauK of a problematic distinction between fact and value_ According to this line of IhinkillJl, n:ligioUll questions are necessarily intractable and this has todo with the natUTe of language. Once we have a grasp of the essence of langwge, _ will sec why il is impossible for a person to say anything intelligible about the nalureof logic, an, Or the mystical. This is 00110 say, of course, that this feeling of the mystical is itself something suspicious or counterfeit . Religious believers need not abandon their beliefs about God. The poinl rather is thai the young Wiltgcnstein seems to think that the only way 10 make sense of the peculiar nalure of rcJigipus claims is lo ....y that they .how what cannot be said.

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I 43

Of course, it was not long before Wingenstein realiud that the ..,an:h for oomething Iik~ th~ "essence of language H i! doomed to lailure and that th~philosopher !hould rest content with the more modest task 0/ asking how language is actually used in human communities. The story of Wiltgenstein'siater views, how",,",r, i. a complicated One and even the mOlt seaooned Wittgenstein scholars sometime. find il difficult to agree aboul Ihe sh.ape 01 his philosophical de1'l:lopment. fur this reaoon [wuuld lik~ 10foeu. nol 00 much on th~ question of whether his later views concerning "langtla8e games" or "forms o/life" can contribute anything in particular 10 our unduslandillJl of religious belieD.'4 This, of course, h.as been the strategy of many of his later followers.lnstead, I williaite a diffen:Dltack and focus on selttled remarks about re· Iigion that provide a more fruitful appn»cb to the question. In his wcll-lrnown NLeclures on ReligiOUS Belief, ,,15 delivered by Wittgenstein in 1938, we find that although he expresse.concems similar to those in the earlier wurks, his appTO;lch i. quite different. In par· ticular, in these enigmatic but suggestive remarluo Wittgen.tein worriu about the differences belween people's beliefs on religiOUS mailers and wondCIll whether we can learn anYlhing about religion by payingatlCntion to these differences. Whal seems to lrouble Willg~nstein is tbat it is often very difficult to articulate exactly wltat separates the believer from the unbeliever. What Wittgenstcin is struggling to understand in Ihese lectUlC5 is why such disagreements seem 10 run so deep. In hi. openingrcmarluo, for in.tance, Wingenstein invites us 10 consider the cue in which we wanl to understand ""meone's belid in the Last Judgment:

SUPJlO" that someone believed in th~ Last Judgement, and I don't, does this mun that I beliCVl: the opposite 10 him, JUSt that then: won't be such a thingll wuuld say: Nnot at all, or not always. ,,'0 Ourfir8t inclination, luggestsWingeTlslein, might betoassumethal Ihe difference between the ~liever and the unbeliever stems simply from a disagreement over the faets : eilher there will be a Last Judgmenl or there will nOt-we will jusl have to wail and see. Witlgenslein quickly SUJ!8<:.SIS, however, that il would be very misleading 10 characterize the disagreement in lhis way. In fact it is a mistake, CQntinuC!! Wingenstcin, to suppOSe thaI Ihe believet and the unbeliever simply have contradic' tory beliefs about wh.ll is Or i! nm the case; "If someone &.aid: 'Wittgen stein, do J"IIU believe in this!' III say: 'No.' 'Do you oomradictthe manl ' 1\:1 say: 'No.''''' The suggestion here that religiou s beliefs are neither true nor false is much in keeping with the views that WingeTlstein .eu forth in the

"

.

44

I

The Ethic.< 0/ Belief and the Me<>nins of Ufe

Notelx>oJu and the T.actaUl$ in which he ill5iSts Wt religious belief is not a maner of fact. It is important co note, bowe~r, that he no 10nger $uPJX)ns this CQncention by appu.ling to the distinction between l.clI and value as he did in the earticlwu,k. Soe""n thoush Wingcn5lein Ilill Wants to insist that disa~ments about religion are not diJacr~menu aOOulthe facu, be does not b.asethil cl.aim OIl whu he later.dmitlto be mi.tilin view, conccrn.in,g the essence of Ianp.a&e. The point, rather, which is milk moreuplic.il in me PhilawphiCQ] Inv~tjgar;onJ, is thli if there are such disagrc:c:ments, it is nor bc<:ausc: of problems raised by I troublesome distinction becWttn fact and value. The basi, of m e typeof dis.agnemems thlt interest WingelUtein in his later wurk is to be found in what he ref"", to IS the differenl UpictureS" that gi"" sn.pe and meaning to I person's life:

Suppose someone is ill and he u yl: "This ill a punishmenc," and I uy : "If I am ill, I don't think of punishment at aU." It you u y: uOo you belie"" the: oppo.i te! " _you un c.all it bdiev:in,g the oppoolite, hut it is entirely difkrent f.om what"'" would n<>tmally call belicvin,g the opposite. I think differently, in a dii· krent way.luy different things to myself. I ha~ differeD! piclureS." Willgenstein's remo..k mat the belie"", and the unbeli.,,,,,. ha"" different ~ pkUlIU" which determine how each regards punishment seems toupIUS a view si milar to William James'sobscn'atioD that the spiritual al· titude involvu the longing to read the facti religiously. Like James, WingnlSlein wanlS toull Our allemion 10 the way re\igiou. beliefsc.an be understood as an expression Qf a penon's Qrientation 10 life as a whole. In this respect, ixIth would want IQ tiaim, I think, that it is a mis· take tQ construe religioU$ beliefs as spedal kinds of knowledge: claims about the WOTld. Unlike knowledge claims, which can be expressed in scr.>ishtforward propositions concerning what isoris not the case, rel;,ioU$ beliefs are an expression of what lam es calls a ceruin way of reading or imerprecin,g the lacu. in Ihe 1l-acralUs WingensceiD anempu to ex· pfC1.S this kind of imuit ion aboul reli~s belief wheD be speaks of whit it meaDS to view Ihe WOTld as a limited whole. And aIth"""'- he later abandons this way of speakin&. he makes a similar point when he draws the anal<JgY betWttn religious beliefs and "pictur-ea H chat enable I person 10 order experience in this way. E~n al late IS 1947 we find that Witlgcnsccin continues IQcharaclcriu religious belief in th~ terms: It strikes me that a religious belief oould only be something like a paQionate t<:>rnmitmcnt CQ a system of rekrence. Hence, al thoush it's bt:1i£/, it's really I way <>f living. 0. a way QI a55Cssin,g

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The Ethic.s of Iklief and the Mcanjn8 of Life I

45

life. It's passiolU.tely seizing hold 01 this interpretation. In nruction in a ~ligious laith, th erdore, would have 10 take the form 01 a portrayal, a description of that system 01 ~ference, while at the same tilIle being an appeal to conscience.' ~

Wittgenstcin's appeal to a "system of reference" admillwly sounds a bit flat·footed when laken oUi of COntext . The point he wishes to make, however, is a subtle one and mns through all of his writings 00 the sub· ject. ~ry simply, Willgenst ein, like William Jamcs, wanlS to remind WI that when we ~fleet on ~ligious belief, we must be wary of trealing it as jusl another kind of knowledge claim that can be reduced toa set of prop' ositions about Hthe facts." And )'I:t, he would also reject hi s own earlier view that consigns religious beliefs to a completely separate realm of value. The qucstion is whether there is a third alternative Ihat enables us to account for the strang<: character of religious disagr""ments and still steer clear of the troublesome fact-value distinction. If, as Wittgenstein insists, religious beliefs are tied in an imponant way to a person's basic cares and concerns, they might"" bener viewed as an interpretation thaI enable. a I"'rson 10 ma ke scnse of life as a whole. Th.at is to say, they do OOt provide us with new facts, but rather a new way 0/ orpnizing the bets. Moreover, Wingerutein sums to agree with thinl;ers such .. Soren K.ierkegaard and Willi am James, both of whom agree that the way we organiu " the fa cts" del"'nds on our moods, emotions, and dispositions. One's ability 10 acknowledge the "poim" behind a p!'f5()I1's religiOUS convictions then demands much more than an analysis to determine whether holding such beliefs is ralional or cpistemically p!'rmissible in some minimal sense. Ptrhaps the greatcstlesson _ can learn from Wit1&en8tein is his suggest ion that we understand a p!'rson's religiou~ belief!. when we see the connection between this longing to read the facts religiously and the shal'" of the person's life as a whole: If someone who believes in God looks round and asks "Where

docs everything I see come from!", " Where docs all this come from!H, he is nor craving lor a (t;lusal) explanation, and his question gets ilS point from being the expression of a certain craving. He is, namely, expressing an anitude toward all cxpla· nations.-But how is this manifested in his life!XI In the end there is something important behind our reformulation of the Wittgensteinian maxim: the world of the person who !>eli""", in God is differem from the world of the person who docs nOl bdieve in God. However, our sense that it is difficult lOanicuiale Ihe basisol this kind of disagreement i. not due 10 an overdrawn and unacceptable dis-

'II

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46 I The EfhiC$ of Beli4 and IheMeaning of Ufe tinction between bet and value. The differeoce between the tWO people has more 10 do with Ihe different "p iclures ~ or interpreutions that give shape and meaning to their experience. It is imponant 10 Slfe", how· ever, thai there is no reason why one person could not understand anOther'!! piclure, nnT i. there any reason. to rule out the pOSsibility of discussion . Witlgenstein'!! "privale language argument " should SC'1""I"e as a warning againsl the """r-p",,..,nl temptalion to view Ou r "pi ctures" as " private affairs. As Wittgen",ein himself confesses, however, it is one thing to undentand a person's "picture ~ of life and quite another thing to endorse it as one'sown. From this brief sw-vcy of Wiltgen'l ein'!! thought it should be clear that although he never abandon. his basic view that religious belieh are judgments aboutlhe meaning of life, his luer views hardly warrant the cha~oI fideism. However, wheo he Stops WOrryi.n&aboul the diJ
B.

David Wiggins on the Meaning of wfe

In order to appreciale the significance of Witlgenstein's pnsition On these mattenl would like to appeal to the work of David Wiggi ns, whose eS&aY "Truth,inVt:lltion, and the Meaning nf Life"" can be invoked to de· fend Wiltgen!tein'!! laler insights on the Dam", of ",ligious belief. AI first glance such a claim may sound strange, given the fact tlul thi s artide be· gins as a critique of naive noncognitivism and raises the question of whether considel1ltions of truth should figure into our rcfitttioni on life's meaning. By the end of the article, h~T, il be.::omes clur tlul Wiggins believcs Ihere is a grain of truth in noncognilivism - at leasl with respect t o OUT judgment s abouttbe meaning of life-and that an ap· pe.ol 10 what he calls the "doctrine of cognitive undenielerm.ination~ can perlups grant uS the insights of nonoognit ivism without the liabilities. We can, I believe, appeal to Wiggins's discussion of these is· sues to show th.u in a similar fashion Ihe", is an impottant grain nf truth 10 be lound in Wittgenstein'!! later views on religion.

The ElhiQ: of Brlief and the Meaning of Life I 47 A. the di5cussion unfolds, it beromes increasingly clear that Wiggins's primary t~tget& ~te writers such as )ean-P,ml $.:It"e, R. M. Hare, and Richard Taylor, all of whom p1"OpO$C an e>:treme and unacceptable form of noncognitivism by arguing that value and meaning in Uk are simply the creation of the human will. fullowing the lead of Alben Camus, for enmpk, Richard Taylor invokes the myth of Sisypbusas the cla"ie enmplc of OUt human·all·too-human .ttuggle to find meaning in life. He notes that any attempt to view out lives from a distance, "tbe view from nowhere, H to borrow a phrase from Thomas Nagel, seems to highlight the poirnlessness of many of our activities. On the face of it, suggests Taylor, it is difficult to imagine any inlrinsic value in life 10 vin· dicate our hope that it mighl be inherently meaningful. Like Schor ""obauer, clearly the !!(IIrn:e of his inspiration in these mailers, Taylor seems to think that the activities thai cnmprise a human life are, On their own terms, pointless and arbitrary. Given this bleak and r~ther pes" simislic picture, Taylor concludes that if our lives are meaningful, it i. only by virtue of fundamental choiCfJ to invest them with meaning. For even though the point of Uk "is simply 10 be livin,g." we must reo member, condudesTaylOt, that "Ihe meaningol likis lrom within us, it is DOt best~ from witbout. Hll Although Wiggins idenlifies JlCOJlle such as Taylor as h" primary largeu, il i. dear thai his crilique of naive noncognilivism would be equally appliCllblc 10 Witlgenstein's early views on ethics and religion, especially with respecllo the views proposed in Ihe Notebooks and the nat/OfllS. Like Taylor, whOM view seems 10 presuppose a radical distinction belw..cn laci and value, WiltgenSlein begins hisClI=r with the cbim tru.t religious valuec.annot be found in the world. Not suptisingiy then Wittgenstein's eady writing on ethics and religion also anticipate Taylor's "volitionalism" wheo, for example, he suggesls Ihat whn is required is some kind olleap of faith that might result in a radically differcot pers~tive 00 the world. For this reason, we should OOt be surprised thaI Wittgmstein encourages himself to Hlive ru.ppy," 13 a piece of existcntial advice he realrds in his Notebooks. Needless 10 SOIy, Wiggins would probably be suspicious of Wiltgenslein's early position, 10 the extCnt thai it tends 10 resem ble IheTaylor· Scbopenhauer aCGOUnt of whicb he ill so crilical. Aside from the fact that such an account is contrary 10 our pheoomenological ifltuilion namely, Ihat we cannol choose 10 make a meanlnglesslife meaningful by arbiuary fiat_ there are other prohlems. For example, there is something 10 be SOlid with res""ct 10 whether the meaningfulness of a life might deJ'C'nd on " how w..11 or badly ourstrivings are al'l to lum OUI.,,24 In addition, the nonoognitivist ClInnDt do justice to our sense that there mighl be relevant differences Ihal distinguish competing solulions 10

,.

of existence; ~hhough then: ~. nO! appear loa be a single and simple utr\lth oIlhe matter, il is possible 10 compue and aMeSS dif· ferin& ans_n 10 the question. Such considerations lead Wiggins 10 ask whtther Ihe nai"" noncognilivisl ~ves up 100 much and whether there is a better way of viewin8 the probl em. Al already mentioned, what mahs Wiggins's essay relevan l for OUI" present purposes is nIX only his dlarp critique of nai"" noncognitivism, but hi. suggestion that nOncognilivism might still include an imponam insighl . More specifically, Wisgins seems to dlue Wittgmsl ein's belief thaI ourjud&meotsabout the meaningollife fall shun 01 plain truth. Of panicuLu imponance in Ihis regard is Wiggins's nbservation that aJIhOU&l> WI: eKpecl ,Jl o ur t rue beliefs abou, the world to be re<:oneilable, sin~ this is one of the marlu! of plain truth,~ this is oome thing _ have no reason 10 expect with respeel tojudgm t nts about Hie's meaning. Ac· cording to Wiggins, even if it should happen to tum OUt that eYel)'OOe Wl:n: lOagl"tt about such Nexistem ial H judgmen ts, WI: still WQuld not be entilled to conclude thlt such iudgments are a maner 01 plain lru th since conw.rgcnce is nOI simply a matter 01 intCI1lubieClive agreement. U In order 10 ""termine whether a claim qualifies as a candidate for plai n lruth, il is not enough w point OUt that all of our iudgment s about the claim mighl converge. Plain truth also require. Ihat the ~f explana· l ion for why they converge is the way the world really is. Sina, arguu Wig.ins, there i. no way In defend the ,uwslion thai our judgm ents abou t Ihe munin8 of life mtc t this requirement, WI: are entilled 10con· dude that they fall shon of plain truth. What then is Wiggin ... find verdict and whal significance docs it haw. for our understanding of reli~ous beliefs! Although we have good renon. tn rejecl the more nat-footed varieties of nonoognitivism, its "dis· tinctive nucleus, N whll Wiggins ulls the doctrine of cognit ive under· determinati on, can allow us to grant the Inswns of nonoognirivism without becoming nonoognilivists. Wiggin. summarizu this view in the following terms: t~ dilemm~

M

Wha, the new position will say i5 thu, in 50 fu as ~nyt.hing mat · ten, andin IOfarashuman life haslhemeaningwelhink il has, .hal possihili.y is rooted in IOmething that is arbilrary, conlin· gen!. unreasoned, objecti""ly non ·delensiblc-and nOI OOe whit the less arbitrary, contingent and inddensible by vinue of the fac t thallhe unconstrained inventi>!: procCS$tS undulying it ha>!: been gr.adual, unconscious, and communal. Our formof Iife--()r Ihat in ou r form of life whi ch ~""I individual lives meaning- is nOI SQIDethillfl tha t men ha"" (""I las they are apt to uyl found Or disc:oYCred. II is not something that they u n

• Th~

Ethics of Bdie/ and the Meaning of Ule I 49

criticize Or regulate Or ~diust with an eye 10 what is true Or cOr"",,lor ,.,asonable. 17 AI this point 1 want IOStreS$ that although Wiggin s'scri liqueof nonCpIS lor

metaphors

sum

as

~ pictul'e$"

or "systems of reference" in oroer to characterize his holistic view of reJigioUll belief. Denying 1hat we should characterize a person's religious beliefs either u the creation of an ubi· uary will Or as a reflection of the "plain truth, Wlugcnstein ""arches ff

throughout hi. late. writings for ""me way to esc~pe this dilemma and seems to advance ~ position similar to the o ne defended by Wiggins who concludes: In living a life there is no truth, ~nd ther<: is nothing like r<:gula. truth, for U5 10 aim at . Anybody who supposes that the assen i· bility of 'I must do this' Or the assenibililY of 'Thi. i.lhe way for me to live, nOI that' consists in their plain lruth is simply de· luded .:z. In conclusion, I bclieVl: we mould follow the lead of WlIlIlin s and appeal to the cognitive underdetermin.otion of r<:ligiou. bdi efs.s a plau· sible and dderuible reconstruction of Wittgcnstein'a later viCWll con..,.,rn· ing cthiC$ and religion. Not only does such an approach make the best sense Out of Witlgenslcin, it abo iJluminates several imponam issues of concern to theologians and philosophers of religion. Fint of ~U, this posi· tion does not entail any form of volitionallim, which is anothct way of uying thai we need not invoke the will 10 uplain the acquisition of .eligious belief. Because a meaningful life can n""". be created by an arbitrary act of will, there is no reason to wony that. penon's religious beliefs might be based on some fo.m of blind commitment or leap of faith. Second, the doctrine of cognitiVl: underdetennination a!lows for an uiologkal pluralism. This means lhalthcr<: i. no reason toexpcct that there should be one single answu to questions about the meaning of life. M Wlttgcnstein rightly notca throughout his work, people frame their basic concern. and commitments by appealing to differem #piclUres." [n some cases, a penon's attempt to view his o. her lifc as a meaningful whol e will involve religious claims. However, if Wiggin. is right, there is no r<:ason to expect that everyone will see or acknowledge the poinl be-

50 I The ErhiC$ of Belief and the M""nin.!: of ute hind ~ pel'$(lll'5 religious ~liefs. &c.:mse daim~ conc~ming the meaning of lik fall shon of pJain truth, thell' is no re.1son to expect th~t bdi~rs and nonbelievers will ultimately Il'ach agreemen t on theK important maners. ~ doctrioe 01 cOgni ti"" uoderdetennin~tion h~s ~ thin! and particularly Il'leVlmt implic~ti on for theologian$ and philosophers which stems from Wiggins's suggestion thot rcfle<;tion concerning the meaning of life needs to uke mote seriously the complexity of what it means to live a life. The problem, says Wiggins, is that ethicists have traditionally tended to offer theoll'tical accounts of morality in terms of general and dusiY!! notions such as rights or utility, and that this approach has blinded them to the rich and nuanced textull' of our moral lives. Forthis reason, WlJIgins suggests that the moral theorist has much 10 learn from literature, which invites uS to explore the question of life's meaning by attending to ourworld in all iu existential detai\. Like lri. Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum, :tII both of whom insist that literature provilk. a vital resource for moral reflection, Wiggins belieY!!s that much can be g;lined if we pay mOre attention to the way basic issues about the meaning of human likare eXJ'lored in literature. Thisdoes not mean, olcourse, that we should collapse the distinction between literature and philosophy, as many mOre radical proposals suggest. Rather, the moral theorist and, I would add, the philosopher of religion, should view the suggestion as an invitation to broaden and enrich our understanding of what it means to engage in moral and religious reflection. As Wiggins suggests: Working within an intuitionism or moral phenomenology as tol· erant of low·grade non·behavioural evidence as i.litcrotmc (but more obseSSiY!!ly ebborati"" of the commonplace, and more thooret;c.-I, in the interpretiY!! sense, than literaturel, he has to appreciate and de$Cri~ the quotidian complexity of what is experientially involY!!d in a m an'5 seeing a point in living:'" Such considerations seem to ~ much in keeping with thcconcem. of those moral philosophers aod theologians who maintain that there i. much to ~ gained from a renewed appreciation of the way nan3tives fram~ Our basic peISpe<:tives and u!!imate valualions about life's mean· ing. Among moral thinkers such as Alasdair Macintyre and followers of the theologian Hans Frei, whose The Eclipse of BibliclII Nllnlllive" has set the agenda 01 many theologians for mOre than a dec.-de, appeals to n"uti"" ha"" provid~d liberating and fruitful insighUi. The question that is often raised with res]lCCtto 5lIch appeals, howcY!!r, is whether narratives can in fact be assessed with respect to their plain trutb. Some thinkers-l 1 seem to beli~ that tbere is no reason wh y appeals to nana-

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TheEthiC3 0fBeliefalldlheMeaningofUfe I

51

live should exclude ~ny conside ... tion of truth. However, if the aecoum I have outlined is correct, then such claims made for narrative should be much more modest. For if the value of narrative is its c~pacity!O frame and shaJlC' (lUr basic JlC'rspectives about life's meaning, and if such in· terpreutions f~ll short of plain truth, then We must give up the hope that there is something like "narrative truth," at lust in the literal sense of the term. Those thinkers, such as Garrett Green and Stephen Critea, who suggest altim es that th ere is something totms notion, base theirease,l think, on a misleading equiYOCation 01 the tenns " truth" and "truthful· ness." Unfortunatcly, if religious beliefs are cogniti ""Iy underdeter· mined in the way I think Wingenstein suggests, then it might be more helpful !O refine our claims for narra tive by making this distinction more explicit and by acknowledging that when it comes to narrative, JlC'rhaps truthfulness is all We can hope for. Finally, I would like 10 suggest that these claims regarding the oogniti"" undenletermination of religious bdiefs can also make sense of the variety of way, a JlC'rsotl can find or lose faith. The traditionaltcodeocy to treat one's religious beliefs as 3tomistic claims isolated from one', concerns about the meaning of one', life ignores the extent to which changes in a JlC'I$On's rdigious outlook tend to be "unreasoned. "To use a Wittgensteinian tum of phrase, a JlC'I$On's religiousliie waxea and wanes as a whole and for this reason it is impossible to aniculat e the rea.som for the di5COVCry or 1000 0f faith independently of these larger concerns. For this rea.son, ] prefer to sJlC'ak not of the corrigibility of a person's religious beliefs, but rather of their fragility, a theme I will explore in more detail in a later chapter. What I wantlO emphasize at this pOint is that the co,' niti"" underdetennination of religious beliefs raises a wide variety of in· teresting and fruitful questions and would 5«'rn to support a more holistic appmoch to the ethics of belief.

Notes I. Arthur ScboJlC'nhauer, The World a5 Will and RepreSt ntllfion, vol. 2, tranS. E. f . j. Payne (New York: ~r Books, 1%6), p. 160.

2. Schopenhauer dev<:lops this interesting and provocative thesis in his dialogue "On Religion" in Parerga and Paralipomeua, vol. 2, trans. E. F.I. Payne (Oxfonl: Clarendon PreSs, 1974), pp. 324-94. 3. The classic examples of this theory ue defended by A. ,. Aycr, L
52

I

Th~

Ethi(:J of B~lief and th e M"a ning of Life

4. Alasdalr M~clntyre, After Vinue, 1<:1 ed. lNotre Dame: Uni¥er· shy of !'btre Dame Press, 19841, pp . 6-35.

5. Rtr a recent tn:atmCm that ta ke. IICriously the influence of Schopenhauer on Willgcnstcin's early writings, llee Ricltard R. Brock· haus, Pulling liP the /...(Jdder: The MUa phy5ic;l1 ROOl$ of Wiltgensu;n".!" "n ile/alliS Logico-Philosoph iclls" lLa Salle: Open COUf!, 19901.

6. W;ugenstein: Sourcu and Perspective.!, cd. C. G. Lucklurdt ISullle" : Harvester Press, 1979), pp . 94-95. 7. For an insightful biographi cal tn:atment o{ Wmgenstein'!l early

rellc.:tions on lhese issue. see Ray Monk, Ludwig Wiugenstein: The Duty of Genius lNew YOl k: The Free Press, 19901, u p. PJl. 137-66. 8. Ludwia;WillgellSlein, Notebooks 1914-1916, ld ed., tnnI. C. E.. M. Anscombe IChicago: Uni¥enily of Chicago PI"!:SS, 19791. p. 74e. 9. Ludwig WiIl~nSlein, TrocfatuS t.og;co-Phl10$(}phicu.i, tnlDl.

D. f . Pl:an and B. F. McGuinness ILonoon: Rouded", and Kegan Pau\, 1972), 6.52.

10. Something similar t o the Euthyphro question Kems to run through many of Wingenltein's dark sayings on the meaning of life. I ha¥e noted Ihis point in conntttion with what Kkrio:egaard has toPy rc· gardllll similar issue. in ~ Kierkegaard and Euthyphro, ff Philosophy IApril 1987): pp. 121-26. 11. Willgcnslein, "fiacWfU$ LogJro-Ph;JmophlclIs, 6.41. 12. Ibid., 6.42. 13. Sec. foo c""mple, Kai Nidsen, An Introduction 10 the Phi· losophy of ReJ4jon INew York: 51. Martin's I'I"I:ss, 1982), u p. chapters4 and 5. Although NiellCll'a book CWIIl5 10 be an introduction 10 the philosophy of religion. his COOcelllll al"!: mOl"!: specific. Most of the book is de>o.:>ted to I critical rum ination of the way Wil1getl5lein'a thought has been approprilled by!(lme pbilosophera of religion. NiellCll is the thinker origin,lly ~p<moible for coining the phrase MWin.g cnsteinian fideism u IS a term of derision. \4. A complete and delailed discussion of what has beeQme a "subfield of Willgenslcinia.n ocholanhip is beyond the SOOpe of this c5Say. But pcrhap$! the most well·known appropriation of thCK notions <;1./1 be found in the "",rio: of D. Z Phillips, cspcei. lIy his The eonuPI 0{ Pray£r lNew York : Seabury Pre"'" 1981J and his coll tttion of essa)'$ Faju. and Phllwophical Enquiry lLondon, R
The Ethics of Belief and the Mwning of Ufe

I S3

his well·known article ~Religious Beliefs and La~e Games~ in the second collection listed above proposcl whn might be called the d ....si· cal ~rsion of Wittgensteinian Fideism. Phillips has answered the charges of critiCS such as Nielsen in his book Belief, Change IV Formso! ute IAtlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 19861. A thoughtful and in· teresting response to this approach is Patrick Sherry's ~1Ig;on, Ih1!h, and Language·Carnu INew York: Barnes and Noble, 19n).

15. Ludwig Willgenstein,

l.ectUlU and ConvU'lations on AllSlhe-

lies, PsycholOgy, and Rdigious Belief, cd. Cyril Bam:tt IBerkeley: Uni· ~ityof California Press, 1968), pp. 53-72. 16. Ibid., p. 53.

17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., p. 55.

19. Ludwig Wiltgenstein, CullUre and Va/m:, ed G. H. von Wright, trans. PetuWinch IChicago: University of Chicago Press, 19771, p. 64<:. 20. Ibid. , p. 8Se.

21. David Wiggins, ~Truth, In"""tion, and the Meaning of Uk," in Nuds. Values, Truth IOxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 87-137. 22. Taylor's vi~ concerning the value of life are dcycloped in the final chapter of his book "The Meaning of Life" in Good and Evil: A New Direction ILondon: Macmillan Company), pp. 256-68. 23. Wiltgenstcin, Notebooks 1914-1916, p. 7Se. 24. Wiggins, "Truth,

[n~ntion,

and the Meaning of Life, ~ p. 98.

15. [bid., p. li S. In this particularartide Wigginssummarizes whal he takes to be the fiYe marks of plain truth. A more detailed presentation of these critcria can be found in his anicle ~Trulh as Predicated of Moral Judgments," in the volume Needs. Va!ut.S. Truth where he gives the fol· lowing liST on pages 147-48. lU Truth is a primary dimension of assessment fol beliefs and fot sentences that can express or repon beliefs; 12) U x is tlUC, then x wi!! under favorable c.in:um~tanCl:5 command oonYergcnce, and the beSI explanation of the existence of this oonYergcnce will require the actual truth of JI; 13) fur any JI, if JI is true then JI has content; and if x has content then JI's truth cannOI simply consist in n bcingitself a belief, Or inn being something believed Of willed or ...

54 I

Th e Ethics of Belief and the Meaning of Lile

(4) E""ry true ""lid ( ~""ry truth) i$truc in virlUe of somcthing; (5) If:r, is truc and:r, is true, then tbeir conjunction i5 true .

26. Ibid., pp.

14~1.

17. WWIl!I, "Truth, (n""ntion, and the Meaning of Life," p. 114.

18. Ibid ., p. 116. 19. The complex reLl1iooship ""tw.::en moral reflection and literatUIl: bas ""en tbe coll1inuing focus of Nussbaum's writinp, in particular hcr well-known but contIUYl:rsial5IUdy, The FragWly of Goodnes:;; wei< and Elhics in CruJ< Tragedy and Philosophy (Ounbridge: Cambridge University PrC55, 1986). Sh~ continues hCI ongoing di!oCussion of cthics and litentur<: in hel recent coll ection of essays, Lcwe's KnQWJedge: Es· says on PhiJOIlophy and Lit eralUre (New York: Oxford Uni""rsity Press, 1990).

30. Wiggin., "Trut h, In,,,,ntion, and the Meaning of Life:, p. 137. N

31. Hans W. FIei, The Eclipse 0{ 8;blicnl Narrative: A Study in Eighrea1lh and Nineleemh CenlUry Humeneutic.s (New ~ven: Yalc lhti""rsiry Press, 1975). The influence of Frci's work can"" secn in the recent collection of ess.oys Sf;;riptnrtlI Authon·ty tlnd Narrative Interpreta· I;On, 00. Garrett Gr<:en (Philaddphia: Fortress Press, 1987). 32. 5«, for example, Garren Gr<:cn, '''The Bible As .. .': Fictional Nanali"" and Scriptural Truth, N in ScriplUttll Authority tlnd Ntlntl!ivc Intetpteltltioll, pp. 79-96, as w.::ll as Stephen Crites, «The Sp.l1ial Di· mensioll! of NanttiveTruthtelling." in the hme volume, pp. 97~1 18.

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4

Religious Belief and Self-Understanding n th~ previous th..,~ ch.aprcn! ha".., argued that, although the ass,tSsment of a person's religious convictions is an issue inYll!v;", the ethics of belief, it is a mistake to assume that this .hould be vic~d primarily u an epistemological concern, in the narrow """0"" of the term. Thinkers as di"..,fK as Coleridge, Kierkepard, and Wittgcnst ein

I

haY!: each in his own way insisted that religious beliefs do nmlend them sel"..,. 10 this type of analysis and conclude instead that they should be vicwc.d as answeI!liO a p"l5OII's most basic and fundamental questions about the meaning of life. In this chapter [would like to <,:(Intinut Ihis Wiugensteinian mode of inquiry by considering in more detail how one's religiOU5 beliefs are tied to the attempt to make sense out of one's life. For il Wingeoslcin is right, it is" mistake to assess a penon's religious conviction. in an object;"" Inmon .l$ belief. about what is or is not the cuc.lnspired by lGerkcgaard, Wittgenstein asks us to consider the problem as a Nsubjcctive None and suggests thu a person's religious be· Iiefs can best be understood in tenDS of an attempt to arrive at &orne type of self-understanding about what makes life meaningful. The issue seems to be that unlike some beliefs, aucll as my belief that it is cold in Denmark today, religious beliefs, such as the belief in Cod's existence, are tied in a special way to a person's sense of self. Al though there i. always some danger in waxing poetic, religious beli eb posacsa an existemial aspect, which is another way of s.aying that they are incimncly connccted ro those commiunents, projCCtS, and purposes that give $hape and meaning to a person's life. fur this reason, an analysiS such as John Lod:e's, which i.limited to a con.idcratioo of whether it is epistemkally permissible to believe certain propositions, fails to do justice t o the com plex ways these beliefs may be tied to our sell-constituti ve concerns and commi tments. So ooee one expands one's analysis to include the assessment not only of onc'!l beliefs, but also of one's desires,

55

56 J Religious Belit f and SeI/· Undersranding

putJ'OS", and COllums, a whole host of new and inleresting questions emerges. For enmple, ilthe criteria fm aS$e$Sing our Iile·views about life" meanill3 are not simply epistemic onu, what are they11f we follow the lead 01 Manha Nussbaum and Stanley Cav.:ll, among olhers, the most fruitful place to begin is lite rature: play., mavin, and novels, One might en.n go $0 far IS 10 $;Iy that the cri teria for assessing and evaluating our judgments about lifo meaning have mon: in common with aesth etic criteria than they do with epi5lemic cri teria.' Therefore, if we want to understand how interpretations about life'll meaning emcQ;e and dc· veJop over thecoursc of a person's life, it ","uuld be mOSt heJpfulto begin with a novel that treau such issues. Leo Tolstoy's masterpico: Anna KJJrUlioa provides an excelJent opponullity for this kind 01 exploration. Before J turn to comider Tolstoy'll resp
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Religious Belief ilnd Self-Underslilnding I 57 such as Friedrich Nietzsche in hi. more radiCllI moments is pernicious to the extent that it threat enS to undennine in an unacceptable way the stability of on.,'. life all a whole. 5<;> although the ethics of beliel is primarily a question of critical self-reflection, it is impoTUnttO maintain a balance in order to avoid both the vice 01 self-deception as well as the vice 01 rootless skepticism.

A. Finding Meaning in ute; 1blstoy's Anna Kareruna Give me a lover, he will feel that of which I speak: give me one who longs, who hungers, who isa th irsty pilgrim in th is wilderness, sighing lor the springs of his eternal hnmeland: give me such. man, he will know what I mean.

SI. Augusljn~ The attempt to m ake sense of ooe's Iile begins with a sense of perplexity, a ""n"" that existence i. a deep riddle that cries OUt for a solu tion. U, for exam ple, we consider the Story of Koostantin l..e\Iin, one of the central characters in Leo Tol.",y's Anna Karenina,J we di$C(lVer the extent to which a genuine C()ncem for this kind of question can shape a person's entire lile. Although we are constantly reminded that l..e\Iin shows little interest or sympathy for organized religion 01 the doctrines of traditianal Christianity, he is cleatly obsessed with those religious C()neems expressed by limit questions aOOutthe meaning of lile. Early in the novel, we learn that Levin, ownerof a large country estate, isdesper· atcly in love with Kitty Shteherbatskaya, who initi.lly refuses Levin's marriage proposal in the hope of receiving an of/crlrom Count Vronsky. As it turns out Vronsky never propOSeS to Kiny but become. involved with Arma Karenina in the famous ill-fated love affair that i. the center of dramatic interest throughout the novel. After Kitty's initial relus;al to marry him, Levin returns to his eState at Pol
S8 I Religioll< B~IiBI and S~J" UndBr$landing cared about m06t. ln the end he acknowledges that any attempt to make sense OUt 01 his!i~ must take account alhis deep love for Kitty: He could not be mistaken. The ... were no other "y<:s like those in the world. The ... was only one creature in the world t~t could concemrale for him all the brightness and meaning 01 life. 11 was she. II was Kitty... . And everylhing Ihat had Jxt,n stirring Levin during that sleepless nighl, alllhc resolutions he had made, all vanished al oncC. He recalled wilh honor his dream. of marrying a pea5aIlt girl. There only, in the carriage t~t had crossed over 10 the Olher side of Ihe mad. and was rapidly disappearing. there only could he find Ihe solution of the riddle 01 hi. life, which Iud weighed SO ag<>nizingly upon him as of late.' If the answer 10 the riddle of life were this easy, we would expectlhat his

mama&,-, 10 Kilty mighl PUI an end 10 his perplexity. It is d ear, however, that Levin's conum, run much dee!",r and that his desi ... 10 make sense OU1 of his lile i. mOlivated by what appear 10 be more fundamental and religious concerns. E""n as Levin re<:ites his vows during the wedding ceremon~, he ~s a vague apprehension that his life is still not intelligible to him: "Levin felt more and more that all hi. idea. of marriage, all his dreams of how he would order his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he ~d not understood hitherto, and now under· slood lc~ than c""r, though it was being perlonned upon him.,,6 far from making his life more intelligible his marriage to Kitty turns OUIIO make the riddle of the meaning of life more mysterious and enignutic t~n e""r. As we explore the source of Levin's preoccupations with these kinds 01 issues, we dj!lCOVCr lhat he i. eSpe<:ialJy perplexed by those events in his lj~ that challenge his undemanding of what is important in human life. The tWO central e""nt$ in the n.,.,.,1 that lead Levin to ask w~t we hi"" characterized as limil questions are the death of his hrother Nikolay and the birth 01 his 5(>n, Th~ problem is that these kinds of limit Situations, to borrow a pltrase lrom Karl Jaspers, are disturbing to Levin pre<:isely h=ouse they
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ReligiolL! Belief Gnd SeII·Vnden/Gnding I 59 nes.s hd f.o.ll~n upon ~rything for himi bul jusl because of this d.irkness he fel! that the one guiding clue in Ihe d.irkness waS his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with all his srrength.' Nikolay's iIlnes.s serves to remind levin of the wisdom found in Ihe book of EccJesiuleS, and il is interesling 10 note thaI he nOI only seems 10 acknowledge the truth of the claim "Vanity of vaniti es, all is vanity" bue also takes seriously the preacher's recommend.ition that one should seck sobce in one's labor: "There is nothing betler for a man thai he should cat and drink, and find eniOYmcnt in hi$loil ... "(Eccles. 2:24 ). Levin evemuallydiscoYl!n, however, duot the riddle posed by th e in· evitability of death cannot be solwd by hiding behind the fragile facade of one'll ewryday concernS. Aloyal devotion toone'll vocation might provide lemporary comfort to some, but one can hardly expect lhat a dedica · tion to one's work can give meaning to a life when .he possibililY of death lurks around the comer. Levin himself is finally forcwtocome to terms with the reality of death when Nikolay returns to the coumry later in rhe story: "The sight of his brother, and the nearness of death, revived in Levin duot sense of hormrin the lace of the in soluble enigma, together with the inevitability of death, thai had come upon him thar autumn ewningwhen his brother had come to him . .. even less than be· fore did he feel capable of apprehending the meaning of death ."i Levin's perplexily and doubt about the possibility of making sense of his life is compounded whcn he discovers tlut his wife Kitty is preg' nant. Even before the death of his brothcr Levin is challenged to come to terms with another enigma, which makes the riddle of life moll' Iroubling and problematic (han ever: "The One mystery of death, still un ..... I""d, had scan:elyp,assed before his CYO:', whenanothe. mySlery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to lOY\' and to life. ,... In the w«ks and months fol· lowing the death of his brother, as Levin and Kilty anticipate the birth of their first child, levin still finds it hard to come to terms with the sense of perplexity about the meaning of hi. life. In bet, when Kitty finally goel into labor, Levin rushes to fetch the doctor and is perpl exed and be· wildered when he luddenly begins to pray. In the midst of this spontaneous prayer, Levin discovers something new about his inner life which surprises him and forces him to reconsider his feelings aboul God: "AI that instant he knew that all his doubu, even the impossibility of believ· ing with his reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. H'O What is important to notice is that the intimations of religious faith WI: find here are p,artiy the result of Levin's openness, hi. wiUingness to be surprised and challenged by a new way of understanding himself, and his vague understanding that any anempt to

60 J Rdi,ious Bdi~f and Sdl-Unduslanding make ",n", of these 'trarlie new ledingl; and concerns may require another way of living. What then has given rise to Levin's sense thatlhe answer to his rid· dIe mi&ht require anolhcr way of living! Part of the answer is Levin's realization thu both hi5 present joy OV'!:f the birtb of his child as well as the grief he experienced II tbe de.thbed of his brother Nikolay point to something tbll calls inlO question his understanding of ordinary life. What Levin learns as he tries to make sense of these: emotions and con· cerns is Ihu the divine is revealed attbe limits of our lives: Yet tlut grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in thai ordi· rary life through which Ihcre came giimpSl:s 01 something di· vine. And in the contemplation of Ihis sublimc wmething lhe soul was eulted to inooncciVllble heighu of which il had before had no CODcq>lion, while rea ....... la~ behind, unable 10 ke<:p upwithit. u It might, of COUIX, be tempting to view Levin',religiousClIperience here

as the final erisis in his spiritll
Levin's coovenion then:fore is largdy a question of his desin: to make that moment of p"'~r fit intO the rC5t of his life. Moreover, his Ittempt to di~ another way of understanding himsel/ does nO! inW1lve the acquisition of new infonmtion about the world nor does it inWl\ve wme new philOllOpbical insig:ht. Levin's final d~ry, 11I1hel, i. to be found in what is ultimately an inexplicable tranSform'lIion, a 11Idi·

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Religious Belief Ilnd Self-Undemanding I 61 cal shift in his self-understanding that in tum opens up new possibilities lor underllt.nding life: What h;~ I discovered! " I h;~ di scovered nothing.! h;~ on ly Iound OUt what! knew. ! understand the Iorce that in the P;St ga~ me lik, and now too gi~s me life. ! have been set free from falsity, t hove found the Master. "~ Wittgcnstein, who could ha....: had u"vin's oon"",rsion in mind while writing his own hrief and enigmatic observations on the meaning of life, sums up quite nicely the nature of Levin's "disco~ry " when he observes in an early remark that the solution tn the problem of li/e is the dis.ap· pcanncc 0/ the probl em.l.. The answer has ~en found once the riddle has vanished. Needless to say, much more Can be s.old about Levin's spiritual quest. Suffice it ro say, however, that throughout the srory Levin is obsessed with the question of whether it is possihle to make sense of his life;5 a whnle. In the final analysis then, it might be best to char.lcteriu his dis· CO\IUY at the end 01 the no....:1 nOt in te.mso! knowledge, for u"vin him · self ;dmits tbat be basleamed nothing new. Nor is it belpful to suggest that u"vin is entitled to hold these beliefs beause tbey are justified in some narrow epistemic sense. What we hi"'" here, rather, is a perfect example of what it mean s to aay th;t the ethics of belief is prim;rily a question of critical self-refle<:tion. To say that Levin's religious beliefs ;te "justified" is simply to say thot he has disco~red new possibilitin for self-understanding thot enoble him to make $en$e Out nf hi s life a$ I whole.

B. The Scope and Umi ts of Self-Understanding; Kierkegaard vs. Nietzsche Having seen how Levin's oon"",rsion is primarily a matter 0/ arriving at a new way of understanding his ble, it might be a good idea to say a lew words about what I mean by self-understanding. nrst of all, it is impOr· tant to remember that self-unde.. tanding is nm primarily some kind of disinterested or theoretical knowledge tho! I have about my character and personality. Although such infonnation provides me with some im· portant insights about myself, such knowledge about m~ life is not)'t't self· knowledge. As O. W. Hamlyn reminds U5, it is pos!iible lor people to know quite; lot about themselves without possessing self-know ledge. 15 But if the cultivation of self·knowledge is not primaril~ a maner 0/ aCquiring new inionnation about oneself, whot i9 it l According to HamIyn, whose insighu on this issue are much in ke~ping with the vi e~ 01

62 I Religiolls Belief and Self·Undersranding Saren Kierkegaard, th e cultivation of sdf.lo::nowledge is prinu.rily a prac· lical activity. This means th at selH.nowledge demands much more than SoOme type 01 contemplative understanding of oocself. Rather, the cultivation of sclH::nowJedgt requires a willingnCliS to uke re'pOll$ibiJ· ity for the pers.on on e is by actively endorsing one's ideals and commit· meolS. As Hamlyn himself suggests : "Th e man who knows himself in this way . . . knows, without obscuring th e fact lrom himself, where his values lie, what he truly wants, and where he stands in relation to those wantS. nl6 Th e cul tivation of sdf·knowledge then requires what Saren Kierkegaard has called "s ubieetive ren ee tion, " which is iust another way of saying that self·knowledgc in""lves the practical endorsement and appropriation 01 those basic projects and concCffi.'I that gi"" shape and meaning to one's life: When the question of truth is ",ised in an objecli"" manner, re· nection is dire<:ted objcCli",,]y to the uuth, as an object to which the knower is related. RefleClion is not focused upon the relationship, however, but UpOn th e question of whether it is uuth to whi ch the Imo"..,r is related . . . . When the question of the truth is ntis.ed subiectivcJy, reflcction is direeted suhie.:· ti",,]y to the nature of the individual'll relationship ... ." Much has been said about Kierkegaard's appeal to notions such as "sub· icclive ref\"" tion " and both sym~thiuIS and crities generally admit how difficult it is to make sense OUt of his mote notorious claim that Htruth is subjectivity. " Although a detailed discussion of these trouble· somc issues is beyond the seope of this book, I think it iscleartbat Kie.· kegaard 's enigmatic observations CQnccrning subjectivity can be viewed " auothe. way of suggesting that the ~thics of belief is primarily a quel ' tion of practical self·underslanding. Wke WiHgenstein, Kie.kegaaru is wary of any allempt to reduce faith tu an epistemolOgi cal notion and suggests therefore that it is a mis· take to explain i. as a special case of true justified belief. For this re350n, his "",i ti on is much in kceping with my contention that the ethics of he· lid is not primaril y an epistemological concern. Implicit in hi. pntctice of presenting various and com peting "life·vi cws" in Iitentry rorms such as novels, iournals, and lett ers is his suspicion that asscssing a lifc·view requires a more holistic app.oach. How tbough should we think about such existential proposals and how might we appropriate what we learn about life in such literature1 The anSwer is to be found, I believe, in Kiet· kegaanl 's appea l to th e notion of "subi"".ive refl ection " which can pID' vide us with a basis fo. th e alternative account of Ihe ethics of belief I wish to defend. First of all, Kierkcgaa rd sees the task of becoming a self as a proje<:1

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Religiolls Belief and Self-Undemanding

I 63

that involves an anemptto make sense of one's life through theexploralion and appropriation of various self-interpretations or categories of self·understanding. The "subjutively interested thinker" T«Ognizes that the cultivation of this kind of practical self-understanding is an essential pan 0/ living a Ii/c. Since Kierkegaard acknowledf:es that the.e is a wide variety of ideals and concerns that c.angive shape and meaning to a person's life, it should come as 00 surprise that much of his writing is devoted to the careful explofat ion and criti cism 01 these various ~ life· possibili ties." In the first volume of Either/Or, 1m example, Kle.kegaan:l assume, the persona of a young poel in orde.to pmvide his reader with an insightful psycl!ological picture of the aesthetic mode of life. In the sewnd part of this wo.k, we have sevcrallongleners wrinen by anothe. one of Kie.kegaard's pseudonyms, Judge Wilhelm, who argues that the attempt to make sense of one's life in aeSlhetic tenns is riddled with con· tradictions and is for this reason bound to fall. Therefore, he argues that one can make much better sense of one's life by striving to understand oneself in ethical tenns, a task that .equires a willingness to be<:ome a civic self by attending to one's communual responsibilities. Fi naliy, however, in his other, more religious writings, Kierkegaard suggests that ewn the ethical criteria for selfhood might be tOO vu lnerable to render one'" life livable. In this way, Kie.kegaard invites his .eader to entenain the possibility tha. one may not be able to make sense oUl of one's lire unless one is willing 10 appropriate specifically Christian concepts, such as sin and faith, to interpret one's si t uation. Although Kierkegaard i. riptto insiSt that the task of be.:ominga Christian is best understood as a commitment to achieve a certain kind of self-understanding by the practical appropriation 0/ Christian concepts, he is mistaken to insist, a. he sometimes d~s, that this must be regarded as the most authentic way of understanding oneself. Although Ki erkegaard himself Want s to refrain from these kinds of judgments in the pseudonymous wmks, many of his explicitly Christian writings seem to suggest that genuine self·knowledge is possible only for the be· Iiever who Oland. before God. In The Sic]mMs umo Death, for example, Ami·Climacu., a pseudonym who expressell what is dearly a radically Chri.tian perspective, inSiSts that one attain. the pu.., transpa..,ney of genuine self·understanding only through Christian faith. Throughout his discussion, Anti-Climacu. maintains that all other a!!empts to achi""" selfhood by appropriating human categories of self-understanding can only lead {Q deSpAir. Although a detailed trCltment of Anti· CHmacus's difficult discussion would take uS tOO far afield, his major concern stems from his suspicion that any attempt to secure the integrity of the self by an appeal to temporal or rcvis.able criteria 01se\f·understand· ing would be tOO vulnerable to secure our confidence. fur if the integrity

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Belief and Sell-Understanding

of a life depends 00 the possibility of self-knowledge, what is needed is an unchangeable criterion of self-undemanding tbat might ensure the stabmty of the ..,If_ Fonunately, insistsAnti-Climacl15, thi5 kind of unchangwble criterion of self-understanding is GOO and it is for this reason thn he characterizes faith as the appropriation of what he calls a theological criterion for self-understanding: The iofmula that describes the n a te of the self wbcn despair il oompletely rooted OUt is this: in relni", it..,[f to it..,lf and in willing 10 be iudl. the self KitS lTanspa!endy in the power that established it_'S 1bn)ughout his writi",s Kierkegaard wantS tosbow that the realiulioD of selfhood d<:pends on the possibility of genuine self-understanding and that the threat of ~~i ty" therefore renders the self vuinenble to instability. This, I think, is one of the more inttrellti", insighu tbat inform K.ierkega.;ard'll reflectioos on selfhood. Clearly, he is keenly aware that the fraKility 01 seHhood is a mailer of the many ways our knowledge of DUnel," can be pu t at risk, especially when OUr idemities Ire intimately tiN 10 earthly cares which themselves are fragi le and vuinenble. The quntion then is whether there is any way 10 Ik.al with the kind of anxiety that arises from this l uspicion that the crileria for human selfumkrstanding may be 100 changeable and uncenain 10 eD5UK the inlegrityoftheseif. As [ have already suggested, Kierkeg.urd maintains that there is a theological criterion of seif-undentandi", that can secure the possibility for selfhood.1n tbe collection of discourses collected under the title Purify of Hwrt, for instance, Kierkegaard insists thilihe hasis for our oonfidence il nothing other Iban Ihe Etem.al: "Oniy the Eternal i5 always appropriale and .always PKsellt, is always lrue. Only Ihe Elernal applies 10 each human hems.. whatevu his age may be. "'p As Kicckegaard Stresses a little later in the discour.." the one who confesses romn before GOO not to iruonn God about something that GOO does nO( know, ror GOO is omnisciem_ Instead, the very fact thn GOO already knows everything in the hean of the one who confesses is ground. !or OUr confidenu thn self-knowledge is possible: Much that you lIe able 10 keep hidden in daJlmess, you first gel 10 Ir.oow by your opening it 10 the knowledge of the all-knowing One. "XI So .although IhcK may nOI he a way 10 demonstr.lle in $Orne rigorous fashion thai self-understanding is possible, the one wbo confesses to GOO can tIllS! that sell-understanding is a rnlily. IUerkeg.urd addresses similar concerns throughout his edifying writings, but perhapl the most straightforward Statement oonct:ming the ~Iationship betWl:en the Eternal and the possibility of self-underH

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Rdigious Belief tlnd SeJ/-UndUlltlnding I 65 standing c;tn be found in the discourse "Becoming Sober, H published posthumously in 1876 as a pan of ,udgefor Yoursdv....11n this short bul challenging piece, Kierkcgurd confronts an age Wt he sees aa auffering from an inloxic;tting form of ignorance and scJf-deception, The cb.il lenge then ia to become sober. But wb.it doea il mean to become soberl Once again, Kierkegaard insists Wt the remedy for this spiritual intoxic;ttion is knowledge, but Qualifies his recommendalion by cJaiIIlins thll "There is only one SOrt of knowledge which brings. man IOhimJeif entirely, and Wt is seif-knowledge, this i5 what il i5 to be sober, the troe transparency. Hll Givo:n Kierkcgaard'll concern for ensuring the srabi lity of the self by an appeal to some unchanging and inVlllnerablc criterion of self-uoderstanding, it should come as no surprise to learn Ihat he emphasizes the imporunce of self-elUmiIU.tion before God, A,gIiin, it is clear that when Kierkegaard speaks of the troe criterion of self-understandiI!s that ensurea the possibility of selfhood, he is anxious to distinguish this Christian fonn of self-examination from IhOK fonns of scJf-undenranding that threalen to undermine the integrity of the self_ Consider, for inStance, the following observation from fudge for )bw-sdves!: To COme to oneself is .elf-knowledge, and before God. mr if self-knowledge docs not lead to knowing oneself bdore God, then indeed there is something in wb.it the merely human view &;IYs, Wt it leads 10 a certain emptiness which produces dizziness. Only by being before God c;tn a man entirely come to himself in the transparency of sobriety_11 Unlike the human view of self-knowledge thalleavo:s the self VlIlnenble to ". cemin emptiness," self-knowledge before God secures the possibility for the kind nf self-understanding required for the task of becoming a self. Thus, the individual who stands before God is transparent in sohriety and need nOl fear the eIistenti.1 vertigo that threatens 10 undermine the sclf. In the end then, it is elear that any attempt to rethink the ethiC6 of belief in tctms of critical self-reflection poses some interesting QUestions concerning the possibility of self-understanding. As [ have tried to show, Kierkegurd is righltO suggest that the decision to become a Christian is beSt construed IS. commitment to make SUlse of one's life by the .uhjective appropriation of Christian conccpu of ..,If-understanding. The task of Christian practice then loYDIve. the resb.iping of one'll life through a crilic;tl redescription of thOK ""If-interpretation. that are constitutive of the self. !\Irthennore, Kierkcgaard realizes that the task of becoming a scJf is complic;tted by the various ways a pefSOnlself-understanding can be challenged and put at risk. This is another way of saying

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&Iigiow; Belief and Self-Understanding

thit there is alw~ys a \XISsibilhy thu competing scralegit'S for m~king 5rIl.'le of (me's life might lead one to question one's present values and commitments_ As we have seen, however, Kierkegaanh explicitly Christian writings suggest that it is \XISsible to safegw.rd the task of becoming a self by appealing to In unchanging criterion of self-understanding. It is impol'tant to stress, however, that Kierkegaard refuses to base his confidence in the theological criterion of sellhood on lOme kind of philosophical argument. In bet, his llUIin objection to Hegel, I believe, stems from whit he takes to be Hegel '!I mistaken belief Wt the possibility of sell-knowledge can be all5ured by ~ philosophical ~rgument that appeals to the Absolute . Kierkegurd is critical of such philosophical auempts to iCCOunt for the \XISsibility of self-knowle<J&e. There is nO transcendental deduction Wt can sct our mind at easc. It is dear though tho! ~n though Kicrkcgaard is skeptical of any philosophiC41 attempt to cnsure the possibility of selfknowledge, he is confident that there is a theological basis for our confidence. In the end, uys Kierkegurd, the Christian is confident that our lives can be rendered underlilandable and therefore livable to the eJltCDt that the Eternal provides a sl.ble criterion that can CDsure the integrity of the Klf. If the \XISsibility 01 sclf-undelStanding is a IlUIlter of trust, it is a senK of trust based on a prior commiunent and belief io the um:hangeablene,s of G<.>d: Oh, in the unchan&cableness 01 God there is rest! When you therefore pennitthis unchange.oblcncss to scrw you according to His will, for yourown welfare; whcn you submit yourself to discipline, 10 that your selfish will land it i. from this thol change chiefly comes, more than from the outside) dies away, the sooner the better ... when you submit to be disciplined by his unchangeable will, so as to renounce inconscancy and changeableness and sell-will: Ihen you will steadily rest more and morc securely, and more and more blessedly in the unc~ablcness of G<.>d.)J I havc already suggested that Kierkegaard'J a!lemplto enSlin a Stable criterion 01 sell-undemanding by an .. ppcal to the Eternal Can be construed a. an unacceptably stoic reSpo!lR to an otherwiR valid insight. On~ wonder whether the type of unconditional comsom~timcs recommends as the basis 01 fai th may not one to oth~r \XISsibilities lor making Rnse of one's life. In where a person discovcrs that he can no longer make his life intelli~ble in Christian terms this is panicularly importam and what is needed is. willingness to enlenaio aod explore other

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Relig;ou$ Belief and Sell-Unders/anding

I 67

of Wlderstanding one's life. In the end, to uy that the ethics of belief is primarily ~ q,uestion of practical aelf-understanding is to admil that losing faith might nO! a1w~ys be ~ lnd thing and that OUt desire 10 nu.ke sense of our lives as ~ whole might reQ,uiH; both the courage to .~ro. our lives as wdl as insight for the w~ys

=

~"

suggestion t~t we should alWllYs be willing to test and abandon all of our fundamental commitments and projttts. Nictuche hinuclf II«ms to think t~tthe punuit of intellectual honesty involves the cultivation of a kind of existential skepticism and t~1 ODe should always be willing to call into question one's mosl cherished ideals and wlues. Consider, for elWllpk, the following passage ftom Daybreak in which Nietuche advises Christians to take up an experimental attitude to their beliefs in order 10 determine whether their faith is genuine: The serious, excellent, upright, deeply sensitive people whoan: still Christian. from the very hean: they owe it to themaelves to try lor once the experiment of living fOlsome length of time without Christianity, they owe it to m eir faith in this way for once to sojourn 'in the wildemess'-if only to win for themsel ves the right to a voice on the question of whether Christianity is nttCS$lf)'. fur the present they cleave to their native lIOil and thence revile the world beyond il: indeed, they an: provoked and grow angry if anyone gives them to understand that what lies beyond their native soil is the whole wide world! t~t Christianity is, after all, only a little comer! No, your evidence will be of no wright until you have li~ for years without Christianity, with an honest and fervent ~eal to endun: life in antithesis to Christianity: until you ha"! wandered far, far away from it. Only if you an: driven back, not by homesickness but by ;udgmenl on the basis of a rigorous comparison, will your homecoming possess any significance. l • The kind of "uperimentalism~ that Niet:r.sche n:commends in Daybreak and in his other worka seems 10 be based on the mistaken view that il is desirable for people to test Iheir basic cares and concerns by calling them inlO question in t radical way. Allhough Ihen: is something to be said for the cultivation of the type ofhonelty that Nietzsche himself values so highly, his proposallctda to some strange and rather troubling

6g I

Religious Belief Dnd Scl{-Underswnding

problems. Very simply, Nietzs-ch~ fail, tocon.ider the poS5ibilily that in some cases it makes no sense toquestion one's buic concerns in this rad· ical kind of way. Imagine, for example, a faithful husband who Wants to know whNbcrthe I""" heiee!. for his wile is genuine. One w~y 10 lesl his affec· tions is to foUow Nietuche's advice and subj«t his marriage to an ~ex· periment.~ He may decide, forexample, that the only way to determine whether he reaUy love$ his wile is to explore various extramarital reo lationships. Clearly, hQweve" thi, is an unacceptable way of tC5ting his marriage for the sim ple reason that thell' is no way tQ carry out his ext"'· marital experiments without jeopardizing his )""" for hi. wife . In a simi lar way, 1 want 11,1 suggest that il is tOO much 10 ask religiQus believers 11,1 call into qUC$tion aU of thei, most fundamental religious values in order <0 see whether they all' genuine. Even though the ethiCS of belief in· volves the cultiVlltion of a cenlin kind of critical self-Il'flection, N ietz$Ch~'s auStere appeal to tbe will-to-truth seems unacceptable. II Kierkegaard sometimes ern; by !aililli to realize that an unconditional commitment to the cultivation of Christian self-undemandilli may blind a person to other ways of making sense of life, Nietzsche's appro.och to Ihe ethics of belief opens the way to a kind of rootleas skepti· cism that threat ens to vitiate the very poSsibility of giving shape and meaning to Qne's liie. Toomuch suspicion about OUI values and commitment! is a bad thing. Basically, the problem with the type of "experimentali.m" that Ni eu..sche lleemS to recommend in Duybreak is the usumption that our basic project. and commitments are suspect unless we can defend them in some way. However, contemporary writ ers such as Bernard Williams have reminded us that this kind of assumption is misguided and that it does not make sense Inr a person to begin with th~ idea that his or her basic projectS and concern5 all' in need Qf some kind of rustification. In an ill$ightful anicle entilled "l'I:rsons, Characler, and Mo",lily, "~for instance, Willi.ms SUggcSLS that what gives shape and meaning to a person's lire arC what he calls "ca tegorical dcsires. H The imponant thing 10 note about these desires is that they reflC(;t a commilment to thou fundamental projects and concerns that make a person's life worth living. Williams, of COUlS(:, is quite clear thn thelle desires should nOt be construed in a narrow way and could express a wide variety of basic COnu:mS. A. he himlle l/ 81atl:5, "Ihe propellilli CQncerns may be of a Il'latively everyday kind as ccn ainly provide the ground for many SOrts of happiness. ,,16 One's interest in one's family or one'll commitment to one's career would be tWO good examples of cenain kinds of desire. that give shape and meaning to a person's hie. In addition, because the.., are the basic concern. in tenns 0/ which a person makes "" nse of hi, or her lile, it does not

v

,

•

~Iig;ous

Belief and Sell-Understandin g I 69

make sense 10 ask for some deeper or more fundamental concern to "j us· tify " these &mund projecUl. Although Williams himself would probably be reluetant to admit that a person's religious commitments could be construed in thi s way, " I do not see how his account of categorical desires could rul e out such a possibili ty. The poiD! is that if a person's religious commitmenUl can be construed as an example of this kind of basic con cern, we would have good reaSOn to reject the type of radical experimentalism proposed by NietZllche. In Williams's view, this kind of experimentalism would be considered suspect precisely because it faib to take into account the pos. sibility that a person's religious beliefs may be tied to such categorical desi res . It is imponant to ~treS$, how",,",r, that al though there is no prim a facie reason for people to adopt this kind 0/ experimental attitude to· ward their religiOUS commitments, there is always the possi bilit y that some legitimate concern might JUStify thiS kind 0/ suspicinn. The best e)(;lmple of this kind of possibility is raised by Nietzsche in his brillian t analysis of the aseetic ideal in his book The Ceneolog 01 Morals in which he e"Plo",s the various ways ressentiment can inform a pcThOn's religious c;Ommitments. The point I want to stl'C$$, ho.....,ver, is that al· though il is a miStake to call our basic concerns and commitments into question in some arbitrary fashion, an analysis such as that offered by Nietzsche in The Cenoologyof Morals might give us I~gitimat e reasons to seek some critical leverage with respect to OUI "categorical desires." Although hi. general suspicion of the Christ ian ethos is unwarranted, there might be specific cases in which there is much to be gained from thisltind of "hermeneutiC$ of suspicion." If the ethiC$ 0/ belief ~ primarily a question 0/ critical self-reflec tion, as I walll {O claim, then what is needed is some way to st ~r a p,l{h beIwr:en tWO unacceptable approaches to the problem. On the one hand, if one's religious commitmenu are In expression 0/ one's most baSic con· cerns and projectS, the exueme type of "experimentalism" that Nietzsche sometimes recommends is unacceptable. There are limits to practical self·understanding. and it is not desirable 10 begin with a radica l sus· picion that would lead us to question aU of our concerns. One might even ~ a Kierkegaardian tum 0/ phrase and say that the desire 10 put aU of our ures at risk in this way is symptomatic of a contempt fOrOUf $Ubi~tivity.

On the other hand, people who are dogmatically committed to the cultivation 01 Christian self·understanding may sometimes disco"'!r that they can no longer make their IiYes intelligible in these terms and fail to realize or acknowlcd~ this /aCI . There are, of coune, many ways people might deal with this ltindof si tu;nion. A person may attempt and

"

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R~Jjg;ou$

70 I

Belief and Self·Undersrand;DJ

succeed to some extent in ratioru.!izing or redescribing certain concepts in order to prese~ his or her Christian identity. There comes a point, howCYer, when one might be tempted to maintain and nurture one's Christian identity long mer thCll' is no Innger any connection between the way one leads one's liie and the way one understands his o. her lik. When this happens, those very coocepts WI might have eru.bled the person to make sense of life at one time become an obstacle to genuine selfundentanding. One who Slrives 10 prese~ one's Chrislian identity at all cosu might di500ver thaI One has become an engirrut to oneself and thaI life has simply become a "dark saying." II is for Ihis reaSOn WI we need to accoun t for those sit~tions in which a person becomes a victim 01 an obsessive searcl! to find meaning in a way of life that has long since become muningteas.1n abOrt, what we need 10 consider is the problem of self-deception.

Notes l. This type of propolul is developed. quite elegantly in connection with Nietzsche's writings by Alexander Nehamas in his Nietzsche: ute as IJtualure (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), esp. chaple!

5

2. Ciled by I. Burnaby, AmOT Dei (London: Hodder &. Stoughton, 19381, p. 98.

3. Leo TolslOY, Anna Ka,eDina, lIans. Constance Carnell (indianapolis: Babbs-Merrill, L9781. 4. Ibid ., p. 297.

5. Ibid ., p. 299.

6. Ibid., p. 487. 7. Ibid., pp. 379-80.

8. Ibid ., p. 541. 9. Ibid., pp. 541--42. 10. Ibid., p. 756.

II. Ibid., p . 761.

12. Ibid., p. 838. 13. Ibid., p. 848.

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ate

Rdigious 8dief
71

14. LudwiS Wittsenstein, TI"acllIrUll Logic:o·PhilOWphicWI, tn.n,. D. F. Peartl and B. F. McGuinness ILondon: Roudedse and Regan »;aul, 1972),6.S1L. 15. D. W. Hamlyn, "Sdf-Knowleda;e," in Puceprion, Let1ming, and the Selr EsslI)'s in the Philosophyof PsycbolotYlwndon: RoutJeda;eand ~gan »;aul, 19831, pp. 2.45-47.

16. Ibid., p. 250. Concluding Unscientific Postscripr, IT&IU. David F. Swenson and Walter wwrie IPrinceton: Princeton Uniw:nity Press, 19411, p. 178. 17. Seren K..ierkepanl.,

18. Soren Kietkegaard. Th e Sickne.s.5 untO De.lrh, ed. and trans. Howard and £dna Hong IPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 19801, p.

".

19. Se",n Kierkegaard, Purity of Helm Is !O Will One Thing, !Iam. Douglas V. Stcc", INew York: Harper and Row, 1956), p. 49.

W. lbid. ,p.5 1.

21. Serm Kierugaard, For Sell-&DffiinDlion Dnd fudge for Yout· selvesl, tnns. and intrO. Walter lowriclPrinccton: PrinCCton University Press, 19441, p. 122. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., p. 238. 2.4. Friedrich Nieu.sche, D
26. Ibid., p. 12.

27. William. him.df gives a brief uarement c:oncerning hi. view on ",Iigian in hi$ """,nt book, ErniC.J Dnd rhe LJmir.. of Philmophy

ICambridge: Harvard University Prl:ss, 1985), up. pp. 32-33.

Copyrighted material

5

Self-Deception and the Ethics of Belief

Lying: 10 oncseH about QlICKH, deceiving Qnc..,lf abol.ll the pretense in your own state 01 will. m U5! ha~ a harmful

influence on 1000e'sll!), le, for the result will be thu you cannot tell wblt isgenuine in the scyle and what is false: .... U you au unwilling 10 know what you ut:, your writill& is a form of deceit. Working in phil(>S(lphy- like work in archit ectun: in many 1U~cu-i s really more like workilli on oneself. On one's own imctpreu,rioo. On one's own wayof seeiDl things .... Nothing is so difficult as nOt deceivi"l oneself. wdwig Wirrgenstein'

A

lthough the notioo of seU-deception provides an important criterion 1m the uses.ment 01 a pen<.m'J belids, emotions, and action., il is a strange conupr thai draW$ our a ttention 10 one of the more perplexing dimensiOI15 of human life. One might even be tempted 10 5.1y ~I this human Clp;lcity for illusion and seU-deceil is precisely what makes the apioralion of tho: inner life 50 inlerestin,. Not .urpri.in&!r, beeaux a consideration of $
73

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Sd J. fkce pUon and

!h~

Ethics oj Belief

movi es such as Ibsen's Th~ Ma.!!u Builder and Ingmar Bcrgm~n's Winttr U ght to realize rhat a nuanced picture of iIIusiQII, deceptiQII, and delu· sion requirq an .nun .kilL Thi~ is not to uy, of course, that philosophers havoe had nothing to uy about this topic. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Same are iust a ~w of the think.,.., who havoe encouraged uS 10 think ~bout the eompl~ st rategies and tacties that enable uS to amid the truth about owxlvoes. And in ~nt ~rs som e analytical philO$(lpherll with an internt in philO$(lphical psychology, philosophy of mind, and ethies havoe begun 10 take a fresh look II these issues.1 Our question, however, is whether a consideration althe problem 01 self-deception can help enrich OUr un · derstanding of what it means 10 a,.sess a peroon 's relipous convictions.

A . The Ethics of Self·Deception Despite my criticisms 01 Niet:t5Che in the bSI chapler, il is impossi· ble 10 deny that wlut he calls "schooling in suspicion " is an essrntial pMt of the ethics of Jx.lief. Uke all '" Nieluche's impanant in$ight., howeYer, this sharp and inci.i", yicw i . a sw<>rd Ihat culs both ways. On the one hand, he sometimes suggests that our Ii",s are bearable only be· cause we h.Ye the capacity to evade the truth, cspecially at those times in life when too much truth might undennin e and erode those basic commitment. tbat enabl e uS to make sense '" the WIlrld . 1n the ~ Pref· ace " to hi s Human, A I1 1bo Human, NietzscM addresses this theme when he offers hisown somewhat ambivalent confession to rationalize his youthful enthusiasm for Schopenhauer and Wagner. Not surpris· ingly, he suggcst! Ihat if there is any excuse lor failing to s« the failing 01 our avatars, it il because th~re is n"",r any reason to ask for the whoIt. truth whr n a lillie truth will ~ uffi c~ : whaldo you know, what could you know, of how much cuonin, in self·prese .....uion, how much reuon and higher sa£eg.urding. is contained in such decrption-or how much falsity I shall r~uin if [am willing 10 permit myself Ihe luxury 01 my truthiulneh .... Enough, J am still livill& and life is, after an, no! a prod· uc! of morality: it wants d~crption, it Ii,,~ on deception .... N~ Although we U nnot endo~ the more ndical impliuri()f\' of Nietzsche's "experimentalism," the challcngeposcd by his insighu con· cemin, religion and self-deception is inescapable. In the WIlrld accord· ing to Nietzsche, our Ii....:, are livable only because each person has an excuse for his or her illusions; namely, ,hat a finite and limited perspec' ti....: is what nukes human life po$Siblc. And )"'t, ~n if We reject NietZ$Chr's Hexperimentali~m, he do"5 offer US an al!ernative ideal, what one might call the life of philosophical irony which is uptured by his pannit of the Hf",e spirit, !he peI$<>O who assumes the risks of in · N

•••

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quiry CVl!n though it might lead to the erosion of his or her lile-pre5Crvillll deceptiOll'_ Anticiparillllihe mediuti(lllS of Ih~ Hfru "piril" ofl~~ in his lal~r work!!, Ni~us<;he caSts this ironic.ol way of lil~ u a "spiritual ~ journey and ",,",,5U thai this sorl of person 5Uff«s from m essential loo~Jine" a IOli tud~ and c~ruin cold-hearted suspicion of OIleself which 15 prelude 10' kind of pel'$Ollallrm$lormation: " YQU shall ~me master ~r y<')UrStlf, masl er also on1 that enable a person to cultiVllte and preserve his or h~r basic C(lmmitmentS sometimes in-..olvo: somc form of self.

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