On moral sainthood, and why it ain’t worth having

[image: Madonna and Child with Saints, by Giovanni Bellini, circa 1459–1516]

When I grew up as a Catholic in Rome, Italy, I was taught the notion that the most praiseworthy role models (other than Jesus, of course) are the saints. Saints are people who devote their entire existence to help others — think Francis of Assisi, or Mother Theresa (though there are doubts about the saintliness of the latter).

And yet there was always something manifestly unconvincing about the notion that we should aspire to the life of a saint. For one, it is psychologically entirely unattractive. Then again, it’s difficult to argue — once one takes on board certain unspoken philosophical assumptions — that saints aren’t praiseworthy. Indeed, as praiseworthy as they come.

I was finally able to put my finger exactly on what the problem is when I read one of the classics of modern philosophy: “Moral saints,” by Susan Wolf, published in 1982 in The Journal of Philosophy. Wolf’s lucid analysis makes the paper a good candidate for mandatory reading not just in college, but even in high school. A lot of people would be disabused of the notion of saint-as-role-model, and there would be a lot less moral guilt hanging around the planet. Let me explain.

Right at the beginning of the paper, Wolf gives us a clear definition of what she means by moral saint. She also tells us what her thesis is going to be:

“By moral saint I mean a person whose every action is as morally good as possible, a person, that is, who is as morally worthy as can be. … I believe that moral perfection, in the sense of moral saintliness, does not constitute a model of personal well-being toward which it would be particularly rational or good or desirable for a human being to strive.” (p. 419)

But who, other than Catholic priests really believes that moral sainthood is the best possible life for a human being? Lots of people, including moral philosophers belonging to two of the three dominant frameworks in ethics: Utilitarians and Kantian-style deontologists.

Briefly, Utilitarianism is the philosophy that maintains that good actions are those that maximize happiness and minimize pain, while bad actions are those that effect the reverse. It was put on the map by two giants of 19th century philosophy: Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Arguably the…

Deontology, by contrast, is a general approach to moral philosophy that is based on duties and rules. The most obvious example is the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Bible. The Kantian version — which is divested of any religious aura — is often summarized in terms of Kant’s famous categorical imperative, a single commandment that comes in two flavors:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, 4:421)

And:

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, 4:429)

According to Wolf, both Utilitarianism and Kantianism (as I shall call it, not an official philosophical term) endorse the concept of moral sainthood, though in different ways. Utilitarians put forth the model of a Loving Saint, while Kantians push the idea of a Rational Saint.

A Loving Saint is someone who is truly happy to endorse the notion that the best human life is that of a moral saint. Not, like the Catholic, because he wants to get to Heaven, but rather because if we all were moral saints then we would automatically maximize humanity’s happiness, and certainly minimize its degree of pain. Why “loving”? Because if the Utilitarian saint actually enjoys being a saint then his own happiness also will be maximized, he won’t be an exception to the rule but rather one more example of it. As Wolf puts it:

“The gain in happiness that would accrue to oneself and one’s neighbors by a more well-rounded, richer life than that of the moral saint would be pathetically small in comparison to the amount by which one could increase the general happiness if one devoted oneself explicitly to the care of the sick, the downtrodden, the starving, and the homeless. Of course, there may be psychological limits to the extent to which a person can devote himself to such things without going crazy. But the utilitarian’s individual limitations would not thereby become a positive feature of his personal ideals.” (p. 428)

In other words, a well-rounded life, one in which I spend time with friends, enjoy nice meals, read books for personal edification, listen to music, appreciate art, and do my part to make the world a better place is woefully inadequate if one follows Utilitarian logic to its, well, logical consequences. I should devote every moment of my life to being helpful to others. If I can’t, because of natural limitations imposed on me by human psychology, then I should see this as a failure on my part. I’m not a saint after all, but I should try to be one! Wolf’s retort is that “the utilitarian’s manner of valuing the not explicitly moral aspects of his life provides (him) with one thought too many.”

What about Kant? He was a decent psychologist and realized that people often don’t enjoy doing the right thing even some of the times, let alone all of the times. Hence his emphasis on duties, to which we arrive by way of reason. I may prefer to, say, watch my favorite show to going down to the soup kitchen and help out, but my (Kantian) reason allows me to realize that I have a duty to skip the former and do the latter and off I go. Again, Wolf:

“Kant does say explicitly that we have a duty of benevolence, a duty not only to allow others to pursue their ends, but to take up their ends as our own. In addition, we have positive duties to ourselves, duties to increase our natural as well as our moral perfection. These duties are unlimited in the degree to which they may dominate a life. If action in accordance with and motivated by the thought of these duties is considered virtuous, it is natural to assume that the more one performs such actions, the more virtuous one is. Moreover, of virtue in general Kant says, ‘it is an ideal which is unattainable while yet our duty is constantly to approximate to it.’ On this interpretation, then, the Kantian moral saint, like the other moral saints I have been considering, is dominated by the motivation to be moral. (pp. 430–431)

Okay, but what exactly is the problem with moral sainthood, of either the “happy” or “rational” kind? Basically, that there is no stopping point. If one follows either Utilitarian or Kantian (or, for that matter, Christian) logic then it is difficult to see how a person could justify spending a significant amount of time doing anything other than morally saintly deeds.

This is well exemplified by contemporary Utilitarian Peter Singer’s argument of the drowning child. Suppose you just bought yourself a nice pair of Italian leather shoes (which you shouldn’t do anyway, according to Singer, who is a vegetarian). You are walking home, so satisfied with your new purchase that you are already wearing them. You pass by a lake and you see a child who is drowning. No time to do anything other than dive in to the rescue. Would you ruin your shoes to save his life?

Of course you would. But then why are you buying anything at all like Italian leather shoes in the first place, rather than donating the money to save starving children on the other side of the planet? Indeed, how do you justify spending money to go to a concert, or a dinner out, or a trip, when that money could be used to help people in need? Why are you living in a place that is probably larger than you strictly need to, and in a nicer and therefore more expensive neighborhood? You see where this is going: until you have given enough to put yourself barely above starvation level there is no logical stopping point to your moral obligations to others.

Wolf adds that a moral saint wouldn’t indulge in cynical or sarcastic wit. Would not appreciate Groucho Marx or George Bernard Shaw. Would not develop an interest in gourmet cooking, high fashion, or interior design. And yet, she argues, such a picture of human life is woefully inadequate and not to be presented even as an ideal. Why not?

“The way in which morality, unlike other possible goals, is apt to dominate is particularly disturbing, for it seems to require either the lack or the denial of the existence of an identifiable, personal self. … Nor is it a coincidence that these ideals are naturally described as fanatical.” (pp. 424–425)

Indeed, “fanatical” is one way Mother Theresa has been described, and abnegation of the self is an explicit goal of a Christian saint. The pursuit of moral sainthood makes a human life unidimensional. A number of other things we ordinarily value, such as the pursuit of creativity in the arts or in the sciences, the cultivation of literature, the development of a sense of humor, or, very basically, just plain old rest & relaxation, are difficult to justify and get attributed to human weakness rather than being valued in their own right.

If Wolf is correct, then perhaps we just need a different model for a human life worth living, a broader ethical framework that goes beyond the narrow limits of Utilitarianism or Kantianism. According to Wolf, such a framework has been around for a long time: Aristotelianism. Or, I would say more broadly yet, virtue ethics, of which Aristotelianism is one example (others include Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, and so forth).

The ancient Greco-Romans did not understand morality, or ethics, in the narrow way in which it is understood nowadays. Ethics was not just the study of right and wrong, but the study of how to live our life to the best of our abilities. It certainly did include what today we call moral duties, but it also encompassed creativity, style, and other aspects of human character.

From a virtue ethical perspective it doesn’t make any sense that one is permitted to pursue non-ethical interests on the grounds that not everyone can be a saint. We have excellent non-moral reasons to pursue certain projects, and valid non-moral goals to accomplish. Such as winning a medal at the Olympics, carry out scientific research that doesn’t necessarily have practical applications, spending time with our family and friends. Even relaxing in the evening by watching some more or less mindless tv. As Wolf says:

“A person may be perfectly wonderful without being perfectly moral.” (p. 436)

Wolf suggests that moral philosophers ought to reconsider the scope of what they are doing. If the question is “how are we to live?” the answer cannot be narrowly focused only on moral duties, it has to encompass non-moral values and projects. This does not, of course, imply that moral values are not important, or that we don’t have duties toward others. It just means that moral values are part of a plurality of human values and cannot be our only or chief focus. Moral sainthood is not just very difficult for people to achieve. It should not be the goal at all, on penalty of living a very much reduced human existence.

In other words, modern moral philosophy has to go back to the Greco-Roman enlarged conception of “morality,” so to better reflect the variety of human experiences.