I've been called worse (I think).

I must stand out like a sore thumb in these lecture classes. Here am I, with my thinning salt-and-pepper hair and my middle-aged-man attire, looking for all the world like some dilettante auditing the class. And when I ask questions, I betray the middling intellect and bourgeois assumptions of -- well -- guys like me.

The guest lecturer in our Introduction to the Study of Religion class yesterday was William Schweiker, a professor in theological ethics at the Divinity School and director of the Martin Marty Center.

I asked a question after his dense but fascinating lecture about the ethical implications of the text we were studying. The question was about whether mysticism has a place in society. I argued that the text  indicated that mysticism is an inherently solitary and even asocial pursuit, and that established society and organized religion, rather than facilitating connection to the Divine, tend to inhibit it.

I said this because the main character of the 12th-century Islamic text -- Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (which is Arabic for "Aware, son of Awake") -- returns to his secluded island after a brief visit to a neighboring, peopled island. He returns to his hermitage because he concludes that "most people are no better than animals," and that the pursuit of closeness to the Divine is best achieved not in society but in solitude.

To which Professor Schweiker replied, "that's a wonderfully Consequentialist statement you just made."

I had no idea what he meant. But I had the sense I'd been insulted, and I wanted to challenge him to a duel, right then and there. Or say something impudent ("Oh, really? And you da consequence of yo' mama").

Consequentialism, it turns out, is a school of philosophy that holds that the moral rightness of acts can only be determined by the consequences of those acts. The most prominent type of Consequentialism is the Utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and the like. Here's how the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the classic Utilitarian formula of "hedonistic act consequentialism":

[A]n act is morally right if and only if that act maximizes the good, that is, if and only if the total amount of good for all minus the total amount of bad for all is greater than this net amount for any incompatible act available to the agent on that occasion. (Cf. Moore 1912, chs. 1-2.) Hedonism then claims that pleasure is the only intrinsic good and that pain is the only intrinsic bad. Together these claims imply that an act is morally right if and only if that act causes "the greatest happiness for the greatest number," as the common slogan says.

Who knew there was a whole school of philosophy centered around this radical idea? I sure didn't.

So I guess, then, that when I asked Professer Schweiker my question I was saying, or assuming, that acts have consequences.

School is a great place to discover that you can never really have an original thought or ask a question that hasn't already been asked, debated and answered. And where your most foundational assumptions can be called into question, analyzed, poked full of holes and handed back to you.

I'm learning a lot from these people.

But I don't care how smart they are, they'd better stop calling me names.

--T.A.

Comments

[amba]

"Aware, son of Awake"

Now translate that into Sanskrit and see who turns up.

the moral rightness of acts can only be determined by the consequences of those acts.

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

[karen]

I think being a Consequentialist is not a bad thing. I'd say, it's a normal thing to be. Isn't it said: For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, or- something? Is that Einstein? Isn't that consequence?