This is Part II of analyzing the Four Knights' reasoning for murdering St. Thomas Becket from T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. We analyzed the First Knights' Pragmatism last time. Enter The Second Knight: William de Traci. Williams's account of the murder of St. Thomas Becket is as follows:
"We are not getting anything out of this. We have much more to lose than to gain. I am not a drinking man ordinarily--to brace myself up for it. When you come to the point, it does go against the grain to kill an Archbishop, especially when you have been brought up in good Church traditions...I am awfully sorry about it. We realised that this was our duty, but all the same, we had to work ourselves up to it...and at best we shall have to spend the rest of our lives abroad. And even when reasonable people come to see that the Archbishop had to be put out of the way--and personally I had tremendous admiration for him--you must have noticed what a good show he put up at the end--they won't give us any glory...there's no mistake about credits for being completely disinterested in this business.
1. If not pleasure nor utility, therefore virtue, argument.
The argument is that William will receive no money, no glory, nor honor, and we're left to imagine what it is he'll receive for the deed. Within the classical Aristotelian schema of ethics which The Catholic Church subsumed, there are three possible ends of human activity: (1) pleasure (2) utility: e.g. wealth, honour, etc. (3) virtue. William's argument is quietly suggesting if he's receiving no pleasure nor utility out of this, then you, O Reader, ought know this was the virtuous thing.
The mind trained to think like a Christian then can be stumped by this. He seems to have a good argument, and yet, he clearly murdered Becket. Why's Eliot put this man before us? Ought we be understanding, pitying, and merciful to Sir William since he was just doing his duty, and now he'll spend his whole life wandering in exile? The answer is an emphatic no. As Virgil oft tells Dante in The Inferno, evil is never to be pitied nor sympathized with (compare this to the terrible novel by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood which holds the opposite position) . If we do sympathize with evil, then sympathy is no virtue. If sympathy is a virtue, then it cannot be exercised toward evil, since virtue by definition is always to the good. Frequently The World turns empathy and sympathy into a de facto virtue without any concern about what or who ought to be pitied. Many humanity departments on the university level teach this poppycock. Reader beware!
2. The Ethic of Disinterestedness
Sir William de Traci is espousing an ethic of Disinterestedness, made popular by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Supreme Court, Protestant Theologians, and many lay Americans owe their ethic to him. What Plato and Socrates are to The Catholic Tradition, Kant is to the Protestant traditions. He is famous for his categorical imperative that says we ought will that which we can imagine all people willing.
Sir William de Traci's appeal, "even when reasonable people come to see that the Archbishop had to be put out of the way" is a clear sign of Kantian "reason."
Kant was worried that if an ethical action ever gives pleasure, utility, honour, or anything to the one doing the action, this would poison or corrupt the action. We could ask, "Did you go to the homeless shelter because it's good or because it makes you feel good? Or because you got a photo for your social media? Or because of service hours?" If ethics is rooted in desire, then it seems doomed to be selfish. Kant's solution is to eliminate ends altogether. If there is no personal reason for why you did a good action, then we can be assured it was good. Is this not William de Traci's "we got nothing out of it?"
Moral actions normally consist of (1) the intention (2) the object (3) the end/purpose. For Kantianism ends don't matter; teleology is dead here. What is left then are intentions and objects, just people willing good for people because people are ends in themselves. In the Catholic Church, we call this the heresy of "Moralism." Let's see why it's a heresy. It is desire that makes humans act to an end. If you eliminate all ends, then you tacitly are destroying desire. Kant calls this a necessary "disinterestedness" for ethics. I call it "joyless." And indeed Kantians are a joyless lot if you've ever met the consistent ones. What is left is a dead duty. Suffering becomes good for its own sake, since it's evidence that you were selfless when acting.
Mix in some Protestantism and things start getting stranger and more unhappy. They'll start to describe this sad state as "their sacrifice for Christ." Protestants don't have a tradition of martyrs or St. Francis so they don't have stories of going joyfully to a cross. The Kantian Protestant however tries to delight in suffering, as if its a good in itself. In Catholicism, this is a spiritual disease we call "encratism." People who awake from a lukewarm faith to zeal commonly overcorrect into an extreme away from the virtue of zeal, falling into this hole (a tempered, sober spirituality is the solution). We're called to redeem suffering, not be masochists. Unfortunately being Catholic is not enough to ensure we don't fall into Kantian Protestant thought.
Consider sex as an ethical action. If we're Kantian Protestants it should be disinterested, which is to say we get nothing out of it. Put away reproduction, correction of affections, family, even pleasure, and what's left must look like two insects during mating season acting merely out of instinct. It's a "duty," not a joy. It is a disinterested act, not a part of the happy life given to the faithful by God through the sacrament of marriage. That's a strange form of Christianity. This removal of ends for the sake of a disinterested, selfless moral act is called "Moralism." It's a heresy because it suggests people should only be acted upon as if they are good for their own sakes, and never as something you might get virtue out of by cultivating a life with them. While you avoid the fear of selfishness, you end up treating each person as The Good. We have a name for that in Catholicism - idolatry. This Protestant idea of Moralism eventually bred the Secularist idea of do-gooders who believe Love (Charity) can be achieved without God, a Neo-Pelagianism. It is also a heresy because it acts against human happiness. It tries to get you to act out something that is not true of God nor Man.
Kant's fear of people doing "ethical" actions for the wrong reasons is real. In Catholic Theology we call it concupiscence: the habitual inclination to will our own wills rather than God's, "Thy will be done." But we must acknowledge without desire man would not move, he wouldn't even get up in the morning. He'd die in bed. Desire is good. God made it. He likes it. It is to be healed from The Fall and to find its fulfillment. Salvation then can be described as "the redemption of Man's love." Even Plato and Pope Benedict XVI have both written on this. The true cult of the Divine must be one concerned with healing Man's eros, not destroying it.
This kind of Moralism is not only destructive of people's lives but it radically contradicts The Christ. In the Ordinariate Form of The Mass, we follow the Kyrie with Jesus's Summary of the Law.
Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.