Who do we think we are? National and religious identities #4

In the final extract from the new edition of Faith in Politics? Richard Harries discusses both national and religious identities ...

Towards a Christian Understanding of the Common Good

Identities have changed, are changing and will continue to change in the future. There is nothing fixed and final about who we are. Let me consider this at a personal level. This is brought out in a very moving poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, you may remember, was a distinguished theologian in the 1930s who, in reaction to Hitler’s policy of ‘Aryanising’ the Church – that is, eliminating all Jewish elements from it – was one of the founders of the Confessing Church, and indeed, he ran their seminary. He took part in the plot to assassinate Hitler, was imprisoned and shot shortly before the end of the war. Whilst in prison he wrote letters, prayers and poems, subsequently published in Letters and Papers from Prison which made a major impact in the 1960s. One of the poems is called ‘Who am I?’:

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country house …

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick like a bird in a cage …

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and to-morrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? …

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

I very much like the double meaning of that last line.

We may not know who we are, but God does. Then, whoever we are, we belong to him. In the future, when his future for us is accomplished, we will be who we truly are.

This is a point powerfully made in the first letter of John:

‘Dear friends, we are now God’s children; what we shall be has not yet been disclosed, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.’

1 John 3:2

In other words, again, our true identity will be fully revealed and known only in the future. For we are made in the image of God, and called to grow into his likeness, the likeness that shines in the face of Christ. This identity in Christ does not take away from our distinctiveness, but brings it to its true fulfilment.

This is to put it in personal terms. But our personal identity is inseparable from our membership of various communities, from the family to the state. The same principle holds there. National identity, like religious identity, is in a constant state of change. It is in part a given, but even more significantly, it has still to be created. As one Anglican report has commented:

Christian loyalty is a commitment to a nation conceived as being itself a process – of sharing, struggling and change; a commitment to what might be rather than simply what has been … Loyalty is the decision to be actively part of such a process.

  

I would suggest there are some signs of a shift in the tectonic plates of the underlying philosophy of our society. The time has come to indicate the implications of this.

Since the nineteenth century one of the dominant approaches to political philosophy has been utilitarianism, the idea that we should try to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This philosophy has been of great benefit in helping to bring about progressive social change, and it will remain valuable for many issues of social policy. However, its weaknesses were apparent from the first. One is that different kinds of happiness or different kinds of pleasure cannot be weighed on the same scale. There are qualitative, not just quantitative differences between different kinds of pleasure. The other difficulty is that it cannot do justice to our gut instinct that certain things are just wrong, try to justify them as we may. The most obvious contemporary example is torture. Most people would say that whatever arguments you put forward to justify torture, such as saving the lives of innocent people, it is still wrong. It is this set of moral convictions, rooted in a sense of the worth of every single individual, that undergirds all talk about human rights.

The other dominant philosophy, which takes two forms, is liberalism, which emphasises the priority of personal choice. Economic liberalism applies this to the market and says, let the market rule supreme. Leave people free to consume and produce what they want. This view is unhistorical, in that Adam Smith, the intellectual fount of the market economy, was quite clear that the markets needed to be rooted in certain moral principles, and its best defenders in recent years have tried to say the same, without getting much response in practice. Michael Sandel draws attention to what happened in New Orleans after the terrible flooding there. Some people tried to exploit the situation by selling basic goods at truly exorbitant prices. An unqualified admirer of the free market devoid of moral values would support this. People were so desperate that they were prepared to pay 100 times the normal value of goods, and there were people ready to sell them for that price. What utilitarianism does not take into account is the widespread sense of outrage in America that people’s desperate

need should have been exploited in this way. It was felt to be wrong: honourable people in an honourable society did not do this kind of thing. In short, moral judgements and values came into play. More widely, many people would feel that there are certain areas where the market should not rule. It would be wrong to have a free market in organs, for example. It would be wrong to sell places at university to those who would pay the highest price for them.

The other form of liberalism is social liberalism. This says that people should be free to choose their own lifestyle, and they should not have one imposed on them by society as a whole. It is easy to see why this view has been so popular. One reason is that there is widespread disagreement over lifestyles. The other is a fear that if we start talking about virtue as a value that the whole community should exhibit, there will arise an oppressive moralism. This was perhaps the fear that stopped the movement known as communitarianism making more headway a few years ago. But can we avoid making judgements about virtue and value? Concerning law and morality I have mentioned my own feeling as a member of the Home Office Advisory Committee for the Reform of the Law on Sexual Offences when we considered offences against animals. I realised I had a deep conviction that certain forms of behaviour were incompatible with what it means to be a human being. Michael Sandel gives another example. A man in Germany advertised for someone who would be willing to be killed and eaten; 200 people answered the advert, and four were interviewed. One person was killed, cooked and eaten. German law could not convict the person of murder, for it was totally consensual, though they did find another way of convicting and imprisoning the man. But whatever the law says, most people would find such an action deeply abhorrent and something which society should not allow, however consensual. Again, issues of value emerge, not just for the individual, but for the kind of society which we want.

When we begin to reflect on the kind of society we want, then we cannot avoid asking the question about what society is for. The same question is raised in relation to every institution. What is a university for? What is a school for? Until you answer that question you cannot begin to think about what it is that the institution should value, and indeed on what basis people should be allowed to enter it. We are in fact back with Aristotle, who taught that we must decide on the purpose of something before we can decide what is good. The good is what fits the purpose. If a university exists to foster intellectual excellence, then this is what it will honour, and it is on this basis that people will be allowed to enter. At this point we also need to reflect a little about the nature of the choices we make, and what makes a choice a moral choice. Kant, who has been so influential in the modern world, said that a choice is only moral if it is done out of a sense of duty. He suggested two basic principles to guide us. One is that we must act in such a way that everyone could act in that way in similar circumstances. We must be able to universalise what we choose. Secondly, we should treat other human beings as ends in themselves, not as a means to an end. He thought that only when we did this as a matter of duty were we really free, and only then was it a truly moral act. If we wanted to do it, or liked doing it, this was not relevant to its moral dimension. Kant is important in forcing us to be morally consistent, with his test of universalisability, and his emphasis on human beings as ends in themselves. However, there is something very odd about his understanding of what makes an action moral. Most people would say that they would like others to value them because they wanted to do so, not just out of a sense of duty. It puts someone who warmly and spontaneously loves their husband or wife in an odd position. They love them with their whole being, but on a strict understanding of Kant, this does not count as a moral act. Now a sense of duty is certainly both vital and neglected today, but it has to do with being consistent with our responsibilities mean that when we do feel like doing what is also our duty, the action is morally insignificant.

Kant was a Christian, but from the standpoint of Christian theology he has really relapsed into a false mind/body dualism. In making an abyss between feelings and duty he is not being true to the Christian understanding of human beings as embodied. Ordinary human experience suggests that we want the virtues we admire – say courage, or generosity – to become part of us. Of course, for most of the time we have to try to emulate people who show those virtues, and we have to try to act them out, even if we do not feel them. But we hope for a time when, through the grace of God, they will become part of our very being.

This again takes us back to the kind of choices we make. The hugely influential modern philosopher Alastair MacIntyre argued that we do not make our choices in a vacuum, but as part of a moral tradition. We are born and shaped by a moral tradition, and until we opt for another one, we make our choices within the parameters it provides. This moral tradition will be inseparable from a particular understanding of what it means to be a human being. Or to put it another way, we find ourselves part of a communal story, a story which has a particular understanding of the goal and purpose of human life. The choices we make when young are shaped by the tradition we have been brought up in. So our freedom is not a naked one, shorn of all that is distinctive about me as a citizen of a particular country and a member of a particular religion at a particular time; it is a choice to be made within that continuum. We are not only embodied as individuals, we are embodied in communities, and these help to give us our identity. So for Christians, our choices are made within the body of Christ, within the community of Christians, shaped by the past and looking to the future, including a future beyond space and time.

For all these reasons it means that a theory of government based on a hypothetical contract, whether put forward by Hobbes, Locke or Rawls, is inadequate by itself. The view of Rawls is important as a benchmark for fairness and a challenge to all our ideas of justice but it falsely assumes a naked choice shorn of all personal loyalties. For most human beings, there are particular loyalties, to their own children or parents, their city or team, their country. This can be questioned, and it may not always be right to accord these particular, personal loyalties priority over an obligation to the wider community or wider world. However, as we are born and grow up, we experience the moral claim of these loyalties, and they have to be taken into account in the choices we make. They are part of the story which shaped us, and which we in turn are shaping by the choices we make. Our children and children’s children will be born into and shaped by this story in their turn.

Against the background of these considerations, what kind of society should a Christian desire? Of course there will always be disagreements about the nature of that good, but as Michael Sandel has written:

‘To achieve a just society we have to reason together about the meaning of the good life, and to create a public culture hospitable to the disagreements that will inevitably arise.’

We have to reason together. That was also the conclusion of Amartya Sen. He suggested that a case can be made out for each of the dominant political philosophies of our time. No one can totally exclude the validity of the other perspectives. So in any situation we have to make a judgement. Furthermore, a good society is not one in which a particular political philosophy reigns supreme. A good society is one in which we take all voices and the needs they represent into account. In a globalised world this means taking marginalised voices from outside our borders into account in our national deliberations. He looks to the parable of the Good Samaritan as a model for taking the outsider into consideration and not drawing the definition of our neighbour in narrow terms. Like Sandel, the essence of democracy for Sen is reasoning together, taking into account the key values of liberty and equality, but doing so in relation to the actual practical outcomes of different societies, not imposing an abstract philosophical blueprint.

T. S. Eliot described the society he wanted in these words:

‘It would be a society in which the natural end of man – virtue and well-being in community – is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end – beatitude – for those who have the eyes to see it.’

This is a very appealing description which I could certainly live with. Nevertheless, I think it needs to be put somewhat differently today. First, the phrase ‘virtue and well-being’ does not reflect the emphasis on growth and development which we now regard as desirable. Secondly, the world ‘virtue’ has for many people too moralistic a tone to it, as well as being focused on morality, whereas in the modern world we are concerned with the development of the whole person – body, mind and spirit – as a unity. So instead of ‘virtue and well-being’ I would prefer ‘the development of gifts and character’. Then, thirdly, the phrase ‘in community’, though welcome, does not quite do justice to the essentially polar nature of person and community. It is not just that persons live in community; without human community, there could be no persons. Furthermore communities, like persons, have qualities and character and are open to change and development. They need to be seen together. So although I cannot devise as felicitous a sentence as Eliot’s, the first half of my understanding of a desirable society would be:

A society in which the natural end of human beings – personal and communal development of gifts and character – is acknowledged for all.

What about the last half of Eliot’s statement: ‘the supernatural end – beatitude – for those who have eyes to see it’? The contrast between the two halves of the sentence, between what is acknowledged for all and what is there for those with eyes to see it, is one with which I am in sympathy. It reflects the conviction of traditional natural law theory, that there are morally desirable states and qualities which all can see and to which all are called to respond, whether someone is a religious believer or not. We can see the force of this by thinking about any good school we know. Such a school will seek to have an ethos in which there is mutual respect, a concern for others both within the school and outside. It will be inclusive in the sense that it will want every pupil to develop their particular potential and talents. All schools will have some such ideal, however they might be failing at any one moment, and whether or not they are faith schools. Furthermore, parents who send children to schools will want the school to have some such ideal. In short, this is a natural ideal, whether it is for a school or society as a whole.

On Eliot’s formula, the religious dimension is in no way imposed. It is simply there, as part of the history and culture for those with eyes to see it. Nevertheless, the word ‘beatitude’ needs a little unpacking. It could just convey the idea of an individual soul’s relationship with God. In fact, as the collect for All Saints’ Day puts it, we are ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body’ of Christ. We come before God, now and in eternity, as members of the body of Christ. This body, like earthly human communities, is open to growth and development, not just of gifts and character, but in the knowledge and love of God. Or to put it another way, we have been made in the image of God, but we are called, within the mystical body, to grow into the divine likeness. This is what is meant by ‘beatitude’.

Like Aristotle, Christians begin not with the question about what is right, but what is the good. For us, God is good, all good, our true and everlasting good. The end or goal of human life is to grow into that likeness, not as solitary individuals, but within the mystical body of Christ. Whilst we are on this earth, there is a counterpart to this in our human communities of all kinds, including both civil society and the body politic. As I formulated it above:

It would be a society in which the natural end of human beings – personal and communal development of gifts and character – is acknowledged for all.

This is an understanding of the common good which I believe we should try to build into our life together, allowing it to shape that life, whether it is at a local, national or international level. It is in and through the process of doing this that we find our individual identity.

A distinction can be made between a state which has a common purpose, as was Britain before the Reformation, when it was held together and shaped by a more or less unified understanding of the Christian faith (a telocracy – from the Greek, telos, meaning goal or purpose) and one in which there is no sense of overall purpose but each individual chooses their own for their own life. What binds the state together on this view is a framework of law which everyone has to obey, whatever their own world view (a nomocracy – from the Greek nomos, meaning law). Neo-Liberals who were until recently so influential in the United States and Britain, argued for the latter and maintain that taxes should only be raised to pay for those public goods and services which we all need, and which cannot be allocated according to individual use, such as the army, the police and clean air.

This view has been subjected to philosophical criticism by Raymond Plant as well as the criticism of its working out in practise by Michael Sandel and others mentioned earlier. What is important to note is that the notion of a common good for the state need not just be one that is imposed from above by a dominant ideology or religion, it can be build up from below partly in response to the received history and culture of a society, and partly by fresh insights from religious and secular thinkers alike. This is the healthy situation that we are in now. There is a widespread realisation that a thorough going Neo-Liberalism simply fails to take into account some of the most fundamental features of what it means to be a person in society. At the same time there is a much broader consensus than is often recognised about the kind of values that should imbue our life together and be expressed in its institutions, of which widespread support for the NHS is the most obvious one, with its continuing philosophy of medicine being free at the point of delivery. Again, our educational system, though deeply flawed, has an underlying philosophy that everyone should be able to develop their abilities to the limit, whatever their background. The faith communities, together with secular humanists, have an important role in the further strengthening, enriching and developing this overlapping consensus of shared values and purpose for our society. It would be an organic, evolving telocracy built up from below by reasoned argument as part of the democratic process. For Christians it would be grounded in their understanding of the relationship between their heavenly and their earthly citizenship in much in the way as it was for St Augustine in the fifth century, but in the different political circumstances of our own time.

This is an extract from Faith in Politics? Rediscovering the Christian Roots of our Political Values  by Richard Harries newly updated and reissued for 2015, available in paperback and eBook priced £12.99.