Leithart: community ethics

This is a quote from Peter Leithart’s book, Miniatures & Morals.

For a Christian writer, the real challenge of life is not to puzzle the ultimate realities, but to live well in very particular social and domestic settings. The moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre discerns an Aristotelian trait in Austen’s recognition that virtues are formed, tested, and manifested within community. As Aristotle pointed out, this makes ethics a subdivision of politics—that is, it makes the question “What should I do?” a sub-question under “What kind of community do I wish to live in, and what is my place in it?”

For both Austen and Aristotle, the ethical life is status-specific. That is, to answer “What should I do in this case?” we must ask, “Who am I?” And this latter question is not a question about some inner ghostly “I,” but about the role and status I have in a particular society. Darcy must not only ask, “Shall I, who love Elizabeth Bennet’s fine eyes, pursue Elizabeth Bennet?” but “Shall I, with my name and status as an English nobleman, pursue Elizabeth Bennet?” When Knightley castigates Emma for her treatment of Miss Bates, he challenges her on precisely this point: Consider your position in the society of the town, he says, and the obligation that your position places on you to show kindness to an unfortunate (if silly) spinster like Miss Bates. Given the well-defined strata of the communities that Austen deals in, this is a more obvious question for her characters than it might be for us. But it is still a central ethical question. Deciding what is right is never simply a matter of “What should I as a human being do?” but always “What should I as a male high school student, or I as a wife, or I as a car mechanic, do in this or that situation?” This is not relativism; it does not mean that there are no absolutes of right and wrong. But it does mean that the absolutes have particular applications to particular people in particular circumstances. As a father, it is right for me to spank my children; as children, it is not right for my children to spank me. Only the most sophomoric ethics ignores that moral decisions are specific to circumstances, and Austen was no sophomore.

To put the point another way, Austen’s ethical vision emphasizes the fact that we are constantly shaped, limited, and qualified by others around us. Ethics is not just about individuals seeking to live a good life or about solitary decision-making trying to achieve ethical perfection; we are simply not isolated like that. Moral training is in the community, or, as Aristotle said, the ethical life is lived in the polis. Living an ethical life necessarily involves living in a community and seeking to benefit that community.