Against Unselfishness
John Zmirak, co-author of the wonderful Bad Catholic’s Guides, offers some interesting reflections on the idea that Christianity somehow involves a rejection of the legitimacy of self-interest:
If man is to reject all self-interest, this must include every sphere of life—including the realm of eros. On a radically altruistic analysis such as this, none of us should seek out the company of people whose conversation we enjoy, or wed those to whom we are attracted. Instead, we ought to mortify such selfish inclinations, and seek out the loneliest person we can find. We should mortify biology, and find a spouse among the ugliest and least marriageable—lest the taint of selfishness attach itself to the sacrament.Equally, I cannot see why we should prefer the interests of our own children or family members over those of strangers, or of our countrymen over foreigners. Strictly applied, such a standard would dynamite the Christian notion of subsidiarity, which ranks our obligations as proceeding outward from the self, with the greatest claims upon us made by those who are nearest (relatives and neighbors). Perhaps one could make a case that in strict justice we owe our own children nutrition before we owe it to strangers, but in dispensing it we would always have to be careful to disentangle any motives of personal affection or attachment, and strive not to take undue pleasure in it.
Does it sound like I’m addressing a problem that doesn’t exist, knocking down a straw man in a forest where no one will hear it fall? I wish I were. The first time I discussed this issue with a friend, she confirmed that she too had been troubled by the question of selfishness: “I’ve always wanted to adopt, and I still intend to. But for a long time I wondered if it was even moral to have my own children, when there are so many unwanted children out there whom I could raise instead.”
To which I responded: “That’s kind of creepy and sick, don’t you think?” She allowed that it probably was. Not everyone would agree. A decade ago I wrote an article addressing a book which literally argued that Westerners did not have the right to reproduce themselves in a world troubled by hunger, and I coined a word to describe the book’s position: “demographic masochism.” The whole discussion reminded me of the words of a wise Christian psychologist, who inquired, “Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. But what if you hate yourself?”
Let me carry this reductio just one step farther—into the absolute ethical contradiction to which it leads. If all self-interest is evil, then what does it mean when I perform an act of kindness to someone (let’s say, I volunteer to shovel out his driveway)? Whose interests am I serving? His. If he accepts that offer, whose interests is he serving? His own. In other words, he is being selfish. Which is evil. Indeed, by even offering him this service, I am in essence serving as a near occasion of sin, a temptation to self-interest on his part. In which case, the kindest thing I could do—thinking of his eternal salvation—would be not to make the offer. Unless, of course, I was sure he would be virtuous enough to refuse. (Of course, continuing the regress, he might reluctantly accept, if only to allow me the chance to do something virtuous–just as the woman I did not want and who did not want me might unselfishly accept my marriage proposal, the better to let each of us make a lifelong sacrifice.) In such a world, everyone would be holding the door for others, who would smile but refuse to walk through them. And no one would get anywhere.
Instead of such a frankly hopeless standard, Christians are better off accepting the fact that they have selves with legitimate interests, which they should pursue—but keeping a skeptical eye, informed by justice and charity, on the excesses of selfishness which tempt us constantly. We need not make some universal moral calculus which determines if each of our actions is motivated by “the greatest good” (and for whom? the greatest number?). Instead we must walk through the thicket of mixed and conflicting motives, asking always for the Grace which perfects, but does not abolish, nature.
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Have you ever heard of the “virtue ethics” tradition of ethical inquiry? You know–human beings have a telos; virtuous actions are those that contribute to the fulfillment of that telos; vicious ones to the opposite. Aristotle? Thomas? MacIntyre?
Your manner of reflection seems to skirt this whole tradition. Why? Is human nature (and its telos) so epistemologically inaccessible for you? Or so corrupt by sin that we need an alternate, ‘second-best’ mode of moral reasoning?
I am familiar with virtue ethics, yes. I’m not sure by your “skirt” comment if you’re saying my thinking is somehow close to this way of thinking, or if it is antithetical to it.
I’m not sure what the point of this post is. Is it some sort of joke? Is it some sort of Screwtape like device showing us how we reason ourselves away from the good and the truth?
Actually, as Zmirak notes in his post, promoting “unselfishness” is one of the things the elder demon advises his underling to do in the Screwtape Letters.
I think the post may suffer from a lack of clarity. It seems to me the author’s point is entirely unobjectionable, however. Self-denial, like anything virtuous, can become in Chesterton’s words a ‘wild and wasted virtue’ when isolated from other virtues. Christians have an obligation to practice self-denial, in order to detach themselves from this world so as to offer themselves more completely to God. Nevertheless, contra some polemical attacks on Christianity this is not to be some sort of ridiculous self-loathing. Rather, the virtue of prudence is necessary to help each individual determine what form the command to take up our Cross should take.
Blackadder
That doesn’t answer my question about your post; are you trying to suggest selfishness is a virtue? Again, just because self-denial can be used to guide people away into sin does not make the reverse true or good. There is considerable theological confusion going on here, especially on the difference between the “self” which must die, and the person which is a good and to be preserved because it is one of God’s creation with the dignity of being in the image and likeness of God. Selfishness is the raising of the self over and above all else, acting as if God over creation; selfishness sees the good in the false conceptions one makes for oneself, it is delusional, while selflessness is open to recieving the true personal (and ecclesial) dignity of our true vocation. Rejecting the self is not meant to be a means of rejecting the world, rather, as Florensky points out, it is the way to truly enjoy the world and all its goods.
The post concludes:
What about that sentence would make anyone think that anyone was praising “selfishness as a virtue”?
It suggests selfishness, but not in excess; it says the danger is in the excesses, but self-interest (hint, self) is to be the practical norm. This is opposed to the teaching of Christ and Church — deny thyself, take up the cross; not glorify thyself, the second is only the continuation of the great lie from Eden.
“excesses of selfishness” can mean two different things
1) Excesses which occur as a result of selfishness. An ordered regard for self is not ‘selfishness’ so defined. This is what I take the author to be saying.
2) An excess of selfishness….as opposed to selfishness in moderation. This of course is nonsense, assuming we (correctly) define selfishness as a disordered pursuit of the goods for the self. I don’t think the author intends to be interpreted in this way.
Eddie
Again the problem is it is gearing one to supplant and increase the self and its continued vitality “better off accepting the fact that they have selves with legitimate interests, which they should pursue” which proves it is about selfishness, instead of the Christian self-denial demanded by Christ. It again props up the false egoistic “I” as having rights (it doesn’t — it’s delusional, and comes from the fall), ignoring that the true rights are with the true person which is a vocational entity.
Ultimately, again, the whole point is trying to find a way to explain away Christian sentimentality by ignoring the basic fact: it is the person who has a right, but that person is an entity which is not their own, but God’s. And remember grace can only perfect nature by allowing it to do so, which means opening up to it, not closing it off by declaring the self as a closed entity which we are called to protect.
I think the question is whether all concern for self-interest is to be considered selfishness (and hence bad). It seems to me that the answer must be no, for the reasons given by Zmirak.
Again, the concern for self-interest is indeed selfishness, by definition. It is geared towards the self, the ego, the false, constructed reality which is in fact contrary to the true character God established for the person. The self is individualistic, the Christian is personal. The self must die for the person to live.
All concern for self-interest isn’t selfishness by definition, any more than all righteousness is self-righteousness or all judgment is judgmental.
Blackadder: self-interest is selfish by definition, because it sees the self as the end and a good unto itself; your other statements have nothing to do with the relationship between self-interest and selfishness; it again, is saying that the self (which is to die) has rights, when it doesn’t, it’s a false, fallen creation — that’s the whole point, it has no rights, it’s really non-existent, and it overshadows the true person covered up by that self, and any attempt to validate that self is not only selfishness, it is idolatry.
Mr. Zmirak is merely pointing out that self-interest, i.e. love of self, is not excluded in Christian ethics, and recognizes that it must be rightly ordered (to the love of God). The problem arises when people try to fit it within the contemporary dichotomy in ethics between altruism and egoism, and this is how Zmirak should be understood.
In reading Purgatorio tonight I ran across a snippet that aligns with Zmirak’s theme:
“Now, in so far as love can never shift
Its sight from the well-being of its subject,
All things are free from hatred for themselves.
“And since no being can be thought as sundered
From primal Being and standing by itself,
Each creature is cut off from hating him.
This comes from Virgil’s discourse on love and the sources of virtue and vice: Purg. XVII: 106-111