Bernard Lonergan on Self-transcendence Part 4

Lonergan, Bernard J. F. Philosophical and Theological Papers, 1965-1980.

4 Moral Self-transcendence

Lonergan makes several points about morals. He introduces it with a picture. There are two benches near to each in a park. One bench has three Russian soldiers and they are looking ahead, avoiding looking at two Czech civilians, a young man and woman. The Czechs, in contrast, look right at the Russian soldiers.He draws this picture from a book, Towards Deep Subjectivity. This picture illustrates "ethical space." Lonergan states, "It sets forth in the objective world the subjective reality of two moral judgments: the moral judgment of the Czechs whose gaze amounts to the question, What right have you to be here? and the moral acquiescence of the Russians who do not care to look the Czechs in the eye" (323).

First, morality is known by people. We both praise and blame behavior. We praise what we consider right and blame what we consider bad.

Second, "good and evil bear witness to each other" (323). The look of the Czechs blame the Russians for what they consider wrong. The Russians refusal to look at the Czechs "transmits the blame from their helpless selves to their powerful and exacting masters" (323).

Third, people tend to avoid accepting blame. They tend to pass it along to other people. 

Fourth, Lonergan says is "pretense." One's action is not without fault, but one points to a greater good, to particular circumstances, to the actions of their "better's, to the "hypocrisy" of others, to the dangers they were facing. One openly says that one is not a "saint." Or one says that it is because of life's necessity. Because of the sinfulness of others, we cannot be pure.

Fifth, there is "ideology." To some, it is just a system of thought. "But properly it denotes systematic rationalization, that is, a system of thought worked out to defend, justify, legitimate an iniquitous style of living, of economic arrangements, of political government, of any of the organized forms of human activity" (323). So for Marxists capitalism is an ideology. For capitalists, communism is an ideology. Lonergan asserts, "So in its proper meaning the term ideology includes a moral judgment of reprobation both of the system of thought that one opposes and of the system of action that the system of thought would legitimate" (323).

Sixth, there is "impotence." When one becomes an adult it is funny how kids blames each other for mistakes. Lonergan states that it is harder "to obtain accurate information, to understand lengthy and minute analyses, to follow protracted chains of reasoning, to come to appreciate or see through the claims of clusters of nations armed with thermonuclear bombs" (324).

But the "impotence" on the world stage is "coupled in each of us with impotence" on the small stage of our lives. Moral action requires "sound judgment" and a "good will." We are not born with these things. They must be developed in us. This requires hard work and time. We need sound judgment to know what is the right thing to do and a good will to implement it. Lonergan asks like Aristotle, "But if sound judgment is a prerequisite for acquiring sound judgment, how are we ever to acquire it? If good will is a prerequisite for acquiring good will, how are we ever to acquire good will?" (324)

Does this mean that it is impossible to develop morally? That one must have virtue to acquire virtue. Is it a circle we can not escape. There is an alternative way to look at it. We escape the "vicious" circle by moral self-transcendence.

Questions of intelligence "promote our being from a world of sense impressions, images, feelings into a world of intelligence, discovery, endless vistas" (324). Questions of reflection "promote our being from a world of sense and intelligence to the rationality of a world in which one discerns clearly and efficiently between fact and fiction, astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy, history and legend, philosophy and myth, science and ideology" (324). There are two kinds of questions of deliberation: There are self-serving questions which only cares about how it effects me. In contrast, there are questions that ask "what is worth while, what is truly and not merely apparently good" (324).

It is only the latter question that leads to moral self-transcendence. Lonergan writes, "But when one's basic questions for deliberation regard not satisfactions but values - the vital values of health and skill, the social values that secure the vital values of the group, the cultural values that make worth while social goals and the satisfaction of vital needs - then moral self-transcendence has begun" (324-325). When one no longer needs to be motivated by fear or desires; one has become a moral actor, "a genuine person whose words and deeds inspire and invite those who know him or her to aspire themselves to moral self-transcendence, to become themselves genuine persons" (325).