In the Old Testament, Isaiah wrote:
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20. This is an oft-quoted verse in Christianity.
This statement presumes an ability to know what is good and what is evil. Montaigne challenges this assumption. He argues in his essay "That The Relish of Good and Evil Depends in a Great Measure Upon the Opinion We Have of Them" that, even though we all have the same faculties, our many different customs and opinions shows that whether something is good or evil is a matter of subjective opinion. Montaigne argues:
"If the original being of those things we fear had power to lodge in us by its own authority, it would then lodge itself alike, and in like manner, in all; for men are all of the same kind, and saving in greater and less proportions, are all provided with the same utensils and instruments to conceive and to judge: but the diversity of opinions we have of those things clearly evidences that they only enter us by composition; one person, peradventure, admits them in their true being, but a thousand others give them a new and contrary being in them" (115, emphasis added).
How are Good and Evil determined?
The issue is, then, whether good and evil are objectively or subjectively determined. To address this issue, we have to define our terms. Montaigne and Isaiah are, in my mind, addressing questions of morality. In modern times, the moral good and the moral evil are implicated in areas of sexuality, religion, war, and administration. It is addressed in the area that we call ethics. This area of study addresses not only how a person should act in a certain situation, but also how we, as a people determine to govern ourselves.
Dr. Adler makes a distinction between the types of moral goods. There is the "real good" and there is the "apparent good." The "real good" is "the object of my natural desire" whereas the "apparent good" is the object of my "conscious desire." (See How to Think About the Great Ideas at 145-148) And what, Dr. Adler asks, is the distinction between natural and conscious desire?
"... [M]y conscious desires are the particular cravings I may have in mind at any moment [like a car or a fountain pen]. Natural desires are the cravings, shall I say, the tendencies, the appetites that are built into human nature [like food, water, etc.].... If this is understood, then you see at once that the real good, because it corresponds to the things which satisfy our natural desires, the desires that are constant on a human nature, must be the same for all human beings everywhere at all times" (Id. at 148).
Thus, Adler concludes that the real good is "what a man naturally does desire and consciously should desire" (148). This supports, in some sense, the more objective view of good and evil. That is, the good can be determined through a science of ethics that gives us knowledge, as opposed to opinion, regarding the good and the evil. But this leads to another question: what is the highest good? (148-151)
The highest good is almost universally acknowledged to be happiness (the Stoics and Kant disagree). And Adler describes the happy man as a man that has: (1) some degree of wealth; (2) health, pleasure, and rest; (3) friends and social life; and (4) knowledge, wisdom, and virtue. He calls these the "four goods" (151). The first three, Adler argues, are somewhat outside of our control, and rely in some measure on luck. Only the fourth good, knowledge and wisdom, is "the only goods that are entirely within my control, entirely within my power of choice and action." And thus, "these goods are the specifically moral goods, the goods upon which the possession of all these other goods depend" (151-52). But in my mind, contrary to Adler's argument, even the capacity for knowledge and wisdom can depend in part on our ability to obtain it.
Montaigne: the Power of Custom and the Good
With this background from Professor Adler in place, let us return to Montaigne. He states in his essay Of Custom, And that We Should Not Easily Change a Law Received, that human practice spans the imagination:
"I do believe, that no so absurd or ridiculous fancy can enter into human imagination, that does not meet with some example of public practice, and that, consequently, our reason does not ground and back up" (Great Books, Vol 25, 44).
If the limit of human practice is only limited to the limit of human imagination, then how do we decide the framework within which we allow or disallow certain practices. And to what extent do we enforce this through the rule of law, and to what extent do we enforce this through mores and customs?
The issues surrounding these questions are illustrated to some extent in the debate surrounding gay rights. Those opposing gay rights currently claim they are being unfairly targeted as bigots. This led, for example, to Peter Vidmar finding it necessary to resign from a position with the Olympic Committee because of his position on Proposition 8. Others say that one of the costs of a free society is the chance that you will be denounced for taking an unpopular view. It's part of the price of participating in the marketplace of ideas. Taking a step outside this debate, it is to me amazing how views have changed regarding homosexuality over the past 25 years.
What I take from this development, and from reading Montaigne, is that to the extent a certain custom or practice is exercised, it is likely to that same extent that the custom is judged as good or bad. This does not necessarily inform us as to the "goodness" or "evilness" of the particular custom, but merely that the group will find it as "good" only on the basis of its customary nature. Public support for homosexuality, just like public support against homosexuality in the past, is not indicative (by itself) of homosexuality being "good" or "evil." According to Adler, the "really good" arises from our natural desires. It is for this reason that the source of homosexuality is so hotly debated. If same sex attraction is natural and outside the control of the person possessing it, then it would be a deprivation of an actual and real good to organize society in such a way as to deprive the person the right to act on his or her natural attractions on the one hand, and society as a whole on the other hand, of that good.
In the end, what I get from Montaigne is that we should look at our customs. We should question them and ask why they are in place. And we should question their "goodness" not on the basis of their customary place in our lives, but rather on how they contribute to our individual or collective happiness. This leads to another question (beyond the scope of this post) regarding the conflict that sometimes arises between the protection of individual rights and ensuring the greatest good for the greatest number. I'm sure this issue will reassert itself again and again.
