VENN – HUMAN ACTS

Human beings act and interact with others in their families, social groups, and nation states. Some of those acts are beneficial and some are not. Some acts are deemed to be wrong and some right. A Venn diagram with the terms “Immoral” – “Illegal” and “Sin” (see above) should help us to understand how judgments work within each area of discourse and how an act may be deemed wrong (evil?) within one area but not another.

Area 3 of our diagram is least populated, but in some ways, the most important, because all three: the law, morality, and religion will agree that e.g., murder is wrong. [The reader may find it interesting, educational, or even exciting, to populate the areas 1 – 8 with the appropriate acts.]

Area 7, for example, will have acts that a given religion finds wrong (evil), but that morality and the law have no interest in prohibiting (are tolerant of those acts) or enjoining: acts that include fashion (covered or uncovered in the sanctuary); food (pork or beans); and forms of worship (standing, kneeling, face down). I leave it to the interested reader to determine if the diagram is useful and just what should populate each of the eight areas. What about Area 5? Drive on the right, pay your taxes, walk within the crosswalk, etc. – matters of the civil law, but of no particular concern to morality or the religious faithful.

Area 5 and 7 seem easy to populate with commands: just look in your group’s Book of Statutes or Book from Above. Area 1 is controversial just because, as G. E. M. Anscome pointed out in Philosophy in her paper “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958), most of modern moral philosophy rests on the incoherent notion of a “moral law” without a lawgiver. In that paper she argued that we should stop thinking about obligation, duty, and rightness and return to the idea of the virtues. Virtue theory has flourished in the period since Anscombe’s paper. Bowlin’s book is in the tradition of defending virtue theory and more specifically of arguing forcefully and in detail that tolerance is a virtue.

James Rachels states in “The Elements of Moral Philosophy” that a theory of virtue should have several components He lists these (177):

1.       An explanation of what virtue is;

2.       A list specifying which character traits are virtues;

3.       An explanation of what these virtues consist in;

4.       An explanation of why these qualities are good ones for a person to have;

5.       The theory should tell us whether the virtues are the same for all people or whether they differ from person to person or from culture to culture.

Bowlin fulfills those requirements in his book. In his six chapters, he presents historical information, arguments, and examples to support the claim that tolerance is a virtue.

1.       Chapter1: Tolerance and resentment

2.       Chapter 2: A natural virtue [ Interesting discussion of Aquinas and Wittgenstein]

3.       Chapter 3: Among the virtues

4.       Chapter 4: A virtue’s vocabulary

5.       Chapter 5: Liberalism and lists

6.       Chapter 6: Love’s Endurance

7.       Epilogue: Nature, Grace and Cockfights

Bowlin does, as the cover suggests, “present a nuanced case” for tolerance as one of the virtues.

It is a great time to think about tolerance. The USA has just elected a president who along with his right-wing supporters finds tolerance is for sissies and academics! Tolerance does not seem to be in the vocabulary of the president-elect and his followers. The 50/50 split in the USA might be described as the tolerant versus the intolerant.

A few of the examples from the book: (1) the cock-fight in a rural southern town. Should those of us who find those fights unbearably cruel tolerate them? Finally, the law stepped in to make them illegal when enough of the citizens in the state found the fights intolerable. And of course, the cock fights continue but went underground.

Another which Bowlin spends many words on: a son’s taste in music, played loudly in his room to the dislike of the parents. What to do? Endure. Discuss. Be tolerant. Yell. (my suggestion? Get him some earbuds.)

What’s missing? Some tough examples. What does tolerance as a virtue tell us about, say, honor killing? (Don’t we want to say “It’s just wrong!”) Torture? (Don’t we want to say “It’s just wrong.)

© 2016 Bob Lane

Bob Lane is professor emeritus in philosophy at Vancouver Island University and the author of Reading the Bible: Intention, Text, Interpretation.