Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations [1 ed.] 9781433827532, 1433827530

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 A Framework for a Good Life
Chapter 2 Virtue and Vice
Chapter 3
Dependency
Chapter 4 Complications
Chapter 5
Human Limits
Chapter 6
Suffering
Chapter 7 Evil and the Vicious Character
Chapter 8
Human Frailty and the Good Life
References
Index
About the Authors

Citation preview

FRAILTY, SUFFERING, VICE AND

FLOURISHING IN THE FACE OF HUMAN LIMITATIONS

BLAINE J. FOWERS, FRANK C. RICHARDSON, AND BRENT D. SLIFE

American Psychological Association • Washington, DC

FRAILTY, SUFFERING, VICE AND

FRAILTY, SUFFERING, VICE AND

FLOURISHING IN THE FACE OF HUMAN LIMITATIONS

BLAINE J. FOWERS, FRANK C. RICHARDSON, AND BRENT D. SLIFE

American Psychological Association • Washington, DC

Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, the process of scanning and digitization, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by American Psychological Association 750 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 www.apa.org

To order APA Order Department P.O. Box 92984 Washington, DC 20090-2984 Tel: (800) 374-2721; Direct: (202) 336-5510 Fax: (202) 336-5502; TDD/TTY: (202) 336-6123 Online: www.apa.org/pubs/books E-mail: [email protected]

In the U.K., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, copies may be ordered from American Psychological Association 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU England Typeset in Goudy by Circle Graphics, Inc., Columbia, MD Printer: Bang Printing, Brainerd, MN Cover Designer: Mercury Publishing Services, Inc., Rockville, MD The opinions and statements published are the responsibility of the authors, and such opinions and statements do not necessarily represent the policies of the American Psychological Association. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fowers, Blaine J., 1956- author. | Richardson, Frank C., author. | Slife, Brent D., author. Title: Frailty, suffering, and vice : flourishing in the face of human limitations / Blaine J. Fowers, Frank C. Richardson, and Brent D. Slife. Description: Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016054882| ISBN 9781433827532 | ISBN 1433827530 Subjects: LCSH: Aging—Psychological aspects. | Positive psychology. Classification: LCC BF724.55.A35 F69 2017 | DDC 155.67/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054882 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library. Printed in the United States of America First Edition http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-000

To Susan, Betsy, and Karen.

Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 1.

A Framework for a Good Life......................................... 19

Chapter 2.

Virtue and Vice............................................................... 47

Chapter 3.

Dependency..................................................................... 69

Chapter 4.

Complications................................................................. 99

Chapter 5.

Human Limits............................................................... 127

Chapter 6.

Suffering........................................................................ 153

Chapter 7.

Evil and the Vicious Character..................................... 179

Chapter 8.

Human Frailty and the Good Life................................. 211

References................................................................................................. 237 Index......................................................................................................... 253 About the Authors................................................................................... 263 vii

FRAILTY, SUFFERING, VICE AND

INTRODUCTION

The idea that human beings can flourish is ancient. This idea was shared by many Ancient Greek philosophers, and it came to a rich, full expression in Aristotle’s writings. It has generated enormous contemporary interest as well. It is one of the core ideas of the positive psychology movement, and the attractiveness of the concept of a flourishing life is central to the movement. Yet many of people are uncertain about the prospects for flourishing because unavoidable human frailties seem to bar the way to thriving. Unfortunately, positive psychologists have not integrated the promise of flourishing with the realities of human frailty. How can people thrive, given dependency, the complexity of life, human limits, and unavoidable suffering? We have written this book to answer this question. We show not only that it is possible to flourish as imperfect beings but also that human frailty is actually central to living well.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-001 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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Consider the following example. As she sat and pondered her life recently, Silvia felt overwhelmed by a confusing mix of sadness, frustration, and guilt, and, as she thought about it, she realized the strongest feeling was that of guilt. She recognized that she seemed to have it all: a successful career as a painter, a loving husband, three (mostly) wonderful children, good friends, and a comfortable lifestyle. At 44, Silvia had been successful at everything that had really mattered to her, yet she felt chronically burdened and conflicted. Partly because of her success, she felt guilty that she was not happier and more grateful for her good fortune. Silvia also recognized that there were good reasons for the pain and guilt she felt. She experienced frequent periods of sadness about losing her best friend to pancreatic cancer last year. Although she loved and enjoyed her three daughters beyond measure, she often felt consumed by helping them with homework, boyfriends, social activities, shopping, and reality checking. Her parents had become unable to help with the girls because of chronic health problems, and they now needed Silvia’s assistance on a weekly basis. Silvia worried that she was neglecting her husband and her friends as she responded to the needs of her children and parents. She was also behind schedule in preparing for an art show booked for the near future. The worst guilt, Silvia reflected, followed the immediate resentment she experienced when one of her family members asked for help or floundered in a way that made an even stronger appeal for assistance. She would always rise to the occasion, but she felt beset by these many and imperious needs. Silvia’s therapist suggested that she let go of some of these responsibilities and focus on giving herself credit for all that she did do rather than feeling guilty for not doing more. Her therapist also recommended a recent book on happiness, which Silvia had been reading. When she had attempted to complete a gratitude exercise recently, she had recounted many things for which she felt genuinely grateful, though each one of them was accompanied by a resounding “but.” She recalled writing “I am grateful for my children’s health” and then spending 15 minutes thinking about how much time it took to shop for and prepare healthy meals and to drive them to physical activities and doctor visits. The glow of gratitude did not last long for her. Silvia looked ahead in the table of contents of the happiness book to see if there was something that might be more helpful. She found herself dreading the chapters on happiness and flourishing. Because gratitude was so difficult, happiness and flourishing seemed entirely impossible. Silvia is not alone with these tensions and conflicts. We have written this book because we experience similar difficulties ourselves, as do our family members, friends, students, and clients. The focus on happiness and living a flourishing life that positive psychology has so widely publicized has been an important source of hope and renewal. Positive psychology has been 4       frailty, suffering, and vice

enormously beneficial for many people. It has helped many individuals to shift their focus from stress and coping to human potential and fulfillment. Yet our own experiences and observations of the everyday challenges of cultivating a flourishing life have shown us that creating one is neither simple nor easy. There are real and unavoidable complications and suffering in all of our lives, and attempting to be positive about them is often not enough. We are convinced that a useful approach to flourishing has to explicitly incorporate ordinary human frailties and limitations. It is not enough to work around these normal challenges or to presume that we can just transcend them. We decided to write this book because we are convinced that human frailties and limitations are not just unavoidable, they are central to the goal of living in a flourishing way. Our goal is to show how people flourish by living excellently as the sort of creatures we really are, with all our limitations and frailties. As a starting point, we address three questions whose answers will show how to enrich and extend the insights positive psychology has offered so far. What are the pathways to flourishing? Is good theory important? Are virtue and flourishing moral topics? What Are the Pathways to Flourishing? The acknowledged leader of positive psychology, Martin Seligman (2011), wrote that “the goal of positive psychology is to increase flourishing” (p. 13). We heartily share this goal. From the beginning, positive psychology has been defined in contrast to ordinary psychology. Positive psychologists tend to criticize ordinary psychology for focusing too much on the negative aspects of life. Seligman described this contrast in the beginning of his latest book: I have spent most of my life working on psychology’s venerable goal of relieving misery and uprooting the disabling conditions of life. . . . Taking the psychology of misery to heart . . . can be a vexation to the soul. [I want] to supplement [psychology’s] venerable goal with a new goal: exploring what makes life worth living and building the enabling conditions of a life worth living. (pp. 1–2)

We, the authors, believe that dividing human experience up in this way may not serve clients and therapists well. If the “old psychology” has been too one-sided in its negativity, then trading that in for a “new psychology” of positivity seems to be just as one-sided. We think that flourishing includes the entirety of life, not just the happy parts. This is important because people’s ongoing struggles with our human limits and fallibility are a vital part of our lives and partly define who we are. Turning our back on the difficult aspects introduction     

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of life would amount to giving up important parts of ourselves. We show that much of the growth, self-development, and meaning people find in life emerges from working through individual shortcomings and weaknesses. That is why we are proposing an integrated view that recognizes that human flourishing must include not only finding the best responses to human dependency, weakness, and suffering, but also seeking positive experiences. Of course, Seligman (2011) recognized that all of us face some degree of adversity and suffering in life. He stated emphatically that “we must minimize our misery” (p. 53). He also suggested “learning to function well even if you are sad or anxious or angry—in other words, dealing with it” (p. 53). Sometimes this kind of mature management of misery is the best one can do, but this is literally all Seligman had to say about the relationship between human pain and flourishing—deal with it. Silvia is clearly “dealing with it” by taking care of her family and pursuing her artwork, but she is still stuck in the mire of guilt and resentment. We think that there is a lot more to say about constructively addressing struggles and suffering. People need to acknowledge and understand suffering in a way that enables growth and learning. We believe that people can do a lot better than just dealing with it. Seligman (2011) developed a new theory of well-being to help promote flourishing. In his theory, “well-being has five elements . . . positive emotion, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, and accomplishment” (p. 16). None of the five elements show how to constructively approach suffering, dependency, frailty, or weakness. The problem is that all people struggle with these human challenges. In his concept of flourishing, Seligman envisioned no role for these inescapable features of human life. He recommended a direct pathway to flourishing by minimizing the negative and maximizing the positive. In this book, we share with readers a more hopeful, and, we think, humane view of human limitations. In our view, human limitations contribute in important ways to the quality of life rather than being a negative that should be shunted aside. Just to make it clear that Seligman’s direct pathway is not idiosyncratic to him, we consider how Barbara Fredrickson, another leader in positive psychology, addressed human frailty. In her description of her research on emotions, she used the same kind of dichotomous thinking as Seligman. Fredrickson (2009) wrote that whereas “nearly all previous efforts within the science of emotions centered on negativity. . . . I took a different path. I’ve made a career out of studying the positive side” (p. 12). She commented that negative emotions are “dark and heavy,” whereas positive emotions are “light and buoyant” and suggested that “you may either languish, barely holding on to life, or flourish, becoming ripe with possibility and remarkably resilient to hard times” (pp. 9, 17). 6       frailty, suffering, and vice

Fredrickson is, to her credit, no Pollyanna. She recognized that emotions are transient and that negative emotions are part of every life. Her recommendation has been to increase the ratio of positive to negative emotions, and she claimed that a fascinating fact about people’s positivity ratios is that they’re subject to a tipping point. Below a certain ratio, people get pulled into a downward spiral fueled by negativity. . . . Yet above this same ratio, people seem to take off, drawn along an upward spiral energized by positivity. . . . Downward spiral or upward spiral. As I see it, that’s your choice. . . . We’re either on a positive trajectory or a negative one. (Fredrickson, 2009, pp. 16–17)

The magic ratio is 3 to 1: “Aim for a positivity ratio of at least 3 to 1. . . . This is the ratio that I have found to be a tipping point, predicting whether people languish or flourish” (Fredrickson, 2009, p. 32).1 Fredrickson’s (2009) solution was to maximize positive experiences so that they wash out the difficulties in life, though she offered no constructive approach to ordinary human struggles themselves. She wrote that trying times almost inevitably bring negativity. Unchecked, the narrowed mindsets of negativity can pull you on a downward spiral and drain the very life out of you. . . . you can choose a different path. . . . The key is to uncover your inner wellspring of heartfelt positivity. Positivity can loosen negativity’s grip on your mental outlook. . . . it sets you on an upward spiral, a positive trajectory that cuts through dark times and leads you back to higher ground, stronger than ever. (Fredrickson, 2009, p. 99)

Fredrickson’s answers to negativity are to flip a switch, make a choice, uncover inner wellsprings. In this book, we explore a different pathway to flourishing that includes learning from adversity, honoring losses, and growing to become better people rather than turning away from or minimizing those struggles. With so much “either/or” thinking and the strong emphasis on the positive, many leaders of positive psychology seem to insist that one must make a choice between a one-sided focus on the negative or a one-sided focus on the positive. They advocate directly pursuing flourishing by accumulating large quantities of positive experiences. One of the things that the Silvia example illustrates is that it is just not that easy. Happiness and joy is never far from sadness and loss. Achievement and triumph is never Although the credibility of Fredrickson’s ratio has been devastatingly criticized (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013), the validity of the ratio is not our primary concern. 1

introduction     

7

entirely divorced from dependency and vulnerability. Our lives are always a complex mix of positive and negative, strength and weakness. Even if it were possible to flip a switch and focus only on the positive, would that be good for us? We need a greater wisdom about living, not a quantitative increase in the balance of positive over negative experiences. A recent exception to this one-sided view was presented by Kashdan and Biswas-Diener (2014) in a book called The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self—Not Just Your “Good” Self—Drives Success and Fulfillment. They encouraged readers to recognize that “negative” emotions and experiences, such as anxiety or pessimism, can be beneficial. They urged readers to “embrace” the “less comfortable aspects” of their lives to “maximize [their] chances for true success and becoming whole” (Kashdan & Biswas-Diener, 2014, p. 200). They recommended being psychologically flexible and using negative emotional states to become more effective because “the basic idea is that psychological states are instrumental” (Kashdan & Biswas-Diener, 2014, p. 201). Their advice may have its benefits, and it is a welcome shift from one-sided positivity. We share with those authors the idea that the best kind of human life is characterized by wholeness rather than by focusing on only one part of the experience. We differ from them in our recommendations for how to attain that wholeness. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener focused on transient psychological states and how to effectively use those states. In contrast, we emphasize enduring human frailties and how to become the kind of person who habitually responds properly to those frailties through the virtues. We also believe that Kashdan and Biswas-Diener’s frankly instrumental perspective has some rather pernicious consequences, as we discuss in Chapter 1. (See also Fowers, 2010; Richardson & Manglos, 2012.) Part of what it is to be human is to need other people, to experience limits in life, and to suffer at times. Like Silvia, most people cannot just shift their attention to an ever-expanding happiness or fulfillment because dependence, complexity, limits, and suffering are part of the warp and woof of life. If these difficult aspects of life are not given their due attention, then a great deal of what makes us human—attachments, mortality, vulnerability—is cut off. Each of our identities is partly constituted by the particular people on whom we depend, the complexities of everyday life, the specific weaknesses with which we cope, the actual suffering through which we have passed, and the definite limits we have encountered. If we neglect all this, we risk losing sight of who we are. This book differs from the majority of positive psychology writings in that we focus on the intimate relationship between the flesh and blood limitations of ordinary human beings and flourishing. The frailties, dependencies, and suffering that beset every human being to some extent are invaluable 8       frailty, suffering, and vice

sources of the meaning, growth, and deep relationships that constitute flourishing. Although the apparently direct path to flourishing by accentuating the positive can be helpful, people would lose too much of the richness and texture of life if they were to focus so intently on the positive that they ignore how the inevitable struggles of ordinary living can lead to deepening and growth. The key message of this book is that it is neither necessary nor desirable to eliminate human struggles and frailties to pursue a flourishing life. In fact, we aim to show that the proper responses to human limitations are actually the best pathway to a flourishing human life. Learning and growing from difficulties is a vital pathway to flourishing that may appear more indirect than the more commonly discussed direct pathway, but it is one that is far more inclusive of human experience. Consider grief for the loss of a loved one. Grief can be seen as pain that ought to be minimized, or it can be seen as honoring the memory of someone who was irreplaceable in one’s life. People often feel the loss most acutely when they think about the good experiences they had with their loved one. As authors, we are not recommending prolonged or exaggerated grieving, but we recognize that the suffering of grief can be good because it is one of the ways individuals pay homage to the important people they have lost. We have a much more ambitious goal than just putting readers in touch with the pain and vulnerability that are inescapable for human beings. After all, the idea that life is difficult and uncertain is hardly news, even if we often avert our eyes from pain and uncertainty rather than facing them squarely. Rather, we hope to show that the inevitable dependency, limits, and suffering are essential contributors to a good life. That is, human beings do not flourish despite the difficulties they face. Rather, we flourish as human beings through approaching these difficulties in the best ways. It is the way that we see and respond to our vulnerabilities and limitations that determines how well we live. If we see the dependency, frailty, complexity, and loss in our lives as impediments, then it is perfectly sensible to resent them or see them as obstacles to living well. When we recognize that these aspects of life are part of what it means to be a human being, however, we come to see that it is impossible to really flourish without a way to integrate our whole lives, the positive, the negative, and the everything in between. In the example of Silvia, her commitments to her family, her artwork, her friends, and her community are indeed sources of conflict and burdens, and she often resents them, but they also can be the wellsprings of her flourishing. Sometimes the pathway to the positive is simple and direct, as positive psychologists suggest, but often it is more complex and entails finding meaning and growth in difficult human struggles. We believe that both pathways are vital. introduction     

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Is Good Theory Important? A second way that this book is different from most discussions of human flourishing is that we present a powerful, systematic framework to illuminate what it means to flourish and how to cultivate a flourishing life. This emphasis on sophisticated theory may seem contradictory to our commitment to a practical book. It is not contradictory because we believe, along with Kurt Lewin (1951), that “there is nothing more practical than a good theory” (p. 169). Indeed, one of the best tests of theory is how well it can explain practical matters. Weak theory leads to many errors and directs one down the wrong paths. To promote human flourishing, one needs to think about it in the best ways. Good theory enriches understanding and practice. Good theory aids in the understanding of proper distinctions, such as those between virtue and vice, and the recognition of essential connections, such as the central link between flourishing and virtue and the intimate connection between human limitations and the best kind of human life. We have written this book because these indispensable theoretical and practical linkages, to our knowledge, simply are not available and accessible anywhere else. For example, positive psychologists tend to neglect the concept of vice, but virtue can only be fully understood in contrast to vice. Take, for example, the virtue of courage. It is only possible to understand how to get courage right if we know how we can go wrong in risky situations by acting either cowardly or rash. Aristotle (trans. 1999) was one of the earliest and most influential thinkers about virtue theory, and he shared the insight that each virtue (e.g., courage) is best understood in contrast to a vice of deficiency (e.g., cowardice) and a vice of excess (e.g., rashness). Without such contrasts, we are left with partial understandings and poor guidance regarding the virtues. We explore the possibilities for human flourishing in this book in practical and useful ways. We have written about the theory of human nature and flourishing elsewhere (Fowers, 2012, 2015b; Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999; Slife, 2004), but we focus here on what that theory tells about everyday goals and activities. In this book, we provide what we feel has been missing in positive psychology: a theoretical framework that can show how one might integrate strengths and weaknesses, strivings and limitations, triumphs and defeats. We approach this integration with a theory of the human good that grows out of an extended conversation between ancient wisdom and contemporary experience and knowledge. In Chapters 1 and 2, we present the theory and illustrate how it works in practical examples. This theory provides the ideas needed to discuss, throughout the book, human frailties, virtues, and flourishing at greater length and with the proper depth and resonance. 10       frailty, suffering, and vice

We recognize, of course, the need to update any insights appropriated from ancient thinkers so that they respond to contemporary times and concerns. There are some aspects of ancient views that are entirely unacceptable to most people today and others that need to be updated because modern people know things that the ancients did not know. So the book is a conversation between ancients and moderns, philosophers and psychologists, scholars and laypeople. Such conversation is needed because no one perspective can lay claim to the whole truth. Only by comparing and contrasting these reservoirs of understanding and wisdom can one formulate a useful perspective on the good life for humans. Are Virtue and Flourishing Moral Topics? A third way this book differs from most discussions of positive psychology is that we present virtue and flourishing in the frankly moral terms that are most appropriate to them. We do not adhere to the false dichotomy of facts and values as is the common practice in the social sciences. Virtues have always been recognized as moral character, and we see no wisdom in abandoning that understanding. The point of any discussion of flourishing is to explore the best way to live. It is impossible to explore the concept of flourishing without committing to some idea of better and worse ways to live. This is a seriously moral topic, and it is not possible to be neutral about it and still explore it meaningfully. Attempting to discuss and study virtue and flourishing as though they are not moral topics is like playing a child’s game of pretend. Although many social scientists and helping professionals have become interested in virtue and human flourishing, it is odd how few authors explicitly recognize the connection between these concepts and morality. This error is surprisingly common in positive psychology. The reason this mistake is so common is the belief that one must strictly separate facts and values to maintain scientific objectivity. It is widely recognized that values and morality cannot be simply banished from professional practice, but “personal values” remain suspect and practitioners worry about value imposition. The trick that psychologists generally use is to define moral questions as subjective experiences or perceptions rather than as objective (nonmoral) facts. This even includes seeing virtue and well-being as nothing more than subjective judgments. The trick only works if one believes that facts have no relationship to values and that virtue and well-being exist only as subjective perceptions. Both of these beliefs are quite dubious. Virtues and flourishing can be meaningfully assessed in self-report, behavior, and brain scans, meaning that these constructs have the same degree of objective tangibility as introduction     

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anxiety, intelligence, or personality (Greene & Paxton, 2009; Huta & Ryan, 2010; Meindl, Jayawickreme, Furr, & Fleeson, 2013). This attempt at value neutrality also leads to a deeply ironic position that implies that the values of objectivity and moral open-mindedness dictate that psychologists keep all other moral values out of the science and at arm’s length from professional practices. Aristotle (trans. 1999) helps one to understand that attempting to separate facts and morality makes no sense because all human activities are designed to achieve choiceworthy ends. One way to put this is to say that human actions aim at things that are seen as good. A good is a desirable state of affairs, such as pleasure, knowledge, or justice. If people are always pursuing what they think is good, then everything they do has a moral dimension built into it from the start. Of course, one can be misguided by what one believes to be choiceworthy, but the understanding of what is worthwhile always guides human actions. This formulation even applies to social scientists. From this perspective, it is clear that the goal of social science is to pursue the good of knowledge about human beings. Social scientists are not at all neutral about the good of knowledge. Tens of thousands of social scientists avidly seek this knowledge, and society promotes these efforts by funding universities, foundations, and grants, and showing great interest in the latest scientific results. Similarly, therapists and coaches work hard to benefit their clients through helping them to attain greater happiness, contentment, and meaning. Teachers and consultants share the good of knowledge with their students and clients. All professionals hope deeply that the work they do contributes both to a better life for those they serve and to a better world. The fact that professional efforts are always directed toward choiceworthy goals leads us, as authors, to advocate an explicit acknowledgment of the goods that we seek as social scientists and helping professionals. This recognition is especially important for those who see virtue and flourishing as worthwhile. It is still important to acknowledge the worry that incorporating the moral dimension of scientific and professional work will contaminate that work and perhaps lead to wholesale value imposition. Lengthier and much more detailed arguments make it clear that it is not really possible to separate facts and values at all because moral commitments are already built into all professional activities (Danziger, 1990; Fowers, 2005; Richardson et al., 1999; Slife & Williams, 1995; Taylor, 1985). We will not repeat those arguments here. The way to address the worries about the role of moral values in professional work is to openly acknowledge the goods that we pursue in our work so that we can discuss and debate them. This kind of open conversation is the single most powerful way to guard against the 12       frailty, suffering, and vice

imposition of any particular point of view. In addition, it will provide a better understanding of what is deemed worthwhile. We discuss the enormous importance and value of the diversity of moral viewpoints at greater length in Chapter 1. Aristotle’s Natural Ethics Our thinking about human flourishing has been profoundly influenced by Aristotle, one of the original theorists of the good life. His work has endured as a touchstone for the good life for over 2,000 years.2 We have not written a philosophy book, so we reference Aristotle sparingly, but wellinformed readers will recognize our enormous debt to his work. We are not alone in our admiration of Aristotle, as his work has been a key source for many positive psychologists and moral philosophers in recent decades. There is also great wisdom to be found in other ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics. Yet, two aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy set him apart from these other thinkers. First, he was extremely practical in his thinking. Second, he grounded his ethical theory firmly in his understanding of human nature. We follow Aristotle’s lead in understanding the ways that the good life always concerns practical life and is intimately related to human nature. This means that we see the best kind of life as one that is made up of experiences and achievements that are naturally good for human beings. We know that speaking of things being “naturally good” for humans is not common in psychology these days. But see what you think as we develop this idea. A few examples will give you an initial sense of the relationship between human nature and what is good for humanity. Human beings are a deeply social species, so it is good to have strong, enduring relationships with other people. Human beings are also rational creatures, so we fare better when our lives make sense to us, and when we have good reasons for what we do. Humans find joy in aesthetic beauty of many kinds, so a life that includes beauty is better than one that does not. In Chapter 1, we discuss these desirable states of affairs as natural human goods. Thus, knowledge is a good and friendship is a good. These goods are worthwhile to human beings because of the kind of creatures that we are. If people were solitary beings, friendship would not be particularly important, but because people are profoundly social beings, friendship is a vital component of a good life. Aristotle’s central text on flourishing was the Nicomachean Ethics, but he had much to say about it in the Eudemian Ethics, the Politics, and the de Anima. More detailed treatments of this work that are accessible to psychologists are available (Fowers, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2015a; Richardson, 2012). 2

introduction     

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Although human goods are natural, pursuing them is not always easy. Everyone knows that relationships do not last forever and that they tend to be complicated rather than simple. We can also get confused or misdirected in our reasoning about what we should do or how we should live. This vulnerability to going wrong in the key activities of our lives is why we need a theory of flourishing that incorporates an understanding of human limitations, such as our deep dependence on others and our vulnerability to mistakes in our thinking. An Overview of the Book In Chapter 1, we explain the ways that human nature gives rise to specific goods that are essential to living well. This framework provides the depth needed to really understand the good life in the context of human limitations. We discuss living well in terms of the successful pursuit of natural human goods. Silvia exemplifies deep commitments to some key human goods. Her commitments to her family are extremely precious to her and are essential sources of belonging and meaning for her. The importance of these relationships is not diminished by the feelings of being burdened that she often has. Her artwork represents a strong commitment to aesthetic beauty and the power of art to reveal aspects of the human and natural world. It is a key part of a good life for her. The struggles she has with painting are part of the creative process rather than something she could consider minimizing. Silvia’s capacity to flourish depends on properly understanding and embracing the mutual dependency, complexity, and limitations of time and energy. This dependence includes the grief she feels about the loss of her friend to cancer. Her flourishing is not a matter of setting aside these struggles or somehow accumulating “three times as many positive experiences” to counterbalance these challenges. As therapists, educators, and leaders, we must recognize that all of our activities involve both strength and frailty. We cannot really understand the best kind of life only by emphasizing strengths and positivity. Human dependency and limitations show up at the center of our pursuit of a good life, and they cannot be pushed to the periphery. If we, as professionals, neglect human frailty, we will be unable to acknowledge Silvia’s grief, help her develop the courage to face her fears and insist on a fairer distribution of burdens in her family, or assist her in gaining a greater wisdom concerning human suffering and limits. In Chapter 2, we show how our framework of virtues and flourishing helps us understand and appropriately respond to our many limitations. Classically, virtues are the strengths that people cultivate to fashion a good life. This understanding of the virtues shows us that they are needed because 14       frailty, suffering, and vice

they make it possible to respond well to the specific limitations we have. Courage is a straightforward example of the relationship between human frailty and virtue. Courage is necessary because there are times when each of us must protect something that is important to us. Loved ones must be defended against dangers, and principles or freedoms must be defended against encroachments. Protecting what is important often means taking physical, psychological, or social risks. Courage is the ability to protect something important despite the risks that it entails. Because we are vulnerable in all of these ways, we naturally fear risks and sensibly avoid unnecessary or excessive risks. Yet if people were guided only by this natural fear, risk avoidance would be the only response one would have to danger, and it would be impossible to stand up for what is important. Courage is a necessary complement to natural fears that enables people to protect what is important, even at the risk of damage or death. In this book, we discuss many virtues that are specifically designed to help human beings respond in the best ways to their inherent frailty and vulnerability. In Chapters 3 through 7, we explore a number of human limitations. We begin, in Chapter 3, by examining the inherent dependency on other people. We explain how individuals can only become fully human through their relationships with others. This is obviously true of infants, who cannot take care of themselves. But we also clarify that human beings are deeply dependent on one another throughout life to maintain their identities, experience belonging, and to have meaning in their lives. In contrast to the common tendency to link strength and health to independence and to link weakness and pathology to dependence, we show how ordinary it is to depend on other people and how that dependency is a powerful source of the meaning and richness of life. We explain that strong, enduring relationships with others requires a mutual dependency without which it is impossible to live well as a human being. Resolving our culturally encouraged ambivalence about dependency can help us to more fully embrace the relationships that make us who we are. Human relationships are also complex and messy. In Chapter 4, we question the common aspiration to make relationships simple, straightforward, and conflict-free. This quest for simplicity creates unrealistic expectations and disappointment with relationships, committee meetings, and politics. The disillusionment experienced when these faulty expectations are not met can lead to inappropriate disengagement from important involvements. The differences between people that are at the core of the messiness and tension in everyday involvements are an essential aspect of the relational world. These differences are not a problem to be overcome. Rather, differences are a source of the vitality and community that is possible only when people who are not all the same come together and treat the complexity of their relations as potentially enriching. introduction     

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In Chapter 5, we confront the fantasy of nearly infinite human capacity that has been built up by our ever-growing technological prowess and our capacity for abstract thought. We often feel that we can and should seek virtually unlimited knowledge, power, and freedom. The exhortation to “be all you can be,” often inspires an inflated and unrealistic sense of what one’s potential is. In Chapter 5, we explain that it is only through the recognition of our limitations (e.g., limits of time and talent) that we can make peace with the conflicts and disappointments of everyday life. What is most important is that it is through accepting rather than resisting unavoidable human limitations that we open ourselves to some of life’s most meaningful experiences and fulfilling relationships, which are two keys to human flourishing. In Chapter 6, we discuss the pervasive tendency in modern Western societies to make inordinate efforts to control outcomes and to avoid or ensure against misfortune. There is a similarly encompassing interest in reducing suffering through economic, medical, psychological, and educational policies. Although reducing misfortune and suffering are obviously desirable aims, these efforts can seduce people into thinking that misfortune and suffering can be largely eliminated. In this chapter, we explore the unavoidability of suffering and its potentially ennobling aspects. Some examples are the pain involved in growth and self-development, the grief at the loss of a loved one, and shared anguish in the face of tragedy or evil. Seen rightly, suffering is part and parcel of living as a finite being, essential to humanity, potentially reorienting, and possibly even redemptive. Such misfortunes may seem to make a good life next to impossible—at least at times. We try to show that an appropriate understanding of human vulnerability to misfortune promotes forgiveness and compassion both for others and for one’s self. We suggest that compassion is a key virtue in the face of human frailty and that solidarity with others in the face of setbacks and tragedies is indispensable to flourishing. A good understanding of virtue and flourishing requires an equally clear recognition of vice and evil. In Chapter 7, we give vivid examples of vicious characters and evil actions in the contemporary world to demonstrate their reality (e.g., genocide, slavery, distribution of highly addictive drugs). We also discuss more mundane forms of vice, such as greed and lust for power. We then analyze how individuals become subject to such vices through misconceptions and a variety of forms of self-deception about what is good. We show how this understanding of vice and evil can help people to avoid zealotry and extremism in the name of a good or a god. Most accounts of virtue and flourishing lack a clear recognition of vice and evil, which results in an ironically tepid portrayal of the best kind of life. Providing a clear account of vice and evil makes the understanding of flourishing much richer and deeper by clarifying how one can go wrong and by further illuminating key elements of virtue and flourishing. 16       frailty, suffering, and vice

Chapter 8 summarizes and integrates the elements of the book. We focus on how proper understandings of dependence, complexity, limits, and suffering make it possible for us to successfully pursue genuinely human goods such as knowledge, friendship, and justice. We flesh out the framework of the good life developed in Chapter 1 to vividly demonstrate the connections between the inescapability of human limitations, the cultivation of virtues, and the pursuit of human goods. It turns out that our insufficiency and frailty as individuals are indispensable to the pursuit of the most important goods in life. The combination of human finitude and our intensely social nature is what makes it possible for the extraordinary achievements of the species, ranging from compassion to landing probes on Mars. Understanding and responding well to human finitude is indispensable because the collaboration necessary for the astonishing projects and the deep connection uniquely available to human beings can only happen because we are not individually self-sufficient. As humans, we limit our possibilities severely when we strive for this illusory self-sufficiency. Our conclusion in this book is that the human good does not arise in spite of our limitations, but rather through addressing ourselves properly to them. Each chapter includes examples of how these ideas can be applied in practical ways by therapists, educators, consultants, and leaders. We have written this book to illuminate the ways in which professionals can promote flourishing in the context of human limitations. We begin with a very practical theory of the good in Chapter 1.

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1 A FRAMEWORK FOR A GOOD LIFE

Christina, a Latina middle school language arts teacher, exemplifies many features of the good life in her work as an educator. She has found her “niche” with eighth graders and loves the books she teaches. She delights in opening her students’ minds to the themes and questions that live in literature and in helping them to deepen their understanding and ability to grapple with universal human concerns. She fulfilled the role of teacher so thoroughly that she was recognized as the 2010–2011 Teacher of the Year in Dade County, Florida. Christina’s joy in and devotion to her work as a teacher result from her commitment to the goods of sharing knowledge and in helping adolescents grow and develop. Knowledge sharing and nurturing others’ growth and development are characteristic human activities and are two of the activities that contribute to flourishing. As we illustrate in this chapter, there are many goods and activities that contribute to flourishing and many different ways to flourish, but the key element in all of them is that these activities are deeply related to human nature. This example http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-002 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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focuses on the work of a teacher, but people pursue characteristically human goods in every aspect of their lives. And success in these pursuits is what it means to have a good human life. What is a Good Human Life? The question about what makes a good human life is one of the biggest and oldest questions in the history of humanity. Many answers have been given: a life of maximal pleasure and minimal pain, a life of wealth, a life of accomplishment and acclaim, a deeply spiritual life, an authentic life, to name just a few. In this book, we explore an ancient answer to the question of a good life that has recently garnered a great deal of renewed attention and interest among positive psychologists (e.g., Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Vittersø, 2016) and others (e.g., Fowers, 2005; Ryff & Singer, 2008). Ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno developed moral philosophies to describe and explain how to live the best kind of human life. They referred to the good life with the term eudaimonia (you-dye-mone-EE-ah). The term can be literally translated as eu meaning good and daimon meaning supernatural spirit or something like a guardian angel in contemporary terms. It suggests that one’s life is being guided in the best way. Translators generally use the term happiness for eudaimonia. This translation works well for philosophers. For nonphilosophers, however, happiness is potentially misleading because it usually refers to an emotional state that comes and goes. We prefer to translate eudaimonia as flourishing because eudaimonia refers to living the highest, most complete human life. We use the terms good life, flourishing, and eudaimonia synonymously throughout the book. What is exciting about the current revival of interest in eudaimonia is that it is possible to combine ancient wisdom with contemporary knowledge in a way that makes human flourishing more comprehensible and accessible. What is the good life for human beings? Some people think that the good life is one that is filled with pleasure, wealth, or fame. On reflection, however, it does not seem possible that having lots of pleasure, money, or acclaim could really be the best kind of life. But why? Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle gave many reasons why they thought these outcomes are not the central sources of flourishing. The most straightforward reason is that there are good and bad ways to obtain these ends. That is, there are noble pleasures (love of learning or of justice) and ignoble pleasures (gluttony or domination). One can gain wealth through hard work or through fraud. Fame is possible as a result of noble or ignoble actions. These philosophers suggested that the best kind of life has to be an unquestionably good way to live. Aristotle (trans. 1999) described an unquestionably good life as one that expresses human nature in the best ways. This is known as the function argu20       frailty, suffering, and vice

ment. The idea is simple but powerful: A good example of any given thing is one that fulfills its function excellently. For example, consider what makes a good paring knife. It must have a short, narrow, sharp blade and a handle that makes it easy to maneuver the knife as one peels fruit. These features allow the knife to fulfill its function excellently. We can understand the function argument even more clearly with an organic analogy. A heart can be described in terms of its structure and makeup: Muscle tissue forms chambers, conduits are connected to the chambers, and valves are at the intersection of the chambers and conduits. But recognizing this material organization is insufficient for understanding what a heart is. One also needs to comprehend that its function is to pump blood and that each of the structures in the heart contributes to that function. The structure makes sense only when we understand the function. The conduits bring blood into and out of the heart. The valves regulate the flow of the blood. The muscles that make up the chambers can constrict to push the blood out or relax so the blood can enter the chamber. Once we recognize the function of the heart, it is easy to see that some hearts fulfill their function well, and others do not. When a heart is diseased, malformed, or damaged, it cannot function well. This means that some hearts are better than others. For example, a woman who has congenital heart failure (the heart has become so large that it cannot pump blood efficiently) could correctly say that she1 has a bad heart. An athlete who has trained so that her heart pumps blood extremely efficiently could rightly say that she has a good heart. This means that the evaluation of whether a heart is good or bad is built seamlessly into the natural description of its function, which is, in turn, essential to understanding what it is. The function argument also applies to organisms. For humans, flourishing is the excellent expression of characteristic human function or functions. Aristotle suggested that humans are, by nature, reasoning, social creatures. If this is correct, a good human life is one in which a person acts rationally and socially in an excellent way. In other words, a good human life is one in which the individual has good reasons for her actions and that she acts within a rich set of relational ties. The question of what constitutes human nature has been a matter of debate and conjecture for thousands of years, and we cannot settle that debate in this book. We are going to take our cue from Aristotle and focus on humans as reasoning, social creatures. There are excellent arguments and evidence for seeing humans as reasoners (MacIntyre, 1999; Okrent, 2007) and as social beings (Barlow, Cosmides, & Tooby, 1992; Fowers, 2015b; Tomasello, 2014). We are adopting this characterization of human nature in this book, Our approach to nonsexist language is to use female pronouns, starting in this chapter and in odd numbered chapters and male pronouns in the even numbered chapters. We have adopted this to avoid the awkward “he or she” and infelicitous third person plural formulations. 1

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and we define more specifically what it means to act excellently as reasoning, social beings in the next section. Of course, we humans often fall short of excellence in our relationships and in our reasoning. In fact, this book is about many of the common ways that people inevitably struggle as they try to fashion a good life. Our best efforts sometimes miscarry in our relational life because of misunderstanding or rejecting our profound dependency on others (Chapter 3) or through attempting to force relationships to be simple rather than accepting their complexity (Chapter 4). Reasoning can go wrong in seeking simple solutions to complex issues or in ignoring the limits of human reason (Chapter 5). Our attempts to live well can be marred by misfortune and suffering (Chapter 6), and we can fall short of their aspirations through adopting vices such as greed or domination or by the evil actions of others (Chapter 7). Positive psychologists tend to ignore these challenges or recommend overcoming them with positive experiences, but these experiences are too powerful and common to be taken lightly. We recognize that simply recounting these challenges to a flourishing human life would offer little consolation if these obstacles rendered a good life impossible. Instead, we hope to show that one crucial pathway to the good life includes responding with excellence to human frailty, dependence, and misfortune. We argue that Aristotle developed his concept of the virtues as the character strengths that are specifically necessary given our characteristic vulnerabilities as humans. We are not alone in appropriating Aristotle’s ethics to understand the relationship between flourishing and frailty through virtue (cf. Hursthouse, 1999; MacIntyre, 1999; Sherman, 1989). This book is unique in its focus on everyday frailties and its attention to how specific virtues are tied to those frailties in ways that make flourishing possible. Thus, the virtues are not designed to make the good life possible by eliminating human imperfection. Rather, the good life becomes possible through understanding characteristic human weaknesses and cultivating the virtues that help people to live well as frail beings. Aristotle’s Theory of the Human Good Let us get more specific about Aristotle’s concept of the good life. To do so requires understanding the four features of eudaimonia: human goods, activity, virtue, and a complete life. We add depth and nuance to these concepts throughout the book, but this section gets us started. Human Goods Living a good life is a matter of pursuing characteristically human goods. That is, the good life is made up of the everyday good things for people. 22       frailty, suffering, and vice

These good things include friendship, belonging, justice, social order, and knowledge. We call these things goods or human goods. Thus, the concept of human goods is not as esoteric as it might sound. The things that are good for human beings are choiceworthy ends. That means simply that they are worthy of being chosen. It is our social, reasoning nature that makes these goods choiceworthy. For social beings, close attachments to others are essential for living well (Allen, 2008; Bowlby, 1969/1982; Zeifman & Hazan, 2008). Part of our social being is that we are also cultural creatures, and this means that belonging to an identifiable group or groups is essential to well-being (Fowler & Christakis, 2008; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010). As reasoning creatures, we humans seek purpose in our actions and our lives, and that requires good reasons for acting and living in the ways in which we do (Okrent, 2007). Human beings are also knowledge-seeking and knowledgesharing beings (Casler, Terziyan, & Greene, 2009; Tennie, Call, & Tomasello, 2009). Human beings flourish by participating in the kinds of activities that are directed toward characteristic human goods. Although we can pursue and participate in goods, none of us can fully possess goods such as knowledge or aesthetic beauty. We can know some things and see or hear some aspects of beauty, but we cannot have all knowledge or behold all beauty. For that reason, we pursue goals. Goals are the concrete ends that can be achieved in everyday activities. That is, goals are the relatively concrete, day-to-day versions of goods. For example, if you want to seek the good of knowledge, then you may read a series of articles on history or attend a seminar on evolution. Similarly, you can seek the good of friendship through pursuing the goal of deepening your relationship with a specific acquaintance. Goals are generally seen as relatively concrete states of affairs or experiences that can be fully achieved. We use the terms aim and end to refer to goals, goods, and eudaimonia when there is no need to differentiate among them. Table 1.1 gives some examples of the relationship between goods and goals.

Table 1.1 Human Ends or Aims Goods Belonging Meaning

Sample goals for each good 1. Involvement in your community 2. Maintain family relationships 3. Maintain good friendships 1. Become involved in a meaningful form of work 2. Make beneficial contributions to society 3. Deepen your spirituality

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Activity It is important to understand that the good life is made up of activity rather than just of inner experiences (e.g., pleasure, satisfaction) or tangible outcomes (e.g., wealth, a college degree). That is, we live well by acting well. The most choiceworthy human goods are activities. Friendship comprises the activities of spending time together or working together on a project. Justice is a matter of acting fairly. These activities include psychological experiences, of course, but activity has a concrete reality that goes beyond inner experience. Some believe that the value of friendship is entirely in the experience of pleasure. A eudaimonic perspective clarifies that pleasure only arises through the activities undertaken with a friend. You experience pleasure in the interaction with your friend. Pleasure is not a separate outcome that one gets after an interaction with a friend: The pleasure is inseparable from the interaction, and it is a particular kind of pleasure that only shows up in friendship. Complete Life Defining eudaimonia as activity could give the mistaken impression that the good life is just a series of activities that continues until a person dies. Clearly, the best kind of life could not be just a sequence of goal achievements (even very impressive achievements), with one following another in a series of episodes. Instead, the good life has to be a complete life, one that comes together well as a whole. This seems obvious because an individual who lived well for only a portion of her life could hardly be considered to have experienced the best kind of life. The best kind of life would clearly encompass its entirety. So a good life is made up of the ongoing and reasonably successful pursuit of worthwhile, characteristically human ends that complement one another and come together in a coherent whole. This means that a eudaimonic life has a significant degree of coherence, so that a person’s activities hang together in a mutually reinforcing way. Such a life has substantial stability and a self-sustaining momentum. For example, this life coherence showed up in Christina’s ongoing dedication to the knowledge that she was sharing with her students and her commitment to mentoring them into greater maturity. It comes as no surprise that she is also a devoted mother who parents with great clarity about her children’s developing capacities and potentials. Her no-nonsense commitment to the goods of knowledge and nurturing her students’ growth is also evident in her mothering, and her pursuit of these goods is stabilized by the virtues of respect and collaboration. 24       frailty, suffering, and vice

Virtue Virtue is essential for the good life because virtues are the capacities that make it possible to pursue human goods. The original Greek term for virtue is arête, best translated as excellence. Virtues are, simply, the capacities to pursue ordinary human activities with excellence. Virtues such as loyalty and courage are deeply ingrained traits that come into play in our relationships. Virtues are also known as character strengths. Because virtues are characteristic of a person, they contribute to the overall stability and coherence of our lives. The capacity to act generously, loyally, courageously, honestly, and justly fulfills our potential to live a complete life as the reasoning, social being that we are. We have a lot more to say about how virtues are central to the good life in Chapter 2. This deep connection between virtue and flourishing is seldom made by positive psychologists, but it is vital for a clear understanding of human goods to know what will count as a virtue. In the following section, we describe the characteristically human goods that we believe define the good life and its necessary virtues.

The Content of the Human Good Aristotle famously called humans “political animals,” and this highlights three major aspects of human nature. As political animals, we are (a) social, (b) reasoning, and (c) physical beings. Each of these aspects of our nature is important to understanding the good life. Recall that the function argument suggests that understanding human nature clarifies what is good for us as humans. In the following section we describe some central goods for the social, reasoning, physical beings that we are. Humans as Social Beings One of the central themes of this book is that humans are profoundly social creatures. Because our social nature is so pervasive, it is easy to take it for granted. Like the air we breathe, the centrality of our nature is usually apparent only when something goes wrong. For this reason, it has been easy to think that virtue and the good life are all about the individual. We believe that an emphasis on the social nature of human beings is particularly important because this has been a sorely neglected topic in positive psychology. One of the clearest ways to see the importance of social bonds is to pay attention to what happens when they are disrupted, lost, or absent. When we lose a loved one through the break-up of a romantic relationship, a framework for a good life     

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geographical separation, or death, the grief can be profound and long-lasting. Loneliness can be a grinding, painful emotional experience (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008), and it is a powerful contributor to impaired physical health and death. When we are excluded from a conversation, an activity, or a group, we experience measurable pain, even when the exclusion is trivial (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Kipling Williams (2001) conducted a series of ingenious experiments using a “cyberball game” that simulated a game of catch on a computer screen. The participant was led to believe that she was playing a three-way game of catch with two other people, but these other two participants were part of a computer program. As the computer program ran, the other two “players” stopped throwing the ball to the participant, which is a rather mild form of exclusion. But even this mild exclusion has powerful negative effects. Williams (2007) concluded that “even for very brief episodes that have minimal mundane realism, ostracism plunges individuals into a temporary state of abject misery, sending signals of pain, increasing stress, threatening fundamental needs, and causing sadness and anger” (p. 444). This effect showed up even when participants knew that it was a computer that was excluding them (Zadro, Williams, & Richardson, 2004). The pain we feel is as real as it can be because the pain of exclusion registers in one of the primary pain centers in our brains, the anterior cingulate cortex, where physical pain also registers (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). The flip side of the coin is that attachment to others is a central requirement for living well as a human being (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010). The necessity of attachment is apparent from birth to death. Infants can thrive only with ongoing expressions of physical and relational caring (DeKlyen & Greenberg, 2008). For example, when the tyrannical Ceausescu government in Romania fell in 1989, intensely disturbing revelations emerged that huge governmentoperated orphanages housed between 100,000 and 300,000 children in terrible conditions (Bartiata, 1991). The government had enforced a high rate of child bearing, and the orphanages were repositories for children that families could not support. When observers from other European countries entered these large and understaffed orphanages, they found that infants were severely physically and psychologically impaired (Johnson et al., 1992) because of the absence of personal contact that was inevitable with a child-to-staff ratio of 60 to 1 (C. Williams, 1990). But the need to be cared about is not limited to children. Adult physical and psychological health also depends on experiencing love and support (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001; Shor, Roelfs, & Yogev, 2013). From a eudaimonic perspective, these well-established facts illuminate how important the good of friendship is. We follow Aristotle in seeing all close relationships as friendships, including peer, romantic, family, business, and 26       frailty, suffering, and vice

political relationships. We discuss the variety of friendships and how they relate to eudaimonia in Chapter 3. The good of friendship is clearly central for humans. Aristotle’s (trans. 1999) comment that “no one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other goods” (p. 214) has the ring of truth. The pervasiveness of social activity, its value, and the pain experienced in the absence of strong, ongoing social relations make it clear that human beings are profoundly dependent on one another for well-being. When an individual is isolated, it is difficult to survive, let alone thrive. This can seem like bad news to people who have been socialized to believe that we should be independent, self-directed, and true to our inner selves. Yet understanding how vital friendship is can enrich people’s lives by helping them to properly cherish and nurture such relationships. A second essential good for humans is to belong to a group or groups. People who have more connections to others—particularly when those other people are happy—are more likely to be happy (Fowler & Christakis, 2008). These connections include family members, friends, and neighbors with up to three degrees of separation from the individual herself. That is, the happiness of a person’s friend’s friend’s friend influences her happiness. The more central an individual is in a social network, the greater his or her happiness. Fowler and Christakis (2008) concluded that happiness . . . is not merely a function of individual experience or individual choice but is also a property of groups of people. Indeed, changes in individual happiness can ripple through social networks and generate large scale structure in the network, giving rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals. (p. 7)

Having a place in a social network also predicts how long one will live (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010). Thus, social integration is as strong a predictor of mortality as is smoking cessation and is a stronger predictor than obesity or physical inactivity. The more we learn about the importance of attachment and belonging, the more obvious it becomes that the ideal of the separate, sufficient individual is just plain false for human beings. The function argument suggests that because we are social creatures, a key aspect of a good human life involves deep, rich, and long-lasting relationships with others. The illusion of complete autonomy undermines flourishing rather than enhancing it. In Chapter 3, we discuss in detail how embracing a mature dependency is one of the keys to flourishing through developing and maintaining rich relationships. The fulfillment possible only through high-quality relationships dramatically highlights the positive aspects of our dependency. Human beings can accomplish so much more and enjoy those activities and achievements so much more thoroughly and lastingly when we are engaged in shared endeavors. a framework for a good life     

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Similarly, we can thrive only when we can live in a just society. Human beings are incredibly cooperative, and this cooperation depends entirely on being able to trust other people. Unlike other animals, humans cooperate frequently with strangers and do so over long distances and over long periods of time. Trust is possible because we have a strong innate capacity to detect cheaters (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992), which helps us to be selective in our cooperation. Groups also enforce cooperative norms, making it easier to trust others in the group (Boehm, 2000; Tennie et al., 2009). This shows that fairness or justice is a crucial good for human beings. The significance of living in a just society is evident in that the more we have to worry about being exploited or dominated by our peers or our governments, the more restricted our lives will be due to the exertions required by vigilance and self-protection. The importance of the social core of our humanity cannot be over­ emphasized, especially in contemporary American culture with our exaggerated sense of individuality and autonomy. One of the most interesting ways that the human species is unique is how important our social world is for us as people, including our extreme dependence as infants, our shared lives as linguistic beings, our identification and belonging in groups, and the value of social status. Acknowledging this belonging or dependency does not imply conformity or failing to think for one’s self. On the contrary, many of the most rewarding relationships reflect hard-won ideals and include significant independence of mind and judgment. Yet it is because humans are social beings, who are defined through our relationships with one another, that friendship and justice are among the most excellent expressions of our nature. A more detailed description of our profoundly social nature and its evolution can be found in Fowers (2015b). Humans as Reasoning Beings Although we as humans are profoundly social beings, we are not social in the way that herd or flock or swarm animals are. We are able to engage with and alter the social world through reflection, deliberation, and discussion with others because we are also rational creatures. That is, there are reasons for what we do and we have the ability to reflect on those reasons. A good human life, therefore, is one that includes good reasons for acting in particular ways. Of course, no one has explicitly formulated reasons for every action. Much of what we do is automatic and unreflective and grows out of cultural traditions that help to constitute us. Nevertheless, a good life is one in which a person could, at least in theory, give an account of the reasons for her actions if needed. Of course, such an accounting might lead to the sort of

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self-reflection that generated changes in one’s way of life but that is also an element of human reasoning. One of the most concrete ways to talk about one’s reasons for acting in particular ways is to describe the goals one has. Remember that goals are the concrete representations of the goods one seeks. When we have good reasons for acting and living in a particular way, we see our actions as purposeful and meaningful. One of the central goods related to the natural human capacity for reasoning is that our actions and our lives have meaning. The idea of having reasons for actions presupposes the possibility of choosing one’s actions. Human beings have a great deal of behavioral flexibility. Scientists and philosophers have debated for thousands of years about whether human behavior is caused by some combination of internal and environmental forces or whether it is a matter of the actor’s choices, which are based on reasons for making those choices. This is not the place to revisit that complex and lengthy debate. We believe that there are excellent reasons to understand human behavioral flexibility as a matter of having choices in one’s actions. Because there does not appear to be an available causal theory that provides a compelling account of this flexibility (Richardson & Bishop, 2002), we work from the assumption that humans have choices. If we accept that human behavioral flexibility means that we have choices in our actions, then the good associated with behavioral flexibility is agency. We exercise our agency well when we make choices intentionally and take responsibility for our choices. That is, we make ourselves agents by taking charge of our actions rather than seeing them as caused by uncontrollable forces that are either inside or outside us. Another aspect of human rational nature is that we are aware of time and our mortality. We are able to recall the past, anticipate the future, and recognize the present. Human life has a necessary temporal structure running from birth to death. Without this awareness, it would be impossible to have a complete human identity, which includes the recognition that each of us persists through time. Temporal awareness is also the basis for agency. Making choices is a matter of deciding how I want my future to be. Because we are aware that our futures can take different courses, we can meaningfully select among alternatives rather than just plunking for the most appealing one or following a hardwired script in response to environmental cues. This temporal awareness also makes it possible to have purpose in our actions. We have purpose when we make particular choices to have a specific kind of future. Because we are ultrasocial creatures, that future almost always includes specific other people. Purpose is only possible through recognizing that our actions are important for a future that matters to us. The purposes of our actions are also related to our past, including our cultural heritage, which

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provides a vital context to inform and give meaning to our choices. The best kind of human life is one that is imbued with choiceworthy purposes that guide and motivate everyday activities. Therefore, purpose is indispensable to a good human life and to the cumulative value that accrues from ordinary daily activities. The awareness of time that characteristically allows human beings to recognize the past, present, and future means that we can have an overall perspective on our lives. This ability to see our lives as coherent wholes is essential to the idea of a complete life. The good associated with human temporal awareness is narrative coherence. Narrative coherence refers to a cohesive, cumulative story that can be told about a life that makes sense of the various events and transitions that make up that life. It is a way of tying the elements of your life together in a meaningful and cumulative way, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. One of the authors recently experienced his father’s death. There were many tragic and difficult parts of this passing. Yet one of the most comforting and inspiring aspects of his death was that his life had a cohesive, cumulative narrative. He lived the life he thought was best and he did so with heartfelt integrity. At the very end, he was fortunate enough to be able to look back at his life and genuinely endorse what he had done with it. We can all hope to be as fortunate. Humans are extremely curious beings with a strong, innate interest in understanding ourselves and the social and physical world. The ever-present questions about why things are the way that they are and what is over the next hill or in the next galaxy have inspired explorations of the world and ourselves since time immemorial. One way to see the universality of curiosity is that every culture has an origin story, whether or not it has a written language. Humans are driven to wonder why the world is as it is. Another way to see it is to spend a few hours with a 3-year-old. Just count the number of times per hour that the child asks “Why?” Curiosity is an important natural feature of humanity that is closely related to rationality. Humans are an intensely curious species, which leads to the perpetual seeking of the good of knowledge. Knowledge is a human good that has inspired extraordinary efforts in exploration and science. The good of knowledge is a primary concern for Christina in her work as a teacher. At its best, teaching excites and feeds the natural curiosity of students of all ages. Human beings have an aesthetic sense. As a species, we notice and appreciate beauty, including beautiful landscapes, buildings, painting, art, music, and the spoken and written word. The human aesthetic capacity leads us to recognize and appreciate the good of beauty. Because our aesthetic capacity is broad, we see beauty in a great variety of ways ranging from sunsets to the elegance of a theory. Although physical beauty is important in how we 30       frailty, suffering, and vice

perceive one another, it is important to see that beauty is much broader than human physical appearance. An individual may be perceived as a beautiful person because she is particularly loving or graceful in action, with or without physical attractiveness. Human beings have a capacity for self-reflection and self-evaluation through which we assess the degree to which we measure up to shared standards for our actions. One of the clearest demonstrations of these capacities is the experience and communication of the self-conscious emotions of pride, guilt, and shame. By 2 years of age, children reliably demonstrate these emotions according to whether they have succeeded in meeting social standards (Kochanska, Gross, Lin, & Nichols, 2002), and these emotions continue to play an important role in adult life (Tracy, Shariff, & Cheng, 2010). This self-evaluative capacity gives rise to the widely recognized good of personal growth, wherein an individual can recognize progressive shifts toward meeting higher standards. Personal growth is also made possible by human temporal awareness, rationality, and behavioral flexibility. Personal growth is desirable because we understand ourselves temporally, meaning that we can compare our personal strengths from one time to another. We also recognize that we have choices about how we act (behavioral flexibility), making it possible for our choices and actions to have progressively better reasons (rationality), which is another way of saying that it is possible and desirable to become a better person over time. In Chapter 5, we tell Ted Shadyac’s story. Ted is an extremely successful filmmaker who reflected on his life and recognized that his wealth and fame had not made him any happier or more content. We will relate how his self-evaluation led to dramatic changes in his life. Each of us is capable of reconsidering our activities and goals in this way if we find that our direction in life is less than we think it can be. A common misconception about rationality is that rational action is limited to means–ends or instrumental activity. In instrumental activity, a person or group has a preconceived idea of an end or outcome and then picks the best strategy or technique to achieve or obtain the end. In this scheme, rationality is limited to matching means and ends in the most effective or efficient way. We discuss the shortcomings of this instrumental view subsequently, but we simply want to note here that we do not endorse this highly restrictive understanding of rationality. There are many ways to go wrong with human rational capacities as well. One can become hyperrational through excessive analysis, reflection, or rumination, thereby paralyzing one’s self. Individuals can come to believe that all of life needs to be rationalized and ordered in ways that sap the life and spontaneity out of one’s activities. In contrast, it is possible to abandon rational activity by committing one’s self to comforting illusions, an oversimplified view of life, or a refusal to reflect on one’s activities or way of life. a framework for a good life     

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Surely, such an unreflective approach to living would be self-diminishing for a rational animal. Finding the balance between overweening rationality and irrationality is an ongoing process because there is no absolute or final correct degree of rationality. It is an open question for us, and we are always in the business of giving our best answers as we go about our everyday lives. Humans as Physical Beings As physical creatures, human sensate experience is also important. Our senses of touch, sight, hearing, and taste are essential to interacting with the world. Some of the sensations we experience are pleasurable, and some are painful. For sensate creatures, pleasure is an important good. Pleasure is so obviously important to humans that some thinkers have claimed that pleasure is the only real good and pain is the only real evil. The viewpoint that there is only one good is known as ethical monism. In contrast, we are suggesting that there are plural goods, with pleasure being but one among many important goods. Pleasure itself is not even a singular good, because it can range from simple pleasures, such as tasty food or a back rub, to meaningful pleasures, such as spending time with a dear friend or watching a ballet. The key to understanding pleasure is that it is always associated with a particular activity, and the nature of the pleasure is tied to that activity. For example, many find learning pleasant. This is a particular kind of pleasure, distinct from the pleasure of eating ice cream, and the pleasure in gaining knowledge is inseparable from the activities of learning. It is not that we learn and then get a separate dose of pleasure. It is the learning itself that is pleasant. In addition, the richer the learning, the more pleasant it is, clarifying that higher quality activities are more pleasant. This relationship of pleasure and activity is a general one, and it applies to all human activities and the goods we seek through those activities. That is why learning can be fun, and listening to good music is enjoyable. The better we understand human goods, and the more fully we immerse ourselves in them, the greater our pleasure is in them. This is easy to see with food or wine connoisseurs, who recognize and enjoy flavors and aromas that are largely lost on the uninitiated. The cultivated excellence of connoisseurship enhances the pleasure through knowledge and attention. Because eudaimonia is the fullest expression of human excellence as a whole, it also provides the greatest human pleasure. The eudaimonic life is a deeply fulfilling, joyous life because living well means that one is experiencing many important human goods in an ongoing way. Experiencing goods such as friendship, knowledge, and justice is pleasurable in a meaningful rather than an ephemeral way. Similarly, the virtues are the human excellences that make it possible to successfully pursue what is good, which means 32       frailty, suffering, and vice

that the activity of virtue is also pleasant. A virtuous person experiences pleasure in giving generously, acting loyally, or treating others fairly. These are wholehearted actions, not painful duties to the virtuous, as we show in the next chapter. Clearly, even though some pleasures are associated with eudaimonia and virtue, other pleasures are not good. Pleasure can be found by different individuals for many kinds of activities. Some find pleasure in acting kindly toward others, whereas others find pleasure in exploiting or dominating others. Similarly, one can find pleasure in good food in reasonable proportion or in gluttony. This clarifies the notion that not only are there many kinds of pleasures, but also that some pleasures are good and some are bad. As physical creatures, health is a central good. Physical health is also vital because it makes it possible to pursue many other human goods. At the same time, other goods such as friendship, belonging, and social order play important roles in promoting health and longevity. Some features of human nature and the goods associated with them are listed in Table 1.2. This is only a partial list because there are a great many human goods. Eudaimonia and Human Goods The relationship between these characteristic human goods and eudaimonia is one of whole–part, where eudaimonia is the whole and is made up of specific human goods, which are the parts. Eudaimonia is not something separate, above and beyond characteristic human goods, nor is it “a bundle of discrete goods” (Sherman, 1989, p. 79). Rather, eudaimonia is a matter of how the pursuit of those goods comes together as an integrated whole. A eudaimonic life is one in which a person can pursue a variety of characteristically human Table 1.2 Human Nature and Human Goods Features of human nature Attachment Sociality Cooperativeness Rationality Aesthetic sense Curiosity Behavioral flexibility Temporal awareness Self-evaluation Sensate/emotional Physical being

Characteristically human goods Friendship Belonging Justice Meaning Beauty Knowledge Agency Narrative coherence Personal growth Pleasure Health

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ends in a systematic, coherent, and stable way with a reasonable degree of success. Furthermore, this purposive activity be characterized by excellences of character, clear-sighted rationality, and good social relations. We can illustrate the multifaceted and interwoven character of human goods just within the activities that Christina pursues in her work as a teacher. As a teacher, she clearly belongs to a group of faculty with an ongoing ethos of educating. This contributes to the experience of belonging. She works cooperatively with her fellow teachers and emphasizes cooperative learning with her students and the attendant good of justice in the relationships in her classroom. Christina and her students exercise their human capacity for rationality frequently in class, finding meaning in the learning process and in the knowledge her students are gaining. She finds deep meaning in passing along knowledge to her students. Likewise, the important human capacity for curiosity is engaged in learning, with knowledge attainment as the good. Learning entails self-and-other evaluation in schools. Both Christina and her students are able to recognize the personal growth that occurs over the course of the school year, not only in knowledge acquisition but also in maturity, in the capacity for cooperation, and in the stoking of curiosity about the human condition that she cultivates so assiduously. This example shows that just one domain of activity, teaching, is richly imbued with a large set of human goods and that these goods are not mysterious or abstract at all. They come into being regularly and tangibly in the activities of learning in a real school. The key to instantiating these goods in ordinary activity is to understand that they are constantly available in everyday life, which helps us to recognize the opportunities to bring good into the world, as Christina does as a teacher every day of the school year. With Christina, we have focused on how her virtues enrich her activities. We do not mean to imply that she has a worry-free or painless life. Her life is occasionally afflicted with the ambiguities and strains that all of us face, but it is also clear that the love of knowledge, for example, enriches her activities and her life, contributing to her flourishing. One of the limitations of modern moral theories is that they tend to focus morality and ethics solely in terms of how we treat others. Of course, treating others well is an important part of morality, but eudaimonic theory is primarily focused on cultivating the best kind of life. To modern ears, this can sound terribly selfish. Living the best kind of life is not selfish, however, because it is impossible to live well if one does not consistently treat others well. In addition, there is an unfortunate tendency in contemporary moral theory to focus on whether an action benefits the actor or other people and to view other-benefit as moral and self-benefit as immorally selfish. This is often portrayed as a dichotomy between altruism and egoism. As eudaimonic theorists, we reject the idea that human actions can be dichotomized in this way. Throughout this book, we show that it is virtually impossible to sepa34       frailty, suffering, and vice

rate individual identities, purposes, pleasures, joys, and sorrows from the individual’s social world. The cultural heritage of the United States has left Americans with a weird conflict between focusing on self-interest and on understanding morality in terms of benefitting other people. As Americans, we are taught to prioritize our self-interests and to be suspicious of any form of sacrifice for someone else. We may even go to the point of labeling other-benefit as weakness or unhealthy dependence. Yet at the same time, we define moral behavior in terms of respecting or benefitting others. We are enjoined to feel guilty if we do not relentlessly pursue our self-interest but are often made to feel guilty if we do. Clearly, as a society, we are quite confused about these important matters. One of the reasons we have written this book is because we believe that eudaimonic theory can go a long way in clearing up such confusions. We cannot live a good life by being entirely selfish, but neither can we live a good life by being entirely selfless. At times, it is perfectly sensible to act in a way that benefits oneself, as in acting to take good care of oneself and choosing enjoyable activities. At other times, it makes sense to act mostly for the benefit of others, such as when it is someone’s birthday or when someone is sick. There is no contradiction here if we recognize that the situation guides us in seeing the most appropriate beneficiaries of our actions. What is even more interesting is how frequently we do not have to choose whether we are benefitting ourselves or someone else because what we are doing benefits everyone involved. If you tell a joke or play a beautiful piece of music, you get a chance to be center stage and show off a talent, but everyone benefits by the humor or music. These enjoyments are not just for me or just for you. They are for us. This recognition that we frequently act for the common good is one way to transcend the false and overblown dichotomy of egoism and altruism. The important point for now is to see that in seeking a eudaimonic life, we can only succeed if we are benefitting others consistently along the way. As we will see, eudaimonia is partly constituted by the kind of relationships in which we regularly provide benefits to those who are close to us. Although it is possible to act selflessly, without regard for one’s own interests, this is actually quite rare. In fact, it is typically difficult to provide benefits to others in a way that does not benefit the actor at all. We have all participated in silly discussions in which the advocates of altruism contend with the egoists’ claim that so-called altruistic actors always get some benefit from their other-benefitting actions. Of course they do! Why would that ever be a problem for a reasonable theory of other-benefit? Eudaimonic theory suggests that self-benefit and other-benefit are usually and naturally comingled because relationships and mutual activity are central to a good human life. Attempting to separate them into egoistic and altruistic a framework for a good life     

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activities is a pointless distraction from the primary business of acting well together. A good human life is obviously built on having good relationships with one’s family, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. Human beings are intensely social creatures who simply cannot flourish as completely independent individuals. In particular, we require high-quality relationships with other people to be able to flourish. In contrast to most positive psychology, we emphasize friendship as a key virtue, which is a fascinating feature of ancient ethics that is also curiously absent from most modern moral philosophy. Whenever we discuss the topic of human goods, especially when it is suggested that these goods can be identified by features of human nature, conversation partners worry that a theory of natural ethics is an attempt to impose prescriptions for the good life. This is an especially important concern for people in the modern West, who place an extremely high value on individual autonomy. The highest expression of this autonomy is found in the individual’s choices about what she values and how she wants to shape her own life. We want to make it clear that we do not presume to dictate a single prescription for what a good life should look like. To do so would completely undermine the kind of creativity and responsibility that are essential to pursuing excellence. Instead, we see tremendous latitude for different forms of living well. Eudaimonia is constituted through activities devoted to pursuing some set of characteristically human goods. We have just discussed a wide array of characteristic human goods, and even this lengthy list is not meant to be exhaustive. Aristotle (trans. 1999) himself did not believe that there is a single form of the good life. Eudaimonic theory presents a very broad view of the human good, a view that has room for a wide variety of choiceworthy ends. That means that each flourishing life will have its own particular shape and constellation. Obviously, no individual can pursue the full range of human goods with the kind of focus and persistence that are necessary for their complete realization. Artists place a premium on aesthetic beauty as a good, whereas scientists prize knowledge above all other goods. Extroverts pursue belonging in a relatively large group of friends, whereas introverts prioritize the depth of friendship with a few individuals. These few examples illustrate that there are many good choices, and there is no single correct way to live well. Individuals must choose where to focus their energies on the basis of temperament, talent, and context. The breadth of the human good means that individuals can shape high-quality lives through pursuing many alternative constellations and forms of human goods. Therefore, we emphasize that there is no single prescriptive shape for a eudaimonic life. The breadth of the human good is also evident in that the realization of any particular human good can take many different forms. People find belong36       frailty, suffering, and vice

ing in many different ways. Friendship is essential to flourishing, but the specific forms that one’s friendships have and the particular ways that friends interact can be wide ranging. The same diversity applies to all human goods, with many different ways to pursue knowledge, justice, beauty, and so forth. Although there is great diversity in how people flourish, if eudaimonia is based on human nature, there is also some degree of universality in it. This means that flourishing should be recognizable in people from any culture or from any time period. There should be elements that all flourishing lives have in common. There will be “family resemblances” among such lives. There are many ways to flourish, but all forms of flourishing include some of the goods that are characteristic of human beings. For example, every flourishing person will have strong social connections of some form. Every flourishing person has good reasons for his or her actions, including well-thought-out decisions, self-awareness, self-evaluation, and knowing about what is important. These two features—the social nature and the reasoning nature—are central to the eudaimonic perspective on human nature and the good life. One final point about eudaimonic theory is that there is no reason to think that we, the authors—or anyone else—will ever have the last word on the subject. Human goods cannot be given a final, definitive formulation because they are ideals that are shaped by cultural and historical communities and are therefore subject to ongoing debate and reinterpretation. Human beings have debated for millennia different understandings about how best to live. There is no reason to think that anyone will solve this puzzle in a final, definitive manner. If that is true, then human goods are open-ended rather than prescriptive and definitive. Although we argue that there are some clearly identifiable human goods that have emerged through human evolution, such as belonging, justice, and social order, it should be obvious that the specific shapes and contours of all such goods vary greatly across human societies and over time. Similarly, people within any given society present and pursue different ideals about the good life. The open-ended nature of human goods should come as no surprise to us if we recognize that humans are ultrasocial, reasoning beings. As ultra­ social creatures, we organize ourselves into groups that develop norms, forms of cooperation, and shared understandings of who we are and how it is best to live. Each historical community interprets the good life differently. Moreover, as reasoning beings, we can reflect on and evaluate our shared understandings of our identities, purposes, and human goods. In the process of reflecting on our way of life, ways to modify and improve that way of life are invariably available. Pressures for modification come from intercultural contact, innovation, environmental changes, and from different perspectives within the group. This means that humans engage in a more or less perpetual discussion of what it is to live well. We might even say that the ongoing a framework for a good life     

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discussion of how to live well as a human being is an essential part of what it is to live well as a human being. Instrumental and Constitutive Goods As we noted previously, professional and popular writers commonly assert that rationality is defined by the ability to choose the best means to reach one’s goal. In our view, this assertion is as unfortunate and limiting as it is frequent. In this section, we suggest that this means–end or instrumental understanding of human action neglects or distorts the richest, most important forms of human activity and misrepresents vital human goods. The first step is to describe instrumental activity clearly and recognize its value. In means–end activity, a person has a goal and selects among a variety of means to achieve the goal. The choice of means can be based on efficiency, cost, safety, or other considerations. The key point is that the means and the end are entirely separable. One can achieve the goal in many ways, and the goal is what is valued. The means are only valued if they lead to success. Therefore, if one method is unsuccessful, it is sensible to discard it and try another approach, which suggests that means are disposable. Wealth is a paradigmatic instrumental goal because it can be attained through hard work, inheritance, marrying someone wealthy, or outright fraud. If wealth is one’s only goal, then its acquisition is what counts, not how one gets there. Clearly, there are many worthwhile goals in life that are instrumental. There are many tasks and goals wherein the only important thing is to get the job done (e.g., clean the bathroom, clean the rain gutter). Having a reasonable degree of wealth is also an important contributor to a good life. The problem arises when authors assert that instrumental goal pursuit is the only form of human action or the only rational form of action. The global assertion that all human activity has a means–end structure is known as instrumentalism (see Fowers, 2010, and Richardson & Manglos, 2012, for more thorough discussions.) This claim places severe limits on the meaning and coherence of human life because it means that everything is only a means to some other end. Therefore, the environment, our actions, and our loved ones are just tools we use to get what we want. The limitations of instrumentalism are clear when the alternative to instrumental activity is considered, that is, when the means or activity cannot be separated from the end. This inseparability occurs because the means constitute the end. For this reason, the alternative to instrumental activity is constitutive activity. There are innumerable goals in which the activity is inseparable from the goal, such as spending time with friends, watching fireworks, or going for a walk. These examples make it clear that the 38       frailty, suffering, and vice

activities are identical to the ends. We spend time with friends, for example, because we value time with friends, not to obtain some outcome distinct from that time together. Because the activities are inseparable from a choiceworthy goal, constitutive activities are valuable in themselves. Of course, one could have ulterior motives for these activities, but we call the motives ulterior (e.g., to obtain a favor from a friend) because they are not the obvious and expected motivation for such activities. The concept of constitutive activity is that spending time with friends is the activity and the goal. Another objection to the concept of constitutive goals is that the goal of the activities is really pleasure, and this makes some sense for the activities mentioned in the preceding paragraph. If you recall the previous discussion of pleasure, however, this objection loses its force because the pleasure of friendship, fireworks, or walking is in the activity itself, not a separate subsequent outcome of the activity. It is obvious that the pleasure is part of the activity because, clearly, the three pleasures are distinct rather than just being three different ways to have the same experience. Many of the most highly prized goals are constitutive in nature, including justice, democracy, and social solidarity. People can attain justice only by acting justly. Justice cannot be faked, bought, or obtained through unjust means. To the degree that the actions aimed at justice are unjust, the outcome is unjust. Democracy is an even better example of a constitutive goal. A standard understanding of democracy includes the ideas of fair elections, majority rule, one-person–one-vote, and a loyal minority. The practices through which these features are accomplished are what constitute democracy. If they are undermined or eliminated, democracy itself is undermined or lost. The concept of a vote is constitutive as well. No amount of hand-raising or placing marks on a piece of paper counts as a vote unless it is mutually understood as a vote by the participants and the results are faithfully tallied and followed. In other words, democracy is not an outcome that is separate from all of the constituent actions. Rather, these actions are what constitute democracy. The problem with instrumentalism is that it forces constitutive activities into a means–end framework and undermines their value. From an instrumentalist perspective, learning something interesting and voting become means to other ends, such as wealth generation or other forms of advantage seeking. This devalues learning and democracy. To the extent that constitutive activities and goals are treated as nothing more than means, they are distorted and potentially lost altogether. Consider justice. Predefining a particular outcome (e.g., a conviction) as justice and pursuing that goal with efficiency is what has made it possible for prosecutors and police to fake evidence, suborn witnesses, and coerce confessions. These means can lead to the predefined outcome, but when that happens it certainly cannot be called justice. a framework for a good life     

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The following example illustrates the limiting constraints an instrumental approach imposes on the value of activities and participants in an activity. Janice is attending a university course that she sees as a task that must be completed merely as a means toward obtaining a degree, which will, in turn, be a stepping-stone in her career and so forth. She sees a high grade in the course as important to her future and uses various strategies, including studying, attending class, and interacting with the instructor, to obtain the grade she desires. For Janice, this is a highly rational way to approach education: seeing educational activities simply as chores in pursuit of an outcome that is separable from those activities. Given the separation of means and ends, there are many ways to get a high grade. For example, Janice could cheat, in which case her activities lack value in themselves because they are only means toward the desired outcome. Or if a high grade in the course seems unlikely, she could drop the course and seek a different course or instructor, both of which are dispensable. Once the course is completed, Janice can forget the course, the material, and the instructor as old news because she has the desired outcome in hand. In contrast, Maria approaches the same course with a primary goal of gaining knowledge. She also studies, attends class, and interacts with the instructor. These activities are inseparable from the aim of learning because it is in and through the activities that Maria learns. This inseparability of action and end renders the activities valuable because studying the material, interacting with the instructor, and other learning activities are not just means to an outcome. Rather, they have value as the very stuff of learning. Because learning is the goal, Maria enjoys the activities as the process through which she attains her valued aim of knowledge. She works because she values and is drawn to knowledge. The course grade will be a natural outgrowth of the learning process rather than a distinct outcome. With proper attention to practicalities, a degree and a career (perhaps even a vocation) will follow from this constitutive approach to learning. The important points are that the constitutive approach to learning is qualitatively different from the instrumental pursuit of a grade and that the constitutive activity cannot be reduced to an instrumental portrayal without losing its meaning and value. So the stakes are very high when considering whether to adhere to the doctrine of instrumentalism. Many of our most cherished goals are constitutive in nature, and insisting that all human activity has a means–end form distorts and undermines those pursuits. The pervasiveness and difficulties with instrumentalist thought have been described and argued in greater depth elsewhere (T. Brewer, 2009; Fowers, 2010; Gadamer, 1975; Guignon, 1993; Habermas, 1970; Richardson et al., 1999; Richardson & Manglos, 2012; Taylor, 1985). We return to the concept of instrumentalism and its constitutive alternative throughout the book. 40       frailty, suffering, and vice

The Hierarchy of Instrumental and Constitutive Goods Now that we have shown that many of the most important goals for humans have a constitutive form, we can examine the relationship between instrumental and constitutive goods. A eudaimonic perspective suggests a hierarchy of aims, with simpler, more mundane goods at the base and the final and most complete end at the top. For example, home maintenance is a lower order activity that serves the higher end of having a good home life. The nature of the subordination is that one good is pursued for the sake of the other, and this relation is based on the hierarchical relationship of the content or substance of the two goods. In the same way, wealth, properly understood, is obtained to support more important goods, such as a safe, secure home and a fulfilling life. The primary reason that constitutive goods have a higher priority is that instrumental goods are valuable for the sake of other goods, whereas constitutive goods are choiceworthy in themselves. Wealth is good for what it can buy, but friendship is good in itself for humans. Although instrumental ends are lower in the hierarchy of goods, they are still quite valuable because they are clearly essential to a good life. Instrumental ends provide the infrastructure to pursue constitutive ends, but eudaimonia is only possible through the extensive pursuit of constitutive aims. Recall that eudaimonia is a life that is comprised of a coherent arrangement of genuine human goods such as friendship, personal growth, and meaning. Almost all constitutive ends owe their importance to their role in eudaimonia. That is, these goods are choiceworthy for us as human beings. We cannot step outside our limits as embodied, deeply social, mortal human beings. There is no other tangible form of existence. But within those limits, flourishing is the best kind of human life, which makes it the ultimate goal, something that will never be pursued for the sake of some other end. Our limits, frailties, and suffering notwithstanding, nothing else could make a flourishing life better. It is also important to see that eudaimonia is not a momentary accomplishment; instead, it is a lifelong pattern of activity devoted to choiceworthy ends and pursued in accordance with virtue. Eudaimonia is a constitutive good because the way to attain it is by realizing one’s potential as a human being. There are no short-cuts or strategies; one can only attain eudaimonia through the full expression of human capacities. Human potential is fulfilled by successfully pursuing goods such as belonging, knowledge, and justice because these goods are choiceworthy for humans as a species. Therefore, the hierarchy of ends has three levels. First, basic human aims have an instrumental form. These instrumental activities are valuable in that they provide the infrastructure necessary to pursue constitutive ends, a framework for a good life     

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the second level. The pursuit and attainment of constitutive ends comprises eudaimonia, the third level. Eudaimonia is the ultimate human good because it is not an end in relation to one or a few specific activities but encompasses all the activities in one’s life (Broadie, 1991). It is this overarching end that makes it possible to live in a coherent, rational way because this end serves to order a person’s choices of other ends and their attendant activities. Human beings care not only about each specific good but also about the ways that those goods fit together to form life as a whole. That is why we find the inevitable goal conflicts painful, and are inclined to exert substantial effort to resolve them. Individual and Shared Goods We want to highlight a second distinction in types of goods that involves recognizing the difference between individual and shared goods (Fowers, 2005). When people think of goals, it is natural to focus on aims that are pursued and attained individually. Examples include money, achievements, possessions, and pleasure. Although others may be involved in these aims, specific other people are not strictly necessary for their pursuit or attainment. Shared goals differ from those that can be pursued and possessed by individuals because the only way to achieve a shared good is to have it together with others. That is, shared ends can only be sought and achieved through sustained collaboration with other people. For example, no one can possess friendship on their own. Other everyday shared goods include democracy, teamwork, intimacy, and justice. These goods can only emerge in ongoing relationships with others. Justice is a matter of whether people interact fairly, and teamwork is defined by collaboration between and among people. This makes it clear that no one can achieve these choiceworthy goods independently. As humans, we have them together or we do not have them at all. It is also clear that shared goods are among the most meaningful and valued ends we pursue. It may be difficult for some readers to accept the distinction between individual and shared goods. This difficulty stems from the widely held assumption that the individual is the primary social reality for humans. Accordingly, relationships and social groups are construed as mere combinations of individuals, and it seems logical from this perspective that shared goods are just the aggregate of individual goods. This is a common but misguided way to account for what we call shared goods in this book. The assumption that the individual is the fundamental unit of reality and that all relationships and groups are simply aggregates of individuals is called individualism, which we discuss in Chapter 3. 42       frailty, suffering, and vice

The reason that shared goods cannot be just the sum of individual goods is that shared goods are an instance of the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, justice ensues when people act fairly with one another. This results in a just community, which is a shared good that transcends individual just actions and outcomes. Justice is an enormously important shared good for humans, and the capacity to create groups that are characterized by fair dealing is a key feature of our evolved nature (Fowers, 2015b). Democracy is an even stronger example. No individual can possess democracy, and it can only emerge at the group level because it requires a shared understanding of democratic practices. That is, in a democratic society, you know and I know we live by majority rule, we agree about that and hold each other accountable for it. We have social institutions and practices that are carried through generations, all of which are larger than any set of individuals living at any particular time. This brief introduction may not persuade skeptical readers, but we return to this theme throughout the book, offering arguments and evidence that indicate the ways in which individualism is entirely insufficient as a description of human life. If that argument is correct, then an individualistic perspective blinds us to the richness, centrality, and importance of shared goods. Because humans are an ultrasocial species, shared goods are central to living well. No human being can live a good life in the complete absence of shared goods such as social harmony, belonging, and justice, which can be held only in common. The Hierarchy of Individual and Shared Goods There is also a hierarchy of shared and individual goods. This relationship applies to interpersonal, political, and exchange relations. We illustrate it here with political relations. (See Fowers & Owenz [2010] for an interpersonal analysis and Fowers [2005] for an analysis of exchange relations.) We illustrate the priority of shared goods with two central concepts of modern Western societies: individual rights and dignity. In the modern West, we typically see human rights and dignity as inhering in the individual, even as inalienable from the individual. It is obvious, however, that rights and dignity can be stripped from any individual at any time. It is far more common in the world and in history for individuals to not have such “inalienable” rights than it is to have them. The only way individual rights and dignity exist is when a collective endows individuals with them. There are no rights without the rule of law and a rights-supportive system of justice, and, as we have recognized, those are shared goods. It is simply impossible for individuals to establish or possess freedoms and rights independently. Only communal political structures can confer rights and dignity on individuals a framework for a good life     

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by providing the necessary structures and processes to instantiate and support rights. This political structure is a necessary framework, and it can only be achieved through ongoing communal action. Therefore, we can see that identifying the political good with individual freedom and rights is not sufficient, because the democracy, rule of law, and justice that make individual freedom and rights possible are shared goods. Because shared goods both contain and supersede individual goods in this way, shared goods are hierarchically superordinate to individual goods. Seeing shared goods as higher in no way diminishes the value of individual goods such as rights, wealth, or personal achievements. Those are important, but they are obtained within a shared social context. Money is a great example because individuals can possess it, but it is only valuable to the degree that the society agrees that it is valuable. The value of money shows up primarily in the shared activity of commerce, wherein people exchange money, products, and services. As we have indicated, eudaimonia is also a shared good. No individual can flourish independently of others. Flourishing relationships (e.g., friendships, families, teams) and a flourishing community are necessary for individuals to flourish. Indeed, it is only through participation in high-quality friendships, belonging to well-functioning groups, sharing justice, and cultural meaning-making that individuals can flourish. This means that the social aspects of eudaimonia also have a three-level structure, with individual goods being subordinate to shared goods, and shared goods helping to constitute eudaimonia. To recap, Aristotle (trans. 1999) presented a hierarchical structure of the good in which eudaimonia is the overall good, with two dimensions. Table 1.3 presents this structure graphically (the goods in the tabular display are illustrative only). The first dimension, which we term agentic, includes instrumental and constitutive goods. We call the second dimension communal, and it includes individual and shared goods. The goods in all four quadrants are worthwhile, and a complete human life includes all four types of goods. In contrast, the standard psychological portrayal of human action is typically

Table 1.3 The Eudaimonic Structure of Human Goods Communal dimension

Agentic dimension

Constitutive goods Instrumental goods

44       frailty, suffering, and vice

Individual goods

Shared goods

Wine connoisseur Scholar Wealth Fame

Friendship Democracy Team victory Corporate profits

limited to individual and instrumental goods, which encompass only the goods in the lower left quadrant of Table 1.3. Many positive psychologists limit their understanding in similar ways. Clearly, the structure of human goods we present is incomparably richer than is the standard portrayal. The best form of life is one in which constitutive and shared goods are the overarching concerns, and one’s life consists of a set of interwoven and mutually supportive activities (Sherman, 1989). Indeed, eudaimonia is not a good above and beyond other goods; rather, it is a felicitous configuration of those goods. Eudaimonic theory makes it possible to question whether we are limited to individual and instrumental goods and commends all four types of goods as worthy of recognition and pursuit. This rich understanding of human life is only available from a eudaimonic perspective.

a framework for a good life     

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2 Virtue and Vice

Paul Rusesabagina calls himself “an ordinary man” in the title of his autobiography (Rusesabagina & Zoellner, 2006). In 1994, he was the manager of the luxury hotel Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, when he learned that people were being slaughtered in the streets of the city and in the villages of the countryside. In 100 days of brutality, Hutu militias killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The killings were mostly done by hand, with the majority of victims being hacked to death with machetes and knives. Mr. Rusesabagina is a Hutu who was and is married to Tatiana, a Tutsi, and they have four children. He sheltered more than 1,200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the hotel through the bloodshed, enabling almost all of them and his family to survive. He wrote that when the militia and the Army came with orders to kill my guests, I took them into my office, treated them like friends, offered them beer and cognac, and then persuaded them to neglect their task that day. And http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-003 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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when they came back, I poured more drinks and kept telling them that they should leave in peace once again. It went on like that for seventysix days . . . I still don’t understand why those men in the militias didn’t just put a bullet in my head and execute every last person in the rooms upstairs, but they didn’t. (p. ix)

It is fascinating that Mr. Rusesabagina did not see anything heroic about his actions. He stated, “My only pride in the matter is that I stayed at my post and continued to do my job as manager when all other aspects of decent life disappeared” (Rusesabagina & Zoellner, 2006, p. x). His modesty about the enormous courage it took to face stone cold killers who had each killed dozens or hundreds of people is stunning. He faced these men and their potential for imminent brutality day after day for nearly three months. He described his actions in this way: I did what I believed to be the ordinary things that an ordinary man would do. I said no to outrageous actions the way I thought that anybody would, and it still mystifies me that so many others could say yes. (p. xvi)

Few human actions could be more extraordinary. Of course, the situation that Paul Rusesabagina faced was extra­ ordinary, and all of us hope that we will never be required to face anything like that kind of danger. The extent and brutality of the slaughter in Rwanda is mind-numbingly terrifying, even from thousands of miles away and nearly 20 years afterward. At the risk of being savagely killed, he faced down a well-organized and ferocious killing machine. His courage and cunning are awe-inspiring. The natural responses to this kind of danger are to hide, run away, or just become paralyzed, all of which people did. The terror of those 100 days must have been overwhelming. The pace of the carnage, averaging 8,000 deaths per day, is itself terrifying. Yet Mr. Rusesabagina found the strength to resist and to stand up to the ferocious hatred that engulfed an entire country. Courage and Human Frailty We begin our discussion of virtues with courage because it is an almost universally recognized virtue. We discuss the concept of virtue at length in this chapter because there are many misconceptions that lead to faulty understandings and practices. Virtue is such a commonly used term that scholars and professional practitioners often do not realize that they rely on erroneous conceptions. In this section, we discuss courage so we can highlight three central ideas. First, the exercise of virtue is always directed toward a human good. 48       frailty, suffering, and vice

Second, each virtue is accompanied by a vice of excess and a vice of deficiency. Third, the virtues make it possible for us to respond to common human frailties with excellence. Fortunately, most of us will not face the kind of overwhelming test of courage that confronted Paul Rusesabagina. Yet, it will be up to each of us, at one time or another, to protect something or someone we hold dear. Such situations can be as simple as protecting a person by putting a stop to hurtful teasing, championing fairness in a committee meeting, speaking out against racist or sexist humor or bullying, or confronting a friend or loved one about how they may be hurting you or someone else. There are also times when you may have to stand up to misuses of power in your workplace or community. These are everyday circumstances in which we need the courage to stand up for what we believe is important. Two important commonalities show in these situations. First, there is someone or something that needs protection, be it a person, an organization, or an ideal. In each case, we are defending what we see as good. Second, providing protection involves some kind of risk, such as being harmed physically, psychologically, or socially. For example, in standing up to misuses of power, one can be harmed physically by getting roughed up, psychologically by being threatened, and/or socially by losing status or being ostracized. Courage is standing up to these dangers, which are understandably feared because there is something important at stake. In the absence of danger, people do not need courage to act well. If we succumb to fear and fail to defend who or what is important, we act in a cowardly fashion. Cowardice is a vice of deficiency because we fail to take necessary risks. If someone is engaging in risky behavior (think of bungee jumping) when there is nothing important at stake, then that person is engaging in thrill seeking rather than courage. This rashness is a vice of excess because the person takes unnecessary risks. We need courage because fear is a powerful emotion that usually arises quickly and automatically. It is common to feel afraid before you are consciously aware of the danger because danger stimuli are processed much faster than conscious thought. Fear is an adaptive emotion to have because there are many ways that we can be harmed. A quick, self-protective reaction to seeing a predator, a snake, a rampaging flood, or an armed enemy is a very good thing to have. Our fear response is powerfully built into our physiology. Perceptions of fear engender the release of adrenaline, inducing a heightened awareness and enhanced strength to deal with the threat. The immediate behavioral dispositions to the release of adrenaline are fight, flight, or freeze. In situations of extreme danger, one’s cognitive capacities can be shortcircuited and the only possible response is to follow one of these basic impulses. In most situations, however, we will have some degree of choice in how we virtue and vice     

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respond to the risks we face. When it is possible to decide how to respond, courage comes into play. Physical dangers are not the only important ones, and it turns out that the risks of social exclusion are also extremely potent. We argue throughout this book that human beings are exquisitely dependent on other people for our flourishing. One of our most important dependencies is our intense need to belong, which is built into human nature at a deep level. The physiological process for this is well-known. One of the primary areas we register physical pain in our brains is the anterior cingulate cortex. Emotional pain is also registered in this brain area. The anterior cingulate cortex is strongly activated when an individual feels excluded by others, even if the exclusion is part of a relatively meaningless activity (e.g., Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). The activation for exclusion is every bit as strong as it is for moderate physical pain. The pain of ostracism is very tangible to us, making exclusion avoidance a high priority. The social threat of exclusion is so powerful that it takes courage to go against any social group, especially one that is important to you. The fear response is adaptive, but if it is the dominant response, then we can be completely controlled by it, erasing our will, our decency, and our understanding of what is good. Authoritarians and torturers have demonstrated countless times that virtually anyone is vulnerable to being controlled by fear. Extremely authoritarian governments and cults use the threats of imprisonment, ostracism, infamy, torture, death, and eternal damnation to control their populations. People generally become extremely conformist under such threats, and many become willing to perpetuate social control by pressuring others to conform, informing on others, or both. Because fear can bring out the worst in us, fear can be a potent source of human frailty. Although most of us will never face the extreme danger that can efface our humanity, it is quite common to be called upon to defend someone or something important to us. Therefore, courage provides an excellent example of an essential virtue for living the best kind of human life, for without its protective capacity, any and all choiceworthy goods can be taken away. Acting courageously is the excellent response to fear-inducing situations wherein something important is at risk. But it is only one of many virtues we need to live well as human beings. In the following sections, we discuss virtue more generally and describe it in detail. It is most important that we take the time to deepen our understanding of virtue because much of the social science and helping professions literature on virtue perpetuates the mistaken idea that everyone already knows what it is. This mistake leads to many misconceptions and hamstrings our efforts to correctly understand virtue and to cultivate it in ourselves and others for the right reasons. We highlight some of these common mistakes as we describe virtue in this chapter. 50       frailty, suffering, and vice

Virtues and Human Frailties Just as courage is the virtue that gives people a way to act nobly in contexts of risk and fear, the other virtues are closely tied to human frailties. In this section, we clarify the specific links between two classic virtues (generosity and justice) and their links to characteristic human weaknesses. In our discussion of these virtues, we follow Aristotle’s lead in contrasting each virtue with two vices, one of deficiency and one of excess. From his perspective, there are three possible forms of action: (a) a virtue is the appropriate response to the context, (b) a vice of deficiency is to act in an insufficient or deficient way in the situation, and (c) a vice of excess is to act in an excessive way in the circumstances. Generosity Since ancient times, generosity has been a widely acknowledged, central virtue in human relationships because giving communicates to others that they are valued. A generous person is one who gives freely and regularly more than that which is “required.” This giving can include money, gifts, time, compliments, courtesies, forgiveness, or, simply, the benefit of the doubt. As we conceive it, generosity also includes the capacity to forgive other people for their mistakes and shortcomings (we discuss this at length in Chapter 5, along with human limitations). The reason for seeing these actions as generous is because they are not required; they are gifts we give to one another because it is not necessary to be kind or to see the best in other people. Thus, generosity can help people to get through the rough patches in their relationships and to repair the wear and tear experienced in their ongoing involvements (Fowers, 2000). Generous action is relatively common for human beings. We see this in many ways, such as the granting of simple requests for assistance, even from strangers (e.g., getting directions, helping fix a flat tire), and the common, spontaneous willingness to show someone else how to do something. Humans have a natural tendency to give, and recent research has documented this tendency and its benefits to psychological and physical health (e.g., Canevello & Crocker, 2010; Feeney & Collins, 2003). Brain imaging results have suggested that the reward centers of the brain are more strongly activated by giving than by getting monetary rewards (Fehr & Sprecher, 2009). Yet tendencies to greed, stinginess, and acquisitiveness are also abundantly evident. The desire to possess and acquire goods, such as money, status, and power, can foster a competitive struggle to possess these goods and to neglect or exploit other people. These antigenerous impulses are corrosive to friendships, families, groups, and communities. Stinginess with virtue and vice     

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regard to material goods is a way of showing that material goods or status are more important than are the people in our lives. Stinginess undermines relationships by encouraging people to withhold gifts, compliments, or forgiveness. Another way that stinginess arises is when people become “relationship accountants,” closely monitoring who gives how much to whom, which often arises out of fear of being exploited. Attention to the virtue of generosity is particularly important today because inclinations toward greed, stinginess, and acquisitiveness have been strongly stimulated and abetted in contemporary Western culture, which emphasizes wealth, consumption, pleasure, and exclusiveness. The present focus on human goods as individual possessions and the frequently reiterated emphasis on egoism run counter to generous action. We are told repeatedly that everything people do is for their own benefit, making generosity appear to be nothing more than a gambit for obtaining reciprocal benefits. Despite this generosity-effacing context, the ability to give spontaneously is essential to the good life. The virtue of generosity amounts to becoming a characteristically giving person, which is to act nobly in situations calling for sharing material and social goods. Generosity is one of the richest and easiest ways to bring goodness into the social world. Everyday acts of generosity, such as giving compliments or encouragement, cost the giver nothing but can make a huge difference in the receiver’s mood, energy, and capacity. If one is not used to looking for the positive in others, it may take some effort to recognize it, but once one gets in the habit of doing so, he will find it easy to maintain. Becoming generous, like acquiring all other virtues, is a matter of intentional practice. One of the great things about generosity is that it is a gift that often comes back to us. When we benefit other people, it improves their well-being, which helps them to be better family members, friends, and coworkers. Seeing the best in someone is one of the strongest ways to bring out the goodness in that person. Generosity improves the ethos of our groups and communities as a whole because it begets generous responses. This is not to say that we give to others simply to get something back; however, it often happens that we receive unexpected benefits as we act generously toward other people. The virtue of generosity is a matter of giving appropriately in the situation. We can gauge what is appropriate by contrasting generosity with stinginess or giving insufficiently (the vice of deficiency) and with giving extravagantly (the vice of excess). When we give gifts, compliments, forgiveness, or the benefit of the doubt, the situation and the relationship help us to recognize what is appropriate in contrast to what is deficient or excessive. 52       frailty, suffering, and vice

Justice We highlighted the good of justice in Chapter 1, but the focus here is on the virtue of justice as a personal trait. The term justice can refer both to a virtue and a good state of affairs. Justice is one of the most widely recognized and revered virtues. A just person is one who gives everyone his due, including material and social benefits, and works toward a fair distribution of burdens. The virtue of justice is relatively complex because it is sometimes discussed in terms of equality, as in ensuring equal opportunity or equal rights; sometimes it is described as merit-based, in which individuals get unequal rewards because of different degrees of perceived merit or effort; sometimes justice is referred to in terms of fair exchange; and at other times, justice is discussed in terms of the appropriate response to special needs or disadvantages. In addition, justice can refer to retribution or punishment for transgressions of mores or laws. In all these cases, the central question of justice is whether individuals or groups are given what they are due, which can refer to equality, merit, exchange, need, social justice, or punishment. Clearly, the question of what people are due has been highly contentious throughout human history, so the specifics of the virtue of justice have varied widely. In previous eras, for example, it was possible for a slaveholder to be seen as a just person as long as he did not treat the slaves with undue severity. The prevailing view in our time is that slavery is an unqualified injustice, whether slavery is racially based or the result of human trafficking (Chapter 7). So one of the perpetual challenges in cultivating the virtue of justice is in clarifying our views about what is “due” to one’s self and to others. Another challenge to cultivating the virtue of justice is the cynicism that is evoked by the rampant injustice in societies that purport to work toward justice. The vast inequalities of economic resources across and within societies defy rational justification. Inequalities of power and technological capability make it possible for some governments, notably the United States, to kill people who appear to be threats (or who just happen to be near apparent threats) all over the world with virtual impunity. The differential punishments allocated to defendants on the basis of the quality of legal representation they can afford or the color of their skin is another systemically pervasive injustice. Institutionalized injustice, wherein racial or class differences are built into the institutions of a society, is also pernicious and dispiriting. These pervasive injustices are the result of three important human tendencies. It often seems to be in our self-interest to grasp for greater advantages and lesser burdens. The ideology of individualism strongly encourages this inclination (Chapter 3). In addition, there appears to be an important human motivation toward having stable social arrangements, regardless of whether the social order is just. This tendency appears to be basic to our nature and virtue and vice     

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has been studied extensively by systems justification theorists (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004) and social dominance theorists (Sidanius, Pratto, van Laar, & Levin, 2004). These researchers find that many people are inclined to support the social status quo even if they are members of disadvantaged groups. Scholars interpret this as a trade-off for social stability and security. Finally, ingroup favoritism can lead us to seek and preserve advantages for our own group. This has often resulted in significant oppression of particular groups by more dominant groups, as we discuss in Chapter 4. As challenging as the virtue of justice is, it is vital to individual, relational, and communal flourishing. Trust and cooperation in relationships and communities are possible only if the participants believe they are being treated fairly (Fowers, 2015b). Humans are fabulously cooperative creatures. Virtually every activity we undertake has cooperative elements, from driving on the correct side of the road, to buying and selling goods, to conversation, to playing together. Consider the now common example of buying something on the Internet. We send money somewhere to a stranger and fully expect a product to be sent to us electronically or through the mail. If people were not generally treated fairly in these exchanges, Internet commerce would come to a screeching halt. To some degree, a tendency to treat other people fairly is built into human nature. It is what makes such extensive cooperation possible, including such disparate forms as performing in a ballet, maintaining social institutions, sending rovers to Mars, or playing sports. The only reasonable basis for trust is the warranted anticipation of being treated fairly. If we think of justice in terms of giving others their due, a deficiency in this domain would be when an individual seeks to acquire greater advantage than he is due. An excess in giving others their due would be to give up one’s own legitimate claims to advantages. In this case, we might act out of feeling powerless, perhaps to “guilt trip” others, curry favor with them, or avoid scary challenges or hard decisions. Although we might hope to come off looking noble, these are fine examples of doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. Recognizing and cultivating the virtue of justice, which is the well-informed habit of giving one another what is due, is a way to keep both our self-interest and our shared interests in balance. Additional Virtues We describe how many other virtues make it possible to act nobly in the context of human limitations. In Chapter 3, we discuss friendship and loyalty as the virtues of dependency. Our discussion of complexities in Chapter 4 shows the necessity of practical wisdom and the virtue of openness to the other to live well with the complexity and diversity of human life. In Chapter 5, we argue that reverence and forgiveness (generosity) are the virtues of human 54       frailty, suffering, and vice

limits. Chapter 6 suggests that compassion, courage, and practical wisdom are the virtues needed in the context of suffering. In Chapter 7, we return to courage and discuss integrity as virtues that make it possible to resist viciousness and evil. There are many other virtues, such as honesty vis-à-vis the human capacity to deceive, patience in relation to impulsivity, and temperance as a way to express appetites and emotions appropriately (we touch on these virtues in Chapter 8). We are convinced, however, that no list of virtues can ever be final or complete. We have discussed three virtues here (courage, generosity, and justice) to set the stage for the second section of the book, in which we present the crucial role that virtues play in making it possible for us, as the specifically flawed creatures we are, to pursue essential human goods. We argue for the importance of other virtues in subsequent chapters, but we are under no illusions that we are presenting a comprehensive set. Having introduced a few specific virtues, we next clarify some of the features that all virtues have in common. Features of Virtue Although it has become an increasingly important topic in mental health, education, and the humanities, the concept of virtue is not generally very well defined outside of philosophy, and exclusive reliance on colloquial understandings has led to many problematic assertions and conclusions. We define and describe virtue in this section to clarify the basis for our claim that virtues are the strengths that allow us to successfully pursue the best kind of life in the face of limitations. In this section, we define virtue in terms of its relationship to the good life, as a well-established habit, as always showing up in behavior, as spontaneously motivated, as based in reason, and as guided by practical wisdom. Virtue and the Good Life The best definition of virtues is that they are the character strengths that make it possible to flourish. Another way to understand virtue is that excellence is a synonym. From this perspective, we live well by acting virtuously or excellently. The reason for this linkage is that the virtues are the very best way we can act in a situation, and a life that comprises the best sorts of actions is the best kind of life. It is important to recognize that the virtues are always defined in terms of the human good, a defining relation that is generally neglected in discussions of positive psychology. The reason that we consider Mr. Rusesabagina’s courage as a virtue is that he acted for the sake of people’s safety and for their virtue and vice     

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very lives, which is clearly among the most important goods. When a scientist pursues the good of knowledge, he needs the virtue of honesty. When people report falsified data, they are undermining science by introducing disinformation and confusion through the presentation of false results and conclusions. To have a good friendship, it is vital to practice the virtue of loyalty—disloyal people cannot have good friendships. It is the value of the aims that we pursue (knowledge and friendship) that make honesty and loyalty worth enacting. The same relationship holds between valued ends and virtues in general—virtues are the traits necessary for successfully pursuing what is good. This means that the goods we pursue help us to understand which virtues we need and that it is possible to pursue goods successfully only if one has the relevant virtue(s). As we discuss in other parts of this book, eudaimonic theory does not provide a single, final version of what is good for humans. As we see it, there is no final, definitive interpretation of what is good. Rather, part of the good for humans is to deliberate and discuss the good in an ongoing way. This means that there is no substitute for ongoing discourse about what is good and bad, better and worse. This is one of the ways that the attempt at valueneutral science has gone wrong, both in mainstream social science and in positive psychology. Once scientists rule out attention to values, it makes it impossible to deliberate about what is good for humans within social and psychological inquiry. Virtue as Habit Virtues are central to a good life because living well is a matter of acting consistently in the best ways. For this reason, virtues must be habitual. Good friendships can be developed only if people are habitually rather than intermittently loyal. Communities and societies can be just only if people act justly habitually, not just occasionally. Although even occasional acts of generosity, loyalty, and fairness are beneficial, one’s actions are virtuous only if they are part of a reliable pattern of action. Virtue theorists often refer to the strength of habits in virtues as making virtuous action “second nature.” In other words, the important thing is to become the kind of person who generally chooses to act morally in an automatic, spontaneous way. One of the important differences between eudaimonic theory and most contemporary understandings of ethics is in their respective views of human nature. The point of ethics is frequently seen as the restraint or control of a selfish human nature. Eudaimonic theory does not portray humans as uniformly self-centered by nature. Rather, people have individual interests and shared interests, and both forms of interest can be pursued in ways that foster a good life. This means that virtue is a possibility for everyone. It does not 56       frailty, suffering, and vice

mean, however, that some innate goodness can be counted on to automatically give rise to excellence or that developing character is a matter of struggling against a contrary nature. Virtue requires the cultivation of naturally given capacities, that is, the cultivation of the best in one’s self. A corollary of this perspective is that individuals acquire character through practice, and repetitive practice makes acting well the natural or habitual response. People learn to be brave by acting courageously, to be generous by giving, and so forth. Practice helps us to become comfortable with courage and generosity and to identify emotionally with these actions. The process is analogous to learning a skill. For example, the initial attempts to learn pottery tend to be halting and produce mixed results. It is only through practice and guidance that one can become adept at making attractive ceramic objects. Creating a few pots would not qualify one as a potter, only a dabbler. Similarly, beginning to practice courage or generosity would not be considered virtuous because these actions are not yet second nature; instead, they are consciously done because they seem good. A person would be counted as courageous or just or temperate only when courage, justice, or temperance characterizes his actions in a reliable and coherent way. When we decide, over and over again, to act in the best way, we are characterizing ourselves as virtuous people. That is, we build our characters, for better or worse, through myriad choices made in the course of everyday life. Each action reinforces or undermines a person’s disposition to act in particular ways. People choose how to act, and the choices they repeatedly make become habits, and habits become, in turn, settled dispositions. The endorsement of similar choices over time makes up the person; that is, our decisions and actions do not take place episodically or independently of the rest of our life and character. They make up that life and character. This clarifies that ethics is much more than making correct decisions and acting rightly on isolated occasions that are somehow especially “ethical” in nature. Possessing virtue is deeply relevant to all of human activity, from the way we spend money, to the kind of jokes we tell, to the things that interest us, and to the things in which we take pleasure. This means that eudaimonic ethics is far more comprehensive and integrative than are other approaches to ethics. The virtues are relevant in all of our activities because all of them together— whether work or leisure, family life, or the life of the citizen—contribute to or detract from living as a whole, flourishing human being. Virtue in Action A key feature of virtue is that it always shows up in behavior, which is obvious when one considers the value of having courageous thoughts or virtue and vice     

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generous feelings that are not reflected in one’s actions. These thoughts and feelings do not count for much without actions that carry out courage or generosity. For example, the virtue of loyalty includes attachment and fidelity, valuing the person or group to whom we are loyal, and remembering what we owe them. None of these experiences amounts to loyalty if we fail to stand up for the people to whom we are attached, if we betray confidences or relationship norms, or if we fail to keep our promises. Loyalty is a matter of acting faithfully to those with whom we have essential ties. Virtue and Reason There is an essential cognitive element in virtue because acting well involves acting for the right reasons. In the absence of good reasons for acting as we do, our actions may be accidentally similar to virtue or whimsical in nature rather than part of a settled disposition. The necessity of a good understanding of virtue highlights the essential role of cognition in character. Knowing what counts as courage or justice is essential to consistently enacting those virtues. The virtue of generosity exemplifies the importance of acting for the right reasons. A person can give money, time, or talent, and this behavior may appear generous. Yet there are many reasons for doing so, such as genuinely wanting to share what one has, a desire to receive praise for generosity, a way to get a tax break, or an attempt to make up for past wrongs. Only the first reason counts as generosity, because the other reasons define the act as public relations, accounting, or penance. Emotion and Virtue Having the right reasons for acting is important, but virtue also requires that our emotions are aligned with our actions. The idea is that acting virtuously means acting wholeheartedly and gladly rather than reluctantly or grudgingly. This is because one’s emotional reactions reflect the current state of his character. If a person’s feelings are consistent with acting in a praiseworthy manner, they indicate a well-developed character; but if a person’s emotions run contrary to behaving in a way consistent with what is best, then he will be unable to act well wholeheartedly. Our emotions reveal the state of our character by what elicits feelings of delight, pleasure, and even pain. For example, consider that your colleague just gave a wonderful talk. You can compliment his excellent performance gladly or grudgingly. If you compliment him wholeheartedly, you are experiencing emotional concordance with the compliment that reflects a joyful and generous recognition of his accomplishment. If you give the compliment 58       frailty, suffering, and vice

grudgingly, it may suggest some envy or mere conformity with social expectations of praise. The harmony of emotion and action is very important because motives and emotions can either resonate with and enhance actions or express a disharmony that undermines actions. Sometimes emotional concordance with action is spontaneous, and other times it is something of an achievement (cf. Fowers, 2005). The natural question to ask is, “How can one come to have this emotional concordance and act wholeheartedly in the best ways?” Eudaimonic theory suggests that the primary source of the emotional concordance discussed in the preceding text is found in learning to love what is good. The most important aspect of “being properly affected” (Kosman, 1980) is that emotions reflect the depth of attachment to characteristic human goods. By coming to understand what is good, people become attached to those goods. Ideally, we develop a deep attachment to what is good and pursue it because we love it. As educators, we often refer to this when we discuss the love of learning. People who love to learn are expressing their attachment to the good of knowledge. From this perspective, it is the proper recognition of what is good that naturally inspires a desire to act in the service of that good. Individuals of character are spontaneously drawn to the good, and this concept of moral attraction encourages the best kinds of desires and feelings. This enormously appealing idea—wanting to act in the best ways simply because we love what is best—is one of the central concepts of eudaimonic thought. For example, good scientists act honestly out of love for truth, and good therapists persevere with difficult clients because they value human flourishing. This kind of attraction makes us spontaneously motivated to act morally rather than requiring rules, principles, or consequences to impel us to moral behavior. Thus, when we have cultivated a love for what is good, we do not have to struggle with inner conflicts about acting well. We want to do what is best wholeheartedly. When people are involved in pursuing something that they genuinely love, they experience pleasure both in its pursuit and in progress toward the goal. Those who devote themselves to scholarship love to learn and to create knowledge and enjoy their scholarly work as a labor of love. (But, we should be honest, when scholars in the social sciences or elsewhere mainly seek to “publish or perish,” to amass publications regardless of how trivial or genuinely insightful they may be, such genuine love and pleasure disappear.) Those who love to build take pleasure in their construction work and in the completion of a building or a bridge. Fervent teachers are deeply pleased by sharing their learning and by their students’ growing capacities and knowledge. When a good is dear to us, we spontaneously want to pursue it because we see it as valuable, we enjoy its pursuit, and we act wholeheartedly. virtue and vice     

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Practical Wisdom We believe that this virtue framework has great promise for enriching scientific, educational, and therapeutic practices. The perennial difficulty with any general framework, however, is recognizing how it works in the specific circumstances that we encounter. Eudaimonic theory devotes considerable attention to elaborating how to act virtuously in everyday life. The capacity to recognize the essentials of what we encounter and to respond well and appropriately to those circumstances is known as practical wisdom or judgment. Eudaimonic theory is, interestingly, almost completely devoid of rules for appropriate behavior. There is, of course, a general injunction to act virtuously, but virtue is not a matter of following rules. One reason for this is that life’s circumstances are endlessly variable, so no set of rules or guidelines could ever provide sufficient guidance as to how to act. It has been often pointed out that although rules are sometimes useful or suggestive, there are no rules concerning how to apply the rules in complicated or novel life situations. Therefore, individuals have to rely on their ability to choose wisely. In practical situations, the virtues require good judgment to know which traits are appropriate for a given situation and to know how to enact them, given the circumstances. The basis of practical wisdom originates in moral perception, that is, the ability to see what is most important under the circumstances. Choosing to act well is sometimes simple because what is important in the situation is quickly and intuitively perceived. At other times, one might need to deliberate about how best to act. In that case, choices are considered in light of the overall aims. For example, a parent who seeks to teach a child self-responsibility will respond to the child’s disobedience differently than will a parent who wishes to teach a child conformity to authority. With the characteristics of the situation and the overall aims in mind, one chooses the action that is best fitted to them. Practicing generosity provides a simple example. To be generous in a reliable way, one must be able to recognize occasions when generosity is an appropriate response, such as a gift-giving occasion. To choose a fitting gift, one has to understand the nature of the relationship with the recipient and appreciate the relevant social norms for gifts on such occasions. To be appropriate, when presenting the gift, one must draw on similar capacities for making good judgments. Practical wisdom involves this kind of appreciation of the situation, understanding of relevant customs, and ability to act in a fitting way toward worthwhile goals. Practical wisdom guides us in choosing a gift that is appropriate to the relationship and the occasion. We can go wrong by choosing a gift that is too costly or elaborate (extravagance) or one that is too small or simple (stinginess). Of course, practical wisdom is all the more important in thornier, less well-defined situations, such as difficult psychotherapeutic or 60       frailty, suffering, and vice

educational interactions. (See Fowers [2005] and Schwartz & Sharpe [2011] for more detailed discussions of practical wisdom.) To complete our discussion of virtue, we outline the five types of overall character in the final section of this chapter. It is important to appreciate that although virtues can be discussed singly, attending to the general shape of our character is also necessary. Character as a Whole In an early and ambitious contribution to positive psychology, Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman (2004) presented a DSM-style classification of virtues by defining a set of six virtues that consist of clusters of 24 character strengths. They called virtues “signature strengths” and asserted that a person can be “of good character if he or she displays but 1 or 2 strengths within a virtue group” (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. 13). This approach diverges from classical eudaimonic theory and contemporary virtue ethics, which emphasize character unity and integration. Eudaimonic thinkers generally value character in terms of its contributions to the worthiness of the individual’s complete life. Strengths and virtues are not entirely independent of one another, and having one strength can never make up for the absence of other strengths. In the same way that having a good day or a good year does not amount to a flourishing life, having one or two fine characteristics is insufficient for having a good character. Although Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) viewpoint has a good deal of liberality, it neglects the key insight that acting virtuously is strongly dependent on context. As discussed in the first section of this chapter, the specifics of a situation are essential to specifying which virtue is called for and what actions will constitute that virtue (Fowers, 2003, 2005; Schwartz & Sharpe, 2011). If a person’s character strengths are limited to a small subset of virtues, then there will be a rather limited range of contexts in which that person can act in the best ways. The piecemeal approach to virtue, which is also apparent in its lack of attention to overall character types (Fowers, 2008), has been a characteristic shortcoming of positive psychology. Positive psychologists do discuss good character, but they seldom consider alternative character types. Clearly, if it is possible to have good character, it is also possible to have weak or bad character. We describe five character types: virtuous, continent, incontinent, vicious, and beastly. In discussing character types, it is important for you, the reader, to understand that we are not recommending a judgmental view. This is a natural worry when we use descriptors of character such as incontinent, vicious, virtue and vice     

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or beastly. We eschew a judgmental attitude, but we must recognize that appraising our own and others’ characters is a normal, continual, and necessary part of everyday activity. None of us can dispense with assessments of our own and another’s honesty, fairness, courage, and so forth. If a person tells you something important, you must assess whether that person is being honest so that you know how much stock to place in what they said. Similarly, if you want to share a confidence with a friend or colleague, you must decide how much you can trust that individual to keep it confidential. People simply cannot avoid making these kinds of judgments about character; failing to assess character will necessarily leave a person open to being frequently and needlessly disappointed, deceived, or exploited. The point of these assessments is to orient one to proper action rather than to being judgmental. Character assessments tell one person what another is and is not capable of. In this way, they are akin to personality and diagnostic assessments, which help to identify less than desirable characteristics but do not encourage blaming or condemning someone who has them. A judgmental attitude is one of blaming, criticizing, or feeling superior to people with flaws in their characters. From a eudaimonic perspective, a judgmental stance is just wasted energy. Clearly, the best sort of person has no interest in the cheap gratification that comes with condemnation or superiority because it is well-known that, by nature, all human beings have character flaws. For example, one can recognize that a colleague is likely to procrastinate while completing assignments even though he may not be characterized as being entirely unreliable. Although this shortcoming can be irritating, condemnation or criticism is unnecessary and generally unproductive. Instead, one can modify one’s own decisions and actions in accordance with the recognition of the colleague’s limitation (i.e., that the work will likely be turned in later than promised). To ignore such weaknesses or to act contrary to the recognition of them would be foolish. The point of character assessments is not to be judgmental; instead, these assessments can help people to understand how best to live and work with each other. Virtuous Character The primary character type is the virtuous individual, someone who can act consistently in a way that is both noble and appropriate to the circumstances. Virtuous character is guided by a clear understanding of what is good and by consistent, spontaneous action in the service of those goods. A person of good character wants to act in the best ways, which means that he experiences a clear harmony of duty and desire. This emotional harmony is central to virtuous character because it differentiates the virtuous individual from the continent and incontinent. The latter two character types experience perpetual conflict between moral will and desire. 62       frailty, suffering, and vice

As we discussed previously, the core motivational concept of virtue is to love what is good. People cultivate and enact virtuous character because they are strongly drawn to choiceworthy ends such as friendship, justice, and knowledge. For this reason, virtuous individuals generally act well wholeheartedly, spontaneously, and gladly. Clearly, no one is motivated to act well 100% of the time, so this motivational harmony is sometimes an achievement. Struggles with proper motivation help to remind us about what we think is truly worthwhile. This reflection is a good way to transform disharmonious motives into the genuine desire to act well (Fowers, 2005; Hursthouse, 1999). We use the example of giving feedback to supervisees or students to illustrate each type of character. Clearly, a virtuous professional would give direct and useful feedback to supervisees or students in a timely way. This would be based on a wholehearted endorsement of the professional’s responsibilities for training and oversight and for the sake of helping the supervisees or students to develop their capacities in the best way. If giving this feedback is difficult (e.g., the person receiving the feedback has made a serious mistake or is very defensive), the professional readily bears the cost because the positive development of the individual is more important than the temporary difficulties of giving feedback. Continent Character Contrasting virtuous character with continent and incontinent character types is quite instructive. In both of these character types, the individual knows what is good, but this knowledge about what should be done conflicts with his desires. Thus, continent individuals experience frequent disharmony between their desires and motivations and what they recognize as good. Although the conflict between will and desire is common for us, this state of affairs is obviously not the most desirable way to live because the perpetual conflict drains vital energy from pursuing the good life. Consider this: If you were offered the choice of having harmony between your will and desire or to live with a continuous battle between them, a harmonious way of being seems obviously preferable. Fortunately, cultivating this inner harmony is possible for all of us, and that is what it means to develop virtue in ourselves and in the people with whom we work. Continent individuals generally act well because they know what is best and usually decide to act accordingly, even though their desires are inconsistent with this decision. Typically, continent individuals have to struggle between what seems best and what they want to do. Their knowledge of what is best generally trumps their desire, but some effort is necessary to act in the best way. This ambivalence and effortfulness tends to show up in their actions. It is obviously better to act well in opposition to one’s desires than virtue and vice     

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to follow one’s less than worthy feelings and act badly. Continent individuals act morally because they know what is right even if they act somewhat reluctantly. Confusing virtue and continence is an all too common mistake when psychologists discuss virtue. The clearest example of this is Roy Baumeister and Julie Exline’s (2000) claim that self-restraint is the “master virtue” (p. 29). Their view is that self-restraint is necessary because people are naturally egoistic, and selfish desires and impulses must be restrained to enable morality. Therefore, they put forward a theory of moral continence, not virtue. Peterson and Seligman (2004) seemed to concur when they called self-restraint a virtue and they defined temperance as “auspicious self-restraint” (p. 38). Moreover, they characterized courage as a victory over external or internal obstacles, indicating their conflation of virtue and continence. Virtue is not about selfrestraint or winning a struggle with inner obstacles because virtue is motivated by the right emotions and motivations from start to finish. If our desires are contrary to doing what is best, we may be acting continently, but not virtuously. As Paul Woodruff (2001) insightfully wrote, “the need for self-control is a sign of undeveloped virtue” (p. 30). Even if self-restraint is not a virtue, it is important in the discussion of flourishing in the context of human limitations. Because humans are imperfect, even the most virtuous face conflicts between duty and inclination from time to time. Yet the goal of bringing desires into harmony with what is truly choiceworthy is a key aspect of flourishing, one that is a worthwhile achievement any time it can be managed. A continent supervisor dutifully provides informative, useful feedback to supervisees or students, but there is some degree of reluctance or ambivalence. This disharmony will tend to make the process less spontaneous, artful, and successful. Hesitation may express doubts about accepting the responsibility of supervision or anxiety about the response to the feedback, but the continent supervisor resists the temptation to sugarcoat the feedback or to avoid difficult conversations about performance. Incontinent Character The third character type is called incontinent because the incontinent individual knows what he should do but frequently cannot bring himself to act accordingly. The incontinent are less admirable than the continent because they are unable to do what they know to be for the best. This is not a judgmental view because it is clear that when these individuals lose the struggle between the will to act well and less worthy desires, it is costly to them. Incontinent individuals frequently feel guilt, remorse, and shame about their inability to act in the ways they believe are for the best. The incontinent 64       frailty, suffering, and vice

supervisor generally avoids giving feedback to students or supervisees or provides only glowing feedback to avoid the discomfort attendant on corrective feedback. Vicious Character In previous sections of this chapter, we used the term vice in connection with particular actions (excess and deficiency), but another important usage is to recognize a vicious character type. In eudaimonic theory, the term vicious is not limited to hostile or mean-spirited actions. Rather, the vicious character is a person who consistently acts ignobly. The vicious are people who characteristically act in greedy, deceitful, exploitive, self-indulgent, or other ignoble ways. An interesting and essential feature of this form of character is that vicious individuals typically see their ignoble actions as entirely justified. This justification is more than just rationalization; it is built on a misguided, but often well-developed, understanding of what is good. An erroneous understanding of what is good is the key difference between the vicious and the virtuous characters. Vicious individuals pursue ends such as acquisitiveness, domination of others, and self-indulgence because they are convinced that these goals are truly worthwhile. They do this because they construe themselves and the world such that their actions seem entirely appropriate and justified. A greedy person views the world as filled with people who want to get as much as they can, so assiduously acquiring as much as possible is the only reasonable stance. People who are intent on domination tend to see life as a perpetual struggle for power, a dog-eat-dog affair. Life is all about dominating or being dominated, and, given that choice, it only makes sense to try to be one who dominates. This self-justification also clearly differentiates vice and incontinence. Vicious agents are not conflicted, ambivalent, or self-reproachful about their actions because they have cultivated a set of beliefs and a second nature that results in acting wholeheartedly greedy, domineering, or self-indulgent. Such actions seem to be the only correct and reasonable ways to behave. The theoretical capacity to differentiate virtuous and vicious character is a vital missing element in positive psychology and most other psychological approaches to virtue and flourishing. A vicious individual could easily interpret Seligman’s (2011) key characteristics of flourishing (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement) in self-serving ways. Seligman did not rule out this possibility because he had not taken viciousness seriously enough. Perhaps such thinkers throw out the baby with the bathwater. They may be so concerned about avoiding moralism or judgmentalism that they avoid looking closely at the hard realities of vicious character. For example, dominating others as a human trafficker can lead to positive emotions such as virtue and vice     

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a feral form of joy or satisfaction with a lavish lifestyle. Domination can be an extremely engaging form of activity, and a vicious person could easily see it as an achievement. We recognize that it would be somewhat more difficult (but not impossible) to claim that domination is meaningful and is accompanied by the proper kind of relationships. Of course, Seligman and virtually any positive psychologist would rightly reject the idea that viciousness could be subsumed in their concept of virtue and flourishing. The problem is that they have not paid sufficient attention to the essential contrast between virtue and vice and therefore cannot rule out this kind of misinterpretation of their work. We need to recognize the existence of vice in the world because there are real people who regularly act in vicious ways. Clear and all too common examples include exploitation and domination through slavery, prostitution, and selling highly addictive drugs. Rapacious business leaders and tyrants mistreat others in egregious ways for profit and power as well. Such individuals easily and frequently take advantage of the naïve and unwary. This recognition helps us to remember just how much is at stake in the conversation about human flourishing. The ability to separate the virtuous and the vicious is a very important test of the adequacy of our formulations of what is good. We devote Chapter 7 to this vital topic. It is also essential to understand just how far people can diverge from virtue and flourishing and that they can be quite convinced that they are living the best kind of life because they so thoroughly misunderstand the human good. The most basic difference between the virtuous and the vicious is in their substantive understanding of what is good. In addition, any description of virtue and the human good that does not include vice and evil cannot avoid being tepid and Pollyannaish. In a world as imperfect and potentially dangerous as our own, this is a naiveté we cannot afford. Returning to the example of giving feedback, a vicious supervisor would use the opportunity of giving feedback to humiliate or oppress students or supervisees who are out of step with the supervisor’s goals. Or the supervisor might humiliate them just for fun. Conversely, such a supervisor would flatter and cultivate those who do further the supervisor’s goals. All of this would be couched in terms of being a realistic, tough-minded, but fair supervisor. The supervisor’s only concern would be to pursue his self-interested goals effectively. Beastly Character The beastly character describes people who have become enslaved to desires, emotions, or habits that overwhelm their capacities for reasoning, making good choices, and participating in good relationships. The clearest examples of beastliness are people who are so desperately addicted to a drug 66       frailty, suffering, and vice

that serving their addiction becomes their central priority. Theft from strangers or loved ones, prostitution, and numerous forms of deception or violence seem necessary to get the drug. Beastliness may also include indiscriminate gluttony, a wanton inclination to violence, rampant gambling, and so forth. A defining feature is the loss of key elements of one’s humanity. Again, we do not recommend a judgmental stance toward individuals with beastly characters. It is abundantly clear that no one sets out to become an addict, and we recognize the overwhelming tragedy found in people with this character type. To summarize this discussion of character types, a foremost feature of excellence is a harmony between one’s emotions and noble actions. Concordance between emotions and moral behavior simplifies and enriches our actions because we are not burdened by conflict between inclination and the best actions. Harmonious emotions resonate with our activities and enhance our energy for them. The idea that moral action is based on a heartfelt desire consisting in loving what is genuinely good is an extremely attractive aspect of eudaimonic theory. This point powerfully illustrates the psychological wholeness of eudaimonia. Yet we need to recognize that vicious individuals are not burdened by conflicts between duty and inclination. This is because their will and desire are integrated in the service of a misguided vision of what is good, which they wholeheartedly and consistently seek. The will to pursue worthwhile aims is too weak in the incontinent person, and their will is defeated by less worthy desires. The continent person is able to act well by controlling refractory desires with their moral will. Beastly individuals are incapable of distinguishing between moral will and desire because they have become slaves to their base desires. Conclusion Virtues are the character traits that make it possible for fallible human beings to respond nobly and pursue what is good. The virtues have been specifically formulated to help us respond well, given the characteristic limitations of human beings and the specific weaknesses each of us has. By coming to love what is good, we can make virtuous action well-reasoned, spontaneous, and habitual. A flourishing life can be described as loving what is good and pursuing it with all your heart. When we understand that character is, at its best, unified, we can more clearly see that we are well-advised to cultivate all of the virtues, not just a selection of them. This is particularly important because life throws a great variety of situations our way, and we need the full complement of virtues to act well across all of the circumstances we face. The concept of virtues is applicable to all areas of human activity, including friendship, teaching, therapy, leadership, parenting, and citizenship. virtue and vice     

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Cultivating virtues in ourselves can help us to fulfill all of these roles excellently, and fostering virtues in our children, students, clients, and supervisees will improve their lives as well. We conclude with one noteworthy application of virtue in a therapeutic girls boarding school called Greenbrier Academy (Slife, 2012). Students attend the academy for many reasons, including substance abuse and conduct dis­ order. The Greenbrier Academy staff focuses primarily on teaching students to have high-quality relationships. They approach this in many ways, including an emphasis on five virtues that focus particularly on forming good relationships. The students learn in stages, beginning with the virtue of trust, and progressing, one at a time, through the virtues of respect, courtesy and compassion, humility and honor, and empathy and forgiveness. The staff—which includes not only teachers and therapists but also teaching aides, janitors, groundskeepers, and cooks—developed a systematic program for teaching these virtues to the students. The students also teach one another and hold one another accountable for their character development. The key idea is for the girls to learn to relate to others in richly responsible and caring ways. The program is implemented on a 24/7 basis during the practical, everyday activities of the classroom, the dining hall, and leisure pursuits. This program has been extremely successful, with a rate of recidivism near zero, an excellent graduation rate, and nearly 100% matriculation in college. The success of this school demonstrates that virtues can be taught and that learning to act virtuously is an excellent way to turn around even very troubled individuals.

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3 Dependency

Relationships with other people are among the most important sources of happiness, health, and meaning in life. Extensive research has confirmed that good relationships are central to psychological well-being, physical health, and longevity (Fowler & Christakis, 2008; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton 2010; Lee & Ono, 2012; Vanassche, Swicegood, & Matthijs, 2013). This knowledge is not new, of course. Keen observers of humanity throughout the centuries have strongly endorsed this intuition (Shults, 2003). Aristotle is prominent among them because of his insights into how deeply social human beings are. He saw friendship as one of the most important human goods. From its inception, positive psychology has recognized that positive relationships are one of the primary elements of individual well-being, although relationships have not been given the attention they deserve in positive psychology.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-004 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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Yet, it is clear that relationships can be problematic. Peer pressure can be a good or bad influence, and caring deeply about others makes one vulnerable to great pain. When we become close to people, we can be hurt through conflict or rejection. This potential for pain is part of the reason that dependence is so often viewed negatively, as a problem or even a pathology. Dependence may also seem to signal that we are not thinking for ourselves or not appropriately in control of our lives. The purpose of this chapter is to explore our bone-deep need for human relationships and our fears about them. We agree with Aristotle and others who have asserted that people are deeply social beings and that our social nature makes the stakes high as we navigate relationships, especially our dependencies. We show that some forms of dependency are not only unavoidable but necessary to human flourishing. Some dependency should be embraced rather than resisted, even while knowing about the pain and vulnerability it inevitably brings. Perhaps even more important, many vital aspects of life, such as friendship and intimacy, are only attainable through dependency. Why, then, are psychologists so quick to pathologize dependence, and how can conventional understandings be revised to reflect our relational nature? To address these issues, we begin the chapter with Sarah’s story. She illustrates many of the relational anxieties and tensions that all of us experience. We then introduce two viewpoints about relationships that aid in the understanding of these anxieties and tensions. One of these perspectives, commonly termed individualism or liberal individualism, dominates both U.S. culture and the discipline of psychology. Although this form of individualism has many positives, we show that one of its negatives is its implicit guidance about relationships, as Sarah’s life illustrates. When she seeks psychotherapy for her relational struggles, the dominance of individualism in psychology leads her counselor to compound rather than resolve Sarah’s relational problems. Because individualism is so implicit, pervasive, and misguided, we discuss it as a “disguised” ideology. The final section of the chapter describes why we believe that Aristotle’s ethics provides more helpful understanding and guidance about these difficult issues. Sarah’s Relational Struggles When Sarah first came into the world, it was obvious that she, like all infants, was entirely dependent on those around her for her physical wellbeing. Of all the animals in the world, human infants are among the most vulnerable and dependent. Sarah’s parents were wise enough to know that she was also emotionally dependent. They had heard about the research that showed that physical care was not enough. Even when the physical needs of babies are met, they cannot thrive if they aren’t held, cuddled, and generally 70       frailty, suffering, and vice

given affection (Bornstein, 1989). Because of this vulnerability and complex set of relational needs, Sarah’s birth, like that of all babies, generated a literal community of caregivers all around her. Her physical and emotional dependence was appropriate and expected. As she grew up, however, the rules of dependency began to change. She found increasingly that her caregivers expected her to be less dependent, which was profoundly confusing for her at first. Where once caregivers met her every need, Sarah was increasingly expected to be responsible for taking care of herself. School, in particular, was confusing in this regard because the unconditional love of her home was replaced by many troubling problems in relating to others. She still felt a deep desire to fit in and belong, but the anxiety of belonging or not belonging to a clique and experiencing some cruel teasing resulted in some deep wounds and painful bouts of self-doubt. She gradually decided to limit her relationships and suppress her need to belong to avoid getting hurt. As a result, Sarah found herself desiring independence even more than her parents desired it for her. Western culture also seemed to encourage this desire because she frequently heard independence and self-reliance praised and dependence on others castigated as inferiority or weakness. Yet, despite pursuing a path of independence through college and into a career, she was surprised one day to find herself head over heels in love. This love led to marriage but not to her hoped-for happiness. As soon as the proverbial honeymoon was over, relational difficulties emerged. The intimacy that Sarah most craved with her husband was elusive, and she experienced considerable disappointment and eventually depression as a result. She sought psychotherapy for help, but that tended to reinforce many of the lessons of her youth. She was encouraged to view her problems as mainly the result of making her self-worth too dependent on others’ evaluations, which strengthened her tendency to protect herself by moving away from dependence on anyone. Sarah learned to manage her attitudes and emotions around her husband and to steer away from deep emotional attachment. In this way, the individualism that guided her therapy compounded her difficulties rather than ameliorating them. We return to Sarah’s story as we delve into the topic of relationships and dependence in this chapter. At this point, however, we have enough information to analyze her situation in terms of a common Western philosophy, abstractionism, and its main rival, what we call relationality. Two Philosophies of Human Relationships There are two opposing ways to understand Sarah and her relationships, with a lot of potential variation on both themes. These two viewpoints originate from two general philosophies, sometimes called ontologies because they are philosophies about what is most real or most fundamental in the world. dependency     

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Boiled down to their essences, these two perspectives are relatively straightforward. One philosophy assumes that the deepest reality about people is found when they are separated from their contexts (e.g., in the laboratory). The other assumes that this deepest reality is discovered only when people are understood in relation to the contexts in which they act and live. (See Shults [2003]; Slife [2004]; and Slife & Wiggins [2009] for more detailed descriptions of these two ontologies.) Let’s consider Sarah in light of these two philosophies. The first viewpoint, abstractionism, suggests that Sarah’s physical and interpersonal environment is best understood as secondary. This perspective tells us that the most real and basic aspects of Sarah show up best when she is abstracted or separated from her living context. From this perspective, she is best understood when her relationships are stripped away in a figurative or literal laboratory so that Sarah’s “self” or “personality” or “identity” is understood as something contained within her, uncontaminated by “external noise.” For example, Sarah and her family have long believed that part of her identity is her intelligence. It has been often said that she is “undoubtedly the smartest person in the family.” Her intelligence is understood from an abstractionist perspective as inherent within her. Her family might nurture her native intelligence to a limited degree, but her basic intelligence is not related essentially to her family situation or her wider culture. The second perspective, relationality, suggests that Sarah is better understood as partly constituted by her contexts—her physical environment, her interpersonal relationships, and the temporal context of her history and her future. From this relational perspective, her very identity as a person is dependent on the context in which she functions. She is a sister, mother, cousin, citizen, tall woman, funny person, and so forth—all of which require relationships with other people to be understood. Her contexts and her identity mutually constitute one another. Her identity as “the really smart one” in her family is a case in point. Instead of divorcing this identity from its context and viewing her intelligence as inherent within her, the relationist views this identity as vitally connected to her family context. In fact, when Sarah went away to college, she found that she lost that identity almost entirely, primarily because so many people were just as smart if not smarter than she was. The change in her identity was not a change in her intelligence per se, but a change in her context, that is, the people with whom she lived and interacted. Indeed, she had two identities, from a relational point of view: one with her family and one at her college.1 To be sure, these identities are

The social psychological concept of the expanded self has some parallels with relationality, as well as a good deal of supportive evidence (e.g., M. B. Brewer, 2007).

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related, and, at her best, Sarah can flow smoothly from one to the other over time, as is appropriate under the circumstances. Individuals and Relationships It is important to understand that these two philosophies, abstractionism and relationality, both recognize the importance of both the individual and relationships, though they understand individuals and relationships differently. A person’s identity for the abstractionist is contained and inherent within the person. Relationship influences only count as part of the identity when they have been incorporated into the self. For the relationist, in contrast, a person’s identity is partly constituted within a unique nexus of relationships. For the abstractionist, Sarah is a smart person almost regardless of the context she is in, whereas for the relationist Sarah is only “a smart person” in relation to specific contexts, like her family. According to the philosophy of relationality, her identity can change from context to context, such as from her family situation to her college situation, without requiring any additional process of “incorporation.” The differences in how these two philosophies value relationships are especially important to notice. The relationist views relationships as more strongly or more deeply influential. Sarah and her context are mutually constitutive of one another, which means that Sarah partly constitutes her context and that her context helps to make her who she is. For instance, when Sarah was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in her elementary school because of her “lack of focus,” the relationist would assume that this diagnosis or identity was not merely the result of her own behavior or even her own biology. The relationist would suggest that many other factors of her context contributed to this diagnosis, including the greater focusing abilities of those not diagnosed with ADHD and the requirements for a particular type of focused attention in school. In other words, if all her elementary school peers were equally as unfocused as Sarah, she wouldn’t have distinguished herself from them and wouldn’t have been diagnosed. She and her peers were embedded in a culture that defined their identities as students, with distinct role expectations. Culture, among many other parts of Sarah’s context, is thus vital to Sarah’s identity. In contrast, the abstractionist viewpoint “abstracts” the person or considers a person’s identity or self to be separable from their situations. Sarah’s ADHD, in this case, may change or adapt slightly to differing contexts, but it does not change essentially from one situation to the next, according to the abstractionist. Sarah simply has ADHD, which is conceived much like any medical disease. The abstractionist would assume dependency     

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that her connections to her contexts are weaker because Sarah is first and most fundamentally a self-contained identity (e.g., smart, having ADHD), who only later and secondarily interacts with her context (e.g., people, environment). Dependence It is probably obvious at this point that these two philosophies consider interpersonal dependency quite differently. The abstractionist would consider dependence a necessary evil. The abstractionist would say that individuals depend to some degree on their contexts, such as for their food, water, emotional support, and even knowledge of all types. Still, the abstractionist would insist that these aspects of context are not the most fundamental things about a person; all of these aspects of context are secondary to the individual. For Sarah to flourish in this world, she must learn to tolerate and manage these dependencies as well as possible to support and serve herself. However, the ideal from this abstractionist perspective is to become as independent and self-sufficient as humanly possible. The relational view of dependency is quite different. Instead of dependency being tolerated and managed, it is an inherent part of who we are and how we live. Consider the ideas of relational theorist Jonathan Sacks (2003), who wrote the following: One of the great intellectual discoveries of the twentieth century is that the “I” is a fiction, or at least an abstraction. In reality, we develop a sense of personal identity only through close and continuous conversation with “significant others.” (p. 159)

If Sacks (2003) is right, and even our innermost identities depend on our relationships, then our identities are dependent identities; dependency is part of who we are. From this perspective, Sarah is just as real or characteristically human as an infant, when she was completely and totally dependent on others for both her physical and emotional well-being, as she is as an adult. Yes, she has learned to feed herself, but she didn’t learn to grow and package the food that she eats, or build the stores where she buys it, or mint the money she uses to buy it. From a relational perspective, she is just as dependent now as an adult as she was as an infant; she has just traded one set of dependencies for another, with her infancy as the most obvious set of dependencies. As we show, this relational understanding of dependency serves as a nice bridge to a eudaimonic understanding. First, however, we need to flesh out these philosophies by describing and questioning the most dominant form of abstractionism in psychology: liberal individualism. 74       frailty, suffering, and vice

Liberal Individualism Psychology’s professed status as a science probably makes the dominance of abstractionism inevitable. After all, a key premise of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to natural science, was to abstract from the rich details of the lived and changing world to discern the unchanging laws and principles that supposedly lay behind these changing details. As Richardson and Guignon (2005) explained, this “amazing capacity for scientific abstraction” (p. 3) has resulted in one of the main topics of psychology—the individual—becoming abstracted from the context in which the individual interacts. Abstractionism is a reductive approach to science. Much as abstractionism led to prioritizing laboratory research—where all things are thought to be best understood when abstracted from their natural contexts—the psychological individual is best understood when she is abstracted from the surrounding context. This is not to say that there will never be an attempt to “add back in” the context at some point. But the individual is commonly understood as if she exists and can be studied separately from this mix. Undoubtedly, the most prominent form of this psychological abstraction of the self is the concept of liberal individualism. Robert Bellah and his colleagues (see Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985) provided one of the best descriptions of liberal individualism. Let’s look at the two terms separately in the phrase liberal individualism to try to understand this concept, starting with the term individualism. Individualism Bellah et al.’s (1985) book, Habits of the Heart, is an extended discussion of the widespread contemporary notion that the basic unit of human reality is the individual person. From this perspective, Sarah, for example, is assumed to exist and have characteristics prior to and independent of her social existence. In this form of abstractionism, social systems are secondary to individuals. Sarah is first and foremost an individual who only later creates a social system like her marriage. The secondary status of social systems also means that they are intended, from this individualist view, to serve the needs of the individuals who created them. Social systems such as governments, churches, and families are seen as means that serve the ends of individuals. It is important to recognize that the commitment to individualism strongly encourages the idea that virtually everything and everyone else in the world are the means to the individual’s ends. Sarah’s marriage, in this sense, was created to serve the basic unit of reality, the individuals involved. Individual happiness or satisfaction is frequently considered the primary end of individuals, from this individualist dependency     

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perspective. The aim of Sarah’s marriage is her and her husband’s happiness as individuals. In fact, psychological evaluations of marital satisfaction routinely measure only individual satisfaction (Ostenson, 2010). If she and her husband are not happy, then the marriage is not functioning correctly, and it is perfectly reasonable for either partner to consider dissolving the marriage. So it comes as no surprise that many scholars have argued that this type of individualism is often a primary culprit in the high rate of divorce (Amato, Booth, Johnson, & Stacy, 2009; Cherlin, 2004; Fowers, 2000). In this view, even fellow humans are understood primarily as the means to individualist ends. From this perspective, Sarah can validly consider her own parents as instruments of her happiness. A quick interview with her parents would readily reveal that they also view their parenting as an instrument of Sarah’s happiness, one of their most important purposes as parents. And, of course, if Sarah and her siblings are not reasonably happy, then her parents would consider their parenting a failure. In these ways, her family has supported and reinforced Sarah’s instrumental view of relationships, especially her close relationships. Sarah is not especially proud of this attitude, but she has learned, sadly, to accept it as “the way the world is.” Indeed, she wonders whether virtually everyone with whom she meets and forms relationships views her the same way. In other words, the best that relationships can be, from this individualist understanding, are contractual ties among individuals as they cooperate or compete for their ultimately individual ends. “Everyone is using everyone else,” she laments. Indeed, she has come to understand her own marriage in just this manner, despite the initial flurry of loving feelings. It seems, for example, that most of her fights with her husband have become “power struggles,” in which they are each protecting their individual needs from the other’s encroachment. She realizes that this is not the way “love” is supposed to be, but what can you do? She has no alternative to the idea that all things, including spouses, are instruments or impediments for effectively and efficiently pursuing individual security and satisfaction. Yet this impression that relationships are only about using and being used leaves her feeling lonely even while she is with her husband or her friends. Liberal Now that we are clear that individualism is based on the idea that the self-contained individual is the deepest human reality, we can discuss the term liberal in liberal individualism. This term does not refer to liberal politics, at least not in the conventional sense. In fact, most observers consider liberal individualism to be so pervasive in American society that the mainstreams of both political liberalism and political conservatism draw 76       frailty, suffering, and vice

from the same well of liberal individualism.2 Rather than political liberalism, the meaning of liberalism here means aspiring to a kind of freedom or liberation of the individual. For many Americans, this kind of aspiration is positive and good. Indeed, there is little doubt that this form of liberalism has historically led to a vigorous championing of human dignity and rights, ideals that most of us cherish (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999; Sandel, 1996). It is these basic rights that the institutions of liberal societies are designed to guard and facilitate. However, this form of liberation rarely stops there. Many such liberated individuals view themselves as possessing a kind of autonomy that is free of both moral tradition and external authority. These individuals are often quite suspicious of authority and tradition. They view every person as having the responsibility to decide for themselves who they are and how they should express themselves without the help or interference of any established authority or preexisting tradition. True to her upbringing, Sarah views herself as having sole autonomy over her own life, which makes great sense to her and to many in Western societies. This kind of autonomy implies that she should make her life decisions apart from the views of her family and the authority of her college teachers and professional mentors. After all, she has to be a bit suspicious of their motives, given that they are likely also using her instrumentally—a means to their own personal or professional ends. For this reason, any sort of dependence on others is rarely going to be for her benefit and she must always watch out for being used. Without a lot of conscious reflection about it, Sarah had come to feel that she simply could not rely on moral traditions or religious authorities to guide her life choices. Religious belief and church involvement seemed to be meaningful to some of her family and friends, including her parents, and she was especially tempted to draw on her religious upbringing in forming her marriage. These traditions seemed to be helpful in her parents’ marriage, but she remained guarded and suspicious about being guided by them. Will these traditions and values really make her happy? There is no way to know for sure, and she felt she must stand ready to jettison them if necessary. They were laced with doctrines that were easy to question. Her training in thinking of most everything in instrumental terms had taught her to be cautious about The political views of the conventional liberal and conservative parties in today’s politics, from this perspective, are more alike than they are different. They are different versions of the same underlying modern individualistic doctrine. One party advocates large-scale social programs and a high degree of personal or lifestyle autonomy, whereas the other party stresses reliance on broad market forces and celebrates individual economic freedom. Both political viewpoints make individuals and individual freedom the cornerstone of their approach, even though they understand these notions differently. Both tend to rely on large-scale impersonal mechanisms, either the state or the market, to sort out our differences and downplay more traditional notions of community, civil society, or reasoning together about the public interest or common good (Richardson et al., 1999). 2

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allowing any such commitment or attachment to tie her down. Like most of us, she occasionally felt a strong impulse to devote herself to some person, spiritual ideal, or cause. But it had been deeply ingrained in her thinking and feeling that she must ultimately be devoted to herself. Although she found that freedom is exhilarating, she also had a nagging anxiety about whether she was making good choices on her own. Sarah believes she should strive for individual empowerment and not allow herself to become a slave to some system of belief. This is the nub of the confusion about dependence. We do not recommend abandoning or compromising our modern ideals of skepticism and of thinking for ourselves. The problem is that Sarah and many of us tend to think in terms of a sharp dichotomy between two extremes. Either we stand entirely on our own two feet or we are dominated by someone else and their self-interest. Yet much of life is lived in a third mode, one that dispenses entirely with the dichotomy between independence and subservience. For example, if we listen to and allow ourselves to be influenced and enlightened by others, we can often think better for ourselves or be more courageous or original than might be possible otherwise. Without depending on others’ input, our humanity, wisdom, and genuine independence might be considerably truncated. Ordinary, honest, and fruitful human conversation is perhaps the best example of how healthy dependence and true independence work hand-in-glove. It is because of such dichotomies that the individualism and instrumentalism in Western society trips itself up so badly. These dichotomies lead people to feel that they must evaluate all moral and religious traditions in terms of whether they do or do not foster individual autonomy and happiness. But that ideal of independence constitutes a cultural and moral tradition of its own—individualism! It clearly incorporates precious values, such as our modern ideals of human dignity and individual rights. But who is to say—unless we want to violate those very ideals and be rigidly dogmatic about it—that such an outlook on life and living is entirely sufficient and lacking in any flaws or blind spots? Unfortunately, this obsessive, one-sided individualism prevents people from questioning that powerful outlook and tradition, often to their detriment, in both everyday life and the field of psychology, which leaves us in an occasionally terrifying isolation. We see this dilemma about freedom and tradition in Sarah’s situation. Because she must evaluate her religious and moral traditions for their instrumental use, the traditions themselves cannot guide her evaluation. With the exception of the value of individual happiness, Sarah is left ultimately without an overriding value system that she can count on. She can, of course, decide to adopt a system of beliefs, such as her parents’ religion, but that belief 78       frailty, suffering, and vice

system is valuable only to the degree that it facilitates her happiness. If the belief system does not provide individual happiness, it would seem rational to jettison it and try another belief system or give up on belief entirely. Devotion to a community or a belief in God is ultimately quite difficult because her ultimate devotion must be to herself. Independence and Well-Being The implication of liberal individualism for flourishing here is straightforward: Well-being is based on happiness and autonomy. Indeed, this implication is so obvious to many in Western culture that it typically remains unstated. This is exactly the understanding of well-being that has underwritten the widespread popularity of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction and positive affect) as the central markers of one’s quality of life. Most of the focus in the West, like Sarah’s, is on the means to attain this particular kind of well-being. Self-help and self-improvement books are replete with methods for avoiding depression and relational pain in order to facilitate individual well-being and fulfillment. Psychology’s treatment strategies, in this same sense, are frequently viewed as part of this instrumental focus on means. They are methods that should engender individual happiness. This particular goal is the reason that so many psychological and psychiatric resources are devoted to reducing depression. From the point of view of liberal individualism, depression is the opposite of flourishing. The implications of individualism for dependence are also straightforward. We are enjoined to avoid or minimize dependence as much as possible. Yes, we need others to fulfill certain needs, including our relational needs. However, these dependencies are viewed instrumentally—we depend on the people who are instrumental to fulfilling our needs. The best we can do with these required interpersonal dependencies is a kind of reciprocity: I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Serious caring and love might be worth pursuing to meet some relational needs, but we live with a keen sense that these kinds of dependencies can also make us incredibly vulnerable to relational pain and ultimately thwart our general happiness and flourishing. The rule of thumb for many is then to try to “have your cake, and eat it too.” Pursue some relational goods and satisfactions but seek freedom from “heavy” or burdensome relationships and obligations. Above all, always carefully evaluate relationships for their costs and benefits to you as an individual. Yet this cautious, self-protective denial of our deep dependence on other people is a kind of self-inflicted wound because the full richness of human life is only available to those who can entirely commit themselves to loving relationships. dependency     

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Psychology and Individualism To illustrate just how pervasive liberal individualism is, we now explore three major fields of contemporary psychology: positive psychology, psychotherapy, and developmental psychology. We suggest that individualism, along with its relatively negative view of dependence, has historically dominated each of these areas. Yet, there are intriguing cracks in this individualist foundation where its influence has begun to wane and a more serious reckoning with deep relationality has begun to appear. Positive Psychology As innovative and fresh as positive psychology has been, it has not fully differentiated itself from the notion of the self-contained individual. As Mark Freeman (2013) described it, “Psychology . . . came to delimit its focus largely on what was happening inside the self, within the enclosure of the skin” (p. 1). This individualist focus continues with positive psychology, the specialty within psychology that has been the most concerned with human flourishing (Seligman, 2011). There have always been somewhat muted relational themes, and these appear to be more evident in recent developments. Yet the individualist roots of positive psychology are unmistakable when you look for them. Martin Seligman (2011), one of the founders of positive psychology, has frequently emphasized individual happiness, which he has viewed erroneously as being within the Aristotelian tradition. As we noted in the introduction, Aristotle did not see eudaimonia in terms of the emotion of individual happiness but as movement toward the best life, which includes a form of happiness that is much richer than the subjective feelings on which psychologists tend to focus. As Seligman (2011) admitted, his original individualist emphasis is evident in the “three elements” he believed were required to attain “authentic happiness” in his initial book on the good life: “positive emotion, engagement, and meaning” (Seligman, 2002, p. 11)—all of which he described as self-contained subjective experiences. Seligman (2011) more recently asserted that there are five elements of flourishing: (a) positive emotions, (b) engagement, (c) positive relationships, (d) meaning, and (e) accomplishment. He commented that he is unsure as to whether such relationships are valuable beyond the benefits they provide, and he does not really explain why relationships are so central to human life, only that relationships seem somehow necessary for well-being. When he does discuss interpersonal relationships, they are nearly always portrayed as a means to the end of life satisfaction, which is a clearly instrumental 80       frailty, suffering, and vice

understanding. For example, in describing the value of positive relationships, he wrote “other people are the best antidote to the downs of life and the single most reliable up” (Seligman, 2011, p. 20). In other words, the people in our lives are useful because they are a means toward payoffs in individual happiness and satisfaction. Positive relationships and organizations were included in positive psychology from the beginning, but compared with the attention to individual well-being, these areas have been much less developed. Seligman (2011) also stated that relationships are important “for their own sakes,” but again it is unclear why these elements are important (p. 11). It is difficult not to interpret their importance to him as instrumental as he repeatedly proposed positive psychological “exercises” that are fully intended to bring about instrumental benefits. He recounted, for example, his giving away one-penny stamps after a one-penny postal increase, a seemingly altruistic, noninstrumental action. However, he not only pointed to this experience as one of the “most satisfying moments” of his life, but also he turned the experience into an instrumental exercise you can use to improve “your mood” (p. 21). That was only one of several exercises in his most recent book that were designed to increase happiness. Seligman has led positive psychology in productively challenging many facets of psychology in general, but the movement as a whole has not departed from psychology’s central focus on individual experiences and instrumental benefits. This seems odd because so much of the meaning and joy of our lives is inseparable from our bonds to other people. Psychotherapy To see the heavy influence of individualism in psychotherapy, one needs to look no further than the favored client of psychological practice—the individual. Although treatment is offered to groups of people (e.g., group therapy, family therapy), there is no question that individual therapy is the most practiced and requested approach to therapy and counseling (Slife & Wiggins, 2009). This emphasis is due, in large part, to the belief that the individual contains all that is necessary for treatment. The problems that bring the person into therapy are contained within the individual, thereby justifying the common practice of clients coming to the therapist’s office. If clients’ contexts were considered essential to their problems, not to mention to their identities as relationists see it, therapists would need to see them in those contexts. The influence of individualism is so great that even when group and family therapy are attempted, these approaches incorporate the individualist model of groups and families that focuses on intimacy, adaptability, privacy, and individual autonomy (Fowers & Richardson, 1996). In dependency     

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other words, individualism is so pervasive that attempts to move away from it are rather difficult. The dominance of individualism also affects many psychotherapists’ views of dependence. Because individualists care so deeply for the values of individual autonomy, self-sufficiency, and self-empowerment, liberation from related forms of dependence is highly prized. Many forms or patterns of dependency are thus considered abnormal ways of being. The popular term codependent conveys this meaning with its concern that people are thinking too much about others and are not considering their own needs. Leaders in the field have bestowed a diagnostic label on consistent dependency: dependent personality disorder. Of course, this disorder refers to excessive forms of dependency, but, curiously, there is no independent personality disorder. Apparently, the only way to go wrong here is with excessive dependency because you cannot have too much independence, as least from an individualistic perspective. A few facets of the field of psychotherapy, on the other hand, have more clearly moved away from individualism. These facets are perhaps most evident in some “systems” approaches to psychotherapy and counseling. As a pioneer of systems theory remarked to one of the present authors, “We were puzzled by how kids could be so messed up . . . until we saw their dysfunctional families [the family system] in the waiting room.” In other words, therapists became more context-sensitive as they began to see other parts of the context in which their clients lived. Although systems approaches often conceived of systemic interventions instrumentally—using the family or group as an instrument of individual happiness—these approaches began to incorporate the import of human relationships in particular. Dependency was no longer a necessary evil or merely something to tolerate; it was a requirement of the good life and had to be better understood and even developed in healthy ways (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2012). Questions about the traditionally negative view of dependency have also been facilitated by greater cultural awareness among therapists. For example, some have singled out the United States for underestimating the “adaptive nature” of dependence, because its “maladaptive features [are] emphasized” due to a “strong belief in individualistic values” (Chen, Nettles, & Chen, 2009, p. 799). This emphasis means not only that American psychologists can “significantly pathologize people from cultures valuing relatedness over separation,” but also that codependence and dependent personality disorder are “culturally related” diagnoses (Chen et al., 2009, p. 798). The hopeful note here is that some psychotherapists have begun to view themselves and their practices more relationally, that is, culturally and historically situated. 82       frailty, suffering, and vice

Developmental Psychology The pathologizing of dependency has been aided and abetted by some aspects of developmental psychology. Until recently, many developmental psychologists have understood human maturity and personal progress to mean, at least in part, the movement away from almost total dependence as an infant to almost total independence as an adult. This theme is frequently discussed in relation to adolescence, in which “adolescents are expected to function increasingly independently” (Van Petegem, Vansteenkiste, & Beyers, 2013, p. 995). Developmental psychologists caution that “this striving for independence can come at the expense of relational functioning” (Van Petegem et al., 2013, p. 996), but they also tend to insist that “one aspect of autonomy that is especially important is emotional autonomy, the capacity to relinquish childlike dependencies on parents” (Santrock, 2012, p. 265). A growing number of developmental psychologists have come to view human identity, even the American sense of individualist identity, as partly constituted by the individual’s place and status within their primary social groups. In other words, infants are not poorly functioning, self-contained individuals who will (hopefully) shed their dependencies as they grow older and become what they were originally meant to be—independent individuals. Humans are, instead, originally and continually relational in their development. As Jean Decety and Thierry Chaminade (2003) explained, “the sense of self emerges from the activity of the brain in interaction with other selves” (p. 578). In fact, as Fowers’s (2015b) review of this developmental literature clearly shows, a consciousness of self only emerges in extended attachment relationships in intensely social species. Synchronous, face-to-face interactions with infants alternate between heightened arousal and resting periods that foster relational and self-regulatory capacities (Feldman, 2007). As Colwin Trevarthen and Kenneth Aitken (2001) put it, this active involvement in communication of rudimentary intentions and feelings confirms that the human mind is, from the start, motivated . . . for cooperative psychological learning—the mastery of socially or interpersonally contrived meaning specified in reciprocal social engagements. (p. 7)

From this more relational perspective, even our awareness of self occurs through our interactions with others. We see ourselves reflected in the responsiveness of others, especially those who are specifically caring for and attuned to us. In this sense, we would not even know of our individual selves except through our relationships with others. The infant’s incredible dependency is her greatest asset because it allows for self-recognition (Stern, 1985), dependency     

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symbolic expression (Feldman, 2007), and even higher executive function (Landry, Miller-Loncar, Smith, & Swank, 2002) to develop. In this sense, even our rationality—our higher language and higher reasoning—develops from our dependency, making our interpersonal dependency vital to reaching our full capacities as human beings. Moreover, the measure of these “full capacities” is not independent functioning because such independence would eventually rob us of our self-awareness and higher reasoning, which require a continued dependence on other people. The individualist avoidance or mere toleration of dependence, from this perspective, diminishes our humanity, including our rationality. Full development and full flourishing, as we show in the next section, require the nurturance and protection of our dependencies, not their minimization. Relationality and Eudaimonic Ethics What if the relational developmentalists are right? Could our higher reasoning, our awareness of ourselves, and our ability to communicate— among other characteristically human capacities—be what they are because of our original dependence as children? In other words, what if this comprehensive dependence is not only characteristic of humans but also absolutely necessary to developing our distinctly human capacities? What if, in addition, relational psychotherapists are correct in the assumption that the maintenance and even growth of these unique human capacities require our continuing dependence? Recall that Sacks (2003) suggested that personal identity emerges only through ongoing interactions with significant others. In this sense, dependence is not something to avoid or tolerate as the necessary evil that individualism portrays it to be. The many forms that dependence takes are important parts of what make us human, keep us human, and help us to continue to grow and develop as humans. If this is true, then a whole new approach to relationship is needed, which we believe eudaimonic ethics provides. Revisiting the Function Argument Recall, as we discussed in Chapter 1, that we appropriated and updated Aristotle’s function argument, which holds that the characteristic functions of human beings are to fulfill our natures as the reasoning, social animals that we are. Although Sarah’s total dependence as an infant was regarded as a temporary problem that she should “grow out of,” we suggest that this dependence, particularly her loving dependence on other people even as an adult, is a characteristic and fundamental aspect of her human nature. If this is true, 84       frailty, suffering, and vice

the function argument suggests that we all need to learn how to be dependent in the best way in order to have a good life. Because we are inherently social beings, we should not attempt to deny or eliminate our dependent nature. Sarah should, instead, work out her dependence in excellent ways that foster robust, healthy relationships and community involvement. In short, we flourish as human beings when we are excellent social animals. The central importance of deep, committed relationships to flourishing is no real surprise, despite the denial and denigration of dependency in Western culture and psychology. As outlined in the preceding text, developmental research has revealed how our inherent dependence has facilitated other aspects of human nature. The evidence from this research is overwhelming: Sarah’s dependence on her caregivers was essential to the development of language skills, self-regulatory abilities, identity, and higher reasoning (Fowers, 2015b). For example, parents and infants are prepared to act in ways that foster mutual attachment. This attachment is essential to a child’s well-being. Humans remain dependent on attachments throughout their lives, with close relationships with mates, friends, and family being indispensable for well-being. It is fascinating to recognize how thoroughly attachments to mates are patterned on infant attachment, with distress in prolonged separations, comfort in physical proximity, as well as the importance of close physical contact in hugging, kissing, and nuzzling (Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006; Hazan & Zeifman, 1999). Alasdair MacIntyre (1999) came to a similar conclusion regarding human rationality: The virtues of independent rational agency need for their adequate exercise to be accompanied by what I shall call the virtues of acknowledged dependence and that a failure to understand this is apt to obscure some features of rational agency. (p. 8)

From MacIntyre’s (1999) perspective, our “virtues” of dependence are even required for us to exercise our full capacity to reason. Without interaction partners, who provide us feedback and challenge our thinking, no meaningful thinking can occur. Again, to live our dual social and reasoning natures well, we need to live into, not avoid or merely tolerate, our dependencies. Existential Dependency Once it is recognized that dependence is part of what makes us human, it becomes clear that we must truly embrace it because dependence is existential. As discussed in Chapter 1, the world learned a terrible lesson about the dependency of children when the large-scale orphanages were found in Romania in 1989. In addition to a high mortality rate (C. Williams, 1990), these children had severe physical, emotional, and cognitive deficits dependency     

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(Johnson et al., 1992; McDermott et al., 2013). These children spent up to 20 hours a day alone in their cribs because of a high child-to-staff ratio (C. Williams, 1990). The high mortality rate and failure to thrive without affectionate human contact not only revealed something about infants, they revealed something about human beings in general. Like infants, adults have difficulty surviving, let alone thriving, without ongoing human relationships; loneliness is actually a mortality threat because it “has an impact on health comparable to the effect of high blood pressure, lack of exercise, obesity, or smoking” (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008, p. 5). Sarah, and all human beings, can flourish only by living into our human dependency. We need other people not only to live well but also to live at all. Although this existential dependence can appear to be a weakness or a human fallibility, it is a strength of the human species. It may even be one of the species’ most important strengths. Dependence makes widespread and temporally extended collaboration possible. We are exquisitely set up to band together, divide our labors, and complement one another as we gain warmth, grow food, construct shelters, develop communication, and solve problems. Indeed, virtually all of the great projects and accomplishments of the world have been communal projects. Yes, great individual leaders have risen, but they were great leaders because they inspired the community to take advantage of their capacity for dependence. And, as the relational perspective shows, one can become a leader only if other people follow. There are, of course, problematic dependencies. Human existential dependence does not mean that we cannot go wrong or go too far in our dependence on others. Some people, most notably, have not successfully developed from their childhood dependencies to mature dependencies. As adults, these individuals still do not take responsibility for the aspects of their lives for which they are physically and socially accountable. Problematic dependency is one of reasons that psychotherapists have tended to pathologize dependence, and some developmentalists have viewed dependence as immaturity—there is a real sense that some dependencies are pathological or immature. But we must not confuse these immature and irresponsible dependencies, such as being careless, spendthrift, negligent, foolish, or imprudent, with existential and mature dependencies. Moving away from what we could call “vices of immature dependency” does not mean moving toward independence; it is, rather, moving away from irresponsible dependency to responsible and virtuous dependency (which we describe in due course). Unfortunately, as Sarah’s case illustrates, unhealthy dependencies have been confused with dependency in general, with the latter typically seen in negative terms. This is an example of the “baby” (existential dependency) 86       frailty, suffering, and vice

being thrown out with the “bathwater” (problematic dependencies) by psychologists. When understood properly, existential dependency is best experienced in truly caring, loving, and intimate relationships and in communities characterized by meaningful coordinated action. We claim that such relationships and communities are impossible without existential dependence. Sarah cannot seriously care for or be cared for without forming some kind of dependent bond, a bond for which humans were designed (i.e., the function argument). To be loved or to love, she needs to count on people, to trust them, to rely on them for their loyalty, their commitment, and even their courage in sticking with her through thick and thin, richer or poorer. However, if we consider all dependency as problematic, we fail to recognize a crucial aspect of our lives, our virtuous dependencies. Some have preferred the term interdependence, which can sound so much more positive than the term dependence because of our individualist history, both in psychology and in Western culture. Yet, if we are not careful, the addition of the prefix inter- can deceive us into thinking that a new label has somehow magically dissolved all the problems with existential dependence. By “problems,” we mean the emotional and relational pain that accompanies even healthy and virtuous dependence—the vulnerability, conflict, messiness, risk, and potential rejection that inevitably accompany any seriously caring relationship. We might even believe that interdependence no longer entails these relational negatives: People who are interdependent simply relate well to others as fully independent individuals. We might also believe that independent individuals can simply and easily complement and harmonize their relationships, leading to unbridled and continuous positive moods and happiness for all! This seems like wishful thinking that renders the term interdependence facile and makes it ring false. The core of inter­ dependence is still dependence, and we think there is a lot of clarity and insight to be gained by sticking with that term, with appropriate modifiers like mature or immature. Dependency and Happiness There can be no question that meaningful, intimate relationships are integral, if not vital, to happy and fulfilling lives, as abundant research suggests. People who have good marriages tend to live longer (Hoppmann, Gerstorf, Willis, & Schaie, 2011), people who have good friends tend to experience heightened well-being (Adams, Santo, & Bukowski, 2011), and people who are part of close-knit communities are likelier to feel life-giving support (Fowler & Christakis, 2008). Even so, the recognition of existential dependence throws a wrench into this seemingly unambiguous connection between relationships and happiness, especially if happiness means positive dependency     

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emotions. As Sarah’s life illustrates, dependence on someone through love, caring, or trust is to be vulnerable to deep emotional pain. Consider C. S. Lewis (1958) on this issue: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken” (p. 111). In other words, a clear type of suffering is not only possible with existential dependence, it is inevitable. Research strongly suggests that even the best of marriages, for example, include some deep emotional pain (Hoppmann et al., 2011). The inevitability of this kind of constant vulnerability and risk means that those who focus strongly on emotional happiness believe that they have to hedge their bets about dependence. After all, the constancy of such relational risk is not anyone’s idea of conventional happiness (hence the requirement that relationships be “positive” in positive psychology). In fact, depression often begins with problematic relationships (Whisman, Johnson, Be, & Li, 2012). If that were not enough, being dependent on others means that people must forfeit at least the illusion of individual predictability and control. To be dependent on others is to count on them, trust them, and, frequently, be deeply invested in what happens to them. For these reasons, existential dependence means people have less individual autonomy and mastery over the interpersonal world. Problematic scenarios abound: I counted on them, and they didn’t come through; I trusted them, and they let me down; I loved them, and they hurt me or themselves. This dependence puts one out on an existential “limb,” with other people having the power to cut that limb off, intentionally or unintentionally. In this sense, existential dependency means, necessarily, that there are inherent and important limits on how much we can and should control our lives and how much we can and should avoid relational pain. Indeed, this kind of vulnerability and loss of control is what led Sarah, like many people, to swear off close relationships altogether—they are just too painful and overwhelming. Sarah considers herself “too relational” because she loves it when relationships go well. She believes there is nothing like real intimacy and a good friend who can share life with you. Yet, her own experience is that this kind of relationship is inaccessible to her. She has attempted, throughout her life, to develop close friends and even “close boyfriends.” For a time, these attempts worked out beautifully, with a wonderfully deep feeling of rightness and goodness, but they often resulted in severe and disorienting emotional hurt. The latter led her to analyze relationships in cost–benefit terms. This instrumental reasoning resulted in her conclusion that the pain outweighed the gain, including with her husband. Sarah’s situation is part of the reason that the common emphasis in positive psychology on happiness and “positive emotion” is so problematic from a eudaimonic perspective. Many positive psychologists assume that emotions 88       frailty, suffering, and vice

such as happiness and satisfaction are the ultimate signs of well-being. Many also assume that Sarah should reason as she does, with calculations about happiness and suffering: How much do these relationships cost in relation to how much they benefit her? If the relational hurt is frequent enough or deep enough, then the cost–benefit ratio indicates that she should flee from such hurt, recoil from the vulnerability of dependence, and reject before she is rejected. In this sense, she is encouraged by her “rationality,” her emotional pain, and traditional psychology, which puts firm limits on dependence in general. In this sense, happiness trumps close relationships, and all types of serious relationships might need to be avoided out of fear of the pain they inevitably bring. Embracing Our Humanity If, however, the relationality of eudaimonic theory is correct, the individualist “solution” to relational risk alienates Sarah from her relational and dependent nature. As described, this nature not only spurred her original development as a human, but also it is required for her continued flourishing as a human being. Of course, Sarah can relate to others and go about her life without acknowledging or tending to her existential dependence. The eudaimonic perspective clarifies, however, that that way of being comes at an extremely high cost. It is only possible to live well as relational beings if we recognize and take good care of our dependencies. Instead of avoiding dependence as much as possible, existential dependence must be not only accepted but also embraced. The eudaimonic perspective suggests that to accept and embrace dependence is to recognize that the potential pain, struggle, and vulnerability of relational dependence cannot be avoided. This does not mean that we must be miserable. There is no doubt that we can experience a great deal of happiness through our dependencies. The important point is that meaningful happiness only ensues as a by-product of living well as a social creature; it cannot be successfully pursued as an outcome in and of itself. As we have shown, one of the pitfalls of pursuing happiness directly is that it leads one to be suspicious of relationship risks and it makes it difficult to have the best kind of dependencies. This is because high-quality relationships unavoidably include vulnerability and at least occasional unhappiness. It might help to acknowledge that the unreflective view is that pain is bad and pleasure is good. But, on reflection, it is easy to see that this formula is obviously too simple because there are all sorts of pains that are good and pleasures that are bad. The pain of exercise, for example, is typically considered a good kind of pain primarily because it exercises our physical nature and allows us to be at our best physically. If this physical nature is left unexercised, dependency     

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perhaps to avoid discomfort, we cannot actualize our full potential as human beings and our lives may be prematurely curtailed. Our dependent nature is similar. In the same way that we accept the pain of exercise as ultimately lifegiving and even life-enhancing, we can and should accept the pain involved in dependence. It is possible for people to survive without exercise or meaningful relationships, but they cannot truly thrive. This analogy between exercise and relationships extends only so far, and where the analogy breaks down signals a second aspect of embracing existential dependence. It clearly makes sense to treat an exercise machine as an instrument useful for good physical health. However, the analogy does not work when we treat other people as instruments of our own goals. This is one of the dangers in many positive psychology exercises. As well-intentioned as Seligman’s (2011) exercises may be (e.g., to combat depression), they make it all too easy to use other people as a means to our own (individual) ends. For example, it is important to remember that the purpose of a gratitude expression exercise is to acknowledge someone else’s kindness, not to make one’s self happier. Happiness often ensues, but it emerges from appropriate acknowledgment. The people in our lives can become objects that are similar to exercise machines. Although this instrumental approach to relationships is frequently practiced (e.g., Sarah’s manipulating her “friends”), it will not allow for true caring and serious love to occur. Real caring and love require the people involved to see each other as ends in themselves and to care as much about each other’s well-being as they do about their own. The dependency of infancy may again be the prototype. Infants are so utterly dependent that they almost cannot help but be ends in themselves. They cannot be equal partners in a meaningful relationship. Of course, they can be “shown off” and treated as instrumental possessions in some circumstances. Still, it is quite difficult to manipulate them or generally use them instrumentally, primarily because they can do so little for us. Parents, of necessity, must do for them. Moreover, the dependency of infancy serves as a prototypical reminder of how much dependency and vulnerability promote caring. That is why it is so natural to refer to parents as caregivers. One of the authors (BDS) was recently pushing a stroller with his 2-month-old granddaughter around the University of North Carolina campus. As someone who is used to college campuses around the world, he was shocked at the attention and genuine caring expressed by dozens and dozens of students, both men and women. They flocked to the stroller. One young woman said it best: “There is just something soooo adorable about their complete and utter vulnerability and dependence!” The extreme dependence of infants reminds us that embracing our existential dependence does not mean merely putting up with the painful aspects of important relationships. Rather, it shows us that this kind of dependence and vulnerability is 90       frailty, suffering, and vice

inextricably built into good relationships because being vulnerable is central to being loved. Intimacy, in particular, is impossible unless we embrace our vulnerability and dependence. Intimacy is a relational closeness that puts those involved at great risk for hurt and pain, and this doesn’t apply to sexual intimacy alone. Soldiers talk about the incredible intimacy they feel with their comrades on the battlefield. In fact, some psychologists have suggested that the loss and grieving of this intimacy is part of what soldiers experience with posttraumatic stress disorder (Riggs, Byrne, Weathers, & Litz, 1998). Where does their intimacy come from? It comes, in part, from their extreme dependency on one another, including depending on each other for their lives. Although most of us are not in such extremely vulnerable and dependent circumstances, this battlefield dependency, like infancy, reveals an important aspect of our humanity. Human beings need to cultivate good and virtuous dependencies to have intimate relationships and to flourish. Good and Virtuous Dependency Which dependencies and relationships are truly good and virtuous? If some dependencies and relationships are bad and some are good, how do we distinguish between the two? We have referred repeatedly to goodness, excellence, and even virtuousness as the pivotal distinctions between merely living and relating and really living and relating. We have described how bad dependencies are immature and irresponsible, and we have emphasized the importance of relationships and dependencies that involve serious caring and true love. However, such notions as “serious caring” and “true love” are too easily lost in a culture in which the meanings are frequently confused with instrumental purposes (e.g., sex and advertising). Fortunately, Aristotle’s ethics provides the resources for defining which relationships are good and virtuous and which relationships are problematic to a flourishing life. Chapters 1 and 2 of this book provide the broad outlines of these resources. What is perhaps most striking about the highest goods or the best relationships is that virtually all of them involve dependency of one sort or another. Good dependency means pursuing genuinely shared goals and goods—that is, goods that are pursued and possessed with other people and with the community, such as friendship, democracy, teamwork, intimacy, and justice. For example, as Sarah would say, her most meaningful times come when her activities are shared with family and friends, such as joint projects or even team sports. She readily admits that these people are a “pain” a lot of the time, but she experiences the highest meaning when she works toward some worthwhile goal with them. Somehow the individuals within the team transcend themselves, as if each person truly is a nexus of their relationships, dependency     

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a node of their community. Even winning a team sporting event, for this reason, is possessed together. The win cannot be divided up for each individual; it is like so many important human goods which are relational all the way down, because they can only be shared—held in common or not held at all. A second property of good dependencies is that they occur in the midst of worthwhile, jointly held activities. A prominent misconception about communal activities is that their good stems from the outcomes of these endeavors, whether it is profit, a win, or some sort of individual accolade or mood. However, the problem with this notion is that this outcome-oriented approach to shared endeavors borders on an instrumental way of seeing the activities, as though we band together solely to get an outcome. In contrast, the real good from a eudaimonic standpoint is understood more through the enactment of the activity itself, an activity that is “present in its entirety in each of the moments it occurs” (T. Brewer, 2009, p. 122). This kind of activity enactment, this kind of presence or meaning within the activity is important for at least two reasons. First, the activity is constitutive because its means and ends constitute one another (Chapter 1). Rather than an exclusive focus on the “win,” for example, the end and means could be the camaraderie of the people involved. Sarah’s marriage, for example, could be valued for being with her husband—feeling connected, engaged, part of something greater than herself—whether the marriage is “richer or poorer.” Indeed, some of the most important marital intimacies come when spouses are “poorer,” when they are struggling with illness, injury, or defeat. In this sense, activities are not good for the sake of something else, such as the win or the happiness, but are desirable in themselves. The second reason for this focus within the activity is that it is the location of our natural dependence on one another. It is not coincidental that the greatest good and deepest meaning occur when we are in the midst of depending on one another. This good or meaning is not derived when the project or teamwork is concluded; it is within the shared activity itself, in the midst of our reliance on, trust of, and interaction with one another. Moreover, the good of dependence is not just in the camaraderie, it is in the greater self-awareness, rationality, and flourishing that emerge within the relating. Just as infants grow and learn about themselves through their interactions with others, we continue to grow and develop through loving, caring, and experiencing intimacy with all the struggles that come with these dependencies. Human beings are unique in the joy we find in shared attention, whether that is to an object, an event, a game, or a conversation. This ability and its reinforcement emerges in the first few months of life (Farroni, Mansfield, Lai, & Johnson, 2003) and remains highly motivating throughout life. The first impulse when we see something interesting, 92       frailty, suffering, and vice

beautiful, or shocking is to point it out to someone else and share our attention. In a very real sense, virtue itself is relational. Although some positive psychologists talk about virtue as if it depends solely on an individual’s performance (cf. Fowers, 2008), virtue and being virtuous occur only through dependence on others and in relationships. Virtue is, after all, the pursuit of the highest goods in a consistent manner. The highest goods are themselves shared and constitutive goods. The character strengths or virtues that make the pursuit of these goods possible are the strengths that allow for their joint and dependent pursuit. In this sense, we need to be good at dependency to be virtuous, or, rather, virtue itself is being good at dependency. Indeed, all the classical virtues, such as generosity, loyalty, temperance, justice, courage, and honesty are distinctly social goods in this regard.3 The people of our community or family are just as important to our being virtuous as we are. Their necessary participation means that, to “live our nature well,” we need to seek high-quality relationships more than individual accolades or happiness. We cannot even begin to enact these virtues, let alone develop these character strengths, without the dependence on one another that social bonds require. Friendship and Loyalty: The Virtues of Dependency This relational view of virtue and goodness helps us to understand Aristotle’s emphasis on friendship. One important way that ancient ethics differs from modern ethics is the emphasis on friendship among the ancients. As we have noted, Aristotle’s understanding of friendship applies broadly, including all of the associations that could be called close relationships. Aristotle (trans. 1999) emphasized that “in order to flourish, a man needs morally good friends” (p. 267). He made the distinction between morally good or character friendships and friendships based on pleasure or mutual benefit. The latter two forms of friendship are valuable, but those friendships are focused on the outcomes of pleasure or utility. In the preceding quote, Aristotle was not merely saying that good friends are beneficial or enjoyable; he was pointing to the relational nature of developing virtues and pursuing choiceworthy goods. His emphasis on friends recognized not only our dependent human nature but also the dependency at the heart of our flourishing. Some virtues have sometimes been called self-regarding (in contrast to other-regarding virtues) because they don’t seem to be relational. Even the apparently paradigmatically self-regarding virtue of temperance, a central virtue for good relationships and the moderate expression of emotion and indulgence of appetite, requires a cultural context to understand how to be temperate and what a “moderate expression” might be. One of the primary reasons that temperance is so important is that emotional or appetitive intemperance is destructive to relationships. Per our reading of Aristotle, there is no such thing as a purely self-regarding virtue because all virtues are deeply relational in this way. 3

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Without “moral” or at least noninstrumental friends, the probability of our truly flourishing is dramatically decreased. Character friendship is the paradigmatic form of excellent interpersonal dependence, and friendship is the virtue necessary to have this kind of relationship. In modern times, the illusion of separateness fostered by individualism has made it more difficult to even understand what a true character friendship might be. Consequently, we describe four important features of character friendship. (For more on this, see Cooper [1980] and Fowers [2000].) Before we discuss those characteristics, it is worth noting how problematic friendship has become, at least in the United States. Friendship is a nearly lost art in modern times (Martinet, 2009). This is at least partly due to the illusion that the good life is one of self-sufficiency, independence, personal achievement, and a lack of heavy duty obligations; in this view, friendships are needed only if they serve to enhance an individual’s well-being. There are many other reasons for the decline of friendship in our time, but that decline has been tellingly documented. A longitudinal study of social connections between 1985 and 2004 indicated that, on average, Americans’ social networks had declined in size by one third (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Brashears, 2006). In 1985, the average person had three people in whom they felt they could confide; in 2004, the number of people who said they did not have even one person in whom they could confide tripled, and that was the most common response. In an exhaustive review of social trends that Robert Putnam (2000) titled Bowling Alone, he documented the decline of civic connections in politics, religion, bowling leagues, and so forth. As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, there is excellent evidence that the size and quality of our social networks are critical to our flourishing. The decline of friendship and the minimization of its importance suggest that attention to excellent dependency requires urgent attention. Recognizing one another’s good qualities is the first feature that is central to character friendship. We choose and cultivate character friendship because we value the kind of person that our friend is. That is, we see our good friends as ends in themselves, not just producers of benefits for us. This also means that the friendship is unique because it is shaped by the characteristics of the friends. The ability to see and appreciate good characteristics in friends, such as their courage, generosity, or compassion, is therefore a key element in the virtue of friendship. A pernicious effect of the isolation so common in today’s society is that it is much more difficult to persist in the pursuit of worthwhile ends. The mutual dependency of friends in such pursuits is the second feature of character friendship. This reciprocal reliance makes it far easier to remain committed to and enthusiastic about worthwhile goals because we pursue them with others. Our persistence is also fueled by knowing that we are accountable 94       frailty, suffering, and vice

to the people about whom we care. As John Cooper (1980) put it, “only by merging one’s activities and interests with those of others can the inherent fragility of any human being’s interests be overcome” (p. 329). Mutual commitment is another element in the virtue of friendship. A third quality of character friendship is that when you depend on someone deeply, you care about his or her welfare as much as you care about your own. This is partly because your dependence can make it difficult to clearly and completely distinguish between your own welfare and interests and those of your friend’s. After all, if your friend is hurt or suffering, then that is bad for you. If your friend is joyful or triumphant, then that is good for you. You also care about your friend’s welfare because saying that you have a mature dependence on her is another way of saying that you are invested in your friend. She matters to you. The fourth feature of character friendship is that someone who is maturely dependent does her part. Dependence is quite distinct from helplessness, except in the extreme cases of infancy, illness, or injury. Most of your dependencies will be mutual, wherein you depend on others and they depend on you. Sometimes all of the people involved do more or less the same things for each other, as in a book club. In other relationships, there is a complementarity in the dependency, as in teachers and students or the different positions on a sports team. Yet in all of these cases, the mutuality of the dependency is central, and it can be a good dependency only if everyone does what they can to help the relationship, group, or team to be at its best. This feature contrasts with immature dependency, in which an individual depends on receiving benefits without contributing much to the relationship. Friendship is flanked by disengagement, the vice of deficiency, and overinvolvement, the vice of excess. It is obvious that we cannot develop the best kinds of friendships if we keep other people at arm’s length by being disengaged. Yet excellent friendship is not a matter of losing one’s self in others either. Character friends have unique abilities, viewpoints, and aims. Even though friends devote themselves to shared goals and to maintaining the friendship, differentiated identity remains important, which is why one can go wrong by becoming so involved with someone else that it is difficult to recognize any separation. Another key virtue in dependence is loyalty, the willingness to remain reliably devoted to the people and groups that are important in our lives. Loyalty is about standing by the people and groups in our lives despite inducements to disloyalty or the wear and tear of everyday life, which can make inconstancy seem preferable. Loyalty has taken a beating in the modern world, with the divorce rate at a near historic high; the constant drumbeat of layoffs and downsizing in businesses; and the mistrust in politics, even including the willingness of dependency     

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citizens to engage in violent actions against their governments. In addition, the extreme emphasis on separate, autonomous individuality in the modern West makes it difficult to recognize how thoroughly individual lives and identities are shaped by participation in families, educational settings, occupations, cultural groups, religious groups, and societies. This preoccupation with individual independence leads to the serious underestimation of how much people owe to their families, communities, and the shared history that makes their lives and identities possible. For this reason, our loyalties often operate “behind our backs” as unacknowledged sources of motivations and behavior. There is a spontaneous form of loyalty that grows out of involvement with the people and groups that have contributed to one’s identity (Fletcher, 1993). This shows up in natural feelings of loyalty to family, alma mater, and country: People are loyal to those with whom they have shared a significant past because the shared history has helped to make them who they are. This kind of loyalty shows up in the actions that reflect membership in these groups, including participating in family traditions, ethnic practices, and religious observances. Loyalty to these groups grows out of their centrality to people’s identities and outlooks on life. Because these loyalties are built into who we are as human beings and because our experiences and actions are so thoroughly shaped by our formative backgrounds, we express them in every waking moment through the ways in which we think, feel, and act. The virtue of loyalty goes beyond spontaneous loyalty because, as a virtue, loyalty is consciously chosen, reliably enacted, and appropriate to the relationship. It is important to consciously choose our loyalties because it is often the case that at least some of our formative associations are problematic to some degree. In addition, spontaneous loyalties can conflict, which we see, for example, with the conflicting loyalties that children of immigrant parents experience. They feel a pull of loyalty to both their family’s origins and the host culture in which they now live. Such loyalty conflicts take time and effort to resolve. Another problem with spontaneous loyalty is that it is often enacted unevenly, dictated largely by the circumstances rather than by an enduring understanding of how loyalty contributes to a good life. The virtue of loyalty is based on the reflective recognition of what we owe to others and the firm commitment to honor that indebtedness in our actions. Loyally honoring our commitments to our life partners, families, communities, and nation are a vital part of knowing who we are and of living well. Loyalty is flanked by fickleness, the vice of deficiency, and blind allegiance, the vice of excess. Fickleness is the expression of inconstancy or only showing our allegiance when it is convenient or strongly evoked by the circumstances. It is important to recognize blind allegiance as a vice because this is such a common way to go wrong in the domain of loyalty. Some examples 96       frailty, suffering, and vice

of blind allegiance are the excessive form of patriotism that justifies any action by one’s nation, the willingness to remain in an abusive relationship, and the continued membership in an organization that is exploiting you. The important point here is that sometimes our allegiance to individuals, groups, or nations can lead us to participate in unworthy actions. We may come to see that our loyalties are misguided or misplaced. One way to be loyal in such circumstances is to work toward changing the problematic aspects of relationships, organizations, or nations. In other cases, the only real option is to end the involvement with destructive relationships or groups. This is because loyalty, in order to be a virtue, must contribute to the human good. The ability to reflect on the quality of our attachments and their contributions to the human good is essential for enacting the virtue of loyalty. One important way that loyalty can be misunderstood is to associate devotion to groups and organizations with fanaticism or fervor. In the modern era, abiding loyalty to a community can also be viewed as a kind of narrow-mindedness. As we noted, allegiance to a group can be excessive, but the knee-jerk perception of loyalty as generally problematic is a pernicious symptom of individualism. If we think that individual happiness is paramount, we have to be ready to abandon any commitment or loyalty to a community in the event it no longer brings about well-being or makes us happy (Bellah et al., 1985). Sarah’s marriage is an example of a situation in which these individualist values have led her to question whether her loyalty to her husband is warranted or wise. Aristotle’s ethics, on the other hand, would focus less on the outcome of her emotional happiness and more on her cultivating the loyalty and commitment necessary to value the marriage as an activity that is good in itself. This valuing can open a pathway to creating the kind of character friendship that lies at the center of a vibrant marriage (Fowers, 2000). Conclusion We began this chapter by acknowledging the human need for and yet fear of interpersonal relationships. As we have described, negotiating these needs and fears is no small or easy task. Unfortunately, we believe that the guidance of psychologists regarding dependence has been, at least until relatively recently, deeply problematic, if not outright detrimental. Dependence, in particular, has been overly pathologized, and independence has been overly commended. Although there is no doubt that an irresponsible dependence is unhealthy, the dominance of liberal individualism in psychology has blurred important distinctions between unhealthy dependence and healthy dependence. As a result, independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency have dependency     

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become the ideals of modern culture, and the vulnerability that accompanies healthy dependence has been depicted as a kind of weakness to be avoided. Interestingly, this understanding of human dependence and independence has not fared well in recent research. Where we once viewed the almost total dependence of the infant as a form of extreme liability, recent investigations have begun to portray this dependency as the prototype of human openness and growth at all ages. Dependence, in this sense, is one of humanity’s unique and lasting strengths rather than one of its more pitiable failings. And this recasting of human nature has made Aristotle’s ethics remarkably contemporary because he clarified and championed the virtues of healthy dependencies, such as friendship and loyalty. Indeed, as we described, all the classical virtues can be understood as being good at our dependencies. It is in this sense, then, that we recommend a fresh look at eudaimonic ethics, from its emphasis on community and caring to its accent on shared goods and noninstrumental relationships.

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4 Complications

Complications often feel like the bane of our existence. They occur when our “best-laid plans” go awry or our paths to valued goals become convoluted or obstructed. We tend to experience complications as a disappointment or a frustration because somehow we expect the less complicated to be better than the more complicated. The simpler, in this sense, is experienced as less messy, more predictable, more controlled, and even more understandable. Yet, for some reason, virtually everything turns out to be more complicated than originally envisioned, despite our best intentions and preparations. This negative view of complications also seems to extend beyond the everyday. Many scientists, for example, consider the simpler or the “parsimonious” to be the inherently better experimental finding or theory. Thus, the noted physicist Edward Teller wrote, “The main purpose of science is simplicity” (as cited in Teller, Teller, & Talley, 2002, p. 2). Likewise, artists and poets have frequently equated the beautiful with the simple. Consider this statement from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849): “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-005 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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the supreme excellence is simplicity” (p. 60). Walt Whitman (1855/2005), too, seemed to have favored simplicity: “Simplicity is the glory of expression” (p. 11). This widespread understanding of the simple and the complicated prompts us to ask in this chapter, “Why this prejudice against the complicated? Why are so many of us so negative about the complicated and so upbeat about the uncomplicated?” Some would undoubtedly answer that this prejudice is just our nature as humans or the nature of reality—in which case it is not a prejudice at all; it is just the way things are. However, in this chapter, we challenge this idea. We believe there is considerable evidence that this prejudice is a cultural viewpoint or a widely held philosophy rather than a reality. We do not dispute that people struggle with complications, but we question the common myths that seem to surround complications, especially as they prevent a thicker and richer understanding of life. Life’s Complications Let us begin with an illustration of these struggles in the life of “Will.” Not everything about Will appears, at least at first, to be connected with the issue of complications. However, once we remind you of the two ontologies discussed in Chapter 3, Will’s struggles with complications become clearer. Our negative perception of the complicated is connected to other important themes of Western culture, including how we insulate ourselves from nature, a common reductionist approach to science, and our treatment of other humans as objects. As the chapter unfolds, it will become clearer that humans do not live in an uncomplicated world; we live in a kaleidoscopic and dynamic world of complexity, like it or not. It is therefore vital that people learn to welcome this complexity to live in the best way. Aristotle’s ethics offers vital assistance for understanding and dealing with this complicated world through practical wisdom and openness to the other. Practical wisdom is the capacity to see what is important and to respond in an excellent way. Openness to the other is the virtue that enables us to welcome the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds that enrich our world rather than trying to simplify or homogenize those differences. Will’s Complicated Life We meet Will in the midst of what he would call “the bane of my existence”—in the middle of a business meeting. As a moderately successful businessperson, Will happens to be the leader of this particular work group. Part of his success as a business leader is due to his efficiency in getting things done, yet his experience with virtually all these groups is that they are invariably inefficient. No matter how much he prepares himself or helps his group 100       frailty, suffering, and vice

members develop their skills, the inevitable “complications”—whether they be politics among the members, their need for his approval, or just plain misunderstandings—creep in and frustrate him to no end. Will is also aware that his frustration with complications like this parallels his frustrations with his marriage. Although his wife, Janice, acknowledges that he’s a good provider, a kind of messiness and inefficiency pervades their relationship. Perhaps the biggest, most recent issue concerns sex, in more ways than one. Will is the first to admit that he is ready to have sex with his wife at any time. Unfortunately, no matter how much they’ve talked about his natural desire for sexual intercourse, she never seems to understand his “needs.” Worse, she frequently complains about feeling “objectified,” as if Will “uses” her to meet his physical needs. He’s tried to help her understand that “this is just the way men are built,” which she acknowledges to some degree, but she can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s an object of his selfishness as much or more than a person he’s loving, at least when they’re engaging in sex. This long-standing marital issue was exacerbated recently by another “complication” from Will’s perspective—Janice walked into the room when Will was viewing Internet pornography. This prompted “a long talk” in which Will explained how accessible pornography was—“just two clicks away from my favorite sports website.” When Janice seemed unconvinced that “porn is no big deal,” he patiently described how her values surrounding pornography were a bit old-fashioned. Today, he explained, we are not trapped by her outdated values, or any values for that matter, except taking personal responsibility and not harming others. Janice appeared to agree intellectually, but she felt hurt, and her “heart” told her that his viewing pornography somehow betrayed her and their relationship. These marital complications are galling to Will because he views himself as an essentially moral man. He endorses and tries to follow all the ethical principles of his profession and company. Yet, he often finds himself in situations in which these principles do not seem to apply. There were too many gray areas, too many complications. He ran into the same problem when he read a couple of books about how to have successful marriage. They were helpful to some degree, but they did not seem to cover all the relevant situations, and the situations they did cover were never as straightforward as the principles themselves. Their simple guidelines seemed like good sense, but they also seemed abstract and thin, and he was frustrated by how they misfired when he tried to use them to get through to Janice. Understanding Will Ontologically In Chapter 3, we discussed two ontologies or ways of understanding reality that can shed light on Will’s “complicated life.” The first and quite complications     

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dominant ontology in Western culture is that of abstractionism. It is the view that Will’s life is best understood without close connections to his context. To understand or study Will in this sense is to abstract him away from his situation, much as a physician might want to understand Will’s blood in the abstracted and sterile environment of a laboratory. One could say that the physician wants Will’s blood to be pristine—uncontaminated or uncomplicated by other factors that could be found with it. Abstractionism, then, is an important source of our Western prejudice against complications. Complications, from this perspective, are one way of referring to the often messy relations that people and things have to one another in their real-life contexts. In contrast, the second ontology, relationality, suggests that contexts and complications are not only important but also partially constitute Will. They make him what he really is. To abstract him away from his situation is to lose vital aspects of Will’s identity. A significant part of his identity, for example, is that of a businessman in the midst of his business meeting. And because situations can be quite different from time to time, the connection between Will and his particular situation means that different aspects of Will’s identity are important in different contexts. These changes and intimate connections with context are complicating, to be sure, but the relationist asks the following: Complicating in comparison to what? Because the relationist views reality as itself complicated, it is important to take these complications into account and adjust expectations accordingly. From this relational perspective, Will’s expectations of efficiency in his business meetings are unrealistic because such meetings are inevitably messy with the complications of real people in the real contexts of personal and political agendas, diverse priorities, and common breakdowns in mutual understanding. In this sense, Will’s false expectations, frustrations, and confusions originate from an abstraction, the ideal business meeting mainly governed by principles of efficiency and effectiveness, which gives a distorted understanding of his real world. From a relational viewpoint, Will could also understand the “messiness” of these meetings as a kind of richness, where the complications of human relationships might allow for more creativity, greater patience and humility, and a wider diversity of ideas. Abstraction, Separability, and Similarity These basic differences between the two ontologies imply two important distinguishing features that we did not develop in Chapter 3. The first is their opposing positions on the separateness of things. The second concerns their different accounts of relations of similarity. 102       frailty, suffering, and vice

The Separability of Things The abstractionist views Will and his wife as separable beings because the context and complications that they provide for each other are either unnecessary or downright obstructive to understanding them as separate individuals. Another way to put this feature is that Will and Janice can be best understood as persons without their marital relationship (or other relationships). Abstractionists would readily concede that Will and Janice can still influence one another, but they would emphasize that this influence exists separately from the individual who experiences the influence. Many readers may experience this idea as simply a matter of common sense because Will and Janice existed as separate people before their marriage, and they will go on existing as individuals, whether or not they are married. As described in Chapter 3, the popularity of this separation notion has led to giving priority to the insulated and autonomous individual in Western culture. In this sense, Will and Janice’s individual needs, such as Will’s sexual needs, are taken to be more real and to have a higher priority than the “complications” of their marriage. From the abstractionist (and thus individualistic) perspective, the marriage should serve the needs of the individuals within that relationship. A relational ontology, on the other hand, reverses this priority. Because contexts and complications are constitutive of the person, Will is not separable from them, especially in the context of his partner, Janice. Their marriage, in this sense, should be considered a significant contributor to his identity and their shared being. The abstractionist view that this shared being is somehow separable into individual actions and reactions impoverishes our understanding of the full reality of their relationship. Relational thinkers, such as Colin Gunton (1993), believe that this “modern disengagement has engendered alienation, and that a renewed expression of how we belong in the world, of the human habitation of reality, is an urgent requirement” (p. 14). Will and Janice’s marriage, from a relational viewpoint, is the greater reality and has a higher priority than Will and Janice separately, even higher than Will’s and Janice’s purely individual needs and satisfactions. Much of the joy and meaning in our lives emerges in our relationship activities, such as conversation, sex, vacationing, and sharing meals. Not only could we not enjoy these activities apart from the friendship, they are not simply benefits or products that can be separated from the relationship. Rather, these meaningful interactions largely constitute the relationship. In addition, the experience of the mutual appreciation and loyalty of a good friend is qualitatively different from the pleasures, payoffs, or advantages that are envisioned by the “giving–getting” or exchange-based view of relationships so widespread in professional psychology. Will and Janice do not lose their unique identities complications     

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or even their individual choices with this relational perspective even though their identities and choices are informed and constrained by their contexts, including environments, histories, and opportunities. The Emphasis on Similarity The second distinguishing feature between these two ontologies is their differing accounts of relations of similarity. Naturally, abstractionism favors abstractions, which are concepts that can be used to describe similarities in the process of seeking knowledge. If we want to relate two or more things together, we typically rely on their similar features. To sort fruit into categories, for example, we might employ abstract concepts and put things that look like tangerines over here and things resembling kumquats over there. To construct these concepts— tangerines and kumquats—we necessarily overlook each fruit’s differences in size, color, and taste. In other words, the very process of forming conventional concepts or abstractions requires a de-emphasis on differences within categories. This emphasis on similarities and de-emphasis on differences carries into the field of ethics and scientific disciplines because one of their goals is to find similarities among events in order to discover physical laws and formulate ethical principles. Laws cannot be lawful if the contexts in which the lawfulness occurs change the laws too much. The law of gravity, for example, cannot be considered lawful if it does not evidence some level of changelessness or similarity across relevant situations. Ethical principles of justice or fairness, such as keeping contracts, simply will not work if we make too many exceptions to them. Of course, science and ethics do attempt to incorporate differences, but a core aim in these disciplines is to form abstractions such as laws, principles, and mathematical formulae that emphasize within-category similarities. Even patterns of change can be governed by principles or laws if the patterns are sufficiently similar. This abstractionist emphasis on similarity also extends to human relationships, as is evidenced by websites such as eharmony.com and match.com. When Will and Janice were dating, they discussed their relationship mainly in terms of “compatibility,” which they understood as similarity of values, styles, and personalities. Likewise, they viewed differences and conflicts as unwanted complications, if not threats, to this compatibility. Differences, as Jonathan Sacks (2003) noted, are “deeply threatening” in our Western abstractionist culture (p. 51). To deal with his differences and conflicts with Janice, Will seeks to understand their relationship in terms of valid principles of marriage, which are themselves abstractions of similarities across marriages. The relational thinker, by contrast, puts dramatically less emphasis on conventional concepts and abstractions, and thus less stress on similarities. Relationships of similarity are important, but relationships of difference should 104       frailty, suffering, and vice

not only be taken into account but also valued for understanding and even enhancing relationships. Relations of difference may complicate matters, but they are an inherent part of interpersonal relationships that cannot be ignored or downplayed. We must give “due weight to commonalities and differences” (Sacks, 2003, p. 62). Relationists would say that Will and Janice should have cared as much about their differences in their courtship as their similarities, not just to predict future threats but also to deepen and even strengthen the marital relationship itself. Complementary differences or divergent abilities can enrich relationships, not just complicate them. Without recognizing and appreciating these differences, Will and Janice would be in danger of stereotyping one another. Tragically, this stereotyping would lead them to fail to really know or love one another because they would treat one another as abstractions. Recognizing the value of differences allows us to transform what might be confusing and frustrating into a valued resource. For example, Will’s traditionally masculine task focus can be very productive, but it is nicely balanced by Janice’s playfulness. Both are valuable to the marriage primarily because they are different, not similar characteristics. Relational thinkers consider abstractions, such as marital principles, to be useful to some degree, but these principles should be recognized as abstractions. They are not the reality behind appearances; they are only simplified models of reality that are potential oversimplifications. Because the unique history and partners in each marriage constitute the relationship, marriages can vary greatly from the abstractions of marital principles. Marital partners are left to figure out how these stereotypes of human relationships can be applied. Indeed, many such principles may not be applicable at all, because the unique challenges and opportunities of a particular marriage were not even considered in forming the principles. Moreover, such principles are often so thin and so abstract as to be less than useful. The marriage principle, “love one another,” for example, is informative in a sense, but it says little about what this love means when people like Will and Janice face situations of betrayal, contexts of “tough love,” and the singular issues that develop in all relationships. The relationist seeks the wisdom to recognize what is important in the specific situation and to respond with excellence. This is quite different from the abstractionist urge to see how a given situation is an example of a general type for which a rule or principle will be the best guide for one’s response. Abstractionism in Society and Science With the two distinguishing features of these ontologies, separateness and similarity, we can trace a few of their manifestations in Western cultures. Although there are important Western manifestations of relationality, these complications     

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cultures incline strongly toward simplifying or uncomplicating the world through abstraction. We have already discussed one significant example of this disposition in Chapter 3, namely, liberal individualism. There are others. Identifying some of them helps us to understand how eudaimonic ethics can help us to deal with the complications of this world that these abstractions mask. The first category of abstraction treats humans as abstractions by commodifying us and insulating us from otherness. The second category treats the world as abstraction by insulating us from nature and values. Humans as Abstractions Commodifying Humans It was probably inevitable that abstractionism would lead us to view ourselves as commodities. Recall in Chapter 3 how individualism implied that virtually everything and everybody could be viewed as the means or instruments of our individual wants and needs. The cultural emphasis on individual separateness is part of the problem. If we consider ourselves as relationally bound together, we would not think that using each other for our individual happiness is reasonable or appropriate. The ideal of individual separateness, however, paints the world as a resource “out there,” potentially available to meet our personal needs. Will and Janice’s conflicting attitudes about sex and pornography could be interpreted this way. He could be interpreted as viewing her— not exclusively but in a predominant way—as the instrument or “object” of his sexual needs. Similarly, she could view Will as a primary instrument for meeting her needs. Will confirms this when he talks about getting his needs met and seeing Janice’s discomfort as a “complication” in meeting those needs. Commodification seems like the next logical step in this model of relationships. In other words, if spouses are supposed to use one another to attain happiness and get their needs met, why not “professionalize” this use and simply purchase the fulfillment of needs—as a commodity? Why suffer the complications of marriage and “feelings” like Janice’s when you can cleanly and unemotionally get the commodity you need in the marketplace? Sacks (2003) put our society’s answer to these questions this way: Vast swathes of personal relationship have been commodified and offered for sale in the seemingly endless proliferation of new services: counsellors, spiritual guides, personal trainers, style advisers, shopping consultants, massage therapists, aromatherapists, aerobics instructors, exercise class leaders—the whole spectrum of what Robert Reich calls “paying for attention.” (p. 77)

Sacks (2003) also compared this commodification with previous eras when families, friends, and neighbors were present in bad times as well 106       frailty, suffering, and vice

as good—“when you needed them, not when you could pay for them” (p. 77). He saw a stark contrast with the current era when friendship is marketed. Consider this quote from a recent advertisement for a personal coach: “Best friends are wonderful to have. But is your best friend a professional who you will trust to work with you on the most important aspects of your life?” (as cited in Reich, 2000, p. 77). Clearly, the answer to the question of this advertisement is supposed to be: “No, I don’t trust my friends because I don’t pay for them.” Sacks, however, believed the answer to this question from previous eras was: “Yes, I trust my friends because I don’t pay for them.” Chris Hedges (2009), a Pulitzer prize–winning author, reached a similar conclusion about commodification. He agreed that humans have “become a commodity. . . . They are like objects, like consumer products. They have no intrinsic value” (p. 29). Hedges viewed the American “celebration of porn” as an especially problematic manifestation of this commodification (p. 63). He suggested that the central location for this cultural commodification is Las Vegas, which he saw as the “willfully degenerate heart of America” (p. 63). Intriguingly, however, he also argued that Las Vegas is the “Last Honest Place in America” (p. 63) because it reveals so plainly America’s degraded way of life. Contrary to America’s “thin moral pretensions,” Las Vegas rips away the “hypocrisy of consumer society to reveal its essence” (p. 63). The commodification of human beings, “the heart of consumer society, is garishly celebrated in Las Vegas” (p. 63). One need not take a prudish or moralistic stance to endorse Hedges’s point. Most of us, like Will, get caught up in the culture of commodification without fully realizing how much we are distorting our humanity. We are often told that tolerance of this way of life is “liberating” or “fulfilling,” not necessarily harmful at all. Will, like many of us, would be shocked to think that we and our culture are treating one another as depersonalized objects to the extent we do. It is hard to break the grip of such attitudes and practices when there is no clear alternative in view. We believe that a eudaimonic perspective goes a long way toward articulating a badly needed alternative, one that finds considerable meaning in embracing, not shunning, life’s complexity. If we believe that humans are most real when they are abstracted from the entailments and obligations of their contexts, then these entailments and obligations will be seen as unnecessary complications. Porn fantasies and personal coaches reduce these complications. They exist solely to meet our individual needs, sexual or otherwise, leading many well-intentioned people like Will and Janice astray. Thus, commodifying people is another kind of self-inflicted wound because it makes it all the more difficult to form the special, committed, caring relationships we so clearly need. complications     

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Insulation From Otherness Another set of abstractionist complications concerns the conflicts, disagreements, and just plain differences that many people experience in their relationships with other people. When these conflicts and differences are not resolved among friends, they will likely feel that their relationship is jeopardized. Abstractionism has led us to think that each of us has an independent existence, separate from the context of other people, and that each of us is fundamentally and naturally alone. From that separateness, we build bridges and relationships to one another. If relationships are secondary to separateness in this way, they are a problem for abstractionism to explain. How do we build such bridges from such a point of remove? How do we create interpersonal bonds when we are naturally alone? The abstractionist answer to these questions is through similarities. That is why Will and Janice were so vitally interested in getting a good marital “match.” From a Western perspective, things and people belong together (i.e., share abstracted qualities, ideas, or preferences, or values) when they are similar to one another. In this way, relationship bridges are forged through matches, agreements, and likenesses, whereas differences seem to stand in the way. In fact, many Western communities and organizations define their unity, their relational bonds, in terms of similar beliefs or values (i.e., similar abstractions). The task of many religious communities, at least as often understood, is to find or create a commonality of theological beliefs and values. The task of a political community is often viewed as finding or creating a commonality of political theory or principle, such as “better programs” or “smaller government.” Professional organizations are commonly seen as bound together through similar values and propositional understandings, such as ethical codes, worldviews, or interests. Given this outlook and approach, it is inevitable that these groups will typically see differences as threats to their relational unity. People are seen as defectives, deviants, or outliers if they do not share the agreed-upon set of beliefs or values (all abstractions), and thus these “others” should be brought into the fold of similarity or marginalized in some manner. It is perfectly appropriate, from this perspective, either to forcefully convince the other (e.g., convert, out-argue them) or to forcibly transform them into a state of similarity (e.g., brainwash, threaten, torture). If all else fails, they can be dismissed or ostracized. In this vein, Hedges (2009) detailed the consumer actions of the wealthy who try to permanently insulate themselves from the people who are different from them. He first explained how the “elite” are socialized in insular educational, religious, and social institutions and then described 108       frailty, suffering, and vice

how this insulation is compounded when their privileged lives make it possible to avoid those who may not hold their political views or their social status: The privileged retreat further and further behind the walls of their opulent, gated communities. . . . They may have contact with a mechanic in their garage or their doorman or a nanny or gardener or contractor, but these are stilted, insincere relationships between the powerful and the relatively powerless. The elite rarely confront genuine differences of opinion. (pp. 99–100)

These actions of the elite are completely understandable within an abstractionist-dominated society. Because the abstracted self is considered the most fundamental or real self, an important goal is the actualization and institutionalization of this isolated self. Why, after all, expose one’s self to uncomfortable differences of opinion, culture, and philosophy when these are perceived as complications that disrupt unity and challenge one’s precious individuality? With sufficient wealth, one can insulate oneself from these apparently irrelevant complications. Contemporary technology has made this insulation from the complication of differences more affordable and accessible for many. In fact, our increasing capacity to insulate ourselves from one another and other “complications” may be one of the chief goals of technology. Many of us can now go to work in a raging rainstorm without feeling a drop of rain, transporting ourselves from our remotely controlled home garages to our remotely controlled parking garages. We “camp” in our RVs rather than engaging in nature, we “converse” through text rather engaging in face-to-face dialogue, we “entertain” ourselves through our computers rather than socializing in person. And perhaps most significant, we now have so much technological power that we can virtually surround ourselves with only those who are similar to us. The result has been termed an echo chamber because it allows us to abstract our lives from such complications to such a degree that we, in effect, hear only the sound of our own “voice” echoing back to us (e.g., Jamieson & Capella, 2010). Consider for a moment four metaphorical “walls” of this echo chamber as it effectively functions to exclude the complications of otherness (differences, alternatives, diversity): 77

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Wall #1: News—Because some news organizations have adopted pronounced ideological slants, either liberal or conservative, we can now gather “news” about the world without being exposed to anything that we do not already agree with. Wall #2: Evaluation—Because so many now believe that science itself is ideologically slanted (even widely agreed-upon complications     

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findings about climate change), the information it produces is easily dismissed. There is also no objective way to evaluate the various claims of one ideology versus another. Wall #3: Internet—Because of the incredible proliferation of websites on the Internet, one can attend almost exclusively to stories, reports, and analyses that fit our specific tastes. Wall #4: Transportation—Because transportation technology allows us to travel great distances in relatively little time and with relatively little expense, there is no difficulty traveling to and finding a human community of like-minded people.

These four walls of our individualized echo chambers prevent us from hearing diverse information, different opinions, alternative reasoning, and even data that counter our points of view. They effectively abstract us from otherness of all types. Psychotherapy may be contributing to this abstractionist mentality. Psychotherapists frequently direct us inward, not outward toward others. In this case, a technological echo chamber is not even necessary. When psychotherapists teach people to introspect and self-explore, no voice is even directed toward the four walls to be returned as an echo. Counseling can become an active arm of abstractionist insulation, teaching people to focus inward in search of self-fulfillment, self-improvement, self-esteem, or selfactualization, seriously undermining fruitful encounters with difference and otherness. Those encounters with otherness can be challenging, frustrating, and confusing, but they can also be enriching. The World as Abstraction So far, we have described the first of our Western categories of abstractionism: humans abstracting other humans. We tend to abstract other humans into commodities that can be useful to us and to divide people into the stereotypes of “with me” (similar) or “against me” (different). The second main category of abstractionism we want to identify concerns how we abstract the world or how we abstract ourselves from nature, science, and values. Insulation From Nature Nature is full of complications, often laying waste to our best-laid (abstracted) plans. Examples include sudden storms, slick ice, fallen trees, and flooding from a heavy rain, to say nothing of full-tilt calamities like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Following is a more prosaic example, in which one of the authors (BDS) caught himself wrapped up in abstractionist thinking: 110       frailty, suffering, and vice

While walking in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia, I realized how much I had taken for granted one of modern civilization’s many conveniences— sidewalks. This portion of the valley was undeveloped and beautiful. I was actually looking forward to this long hike to a campsite with a colleague because I needed to have an important conversation with him. Long walks and good talks, in my experience, had always gone hand in glove. In this case, however, I quickly realized that conversation was almost impossible. I was so busy tripping over the many obstacles to walking smoothly that I could barely concentrate on what we were discussing. The ground was littered with logs, rocks, holes, and even occasional small animals of various species. The complications of nature were stymying my conversation! It was not until much later that I recognized my abstractionist expectations. First, walking for me was an abstracted movement of my legs, where I was accustomed to expecting the ground to be mostly level and without obstruction. I had never considered how much the sidewalk was a kind of abstraction of the natural environment and how much my association of long walks and good talks was conditioned upon the presence of long sidewalks in good shape. Second, I recognized that I had experienced the undeveloped and beautiful Canaan Valley before my walk only from the abstracted vantage point of a car window. It never occurred to me that this undeveloped beauty might not meet my expectations of an unfettered and uncomplicated walk and talk. Although I had camped frequently, I tended to associate “beauty” with something akin to the clear and level hallways of an art museum. Only later did it occur to me that the “litter” of logs and rocks that obstructed my plans and progress were part of the beauty. This realization was particularly embarrassing because I was there as a consultant to an innovative wilderness academy that deliberately exposed troubled teenagers to an unabstracted wilderness as a form of therapy. Indeed, I had helped plan this academy, which was based on the idea of getting youth far away from the abstracted and affluent culture of their upbringing, rife with video games and computers, and putting them back in touch with a relational connection to nature. I cannot stress enough how often these wilderness experiences have helped young people. To camp solo, for example, in a pristine forest (however supervised from afar) is an experience that would benefit most of us—because of its many natural complications, not despite them. If my conversation was stymied because of the absence of the technological advance of something like a sidewalk, just consider how abstracted we are in the presence of televisions, remote controls, climate-controlled homes, video games, automobiles, smartphones, et cetera.

There is abundant research evidence of the detrimental effect of this kind of abstraction from nature (Leong, Fischer, & McClure, 2014; Russell et al., complications     

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2013; Uhls et al., 2014; Zhang, Piff, Iyer, Koleva, & Keltner, 2014). For example, in one study, after only 4 days in the wilderness without any electronic devices, participants in the study were 50% better at creative problem solving (Atchley, Strayer, & Atchley, 2012). In an interview, Strayer explained how “nature writers” have long known about this effect: “Reconnecting with nature helps us recalibrate our [human] nature” (Fabrizio, 2012). If findings like these are any indication, our abstraction from the complications of nature does not just deprive us of the rewarding experience of the beauty of the natural world, it also may significantly undermine our human capacities. Insulation From Values The abstractionist approach also seeks to insulate us from our values, our biases, and what it sees as our mere opinions. For many purposes, appropriately or not, much of Western culture seeks to abstract away or eliminate these complications as much as possible. Recall, for example, that Will tried to read objective research studies to get the most helpful information for his business and marriage. What he meant by “objective studies” were those investigations that seemed the least complicated by the researcher’s values, biases, and opinions. That is, he sought information that is the least tainted by the investigator’s subjectivity. These aspirations to avoid having our understanding of the world colored by human desires and values are perhaps the principal heritage of the Enlightenment. Because humans typically experience the world through an “interpretive lens”—our own subjective values and biases—part of the Enlightenment was to remove as many of these complicating “lenses” as possible. In this manner, we hope to get to the apparently pristine objective and real world. This suggests that truth about the world is to be obtained by abstracting ourselves from our subjectivity. This attitude is the reason that the word bias has such a negative connotation. We tend to overlook that, by any reasonable definition of the term, our biases include things like a passion for justice and believing that we should love our children unconditionally. This abstractionist understanding is so common that texts on psychological methods have institutionalized it as the way in which scientific investigation should be conducted (Nelson & Slife, 2012; Slife, Reber, & Faulconer, 2012). As psychological methodologist Schweigert (2006) stated, “the results of the research [should be] meaningful, unambiguous, and uncontaminated by the biases of either the participants or the researcher” (p. 2). Notice that this approach to gaining knowledge makes the assumption (although rarely defends it) that the objective or “real” world itself is free or devoid of any “complicating” subjective elements, like human values, meanings, or purposes. 112       frailty, suffering, and vice

Another prominent example of this attempt to eliminate complicating values involves what Al Dueck (1995) called the morally neutral therapist (p. 13). Moral neutrality is his label for therapists who attempt to be free of values or to be “neutral” regarding their work with clients in psychotherapy. Today, many psychotherapy theorists recognize the value-ladenness of psychotherapy and appreciate the fact, which has been well-documented by research (Beutler & Bergan, 1991; Tjeltveit, 1999), that changing a client’s values is a central part of counseling and therapy. Nevertheless, many common practices presume the importance of value-minimization if not complete value-freedom. One example is the recent, influential movement toward what is called evidence-based practice. Part of the attraction of this approach is that the evidence for the efficacy of a particular technique or practice is understood to be value-neutral or abstracted from any sort of subjectivity or mere opinion or preference on the part of a practitioner. Theodor Adorno (1967) made similar observations about the attempt to eliminate values in educational systems. He argued that the moral corruption which made the Holocaust possible remains “largely unchanged” in our current world and that “the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds” must be uncovered (p. 91). Although these warnings were issued nearly 50 years ago, contemporary observers, such as Hedges (2009) have tended to believe that Adorno’s arguments are more relevant now than ever. In fact, Hedges views much of America’s university system as having adopted the abstractionist stripping away of values in its approach to educating college students. The elite universities, in particular, have embraced what he called a moral nihilism, where the faculties of these institutions “have forgotten, or never knew, that moral traditions are the product of civilization,” so much so that these academics risk becoming irrelevant as a moral force for good (Hedges, 2009, p. 97). As an example of this, one of the authors (BJF) recently had a conversation with a friend who teaches moral philosophy. This professor noted that his philosophy department colleagues were appalled when he said that one of his goals in his introduction to moral philosophy course was to facilitate the moral development of his students. These colleagues were firmly of the opinion that he should only teach academic ethical theories and leave moral decisions and behavior strictly alone. Summing up Abstractionism We have described how people often avoid complications by abstracting other humans, in some cases turning them into commodities to be marketed (e.g., pornography, experts for hire), in other cases insulating ourselves from people who espouse different viewpoints. By way of the latter, there is complications     

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a tendency among those who can afford it to segregate themselves in gated communities, away from contact with the “other.” We also noted how much technology allows everyone a similar insulating privilege. The four walls of the echo chamber of technology permit people to minimize or abstract away all voices and positions different from their own. We also have explained how common it is in Western culture to abstract the rest of the world. We noted how nature is frequently viewed as a complication that we seek to eliminate. Abstractionism is also evident in the presumed separability of the objective from the subjective. This objectivism makes the rich subjective aspects of our everyday lives, such as the complications of our values, an enemy of knowledge advancement and even good counseling. There is no question that the value-ladenness of these activities is becoming more recognized (cf. Slife et al., 2012), but the legacy of abstractionism is alive and well in many research and therapeutic practices. Given the variety and dominance of these abstractionist influences, it should come as no surprise that most of us have great difficulty framing any alternative to these conceptions. They are simply viewed as the “way things are.” Nevertheless, we believe we can draw on Aristotle’s legacy and begin to sketch a relational ontology as a genuine alternative, one that provides a credible alternative to abstractionist conceptions. Complications and Eudaimonic Ethics First and perhaps foremost, Aristotle’s understanding of the good life is deeply relational (see Chapter 3). He not only considered humans to be social creatures, but he also understood all virtues to be relational in nature. Virtue or moral excellence is the pursuit of the highest goods in a consistent manner, and the highest goods are the shared and constitutive goods. Some positive psychologists discuss virtue as if it depends solely on an individual’s performance (cf. Fowers, 2008), but all the classical virtues—generosity, loyalty, temperance, justice, openness, friendship, and so forth—require relationships with others and are always specific to the contexts in which they are enacted, never abstracted from those contexts. Virtues understood this way inevitably involve the “complications” and “messiness” of our interpersonal relationships and everyday contexts in living. Humans and the world cannot be abstracted from these contexts and complications if we want to deal with the real world in the best ways. Ontologically speaking, contexts and their complications are part of the real world and not apart from it. In certain contexts, it is quite appropriate to operate within the idealizations of science, logic, and mathematics. But when we are interested 114       frailty, suffering, and vice

in the actual world, we need to fold these complications into our understanding and squarely address their intricacies and convolutions. Still, it is very tempting to try to avoid these complications, however real they might be. Part of this temptation is fueled by the Western intellectual tradition of abstractionism that we have described. However, another important part of this temptation is emotional. Complications can be experienced as confusing and even chaotic, burdening us with emotional stress. Abstractionism, for this reason, can appear like a balm for the modern sores of stressful living. That is why many of the wealthy spend large sums of money insulating themselves. Recall, too, that part of the purpose of technological innovation is a similar abstraction from the complications of weather, pain, and face-to-face communication. Eudaimonic ethics is not entirely unsympathetic to these motivations and purposes. There are sometimes good reasons to smooth our way with sidewalks and email. Yet expecting everything to go smoothly is unrealistic and inevitably disappointing. Indeed, the frustration of this expectation often creates more stress than the complications themselves. This situation leaves us with an intriguing dilemma. If the movements of technology and the wealthy indicate a strong and understandable motivation to avoid complications, and the world is inherently complicated, how then can we take into account the complexities of reality and yet live well? How do we orient ourselves so that our complex, dynamic world does not overwhelm us with frustration, disappointment, and stress? Abstractionism has been as dominant as it has in part because it can keep these emotions down to a dull roar. How do we make important life decisions when the complexity volume is appropriately turned up? Finding Focus in a Complicated Life In a complex life, we need a way to organize and prioritize our goals and activities so that we can devote our attention and efforts to what is most important. In other words, we need to be able to see and pursue what is good for us. This organizing vision is the center of eudaimonic ethics. Unfortunately, an abstractionist approach to identifying what is important does not help us at all. Abstractionism makes two moves that hamstring us. The first is to abstract the individual from the context and focus on autonomy and separation. The problem is that now the only available guidance about what is important or worthwhile is the autonomous individual’s shaky subjective preferences. Because we are suspicious about being controlled by other people, we are also frequently deprived of any stabilizing or wise input from others, a community, or a tradition. Although this may seem like freedom and empowerment, it actually leaves us terrifyingly isolated, subject to a welter of conflicting biases and impulses that we have to try to sort out on our own. complications     

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Abstractionism’s second move is to remove the recognition of what is important from the particulars of various situations and abstract them into general rules or principles. This generalization and streamlining can seem like an increase in understanding, but it is quite difficult to apply highly abstract principles. In the end, the principles must be interpreted in terms of the particulars of the situation. Consider, for example, the abstract principles of beneficence and justice. A beneficial response to Will may be different from one benefiting Carlos, and beneficence is different with students, clients, friends, and children. Abstract principles cannot identify and make sense of those particularities because the particularities are just what cannot be abstracted. This means that abstraction does not succeed in simplifying the recognition of what is important. Instead, this approach creates a chasm between abstract principles and the concrete situations in which we must act. It leaves us with a combination of fluid personal preferences and abstract principles that are difficult to apply in the actual, complicated world. The beauty of eudaimonic ethics is that it is thoroughly relational in seeing the individual as always and already immersed in relationships and contexts. Questions about what is important are never just subjective preference or abstractly specified. Instead, human beings are continuously called upon to decide what is best with other people in practical situations. That means that eudaimonic ethics has two powerful resources for guiding people: an understanding of the good life for human beings living among human beings, namely eudaimonia, and a practical wisdom that is specifically designed to help people recognize the goodness that can be actualized in the concrete situations of life. With this contextually situated ethic, the world is still messy, to be sure, but it is also navigable, providing the missing rudder for the boat of practical life. The Necessity of Ethics To describe this ethic, we first need to dispel the myth that ethical values can be abstracted or stripped away—from any life enterprise or project. From a eudaimonic viewpoint, we need values and ethical goals not just to guide us through the complexities of our lives, but for all of our activities, even activities that we think require value neutrality. In other words, ethical values are so integral to human activity that even abstractionist attempts to eliminate them demonstrate how necessary they are. If this is true, then we must think through these ideals and values to discern the best ones, including the answer to the ultimate ethical question: “What is a good life?” One of the most comprehensive and conscientious efforts to eliminate ethical values from a large-scale human project is near at hand: conventional scientific methods in psychology. As we have noted, it is standard in psychological research to attempt to minimize, if not eliminate, the contaminants 116       frailty, suffering, and vice

or complications of knowledge—the values and biases of researchers. The idea is that removing this subjectivity will allow the uncovering of the objective truth. The problem with this aim is that all scientific investigations are shot through with the subjective choices of the researchers conducting the studies, from their selections of proper research problems, to their choices of variables to investigate, to their decisions about research design, to their choices about data interpretation (Lacey, 1999; Richardson et al., 1999; Slife et al., 2012). We agree with the distinguished philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1975) that all human endeavors grow out of unquestioned prejudgments, including science. These prejudgments cannot be eliminated. But even if it were possible to remove all of the investigators’ personal values from the scientific method, we could never remove our collective value commitments to the ends of science. Science is irreducibly devoted to the good of knowledge. Some of this knowledge is good for practical purposes, as in engineering. But much of this knowledge is simply choiceworthy for us as human beings and is therefore inherently value-laden. We just want to know more about black holes, the political practices of the Maya, or the intelligence level of crows. Recognizing that we would not work so hard at scientific investigation unless we cared deeply about the good of knowledge reminds us that science is an inherently human project, and all human projects are undertaken to achieve ends we see as valuable. We conduct science because knowledge is a species characteristic good for human beings. Another conscientious attempt to minimize personal values occurs in training psychotherapists. Many approaches to therapy focus on objectivity and avoiding subjectivity (Hamilton, 2013; Thomas, 1973; Tjeltveit, 1999). As this logic goes, therapists’ personal values will not only bias their understanding of the client but will also inappropriately influence the client through the therapist’s greater social power in the relationship. Consequently, there are strong ethical sanctions against “imposing” the therapist’s values in the therapist–client relationship (American Psychological Association, 2010). Therapists are trained to avoid their own values in counseling in at least two ways. The first involves attempting to work within the client’s values in the therapy session. In this way, the client’s own needs and values are primary, and the therapist supposedly avoids imposing his own values. The second approach to values avoidance is the evidence-based practice movement, where scientific evidence, rather than therapist values, is understood as the subjectivity-free justification for therapeutic decisions and strategies. Unfortunately, as observers have noted (Richardson et al., 1999; Tjeltveit, 1999), both of these approaches for escaping values fail. Both are undermined ultimately by their self-contradictory stance—they value valuefreeness. In other words, both approaches, using client values and following complications     

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evidence-based practice, could be stated as stemming, in part, from a type of value: Therapists/researchers “ought” to find some way of minimizing the influence of their values. Yet, this “ought” statement is itself a value. In the case of using the client’s own values as the moral basis for therapy, the therapist has to consistently decide to value the client’s values. This is quite problematic when the client’s values are part of the problem. In a simple example, a client may so strongly value others’ approval that he undermines his own autonomy. Ultimately, the therapist’s attempt at value neutrality is undertaken for the sake of the supreme value of the client’s autonomy, and there is no pretense of neutrality about that master value. In fact, research indicates that therapists rarely, if ever, abide solely by the client’s values (Slife, Smith, & Burchfield, 2003). The “open-minded” therapist is probably the most telling example because these therapists are presumably the most inclined to value the client’s values. Yet, the evidence is clear: Even the most open-minded therapists are not open to the values of many clients, perhaps most strikingly their “closed-minded” clients (Tjeltveit, 1999). Not only are these therapists closed to the client’s closed-minded values, but they also generally consider these values to be part of the client’s problems, including part of their pathology. This attitude betrays how the valuing of value-freeness is itself a real value. Open-mindedness, in this sense, is not the embracing of all values; it is itself a value that rules out value commitments that are seen as closed-minded. And therapists seem to have few qualms about asserting this value. Similarly, the embrace of evidence-based practice does not eliminate, or even minimize, values in the practice of psychotherapy. To ascertain, for example, that a therapeutic practice is successful through research requires the investigator to already have criteria for valuing some outcomes as successes over other outcomes. The reduction of anxiety, for instance, is routinely considered an indicator of therapeutic success, yet this routine indicator is revealed as a contested value when it is compared to the value expressed by many existentialists that some forms of anxiety should be increased (Yalom, 1980). Therefore, seeking anxiety reduction involves a weighty value judgment. Consider also one of the major disagreements in the history of psychotherapy—whether therapy success is best defined as symptom reduction or personal growth. Clearly, both sides of this debate have values about the good life, again illustrating how evidence-based practice is value-laden. These two highly conscientious professional projects, value-free science and value-free therapy, follow the abstractionist dictate to remove complicating values. Yet they exemplify the fate of other such projects in their failure to realize this intention. Ethical values simply are not avoidable, and people are left to deal with all the vagaries, subjectivities, and contentions they entail. In other words, if people cannot engage in activities without values, such as 118       frailty, suffering, and vice

knowledge advancement and therapeutic success, then they must have good reasons for endorsing some ethical values rather than others. We will not rehash here how this discernment is accomplished with eudaimonic ethics. We discussed characteristically human goods, such as knowledge, justice, and belonging, thoroughly in Chapters 1 and 2, and we return to this topic in Chapter 8. The issue for us now is how ethical values invariably include the complications and potentially singular contexts of our unique lives rather than abstracting them away. The “Situatedness” of Ethics The complexities of real life and the inescapability of ethical values lead us to the second resource of a eudaimonic perspective: practical wisdom. We introduced this concept in Chapter 2, but it has particular resonance with complications. Practical wisdom or phronesis means “being able to respond well and fittingly to one’s circumstances as one seeks what is good” (Fowers, 2005, p. 107). Aristotle (trans. 1999) endowed this ability with immense importance: “With the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the virtues” (p. 158). In other words, practical wisdom is not just another virtue; it has a more general function for Aristotle that takes into account the complexity and complications of living and “responding well.” Indeed, it does not just take these complicating factors into account; practical wisdom is the capacity to coalesce these factors into a coherent life-well-lived. A vital part of this coherence is the close relationship between this wisdom and goodness. Making wise practical decisions is always a matter of seeking the good and worthy ends of life in the complicated, everyday world. One of the most frequently repeated themes of Aristotle’s (trans. 1999) Nicomachean Ethics is his insistence that this wisdom must appreciate the particular case, what we have been calling the particular context. Abstractions and general concerns can provide broad guidelines and rules of thumb, but we do not live at any time within these abstractions. The inherent particularity of each individual and situation means that, as useful as these generalities are, they do not inform us directly about what to do. They are indirect at best, requiring us to apply and tailor them to the unique specifics of each situation. In deciding how to act, we always have to consider what is appropriate to the present moment. Abstractionists have long understood the need for this kind of application, but they have envisioned it as a relatively straightforward and uncomplicated application of the generalities they believe they have discerned. Unfortunately, as anyone knows who has attempted to apply well-intentioned “parenting principles,” their application is far from straightforward and in no way a simple extension of the principles themselves. There are two reasons for this messiness in tailoring general principles to the specific complications     

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context. First, none of these generalities, abstractions, or principles comes with instructions about how to apply themselves to the particulars of the unique situation. If they did, they either would cease to be generalities or their instructions would have to include a massive set of guidelines and caveats about application to the enormous varieties of social situations. Second, contexts do not come prelabeled or preconceptualized. We have to discern what is important in the situation. In other words, each context is specific and fluid, constantly changing. As soon as the parent understands how the parenting principle applies to a particular child in a specific disciplinary situation, the child or situation changes. Aristotle (trans. 1999) said it in his usual succinct way: “Matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity” (p. 30). In other words, what is right and good in one context is not necessarily right and good in another. Complications, in this sense, are not events or factors to be cleared away so that we can discern the right and the good; complications are the constituents of the situations, and thus need to be integrated into our decisions about what is right and good. As much as the parent may want to abstract away their child’s temperament, friends, or previous history from the parenting situation, these “complications” should be integrated into decisions about appropriate parenting action. Practical Wisdom and Complications At this point, we have described not only how our values are necessary and cannot be avoided but also how variations in our contexts are necessary and cannot be avoided. We have suggested that practical wisdom is the capacity necessary to deal with this complicated reality. How can practical wisdom help with life’s complications? A primary function of practical wisdom is to discern which complications matter and which are mere complications, separating what is essential from what is peripheral. We called this moral perception in Chapter 2. Will has learned, for instance, that some of Janice’s feelings are less relevant than others. When she expresses “hate,” for example, about her exercise regimen, her feeling is a mere complication because she does the exercises anyway. However, when Janice feels used in her sexual relationship with Will, he needs to understand that what he is tempted to call a “detail” is not a detail or “mere” complication for her. Practical wisdom makes this discernment through its recognition of what is good, both in the immediate moment and for one’s overall life. Remember that the good from an Aristotelian perspective is always a relational and rational good. In this case, Janice’s experience of sex with Will, unlike her feeling about her exercise, jeopardizes their relationship. The relationship depends on Will demonstrating that he values Janice. Given 120       frailty, suffering, and vice

the central importance of the marriage to Will, wisdom indicates that his sexual needs have lower priority than his relationship with Janice. This also means that Will should not just try to talk Janice out of her feelings about their sexual relationship to dispense with those feelings. He should, instead, honor the complication that he and Janice have different experiences. Embracing this complexity might mean, for instance, trying to understand Janice’s feelings and showing her how much he cares about her, her experiences, and their marriage. Showing Janice that he cares about her experiences and values his time with her amounts to demonstrating that he sees her as a person, not an object. In other words, Will can only act in an ethically wise manner, and perhaps become wiser in the process, if he is willing to take these practical complications fully into account. Will and Janice’s struggle illustrates an important bit of wisdom about marriage. The relationship is almost always more important than what a couple is arguing about. When the priority of the relationship itself is properly acknowledged, disagreements are far easier to resolve (Fowers, 2000). Of course, one has to be wise enough to recognize that there are some fights that actually trump the relationship, such as a disagreement over whether one spouse is allowed to hit or exploit the other one. In addition, each relationship has its own unique set of “deal-breakers” (e.g., relations with in-laws, parenting practices) that must be worked out to both partners’ satisfaction if the relationship is to continue. Nevertheless, recognizing that the vast majority of disagreements are less important than the relationship helps to keep things in perspective and substantially defuse most arguments. Indeed, we sometimes understand ourselves only when we see how different we are from others. C. S. Lewis’s (1942) provocative novel The Screwtape Letters illustrates this point nicely. It contains letters supposedly written by the devil to his henchmen on earth, yet Christians all over the world cherish the book as revealing deep insights into their own beliefs. In this sense, differences with others are not always complicating side issues; they can be vital parts of our own meaningful identities. Mary Midgley (2010) commented insightfully that the other is our “lifeline. . . . It is what points us outward to all the riches around us, the great stores of otherness in which we need to live” (as cited in Freeman, 2013, p. 64). It is also clear that Midgley was not just referring here to the interpersonal other, the person who is different; she was also referring to the situational other, the situations that we may consider other than our usual or normal states of being. The natural environment is another complication for many modern humans. Because modern technology, such as shelter, transportation, and communication, protects many of us, we often overlook the complications of the environment, at least until they erupt, shake us, or disrupt these modern technologies. However, there is no question that this environment is complications     

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a vital part of life, even our modern life. Walking in the beauty of a forest may demand a different ethical posture, a different practical wisdom, than does walking among the abstract, humanly constructed forms of a city, even though they may have their own kind of beauty. To generalize the activity of walking as if it were always the background to a conversation, as discussed earlier, is to stereotype or abstract the activity, to be insensitive to the context of the environment in which one is walking. When walking in the beauty of the Canaan Valley, wisdom suggests that it may be better to see the conversation as the background and the beauty of nature as the foreground. Openness to the Other: The Virtue of Complications Our differences from other people are a central complication because we are an ultrasocial species. These differences are omnipresent, ranging from the ways we differ from our closest friends and family members to the cultural differences that can challenge our worldviews. We have witnessed a profound change in many societies in recent decades toward an increasing emphasis on recognizing and welcoming many forms of diversity. In the contemporary world, people from different ethnic, religious, and social groups come into regular contact to an unprecedented degree. This contact makes it ever more important to have the capacity to interact respectfully and inclusively. It is vital to have a way to approach our important differences so that we can be respectful, collaborate, and benefit from the richness that diversity has to offer. A major response to human diversity has been the multicultural perspective, which has become critical to mental health, education, business, and government enterprises. Multicultural competence can be seen as a virtue because it requires extensive self-transformation, a wholehearted adoption, and it serves important goods such as inclusion, justice, and mutual respect. This virtue has been termed openness to the other (Fowers & Davidov, 2006). Interethnic mistrust, competition, and violence have been consistently present in human history. Because human beings are socialized into particular ethnic, religious, and class communities, we naturally identify with the community in which we are raised. This identification with a particular community constitutes a default ethnocentrism. As we have witnessed, ethnocentric views can become quite vociferous, particularly when there is a history of tension and competition between groups. The particular history of intergroup relations inevitably shapes the degree of antagonism between groups. For example, an extreme form of this animosity occurred in Rwanda and resulted in the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis. Closer to home, the enslavement of Africans and their descendants and the long history of racism in the United States have wreaked incalculable damage. The historical constellation of racial relations and their institutionalization have created a context 122       frailty, suffering, and vice

that support racism in ways that are very difficult to see and counteract. As natural as it is, and as historically prevalent as it has been, the social tension and disharmony that result from racism and other forms of ethnocentrism are damaging to all individuals, groups, and the society (e.g., McEwen & Wingfield, 2003). The abstractionist approach to racial and ethnic difference is to attempt “color-blindness.” This will not work because it denies real difference, and it obscures ongoing biases and discrimination. Because the tendency to ethnocentrism and intergroup mistrust is so strong, it is a significant challenge to recognize the legitimacy of other ethnic, religious, and class viewpoints and interests, which means that we need to grow into openness to the other. The damaging effects of intergroup mistrust and hostility and the potentially transformative benefits of greater social inclusion for all groups clarify how important it is for societies to find ways to welcome and truly appreciate many different perspectives. Seeing multicultural competence as a virtue that must be cultivated is one way to understand the personal development necessary for making the most of human diversity. To do so requires personal and social transformation in several ways. First, this virtue of openness to the other requires an understanding of the nature of human diversity. This means becoming aware of the cultural relativity of one’s worldview because it is just one among many. In particular, we have to critically reflect on our cultural heritage and on the ways in which it has included both positive elements and elements of denigrating others. This kind of self-reflection can be difficult and genuine self-understanding is hard-won. But attaining a real historical consciousness puts us in a position to understand ourselves and others much more clearly. Second, it is important to cultivate genuine motivation to learn about and engage other worldviews. This motivation propels people to learn more about other ways of life and to raise questions about their own worldview. By learning about other ways of life, people come to see that there are many different ways to live well as human beings. This relativity makes it clear that all worldviews have flaws and can be questioned. This knowledge can be unsettling, but it is essential to openness. By recognizing the flaws and accidents of history that make up one’s culture, it is possible to examine it critically without being disloyal. Intergroup dialogue can really deepen selfunderstanding and show alternatives to problematic aspects of our way of life that we might take for granted. This self-reflective curiosity differentiates openness to the other from simple open-mindedness. Openness to the other is not just tolerating others or believing that all cultural values are equally valued. Each of us is always already committed to a cultural worldview, and part of openness to the other is recognizing our particular historical and cultural commitments and then complications     

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considering what other historical and cultural viewpoints can teach us. Thus, we may not always see eye-to-eye with people from other backgrounds, but we can always learn about ourselves and alternative possibilities by interacting with them. Third, the virtue of openness to the other has to show up in behavior by habitually acting in ways that include and value people who are different. As we have mentioned, the key point is to grant legitimacy to alternative worldviews as a starting point. We see multicultural competence as a virtue because it has to become part of our characters so that acting with openness comes naturally. That is, the goal is to make openness a characteristic response. Practicing openness to the other is integral to bringing extremely important goods (e.g., inclusion, justice, mutual respect) into the world. The more these goods are understood and valued, the more motivated and complete openness to the other will be. In addition, the ability to understand and interact with people from different backgrounds is vital to economic, scientific, artistic, and cultural collaboration in the contemporary world. Being open to other perspectives is also necessary for reducing the violence and strife in the world. Openness to the other is not only about having good relationships between groups. It is also vital for us to be open to the differences we have in our relationships with friends, family members, and lovers. A vital part of any real friendship, including marriage, is respect for the otherness of the friend. Friends enjoy similarities with one another, to be sure, but they are not mirror images of each another; they are always different in substantive ways. This means we must acknowledge differences of opinion, inclination, and emotion. Each individual has a unique perspective, and relationships can only thrive when those differences are valued and the richness of those dissimilarities is appreciated. In this sense, respect in a friendship cannot always mean agreeing with the friend. Rather, it must imply, at least at times, really listening to the friend and even granting his differing point of view a provisional authority so that its truth can be seriously and earnestly considered. Revered leaders constantly highlight the importance of trusted advisors who express alternative points of view. Carefully discussing differences is one of the most important ways friends can help each other to be at their best. In contrast to the virtue of openness to the other, the vice of deficiency is closed-mindedness or dogmatism, an inability to recognize the legitimacy of other points of view and a lack of curiosity about other worldviews. The vice of excess is groundlessness, an inability to see the importance and value of commitment to one’s own cultural or personal point of view. Openness to the other involves remaining committed to one’s own perspective while being open to the possibility of learning from and interacting collaboratively with people with different viewpoints. No amount of openness can or should eliminate the differences and tensions that are inevitable with diversity. We 124       frailty, suffering, and vice

must accept some degree of discomfort, disagreement, and challenge in the social world. Practicing this virtue means welcoming the divergent pulls of cultural and individual differences as sources of richness and creativity rather than seeing them as complications or obstacles to be overcome. In other words, it means appreciating the value of complications. Conclusion We began this chapter by disputing the Western cultural prejudice against the complicated. Although it makes sense to struggle with complications and to simplify at times, we have disputed whether it makes sense to try to avoid them altogether. We cannot and should not insulate or abstract ourselves from values, feelings, change, nature, and otherness. It is not in our best interest to seek refuge from or hire human or technological commodities to protect us from the complications that constitute our everyday lives. If we do, we risk great damage to our identities and our relationships to others and to our world. The solution to the inevitable confusion, chaos, and stress of our lives is not the filtering or abstracting away of life’s complications in all the ways we have discussed. It is, instead, a contextually situated ethic that allows us to take these complications meaningfully into account and to thereby navigate through and incorporate them on the way to fashioning a rich and flourishing life.

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5 Human Limits

He felt the walls starting to close in on him around the time of his 55th birthday. Nate was a sociology professor with tenure at a state university. He had published enough articles to get promoted and receive periodic raises and had job security with a satisfactory retirement program in the works. He had edited a volume of essays in his specialty area and had coauthored an introduction to sociology book that got a few nice reviews but only sold a few thousand copies and now seemed to have disappeared into the dustbin of history. He received good teacher evaluations and got along well with his little group of master’s and doctoral level graduate students. He had survived and was well-liked, but suddenly he felt like a failure and a nobody. He realized he would never reach his youthful ambitions of being a leader in his field, having a national reputation as a scholar, and speaking to some of the issues of the day as a sociologist, with perhaps an occasional mention in The New http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-006 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved

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York Times. He knew exactly what that looked like. Two of his colleagues had achieved that kind of prominence and notoriety. One had written a bestselling sociological treatise on “cultures of poverty” and had appeared on several national political talk shows. His name came up in political debates in the state from time to time. Nate could see the lift in his colleague’s step around the office, while he could only swallow and try to hide a growing sense of insignificance and ignominy. He even caught himself flirting mildly with this colleague’s wife at a department social event. No one even noticed, and he went home feeling yet more pitiful. At this time, his only brother—a Washington, DC attorney who had achieved considerable financial success (another source of envy)—had a serious automobile accident while driving home alone. Someone barreled through a stop sign, broadsided him, and sent his car tumbling into a ditch, where it turned over twice and landed upside down. The car was totaled, but his brother suffered only a few bruises. They talked about it on the phone the next day. His brother remarked, as they had both heard often happened in such situations, that instead of feeling relief, he felt gloomy and depressed. The accident brought it home how everyone’s life just hangs on a thread and could be snuffed out at any moment. That is a disturbing thought, his brother said, and just makes you wonder what life is all about. Both boxing fans, they recalled Mohammed Ali’s comment after being struck down with Parkinson’s disease: “We’re all just flies in a room.” And you could be swatted at any moment! They shared a bitter laugh about that, commiserated for a while, and said goodbye. The conversation got to Nate, who was already at a low point. Going to bed that night he thought to himself: Well, that’s just great. Not only do I feel like a failure on display for all to see, I have also had my nose rubbed in my total vulnerability and insignificance in the universe. I’m just a little speck of light in the dark, soon to go out.

He did flash on the idea that everyone was in the same boat, winners and losers alike, and he felt sure that most of his friends and acquaintances came to the same realization from time to time. But that didn’t make him feel any better. Nate had a son in college with whom he got along well. They had many common interests and enjoyed talking about sports and politics. He did not feel as close to his daughter, a senior in high school. She had been standoffish and minimally communicative for several years. Until recently she had hung out with a boy from school he really didn’t like, although Nate, biting his tongue (wisely, he thought) said little about it. The guy was a C student with a bright red streak in his hair, dressed shoddily, and was rumored to sell pot to 128       frailty, suffering, and vice

other students. His daughter had been the apple of his eye as a young child, and he earnestly hoped for a better relationship with her someday. The day after talking with his brother, Nate was sitting alone on the couch in his study at home, staring at the wall. His daughter walked by, looked in, paused in the doorway, and said to him, “My God, Dad, what’s wrong? I don’t think I have ever seen you look so glum.” He was a little shocked to hear himself blurt out, “Oh, not too much, I’m just sitting here contemplating my mediocre career and cosmic insignificance, and I can’t do a cotton-picking thing about either. That’s about it.” To his surprise, his daughter hurried over to him, sat down and put her arm around him. She said, “You know, I have been thinking recently how much I appreciate and admire you, Dad, and have been meaning to say something about it.” “Well, that’s really nice,” Nate said. She went on, “I really appreciate you being so tolerant of my hanging out with Jerry the Jerk for a while. I didn’t get in any trouble. I don’t even know what the hell I was rebelling against. But I know I got over it more quickly because of your patience with me. You know, you really are a good guy. You are kind and steady; you don’t brag or complain much. You’re great with your grad students, and I know they appreciate it. You always try to be honest. You are a wonderful parent.” “I don’t know,” said Nate, “I hope so.” “Listen,” his daughter said, “you don’t realize. A lot of my friends don’t have anything like that to rely on. Some of them even have to fend off uncles and even a couple of dads who hit on them! Don’t take yourself for granted. I actually think you should be proud of yourself. I doubt I will ever get a PhD in sociology, but I think I will know how to be a really good parent someday. And that’s precious to me.” They both began to weep a little and sat quietly for a minute, in a hug. Later that day, Nate thought to himself that he could see a number of times in his life when, if he had it do over, he would have chosen a different path. There was a lot he did not know then, and the future was always cloudy. He and his colleagues sometimes joked about publishing articles to be read by a dozen or two people in the English-speaking world. “Maybe I should have gone into agricultural economics and helped do something about hunger around the world,” he thought. But there is no way to know if that would have worked out any better. And now, of course, his options were few and getting fewer. But today, after the conversation with his daughter, he felt less trapped and less regret. He just felt like he had, well, a life, the smallness and limitations of which did not seem to matter that much. Anyway, he thought, just what do limitations and insignificance mean when everyone is plagued by them? Obviously, he reflected, a lot of us are fuzzy, at best, about what makes for a significant life. human limits     

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Obscuring Human Limits When philosophers or others write about human “finitude,” they usually have in mind the astounding paradoxes of human existence. Paradoxes such as how the rich possibilities for creativity, achievement, and meaning have to be balanced against an awareness of our own mortality and our questionable significance in the larger scheme of things. They often seek a way to find meaning and avoid despair in light of life’s raw contingencies and stark limitations. However, much of our culture and politics greatly downplays these limitations or offers relatively shallow ways of coming to terms with them. As a result, contemporary society, including much of psychology, needs a more profound “wisdom of limits”—something Nate was searching for as he was suddenly confronted with career disappointments and life’s frailty. To illustrate this point, just watch a few hours of television and take note of the advertisements that blare every few minutes. They seem to reveal how preoccupied we are with pushing back and overcoming limitations of all sorts. The commercials make it seem deceptively easy to do so. They tell us, “Just buy our car, drink our beer, eat our food, take our medicines, use our beauty products, and your limits will drop away.” Products and technological devices are portrayed as providing greater, even “unlimited,” satisfaction, success, health, influence, and security. These products seem to make it possible to defeat the failure, harm, ignominy, or mere ordinariness that lurk everywhere. We are frequently encouraged to “be all that you can be.” An ad for foreign language learning tapes begins with the voiceover of a woman saying, “I believe I can do anything.” (This last stirs up fleeting and ironic thoughts in us, as late middleaged authors, of giving astronaut training a try, or perhaps, despite being mere academic psychologists, of winning the Nobel Prize for literature.) If we stop to think about it, we realize that there is something quite shallow and vulgar about this kind of advertising. It is embarrassing, actually, and it often comes in for harsh criticism and mockery in cultural commentary, movies, and novels. But the prospect of quick fixes to improve our lives has considerable appeal to most of us. Greater economic abundance, relief of pain, rich pleasures, greater convenience and efficiency, and fascinating technology can be rewarding and enrich one’s life. Indeed, there may be something wrong with us if we can’t enjoy them at times. But to place them at the center of our existence or at the top of our hierarchy of value commitments not only distorts our priorities but is self-defeating in the long run. Philosophers and moralists over the centuries have pointed out that a life built mainly around such gratifications not only neglects higher goods but also eventually drains even ordinary pleasures of any real satisfaction. Even if we sort of know this is true, it is hard not to grab for these satisfactions first and worry about priorities later. 130       frailty, suffering, and vice

Especially in an age of relative abundance and remarkable technological progress, it is difficult to think clearly about both the amazing achievements and the stark limitations of human life. An essay published recently by a prominent investment newsletter (House, 2014)—which obviously has a stake in positive thinking about our prospects—is titled “50 Reasons We’re Living Through the Greatest Period in World History.” Why is it, according to the essay, that “everything is amazing and nobody is happy?” The author noted that polls show that most Americans are not optimistic about the country’s direction. But perhaps that is because, as the article suggested, Americans obsess over trivial news like drug arrests of young pop music or movie stars or reports of accidents and crimes that happen daily and ignore really important events that unfold more slowly. Here are just a few of the 50 given examples of progress: Life expectancy was 49 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and 79 years today. In 1950, 23 out of 100,000 Americans died each year in traffic accidents, and only 11 out of 100,000 died in traffic accidents by 2009. The number of lifetime years spent in leisure in America rose from 11 in 1870 to close to 40 today—nearly half of one’s life, on average, is spent in leisure. Only one in 10 American homes had air conditioning in 1960, rising to about 89% today. The cost of solar panels has declined by 75% since 2008 (and the sun offers its services for free). The death rate from strokes has declined by 75% since the 1960s, and so forth. Such progress is astounding and might, indeed, give us pause when we complain about life’s everyday stresses and strains and overlook how much we have to be grateful for. But the kind of cheerleading for modern life found in that investment newsletter can blind us to human limitations and contingencies. These limitations remain firmly in place and may even weigh more heavily on us in the midst of such abundance, as Nate was discovering in his middle years. The prospect for a longer, more comfortable life for oneself and one’s family, one more free of disease and disability, does nothing to ease the tragedy and pain of a life occasionally cut short, especially that of a child. Indeed, it may make them all the more agonizing and difficult to bear. The more you have, the more you have to lose and sometimes, in those situations, the greater is the pain of the loss. Each of us is at risk of suffering a broken heart, thwarted passion, mental illness, loneliness, or despair. Even superabundance cannot fully protect us, as the following story illustrates. Tom Shadyac’s I Am Tom Shadyac is one of Hollywood’s leading writers and producers of comedies, including blockbusters like Ace Ventura, The Nutty Professor, and Bruce Almighty. Recently, he made a widely praised new film that bears on human limits     

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our search for what can be called a wisdom of limits. I Am is a documentary that narrates a crisis in Shadyac’s own life and a profound alteration of his consciousness and value commitments. One way he puts it is that he was led to “rethink his priorities.” You probably know several individuals who have undergone a massive change in outlook of this sort, or perhaps you have been through one yourself. It is not an uncommon occurrence, but apparently it is one we each have to go through for ourselves. Many personal memoirs and great works of literature (e.g., Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych) portray similar transformations. But Shadyac’s movie conveys his experience in contemporary terms that make it especially relevant to our search for a greater wisdom of limits in today’s abundance. Prior to his crisis, Shadyac rose to the top of his field, and his films grossed nearly $2 billion. He moved about in a world of private jets, a 17,000 square-foot mansion filled with fine art and exotic antiques and every available pleasure and comfort. Although Shadyac seems to be a person of great good humor who knows how to enjoy life, he reported always having been a skeptically minded truth seeker. He felt, at an early age, that he was “not being taught the whole truth.” Standing in the doorway of his new mansion one day, he had the revelation that he was not one whit happier than before. Now, it seemed to him, “the world [he] was living was a lie.” He explained that to his surprise, “the accumulation of material wealth was a neutral phenomenon, neither good nor bad, and certainly did not buy happiness.” He began to live what he felt was a simpler and more responsible style of life, selling his house, moving to a mobile home community, and traveling on commercial airlines. At that critical juncture, Shadyac suffered a serious accident biking in the wilderness. He reported that the accident left him with postconcussion syndrome that included painful reactions to light and sound, severe mood swings, and a constant ringing in his head. He endured months of isolation and pain, finally reaching the point where, even though he had no inclination to commit suicide, he felt he would welcome death as a release. “Death can be a powerful motivator,” he related. As a talented artist confronting his own mortality, he asked himself, “If this is it for me . . . What do I want to say before I go? What will be my last testament?” To everyone’s surprise, his postconcussion syndrome symptoms began to recede. Although his previous film had employed a crew of about 400, he set out with a crew of just four to make I Am to address two basic questions. The first was an exploration of the underlying cause of the world’s ills. He saw the usual suspects of hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, even greed as mainly “symptoms of a larger endemic problem.” The second asked what we might do about this root cause of our difficulties. The film presents brief excerpts of Shadyac’s interviews with more than a dozen prominent philosophers, artists, environmentalists, scientists, 132       frailty, suffering, and vice

psychologists, entrepreneurs, and others, and vividly illustrates their commentary with a host of diagrams, comics, movie clips, snippets of advertisements, news stories, and nature photography. One central theme throughout is that Western culture has embraced a particular story about the nature of the world and what life is all about. This story is, at best, a mixed blessing. The story holds that the world is fundamentally a collection of separate objects or events that interact causally according to fixed rules or laws. This should sound familiar as the prominent abstractionist ontology we described in the last two chapters. In addition to the abstractions, a strong narrative portrays the modern world (including humans) as made up of essentially material stuff that works in mechanistic ways. This viewpoint often includes a “Darwinian” story in which people are portrayed as being in a tense competition for survival. The term “Darwinian” belongs in scare quotes because Charles Darwin (1859/2003) mentioned “survival of the fittest” only a couple of times in On the Origin of Species and wrote at much greater length about the reality and importance of coordination and cooperation as sources of evolutionary fitness. In the world of this abstractionist, competitive story, we are separate beings wired to compete and satisfy ourselves. We honor and enforce independence and competition in social and business environments. As separate individuals, we need to strive for significance but can do so only at someone else’s expense. The roles of strivers for as much success or prestige as possible and of aggressive consumers makes perfect sense in such a world. In contrast, the role of a citizen working for the common good has little appeal or may even seem like just being a sucker. In one scene in the movie, the familiar Irving Berlin song from the 1940s, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” sung by a children’s ensemble, plays in the background of a movie clip showing schoolchildren comparing grade cards, some plainly triumphant, others darkly ashamed. That cute, humorous little ditty we’ve heard and laughed at so many times over the years begins to sound rather ghastly. This modern story is usually presented as if it were supported by “science,” including modern physics and evolutionary theory. But this way of telling the story seriously distorts a lot of our ordinary human experience and is contradicted by many contemporary scientific findings. The people Shadyac interviewed sketch a rather different perspective on the world and the search for meaning in it. In this alternative story, all things are not so much separate as deeply connected, and humans are built, in many ways hardwired, to “connect, care, and cooperate.” We explored this in terms of relationality in the previous two chapters. Shadyac’s film also points out that many in our civilization advocate a credo of “greed is good,” a program for the human race of unlimited economic growth, the endless multiplication of wants, and frenetic efforts to indulge human limits     

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them. His commentators argue that this approach amounts to a recipe for disaster, both environmentally and in our personal lives. The film contrasts our way of life with those of indigenous societies in which individuals take only what they need to survive and live comfortably and in much greater harmony with the natural world. From their perspectives, much of our competitive and relentlessly acquisitive behavior would seem foolish or downright criminal. The film invites us to consider that we have misconstrued our basic nature, which in fact is oriented toward compassion, empathy, and cooperation, and that a shift in our consciousness to align with that nature is urgently needed. This engaging and inspiring film tends to romanticize earlier societies and overlooks their considerable hardships, stifling customs, and the enduring enmity between tribes. Moreover, there is no indication that the various commentators know any better than the rest of us how to cultivate a more modest, peaceful existence within a frenetic, turbo-capitalist society and economy. And this way of life produces enormous, life-enhancing benefits of modern medicine and technology that we would be reluctant to abandon. Also, the film’s message does not really explain or tell us how to cure ourselves of the delusions, power trips, and addictions we sometimes use to numb our sense of vulnerability, mortality, limitations, and lack of control. However, the simple, clear contrast Shadyac drew between (a) separation and competition and (b) connection and cooperation suggests some places where we might begin to look for a greater wisdom of limits. It helps bring to life the deep and pervasive social nature outlined in Chapter 1, and it drives home the destructive consequences of the ideal of being separate, sufficient, highly competitive individuals. It also inspires us to rethink the place of limits in human life. The Connection and Cooperation Narrative The separation and competition viewpoint sees human action as basically instrumental, and this means that limits always appear to be mainly a hindrance to our continuing efforts to expand influence and control. The instrumental perspective also portrays limits as impediments to the kinds of products, satisfactions, and security we think we need. We might make a fresh start, however, by thinking of successful instrumental activity as mainly setting the stage or creating an infrastructure for the cultivation and enjoyment of choiceworthy human ends, such as belonging and meaning. In the terms we are using in this book, instrumental actions support the cultivation of constitutive goods. The pathway to constitutive goods is clearest through the connection and cooperation viewpoint. This is because these goods are 134       frailty, suffering, and vice

found in the ongoing activity of a life, not in outcomes such as temporary experiences, accomplishments, or payoffs. From this point of view, we can find a host of human limits or limitations entirely acceptable or even welcome them joyously. For example, our commitments to other people are important limitations that form an essential part of human relationships. Meaningful friendships and family relationships require patience, discipline, and the acceptance of many unpredictable and sometimes quite painful turns of events. These are inescapable limitations entailed by having relationships. To miss that point is much like confusing getting an A in a course by any means possible (e.g., threats, bribes, cheating) with doing the hard work of learning (which does not guarantee an A). Contemporary biology tells a story that differs markedly from the hypercompetitive and individualistic cultural narrative. Cooperation is rampant among animals, as seen in the flocking of birds, schooling of fish, and movements of herds. Such animal communities seem to move about and make decisions together about courses of action in an exquisitely mutually sensitive and radically “democratic” manner. Even cross-species cooperation is widespread, as can be seen in the pollination of flowers and the activities of cleaner fish that are protected by the larger fish that they clean. To take an example close to home, we have legions of beneficial bacteria in our bodies that help us with everything from digestion to moisturizing our skin (Wolfe, 2013). Although conflict and predatory behavior are obviously part of the natural world, that is far from the whole story. From a biological perspective, cooperation is incredibly widespread in the natural world because “almost all of the major evolutionary transitions from replicating molecules to complex animal societies have relied upon solving the problem of cooperation” (West, Griffin, & Gardner, 2007, p. R661). Cooperation among social animals is the big picture for most gregarious species most of the time. There is competition for status and resources within groups, of course, but even in the midst of this competition, the harmony of the group is a central aim. Some degree of resource competition is inevitable, but most animals have evolved to minimize its destructiveness and maximize social order and stability, which has enormous benefits for group members (e.g., McEwen & Wingfield, 2003). Animal species do this in a number of ways. Most tend to minimize the violence of conflict through having ritual battles rather than fights to the death. Most acts of aggression involve only threat displays and intimidation, not actual violence. When conflict does emerge, animal species tend to resolve it as quickly as possible or tamp it down to restore harmony. This is because prolonged disharmony is bad for all the members of the group. For example, chimpanzees and gorillas soothe one another after conflict with consolation and reconciliation behaviors (de Waal, 2000). When seen from the vantage point of the group, even human limits     

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dominance hierarchies are a means to establish and maintain social harmony. Social harmony is a constitutive good because it is constituted only through harmonious interactions. Among humans, there is clearly a significant amount of competition and conflict. Because disharmony so easily captures our attention, we can easily forget how much we are also defined by cooperation and coordination. Within our recognized groups, humans are strongly inclined to share food and other resources, follow general norms, and reduce and resolve conflict (Fowers, 2015b). There is even strong evidence that our hunter–gatherer ancestors lived in egalitarian communities in which no one was permitted to dominate and competitiveness was strongly discouraged (Boehm, 2000; Boehm et al., 1993). Although conflict, competition, and even warfare occur between human groups, it is important to recognize the depth and breadth of our cooperative and coordinating inclinations within the groups to which we belong. Just to give a few prominent examples of everyday cooperation, we can only use money, drive on the correct side of the road, speak a recognizable language, and obtain food because we collaborate in these pervasive activities. Our understanding of social coordination in primates was deepened considerably with the remarkable discovery of mirror neurons (Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese, & Fogassi, 1996). In monkeys, apes, and humans, mirror neurons become activated not only when one performs a particular goal-directed behavioral sequence but also when one simply observes someone else performing the same action. This discovery is part of a widespread uncovering of the pervasive and primordial role of imitation in human life by developmental psychology and neuroscience. It indicates that humans from infancy on are “immersed in a rich social matrix of self-other reciprocity and intersubjective experience” (Garrels, 2011, p. 58). Parallel to our discussion of relationality in Chapter 3, the cognitive neuroscientist Gallese (2003) wrote that these findings reveal that humans are not dispassionate, individual observers but have a kind of “shared mind” whereby “self and other are originally co-constituted” (p. 34). The human mirror neuron system also makes it possible for us to understand one another’s emotions, beliefs, and intentions (Carr, Iacoboni, Dubeau, Mazziotta, & Lenzi, 2003). We have a powerful capacity to empathize with others partly because we are prompted to experience the feelings we observe in others. This mirroring is automatic and quick, allowing us to share others’ joy, sorrow, and disgust. We are literally hardwired to experience empathy and compassion. The first takeaway from this additional knowledge about how deeply and thoroughly connected we humans are, from our neurophysiology up, is further confirmation that relationality is a more fitting ontology than abstractionism. The cultural narrative of ultimate separateness contradicts our best 136       frailty, suffering, and vice

apprehension of the facts of human nature. The second, even more important takeaway is that if we are made to be connected, the best form of human life will be one in which we have rich, strong relationships with other people. The function argument suggests that social beings flourish when we develop excellent social relationships. We can only have excellent relationships when we allow ourselves to depend on one another, as we saw in Chapter 3. This full recognition and acceptance of dependency is an important element of our discussion of human limitations. We are not made to be fully independent and self-sufficient. Our limitations are the complement of our capacity for relatedness. It is through our connections with lovers, family members, friends, and allies that our lives matter. This was the lesson that Nate learned with his daughter. Focusing on his “individual” accomplishments left Nate feeling that his life was insignificant, but he came to recognize that his roles as parent and mentor gave him a deep connection with others. He recalled that his caring involvement maintained family and academic traditions that give rich meaning to his endeavors. We expand on this concept of the wisdom of limits in the rest of this chapter. We might begin by taking some inspiration from this observation of the distinguished American poet Christian Wiman (2013). He wrote that when, at age 37, he fell in love with his wife, Danielle, Not only was that gray veil between me and the world ripped aside, colors aching back into things, but all the particulars of the world suddenly seemed in excess of themselves, and thus more truly themselves. We, too, were part of this enlargement: it was as if our love demanded some expression beyond the blissful intensity our two lives made. I thought for years that any love had to be limiting, that it was a zero-sum game: what you gave with one part of yourself had to be taken from another. In fact, the great paradox of love, and not just romantic love, is that a closer focus may go hand in hand with a broader scope. (p. 67)

In Search of a Wisdom of Limits Older, premodern moral and religious traditions share a conviction that may seem antiquated but actually makes a great deal of common sense. It is the conviction that we need to place firm limits on the endless proliferation of human needs and desires. In this view, physical needs for hydration, rest, and nutrition are relatively fixed and circumscribed. In contrast, psychological desires for things like wealth, power, status, and honor can easily become insatiable. Such desires can become excessive when we make the pursuit of wealth or status our primary goal rather than seeing them as secondary benefits of worthwhile activities. If power or fame is what is most important, human limits     

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then more will always seem better. Because there is only so much of these kinds of goods to go around, their pursuit is inevitably competitive and can readily give rise to envy, enmity, and conflict with others. The alternative to directly pursuing power and fame is accruing status and acclaim as a secondary effect of contributing to shared projects. This is readily apparent in the lives of the great leaders like Gandhi. He did not seek acclaim and praise in leading India to independence. Instead, he became famous and beloved through his tireless efforts in that worthy cause. The fame was secondary. Edgar Friedenberg (1959) captured this when he said, “What we must decide is how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are” (p. 64). The historian Warren Sussman (1973) noted that we seem to have lost something important in our age of instant and often manufactured celebrity. He argued that, in our history, a “culture of character” was predominant, in which people “insisted on some obvious correlation between achievement and fame. Now that insistence is gone” (Sussman, 1973, p. 283). The endless, competitive pursuit of instrumental goals such as status and fame can become a kind of thralldom or slavery that undermines the development of strong character and commitments to more valuable goods, such as justice or friendship. In Chapter 1, we described these more choiceworthy goods as constitutive goods because the only way to attain them is to embody them. For example, the only way to have justice is to act justly. Constitutive goods are among the highest forms of goods available to humans. These goods are central to the good life and imbue ordinary lives with great meaning. That suggests that politics does not have to be only about winning, business only about greater profits, or artistic pursuits only about fame or notoriety. But it takes significant wisdom and character to see and act on that insight in today’s world. Much of modern culture is based on a kind of rebellion against limiting our appetites for wealth, status, and other possessible outcomes. This aim of limitless acquisition is often justified in the name of freedom from limitations. We distrust the idea of limits because they have often been entangled with systems of domination and arbitrary authority. We are sometimes skeptical about limits because they can be based on the self-serving ideologies that restrict the opportunities of the many for the benefit of the powerful few. Yet simply attempting to mimic the powerful and rich by the endless pursuit of power, status, and material goods offers no real alternative. In fact, this pursuit is another form of servitude in that people restlessly consume products, services, and experiences that seem to promise the transcendence of limitations. Philip Cushman (1990) warned us long ago that the attempt to imbue our lives with meaning and significance through consumption is selfdefeating because an empty self cannot be filled up by products, substances, therapists, or coaches. The frenetic pursuit of these tantalizing elixirs leaves many people overcommitted emotionally, schedule-wise, and financially. Not 138       frailty, suffering, and vice

surprisingly, all of this serves to enrich those who sell the elixirs because this solution to human limits creates endless seeking and no resolution. This trap that Cushman (1990) called “the empty self” is one of the reasons that it is so important to differentiate between instrumental and constitutive goods. Instrumental goal-seeking, by its nature, can never be complete in itself. As long as we are only pursuing a possession or status symbol in order to achieve something else, such as pleasure or greater esteem from others, all of our activities are just means to some other end. This kind of pursuit, by itself, is endless and futile. For example, Dan might make friends with Jeff because Jeff belongs to a country club that Dan wants to join. Once he becomes a member of the club, he will develop contacts to expand his business, so that he can make more money. He will buy a bigger house, bigger car, and a boat with the money so that he can appear more prestigious to further expand his business, and so on. Part of the problem with having only instrumental goals is that there is no end point that is choiceworthy in itself. And notice, too, that each instrument or means that we use to reach our instrumental goals is only valuable as long as it is effective. Once we are done with it, it has little value. One thing leads to another thing, and the only way this ongoing pursuit ends is with death. The futility of this is captured in the ironic popular saying that “he who dies with the most toys wins.” If we become confused by thinking that instrumental goals are all there is, we can get caught up in this endless pursuit of material goods and power. And it is obvious that those pursuits do not fulfill the human needs for meaning and connection. Yet it is also clear that instrumental goods are valuable and worth having. Some degree of material wealth is important to a good life, as is being esteemed by one’s peers. All we have to do is recognize that wealth and status are not the final goals. We seek wealth for the sake of living well; we do not live to seek wealth. A reasonable amount of wealth makes it possible to have a safe home, to feed one’s family, and to have the freedom to form meaningful friendships, write poetry, vacation, teach literacy to the disadvantaged, and so forth. Properly understood, instrumental goods are infrastructure that sets the stage for our more important constitutive goals, such as friendship, beauty, and generativity. Constitutive goods are choiceworthy in themselves because we humans are the kind of beings who naturally treasure friendship, beauty, and giving to others (Fowers, 2015b). We have natural ends that are good for us and the understanding and pursuit of those constitutive ends are what makes a good life. When we get confused and see instrumental goods as most important, we distort and undermine the quality of our lives by chasing after things and experiences that cannot possibly imbue our lives with the meaning and worth that define eudaimonia. The treadmill of the pursuit of instrumental goals encourages us to acquire without limit. human limits     

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The Limits of Progress The confusion about instrumental and constitutive ends is not just an individual problem. Our entire culture is often mixed up in just this way. In his celebrated book, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics, Christopher Lasch (1991) argued that modern culture has been guided by a modest, liberal conception of progress as a kind of endless improvement.1 It is a liberal idea because progress does not seem to dictate any particular value position. It seems that we can set aside our personal agenda and partisan differences by placing our faith in progress (e.g., reducing illness and hunger, developing technologically). In an increasingly tolerant and pluralistic world (very good things as far as they go), any other narrative seems to actively promote the kind of intolerance and domination we most abhor. We have become so suspicious of personal or social ideals that encourage modesty, humility, or service of the common good that we are wary of any other shared story of the human enterprise. For these reasons, faith in progress appears to be the only shared conception of life that could give us something in common. Moreover, the idea of progress can give us reasons to make needed sacrifices for future generations. Progress, then, seems to open a way for shared effort and a positive vision of the future. This kind of solidarity and hope are necessary antidotes to the despair that accompanies the vision of an endlessly competitive, dog-eat-dog world, littered by the wrecked lives of the vanquished. Yet progress, taken alone, is another form of endlessly attempting to overcome our limits that has no meaningful endpoint. The pursuit of progress is a societal parallel to the pursuit of wealth or status for the individual. In the latter, it is the empty self that cannot be filled. In the former, it is an empty society that cannot be filled by any step along the path to progress. We have to restlessly seek more in order to satisfy the demand for ever-continued progress. Lasch (1991) chronicled the ideas of numerous thinkers over the past three centuries, from Jonathan Edwards, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Despite their widely divergent perspectives, these thinkers spoke in remarkably similar ways about the woeful deficiencies of this notion of progress—by itself. They believed that it is wildly overoptimistic about human goodness, that it generates great inequalities but no will to do anything about them, and that it ignores the ancient wisdom that warns against a relentless, direct pursuit of material goods and power. Such pursuits fail to provide any sense of life as a “critical affair” (a term of Niebuhr’s) with choices that matter and that it affords no needed Recall that we do not use the term liberal to refer to a particular political party or group. Rather, we refer to the general philosophy of contemporary liberal societies, with their emphasis on individual rights, dignity, and egalitarianism. 1

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sense of larger purpose. Without claiming sure answers to these dilemmas, we are responding to Lasch’s call to raise anew what he calls the topic of limits, which has become a forbidden topic because it undermines the rosy optimism of perpetual progress that has become so central to Western societies. Limits and the Pursuit of Perfection Many things have changed, of course, since Lasch’s writings in the 1990s, but the pursuit of progress and the attempt to overcome human limits continue. A troubling question about human perfectibility is being broached in our time as our capacity for genetic modification has expanded. Michael Sandel (2007) made a powerful argument for the appreciation and acceptance of human limitations in response to this perfection pursuit. He began by highlighting the astounding advances in genetic engineering that make heretofore intractable illnesses treatable. We would all welcome a gene therapy that cures muscular dystrophy, but we are unsettled about one used to improve athletic performance or enhance cognitive capacity. Worries intensify when we recognize that it is also possible “to manipulate our own nature—to enhance our muscles, memories, and moods, to choose the sex, height, and other genetic traits of our children; to improve our physical and cognitive capacities; to make ourselves ‘better than well’” (Sandel, 2007, pp. 5–6). The prospects of genetically supercharged athletes or made-to-order children are disquieting and morally troubling to many of us. But when science gets ahead of moral understanding, we struggle to articulate our concern in a clear and helpful way. Sandel (2007) suggested that in “liberal societies” we “reach first for the language of autonomy, fairness, and individual rights” (p. 9) when we grapple with moral issues. However, those ideals fall short of making full sense of the situation. For example, some say genetically engineering children is wrong because it would violate the child’s autonomy by pointing children in particular directions and thereby limiting their freedom. But this is not persuasive because all of us, genetically enhanced or not, are very much “at the mercy of the genetic lottery” (p. 7). Moreover, our upbringing inevitably points us more toward some choices than others. It might also be suggested, for example, that a genetically-enhanced athlete would have an unfair advantage against competitors. But some athletes have always been better endowed genetically than others and enhanced genetic differences might be safe and made available to all. If such enhancement is morally problematic, violations of fairness are insufficient as objections. Sandel (2007) suggested that, to tackle the ethics of enhancement, we must examine this topic in terms of “the moral status of nature” and “the proper stance of human beings toward the given world” (p. 9). These questions are hard to address in a skeptical and pluralistic age, but we cannot human limits     

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come to terms with human limits without doing so. Sandel did not so much morally censure genetic engineering as question the motives for making ourselves or our children better than well. One way to get a bead on the issue of genetic enhancement is that, in sports, for example, genetic enhancement would shift our admiration from the athlete’s achievement to the marvel of enhancement (Sandel, 2007). The central issue is the cultivation of “a kind of hyper-agency—a Promethean aspiration to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires” (Sandel, 2007, pp. 26–27). This aspiration is another manifestation of the one-sided instrumental approach to life that we have been highlighting. It is an overweening “drive to mastery” that “misses and may even destroy . . . an appreciation of the gifted character of human powers and achievements” (Sandel, 2007, p. 27). Often, what we admire in superb athletes is the fact that they are so gifted. Of course, no one achieves athletic stardom without a great deal of hard work, but being athletically gifted is also necessary. Sandel (2007) took this a step further by suggesting that “to acknowledge this giftedness of life is to recognize that our talents and powers are not wholly our own doing, nor even fully ours, despite the effort we expend to develop and to exercise them” (p. 27). This attitude conduces to a recognition of our limits, which can be called humility. Sandel (2007) defended the reality and importance of giftedness by appealing to our interpretation and appraisal of what seem like important human experiences. For example, he noted, some say that the main problem with performance-enhancing drugs is that they enhance athletic prowess in a way that allows one to triumph without striving. However, he suggested, “striving is not the point of sports; excellence is. And excellence consists at least partly in the display of natural talents and gifts that are no doing of the athlete who possesses them” (Sandel, 2007, p. 28). The importance of a sense of giftedness is of even greater significance in the more ordinary practice of parenting. Sandel (2007) argued that “to appreciate children as gifts is to accept them as they come, not as objects of our design or products of our will or instruments of our ambition. Parental love is not contingent on the talents and attributes a child happens to have” (p. 45). He distinguished between two kinds of parental love: (a) accepting love and (b) transforming love. Accepting love affirms the child as she is. In contrast, transforming love seeks to cultivate the potential excellences of a particular child. Accepting love and transforming love are complementary facets of parenting that need to be balanced. Too much accepting love can lead to a cloying complacency. Too much transforming love can lead to perfectionistic, demanding parenting. The practice of parenting is an illuminating context in which to reflect on our potentially exorbitant drive to mastery. If given precedence, the 142       frailty, suffering, and vice

pursuit of perfection forcefully and tragically undermines accepting love, a central component of parenting. Attempting to perfect one’s child is as old as humanity, giving rise to a hypercritical, demanding form of parenting. Overly ambitious parents become obsessed with their child’s accomplishments and push them toward an unrealizable perfection. There is little doubt these parents are pursuing parental ambitions rather than primarily promoting their child’s welfare. This parenting stance is highly objectionable, and not just because it reduces the child’s autonomy. The real problem is transforming the child into a means to the parent’s ends. Genetically enhancing one’s children is an expression of this kind of excessive parental ambition. The genetic enhancement of children transforms the child into a means to the parent’s ends before the child is even born. Treating another person only or primarily as a means to an end is a moral failing of the first order. This is particularly true in the case of children, who are unavoidably and entirely dependent on the love and nurturance of their parents. This hubris and the attempt to assume a superordinate position above others is the core problem that the genetic enhancement of children reveals to us. We typically discuss the immorality of using others solely as means to our ends in terms of violating their dignity and rights. This approach has some merit, but, in this book, we highlight a different way of understanding the problem of using others. We suggest that treating another person only as a means is wrong because the person using others is valuing her interests too highly and devaluing the interests of the other person. The ultimate way to use other people is to enslave them. Slavery violates the rights of the slave, and it is based on the idea that the interests of the slaveholder are infinitely more important than those of the slave. By what right can a slaveholder justify prizing her or his ends so much, and denigrating the hopes and wishes of the enslaved? We suggest that using others exclusively as means is always unwarranted. Sandel’s (2007) alternative is to focus on the giftedness of the child rather than on how the child can be used to serve the parents’ wishes. He carefully pointed out that giftedness can be established and accepted from both religious and secular viewpoints. Giftedness can be understood as a divine endowment, but it can also simply denote that some talents or capacities are not wholly of our own making, they are simply due to good fortune. The idea of giftedness clarifies how eudaimonia or human flourishing consists essentially in the well-being and ethical maturity of finite, mortal beings. Appreciating the givenness or giftedness that each of us has encourages a stance of beholding, appreciating, and admiring those capacities. This is similar to how most parents gratefully behold a newborn or growing young child. Appreciated properly, it prevents us from trying to master or control the human limits     

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talents or the infant for purposes of competitive success or private satisfaction. The stance of beholding helps us to see that the many limitations in our lives are part and parcel of excellent, admirable, deeply social human pursuits, and they need to be accepted and even welcomed as part of a good life. Attempts to fully master every aspect of life distort the central fact of human existence: That our lives consist of an ongoing negotiation with what is beyond our control. To paraphrase a point made elsewhere (Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999), our lives are not simply what we make of them. Nor are our lives a matter of what is given to us. Our lives comprise what we make of what we are given. Both making and givenness are inescapable. Appreciating and balancing making and givenness are vital to living well. Of course, that finitude and those limits also leave us open to accident, suffering, and sometimes harm from illmotivated or vicious others. Understanding and possibly coming to terms with such suffering and evil are the topics of the next two chapters. Reverence and Generosity: The Virtues of Human Limitations Sandel (2007) encapsulated the problem of facing human limits well, but his solution does not provide a great deal of guidance. He recommended humility and an acceptance of what is given in life. This is helpful as far as it goes, but most of us want a clearer answer to such a difficult question. As authors, we have found that the philosopher and classicist Paul Woodruff (2001) explores the topic of implacable human limitations in a fresh and compelling way, framing this question in terms of a virtue of reverence. We also discuss the importance of compassion for ourselves and for others as we come to grips with our inescapable limitations. Reverence Woodruff (2001) analyzed in some detail what it means to acknowledge or fail to acknowledge the indelible limits we face. The virtue of reverence “begins in a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control” (Woodruff, 2001, p. 3). The capacity for reverence and its exercise is a virtue in just the sense that courage and fair-dealing are virtues. The virtue of reverence helps us to find our proper place in relation to other people, to our communities, to our human limitations, and to what is greater than us. The experience of awe for what is above or beyond us as humans is a key to reverence. Human beings feel awe at a beautiful sunset or landscape, in contemplating the divine or the cosmos, or in recognizing the complexity of life or 144       frailty, suffering, and vice

the constant presence of death. When we come face to face with that which so far exceeds us, the proper response is awe. Awe not only reminds us of our limitations, but also positions us to experience the beauty and wonder of what is beyond us. Reverence is about recognizing one’s proper place in the world and in the community. Woodruff (2001) stated that awe is the most reverent of feelings. You feel . . . that your mind is dwarfed by what it confronts, that you cannot capture it in a set of beliefs, and that you had best keep your mouth closed and your mind open while awaiting further disclosure. (p. 147)

Recognizing our place in a community means that we do not put ourselves in a superior position partly because we understand our existential dependency on others, as we discussed in Chapter 3. Woodruff (2001) pointed out that Western philosophers since Plato largely ignore reverence, perhaps because they have so often pursued utterly objective and timeless truth. But poets from Homer and the Greek tragedians to Tennyson and Yeats, and thinkers like Lasch brought it to the fore again and again. Woodruff argued that reverence is discussed so widely because reckoning with the fact that each of us is small and limited in the grand scheme of things is a universal, inescapable task. Of course, it takes myriad forms in different times and cultures, and reverence has as much to do with politics and power as religion. Indeed, reverence often emerges outside the sphere of conventional religion altogether. Reverence helps us to know our place by relating to others as fellow humans rather than arrogantly acting like a god or giving ourselves license to act like a predatory beast. Woodruff (2001) noted that going wrong in either way is to lose one’s sense of humanity in common with others. He draws on the ancient Greeks and Confucians, who defended reverence as an indispensable bulwark of human society. Reverence alone keeps leaders from trying to act like gods (tyranny and hubris for the Greeks) and is necessary if ordinary people are to find a place of belonging in society, with its inevitable differences and hierarchies. This includes expressing respect both for those who have greater knowledge and authority than we do (e.g., our teachers and leaders) and for those who occupy a lower station than we do (e.g., children, students, employees). This struggle to find an appropriate place as a fellow human being was part of Nate’s struggle. He came to see that his place in his family and in his university were worthwhile whether or not he achieved fame or notoriety. He recognized his membership in his community as a good father and mentor. He found peace in making positive contributions to important endeavors that did not need to be validated by personal prominence. The two experiences Woodruff (2001) cited for this are respect and what he called shame. Part of how we express respect is by recognizing our human limits     

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own limitations, which helps us avoid treating other people with contempt. Respect can be too “thin” when it is accorded to everyone, whether or not they respond to it or are accountable for their actions. Kant’s concept of respect as a mutual recognition of autonomy falls into this category of thinness. Respect also can be too “thick,” as when it is claimed on the basis of unquestioned authority or tradition. The enormous limitations of all our knowledge and capacities for moral insight make such thick respect a recipe for stultification and arrogance. Reverence in the face of our enduring limitations and imperfections requires a sense of common humanity. Skillful leaders and knowledgeable teachers must extend respect to and really listen to their followers and students and, occasionally, be corrected by them. After all, no leader or teacher is immune to error. Listening to subordinates and students is a defense against bad judgment. Students and followers would be foolish not to feel and show respect for those in their communities who seem to have greater knowledge, maturity, or wisdom than they do. The respect for another’s knowledge or ability is what makes it possible to really learn from them. In our time, we mainly hear praise of irreverence. But reverence is not only compatible with but also often calls for mocking pompous solemnity and arrogant hypocrisy. So it is important to recognize that respect is not always the proper response. When someone acts pretentiously or arrogantly, a reverent person would mock those actions as a reminder that all humans are limited. Of course, more than irreverence is needed, or we fall into mere negativity or cynicism. We need to focus not just on what does not deserve our respect, but, above all, on what does deserve our respect, such as excellent leaders, our shared concept of justice, and the social practices that make it possible to live well together. From a eudaimonic perspective, any viable alternative to excessive independence or subservience to others must include some shared or overlapping notions of the common good and mutual deliberation about them. Because our culture values freedom and personal independence so highly, many of us are understandably leery about the common good. But Woodruff (2001) contended that we have to be serious about the common good because we simply cannot cultivate or practice virtues like courage, compassion, or reverence apart from membership and participation in the life of some sort of community. Community membership is often marked with formal or informal ceremonies that powerfully instill a sense of limits and mutual respect. For example, you cannot be a courageous soldier in a unit of cowards who are unwilling to take risks because to take them yourself would amount to throwing your life away. That would be rash, not courageous. Similarly, you cannot cooperate or practice compassion among cruel or narrowly self-seeking individuals because you would simply portray yourself as a sucker in their eyes, and to an extent be one! Without a community (or 146       frailty, suffering, and vice

“strong relational” ties with others, as discussed in Chapter 3), such virtues would not have any outlet. Finally, Woodruff (2001) included the sensitive topic of shame. He did this by attending to how reverence also includes proper respect for community mores, traditions, and expectations. This respect is based on the understanding that we are part of the community, not apart from or above our community. For this reason, he clarified that reverence actually belongs more to community and politics than to religion. This is because religion can be practiced with or without reverence. Irreverent religion leads to denigrating nonbelievers, fanaticism, and holy wars. Whether a community is identified as religious or secular, community flourishing is dependent on reverence and its practices. Contemporary psychology knows a great deal about pathological shame and the damaging effects of feelings of worthlessness. Some writers and therapists seem to be engaged in all-out warfare against any sense of shame whatsoever. But that seems excessive, perhaps another symptom of a problematic individualism. Some critics have suggested that psychology harbors a onesided and overly negative view of the moral emotion of shame (Karen, 2003; Lasch, 1995). Woodruff (2001), too, argued that we have oversimplified the matter. He suggested that an individual’s sense of worth is partly based on membership in a community and being in harmony with the practices and expectations of that community. The sort of shame he described accompanies a failure to live up to community standards. From this point of view, feelings of worth are about being a good member of a community and shame prompts us to correct our mistakes and live better in the community. This is not the typical psychological understanding of shame, but it highlights the importance of our communal ties and practices in a helpful way. The right sort of shame is similar in some ways to a healthy form of guilt. When guilt is functioning properly, it highlights some way that we have harmed or neglected someone else wrongfully. Even if feeling shame or guilt hurts, it motivates us to try to repair the relationship by making amends. The sort of shame to which Woodruff (2001) referred is similar, but the focus is on linking us to a community more than to other individuals. It is in our connections with a community of meaning and shared endeavors that shame enters the picture. If we can honestly and critically reflect on our actions, we will at times experience that kind of healthy shame because we violated or betrayed our community’s standards. Of course, even our most time-honored traditions and mores can be questioned, and one can do so reverently by raising questions and considering alternative points of view. A good literary example of this is in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck initially feels shame about failing to return Jim, a runaway slave, to his owner. But then Huck decides that slavery is a bad tradition that should not be followed. human limits     

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Finite humans are neither gods nor beasts. We have enormous creativity and capabilities, yet we are profoundly dependent on society and other people for insight, correction, and support (see Chapter 3). If out of fear, apathy, shallowness, or vice (as discussed in Chapter 7), we fail to appreciate what are truly choiceworthy goods for us in our time and place and to develop the character strengths needed to embody those goods, the experience of healthy shame can help to put us back on track toward eudaimonia. The virtue of reverence or awe, particularly the sense of being a worthy member of a community, allows us to appreciate rather than self-destructively disregard or defy inherent limitations on our knowledge, control, influence, and foresight. These limits show up and need to be taken into account not only at the edges of existence, in awareness of our vulnerability to accident and death but at the heart of human experience and relationships, in intimacy, dialogue, and cooperative endeavors. To ignore or resist them only undermines many of our most rewarding and admirable experiences, and flourishing itself. But to live well in their midst takes a great deal of both courage and humility. Generosity One of the most obvious things about human beings is our imperfection. We have discussed this in terms of limitations in this chapter. The virtue of reverence is an important mode of recognizing our limitations with respect to what is larger than us. It is also essential that we have ways to come to terms with one another as limited beings who cannot help but err, fail, disappoint, and even cause harm at times. The virtue of generosity makes it possible to see the good in ourselves and others, to give the benefit of the doubt when possible, and to forgive ourselves and others in the face of our unavoidable foibles and mistakes. Through generosity, we can offer the help that all of us need from time to time, ranging from giving directions to a stranger to volunteering regularly. Nate’s daughter was generous in expressing her appreciation for him as a parent and an example of a good person in her life. Her acknowledgments were particularly meaningful to Nate because they came at a time when he was feeling especially low. These gifts to her father cost her nothing, but were great boons to him and deepened their relationship. We discussed generosity in Chapter 2, primarily in terms of giving gifts and compliments. In this chapter, we focus on forgiveness as an important way to be generous. Generosity is the virtue that helps human beings to cross the gap between the deep and enduring needs we have for each other and the imperfect ways that fallible human beings respond to those needs. Forgiveness is an important form of generosity and an essential part of any significant relationship. All of us are fallible, and whether we intend to 148       frailty, suffering, and vice

or not, we occasionally disappoint, hurt, or annoy our friends, mates, family members, and coworkers. We may do something hurtful or neglect to do something important. No matter how we try, we simply cannot be perfect. Whether the offense is large or small, being able to forgive one another is necessary for good relationships. If we cannot forgive each other for our weaknesses and mistakes, the hurts and disappointments will inevitably accumulate destructively. This is a relatively simple idea in principle, but it can be difficult to practice. The more important a relationship is to you and the more involved you are in the relationship, the more important it is to be able to forgive mistakes and shortcomings. Forgiveness is an act of generosity because we are never required to forgive, but doing so is a gift because it can lift a burden from the forgiver and the forgiven. It is not always easy to know when to forgive. Just like any other form of generosity, we can be deficient or excessive in the gift of our forgiveness. Withholding forgiveness when it is appropriate (stinginess) suggests a smallness of character that restricts the quality of relationships and perpetuates grudges and recriminations. On the other hand, forgiving people to whom we are close when that forgiveness is premature or unjustified would be overindulgence and may actually encourage additional undesirable behavior. The complexity of forgiveness was recently evident in the marriage of a friend of one of the authors (BJF). Maria had been married for over 12 years to Jason. They had three children and had had many good times together. Unfortunately, Jason had a tendency to speak to and act toward Maria in demeaning and hurtful ways. Maria confronted Jason about this repeatedly, and he always apologized and promised not to do it again. Then they would have a disagreement or misunderstanding, and he would belittle her again. Maria became depressed, and in the process of working on that depression with a therapist, she learned about the cycle of abuse. This put Jason’s behavior in a new light, and she informed him that she would no longer tolerate his demeaning behavior. Unfortunately, he could not restrain it, and Maria divorced him when it became clear that he could not treat her with respect. Maria eventually forgave Jason for hurting her because she came to recognize that this flaw hurt Jason as much as it did anyone else. She recognized that he had an important limitation that he was unwilling or unable to change. Because he did not change, her forgiveness did not include reconciling with him, but it did make it possible for her to cooperatively co-parent their children with him. Whenever he started to criticize her, Maria would calmly end the conversation and walk away or get off the phone, reminding herself that his disrespect was his shortcoming, not hers. Fortunately, most of the foibles and mistakes we make in our relationships are not destructive in the way that Jason’s verbal abuse was. This allows us to overlook the small flaws that all of us have in view of the good qualities human limits     

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we see in each other. When problematic behavior is damaging or persistent and cannot be overlooked, the virtue of courage becomes important in helping us to confront the problem. It is also important for us to be able to forgive ourselves for our inevitable shortcomings. People who are highly self-critical have difficulty forgiving themselves for imperfections, and this is a kind of stinginess. In contrast, one can go wrong by being too willing to overlook one’s mistakes and faults, giving oneself extravagant leeway. Psychologists have discussed a healthy attitude toward one’s own limitations as self-compassion (e.g., Neff, 2003), which we discuss in Chapter 6. Conclusion A brief, but transformative experience that one of us had (BJF) illustrates the way that simultaneously embracing one’s commitments and one’s limitations can promote flourishing. A few years ago, I was driving my daughter to a soccer practice in very heavy traffic. I was frustrated by the traffic and the amount of time the trip was taking. I had several writing deadlines and other pressing work to do, so I was feeling conflicted about my work and parental responsibilities. On this trip, I happened to see a bumper sticker that said, “I’d rather be here.” Sitting in traffic, frustrated, the bumper sticker seemed absurd at first. Then I realized that it was a play on all the bumper stickers that indicate the driver would rather be sailing, fishing, or sky diving. I asked myself if I would rather be here, stuck in traffic with my daughter or in my office working or even fishing. The answer was immediately obvious. I would rather be taking her to soccer practice because that is what I had chosen to do. It was truly my most important commitment at that moment. The bumper sticker reminded me that I had made a decision. By reaffirming it, I was able to own the decision and the commitment to my daughter’s well-being more completely. Once I did that, driving her was transformed from an apparently costly, frustrating chore to a commitment I had chosen because it was good for her. That shift in perspective made it possible for me to be fully present with my daughter, to be happy about my choice, and to enjoy the time with her rather than fuming about traffic and ruminating about the work I was failing to complete. This reminder of the limits of what I could do allowed me to let go of the work I could not do at the moment. I have felt grateful to the person who put that bumper sticker on her car ever since that day. Choosing one activity always means forgoing other activities. Clearly recognizing the limits of our time may seem like a negative, but it is enlivening because it enables us to reaffirm and deepen our commitment to the activities we have chosen. Since that day, I have frequently reminded myself 150       frailty, suffering, and vice

that I have chosen to be where I am, even if that involves a faculty meeting or dentist appointment. Reaffirming your commitments to the activities you have chosen (or altering your choices) is a way to take full ownership of those activities and pursue them wholeheartedly because you accept that there are limits to what you can do. It is vital for us to come to grips with the undeniable limitations built into our humanity. People try, as individuals and as groups, to deny or transcend those limits through endless acquisitions of material goods, wealth, and power. When we take this approach, we lose sight of the central importance of community, friendship, and the givenness of life. Necessary limits are built into human relationships, including obligations, the number of deep friendships that are possible, and respect for ongoing community traditions. We highlighted a contemporary temptation to transcend limits by attempting to perfect ourselves or our children through genetic manipulation. Accepting our limitations allows us to recognize the value of having a small role in a larger story. This acceptance also helps us to focus our attention more clearly on the worthwhile activities that make up our lives at least as much as on the outcomes or products of those activities. The real tragedy of aiming to transcend limitations that are inescapable for humans is that we devalue our ordinary humanity in the attempt. We act as though our imperfections and limitations are unacceptable. Reverence and generosity are virtues that make it possible to accept ourselves as the finite, limited beings that we are rather than striving for an illusory perfection. The virtues of reverence and generosity can help us to come to terms with our own and others’ limitations. We are limited, flawed, mortal creatures who need each other deeply. As we discussed in Chapter 3, our inherent dependency is a positive aspect of human nature, not an embarrassing or avoidable flaw. Accepting our imperfections can make it possible to live harmoniously and avoid the temptation to demand too much of ourselves or others. Developing a wisdom of limits can allow us to enjoy what we have and the people in our lives in a much deeper way than striving for perfection, for unlimited wealth, or for unbounded power. Such strivings are based in denial of our limits and can never succeed because perfection is unattainable, and wealth and power can never make us invulnerable. We can accomplish great things when we recognize our limits and our need for other people and our communities. This understanding is a prerequisite for working together harmoniously and consistently and for focusing our efforts on the most worthwhile human goods.

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6 Suffering

When their 14-year-old daughter, Jackie, developed stomach cancer, which spread to several other parts of her body, Maryann and Sebastian felt as though they had stepped through a looking glass into another world. Nothing would ever be the same again. Maryann and Sebastian met when he was in law school and she was pursuing a graduate degree in business. They fell in love and were married after dating for a couple of years. Eventually, Maryann became an executive in a large oil company while Sebastian enjoyed considerable success in business law and was encouraged by many to go into local politics. The birth of Jackie and her younger brother Joseph brought them a sense of fulfillment and happiness. When Jackie fell ill, Maryann took a leave from her job and accompanied her daughter to an eminent cancer treatment center in a large city in another part of the state. Jackie began a radiation and chemotherapy http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-007 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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treatment regimen that the physicians told her parents would take several months and had only about a 20% chance of saving her life. Maryann stayed near the hospital during the week and returned home each weekend. They did their best to give Joseph at least some of the attention he needed at a difficult time. Sebastian and Maryann coped with the situation as best they could, clung to a bit of hope while preparing for the worst, and comforted one another when waves of fear and grief would suddenly sweep over them. To everyone’s surprise and relief, Jackie recovered. She turned out to be one of the fortunate ones. She lost part of her stomach but seemed to be free of the cancer. She finished high school and enrolled in college. Her parents’ biggest concerns now were encouraging her to follow a healthy diet and never drink alcohol, college life notwithstanding, which could wreak havoc with a weakened digestive system. In one sense, things were almost back to normal. In another sense, Sebastian and Maryann found themselves living in a different world. A few of their friends or colleagues at work were so frightened or upset about their misfortune that they seemed to actively avoid Maryann and Sebastian. Others just kept a bit of a distance. They would sometimes ask how things were going and express sympathy. But they appeared uncomfortable, seemed uncertain about what to say, and kept the conversation fairly short. Sebastian likened this to situations in which someone was getting a divorce and many people seemed quite uncomfortable about it, as if they did not want to be reminded of their own marital struggles or somehow catch the divorce bug. Sebastian and Maryann were quite busy and not greatly bothered by these reactions, but they did notice them. One day, when they mused about all that had taken place with a good friend, Maryann remarked, The pain and dread we have been through has changed our outlook on a lot of things. I actually had a dream about it. In the dream, before the cancer, we had been living on one side of a translucent screen or glass wall where things seemed normal, we felt pretty much in control of our lives, and nothing terribly disturbing ever happened. Out of the corner of my eye I could see faintly disturbing shadows on the other side of the screen, but I paid them little attention. Then, suddenly, we found ourselves on the other side. Over there it was often a hellish scene full of tragedy and pain. The people and their distress were familiar and commonplace, only now we could see them clearly, and couldn’t look away. Brain-injured young men and women sitting in wheelchairs in a clinic, drooling out of the corners their mouths, aware of their situation but hardly able to move or talk. Parents were suffering unspeakable anguish at the death of a beloved child. Elderly people were living by

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themselves, choking on their loneliness. Spouses were being told that their husband or wife had been killed in war. We saw other things, too. We could see many thousands of young people in large cities around the world with little education and no prospects for employment, sinking into despair, turning to violence, dying young. We saw mentally ill individuals who were alone, frightened, and often tormented.

Maryann concluded, I guess the message was that there may be lots of happy times and meaningful experiences to be had, if you’re fortunate, but there is pain and suffering around every corner, and some of it may be yours soon enough. And, we cannot forget, it is happening to many of our human brothers and sisters somewhere as we speak!

Sebastian added, “After Maryann told me about that dream, we started calling our life before Jackie’s illness the ‘pretend’ world and life now the ‘real’ world—the world seen without blinkers on.” Their friend remarked, “You know, it makes you think. How should we live in the ‘real’ world?” Maryann replied, Well, we have talked about that. It may sound corny but it has got us thinking about “service.” We feel we have just got to find some kind of purpose for our lives beyond success and happiness, even trying to raise healthy and successful kids. By themselves, that can be rather shallow, and it hardly prepares our children to deal with life’s blows and disappointments. When you get a wake-up call like we did, you realize how little you can anticipate or control what’s going to happen to you or your family. It comes to you that you are mostly not in control and that you are not terribly significant, out of 7 billion people on the planet. But those things matter less if you can get beyond yourself and be helpful to someone. That does not mean that you should not cultivate your own talents or be creative. You can often do both! Look at the work of Doctors Without Borders, or companies that hire ex-convicts and support their families.

Sebastian added, I’m pushing my law firm to do more pro bono work, which can be very rewarding. And one of us spends most Saturday mornings with Joseph as volunteers, socializing, playing games, and helping out any way we can with seriously ill children at the hospital. It has really changed Joseph and seems to have been one of the best ways for him to cope with his sister’s illness. Thinking this way encourages us to live more modestly and care less about what other people think. How does that sound to you? suffering     

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Eudaimonia and Suffering In this book, we explore how the pursuit of eudaimonia means participating in inherently meaningful and characteristically human activities in excellent ways. We have clarified, we hope, how the virtues make it possible to flourish as the dependent, complicated, and limited beings that we are. The suffering that is unavoidable in human life can also seriously undermine well-being. We need to understand the roles that suffering plays in our lives and recognize the virtues through which we can live excellently as vulnerable beings. There are many different ways people find to cope creatively with human suffering. Maryann and Sebastian’s approach of making service a central part of their lives is just one of them, and we touch on some others in this chapter. But it illustrates one family’s sensitive and courageous response to suffering. Given the inevitability of disappointment, failure, loss, and death, suffering is unavoidable, and it can seriously threaten our capacity to flourish. Even if you are able to keep your own and your loved ones’ suffering to a minimum, focusing exclusively on your own flourishing may be morally suspect to some because it seems excessively egocentric. After all, there are always people around who are suffering. When we think about how vulnerable we are or about the extent of human suffering, it can be downright overwhelming. Extended contemplation of suffering can leave us in despair. Conversely, we might be tempted to deny our vulnerability and turn away to the “pretend world” of Maryann’s dream. This would amount to a denial of others’ suffering. But to really flourish in a world where some form of suffering can break out at any moment (or has already done so) requires a better alternative than despair or denial. Clarifying what such an alternative might look like is the purpose of this chapter. One possible response to suffering could be to devote oneself entirely to alleviating it. Mother Teresa’s lifelong devotion to serving the unfortunate is a supreme example. Her extraordinary dedication to service reduced others’ suffering, and one way to let go of one’s own difficulties is through such selflessness. Although the world is a better place for such selfless sacrifice, this is, after all, an extraordinary path, one that few can, or perhaps even ought to, take. Even Mother Teresa’s work would be hampered by a lack of medicine, food, and the transportation necessary to make them available. In other words, there is a great deal of ordinary activity with which most of us can and should be occupied. Someone has to grow food, develop and manufacture medicine, build roads, raise and educate children. Moreover, there is no reason to think we have to choose between complete selfishness and complete selflessness. Too much modern moral thinking in both popular and professional domains assumes a sharp, unnecessary dichotomy between 156       frailty, suffering, and vice

egoism and altruism. This leads to a false choice between mainly looking out for ourselves or focusing only on sacrificing ourselves to care for others. The eudaimonic alternative to this dichotomy is to recognize that we are intensely social creatures for whom a good life is only possible through caring relationships with other people. Every individual’s flourishing is partly constituted by quality relationships with family, friends, and fellow citizens. As we explained in Chapter 1, a person can only have the central human good of friendship if it is shared with someone else. Similarly, we can only have the vital good of justice if others in the community have it as well. These are shared goods, and attaining them together is essential to living well. When you act as a good friend, both you and your friend benefit through the continuation and deepening of the friendship. When you act fairly, both you and others in your community benefit because you have contributed to the degree of justice in the community. Shared goods cannot be divided up among people, so there is no possibility of complete selfishness or selflessness. We are all in the same boat, and we need each other to thrive. This is also the situation with suffering. We all face the human condition together. The idea of shared goods reminds us of Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1999) evocative idea of cultivating the “virtues of acknowledged dependence” (p. 125). He meant, first, that we must let go of our collective “illusion of self-sufficiency” (p. 127). We argued in Chapter 3 that we humans are unavoidably dependent and limited in a way that requires us to give up this illusion. An illusion of self-sufficiency harmfully obscures the extent of frailty, dependence, disability, and limitation in human life. The illusion also makes it more difficult to ask for and give physical assistance and support, encouragement, and sympathy when one is beleaguered. One needs an “education of dispositions” to make room for unalloyed grief or sorrow over another’s distress, as opposed to looking away from another person’s afflictions or experiencing shame about one’s own troubles. This makes it possible to “sustain relationships of uncalculated giving and graceful receiving” (MacIntyre, 1999, p. 121). Thus, acknowledging our dependency and vulnerability opens the way for us to become compassionate with others and with ourselves. We might say that life events led Sebastian and Maryann to see through this illusion of self-sufficiency and confident control over their lives and begin to cultivate the ability to respond humanely to their own pain and that of others. The Modern Project to Reduce Suffering In recent centuries, Western societies have made astounding advances in freedom, human rights, and science. These improvements have paved the way to unprecedented affluence, health, longevity, and opportunities for suffering     

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individual success and self-expression. There are still far too many people tragically left behind, but there has been an enormous expansion of opportunities for leading longer, richer lives marked by greater personal dignity and less marred by pain, disease, oppression, fear, and despair. It is an enormous blessing that many kinds of suffering have been greatly reduced. As Charles Taylor (1989) insightfully observed, one of the major themes of contemporary Western civilization is a commitment to decreasing suffering. There are many ways that Western societies have sincerely and systematically attempted to lessen human suffering. These efforts generally fall into two major avenues of reducing misery: (a) enhancing individual freedom (e.g., civil rights) and (b) achieving scientific and technological progress (e.g., medicine). One way to see the birth of the modern era is as a rejection of the arbitrary authority of the church and state in the service of promoting human freedom and science. We discuss these two avenues for reducing suffering in turn. Reducing Suffering Through Individual Freedom Enhancing individual freedoms has been a primary approach for decreasing suffering in Western civilization in recent centuries. A central focus for this emancipation has been to reduce suffering due to oppression, lack of opportunity, and inequality. The development of frameworks of self-government, with equality before the law and individual rights, has freed individuals to have greater choice about how to live. Lifting the economic restrictions of social class and guild has opened tremendous economic opportunities and spreading of affluence. Human rights have gradually been expanded from the nobility to White propertied men to everyone in politically liberal societies. This has decreased some miseries by curtailing prejudice and arbitrary limitations and broadening opportunity and freedom of choice. These are impressive gains, especially when we compare the poverty, lack of adequate housing and food, and lack of opportunity that the majority of people historically experienced with the unprecedented affluence, private living spaces, and opportunities many people now enjoy. These benefits are, of course, unevenly distributed, and the full promise of liberalization has not yet been fulfilled. But, on average, enormous gains have been made. Living in a democratic, pluralistic, relatively free society provides many of us with remarkable opportunities for travel, diverse cultural experiences, an enhanced sense of individual uniqueness, a greater awareness of our abilities and talents, and many prospects for success. Yet these impressive gains carry with them one form of suffering that is relatively new and one ancient form of pain that can be significantly worsened by autonomy. This new form of suffering has been called the paradox of choice, as in the title of the book by Schwartz (2005). It shows up in the dumbfounding that occurs when we face 158       frailty, suffering, and vice

choices between 17 varieties of dish soap or decisions encumbered by dozens of minor options. Although having more choices seems to enhance freedom, Schwartz argued that the sheer number of choices can be burdensome, even debilitating. This is especially difficult because the individual autonomy discussed in previous chapters dictates that each person can choose his own goals. The difficulty is that we are often uncertain about what is really worth striving for, and we have to rethink our values frequently. Also, in a highly competitive world, there are always others who have more or do better, making it difficult for ordinary mortals to avoid being regularly afflicted with envy and self-doubt. The second type of suffering is an exacerbation of the risk of isolation and loneliness through greater autonomy. For example, John Schumaker (2001) argued that many aspects of modern society cut against the grain of our deeply social nature: Modernity drastically “detraditionalizes the world and sets in motion multiple out-of-control processes that require constant cultural, political, and institutional innovation” (pp. 1–2). These rapid social changes displace and disorient us. The priority of autonomy tends to isolate us. Schumaker evocatively described humanity as a “disorganized dust of individuals who have been freed too much from all genuine social bonds” (p. 16). The result is that many people in Western societies experience a free-floating, ephemeral structure of identity that is too shaky to sustain them. Schumaker (2001) argued that, in more community-oriented cultures, individuals have access to and feel supported by “socially sanctioned identity templates” (p. 16). These cultures offer shared coping strategies in times of loss, conflict, or moral confusion. This clarifies that there is a great price to be paid for individual freedom. Emotionally isolated and with limited experience and resources, individuals in our society have to innovate many of their own coping techniques, workable defenses, credible answers to ethical dilemmas, and consolations for their suffering. Excessive personal responsibility with limited resources is a virtual recipe for chronic emotional strain and idiosyncratic, unreliable coping. Or, worse still, one could be tempted to just withdraw into debilitating passivity and emotional detachment. In this way, individual freedom, its benefits notwithstanding, may actually increase suffering. One intriguing example of how individual autonomy can increase suffering is that about 50% of women in our society experience some degree of postpartum “blues,” and some 20% go on to develop more serious post­ natal depression (Schumaker, 2001). But among the Kipsigis people of Kenya, medical anthropologists can find no evidence for postpartum depression. In that culture, a predictable pattern of practices, rituals, and gifts following childbirth mark out a “distinct culturally acknowledged postnatal period,” one that “confirm[s] symbolically the new mother’s elevated standing” in the suffering     

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community and indeed the cosmos, affords her “pampered social seclusion and mandated rest” and provides considerable assistance with her new responsibilities for a time from community members (Schumaker, 2001, p. 59). Similarly, Juli McGruder (2002) conducted an anthropological study of families of schizophrenics in Zanzibar, from a largely Muslim population in which many still hold Swahili spirit-possession beliefs. She found that these beliefs did not stigmatize ill individuals but prescribed many acts of kindness and support that kept them connected to family and community. There is no reason to think that there is less incidence of schizophrenia in these communities, but the illness plays out differently. Ethan Watters (2010) summarized a great deal of evidence suggesting that the course and outcome of the disease there and in many other developing countries are more favorable. The course of the illness has longer periods of remission, higher levels of social functioning, and outcomes include less permanent severe impairment than is seen in industrialized nations. Of course, most modern people would find more traditional, only gradually changing ways of life far too confining. We would not want to go back even if we could. Nevertheless, the comparison of the modern Western form of life with more traditional approaches helps us to see that our modern ways contain both gains in freedom and fulfillment and heightened sources of suffering. Our suffering is increased by a paralyzing profusion of choices and a creeping isolation. In Chapter 3, we cited McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears’s (2006) very telling study of the decline of friendship. They found that between 1985 and 2004, Americans’ average social networks size had declined by one third. In 1985, the average individual reported three confidants, but in 2004, the number of people who reported not having a single confidant tripled and was the most common response. James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis (2008) found that well-being was strongly tied to the size and quality of social networks. Our individual freedom helps us in some ways but also puts us at risk of isolation and increased suffering. This is an important consequence of individualism. Therefore, we must recognize that the separation and independence this ideology so strongly recommends may not be good for us at all. Even though we have made enormous progress in advancing individual freedoms, it is simply not possible to eliminate suffering. One aspect of suffering that can render it intolerable is when we must suffer alone, without the comfort or security of others. Sometimes we self-impose this isolation because of shame or bravado. Indeed, the more pride we take in autonomy, the more likely this is. More often, we feel marginalized or excluded from the people we need because we do not think other people can understand our suffering. One poignant contemporary example is the way that many veterans find themselves doubting that anyone can understand 160       frailty, suffering, and vice

and accept the pain involved in their posttraumatic stress. In some cases, people show they do not understand through expressing prejudices. A powerful example of this occurred in the early days of the HIV epidemic, with many people reacting to the illness with disgust, horror, and ostracism. Fortunately, we have learned enough that the predominant responses are now more compassionate and caring, but exclusion is always a threat for the sufferer. Reducing Suffering Through Technology One of the primary aims of the Enlightenment was to free up human creativity and intelligence for scientific exploration. A core justification of science has always been to increase human control over our lives and environments and thereby reduce suffering. Clearly, we can take this mission too far, as we noted in Chapter 5, with efforts to perfect humans through genetic modification. Yet we have made enormous technological progress, including vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation, refrigeration, computers, and the Internet. Deaths from infectious diseases have plummeted, and life expectancy has increased. We can work and live in clean, climate-controlled spaces and communicate across the globe in seconds. This technological progress has given us control over so many problems. Thus, it seems to many as if we now live in a “technological Eden” (Rieff, 1966, p. 93). Yet, as we discussed in Chapter 4, we often use technology to abstract ourselves away from the complications of the world, whether those are physical or social. “Controlling” some complications creates new problems by making our world seem simpler than it really is. It is hard to face ordinary limitations and frailties when our only approach to suffering is to reduce or eliminate it at all costs. We may latch fervently onto the tools of advanced medicine and technology and rush ahead like teenagers who feel like we are going to live forever. But the awareness of our vulnerability lurks somewhere, leading easily to one degree or another of obsessive denial of our condition, making a fetish of what influence or control we do possess, falling into a sense of victimization and blame for the harm or misfortune that come our way, or proclaiming a sense of entitlement as a kind of magic potion that might protect us. Even if we do sense the need for some greater wisdom about coming to terms with suffering, we usually draw a blank as to what that might be. We hasten to add that a modern commitment to eradicating undue physical and emotional suffering does not usually reflect a simple hedonism or mere seeking of personal gain or safety. This commitment is interwoven with cherished ethical ideals of human rights, dignity, and equal worth of every person. These ideals call for the extension of relief from suffering to suffering     

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every individual. This genuine benevolence can inspire sacrifices for others and for future generations, give a sense of redemptive suffering, and provide the consolation of solidarity and common fate with others. Nevertheless, these worthy ideals do not provide an antidote for increasing emotional loneliness and our confusion about how to confront inescapable suffering. Our commitment to these ideals can even be undermined by such isolation and suffering. We often fail to acknowledge how much our lives are unpredictable, complex, full of surprising turns of events, and not so much under our control. Yet the drumbeat for control is constant in contemporary society. The ad for a popular new line of American cars simply shows one speeding down the highway and voices like a mantra, “True comfort is being fully in control.” Besides being a vulgar sentiment, it is wildly out of touch with reality. Maryann and Sebastian found that their sense of control over their world was illusory when Jackie was diagnosed with cancer. The life-changing lesson for them was that they were always vulnerable, and they live in a world full of vulnerable people. In contrast, politicians and commentators constantly excoriate one another for not having highly detailed visions, plans, and programs for successful, nearly error free control over economic and political affairs and military undertakings. Of course, we need to do the best we can at anticipating and preparing for opportunities and difficulties, and there is authentic purpose and satisfaction in doing so. But look back 5 years from any point in time and you will be astonished at how much has transpired that could never have been imagined, good and bad. Fantasies of excessive and impossible instrumental control over events are as likely to foster fear, cynicism, anger, and blaming as they are to enhance our control. This undermines genuine responsibility and the possibility of achieving such good outcomes as might be possible. Technological progress has helped reduce unnecessary suffering, but putting faith in technological fixes for all sources of suffering is likely to exacerbate misery in two ways. First, there are forms of pain that are unavoidable, even necessary. One of the costs of love is that we will lose the loved one at some point. The price of maturity and wisdom is a loss of innocence. The costs of ambition and aspiration include frustration and at least some degree of failure. Yet being in loving relationships, maturing, and pursuing meaningful goals are at the center of flourishing as a human being. This means that suffering is not simply an impediment to flourishing. Rather, we cannot flourish without suffering along the way. As we discussed in Chapter 3, fully recognizing our profound dependence on each other dispels the magical idea that we are invulnerable to suffering the loss of important people in our lives. This recognition can help us to come to terms with necessary suffering, but it does not erase it or protect us from 162       frailty, suffering, and vice

its pain. Tragically, putting our faith in technological fixes can induce us to seek a pill or a strategy to avoid even necessary suffering. Such escapism can seriously derail growth and maturity. Second, to the extent that we look to technology to ameliorate our suffering, we will be at a loss to find meaning in it. The reason for this is that technology is all about finding better means to reach our ends. Yet finding meaning is an end, and technology cannot help us to define our ends, only our means. Meaning making is a constitutive activity in that we cannot separate the struggle to make sense of our circumstances and our lives from the meaning that emerges through this struggle. To the extent that we succumb to the idea that technology can eliminate our suffering, we have fallen prey to the ideology of instrumentalism, with its incessant focus on improving means and inability to deliberate about worthwhile ends. The impotence of technology is also apparent when our suffering is intensified by its apparent senselessness. It is often difficult to find any meaning in the frequent suffering due to accidents, sudden illnesses, outbursts of violence, natural disasters, and other calamities. We humans are strongly inclined to seek meaning in the important events of our lives, and when the meaning of our suffering is elusive, that suffering is redoubled. One of the aspects of necessary suffering that makes it easier to bear is that it is often imbued with meaning. If we struggle to mature or grow as a person, then the pain we experience is a meaningful part of becoming a better person. The aching loss we feel when a loved one dies is meaningful because that pain is a reflection of the loved one’s importance to us. Sometimes our suffering is the result of sacrifices we make toward a greater good, such as the struggle for civil rights. One powerful example of meaning making in suffering occurs when people who have suffered from unnecessary and random violence work together and organize efforts to combat the problem, a fine example of which is Mothers Against Drunk Driving. One of us (BJF) was recently at an Annual Conference of the Melissa Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to reducing community violence. The institute is named for the daughter of Lynn and Michael Aptman, who was murdered in a carjacking. As soon as I met Michael and explained this book project, he told me the story of his daughter’s death and the prosecution of her murderer. It was and is a deeply moving story, but his unmistakable motive in telling the story was that he thought it would help us write a better book. This was a powerful example of meaning making in response to suffering. It has been over 20 years since Melissa’s untimely death, but the Aptmans continue to find meaning in their suffering through training thousands of professionals in violence prevention. Their work represents as noble a response as we can imagine to one of the most painful kinds of loss and suffering. suffering     

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Psychology, Suffering, and Control Let us bring this discussion of attempts to reduce suffering through advancing rights and technological prowess closer to home by considering attempts to reduce suffering by psychologists and allied social scientists and mental health professionals. There are hundreds of thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors who work every day to help reduce their clients’ suffering. To take psychology as an example, the single largest impetus to its growth was the founding of the Veterans Administration after World War II to care for returning veterans. As a result, the membership of the American Psychological Association grew from 4,183 members in 1945 to 30,839 in 1970 (630% growth). There are now over 122,000 members (American Psychological Association, 2015), and most of this growth has been related to psychology’s therapeutic mission. The professions of social work and counseling have seen similar growth in the United States. So the question becomes, “How much are these well-meaning professionals caught up in the individualism and instrumentalism that distort the modern response to suffering?” We cannot answer that question in great detail, but a survey of four aspects of professional therapeutic work reveals a lot about the influence of these ideologies on mental health fields. Diagnostic Approaches to Suffering The most common approach to suffering in modern times views it as a disease to be cured or a condition to be set right. Most of us share a commitment to the straightforward eradication of the physical and social conditions that cause unnecessary physical or emotional pain and suffering. We rightly rejoice in the good fortune to be alive at a time when so many remarkable life-saving and life-enhancing medical advances are available. At first glance, the idea of correctly diagnosing a problem that creates suffering seems perfectly sensible. That approach has worked well in medicine, with accurate diagnoses guiding ever more sophisticated and effective medical treatments. But Ron Miller (2004) noted that in textbooks of abnormal and clinical psychology (or psychiatry for that matter) of the last 25 years, terms such as suffering, anguish, sorrow, misery, and even emotional pain hardly ever appear. In their place has arisen the vocabulary of illnesses and disorders enshrined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (p. 26)

Miller thoroughly documented some of the ways he believes that contemporary psychiatry and psychology have gone wrong with psychological suffering. 164       frailty, suffering, and vice

He suggested that diagnoses often obscure or deny the full reality of human pain and suffering. He pointed out that the amelioration of the suffering experienced by clients has been . . . reduced to . . . a concern with eliminating what are construed as the symptoms or manifestations of mental disorders, disabilities, diseases, and dysfunctions. The client’s agony, misery, or sorrow is viewed as a mere epiphenomenon to be replaced by a description of a clinical syndrome . . . scientifically explained as the consequence of some technical design flaw in the person’s nervous system, cognitive processes, or learning environment. (Miller, 2004, p. 39)

It seems that suffering gets depersonalized in the name of control and efficiency. According to Miller (2004), this blinds us to the personal and ethical meaning of the harm or loss incurred by the one who suffers and the others in his life. Thus, Miller helped us to recall the meaning of the term pathology: “the word’s origins are the Greek words pathos (‘suffering’), and logic (‘to give an account of’)” (p. 28). Pathology is giving an account of suffering. This suggests that we need to shift away from a strict “disease or biomedical model” and recognize “the importance of the everyday conception of suffering” (Miller, 2004, p. 41). Miller noted that this kind of objectification has given rise to holistic and alternative medical therapies and to many humanistic protests against mechanistic viewpoints in psychiatry and psychology. He suggested, however, that these alternatives face an uphill battle in an era of industrialized medicine and managed care. Why such an uphill battle? As Schumaker (2001) indicated, we have adopted an individualistic outlook that decontextualizes persons from history and culture (or, as we have termed it in Chapters 3 and 4, an abstractionist approach to misery). It does this, in part, to liberate individuals from dogmatisms and domination. But it may also cast us adrift in a vast modern society where we lack any shared vision or values that can take us beyond a narrowly “instrumentalist” viewpoint that tends to drown out any serious collective attention to meaning and purpose in living (Richardson & Manglos, 2012). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy By far and away, the most common approach to relieving suffering through psychotherapy is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has many variants. These approaches probably would not have been as influential as they have been if they were not more than just therapeutic techniques. In their own way, they have joined the perennial search for wisdom concerning how to stay involved in life in a meaningful way despite its great suffering     

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uncertainty and inevitable pain, disappointment, and suffering. However, CBT theorists seem to adopt a straightforward and unqualified modern instrumentalism. As Keith Dobson and David Dozois (2009) described it, “CBTs share three fundamental propositions: (1) Cognitive activity affects behavior; (2) Cognitive activity may be monitored and altered; (3) Behavior change may be effected through cognitive change” (p. 4). Alan Kazdin (1978), a prominent psychotherapy researcher and theorist, clarified the instrumental cast of CBT: “The term ‘cognitive-behavior modification’ encompasses treatments that attempt to change overt behavior by altering thoughts, interpretations, assumptions, and strategies of responding” (p. 337). The idea is to pluck out the problematic cognitions and insert health-promoting ones. This seems eminently sensible until we recognize that CBT treats cognitions as mere means to an outcome of well-being. If you do not like your current state of well-being, just switch your thoughts! The main hindrance to successful living, in the CBT practitioner’s mind is “irrational” or mistaken beliefs that induce painful emotions and maladaptive behavior. Successful therapy severs this connection between attitude and circumstance. This is classic instrumentalism with disposable means toward subjectively preferable ends (Fowers, 2010). The theories are chock full of instrumental terms such as strategies, techniques, skills, control, regulation, and so forth. Would it not seem somewhat obscene to suggest to the Aptmans that they relieve their grief about losing Melissa by having more productive cognitions? Instead, they have transformed their suffering by striving to reduce community violence and by bringing caring and a measure of consolation to some who have endured one of the most awful kinds of life’s inescapable pain. Rational emotive behavior therapy, which is “regarded by many as the premiere example of the cognitive-behavioral approach,” suggests that “to maintain a state of emotional health, individuals must constantly monitor and challenge their basic belief systems” (Dobson & Dozois, 2009, pp. 11–12). These methods are designed to help clients “experience a minimum of emotional disturbance” (Dobson & Dozois, 2009, p. 13). It is fascinating that these theorists seem to treat a person’s basic belief systems simply as a tool to be manipulated for the sake of emotional tranquility. Similarly, “the principal goal of cognitive therapy is to replace the client’s presumed distorted appraisals of life events with more realistic and adaptive appraisals” (Dobson & Dozois, 2009, p. 14). This cognitive replacement strategy is pursued primarily for the negative goal of reducing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other unpleasant experiences. Very little is offered by way of positive outcomes from CBT theorists, practitioners, and researchers. 166       frailty, suffering, and vice

Adopting this view of things often means questioning many common cultural values that may contribute to real and unnecessary misery. Nevertheless, such an approach to healing and the good life is noticeably limited. For the most part, CBTs merely take a negative tack. They mainly recommend not premising one’s sense of self-worth on worldly success or the opinions of others. If CBT theorists are pressed, the most they will suggest is that more rational thinking will allow people to feel more pleasure and happiness, and to live more “adaptively,” without explaining what adaptive means. They say nothing about the affirmative values, purposes, meanings, or connections with others that are central to eudaimonia. In other words, these therapeutic viewpoints only acknowledge pleasure and happiness as human goods. From a eudaimonic perspective, pleasure is insufficient as the highest human good. Pleasures are entirely too varied and scattered to provide any sort of focus or direction in living. Moreover, some pleasures are quite objectionable, like those enjoyed in grandiosity or dominating others. But the biggest conundrum for these approaches may be that to minimize pain and suffering they recommend that (rather isolated) individuals somehow distance or detach themselves from the things that matter most to them without offering a clear alternative. Of course, some pleasures, advantages, and payoffs can be choiceworthy aims in living. However, eudaimonia is a far richer and more meaningful way of living than any collection of pleasures or payoffs. No doubt many cognitive therapists and their clients harbor some unspoken ideals and commitments that soften and redeem the picture of things painted by their explicit theory. But implicit values cannot make up for CBT’s damaging inability to clarify the importance of constitutive and shared goods in a flourishing life. It appears to a number of thinkers (Cushman, 1990; Doherty, 1995; Fowers, 2005; Richardson, Fowers, & Guignon, 1999; Slife, Scott, & McDonald, 2016) that contemporary psychotherapy tends to reinforce just the sort of individualism and instrumentalism that is at the source of much of the distress and suffering they seek to alleviate. Our difficulty in even conceiving of alternatives to instrumental activity and private pleasures as the main business of living can leave us trapped in a world with only ephemeral goods. We believe that a eudaimonic approach can help us to do better. Among the more important recent developments in CBT has been the introduction of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and mindfulness-based CBT (Hayes, Pistorello, & Levin, 2012; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2001). Although there are differences between these two approaches, they share a focus on mindfulness and meditation. These therapies are much less coarsely instrumental than traditional CBT. They focus suffering     

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less on simply substituting one cognition with another. Instead, they help clients to “relate” differently to their cognitions and emotions. For the sake of brevity, we can only take a closer look at ACT. The acceptance in ACT refers to accepting distress or difficult situations. Often when we suffer we tend to see our situation as unbearable. We may attempt to change it by avoiding it or directly changing the frequency or form of our thoughts about it. A key ACT insight is that, however difficult our inner experience, it will inevitably change in time. In this view, “pain is taken to be a part of life, not a foreign entity to be gotten rid of” (Hayes et al., 2012, p. 985). ACT’s core principle is to accept one’s situation and one’s reactions to it to clear the way for taking appropriate action. Commitment in ACT refers to taking such action regardless of the thoughts that accompany the difficulty. Actions should be based on one’s chosen values and be inherently rewarding for the individual. The ultimate goal of ACT is “psychological flexibility . . . defined as contacting the present moment as a conscious human being, fully and without defense . . . and persisting or changing behavior in the service of chosen values” (Hayes et al., 2012, p. 985). Plainly, ACT moves away from a purely instrumental approach to emotional pain and distress. It seems to incorporate some elements of Buddhist Vipassana meditation and other contemplative traditions in which “one attends to whatever one is experiencing—thoughts, feelings . . . bodily sensations—without selection or judgment” and cultivates a keen awareness of the impermanent nature of all experience (Rubin, 1996, p. 90). Thus, ACT may offer a partly new alternative to suffering that assists the afflicted to come to grips with their pain and respond to it in potentially transformative ways. But its potential for doing so is sharply limited by the way it remains significantly colored by modern individualism and instrumentalism. Contemplative traditions are undergirded by rather different worldviews from ACT. ACT is fully committed to the individualistic notion that values are “freely chosen” and “deeply held” (Hayes et al., 2012, p. 988), based strictly on subjective criteria. As we have argued throughout this book, humans are not independent in this way, and viewing values as strictly personal choices disregards the depth of our social nature and commitments. Moreover, this one-sided stress on personal autonomy largely guarantees that the new, appropriate actions this therapy has in mind will be limited to ones that only procure ordinary pleasures, satisfactions, or outcomes. It leaves out of the picture the sort of constitutive goods of belonging and meaning that we contend are necessary if suffering is to be put in a different light, as happened with Maryann and Sebastian. Thus, the various techniques developed by ACT practitioners do begin to look like just another set of means to the end of reducing symptoms. 168       frailty, suffering, and vice

Existential Psychotherapy Existential psychotherapy represents a radically different approach to human suffering than does CBT. It is, however, just as committed to the individual person’s power to form a response to life’s travails. This approach has its roots in the existential philosophy that emerged shortly after World War II, most notably in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre (1956). This distinctive approach to human suffering has exerted enormous influence. For many people, an approach like that of Sartre’s seems like the only alternative to dogmatic religion or nihilism and despair. It emerged as a reaction against modern humanism’s naïveté about the dark side of life. Existential philosophy champions human freedom and self-creation by rejecting some of the core precepts of modernity. First, it rebels against any form of scientific determinism that undermines human freedom. Existentialism also rejects the sort of materialism that seduces individuals into thinking they can live an endlessly comfortable life, and thereby urges us to face the reality of human suffering. Existentialism sees social conformity as demeaning, inauthentic, and a major contributor to obscuring or rationalizing injustice. This perspective views some forms of religious belief (and many universal understandings of the meaning and value of human life) as escapism or a failure of nerve.1 For existentialists, such escapism only undermines the central human project of choosing and forming a unique life despite our mortality and the indifference of the universe (Guignon & Pereboom, 1995). Rollo May and Irvin Yalom (1989) are among the most well-known existential psychotherapy theorists. They viewed this approach as the best response to human suffering in a world that does not provide unambiguous meaning or consolation. They clarified what it is to gain personal integrity and a sense of direction as opposed to hapless conformity. The keys are to (a) face the inevitability of death, (b) acknowledge that our cultural and moral values are ultimately groundless and relative, (c) accept the fact of life’s meaninglessness in an indifferent universe, and (d) accept the radical responsibility of choosing the ideals and projects that define one’s life. May and Yalom believed that these choices have vibrant meaning and authority just because we choose them. Authenticity means embracing our freedom and responsibility in this way. There is no doubt that existentialism has helped us question the determinism and conformity that undermine freedom, personal responsibility, and a more authentic life. However, many critics doubt that existentialism can help us sustain courage, vitality, and a sense of direction or purpose (Guignon Of course, there are also numerous of theistic existentialists, such as Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Levinas, Tillich, Buber, and Jaspers, who do not dismiss religious belief as escapism. 1

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& Pereboom, 1995; Richardson et al., 1999). For starters, Sartre’s (1956) philosophy provides no reason as to why we should exercise what he called our “ontological freedom” or “terrible freedom.” Why should we choose some courageous value or path in the face of meaninglessness, rather than just opt for a life of short-term hedonism, outright sadism, or drug-induced stupor? May and Yalom’s (1989) similar central idea of “commitment” for its own sake seems to treat all ethical ideals and ends in living as mere means to subjectively chosen but purely arbitrary ends. (Thus, it actually amounts to a kind of instrumentalism.) If we think of ethical commitment as just something each of us subjectively chooses, it really undercuts its benefits. If we choose a commitment, can we not unchoose it just as easily? This kind of unbounded freedom seems to enable us to opt out of marital commitments, communal obligations, and even parental responsibilities if and when we change our minds. If our choices, even the deepest and most consequential ones, are only justified by our subjective commitments, they seem extremely fragile, hardly commitments at all. Existentialism tries to deal with a stark understanding of tragedy or meaninglessness through a virtually unlimited freedom to choose one’s own ideals and purposes in living. One of the key elements of suffering is that it undermines our ability to maintain purely individual commitments. We yearn for and need some ways to share our experiences of vulnerability and suffering. This can take many forms, such as receiving emotional support from loved ones, giving others emotional support, service to others, religious faith, or commitment to projects that are much larger than we are as individuals. These everyday forms of connection clarify the misapprehension that many existentialists have of individual isolation. We are reminded of the Swedish proverb that shared suffering is halved and shared joy is doubled. Existentialism denies these sources of meaning and value, leaving each of us stranded in a brave but isolated and unsustainable freedom. In the end, existentialism either has to admit that its recommended way of life is really not worth living or tell us what makes it truly worthwhile. But the latter would mean appealing to some sort of meaning, purpose, or value that is more than just a product of subjective choice. This leaves existentialism impaled on the horns of a very difficult dilemma. Positive Psychology In contrast, the sunny positive psychology movement places an admirable emphasis on cultivating human strengths and flourishing. This movement highlights many ways to improve life and help people overcome various forms of suffering. But this unrelenting focus on the positive leaves positive psychology wrong-footed when it is confronted by serious instances of suffering. Similar to other modern approaches to human life, positive psychology has 170       frailty, suffering, and vice

difficulty coming to grips with the fact that vulnerability and suffering are part of the warp and woof of our existence. This problem arises because of the inherent one-sidedness of a “positive” psychology—its many contributions notwithstanding. It cannot be surprising that such a single-minded positive slant on life would mean that the movement would not be well-positioned to address serious and inevitable human suffering. Just to illustrate this, it is interesting that several terms do not even appear in the index of Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman’s (2004) major positive psychology treatise, Character Strengths and Virtues. Those terms are loss, hurt, misery, pain, grief, and suffering. The experiences they refer to are absent or underemphasized in the positive psychology literature generally even though they are inescapable aspects of every human life. Their absence is a clear signal of the incompleteness of positive psychology. The only real options for addressing suffering in positive psychology are to ignore it or reframe the problem in positive terms. This is fine advice for minor bouts of depression or small disappointments, but we need more when we lose loved ones, come to recognize that we have committed a serious transgression, or are coming to terms with a devastating natural disaster. We find this incompleteness especially troubling because positive psychologists rely so much on Aristotle and his concepts of virtue and eudaimonia. Aristotle, like other ancient Greeks, was acutely aware of the fragility of life and the inevitability of suffering. Eudaimonic theory has tremendous resources for responding to suffering, and we wrote this book to correct for this sad neglect in psychology and today’s society. We elaborate on these resources in the rest of this chapter. Transforming and Transformative Suffering Jonathan Sacks (2005) suggested the umbrella term transformative suffering for a family of responses to inescapable human suffering. These responses are rather different from the standard modern ones. We explore two different interpretations of this phrase, one in which we, as agents, transform suffering, and one in which suffering, as an experience, opens up avenues for selftransformation. In the first meaning, we can act to alter, reduce, or reinterpret suffering. We begin with the second meaning, wherein suffering becomes transformative. We do this because we want to emphasize that suffering can have value rather than just being an impediment to be eliminated or minimized. Transformative Suffering In a stunning essay titled “What Suffering Does,” David Brooks (2014) investigated such transformation. Brooks wrote that although people may suffering     

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think that the main goal of life is to maximize happiness, on reflection, it is often their “ordeals that seem most significant.” They feel “formed through suffering” (Brooks, 2014, p. A25). He did not suggest that suffering is inherently ennobling. It may be just painful or destructive. Nevertheless, “some people are clearly ennobled by it. . . . Often, physical or social suffering can give people an outsider’s perspective, an attuned awareness of what other outsiders are enduring” (Brooks, 2014, p. A25). According to Brooks (2014), suffering can send individuals down a very different path from one of maximizing positive experiences. Sometimes people who endure suffering are “taken beneath the routines of life” and “find they are not who they believed themselves to be” (Brooks, 2014, p. A25). He went on to explain that the pain and struggle of composing music or the grief of losing a loved one can smash through what we had thought was most basic about our personalities. We may find deeper sources of identity and commitment of which we were unaware. In this way, suffering shows us a clearer understanding of what we can and cannot control. We discover that we cannot control these deeper sources of identity and commitment. In addition, we cannot just convince ourselves to stop hurting or to cease missing our loved one. Brooks (2014) expanded on the limits of our control: “[E]ven when tranquility begins to come back, or grief eases, it is not clear where the relief comes from. The healing process, too, feels as though it is part of some natural or divine process beyond individual control” (p. A25). Individuals, he wrote, are neither masters of this situation nor helpless. We can respond and feel an obligation to respond well. We may begin to feel a “call.” The right response involves “placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by turning it into something sacred” (Brooks, 2014, p. A25). By sacred, Brooks (2014) was referring to both religious and secular sensibilities regarding deep meaning and value. For example, parents who have lost a child start foundations to serve others or to reduce the chances of similar tragedies, as the Aptmans did with the Melissa Institute. Some people “double down on vulnerability by throwing themselves more deeply and gratefully into their relationships, their work, or other commitments,” as Maryann and Sebastian did. The potential for suffering to be transformative is what Brooks called a “fearful gift.” Sacks (2005) suggested that any credible view of transforming suffering will incorporate Viktor Frankl’s (1985) idea that the meaning of life is to be found “in the world rather than within [one’s own] psyche . . . human existence is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization” (as cited in Sacks, 2005, p. 221). In Sacks’s (2005) words, “whether we are religious or irreligious, there is something we are called on to do, something no one else can do . . . not in these circumstances” (p. 219). Indeed, one of Frankl’s most significant insights was that suffering could not be eliminated. In a strange 172       frailty, suffering, and vice

way, “without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.” So, “if there is a meaning in life at all, there must be a meaning in suffering” (as cited in Sacks, 2005, p. 223). An apparently different but ultimately complementary understanding of transformative suffering emerged from a courageous attempt to come to grips with the horrific suffering of the Holocaust. Eugene Long (2007), drawing on Emmanuel Levinas (1998), described how certain “experiences of ‘ultimacy’ . . . seem to bring one up against the limits of what can be accounted for in ordinary terms and point beyond these limits to a transcendent or wider range of being” (p. 7). To illustrate, Long pointed out that much traditional theism attempts to explain suffering through so-called theodicies. A theodicy explains how suffering or “evil is useful or necessary to a greater good or . . . eventually, whether in time or eternity . . . will be overcome” (Long, 2007, p. 140). In his view, however, such theodicies “are often partners in subverting or desensitizing the reality of gratuitous suffering or unjustified evil” (Long, 2007, p. 140). Ordinary suffering and evils are inseparable from living in the world. Long argued that suffering such as that inflicted in the Holocaust is “non-integratable or non-justifiable” (Long, 2007, p. 141). This kind of pain might seem, as Long put it, to “have no purpose that can be meaningfully appropriated in human terms” and can appear to hollow out any sense of meaning or value, indicating “the absence of gods, whether secular or religious” (p. 141). However, Long (2007) suggested that in honestly confronting “useless suffering,” especially the suffering of innocent others, some people do not experience a dead end. It is a remarkable fact that some are “led to say . . . that although we would not have sought suffering we are better persons for having undergone the experience of suffering” (Long, 2007, p. 141). Apart from that, many individuals experience a “call . . . not only to condemn the suffering . . . but also . . . to a kind of giving of oneself” in the face of it (Long, 2007, p. 143). Gratuitous suffering can also evoke moral outrage as a call to action. This action can include a refusal to rationalize the suffering, a struggle to end it, or a deep desire to console the sufferers. We seem “to be summoned to a higher standard of being, to a responsiveness to the [suffering] other that [transcends] any calculated obligation” (Long, 2007, p. 143). “This summons may take a form that is mediated through our relations with others and through our particular histories and cultures. Yet none of these relations seem adequate to fully account for it” (Long, 2007, p. 143). This kind of experience deeply “links us to other beings” in a shared “sense of the precariousness of existence,” fostering a moral clarity and demanding concern and care or love for those who suffer (Long, 2007, p. 143). It may yield a solidarity with others that inspires us to reduce human suffering and summons love and compassion for other people. suffering     

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In our view, this kind of ethical deepening or sense of a “call” that may transform suffering seems to be appreciated by many, such as Sebastian, Maryann, the Aptmans, and participants in Doctors Without Borders. We may think of the summons to reduce suffering and console others in pain in religious or secular terms. Yet a great many people come to recognize human solidarity in the suffering to which all of us are vulnerable. This avenue is one of the most profound ways that we come to appreciate and express our common humanity. Transforming Suffering Through the Virtues of Compassion, Courage, and Practical Wisdom Whether our suffering is transformative or not, we often need strength to live through it. We find some of that strength within ourselves and some from the responses of caring others. We structure our discussion of transforming suffering on the basis of the simple but profound wisdom of the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.2

We, the authors, believe that this serenity, courage, and wisdom can be understood as divine gifts or as the cultivated strengths of character we have been discussing in this book (or perhaps some combination of both). The beauty of the prayer with respect to suffering is that it captures the truth that some suffering is not preventable and must be addressed compassionately, that some suffering is preventable and may call on us to act courageously to reduce it, and that it takes significant wisdom to know which is which. Compassion Empathy is a common human capacity that is based in the human mirror neuron system (e.g., Carr, Iacoboni, Dubeau, Mazziotta, & Lenzi, 2003). We smile when we see someone else smile, and we feel sad when we observe sadness in others. This simple emotional responsivity can be just a kind of emotional contagion. For many people, observing someone else’s suffering goes further than empathy to induce an accompanying desire to try to relieve the suffering, which some psychologists call compassion (Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010). This common response is heightened when the

2 This is the most common form of the Serenity Prayer, adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous. Its original written form is widely attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr.

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sufferer is vulnerable (e.g., babies, malnourished children, homeless people; Oveis, Horberg, & Keltner, 2010). Compassion is also stronger when the sufferer has less control over the problem (Rudolph, Roesch, Greitemeyer, & Wiener, 2004). Jennifer Goetz and her colleagues (2010) summarized a great deal of evidence suggesting that compassion “closely tracks suffering, responsibility, vulnerability, and other harm-related concerns and serves as an intuition that guides attitudes that seek to remedy unjustified suffering or need” (p. 366). One simple way that compassionate action reduces suffering is through soothing touch, which leads to reductions in stress-related brain activity (Coan, Schaeffer, & Davidson, 2006). It is interesting how closely these considerations mirror two of Aristotle’s (trans. 1984) three components of compassion (translated as pity, but without the connotations of condescension and superiority; Nussbaum, 1996). He suggested that compassion is a painful experience based on the beliefs that the suffering is serious and that the sufferer is not culpable. Aristotle’s third claim is that the compassionate person recognizes that he is vulnerable to the same misfortunes. We recognize that “we might expect [this suffering] to befall ourselves or some friend of ours and moreover to befall us soon” (Aristotle, trans. 1984, p. 2207). The recognition of the common vulnerability that connects the compassionate person and the sufferer is strangely missing from the psychological literature, but it is an essential feature for understanding compassion. It is a serious omission because it is difficult to really understand the experience of compassion except in the context of our common humanity. Failing to recognize that commonality is one of the clearest paths to indifference rather than compassion toward undeserved suffering. Psychologists have found that a lack of connection or identification for a sufferer makes it much more likely that we will ignore the sufferer (e.g., Toi & Batson, 1982). The natural human tendency to compassion can be refined into a character strength. The virtue of compassion, like all virtues, would be the excellent expression of our compassionate capacity. Goetz and her colleagues (2010) identified key features of a virtue of compassion, namely, that it would be particularly responsive to suffering, responsibility, and vulnerability. One way that the virtue of compassion differs from their depiction is that virtues are always expressed in action, so virtuous compassion involves acting to relieve suffering, not just thinking compassionate thoughts or feeling compassionate emotions. Perceiving the combination of suffering, low responsibility, and vulnerability in a sufferer will spontaneously motivate a virtuous person to act to relieve or at least share that pain, as appropriate. Just as with other virtues, compassion is flanked by vices of deficiency and excess. The deficiency in responsiveness would be aloofness or indifference, suffering     

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which is the lack of responsiveness to suffering. The excess of responsiveness would be overinvolvement, in which one takes excessive responsibility for someone else’s suffering. One of the ways that the natural human capacity for empathy does not lead to a compassionate response is when the other person’s suffering is quite distressing. This has two implications. First, one aspect of the virtue of compassion is developing the strength to accept and tolerate someone else’s pain. Sometimes this is easy because we love the sufferer and have a deep, spontaneous desire to help. But developing the strength to accept and tolerate suffering begins by accepting suffering as a central fact of human life. Learning to avoid excessive blaming and distancing can also help. That is, it is important for us to accept that the sufferer is a fellow human being whose pain is akin to our own. Second, there are types of suffering that are simply overwhelming, and your personal distress might be a signal that you are not prepared to help. For example, pain due to serious medical conditions requires a physician’s help, and pain resulting from serious psychological difficulties calls for a mental health expert. No one is well-suited to help with every kind of suffering. Compassion may be a matter of seeking the appropriate person to help, rather than trying to help directly. When compassion is understood as a virtue rather than simply as an emotional response, as Goetz et al. (2010) viewed it, it is apparent that compassion involves reasoning about whether and how to help relieve a sufferer’s pain. Recognizing the importance of reasoning in compassion helps us to see that compassion is not simply an irrational response to suffering (Nussbaum, 1996). Another form of compassion can be directed toward oneself. Kristin Neff (2003) defined self-compassion as having three components. The first is the capacity to recognize and accept your own suffering and to treat yourself with kindness rather than judgmentally. The second is to understand your pain as a part of normal life, which is to recognize your common humanity with others. The third is that a mindful approach balances the recognition and acceptance of your suffering without either downplaying it or over­ identifying with it. Your suffering is real, but it does not completely define you. One way to think about self-compassion is that treating yourself with kindness can help maintain your strength and energy for positive actions rather than expending your resources on defensiveness, denial, or self-blame (Terry & Leary, 2011). Courage When suffering is unavoidable or is already in progress, it calls for the virtue of compassion as a way to comfort and care for the sufferer. Yet some 176       frailty, suffering, and vice

suffering is unnecessary, and needless pain calls on us to stop or prevent it when possible. Taking action to put an end to unnecessary suffering often means confronting powerful people or entrenched interests because the harm is a side effect of those interests, which are often institutionalized. Think about corporations that increase their bottom lines by dumping toxic chemicals that poison people or destroy the environment, tyrants who maintain their power through terrorizing the population, or relationship partners who try to get their way through threats or abuse. There is significant risk in confronting powerful people, and we naturally fear the consequences. The virtue that can help us to respond appropriately to this risk and fear is courage. We discussed courage in Chapter 2 and recap the main points here. As humans, we naturally fear being harmed, but the importance of limiting suffering may trump our fears. This means that we are called upon to act courageously, which is to take risks for an important aim. We can be deficient (cowardly) if we refuse to take risks for a worthwhile end, or we can take risks excessively (rashness) if we take serious risks for relatively unimportant ends. The example we gave of Paul Rusesabagina’s courage in Chapter 2 was that he risked his life for the sake of saving other people’s lives in the Rwandan mass killings in 1994. Courage, the acceptance of risk taking for valued ends, is a vital virtue in reducing unnecessary suffering. Practical Wisdom The third crucial element of the Serenity Prayer is the wisdom to know what can and cannot be changed. In eudaimonic theory, this strength is known as practical wisdom. We discussed this key capacity in Chapters 2 and 4, so we briefly summarize the central points here. Among other abilities, practical wisdom consists of moral perception, which is the capacity to recognize what is most important about a situation. In this case, that involves recognizing suffering and whether it is possible to put a stop to it. The practicality of eliminating the suffering includes recognizing the severity and scope of the harm and weighing that against the costs of change. This balancing of a desired outcome with the costs of pursuing it helps us to understand what it would mean to act virtuously. If great suffering is occurring and there is a way to stop it, then courage is called for. If the pain is unavoidable or preventing the harm would create even more damage, then compassion would be the more appropriate virtue. This is the wisdom called for in the Serenity Prayer. We may recognize immediately what the appropriate stance is, or we may need to deliberate or consult with wise others to recognize how best to respond. Exercising practical wisdom is the way to decide how best to act to bring good and worthy things into the world in the best ways, given our circumstances. suffering     

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Conclusion Modern psychology has largely occupied itself with investigating the influences and dynamics involved in efforts to “maximize happiness” and “benefits.” This approach may inadvertently dull our awareness of the enormous amount of pain, suffering, and heartbreak in our lives. Eudaimonic theory has substantial and needed resources to improve social scientific and mental health responses to suffering. This perspective gives us an alternative to denying, despairing, or unreasonably attempting to control human suffering. Pain and loss will eventually compel us to recognize that we cannot fully escape or control suffering in our lives. Eudaimonic theory helps us to recognize that the best responses to the inevitability of suffering are to acquire the character strengths of compassion, courage, and wisdom. Rather than making us invulnerable to human misery, these virtues provide the strength and wisdom to respond humanely to our own and others’ pain. This is another way of saying what we concluded in Chapter 5. Human beings are neither gods who can eliminate pain nor beasts who can only inflict and endure pain without solace. We are creatures who not only experience pain but also have a natural capacity for compassion and solidarity in the face of suffering. In fact, the pain that each of us experiences provides opportunities for others to act compassionately and provide care. Frequent expressions of compassion and care reveal a vital alternative to our society’s self-defeating obsession with autonomy and control and represent some of the deepest and most inspiring expressions of our shared humanity.

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7 Evil and the Vicious Character

To all outward appearances, Sandra Bearden seemed like an ordinary middle-class woman who lived in Laredo, Texas. Those appearances were shattered when her neighbor saw a 12-year-old girl chained to an old washing machine in Sandra’s backyard (Kannia, 2001). The neighbor called the police, and they freed the girl, whom we will call Rosa, from the chains that were wrapped around her waist, ankles, and arms. Rosa was emaciated and had been severely beaten. Sandra met Rosa and her parents near Veracruz, Mexico, and they decided that it would be a good opportunity for Rosa to move to Laredo to become Sandra’s maid. Sandra promised Rosa the opportunity to go to school and learn English. Rosa’s parents thought this was a chance for her to have a better life. That illusion vanished as soon as Rosa arrived in Laredo. Sandra beat, starved, and pepper-sprayed Rosa inside her home for months. She was forced to work long days and was padlocked to a washing machine in the http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-008 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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backyard at night. The only reason the neighbor was able to see Rosa was that he was working on his roof and could see over the 8-foot concrete block fence around the back yard. Sandra was convicted on child abandonment, aggravated kidnapping, and multiple counts of injury to a child, and sentenced to 254 years in prison (“Girl Abused in Laredo Returns to Mexico Village,” 2001). The harsh sentence reflected the fact that Sandra had enslaved Rosa and had used physical and psychological violence to keep her disoriented and subservient for nearly a year. Sandra’s husband, Dennis, was also sentenced to prison for his failure to put a stop to the crimes. Despite the horrors that Rosa experienced, she was actually among the lucky few who escaped after a relatively short stint of modern slavery. Most people who fall into slavery spend many years, perhaps their entire lives, in forced labor or prostitution. The International Labor Organization (2015) estimated that about 21 million men, women, boys, and girls are enslaved throughout the world. Modern slavery is an umbrella term for “the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion” (U.S. Department of State, 2015, p. 7). People are enslaved for domestic, agricultural, and factory work, for prostitution, and as child soldiers. Reliable statistics are almost impossible for such a shadowy enterprise, but Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter’s (2009) conservative estimate for the number of slaves in the United States is approximately 50,000. Most of us find it hard to believe that seemingly ordinary people exploit and abuse others in the way that Sandra Bearden treated Rosa. Yet it is just this ordinariness that we have to understand. Bales and Soodalter (2009) clarified that “the simple truth is, humans keep slaves, we always have. To understand this, we must come to understand what it is in the human heart that makes slavery possible” (p. 5). In this chapter, we describe slavery as an evil that is perpetrated by people with vicious characters. We start by defining these terms carefully so that we can understand how ordinary people can come to commit evil acts. Up to now, we have described some important human weaknesses and vulnerabilities to which we are all subject (e.g., dependency, suffering). We discuss viciousness and evil in this chapter for two reasons. The first is that all of us encounter viciousness and evil, and we must have a way to understand these destructive possibilities so that we can resist them. The second is, as uncomfortable as it is, we have to recognize that almost everyone is capable of severely harming others, and we have to understand how ordinary people can become vicious. This will help us to avoid the blandishments and rationalizations of evil and help us guide children toward a virtuous rather than a vicious path. 180       frailty, suffering, and vice

We approach this chapter with some trepidation inasmuch as vice and evil are very controversial topics. We labored over and reflected on this chapter extensively, including inviting many people to read and comment on it (and we are most grateful for their input). Most social scientists and mental health workers want to eschew topics such as vice and evil altogether for fear that any discussion of them will inevitably lead to demonizing others or at least being quite judgmental. There are others who might welcome these topics, but see our (the authors’) refusal to see evil as requiring a supernatural cosmic order as a failure of courage. Then there are worries about offending victimized individuals and groups or taking sides inappropriately. There are so many ways we can have gone wrong in this chapter, and we have worked hard to avoid these pitfalls. Nevertheless, we have knowingly entered this contentious and provocative terrain. We can only hope that the shortcomings of this attempt will not detract too much from its main point: We must recognize and combat evil in our world. Defining Evil Evil is a term that is used in many ways, for many purposes. Many people shy away from the term because it is often misused, as in the all-too-common knee-jerk insistence that anyone who opposes a particular point of view is “evil.” Others dislike the connotation that evil must be related to a malignant supernatural entity or a mystical force. We do not consider evil in either of these ways in this chapter. Rather, we discuss evil in terms of specific, harmful, and readily observable actions that people undertake intentionally in this world. We are not denying the possibility of cosmically meaningful forms of evil or that there might be otherworldly elements of evil. But our focus is on tangible, real-world human actions and how they harm others in recog­nizable ways. It is challenging enough to account for the evil enacted by human beings. Recall from Chapter 2 that there are five character types: virtuous, continent, incontinent, vicious, and beastly. Our view is that this-worldly evil (hereafter simply evil) is enacted by people with vicious characters. We refer to viciousness as a form of character and evil in terms of actions. We define evil with five primary constituents. Evil actions are based on (a) the instrumental pursuit of (b) misguided ends (c) that are intolerably harmful to others and (d) intentionally undertaken (e) in a characteristic pattern of activity. Before we explore these five points, we need to further differentiate vicious character and evil actions. There are many harmful acts that are not necessarily evil. Harms that are accidental, small in scale (e.g., petty theft), one-time incidents, or uncharacteristic are not evil under this definition. evil and the vicious character     

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Self-defense, in and of itself, is not evil. Most of the actions of vicious individuals are not evil, because they are not terribly harmful. For example, a greedy person may accumulate wealth through deception or unfair business practices. Although other people are harmed to some degree by these actions, the damage is generally not intolerable. Simple embezzlement, for example, is wrong but not in itself evil. In contrast, a greedy person can acquire wealth in ways that do inflict intolerable harm. Some instances of this are business people who knowingly produce and sell toxic products that sicken or kill people and dealers of highly addictive drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine. This broad range of vicious action clarifies why we believe it is best to define evil as a matter of degree rather than as an all-or-nothing category. Roy Baumeister (1996) helpfully identified what he called “the myth of pure evil.” He called it a myth because it is rare, if pure evil exists at all. The features of the myth are the enjoyment of inflicting senseless harm on others, the pure innocence of the victims, the idea that evil is an eternal force, and the notion that evil persons are driven by uncontrollable rage. In contrast, we see vicious people on a continuum, with some engaging only in marginally evil actions and others perpetrating rampantly evil actions. The physical and sexual abuse of children may be a poignant example of evil that may fall in the middle of this continuum, if only in the sense that the perpetrators of this calamitous harm may have some other decent qualities, frequently including conflict and remorse. Standard textbooks in psychiatry until the 1980s stated that incest was extremely rare and that there was little agreement about father–daughter incest as a source of serious subsequent psychopathology (van der Kolk, 2014). Today, about 700,000 children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect each year (Finkelhor, Jones, Shattuck, & Saito, 2013). People who have been sexually abused as children have a dramatically elevated incidence of depression, confusion, self-harm, shame, and suicidal tendencies (van der Kolk, 2014). Their difficulties resemble the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Our dawning awareness of this situation illustrates how hard it can be to face the facts of vice and evil in human affairs and how important it is to better understand the deficits of character they entail. Just as virtue has to be cultivated and a virtuous character is achieved in stages, viciousness is also developed and refined over time. Some vicious individuals operate on a small scale, and other vicious actors harm millions of people. Some are more cognizant of the evil they do; others are less aware of how they are harming others. Nevertheless, anyone who is not actively rationalizing or denying the harms can see the damage, and failing to recognize evil is part of what makes it possible. This means that a person can be vicious without being evil, but as we define evil, it is always enacted by people with vicious characters. 182       frailty, suffering, and vice

We think it is helpful to differentiate evil into two types. The first is the forms of evil that are readily understandable as the extreme expression of ordinary human motives for wealth, power, and prestige. Most of us pursue these goods to some degree in our lives, although many people manage to live quite meaningful and admirable lives possessing relatively little of them. These can be worthwhile goods as long as we keep them in their proper, subordinated place with respect to constitutive goods such as friendship and justice. We become misguided if we take wealth and power as ends that are good and sufficient in themselves. In our view, Sandra Bearden’s brutality can be explained by the goal of maintaining power over Rosa, both to avoid paying her for her work and for the sake of the power itself. The key point is that these motives are understandable as based on ordinary human desires that have become excessive. The human vulnerability to overdoing our pursuit of wealth or power is a commonplace, albeit quite destructive weakness. The second type of evil is motivated by ideological ends, which Hannah Arendt (1968) called radical evil. This came to full flower in the last century with totalitarian regimes led by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. These men and their followers wreaked mass slaughter and terrorized their populations for the sake of utopian visions of a great future. Ideological evil is extraordinary in three ways: the motives transcend ordinary human motives such as greed or domination, the mobilization of large populations and governmental machinery, and the stupefying extent of the damage. Misguided Ends The first defining feature of evil we discuss is its misguided ends. Ordinary evil involves harming other people for the sake of wealth, power, prestige, or fame, which vicious people mistakenly see as the highest ends. The ends of the vicious are misguided because they annihilate the hierarchy of constitutive and instrumental goods and view instrumental goods as the only important ends. The ability to recognize that constitutive goods are the highest ends is crucial to understanding vice because vice is partly defined by this prioritization of instrumental ends. Because the vicious do not recognize or value constitutive ends, they are tragically blind to their error. Ironically, their agency is actually limited because they simply see no viable alternative to their viciousness. Therefore, the highest forms of human goods, including justice, friendship, and democracy, are devalued in evil actions. Vicious individuals and groups often use the illusion of friendship or justice as a means to their self-aggrandizement or to provide legalistic window dressing to the harms they do. The welfare of the people who are affected by evil actions is unimportant compared with the pursuit of money or status. Other people are seen mainly as instruments to be used by the vicious. evil and the vicious character     

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The second form of misguided ends is to pursue a utopian vision that is perceived as incomparably better than any alternative form of life. It is worth noting that the term utopia literally means “no place.” We might also add that this book is, in a sense, anti-utopian because we are intent on understanding humans and our communities with all of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. So we are interested in a real human world rather than the “no place” of utopian visions. In fact, we are quite skeptical of any perfectibility doctrine, whether that is genetic, psychological, or national perfectibility. As unsettling as it is, extreme idealism is a powerful path to evil. Charismatic leaders have convinced their followers, time and again, to work toward such utopian visions. These visions have taken religious form, as in the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, and secular form, as in the Nazi dream of a 1,000-year Reich and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. Such utopian visions are sufficiently compelling to some that they seem to justify any means, even mass slaughter or the wholesale subjugation of a population. The sparkling utopian future can only be attained by forcibly transforming or eliminating people, ideas, and social mores that do not conform to the vision. Utopian visions are another instance of the abstractionism we discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. The aim is to abstract a group of people from their present circumstances and arrangements and transform them into a community or nation that exists only in the minds of the leaders as a stereotype. This transformation typically involves separating the “desirables” from the “undesirables” and demonizing the undesirables. The ideologically vicious believe that they are truly pursuing the highest end for humans, but their evil consists in the fact that they will use any and all means to pursue misguided goals. Moreover, the devotion and conscientiousness that would ordinarily be admirable in pursuit of a good goal contribute to even more intense and thorough efforts to root out deviance from the grand vision. If a group is working toward what they see as the ultimate good of humanity, it is easy for them to see opponents as evil and deserving of eradication. The allure of a utopia provides a powerful justification for sickening, harmful, and oppressive actions. The Holocaust epitomizes the destructiveness of utopian visions in the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6 million Jews. The Nazis also killed approximately 5 million Russians, Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and members of other groups that they thought were unworthy. The Holocaust undoubtedly included elements of hatred and envy, but the Nazis themselves saw it as the pursuit of a utopian vision of a 1,000-year Reich populated by a pure Aryan race. This goal was clearly misguided in seeking to “purify” and “perfect” humanity. It is simply not possible for flawed and limited mortals to perfect humanity, no matter what the shape of that perfection is taken to be. Many Nazis believed the slaughter of Jews and other groups of 184       frailty, suffering, and vice

people was a regrettable but necessary means to that “perfection.” Although the Holocaust is the most horrific example of mass slaughter, there have been many others in recent history, including the killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot, the mass murder of Tutsis by the Hutu in Rwanda, and the massacre and starvation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Part of the horror of the Holocaust is that the Nazis developed an industrial approach to slaughter. There were concentration camps and work camps, but some camps were built and operated purely for extermination · Sobibór). This extermination industry had no actual (e.g., Treblinka, Belzec, economic motive. Rather, they “built factories to produce corpses” (Kohler & Saner, 1992, p. 69). The Nazi ideology was expressed most purely in the transcendent evil of destroying so many lives in such a cold, calculating way. They transcended the ordinary sources of evil found in selfishness, greed, lust for power, or even sadism. All of these recognizably human motives were evident in the Holocaust, but the true motive for the slaughter was a totalitarian ideology that commanded the overwhelming adherence of an entire people. But Can a Person’s Goals Really Be Misguided? The idea that an individual’s or group’s goals can be misguided might cut against the grain for some readers because goals are commonly seen as personal choices that are automatically acceptable or at least beyond moral judgment. This viewpoint expresses a core precept of individualism, which dictates that individuals are the sole arbiters of their own goals, as we discussed in Chapter 3. Like many social scientists, Baumeister (1996) fell into this trap in his book on evil, saying that “evil thus attaches only to the means by which these ends are pursued, not to the ends or desires themselves” (p. 102). He took this position for two reasons. The first is that he believes that individual goals are beyond critique. The second is that he believes that pursuing wealth and power is the same basic motive for everyone. This is obviously untrue. In fact, some people pursue moderate amounts of these goods primarily to make it possible to seek constitutive goods, such as friendship and social harmony, whereas other people pursue inordinate wealth or power because they believe that these ends are choiceworthy in themselves. Seeking to acquire sufficient wealth to live a good life is categorically different from seeking vast riches because one loves money. Excessive pursuit of wealth amounts to greed, and excessive pursuit of power is about domination. The acquisition or possession of moderate wealth is not indicative of greed in and of itself. Some people become wealthy through extraordinary talent or luck. The vice of greed is when money is sought for its own sake and one can never have enough. Neither greed nor domination seems like a praiseworthy or even acceptable motive to us. In contrast to Baumeister, we conclude that evil is not just a matter of using bad means to otherwise good ends. Evil is a matter of evil and the vicious character     

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using bad means to bad ends. To deny this, one has to greatly distort one’s picture of human life and sacrifice one’s common moral sense on the altar of the ideology of individualism, where subjective choices about ends cannot be challenged. It is important to understand that the evil that vicious people do is based on their clear conviction that they are pursuing the “real” ultimate ends for human beings, whether that is wealth and power or a utopian future. Recall from Chapter 2 that the vicious character is partly defined by the absence of ambivalence about pursuing desired ends. The vicious person’s conviction about doing the correct thing does not have to be conscious and articulate, but the person does have conviction. Because vicious people are convinced that these are the highest ends, they seek these ends without reservation and generally without inner conflict. That is, they feel entirely justified in these pursuits and often remark in one form or another that “everyone does it.” They do not feel guilt or remorse for any actions they undertake to advance their wealth, power, or utopian vision because they have no genuine or felt sense that there is something better than these ends. Their convictions are partly based on the fact that these ends are tangible, ordinary human goods. The vicious see them as the highest goods because they see how wealth and power make it possible for the elite to do as they wish. The more wealth and power an individual has, the less constrained she seems to be. The vicious are convinced that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, where one must choose between being weak or strong. Some vicious people see the human world as nothing more than quid pro quo exchanges. The idea is to get the best deal you can, regardless of how that affects others. These are real convictions for the vicious, not simply rationalizations. For the ideologically vicious, the vision of a perfect society is a shining possibility of human power or perfectibility. It is a transformative ideal that has enormous appeal to true believers. Both ordinary and ideological convictions make it possible to act with little or no inner conflict or remorse. Viciousness and Evil as Necessary Contrast Terms It is important to appreciate that the vicious character is an essential contrast to the virtuous character. Virtuous individuals seek what is good on the basis of a correct understanding of the human good. Because the virtuous come to love what is good, they pursue the highest human goods wholeheartedly and generally without inner conflict. Virtuous individuals pursue the best form of human life, which is constituted by goods such as justice, belonging, friendship, and social harmony. Clearly, all of these terms can be understood in many different ways, and indeed, they have been understood and pursued variously in human history. The key point is that virtuous individuals work toward justice, whereas vicious individuals deny justice, except perhaps when the appearance of being just is a useful strategy. Similarly, the virtuous 186       frailty, suffering, and vice

pursue friendship for its own sake, whereas the vicious use their relationships to enhance their wealth, power, or status. This contrast between virtue and vice is notably absent from the vast majority of positive psychology theory, research, and practice. The discussion of evil helps to clarify why this distinction is enormously important. Positive psychology’s narrow focus on eudaimonia and character strengths has been enlightening and helpful in many ways, but there are three problems with leaving evil and viciousness out of the picture (see also Fowers, 2008). First, eudaimonia and virtue can only really be clarified by strong contrast terms, including languishing, evil, and vice. Without those contrasts, our understanding of virtues and the human goods remains tepid and half-baked. One example of a half-baked understanding of virtue is the idea that it requires self-control (Baumeister & Exline, 2000; Peterson & Seligman, 2004). However, it is vital to recognize the central conceptual point, which is that virtue is concerned with wanting to act well, not about forcing oneself to do so. Self-control is the mode of continent characters and the failing of incontinent characters. The reason the virtuous want to act well is because they have come to love what is good. Virtuous scholars do not present their work honestly out of self-control but because they love the good of knowledge. Vicious scholars love money and honors and are willing to cheat without remorse for the sake of those outcomes. The second even more serious problem with neglecting evil and vice is that our theories may describe virtue in ways that make it difficult for us to clearly distinguish virtue from vice. Our theories may be so vague about the human good that we are blinded to evil when its existence should be clear to us. Third, if we cannot clearly recognize vice and evil, then we will be in a weak position to resist them. We must either resist or submit because the vicious have no qualms about pursuing their misguided ends and forcing those ends on everyone. We discuss how good people respond to vice and evil in the last section of this chapter. Instrumental Action The second constituent of evil is that it is pursued in an instrumental manner. Everything in the world, including other people, is potentially an instrument to be used in the service of the vicious person’s aggrandizement or utopian vision. Resources are to be exploited, people are to be used, laws and the justice system are to be bent toward advancing wealth, power, or utopia. For the vicious, these elements have little, if any, value in themselves because their value rests in how they can benefit the vicious person or group who has the clarity and will to use them. We focus primarily on using other people as means toward one’s ends here, but a parallel argument can be made for the evil and the vicious character     

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viciousness of destructively exploiting natural resources and social organizations for personal gain. The coercive induction into prostitution is a frightfully frequent example of this absolute instrumentalization of persons (U.S. Department of State, 2015). Cara met Max while vacationing in Greece. He was kind to her and promised her a beautiful life. She fell in love with him and decided to stay with him in Greece. He broke his promises to her and soon forced her to have sex with strangers. He threatened to kill her mother if Cara tried to stop. This shockingly simple exploitation illustrates how thoroughly Max saw Cara and his relationship with her as a means to his goal of making money through dominating and prostituting her. Intolerable Harms The third constituent of evil is that the instrumental use of other people is demonstrably and intolerably harmful to those who are used. People often have simple instrumental dealings with one another, as in the exchange of money for food or furniture, adherence to traffic rules, or going through bureaucratic procedures. Such activities are clearly instrumental in nature and a necessary and appropriate part of ordinary life. The key thing that differentiates ordinary instrumental interactions from evil actions is that ordinary instrumental exchanges are characterized by real mutual benefit, whereas an individual or group is severely harmed in evil instrumental action. We enjoy such ordinary, beneficial exchanges with grocers, physicians, and others all the time. But if the grocer knowingly sells food that is tainted by harmful chemicals to make a greater profit, or the physician prescribes a risky drug being pushed by a pharmaceutical company that provides her with money or favors, then the consumer is harmed by a transaction for the sake of someone else’s profit. As we have noted, the severity of the harm inflicted by vicious people varies, and the more severe the harm, the more clearly the action qualifies as evil. This means that there is no hard and fast dividing line between simple viciousness and evil. Although this ambiguity is unsettling, it is unavoidable. There can be no doubt, however, that unambiguous evils have been perpetrated, which we describe more fully in the following section on recognizing evil in the world. Intentionality Fourth, evil acts are intentional, not accidental, harms to other people. Although the vicious can and do attempt to justify harming others, the perpetrators know that they are harming other people. They feel justified by 188       frailty, suffering, and vice

their misguided understanding of the world and of what is good for humans. Although there are some vicious individuals who enjoy harming others, the primary motive is not usually the infliction of harm on others. The primary motives are much more commonly to gain wealth, power, or notoriety, and the vicious see harm to others as a “side effect.” Most of us would not consider harms that are side effects of beneficially intended actions as evil, such as when a patient is harmed or dies from competent and necessary surgery. Similarly, when harms are unforeseen or due to demonstrable ignorance, it would not make sense to consider them evil. Of course, intentions and ignorance are open to question, but there are unambiguous cases of consciously intentional evil actions. As we saw with Sandra and Rosa, the intolerable harm of slavery is inflicted with clear and steadfast intent. Characteristic Activity Finally, we have stipulated that evil partly comprises a characteristic pattern of activity because we think that evil is committed by people with vicious characters, and character is defined by what one ordinarily does. This characteristic activity is apparent in a person who sells addictive drugs or makes a living by enslaving people. Because they engage in these actions repeatedly, and the actions are so harmful, drug dealing and human trafficking are evil. In contrast, one-time, accidental, or uncharacteristic activities would not generally be evil even if they are seriously harmful. However, there are times when people are severely harmed by a single action, but there is a pattern of choices and actions that led up to the event. For example, a suicide bombing is evil because the bomber has to learn to believe that killing civilians is justified and has to be trained as a bomber. This pattern of activity is part of the bombing and clarifies that it was not a sudden, impulsive, or uncharacteristic act. Recognizing Evil in the World Let us take some examples of evil in the world to get a clearer understanding of what it is, how prevalent it is, and how it works. It is important to recognize that evil comes in many forms, so we will give a variety of examples. Perhaps the most unambiguous evil was the Nazis’ extermination program, which clearly satisfies our five criteria for evil: (a) a misguided (utopian) end, (b) treating victims instrumentally (as objects to be eliminated), (c) the intolerable harm of killing, (d) intentional actions, and (e) killing as a characteristic action. A second category of vicious individuals includes career criminals, people who characteristically steal, kill, or rape. Serial killers and serial rapists fall into this category as people who inflict grievous harm or death on other evil and the vicious character     

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people repeatedly. As we were writing this chapter, Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted of 18 counts of raping poor African American women (Kaplan, 2015). As a police officer, he forced women to submit to rape by threatening to arrest them. Through this blatant pattern of abusing his authority and egregiously harming women, he characterized himself as a career criminal disguised as a police officer. There is a line of contemporary thought that categorizes these individuals as sick, not vicious. There is reason to see at least some habitually violent individuals in this way. Yet it is one thing to understand the sources of their actions in terms of an illness (when that is possible), and another thing to decide how to respond. Recognizing the evil of the actions is essential because this galvanizes us to put a stop to that evil, however it came to be. When someone repeatedly harms or kills other people, we can see their viciousness in the premeditation and often meticulous planning of their actions. This illuminates a clear rational capacity that is aimed at intentional, grievous harm. Although the motives for serial murder and rape may be murky, these acts clearly fit our five criteria of evil acts: misguided end (rage expression, domination, lust, etc.), instrumental action, intolerable harm, intention, and characteristic action. Third, organized crime is another form of evil wherein syndicates work together to intimidate, steal, and control territories and industries. These groups seek wealth and power through organized, intentional, instrumental, and characteristic violence. They disregard the harm they do to others. Threats are often sufficient for their purposes, but syndicates will readily escalate to violence if necessary to attain their ends. Fourth, in recent years, public awareness of and organized resistance to the vile practice of human trafficking has increased (U.S. Department of State, 2015). The most well-known category of human trafficking is the sex trade, possibly because it is the most disturbing. In addition, public attention tends to be focused on the enslavement of females. The facts are that people are in involuntary bondage in many industries, including hospitality, agriculture, and domestic service, and that males are as likely to be trafficked as females (U.S. Department of State, 2015). Enslaving people often requires threatened and actual violence. In some cases, deception and fear induction without violence are sufficient. This is particularly true with illegal immigrants, who are promised jobs in the new country but are subsequently held in bondage largely by the induced fear of deportation by the authorities. One helpful account provides three criteria for slavery (Bales & Soodalter, 2009). First, one person has complete control over the other, including where and when they sleep, what and when they eat, even when they can use the toilet. Physical and psychological violence are usually used to maintain control. Second, slaves are required to work long and hard for little or no pay. Third, 190       frailty, suffering, and vice

enslavement is a profitable form of economic exploitation. Slavery typically begins with promises of being taken care of, of a good job, or of other opportunities. The people who are trafficked then put themselves in the hands of the traffickers. Once they are far from home and family, they are isolated and terrorized. Human traffickers make enormous profits, an estimated $150 billion in revenues per year (International Labor Organization, 2015). Yet money is not the only motive. Many slaveholders of domestic workers could easily afford to pay for the work (Bales & Soodalter, 2009). For some people, they suggest, having absolute power over another human being is a more important motive than profit. Whether the reward for slaveholding is money or power, it is a misguided goal because it places personal gain above another person’s welfare. Enslaving someone is an intolerable harm in which the slaveholder egregiously uses another person solely as an instrument for profit or domination. Keeping someone as a slave is an intentional and characteristic form of action because the slaveholder must systematically control and degrade another person day after day, year-in and year-out. Clearly, slavery meets our five criteria for evil. Fifth, nonviolent evil must be recognized. Although Baumeister (1996) was often very insightful about the psychology of evil, he made a critical error in his definition of evil. He conflated evil with violence. He did not explicitly acknowledge this conflation, but it suffuses his book. Because he did not disentangle evil and violence, he did not recognize either legitimate violence (e.g., police confronting violent criminals) or nonviolent evil (e.g., fraud and selling addictive drugs). It is essential that we recognize the forms of evil that do not involve violence, otherwise we could not see the evil in Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme or in other rapacious business practices, which can be intentionally and deeply harmful to millions of people for the sake of profits. Baumeister did not even consider the possibility of evil business practices. The following story illustrates how misguided this omission can be. As we were preparing to write this chapter, one of us (BJF) experienced a painful intrusion of viciousness into my family’s life. My father was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is an incurable cancer that is caused solely by exposure to asbestos. Upon diagnosis, he was told that he had a life expectancy of 1 year. Sadly, he did not survive the year. This course of events devastated our family, and as we watched his health and strength deteriorate, we were galled by the vicious greed that motivated the widespread sale and use of this deadly product. Let us take a look at the story of asbestos to see if its production and sale exemplifies viciousness and counts as an evil practice. When asbestos was first discovered, it seemed to have nearly miraculous properties for insulation and fireproofing. It is also a binding agent used in cement, paint, and vinyl. It is a light, fibrous mineral that can float in the air for hours and is pliable enough to evil and the vicious character     

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be woven into cloth (Bowker, 2003). Asbestos has been in use for thousands of years, but industrial-level mining began in the 19th century. Its usefulness rapidly expanded until “asbestos could be found in nearly every automobile, airplane, attic, appliance, building, bus, truck, and train in America” (Bowker, 2003, p. 87). The toxic effects of asbestos began to be documented in the first decade of the 20th century (Selikoff & Lee, 1978). By the 1930s, it was wellknown that asbestos was toxic, yet it continued to be used in vast quantities because it was so useful and extremely profitable. Do asbestos sales and promotion qualify as evil actions? We can test this against the criteria we set out. The goal of asbestos production was obviously money, as it was a multibillion dollar industry in the 1960s (Bowker, 2003). The mining, manufacturing, and installation of asbestos products have been fatal to hundreds of thousands of people. Workers and their families were exposed without protection for decades after the risks were known (Selikoff & Lee, 1978). The asbestos industry, including its medical personnel, actively suppressed information about the toxicity of their products (McCulloch & Tweedale, 2007). The industry consistently discouraged the use of protective gear for asbestos workers because it would cut into profits and raise fears about the product (Bowker, 2003). The priority of profits over worker safety is an egregiously ethically misguided aim, and workers were used instrumentally for those profits. People die from asbestos poisoning because they can no longer breathe, clearly an intolerable harm. The production and sales of asbestos products were pursued vigorously for decades, clarifying the intentional and characteristic activity of distributing asbestos products. The greed evidenced by the company officers of the asbestos industry fulfills all of the criteria for vice, and the horrible health and mortality that resulted from their actions and inactions fits our definition of a significant evil. Massive litigation resulted in the creation of compensation trust funds with over $18 billion set aside for victims of this greed-fueled poisoning. If we were to limit our understanding of evil action to violence, as Baumeister (1996) did, we would be blind to the massive evil that is done for the sake of profit, as the asbestos industry illustrates. A sixth form of evil that is not necessarily violent is the sale of addictive drugs, particularly opiates and methamphetamine. Selling these drugs is highly lucrative. Selling requires little training and few skills, making drug sales an easy path to money. The goal of selling drugs is obviously wealth, with little regard for the consequences to the user. Although drug dealers argue that they are only providing a product that other people want, they are very well aware of the harm that these substances do to people. Methamphetamine, for example, is highly addictive, making it excruciating to stop using. It induces euphoria by increasing the release of dopamine. Long-term use damages the brain, leading to depression and cognitive problems, extreme weight loss, 192       frailty, suffering, and vice

severe dental problems, and long-lasting decrements in the capacity to experience ordinary pleasure (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015). The drug users are instruments in the drug dealer’s fully intentional scheme to make money, and dealing involves a consistent pattern of activity. Therefore, the sale of addictive drugs fulfills the five criteria for evil action. One of the points that Baumeister (1996) documented well is that the people who enact evil are generally not distinctly different from most people. In many ways, they look, sound, and act like others. This is also one of the reasons to recognize that evil comes in degrees. Once we see that there are small evils as well as enormous evils, it is clear that there is no simple dividing line between those who act in evil ways and those who do not. In fact, as Baumeister argued, there are a number of ways that people can gradually become part of evil activity, and there are many ways that the vicious justify the evil they do, as we explore in the next section. How Does Evil Happen? Throughout this book, we have discussed how virtues make it possible to respond well to human limitations. Clearly, we are convinced that it is possible for most people to become virtuous. Our argument in this chapter is that virtually anyone can cultivate vices and that it is possible for ordinary people to become vicious. We explore two interwoven elements of the development of viciousness: The first is the ways in which people justify ordinary human viciousness and evil, and the second is the pathways by which ordinary people can be induced to participate in both ordinary and extraordinary evil. Viciousness Made Possible by Rationalization People with vicious characters actually believe that they are acting rightly. They are convinced that the intentional, intolerable harm that they do to others is justified by their understanding of the way the world is. We cannot list every possible rationalization for viciousness, but we provide some of the most common ways the vicious justify their actions. The most common rationalization is also the most straightforward. It is the conviction that all human activity is instrumental, including how people treat each other. We have called this the ideology of instrumentalism. It can serve to rationalize harming other people because some people believe that everyone uses one another to satisfy the actor’s needs. This belief cannot fully justify viciously harming others by itself because one can buy into instrumentalism without necessarily harming others, so, although instrumentalism opens the door, some additional rationale is needed for evil actions. evil and the vicious character     

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Another common rationalization is the view that we live in a “dogeat-dog” world. This is sometimes expressed in a perversion of the golden rule: Do unto others before they do unto you. People who rationalize in this way are convinced that everyone will exploit or harm others for their own benefit. The conviction is that this is the natural order of things. People who believe this will tell you that if you do not recognize that people are naturally predatory, it is because you are soft-headed or a natural-born victim. If you do believe that everyone can and will harm others for their own personal gain, then the only sensible course is to be the dispenser rather than the recipient of harm. Another version of this belief is the claim that the world is divided into “wolves” and “sheep.” The wolves prey on the sheep, and everyone has to decide whether to be a wolf or a sheep. It is easy to see how a person can be socialized into the dog-eat-dog view of the world. Some people are raised in families or neighborhoods where a predatory or exploitive approach to life is common. Many people have been exploited or harmed by others, leading them to think that people in general are untrustworthy. Meredith Dank and colleagues (2014) at the Urban Institute reported that over half of the pimps they surveyed said they entered that line of work through family or neighborhood exposure. They quoted one young man, who said, at age five and six and seven, I seen it because my auntie was a ho . . . I had nothing but love for my auntie. . . . Then my sister and my momma did it. It’s been in the family. My uncle and father were pimps. (Dank et al., 2014, p. 138)

Some people are regularly hurt or abused, and they come to see the world as a place that is divided between victimizers and victims. Often, the apparently cleverest or most successful people in one’s vicinity teach the dog-eat-dog mentality. Having life experiences that predispose one to adopt this conviction does not serve to justify vicious behavior, but it can help us to understand how it is possible to adopt this rationalization. If the predominant influences in someone’s life convey that the world is a dog-eat-dog affair, this is a deep misfortune. None of us choose the family, neighborhood, or historical era into which we are born and socialized, so we are all subject to influences that we do not choose. We are only responsible for what we do with what we are given. Some readers may think us naïve for suggesting that humans are not basically self-interested and inclined to exploit others whenever they can get away with it. We ask those readers to consider your everyday experiences with other people. The overwhelming majority of our interactions with one another are cooperative, often solicitous of mutual benefit. Humans tend to cooperate whenever that is feasible, which shows up in everyday activities like traffic, queuing up, economic exchange, and so forth. In experimental 194       frailty, suffering, and vice

research, the majority of participants do not cheat anonymous strangers when they have the opportunity and no consequences for cheating (Fowers, 2015b). Decades of research indicate that most humans are naturally cooperative with people they believe they can trust and that only a minority will cheat when possible (e.g., Tomasello, 2009). We conclude that we live in a cooperative world where cheating is possible, rather than a simple dog-eat-dog world where everyone should be mistrusted. A third common rationalization for harming others in intolerable ways is to think of it as “just business.” This is a variation on the dog-eat-dog theme, but this rationale for viciousness makes it possible to be selective about whom one exploits or damages. When a vicious person is conducting business, cheating or deceiving someone else is justifiable because that is how business is done. This person can act kindly and lovingly to friends and family members. Treating friends and family well helps these individuals to believe that they are actually good people who simply know better than to be honest and fair in business. A variation on the it’s just business justification is frequently used by dealers of addictive drugs, who will say that they are simply giving users and addicts what they want. They do not accept any responsibility for the addictions they encourage or help to maintain. They just recognize the demand for the drug and see themselves as catering to those desires. If one questions this conviction, dealers might say that if they did not supply the drugs, someone else would. Thus, they may see themselves as replaceable conduits for the drugs, an interestingly instrumental self-understanding. One final rationalization for vicious behavior is the generic claim that the “ends justify the means.” On this view, if the goal is sufficiently worthy, such as victory in war, a business contract, an academic degree, then the goal can justify virtually any means. From this point of view, if torturing prisoners leads to victory, then it is justified. If cheating makes it possible to get a business contract or an academic degree, then it is acceptable. Taking the ends justify the means point of view assumes an instrumental stance toward activity because the priority is on the end and means are chosen solely based on their effectiveness, not as choiceworthy actions in themselves. In the next section, we discuss the ultimate form of this rationalization, the utopian visions that have made genocide and mass slaughter seem acceptable. The Paths to Evil Actions We believe, along with Aristotle, that everyone has the potential for good and for evil action. Most of us are filled with guilt and loathing when we find ourselves harming other people. The greater the harms, the more intense the discomfort we feel. This means that for ordinary people to participate in evil and the vicious character     

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evil, they need to have the line between good and evil action sufficiently blurred so that they do not notice that they have crossed it. Just to be clear, our interest in understanding the pathways to evil in no way condones or excuses intolerable harms. Paths to Ordinary Evil Perhaps the most common path to evil action is through revenge. When people feel victimized, revenge is a common motive. Baumeister (1996) documented that when we feel victimized, we see the harm as very substantial, whereas the one harming us tends to minimize the extent of the harm. When motivated by revenge, getting back at those who have hurt us or we mistakenly think have hurt us, we are likely to attempt to hurt them worse than they hurt us. This was a significant part of the rationale for Germany to start World War II and for the Holocaust. At the time, many Germans perceived, with reason, that they had been ill-treated by the Treaty of Versailles that concluded World War I. The treaty had been forced on them by the victorious allies, wrecked their economy, reduced the size and strength of their nation, and apportioned large swaths of territory to France and the new nation of Poland. At that time, many Germans also falsely blamed the Jews for their defeat. Few historians doubt that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair, but there is no reason to believe that the Jewish people were responsible for any of Germany’s woes. These perceptions, however, were significant motives for World War II and for the Holocaust. Many Germans managed to believe that they were only retrieving land and status that were rightfully theirs. The fantasy that the Jews were responsible for their suffering provided a revenge motive for the Holocaust as well. Of course, few today see either war or genocide as justifiable by these perceptions, but this viewpoint provides some measure of understanding of how so many ordinary Germans at the time could see their actions as responses to victimization rather than as aggression. In a similar fashion, serial killers tend to see themselves as victims, and their violence as recompense for their victimization. Baumeister (1996) cited Robert Hare’s (1993) interviews of John Wayne Gacy, who tortured and murdered at least 33 people, mostly children. Gacy said, “I see myself more as a victim than a perpetrator” partly because “I was cheated out of my childhood” (p. 49). He felt so misunderstood that he did not think anyone could “understand how badly it had hurt to be John Wayne Gacy” (p. 49). Given the horrendous evil that Gacy perpetrated, these thoughts seem to be selfpitying and transparently self-justificatory. Baumeister documented similar sentiments among serial killers, rapists, and other violent criminals, illustrating that the perception of victimization is indeed a path to evil action. Here again, the revenge motive does not justify evil actions, but it can help us to understand them better. 196       frailty, suffering, and vice

A second path to evil is the maintenance of ambiguity. As long as one’s actions can be interpreted in at least two ways, it is possible to avoid interpreting them as evil. One classic case of this is soldiers or police who are trained to follow orders. When orders are given to intentionally and unnecessarily harm or kill people, seeing oneself as simply following a superior officer’s orders provides an alternative to seeing oneself as harming or killing innocent people. Indeed, soldiers and police are trained to see following orders as a moral imperative, so their dilemma can be seen as one of conflicting moral principles. Similarly, when business leaders engage in harmful practices, they often refer to their duty to produce profits for shareholders, a widely recognized fiduciary responsibility. The third path to evil is the slippery slope. Harming others often begins in small ways and escalates over time. Domestic violence, for example, generally begins with insults or a shove, and gradually escalates to hitting and beating (Gelles & Strauss, 1988). One aspect of the slippery slope is that it is possible to escalate harms a little bit at a time. The misguided thinking can go, “a push seemed justified, and so a slap is hardly worse, especially because my partner did not get the message last time.” Paths to Extraordinary Evil One of the most potent and common paths to evil is to dehumanize the people one intends to harm. Dehumanizing or even demonizing the enemy is a common practice when nations go to war. If the enemy is seen as evil, then harming or killing them is not just acceptable, it is one’s duty. When others are dehumanized, they are placed outside the circle of moral concern. One of the most vivid examples of this was the common description of Tutsis as “cockroaches” during the Rwandan mass murders (Rusesabagina & Zoellner, 2006). Seeing a group of people as cockroaches clearly removes them from the circle of humanity and moral concern. One experimental study indicated that ordinary college students punished people more severely who were characterized as being like animals than people who were characterized as humans or not characterized at all (Bandura, Underwood, & Fromson, 1975). It is striking how easily dehumanization can be evoked in the laboratory. No wonder it is so commonly and potently used to motivate harming other people. When harming or killing groups of people becomes the policy of a society or group, a sixth path to evil is created by rewriting laws in order to legalize the damage. For hundreds of years, slavery was legal in Europe, North Africa, and the Americas. It was every citizen’s duty to uphold slavery and return escaped slaves to their masters, whether or not the citizen owned or benefitted from slavery. In Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and Mao’s China, the procedures for mass slaughter of innocents and purges of the ruling party were carefully legalized to sanitize the killing and make it a duty. Show trials evil and the vicious character     

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were frequently conducted in which the defendants were, in fact, presumed guilty from start to finish and punished severely. Perhaps the ultimate path to evil is the adoption of a utopian vision that is only possible when undesirables are eliminated. By convincing people that they are working toward an incomparably better future for humanity, leaders can justify extermination as collateral damage. Utopian visions can generate extreme zealotry and they make other pathways to evil more accessible and justifiable. It actually becomes one’s moral and religious duty to harm or kill the enemies of the utopian vision. Hannah Arendt’s (1994) unflinching examination of the Holocaust provides one of the most compelling accounts of the transition to this horror. In one of her most searing comments, she described the totality of the moral collapse facilitated by that utopian vision: We have witnessed the total collapse of all established moral standards in public and private life during the thirties and forties. Without much notice all this collapsed almost overnight and then it was as though morality suddenly stood revealed . . . as a set of mores, customs, and manners which could be exchanged for another set with hardly more trouble than it would take to change the table manners of an individual or a people. (Arendt, 1994, p. 5)

The efficiency necessary to carry out “the final solution” required not only individuals to do the killing but also a vast infrastructure of railways, camps, personnel, and material organized by bureaucrats and carried out by functionaries that were never directly involved in the killing. These bureaucrats and functionaries could have served any governmental function, such as taxation, health care, or support for the arts. But in the Holocaust, they were the necessary purveyors of genocide. The ordinariness of their actions made it possible to participate in this great evil and still distance themselves from it at the same time. We return to this ordinariness when we discuss understanding evil in the following section. Genocide is an extraordinary form of evil that surpasses the ordinary evil found in misguided attempts to satisfy recognizable human desires such as greed or lust for power. Understanding both ordinary and extraordinary evil is key to enabling good people to fashion resistance to evil, the topic to which we turn next. How Can Good People Respond to Evil? Evil can be baffling and disempowering. We are even more powerless when we are unable to recognize actions as evil because those who perpetrate evil will virtually always label their actions benignly. They justify their 198       frailty, suffering, and vice

actions through rationalization, self-defense, legalization, trivialization, demonization, or by portraying the actions as means to utopian aims. Unless we are prepared to recognize and resist evil, we can only suffer it. We conclude this chapter with five recommendations for responding to evil. First, it is important to understand the good so that we are clear about what is worth pursuing and protecting. Second, we must be able to recognize the rationalizations, ideology, scapegoating, and other justifications people offer for evil. Third, we need to take responsibility for the struggle against evil because this is an enduring human problem. Fourth, we can continue to investigate evil to better understand and combat it. Finally, we need to recognize that we cannot afford to wait for a full understanding of evil to resist it. Understanding and Loving the Good We have discussed many natural human goods in this book, including friendship, justice, knowledge, and security, as well as the overall good of flourishing as human beings. People are genuinely drawn to these goods as the attachment oriented, justice-conscious, curious, and safety-seeking creatures that we are. Success in civil society, social science, and mental health promotion is dependent on explicitly discussing and understanding these goods. Yet the cultural and professional prevalence of the ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism, and abstractionism (or objectivism) obscures and undermines these goods. These ideologies promote a mistaken view of humans as autonomous schemers who can coolly survey the world as a set of objects to be manipulated for their individual purposes. It turns out that there is a great deal of evidence against this kind of individualism, so much so that it is remarkable that this ideology ever got off the ground. We humans are at least as interested in the welfare of others and our groups as we are self-interested, we are immensely cooperative, we regularly take responsibility for other people, and typically have shared views on what is valuable (S. L. Brown, Brown, & Penner, 2011; Eisenberg, 2000; Fowers, 2015b; Tomasello, 2014). The ideology of individualism has impaired our ability to recognize that we are all partly defined by our bonds with one another. We have been at pains in this book to clarify the importance of removing the blinders of individualism. Doing so can help us to recognize how much we must depend on one another to fashion a good life. As we have repeatedly tried to show, instrumentalism provides an extremely limited understanding of humans. We humans engage in a great deal of constitutive activity, in which the actions are inseparable from our goals. This constitutive activity frequently involves other people in noninstrumental ways, including friendship, cooperation, and social harmony. Instrumentalism obscures these vitally important human activities, distorts evil and the vicious character     

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our understanding of them, and undermines our commitment to them. Of course, there are many instances in which we have simple instrumental inter­ action with other people (e.g., paying a cashier for items we want to purchase), but it is a disabling error to see all of our actions as instrumental. The abstractionism promoted in the social sciences further alienates us from other people and the world, making it difficult to recognize the depth of our relationality and dependence. Of course, there is value in sometimes adopting a disengaged perspective for specific analytic purposes. But we reject the notion that abstractionism is the sole pathway to truth or a generally superior approach to understanding (cf. Fowers, 2015c; Guignon, 1993; Slife & Richardson, 2008). This rejection is vital because abstracting ourselves from our relationships, commitments, and contexts also distances us from our good. Indeed, the whole point of abstractionism has been the attempt to keep our understanding of morality and the good from “contaminating” our science and professional work. As we argued in Chapter 4, this attempt has failed and has many pernicious consequences. Foremost among the negative consequences of abstractionism is the effacing of our understanding of and commitment to what is good. In this book, we have argued that humans are profoundly dependent agents whose actions are guided by what we see as good (see Arnhart, 1998; Fowers, 2015b; MacIntyre, 1999; and Okrent, 2007, for additional arguments for this point of view). On this view, humans are naturally attracted to caring friendships, fairness, social harmony, and security. When we fail to attain these and other human goods, it is a sign that something important has gone seriously wrong and that we ought to try to correct matters. In this chapter, we have claimed that a defining feature of evil is the denial or distortion of those characteristically human goods. By the same token, the strongest way to combat evil is to recognize and love genuine human goods. An attachment to justice makes it anathema to harmfully use other people for your own benefit. When we reverently recognize our limits, we are not tempted to violently remake the world into a perfect society because that is an impossible task for flawed mortals. Instead, we can turn our attention to the immense amount of suffering and heartbreak in human life, look upon it with ever greater compassion, and seek ways that it might sometimes be transformed. Understanding and loving these natural human goods puts us in a position to repudiate the misguided ends that motivate evil. Another way that we have clarified what is good is through the structure of human goods (see Table 1.3). In this structure, we distinguished instrumental and constitutive goods as well as individual and shared goods. Recall that the highest human goods are constitutive goods, and instrumental goods are valuable only to the extent that they support constitutive ends. This means that instrumental ends such as wealth and power are worthwhile only if they 200       frailty, suffering, and vice

promote constitutive goods such as justice, knowledge, and belonging. The misguided goods of evil action are always pursued instrumentally, and a love of constitutive goods clarifies that such a mode of life is unacceptably impoverished and mean. In the structure of human goods, individual goods are always secondary to shared goods. The most choiceworthy human goods, such as friendship, justice, and belonging, can only be achieved in concert with other people. The goods that can be individually possessed, such as wealth and status, are dependent on shared goods. The misguided goods at the heart of evil action are always pursued to benefit individuals or groups at the expense of other individuals or groups. The love of shared goods makes this exploitation abhorrent. And, by the way, the highest goods are both constitutive and shared (viz. friendship, justice, and social harmony). Recognizing Rationalizations and Ideology An understanding of human goods clearly illuminates the misguided pursuit of wealth, power, and utopia. A good understanding of the many rationalizations for evil actions is also essential because people almost always seek to camouflage harmful acts with some kind of justification. Many of these rationalizations are surprisingly commonplace, such as claiming that it is a dog-eat-dog world, saying that exploitation is “just business,” or justifying harmful acts such as selling addictive drugs by claiming that “I am just giving them what they want.” Utopian visions, as justifications for extraordinary evils, can be quite alluring, but we must be able to recognize the discrepancy between the grand vision and the destructive actions that proponents claim are “necessary means to a beautiful end.” Although common justifications of evil are easy to spot, it is not always a simple matter to confront them because malicious actors have convinced themselves that they are justified in what they are doing. This conviction can make them very confident and quite persuasive. That is why good people must be forewarned and prepared to reject these justifications. When confronting evil actions, it is enormously helpful to have and use a moral vocabulary. There are many contemporary impediments to using terms such as evil and vice. In the same way that the dominant ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism, and abstractionism have impaired our ability to fully understand and appreciate human goods, these ideologies make it much harder to recognize evil. These misguided portrayals of human nature seriously undermine our ability to speak effectively in a moral language. Individualism encourages many amoral beliefs, including the ideas that everyone is ultimately selfish, that everyone is entitled to choose her own values, and that everyone is really only responsible for themselves as individuals. evil and the vicious character     

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Of course, we, the authors, are concerned with the distortions these ideologies induce. But we worry even more about how these dominant ideologies obscure evil and even make it seem natural. In other words, these viewpoints misinform us that humans are truly separate and autonomous, naturally manipulative, and that human goods and values are only subjectively chosen (i.e., unrelated to our nature). If we understand ourselves as humans in these ways, we are left without real resistance to evil. One way we are disarmed is by the belief that individual goods are beyond critical scrutiny. Recall that Baumeister (1996), who carefully studied evil, fell into this trap. Recognizing evil requires us to be able to critically evaluate our own and others’ aims. We have argued that there are better and worse goals and that the key to good lives and good communities is to seek the highest ends. If it is true that all individuals subjectively choose their own ends to benefit themselves, what is the motivation for choosing good ends instead of simple pleasures or acquisitiveness? If the ultimate human reality is that we are fundamentally separate individuals, what is there to connect us except the advantages we can extract from each other? If the business of life is to get the most out of it as individuals, why worry if our actions harm others and we can get away with it? Setting aside the ideology of individualism is vital to being able to recognize evil. If we cannot evaluate the goodness and badness of ends, we will be unable to provide the crucial service of confronting one another’s excesses. Individualism makes it more difficult to confront people who are greedy, exploitive, and power hungry because these aims are portrayed as personal choices rather than vices. The modern focus on the individual has given us some powerful and invaluable tools to combat evil, such as laws supporting human rights and dignity. But we must resist the individualistic claim that rights and dignity are solely individual matters. As we argued in Chapter 1, human rights are possible only if we work collectively to establish and maintain them. To the extent that we accept the premises of instrumentalism, our ability to recognize evil will be impaired. The most pernicious aspect of instrumentalism is the idea that there is simply no credible alternative to using other people to pursue one’s goals. In this way, the instrumentalism prevalent in the social sciences and mental health fields encourages us to see other people as mere tools to be used for our own ends. If it is our nature to use other people for our individual benefit, why not use them? Much contemporary moral philosophy and psychology generally accept something like this portrayal of human nature. Ethics is most often seen as a way to restrain this individualistic, instrumental “nature” through agreed upon rules and principles. Ethical systems that simply attempt to restrain this construal of nature will inevitably be weak and will fail to impede many people from participating in evil ends. Our ability to perceive the inappropriate adoption of an instrumental 202       frailty, suffering, and vice

stance toward others is a key to recognizing common rationalizations of evil. Instrumental activities are perfectly natural and necessary, but the claim that all human actions are instrumental renders constitutive activities invisible or at least nonsensical. Because vicious individuals characteristically and harmfully treat other people as means to their ends, the ideology of instrumentalism can actually promote viciousness. In this book, we have suggested the wisdom of rejecting abstractionism as a preferred and general approach to understanding human life. One of the important reasons for this rejection is that we must be able to evaluate actions and ends. Abstractionism takes us away from the particularities and contexts of those actions and ends that we must recognize to be able to see good and evil in the practical world in which we all live. Abstractionism was designed specifically to prevent people from evaluating what they observed. This can be a useful stance for limited ends, but evaluation is a necessary part of fashioning a good life and confronting the evil actions that can destroy human flourishing. Vicious people are delighted if others abstain from recognizing or censuring the evil actions they undertake out of concern about making judgments regarding what is and is not acceptable. Bales and Soodalter (2009) related the story of John Birbiglia, a Nassau County police detective who was put in charge of human trafficking (even though none had been identified up to that point). He attended training programs and shared what he learned with his fellow officers through a videotape he made. Just days after seeing the videotape, an officer responded to a call from a donut shop about a scantily clad, distraught Indonesian woman who was causing a disturbance. Because the officer had learned about human trafficking from Birbiglia’s videotape, he was able to recognize her plight and eventually set her free. Without having learned about trafficking, the officer may have taken her to a hospital or even back to the house where she and another woman had been enslaved by Mahender and Varsha Sabhnani (Kilgannon, 2007). That is, he was able to act properly because he did not treat this woman in an abstractionist way that would have dictated a diagnostic or stereotyping response. Taking Responsibility Through the Virtues of Courage and Integrity The third component of dealing with evil is to understand our responsibility for it. A central theme of this book has been that we humans are profoundly social creatures who depend extensively and deeply on one another and on our communities. One implication of this is that allowing evil in our midst is harmful to everyone, not just those who are victimized. The communal harms include a widespread fear of exploitation, the loss of full participation in and contribution to the community by those who are exploited evil and the vicious character     

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(e.g., drug addicts, slaves), the costs of mistrust and suspicion, the erosion of justice for us all, and demoralization or a loss of respect for our community and ourselves. All of this makes evil a communal problem, not an individual problem. Therefore, we have a shared responsibility to prevent or stop intolerable harms. Beyond these consequences, we are responsible for the shape and tenor of our communities, nations, and world. If we accept that humans are capable of making choices and that evil is an intentional, self-benefitting action that intolerably harms others, then we must take responsibility for it. Bernstein (2002) stated this in bracingly clear language: “Human beings—and human beings alone—are responsible for the evil that exists in the world and have a supreme obligation to combat it” (p. 198). Moreover, we are responsible to and for one another, and we are responsible for the legacy we leave our descendants (Jonas, 1984). A central lesson of the genocides of the 20th century is that many people have to actively participate to make mass murder possible. Many more people have to acquiesce. Evil cannot occur unless it is tolerated, and toleration is complicity. Of course, no individual can combat all evils or has the power to overcome great evils. But there are steps that even ordinary people can take in their everyday lives through the purchases they make, the people they elect, and the actions they tolerate. We have referred to the virtue of courage throughout this book. Courage is particularly important in combatting evil. You will recall that courage is the virtue that is necessary to be able to take risks for important ends. Confronting evil can be risky in many ways. Confronting an abusive individual or a repressive government can bring that abuse or repression onto oneself. Speaking out against the greed that motivates rapacious business practices can invite retaliation or censure. Of course, courage does not include taking excessive risks. Very often, we have to act collectively or through our social institutions to wisely confront vicious people. Yet failing to act in the ways that are available amounts to the deficiency of cowardice. Collectively, we have great power through calling out evil in moral terms, through the legal system, and through our economic choices. A defining feature of a eudaimonic life is that one lives an integrated, coherent, complete life that includes many human goods. From this perspective, integrity is built into eudaimonia, so it does not ordinarily get named as a distinct virtue. We think it is useful to think of integrity as a virtue in contemporary democratic societies, however, because integrity is concerned with living up to one’s beliefs and upholding important commitments. There are many vital commitments we are called upon to uphold as matters of citizenship in democratic nations. Many of the defining commitments of democratic societies, such as the value of human life, human rights, equality before the law, and justice were 204       frailty, suffering, and vice

developed to combat societal evils. As citizens of these societies, many of us enjoy unprecedented freedoms and opportunities. In our own self-interest, we must uphold the social institutions and practices necessary to human rights and justice. This is because there is no such thing as “inalienable rights,” even though we are very fond of that phrase and use it frequently. We all know that our rights can be violated at any time. This happens all over the world, every day. The only reason that we can live as if we have inalienable rights is that we do uphold the social institutions and practices necessary to those rights. When anyone’s rights are violated, it calls everyone’s rights into question. For this reason, we owe it to each other to defend those rights because only a collective defense can sustain human rights. Notice that this makes human rights a shared good because we can only have rights if we work together to maintain them. No individual can hold and defend basic human rights alone. Finally, we owe it to our posterity to maintain the social institutions and practices that make democracy and freedom possible. If we fail in our citizenship, we are not able to pass on the equality and freedoms that many of us received as a gift from our progenitors. These progenitors include those who fought against international domination and those who fought against the domestic dominations of slavery, racism, sexism, domestic violence, and homophobia. The virtue of integrity is the character strength that enables us to sustain our way of life by supporting the foundations of democracy. Integrity means taking responsibility for our freedoms and upholding them. Just as with other virtues, there is an excess and a deficiency associated with integrity. The excess is a rigid adherence to fixed principles that are unresponsive to the particular circumstances and needs of the time. There are times of crisis when it has been necessary to adjust democratic values and rights. New technologies (e.g., the Internet and smartphones) have raised vexing questions about how to interpret our rights. Some degree of flexibility is necessary for the virtue of integrity. The deficiency associated with integrity is the inability to stand by any principles or ideals under pressure. This happens when citizens succumb to political pressure, demagoguery, hopelessness, or subvert democratic ideals out of greed, power hunger, or fear. Integrity is the proper degree of adherence to one’s individual and shared commitments, particularly when there are pressures that may undermine those convictions. The physician Irving Selikoff exemplifies the courage and integrity we are describing. He recognized the association between certain lung cancers and exposure to asbestos in the 1960s. He conducted a study of hundreds of asbestos workers and found a death rate almost seven times as high as the general population for cancers of the bronchus and pleura (Selikoff, Churg, & Hammond, 1965). In contrast to a number of knowledgeable physicians who kept their knowledge about this danger secret, he publicized his findings evil and the vicious character     

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(Bowker, 2003). He was immediately set upon and vilified by the asbestos industry, who characterized him as a malicious medical fraud who made outrageous claims to garner attention (McCulloch & Tweedale, 2007). He was relentlessly attacked by a multibillion dollar industry, but Selikoff stuck to his guns and alerted the public to the dangers of asbestos. It was his pioneering and courageous efforts that eventually led to accountability and interest in safety in manufacturing and using asbestos. Understanding Vice and Evil One of the terrible lessons of the horrific evils of the 20th century is that new evils do arise, and it does not seem possible to readily anticipate or explain them. Richard Bernstein (2002) surveyed the extensive work of three philosophers who attempted to understand the Holocaust: Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt. Bernstein concluded that understanding evil is an ongoing, open-ended process because evil is not a simple, unitary phenomenon. New evils are perpetrated, and, given our technological power, can even destroy the conditions of life on earth. For example, Arendt (1965) coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to show us that people can perpetrate evil even without obvious malice or monstrosity. She came to this idea during the trial of Adolf Eichmann, who was the chief architect and executive of the logistical systems that made the Holocaust possible. Arendt was struck by Eichmann’s ordinariness. He participated in perhaps the most horrific evil in human history, but he seemed to do so as a pallid bureaucrat. Arendt found that his motives were not so much a searing anti-Semitism or a sadistic streak as motivated by wanting to do his “job” well and please his superiors. The banality of these motives suggests that quite ordinary people can be motivated to participate in horrific crimes by surprisingly mundane concerns. She found in Eichmann the exemplar of “a new type of criminal” who “commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he is doing wrong” (Arendt, 1965, as cited in Bernstein, 2002, p. 217). Indeed, the new evils introduced in the 20th century, including genocides, totalitarianism, and massive environmental destruction, require the participation of a great many ordinary managers, accountants, transportation and communications specialists, et cetera. It is shocking to recognize that one does not have to be a monster to play a role in colossal evil. Arendt’s views on the banality of evil are quite controversial, and some object that she excused Eichmann and failed to recognize him as a cold-blooded killer. In our view, she did not absolve Eichmann of guilt. Her point was not Eichmann’s innocence, but rather that he did not fit the stereotype of the enraged murderer of millions. 206       frailty, suffering, and vice

Whether Arendt (1965) was right or wrong about Eichmann, the concept of banal evil is extremely important because it helps us to recognize that evil actions are not motivated only by obviously malicious intent. The common wisdom is that evil intent is necessary, and the greater the evil, the more wicked the motives have to be (Bernstein, 2002). However, people are capable of participating in enormous evil to serve ordinary ambitions or for the sake of praise from their superiors. This banal bureaucratic participation in evil is only one possibility, of course. Clearly, there are vicious people who are motivated by hate, sadism, greed, and power hunger as well. Given the rapid advances in technology, the shrinking of the globe, and the availability of “big data,” there are plentiful opportunities for new evils to be invented and perpetrated. We must continue to pay attention to the ways that the misguided aims of the few can be achieved by intentionally harming the many. For example, the capacity for government cellular phone surveillance and journalistic “cellphone hacking” have become concerning recently. These intrusions into people’s privacy cannot be made without the willing participation of large media corporations or the connivance of newspaper editors and managers. More worrisome still is the scope of modern technology, which could be used to hack an electrical grid, lead to remotely guided weapons, unleash weapons that can kill or destroy autonomously, or allow the release of genetically modified pathogens. The possibilities for evil action continue to expand. Bernstein (2002) suggested that understanding evil is a hermeneutic activity. This means that we begin with our prejudgments about evil and critically reflect on them. Our experiences with evil provide a “test” of the adequacy of those prejudgments. We may find that we have to revise our views, as Arendt (1965) did with the concept of the banality of evil: “This process is essentially open-ended, and new experiences may require us to revise and transform our judgments in light of a better understanding” (p. 226). The key point is that understanding evil is an ongoing process. There are two key reasons why we cannot afford to relax our vigilance about evil. First, we humans have proven ourselves capable of monstrous evils, and these evils must be resisted. Second, we must be able to recognize actions as evil to be sufficiently motivated to combat them. The vicious generally do not inform us of their misguided ends or of their intention to benefit themselves at others’ expense. The vicious do not easily or willingly surrender their aims or their ill-gotten gains. Whether they are motivated by ordinary human motives or by zealotry, the vicious will wholeheartedly and vigorously pursue their self-aggrandizement or utopian visions. If we do not stop them, they will do their worst. The ongoing study of evil is therefore necessary to forewarn us and to prepare us for this struggle. evil and the vicious character     

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Imperfect Understandings Having just made an argument in favor of understanding evil, we must add a very important caveat. We do not need a complete understanding of evil to combat it. Indeed, the most incisive thinkers about evil suggest that it is likely impossible to fully comprehend evil (Arendt, 1968; Bernstein, 2002; Levinas, 1969). Levinas (1969) characterized evil as an excess that cannot be fully synthesized in any theory. Bernstein (2002) referred to the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust and the disparity between their experiences and their ability to describe and understand what happened to them. As Bernstein summarized, we cannot give up the desire to know, to understand, to comprehend the evil we confront. If we did, we would never be able to decide how to respond to its manifestations. But we must avoid the extreme of deluding ourselves that total comprehension is possible. (p. 228)

We must be willing to act with imperfect knowledge and risk making mistakes or embarrassing ourselves. We can have sufficient understanding of evil to combat it even though some evils may, at times, exceed our comprehension. Conclusion We, as humans, have the capacity to choose to seek what is good, and we have the capacity to choose to perpetrate or just accept evil. In saying this, we do not mean to make a fetish of individual choice, as does the individualistic outlook. Coming to an ever better understanding of evil and finding better ways to resist it are things we have to do together in ongoing, challenging dialogue with one another that takes both enormous courage and enormous humility. Seeking such an understanding and cultivating such resistance would no doubt lead to reordering a number of our priorities. They would enrich the pursuit of eudaimonia in our own lives and assist us in discouraging ultimately useless and pointless excesses of wealth, power, and prestige in our society. In this chapter, we have discussed many impediments to meeting this challenge. There are many psychological inducements to evil, such as our natural interest in accumulating resources, a natural inclination toward revenge when we are wronged, the difficulties with the slippery slope of seeing evil acts as ordinary, and the ambiguity of actions. We have also seen that some evil can seem to be justified by purportedly high-minded ideals. Moreover, ordinary people can participate in great evils as cogs in large social organizations. 208       frailty, suffering, and vice

As citizens of modern democratic societies, we enjoy unprecedented freedoms, rights, opportunities, and affluence. As citizens, we have the responsibility of maintaining this legacy in the present and passing it on to our descendants. We must resist the evils at home and around the world that threaten the foundations of democratic citizenship. Among the most important sources of strength for this resistance are a clear-eyed recognition of the goods to which we aspire, the evils that threaten those shared goods, and our shared responsibility. We have underscored the virtues of courage and integrity as especially important in this endeavor. There is too much at stake for ourselves and future generations to allow evil to go unchallenged.

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8 Human Frailty and the Good Life

We began this book with two straightforward, relatively obvious ideas; an ancient concept of what it means to live well; and one novel idea. We recap these four ideas and then explain how they come together in a complete life by coalescing the five domains of human frailty we have just described— dependency, complications, limits, suffering, and evil (Chapters 3–7). The first simple notion is that it is possible for human beings to live flourishing lives. We suggested that flourishing ensues when your life is entwined with genuine human goods such as friendship, justice, and social harmony. One of the attractive aspects of positive psychology is its devotion to clarifying and promoting the good life for as many people as possible. We share this interest and commitment. The second straightforward idea is that human beings have frailties and limitations, and these weaknesses appear to make it difficult to flourish. This central fact of human life has not gotten nearly the attention it deserves http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000035-009 Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations, by B. J. Fowers, F. C. Richardson, and B. D. Slife Copyright © 2017 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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in discussions of human flourishing. None of us are independent enough or strong enough to secure human goods consistently on our own. This human frailty has been almost entirely neglected in positive psychology. The limitations that are characteristic of human beings (e.g., dependency, suffering) clearly cannot be eliminated or ignored. These frailties are so obvious and pervasive that they cry out for acknowledgment and reconciliation with our understanding of the good life. We have tried to show how these limitations can be understood in a way that is not only consistent with our flourishing, but, even more, to clarify how human frailty is a necessary part of that flourishing. The third idea is the ancient concept is that we live well by living out our natural capacities fully. That is, to flourish is to live excellently as the beings that we are. According to Aristotle, eudaimonia for a human being is to live excellently as the social, reasoning beings we are. In this book, we simply accepted his views on this, but extensive argument and evidence for this Aristotelian understanding of human flourishing are available elsewhere (Arnhart, 1998; Fowers, 2015a; MacIntyre, 1999; Okrent, 2007). So, a good life will be one in which we have excellent relations with other people and have excellent reasons for living the ways in which we do. Finally, we also developed the novel idea that the virtues are specifically designed to help people to act excellently, given the particular frailties humans have. This excellence in frailty dramatically improves our prospects for flourishing. For example, if humans are deeply social creatures, then we are inescapably dependent on other people for the quality of our lives. This runs counter to the popular contemporary notion that each of us should be independent and fully responsible for our own well-being. From that point of view, dependency looks, at best, like a liability, and, at worst, like a failure to take responsibility for oneself. Throughout the book, we have argued that this individualistic interpretation of human nature is erroneous. If we understand ourselves as naturally and deeply social beings, we have to accept that dependency is inherently human. That means that flourishing as a human being means learning how to enact excellence in dependency. Our argument is that the best kind of friendship is a key form of excellent dependence. This leads directly to the conclusion that human beings do not flourish despite our limitations. Rather, we flourish by living through our limitations and frailties with excellence. Virtues can be seen as the character strengths that make it possible for us to flourish as human beings. Our novel idea is to add to that formulation that the virtues are specifically designed to help us to flourish as the particularly frail and limited beings we are. The simplest example is that we are vulnerable to being harmed, and fear is a natural and sensible response to vulnerability. The virtue of courage is the capacity to act appropriately when we are 212       frailty, suffering, and vice

at risk. Sometimes that will mean taking risks to protect important goods. Other times it will mean declining to take risks because the risks outweigh what is at stake. The important point is that the virtue of courage is what allows us to protect what is vitally important, even if it means taking risks. Protecting what is good through courage is necessary for flourishing, even when we are afraid. The other virtues have the same relationship to human frailty and the good life. We have also found that it is vital to acknowledge some ancient wisdom about limits. In our modern world, we have gained control over so much of life (e.g., air conditioning, health care) that we can forget how vulnerable we are to chance. Clearly, no one can live a perfect life, so our involvement in human goods will always be limited, and our contact with those goods will vary across time. Some of those limitations are contingencies in our lives, such as losing a friend, being terminated from one’s job, or sustaining a serious injury or illness. Larger social processes can also impair the accessibility of human goods, such as economic depression, tyranny, or war. As individuals, we have very limited control over such things. From our individual point of view, the contingencies of when and where we are born, whether we are healthy, and whether we live in a harmonious and just society are mostly matters of good or bad fortune. Of course, it is incumbent on us to do our best to fashion a good life, but we must understand that we can never exercise anything like complete control over our circumstances or ourselves. We have discussed these ideas throughout this book. Now we take a look at how they come together in a complete life. Frailties as Pathways to the Highest Goods In Chapters 3 through 7, we explored five key domains of human frailty. Because these limitations are inseparable from our humanity, any serious theory of flourishing must be able to incorporate them. Yet this integration is difficult because these domains of frailty seem, on the face of it, to be major impediments to flourishing. If we start with standard positive psychological assumptions about flourishing, such as individual autonomy, positive affect, and manifest purposes, it is not at all clear how we can accommodate inextricable human experiences of dependency, complications, limits, suffering, and evil. Yet these experiences are common in our everyday world. For the most part, scholars on flourishing ignore or downplay human frailties. Others portray the pathway to flourishing through overcoming or transcending these limitations. In contrast, we have argued that humans can flourish only by accepting and living through our limitations. We cannot go around them or fly above them. We can flourish only as the imperfect, frail beings that we human frailty and the good life     

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manifestly are. The real scope of this issue becomes fully apparently when we consider the five domains of human frailty together. Dependency It is now well established that individualism is a predominant cultural outlook in the United States and is important in North Atlantic societies in general. Individualism emphasizes individual autonomy and mastery and locates the central source of value within the individual. From this perspective, it is rather difficult to acknowledge and endorse the depth and extent of human dependency. Indeed, it is difficult to see how such dependent creatures could flourish because dependency seems to undercut autonomy and self-selected values. Dependency is often pathologized and viewed as excessive, immature, or one-sided reliance on others. Although undesirable forms of dependency certainly occur, it is unreasonable to see all dependency in such a pejorative way. In contrast, we are pointing toward appropriate, reasonable, and mutual reliance on demonstrably dependable others. Accepting appropriate dependency is necessary because reliance on family, friends, and the groups to which we belong is a central fact for us as an ultrasocial species. The research could not be clearer. People with good friendships and strong social ties fare well, and those who do not have social ties or chronically feel lonely languish. Indeed, this dependency is existential—isolation and loneliness are stronger mortality risks than smoking or obesity. It is as Aristotle (trans. 1999) said, “No one would choose to live without friends, even if he [or she] had all other goods” (p. 214). As we noted, some people prefer to discuss appropriate dependency as interdependence. This term does capture the idea that excellent dependency has important elements of mutualism and self-responsibility. We decided to stick with the stronger term dependency because it requires us to come to grips with the depth of our reliance on others, with the vulnerability of that dependence, and with the fact that that dependence is, in many ways total, not partial. It is just too easy to use the term interdependence in a facile way that belies our comprehensive social embeddedness as humans and the challenges that entails. Because our need for strong relationships is so central to eudaimonia, it is vital that we cultivate the virtues of friendship and loyalty. These virtues put us in a position to have the rich, long-lasting relationships that are at the center of a good life. Recall that we discussed three types of friendships based variously on utility, pleasure, and character. In character friendships, the friends value one another for who they are and are deeply invested in their friend’s well-being. The virtue of loyalty is a matter of giving the right degree of allegiance to one’s friends and to the groups to which one 214       frailty, suffering, and vice

belongs. Both friendship and loyalty encourage us to prioritize our bonds with others and to cherish those relationships. These virtues mean that it will be appropriate, at least at times, to prioritize our friend’s or group’s welfare above our own. The importance of dependency and the priority of relationships serve as correctives to individualism, reminding us that we have relationship interests that are as important as our self-interest and often inseparable from our self-interest. We also saw the centrality of relationships in the actual formation and maintenance of our individual identities through the perspective of relationality. This viewpoint reminds us that as humans, we come into being and live within a set of relationships that forms, guides, and sustains us. Although dependency can be seen negatively, the combination of human finitude and our intensely social nature is what makes it possible for the extraordinary achievements of our species, ranging from compassion to searching for other planets with life on them. Understanding and responding well to dependency is indispensable because the collaboration necessary for the astonishing projects and the deep connection uniquely available to human beings only happen because we are not individually self-sufficient. In fact, we severely limit our human possibilities when we strive for an excessive and illusory self-reliance. So the way to flourish as dependent beings is to embrace our need for other people, act responsibly in relation to the people in our lives, and cultivate the kind of relationships that sustain and strengthen us. In other words, the wise course is to acknowledge our dependency and cultivate relational excellence. That is what it means to flourish as a profoundly social being. Complications In modern societies, we live in an extraordinarily complicated world. It is fast-paced, multidimensional, and chock full of diversity. Although there is an undeniable richness and potential in such a complex world, it can be overwhelming, and complications seem to undermine a much-cherished efficiency of action. Many people feel overwhelmed by this complexity and fall back on some basic human capacities to simplify. These include categorizing people and events rather than responding to their uniqueness, attempting to homogenize people so they act in the ways we expect, as well as other methods of reducing complications. These efforts to simplify frequently involve abstracting individuals, events, and ideas from their context to simplify them. Abstractionism is the term for a strong reliance on abstraction for our work and our lives. Although abstractions help us to simplify, they tend to oversimplify and to emphasize similarities as a basis for abstractions. We abstract in many ways. In empirical research, we can get caught up in quantifying (abstracting phenomena into numbers) and thinking in terms of variables (abstracting individuals’ features from the person) and the relationships human frailty and the good life     

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among those variables (abstracting supposedly distinct and unique phenomena into aggregate statistical relations). People become carriers of variables. In clinical work, we can get caught up in diagnoses and treatment manuals. Therapy clients can become carriers of diagnoses and get plugged into generalized treatment regimes. One of the key roles of abstractionism in psychology is to support our discipline’s attempt at value-neutrality. As professionals, we attempt to abstract ourselves away from our value commitments. When we engage in abstracting without reflecting on the reasons for our abstractions, we fail to recontextualize the people, relationships, and the natural world, underestimating their complexity and richness such that we are able to respond only to caricatures, whether those are based on diagnoses or variables. We explored several ways to welcome a significant degree of complexity and the richness it brings into our lives. The first thing to remember is that complexity is the basis for the uniqueness of each person, group, and event. Each has features that distinguish it from others, making it possible for individuals, groups, and occurrences to be identifiable and appreciated for who or what they really are. The relational way of thinking also clarifies that these unique features show up in relationships when we contrast Maryann’s cleverness with Sebastian’s tenacity (Chapter 6) or the joy we felt at a reunion with a friend or loved one and the loss we felt when separated again. We highlighted two character strengths that can be especially helpful in being open to complexity. The first is the virtue of openness to the other, which is the capacity to welcome differences among people as a form of abundance. These differences obviously occur in intercultural contact, but they are also vitally important in our closest interpersonal relationships. Human diversity can enhance our experience and our possibilities. Openness to the other is a character strength because we have to cultivate it. We have to reshape the ethnocentrism that is natural to humans so that we can appreciate the value of other ways of thinking, feeling, and living. Of course, differences are not just cultural matters or questions that arise between other social groupings. Differences also arise within cultural groups and within close personal relationships as well. When we can open ourselves to other people’s experience and viewpoints, we can learn from them and discover new ways to see and interact with them and with the world. To welcome complexity into our lives, we need some way to organize and prioritize our experience and action. Otherwise, complexity will just be noise. The second strength that helps us with complexity is practical wisdom because it helps us to sort out what is most important in the many particulars and specifics of each situation. Practical wisdom helps us to identify the important issues and opportunities in particular circumstances and to shift our attention and responses away from peripheral and trivial concerns. Practical wisdom is an inherently relational capacity because it focuses our 216       frailty, suffering, and vice

attention on the specific context in which we find ourselves. Practical wisdom is the capacity to relate to the particulars of our situation to pursue the goods that are accessible in that context. This prioritization and focused attention allow us to deal fruitfully with complexity. For example, when a child misbehaves, one kind of abstractionist response would be to apply a general theory of reinforcement principles to alter the misbehavior, such as ignoring the misbehavior or putting the child in time out. An adult using practical wisdom would reflect on the situation to see what the misbehavior signifies. On reflection, the adult might recognize that this child has been showing signs of feeling neglected and unimportant, and the misbehavior could be seen as a bid for attention and care. By responding primarily to this child’s need in this context at this time, a clearly relational approach, the adult can address the child’s difficulties directly and help to resolve them. In contrast, ignoring the misbehavior or imposing a time out could exacerbate the child’s distress. Human Limits We are encouraged in many ways, in our consumerist and striving society, to seek to overcome limits through acquisitions, wealth, longer life, greater security, and so forth. We also tend to place such great hope in progress that it is easy to believe that we can have limitless development as individuals and as a society. In this context, all limitations seem to be impediments that should be overcome. In Chapter 5, we discussed the looming question of genetic perfectibility as an extreme form of limit-busting. This extravagant effort toward transcending ordinary human limitations helps us to recognize that we need a wisdom of limits. Without wisdom in this area, people may be tempted to indulge their ambition to such an extent that they will genetically modify their bodies or their children’s bodies to fulfill excessive desires for prestige or success. This helps us to see that some limits must be respected. We followed Michael Sandel (2007) in recognizing the importance of respecting what is given to us in life (e.g., children, talent). Of course, it is also worthwhile to make what we can make of what is given to us, but these efforts should be built on a clear appreciation of the giftedness of life. The virtues of reverence and generosity are central to this wisdom of limits. Reverence is the capacity to recognize our proper place, as human beings, in relation to other people, our communities, and the world (Woodruff, 2001). It helps us to see what is larger than us and what is or should be beyond our control. Our lives are full of surprises, unexpected twists and turns in the road, unexpected blessings and completely unanticipated seemingly insurmountable roadblocks. Of course, we must plan ahead and take full responsibility for all that we can. But we also need to acquire a greater “wisdom of limits.” human frailty and the good life     

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It is vital for us to learn to wisely appreciate how much is simply beyond our control and stop looking for someone to blame (including ourselves) and only redoubling our efforts to control our future. Unexpected and uncontrollable turns of events often provide opportunities for growth and strengthening our character. Such growth is rewarding in itself and brings us closer to others in surprising ways, even in misfortune. This wisdom of limits can also foster tranquility through a measure of humility and acceptance. When reverent persons encounter something greater than themselves, they experience awe. Awe is a clear and powerful recognition of one’s smallness in the face of what is beyond us, whether that is God, the cosmos, nature, or death. It reminds us of our humanity and that we are all limited. Expressing reverence is seeing that we have no basis for acting like gods and knowing that it is unacceptable to act like predatory beasts. In either case, we lose our humanity. Reverence is a central virtue for being a worthy member of a community, and membership in communities is one of the defining features of what it is to be human. We did not evolve to be the strongest, fastest, or fiercest animals on the planet. We evolved to be the most communal creatures on earth, the ultrasocial animal (Fowers, 2015b; Tomasello, 2014). The virtue of reverence, then, is central to fulfilling our communal nature, which is crucial to flourishing as a human being. Human fallibility makes generosity similarly essential to living well. All of us need assistance and recognition from each other, at least at times. Because we are limited, none of us can live a good life without help from other people. This means that there are many opportunities in our lives for both giving to other people and receiving from them. Indeed, circumstances that call for giving or receiving help, acknowledgment, and support occur on a daily basis for most of us. These situations call for generosity, and cultivating the ability to give and receive gladly can enrich our relationships and our lives. We also need forgiveness for the ways we disappoint and hurt each other in spite of our best efforts. When forgiveness is properly enacted, it removes a burden from both the forgiven and the forgiver. Forgiveness is a central form of generosity for limited, mutually dependent creatures. Suffering There is a frequently voiced belief, particularly in positive psychology circles, that positive experiences and emotions are the core features of flourishing. If so, then the minimization, or even elimination, of suffering seems necessary. The modern Western projects of the reduction of suffering (Taylor, 1989) and the promotion of personal happiness suggest that pain is to be eliminated or at least minimized. In contemporary Western societies, the primary avenues for this are enhancing human freedom and technical control 218       frailty, suffering, and vice

over the sources of suffering. We pointed out how the mental health professions and social sciences are committed to these culturally valued projects, and we are often incapable of recognizing or moderating their adherence to these imperatives. Although we can celebrate much historical success in reducing misery for many people in Western societies, the sources of suffering can never be entirely eliminated. Although it is eminently desirable to reduce these sources of suffering, we must recognize that a world completely devoid of them is beyond our capacity. We have no reason to believe that we can eliminate misfortune, disease, poverty, oppression, or war. The obsessive attempt to eliminate suffering can actually redouble it by causing us to overlook others’ suffering, to unproductively blame ourselves or others for the misery that does exist, or to hide the pain we experience out of shame. If our only move is to control or eliminate suffering, we will have no resources for finding meaning in that pain or recognizing how we can be transformed by suffering. We concluded that suffering is unavoidable for human beings, given our imperfections, our physical and psychological frailty, and the natural constraints we face. Yet we also argued that suffering plays an essential and generally unrecognized role in a flourishing life. The key point is that inescapable experiences of pain can call forth humane responses that can actually bring out the best in us. Deep compassion and awesome courage can be evoked by our personal suffering or by recognizing the misery that other people are experiencing. The first step in cultivating our best selves with regard to suffering is this recognition that some forms of pain are unavoidable, perhaps even necessary. When we love someone, we must know that we will lose the loved one at some point. The cost of maturity and wisdom is the forfeiture of innocence. If we are ambitious and aspire to great achievement, we will inevitably be frustrated and experience at least some degree of failure. Yet choosing to avoid loving relationships, maturation, or pursuing meaningful goals would diminish our humanity and bar us from flourishing as human beings. In this way, we can see that suffering is not just an impediment to flourishing. Rather, we can only flourish through accepting the suffering that is an unavoidable component of a rich, complete life that is lived with excellence. We identified four key resources in eudaimonic theory for responding with excellence to suffering. The first is the capacity to learn and grow from adversity. This begins with an acceptance of our vulnerability and the limits of our control. We may only really attain this acceptance through experiencing intractable suffering. But this vulnerability and limited power is a common feature of our humanity and it prompts us to fully grasp the human solidarity that is necessary for living well. Our common humanity includes seeing that we share a precarious, vulnerable existence. Second, our common vulnerability makes it possible to recognize a deep human solidarity that opens us up human frailty and the good life     

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to compassion for the suffering of other people. In the face of unavoidable ills, the best we can do is to bear them well, and a key to anyone’s ability to bear suffering well is the compassion that other people provide. Third, there are many sources of suffering that are avoidable or at least possible to diminish. Working to reduce the effects of these sources of misery requires courage because doing so frequently involves risking confrontation with vested and powerful interests or with dangerous conditions. Finally, we cited the deep value of practical wisdom, the capacity to recognize what is most important, what is possible, and to decide how to act for the best in the given circumstances. Because human life is complex and cannot be reduced to simple formulas, we must cultivate the wisdom to identify the best pathways to flourishing. These pathways are seldom a matter of simply avoiding suffering. This is because some of the deepest meaning and most profound growth we experience emerge from experiences of loss, disappointment, and tragedy. These experiences sometimes require us to act courageously to change our circumstances and frequently include finding the proper way to engage that suffering with compassion. At other times, the wisdom of limits requires that we accept an unchangeable source of pain, such as the death of those we love and admire. Human Evil As positive psychologists have pointed out for some time, there are two predominant narratives about human beings in psychology. One focuses on pathology and error-proneness. The second focuses on strengths and flourishing. The first narrative tends to reduce vice and evil to sickness, and the second tends simply to ignore vice and evil. It seems undeniable, however, that vice and evil are important elements of the human world. We cited many historical and current examples, including genocide, human trafficking, drug dealing, rapacious business practices, organized crime, and serial killers. As painful as it is to confront the human capacity to inflict intolerable harm on other people intentionally and characteristically, we must recognize this possibility or live with an extremely dangerous naiveté. There are two important reasons why we must be able to account for vice and evil in our understanding of how to live the best human life. First, a real understanding of virtue and goodness requires the strong contrasts of vice and evil. As we noted in Chapters 2 and 7, if we do not contrast virtue with vice, we will have a tepid and ill-defined concept of virtue. For example, frequently cited “virtues” such as grit, resiliency, and determination are just as easily put to use for bad ends (exploitation and domination) as for good ends (justice and equality). The concept of vice makes it clear that we have to be more circumspect in defining virtues. Second, and more important, we need to understand the dark side of human capacity in order to prevent 220       frailty, suffering, and vice

and combat it. To the extent that we remain blind to vice and evil, we will be victimized by those willing to inflict harm on others for their own gain. Turning a blind eye to contemporary slavery, for example, is a passive way to allow it to continue without resistance. Just as most people can cultivate virtue and bring goodness into the world, most people are capable of becoming vicious and committing evil actions. We must recognize the justifications that make vicious character and evil deeds possible to recognize when others rationalize evil acts (e.g., “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” “it’s just business,” “these victims are less than human”). We also need to be sufficiently self-aware to recognize when we find ourselves slipping into such rationalizations. This knowledge will help us to teach others to recognize and resist evil as well. When evil has a free hand in a community or society, it threatens everyone’s flourishing. This is because to flourish is to have access to core human goods such as justice and social harmony, which are systematically and corrosively undermined by evil actions. A Complete Life We touched on the concept of a complete life in Chapter 1. Now that we have discussed virtue, flourishing, and human frailties more fully, we want to expand our account of a complete life. The central idea is that the best kind of life has to be one that is integrated and forms a coherent whole. Most of us would not see a good life as one in which a person lives in a fragmented way or lacks a clear identity or lurches from one episode to another without any meaningful connection between those events. The concept of a complete life means that your life comes together well as a whole and that there is a coherence and sense that ties it all together. The good life is defined by being a complete life. That is, eudaimonia is the human good because it is not an end in relation to one or a few specific activities. Rather, it encompasses all the activities in one’s life. It is this overarching end that makes it possible to live coherently and rationally because eudaimonia helps to prioritize our choices of other ends and the activities that attend them. We must understand that eudaimonia is not a good that is somehow above and beyond other goods. Rather, it is the proper configuration of those goods in our lives, and this felicitous arrangement is a complete life. The Function Argument We followed Aristotle’s (trans. 1999) function argument in defining eudaimonia as the excellent and most complete expression of the natural human frailty and the good life     

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characteristics of human beings. Thus, the good life is a matter of living well, given our human characteristics, capacities, and frailties. Because we are reasoning, social creatures, the good life has to involve the full realization of those natural features, even though that is often complicated by our limitations. Of course, the hard part is to establish what is actually natural for human beings. Yet we can sketch its broad outlines here, even though a full discussion is beyond the scope of this book. Surely, it is clear that any account of the good life for humans has to involve our deeply and intricately social qualities and our subtle reasoning capacities. We hope we have convincingly argued that exercising these capacities is an inherently ethical (or spiritual) form of activity as opposed to a merely instrumental affair. The immanence of ethics in human activity is illuminated by our deep dependence on one another, the ubiquity of the most delicate cooperation, and the courage and compassion necessary for coming to terms with our profound limits and frequent suffering. This is why so many of our most meaningful and rewarding experiences come from love, loyalty, and shared mourning or rejoicing rather than from gaining power, hedonistic satisfaction, or sheer autonomy. Aristotle’s (trans. 1999) function argument emphasizes the close, natural connection between our social and reasoning nature and the good life. He famously highlighted our social nature by saying that “man is by nature a social and political being” (Aristotle, trans. 1996, p. 15). His perspective emphasizes friendship, justice, and good governance. Aristotle saw these goods as vital because living well is so thoroughly dependent on the people with whom we share our lives. Our social nature involves more than good relationships, however. Simply having congenial relations with others would be insufficient without deeper connections to other people. To live well, we must experience real friendship and genuine belonging. It is crucial to human flourishing that we have a secure place with other people. Without other people who love and care for us, we cannot hope to successfully grapple with the inevitable challenges and misfortunes of life. Aristotle (trans. 1999) went so far as to say that “to be eudaimon (a flourishing person), a man [sic] needs morally good friends” (p. 267). We can also see the importance of belonging for Aristotle because he viewed the Nicomachean Ethics as an introductory text to the Politics, where he makes a case for the political arrangements he thought would best promote human flourishing. In the Politics, he emphasizes the centrality of belonging by commenting that “it is not good that each one of the citizens should consider himself to be his own: all should believe themselves to belong to the city—for each one is a part of the city” (Aristotle, trans. 1996, p. 195). As we showed in Chapter 3, there is abundant current evidence that social connection and belonging are necessary for human flourishing. Isolated individuals languish 222       frailty, suffering, and vice

psychologically and are at much higher risk of psychological distress, physical illness, and mortality than are people with social connections. Another element of our social nature is that some of the most important human goods can only be pursued and possessed with other people. Many goods can be sought and attained by relatively independent individual actions, such as wealth, possessions, and some pleasures. Shared goods, in contrast, are always and only pursued and achieved in concert with others. Some examples show just how central shared goods are to our well-being: Friendship, democracy, and justice are shared goods. No one can attain these goods independently. When we do achieve them, everyone involved shares in them equally. Shared goods are commonly seen as some of the most important human goods because we are such thoroughly social beings. In his discussion of humans as reasoning beings, Aristotle (trans. 1999) asserted that “a life guided by intelligence is the best and most pleasant for man, inasmuch as intelligence, above all else, is man” (p. 291). Therefore, eudaimonia will be fashioned through excellent reasoning as in practical wisdom or good judgment, scientific knowledge, and self-reflection. A good way to think about human reasoning is to see it as the importance of and capacity for having good reasons for what you do and the ability to reason about how to live. It is vital to us to believe that our actions are justified (cf. Henriques, 2008). Simply acting on impulse or randomly would be to deny a central part of our humanity. This means that a good human life requires us to work out good reasons for acting in the ways that we do. A concrete way to talk about our reasons for acting one way rather than another is by describing the goals we have. When we have good reasons for acting and living in a particular way, we consider that way of being purposeful and meaningful. Thus, meaning is a central good for humans because we are rational beings. Of course, sociality and reasoning are rather broad depictions of what makes us human that must be much more thoroughly specified. We did some of this specification with dependency in Chapter 3, but the exploration and careful mapping of the domains of human sociality and reasoning has only just begun (cf. Fowers, 2015b). Pleasure and the Good Life Pleasure is a central good that plays an important but nuanced role in the complete life. Some ethicists claim that pleasure is the only good, which is a form of ethical monism known as hedonism. Eudaimonic theory is ethically pluralistic because it espouses many goods, including pleasure. From a eudaimonic perspective, pleasure is not the highest good, but it is one of the goods that constitute eudaimonia. Pleasure is an integral part of so many human activities, from eating and sex to friendship and intellectual human frailty and the good life     

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puzzle solving. Aristotle (trans. 1999) saw pleasure as “completing” activity. By completion, he meant that pleasure is superimposed on activities that are carried out well. That is, pleasure is not distinct from the activity; it arises through the activity. In addition, the higher the quality of one’s performance of an action, the more pleasant it is. Thus, excellence enhances pleasure in an activity, and if an individual’s activities are clear expressions of human excellence, these activities will be pleasant to the individual. This suggests that a formulation of the good life that does not include pleasure would be seriously deficient. Because eudaimonia is the fullest expression of human excellence, it follows that eudaimonia also provides the greatest human pleasure. Aristotle (trans. 1999) claimed that “eudaimonia is at once the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing, and these qualities are not separate” (p. 21). Pleasure is inseparable from excellence because virtues are human excellences and acting in the best way is pleasurable. So far, so good. If pleasure is a good, are all pleasures good? This question guides us to recognize that some pleasures are not good. This is because pleasures are only good if they accompany good actions. People find pleasure in many and various activities. If someone is taking pleasure in acting badly, that pleasure obviously cannot be morally good. Some find pleasure in treating others kindly, whereas others find pleasure in exploiting or dominating other people. This means that pleasure, in and of itself, is not a reliable guide to acting well. The recognition that pleasure can accompany good or bad actions leads us to recognize that one of the key elements of the good life is to become the kind of person who finds pleasure in the right things. As we have discussed, the best life is one made up of genuine human goods. The way to take pleasure in the right things is to learn to love what is truly good for us. We gladly pursue what we love, whether that is riches, status, knowledge, or justice. By coming to love the highest goods for human beings, we can experience pleasure in pursuing them. Indeed, one of the clearest set of indicators of the quality of our character is what gives us pleasure and what gives us pain. For example, if fairness in your relationships is important to you, you will gladly endeavor to treat the people in your life justly. It will be pleasant to you when you achieve relational fairness together with others. It will pain you when unfairness results, even if it was unintended. Fortunately for us, we are naturally drawn toward human goods such as friendship, knowledge, and social harmony. The goal is to enhance that natural affinity by learning to love those goods, which will motivate us to consistently pursue them. Such a wholehearted pursuit of goods imbues us with the purpose and intensity that are lacking when our pursuits are halfhearted. This is a much abbreviated description of the important topic of 224       frailty, suffering, and vice

habituation. More extensive discussions are available elsewhere (Broadie, 1991; Burnyeat, 1980; Fowers, 2005; Kosman, 1980). Choice and Diversity in the Good Life Some commentators (Kashdan, Biswas-Diener, & King, 2008; Nagel, 1986) worry that eudaimonic theory is overly prescriptive about the good life. This is a misunderstanding because eudaimonia means that an individual has conducted his life in such a way that a broad range of human goods are consistently evident. As we have clarified throughout this book, however, there are a great many human goods, including friendship, belonging, knowledge, social order, justice, pleasure, and many others. There is no particular arrangement of these goods to which everyone is expected to conform, meaning that there is no single correct form for a eudaimonic life. Individuals have differing talents, opportunities, and circumstances that shape what a eudaimonic life is for each person. Obviously, no one can pursue all human goods with the kind of focus and persistence necessary for making a good central in one’s life. The breadth of the human good means that individuals shape their lives emphasizing the goods that best match their preferences, abilities, and context. Some individuals and groups focus more on one set of goods and others are interested primarily in a different set of goods. For example, in their devotion to music, musicians are especially focused on aesthetics, whereas community activists tend to emphasize the good of justice to a greater extent in their day-to-day activities. To live a good life, both of them would have some friendship and family ties, but one of them might spend most of their social time with coworkers, whereas the other one may socialize primarily with friends who do not have the same occupational interests. The point is that both the musician and our community activist can live eudaimonically without having to focus on the same combination of goods. Clearly, eudaimonic theory is a very broad and pluralistic view of what is good for humans, with great variety in worthwhile ends. This diversity makes it obvious that there are many ways to have a flourishing life rather than one way. Another way to recognize that eudaimonic theory embraces a wide variety of ways to flourish is to notice that people pursue the same characteristic human good in varying ways. For example, some people pursue the good of belonging by having a large group of friends, others do so through group or volunteer activities, still others find belonging in religious congregations, or in spending their free time with family members. There is no single, correct way to belong. There are obviously many ways to belong, and people form the attachments that are most fitting for them. We can see that the good life has endless variety because any characteristic human good can be realized in many different ways. human frailty and the good life     

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The pursuit of knowledge provides another example. One person could seek knowledge through scientific activities, another individual might study literature, and still another person attains greater knowledge through traveling and observing the various ways that human beings live. All of the other human goods described by eudaimonic theory have the same degree of variety. There are many different ways to pursue justice, aesthetic beauty, or social harmony. In addition, we hope we have made it clear that we have no reason to think that the eudaimonic viewpoint we have presented in this book will be the last word on human frailty, virtue, or flourishing. Human goods simply cannot be given a final, definitive formulation because these goods are ideals that are formulated within cultural and historical communities and reshaped through ongoing conversation and reinterpretation. Aristotle (trans. 1999) helpfully clarified that there are no fixed data in matters concerning action and questions of what is beneficial . . . since these do not come under the head of any art which can be transmitted by precept, but the agent must consider on each different occasion what the situation demands. (p. 35)

The historical and cultural character of goods means that they will always be open-ended rather than prescriptive and final. This goes back to human nature as well. Humans are reasoning, self-interpreting creatures, which means that the human good must be open-ended. Human beings partly define what is good in what we find reasons to value (Hursthouse, 1999), and what we find valuable changes over time. Therefore, a final, definitive version of the human good is actually contrary to our nature. As a knowledge-seeking, self-interpreting species, we are partly constituted by our ongoing interpretations of what is good for us. That is, the human good is open-ended.1 Goods and Goals This is a good point at which to revisit what it means to pursue human goods. Goods are complex aims that are beyond our capacity to ever entirely accomplish or complete. For example, we can seek the good of knowledge, 1 Although our concept of open-endedness may sound relativistic, we do not see it this way. We do believe that our meanings and interpretations are always shaped by our sociohistorical context, but we disagree with many postmodernists who claim that that context is ultimately accidental and arbitrary. Human groups are communities of meaning that have attempted to work out a meaningful and valuable way of life, given their circumstances and the capacities and inclinations of our species. That comprehension is guided by some vision of what is good. Of course, conceptions of what is good change as well, but those shifts are motivated by an interest in enhancing the understanding of the good, such as making it more comprehensive, enriched, or inclusive. For more on this context relativity without relativism, see Fowers (2015b); Richardson, Fowers, and Guignon (1999); and Taylor (1989).

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but clearly, we can never complete our search for knowledge. This aim is simply too large and abstract to attain in some final way. In addition, there are many forms of knowledge, many kinds of justice, and many ways to belong. In contrast, goals are relatively concrete aims through which ordinary individuals pursue goods in the everyday world. For example, if you seek knowledge as a good, then your goal may be to read some books on physics. If you seek the good of belonging, you may become involved in a community organization or professional group. One of the best ways to concretely understand human goods is to see how those goods are reflected in the everyday goal-directed activities of individuals. Once we focus on goal pursuit, it is clear that we attain our ends through taking appropriate actions. Learning about physics through reading books requires obtaining the books, setting aside time, and reading. Becoming involved in a community organization means locating and joining the organization, finding out about and attending community events, or volunteering for the organization’s activities. Successfully undertaking such goal-directed actions involves exercising virtues. In the case of the community involvement goal, participating in a community organization involves the virtue of friendship. Recall from Chapter 3 that the virtue of friendship includes pursuing shared goals with friends over time, wanting the best for friends, and helping them to be at their best. High-quality participation in a community organization contributes to belonging precisely by acting as a friend with the other members of the organization. It is in exercising the virtue of friendship that you can imbue your participation in the group with the kind of richness and meaning that constitutes real belonging. In addition, this kind of involvement in an organization over time requires the virtue of loyalty because you would have to participate dependably, endorse the goals of the organization, and stand by it in difficult times. Of course, we are describing participation in a community organization in an idealized way. Hardly anyone would really think about these activities in this way. In addition, day-to-day involvement in any organization is fraught with small tasks, conflicts, disappointments, and other complications. Often, it will not feel particularly virtuous or a person may not experience belonging at any given moment. But the ongoing involvement over time constitutes belonging to the group. Through the repetition of friendly actions, friendship bonds are created, and this kind of activity can cumulate into concrete accomplishments in the organization’s work. These outcomes will probably only be apparent when you step back and reflect on a significant period of activity. There are connections between any worthwhile goal and the human good. It is important to remember that the goal derives its value from being a concrete instance of a characteristic human good. Pursuing the goal involves human frailty and the good life     

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a set of activities, and the quality of those activities depends on acting with excellence or virtue. It is even possible to work out a framework for how we can integrate the natural characteristics, goods, goals, actions, and virtues into a complete life. Generalizing Our Interpretation of the Virtues Our pursuit of genuine goods means that we have to cultivate virtues and practical wisdom. If we devote ourselves to a set of human goods, then we must be able to exercise the virtues that make it possible to pursue each good. The goods that we seek must be prioritized and ordered so that we seek the good that is most appropriate at each given time and place. Practical wisdom is the discernment to recognize which goods we should pursue in each circumstance. The best kind of life ensues when we are successful in seeking a number of genuine goods in a well-ordered way. This is a lifelong enterprise, and pursuing a life organized around what is good requires many virtues. A person who exercises many virtues is someone with a virtuous overall character, and good character is central to the complete life. We have discussed how a number of virtues are related to important aspects of human nature and how the virtues are tailor-made to help us to live well as the frail creatures we are. One of the best examples is the virtue of friendship, which helps us to fulfill our human need, as dependent social creatures, for strong, secure attachments. Along with friendship, the virtue of loyalty is necessary to maintaining secure attachments (Chapter 3). We introduced the virtue of openness to the other as an excellence that allows us to recognize and appreciate individual and cultural differences that complicate our lives. By welcoming those differences, our world is enriched. Practical wisdom is a central guide to all of our activities. It is especially relevant to the complications in our lives because practical wisdom helps us to sort out which complications matter and which are mere complications, separating what is essential from what is peripheral (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, we discussed how the virtue of reverence helps us to recognize and live within the limits of being mortal, fallible creatures. In addition, generosity helps us to accept and forgive our own and others’ limitations. When it comes to the inevitability of suffering, we discussed how the virtue of compassion can help us to give comfort and support to people who are suffering and to be compassionate with ourselves. In other cases of suffering, it is important for us to respond with the courage necessary to reduce or eliminate the source of pain (Chapter 6). Confronting and contesting the evil that is part of the human world requires us to exercise the virtues of courage and integrity (Chapter 7). 228       frailty, suffering, and vice

It would be possible to write a much longer book, detailing additional features of human frailty and limitation, but we think the pattern of limits, virtues, and flourishing is clear. Let us outline a few more examples of that pattern briefly to indicate how this approach to limits, virtues, and flourishing can be generalized to other domains of characteristic human activity. As embodied, sentient creatures, human beings have appetites and emotions. In the main, these serve us well by guiding our actions toward nutrition, knowledge, and relationships. But we can go wrong either by indulging our appetites or emotions excessively or by being overly restrictive with them. The classical meaning of temperance (or moderation) is the appropriate expression of our appetites and emotions. We humans have many natural appetites, such as for food, sex, wealth, status, recognition, excitement, and relaxation. Our appetites are important and motivate action toward maintaining ourselves physiologically. Our emotions inform us about important aspects of how we are engaging with our environment, and we are well-advised to heed them. But it is clear that we can overreact (the vice of excess), so temperance is the character strength that guides us to respond in the appropriate degree. The vice of deficiency, self-deprivation, may not be as immediately obvious, but anorexia is one clear example. Individuals can also come to deny themselves the possibility of emotional self-expression as well in an attempt at self-protection. The virtue of honesty plays a role in most of the frailties, virtues, and avenues for flourishing that we have discussed. Clearly, honesty is central to the ability to have the kind of trustworthy relationships necessary for appropriate dependence. Being honest with ourselves and others is vital to dealing well with our limitations. Dishonesty is a key feature of vice and evil, for those who exploit and dominate others do so under the banner of deceptive rationalizations. The vice of deficiency is obviously deception, and the vice of excess is tactlessness or excessive candor. Good communication is based on wellconsidered honesty. Deception undermines the possibility of communication, and tactlessness renders communication destructive. Patience is an important, and often neglected virtue, and its importance has only been increased in today’s on-demand, instant gratification, highly connected world. Many important goods cannot be expedited or immediate. Examples abound, including the development of trust and intimacy in relationships, solidarity and shared purpose in groups, scientific research, and, close to home for us as authors, writing books. Patience is a matter of giving worthwhile aims the appropriate amount of time to develop. Interestingly, patience is a particularly human virtue because we are capable of long-term planning and inhibiting momentary impulses in favor of future states of affairs (Barkely, 2012). Patience, then, is the virtuous expression of the characteristic human capacity to work toward long-term goals. The vice of deficiency human frailty and the good life     

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is to seek immediate gratification of impulses when that is not in our best interests. In contrast, the vice of excess is to inappropriately defer gratification due to excessive future orientation or perfectionism. The virtues are not just means to attaining material goods or an ephemeral happiness. Nor do virtues simply help us to cope with human limitations. Instead, we have endeavored to show that a proper understanding of the virtues illuminates how our limitations open the way to the most profound sources of belonging, meaning, and value for human beings. Recommendations Following our argument in this book, here are some recommendations for theory, research, and practice in the social sciences and mental health fields. These recommendations, we believe, also suggest ways that individuals and groups can improve their lives and flourish. 1. At the most general level, it is important to cultivate a healthy awareness and suspicion of individualism, instrumentalism, and abstractionism. These three ideologies distract us from key features of our humanity and undermine our capacities to develop virtues and to flourish. Theorists, researchers, and practitioners too often assume that separate, autonomous individuals act instrumentally on an abstracted world to fulfill their individually selected desires. We suggest, instead, that human beings are profoundly interconnected beings who pursue shared goals as much as individual goals. Properly understood, the “we” is far greater than the simple addition of “me” and “you.” The virtues are inherently social, always involving the welfare of the actor and others on whom the actions impinge. Virtuous action is defined as the most appropriate action in a given situation, so virtues can never be abstracted from the context. Eudaimonia is only possible together with others. Flourishing is impossible for an isolated human primarily intent on mastering his environment. We hope to have convincingly shown the importance of recognizing that human action is not limited to instrumental activity. Although instrumental activity is necessary and good, constitutive activity is the primary mode for pursuing many of the highest human goods. The most choiceworthy goods are achieved within the activity associated with them, not as products separate from the activity. The eudaimonic structure of human goods (see Table 1.3) illustrates how we can expand 230       frailty, suffering, and vice

our understanding of human activity to include shared and constitutive goods. 2. If we are right, our critique of the ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism, and abstractionism makes it clear that theorists, researchers, and practitioners have failed in their attempts to create a value-neutral social science. It should be obvious by now that mental health and positive psychology practices related to virtue and flourishing are value-imbued. One of the ways that eudaimonic theory is helpful is in recognizing that virtue and flourishing are inextricably moral terms. Virtue is about human excellence, which is about acting in the best possible ways. Eudaimonia is about living the best kind of life. These terms refer to good action and a good life. Attempting to describe and study them in value-neutral ways amounts to a rather severe form of moral tone-deafness. Moreover, the mental gymnastics necessary for a value-neutral approach to ultimate human values distort and undermine our efforts, no matter how well-intentioned it is (any irony intended). It is time for those who study or promote virtue and flourishing to shrug off the old-fashioned fear of values. In our theory, research, and practice, we want to understand how people can live the best kinds of lives and we want to promote human goodness. Espousing these values is both natural to the subject matter and clarifies just how worthwhile these efforts are. Of course, we must remain objective in the sense that we recognize the value of other viewpoints and are willing to correct our understandings of virtue and flourishing as we learn. 3. The ideologies of individualism, instrumentalism, and abstractionism have taken a particularly virulent form in psycho­therapy research, training, and practice in the form of manualized treatment and procedural ethics. Eudaimonic theory, with its understandings of frailty and virtue, offers a vital corrective to the desiccated understandings of therapists and their clients that are becoming ever more prominent. Human dependency and suffering are at the heart of therapeutic work, and reducing these realities to diagnostic and highly proceduralized treatments can rob this work of the humanity it requires. Seeing the ethics of therapy as following proceduralized rules similarly impoverishes the genuine pursuit of human goods that is at the core of psychotherapy. 4. This book has been an extended argument for incorporating human frailty in our self-understandings, in professional and human frailty and the good life     

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lay terms. Concepts such as virtue and flourishing, understood rightly, are optimistic and inspiring, but we must be able to come to terms with the limits of our humanity if we are to succeed in developing flourishing lives. If we do not recognize our frailties, we will pursue an unrealistic perfectionism, which will force us to either be self-deluded about our prospects or abandon the quest in despair. When we understand inescapable human limits, we can recognize that flourishing includes those limits rather than attempts to transcend them. We can only flourish in and through our dependency, limitations, suffering, and the complexity of our lives. Eudaimonia is not a separate existence that somehow transcends all of these human challenges; it is living excellently within the context of those difficulties. Human frailties are not just obstacles to flourishing (although they can be). Instead, the best way to understand our limitations is that they are pathways to the best kind of human life. Any theory of human virtue and flourishing that is worth its salt must account for human limitations. 5. Fully accepting human limitations as inherent in the pursuit of eudaimonia means that we need guidance about how to live excellently with our frailties. We hope to have shown how the virtues are precisely the strengths that make it possible to live well as limited beings. We must recognize that virtues are not just the province of the great and noble. They are the pathway through which ordinary mortals can become noble. 6. We have argued that the pathway to flourishing includes acknowledging our deep and abiding mutual dependency. We further suggested that high-quality friendship—in all of its forms—is the most excellent form of dependency. Social scientists have devoted limited attention to friendship, and when they have, it has been focused on an affinity-based, peer relationship, the importance of which is that it provides emotional or material benefits. These are important forms of friendship, but not the best kind, according to Aristotle. We have much to learn about the deepest, richest friendships. We are convinced that benefitting our good friends is at least as important as receiving benefits, and that mutual commitment is as important as mutual enjoyment. We also believe that having shared purposes that are larger than the individuals or even the friendship can provide much-needed depth to our lives. Given the importance of friendship in a flourishing life, we urge social scientists to give this topic greater attention. 232       frailty, suffering, and vice

For mental health and positive psychology practitioners, we recommend greater attention to friendship, its depth, and the shared commitments that can enrich individuals’ lives. 7. Life is inevitably messy. Recognizing this simple fact means that interpersonal and intergroup relationships must include some degree of difference, disharmony, and struggle. We recommend the study and cultivation of the virtue of openness to the other as a fruitful pathway through which we can address and be enriched by real differences. Fruitfully addressing interpersonal and intercultural differences in mental health and positive psychology practice is also important. We must overcome two important contemporary tendencies, first to psychologize these differences by locating these differences entirely within the identities of individuals, and second, to encourage people to associate only with like-minded others. Our differences don’t just place us at varying points along some dimension that social scientists or anyone else can confidently define for us. They reflect difficult to reconcile differences about justice, moral obligations, religion, life and death matters (e.g., abortion, right to die, war and peace). There may be wisdom and worth in our convictions about such things. But our vision is also limited, and none of us have all the answers. The hard truth is that often the only way to deepen our understanding is through openness to the distressingly different. The ways that our convictions may be modified through such a nonviolent clash of convictions are unpredictable. It takes courage and compassion to navigate the process, but doing so can be one of life’s greatest adventures. 8. Although humans have incredible, world-altering capacities, we have to remember that our capacities to control have bounds as well. As our science and technology advance, we must remain vigilant about how far we can properly exert our control. One clear limiting case, we have argued, is the genetic modification of children to serve parental or societal ambitions. The primary virtue operative in the domain of limits is reverence, a proper understanding and response to our humanity. We must remember that we are not gods and that we have no right to exert our potential influence in every way possible for us. We cannot be properly seen as predatory beasts either, taking whatever we can to fulfill any desire we may experience. Thus, we need a wisdom of limits, which includes developing better theoretical resources for understanding those limits. human frailty and the good life     

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Research on living in harmony in our world and with each other could also enhance our capacity for reverence. Clearly, practitioners can also fruitfully explore their clients’ experiences with limitations as affirmations of their humanity, not simply as insufficiencies. 9. Suffering is an unavoidable part of life. All of us will witness and experience pain for which there may not be any complete remedy. To love is to be willing to risk losing the loved one through rejection, circumstance, or death. To be ambitious is to be willing to risk failure. Our vulnerability to suffering can help us to recognize an essential solidarity with other human beings. This recognition gives rise to compassion for others and for ourselves, as frail beings. Compassion is an extraordinarily important aspect of our humanity. Social scientists have theorized and studied this important virtue to some degree, but they have limited themselves to the psychological experience of compassion. We encourage further study, particularly in understanding the behavioral manifestations of compassion that do or do not accompany our concerned thoughts, feelings, and inclinations. The value of compassion has also found its way into mental health and positive psychology practices in valuable ways, and we encourage this emphasis. In the mental health domain, the elements of human suffering and opportunities for compassion are ample, but are often pathologized. Seeing this suffering for what it is and giving compassion its rightful place are vital. Moreover, understanding compassion as a virtue can be enormously useful in mental health training. Positive psychologists have helpfully emphasized compassion as a virtue, but their descriptions of the suffering that give rise to compassion are unhelpfully truncated. Compassion can be fully appreciated only when we recognize just how much suffering is part of the warp and woof of human life. Compassion is a virtue, we believe, because it helps us to live well in the face of inescapable suffering. A full account of compassion, therefore, requires really coming to grips with human pain, something positive psychologists tend to avoid. 10. The recognition of vicious character and evil deeds is an extremely important corrective to the one-sided emphasis on the positive in positive psychology. We cannot have an adequate understanding of virtue without contrasting it to vice, and we cannot comprehend what is good without a corresponding recognition of evil. Cultivating virtue and a 234       frailty, suffering, and vice

good life often means combatting viciousness and evil. We may face that conflict to some degree in our own inclinations and actions, or we may see it only in people who want to take advantage of us or of other people. The failure to see and confront vice and evil is a naiveté we simply cannot afford, personally, professionally, or as citizens. The vicious will take what they want regardless of the consequences for others. We must account for viciousness and evil in our theories, research, and practice to have any hope of creating a better world. Social scientists and practitioners of mental health and positive psychology have tended to shy away from these topics, but the realities of vicious character and evil action require us, as professionals, to be more active in recognizing and combatting these ills. Conclusion There is no conceivable positive future for a species as numerous and powerful as we are that does not incorporate a robust appreciation for human frailty as a cornerstone of our self-understanding. Ultimately, it is through our dependence and fallibility, rather than despite them, that the good life is found. We have offered recommendations for psychological theory, research, and practice that take the understanding of human limitations as the starting point for the kind of science and practice that can bring out the best in human beings. In particular, we suggested that positive psychologists and other social scientists can use their considerable influence to present a more balanced view of human capacities and prospects. Mental health and positive psychology practitioners can actively promote an understanding of human limitations that can serve the cultivation of virtue and an appreciation of genuine human goods, including precious and indispensable goods like character friendship. We hope we have shown that social scientists, therapists, and educators can contribute greatly to the pursuit of human flourishing if they can overcome the professional blind spots and limitations that impede those contributions. As our technological capacity continues to grow and our world continues to shrink, these resources become ever more vital to a positive future for humanity and our planet.

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references     

251

Index Anorexia, 229 Anterior cingulate cortex, 26, 50 Antibiotics, 161 APA (American Psychological Association), 117, 164 Apathy, 148 Apes, 136 Arendt, Hannah, 183, 198, 206–208 Aristotle and completing activities, 224 and complications, 100 on context, 120 “flourishing” in writings of, 3, 13–14, 21–37 on friendship, 27, 93, 97, 214 function argument of, 21, 27–28, 84, 221–223 on hierarchical structure of goods, 41–44 on human goods, 3, 13–14, 21–37, 226 and individual happiness, 80 and morality, 12, 20 natural ethics of, 13–14 and potential for good and evil, 195 on practical wisdom, 60–61, 100, 119–120 and relational approach to good life, 114 and suffering, 171, 175 theory of human good, 22–25 Asbestos, 191–192, 205–206 Attachment, 26, 85 Attention, shared, 92–93 Authenticity, 169 Autonomy in developmental psychology, 83 emotional, 83 and individualism, 36, 77–83, 141 mutual recognition of, 146 and parenting, 143 in psychotherapy, 81, 118, 169 and suffering, 159

Abstractionism, 102–113 and color-blindness, 123 and dependency, 72–75 and evil, 200, 201, 203 and human frailty, 215–216 and human limits, 133 and practical wisdom, 119–120 results of, 115–116 in science and society, 105–113 separability and similarity in, 102–105 and value neutrality, 231 Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), 167–168 Accepting love, 142 Accomplishment, 6 Acquisitiveness, 51–52 ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), 167–168 Activity characteristic, 19, 84, 181, 189 communal, 92 constitutive, 38–39, 163, 199, 230. See also Constitutive goods and human good, 13–14, 24 instrumental, 31, 187–188, 203. See also Instrumentalism means–end, 31, 38–40 and pleasure, 32, 39, 223–224 Adaptability, 81 Adorno, Theodor, 113 Adrenaline, 49 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain), 147 Advertising, 130 Agency, 29, 85, 183 Agentic dimension (hierarchy of goods), 44 Aggression, 135 Air conditioning, 131 Aitken, Kenneth, 83 Alma maters, 96 Aloofness, 175–176 Altruism, 34–36 American Psychological Association (APA), 117, 164 Animal species, 135

Bales, K., 180, 203 “Banality of evil,” 206–207

253

Baumeister, Roy and characteristics of evil, 182, 185, 191–193, 202 and motives for harming others, 196 and self-restraint, 64 Bearden, Sandra, 179–180, 183 Beastly character, 66–67 Beauty, 30–31 Behavioral flexibility, 29, 31. See also Agency Bellah, Robert N., 75 Belonging, 23, 25–28, 36, 41, 44, 222, 225 Berlin, Irving, 133 Bernstein, Richard, 204, 206–208 Bias, 112, 115, 117. See also Subjectivity Birbiglia, John, 203 Biswas-Diener, R., 8 Bowling Alone (Robert Putnam), 94 Brashears, M. E., 160 Brooks, David, 171–172 Buddhist Vipassana meditation, 168 Cambodian massacres, 185 CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), 165–168 Ceausescu government (Romania), 26 Chaminade, Thierry, 83 Character. See also specific character types and suffering, 175 and virtue, 61–67 Characteristic activity (evil), 189 Character Strengths and Virtues (Chris Peterson & Martin Seligman), 171 Child abuse, 182 Chimpanzees, 135 Choice, 225–226 Christakis, Nicholas, 27, 160 Civil society, 199 Class differences, 53 Closed-mindedness, 124 Codependency, 82 Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), 165–168 Coherence, 24 Color-blindness, 123 Commodification, of humans, 106–110 Commonality, 175 Communal activities, 92

254       index

Communal dimension (hierarchy of goods), 44 Communities and antigenerous impulses, 51–52 and human limits, 145–147 Compassion importance of, 234 and mirror neurons, 136 self-, 176 and suffering, 174–176, 219–222, 228 virtue of, 174–176 Competition, 122 “Complete life,” 24, 221–228. See also Flourishing Completion, 224 Complications, 99–125 abstractionist approach to, 102–113 and eudaimonia, 114–125 and human frailty, 215–217 negative views of, 99–100 overview, 100–102 relational approach to, 102 and separateness, 102–104 and similarity, 102, 104–105 Computers, 161 Conflict, relational and human limits, 135–136 pain from, 70 Confusion, 182 Connoisseurship, 32 Consciousness of self, 83 Constitutive goods and evil, 183–185, 199–200 hierarchy of instrumental goods and, 38–42, 44, 134, 183 and human limits, 138–140 overview, 38–40 value of, 138–139, 200–201, 230–231 Continent character type, 63–64, 181 Control, 164–171 Cooper, John, 95 Cooperation as constitutive activity, 199 and dependence, 86 in evolutionary theory, 133–136 as human behavior, 28, 133–136 and human limits, 134–137 and justice, 54 research on, 195 Coordination, 133–136

Courage as learned behavior, 57 overview, 48–50, 212–213 and suffering, 176–177 taking responsibility through, 203–206 virtue of, 10, 15, 48–51, 174, 176–177, 204–206, 212–213 Cowardice, 49 Criminals, 189–190 Cultural differences in generosity, 52 in psychological approaches to individualism, 82, 87 Cushman, Philip, 138, 139 “Cyberball game,” 26 Dank, Meredith, 194 Darwin, Charles, 133 Death, 30, 132, 144–145, 163, 169 Deception, 182, 229 Decety, Jean, 83 Deficiency, 49, 51–54, 65, 95–96, 124, 175–176, 205, 229–230 Dehumanization, 197 Democracy, 39, 204–205 Demonization, 199 Dependency, 69–98 and eudaimonia, 84–97 and human frailty, 214–215 and individualism in psychology, 80–84 and liberal individualism, 70, 74–79 and philosophies of human relationships, 71–74 and well-being, 6 Dependent personality disorder, 82 Depression, 182 Desire, 62, 63 Developmental psychology, 83–84, 136 Diagnosis, 82, 164–165, 216, 231 Difference, 104–105 Diseases, 161 Disengagement, 95 Dishonesty, 229 Diversity, 122–125, 215–216 of goods, 37, 225–226 of ideas, 109–110 Dobson, Keith, 166 “Dog-eat-dog” mentality, 65, 140, 186, 194–195, 201, 221

Dogmatism, 124 Domestic violence, 197, 205 Domination, 65–66, 136, 138, 185, 205 Dozois, David, 166 Drug addiction and dealing, 66–67, 182, 192–193, 195, 220 Dueck, Al, 113 Echo chamber, 109 Economic depression, 213 Egoism, 34–36, 52, 64, 156–157 Eichmann, Adolf, 206 Either/or thinking, 7 Embezzlement, 182 Emotional autonomy, 83 Emotional pain, 50, 70, 88 Emotions and flourishing, 20 and loneliness, 26 and mirror neurons, 136 moral, 31 negative, 7–8 positive, 6, 7, 80 and virtue, 49, 58–59 Empathy, 136, 174–176 “Empty self,” 139 “Ends justify the means” rationalization, 184, 195 Engagement, 6 Environmental destruction, 206 Equality, 204–205 Essential dependency, 85–87 Ethical monism, 32 Ethics and abstractionism, 104 eudaimonic. See Eudaimonia and evil, 202–203 and friendship, 93 and the good, 34, 36, 56–57 immanence of, 56–57, 116–119, 222 incorporation of differences in, 104 natural, 13–14, 36 relationality and, 84, 116 as restraint, 202 situatedness of, 119–120 Eudaimonia and beastly character, 67 and complications, 114–125, 215–217 and complete life, 24, 221–228 index     

255

Eudaimonia, continued and constitutive goods, 41–42 defined, 20 and dependency, 89, 214–215 and emotions, 59, 80 features of, 22–25, 204 and goods, 33–38 and human limits, 144–150, 217–218 and human nature, 56–57 and ideology, 230–231 and individualism, 80 and pleasure, 24, 32–33, 167, 223–224 and relationality, 84–97 and shared goods, 44 and social behavior, 26–27, 214 and suffering, 156–157, 218–220 and variety of choice, 36–37, 56, 225–226 and vicious character, 65, 220–221 and virtue, 25, 55–56 Evidence-based practice, 113, 117, 118 Evil, 179–209 causes of, 193–198 definitions of, 181–189 and human frailty, 220–221 recognition of, 189–193, 234–235 responses to, 198–208 Evolutionary theory, 133, 135 Executive function, 84 Existential dependency, 85–87 Existential psychotherapy, 169–170 Exline, Julie, 64, 187 Family loyalty, 96 Family therapy, 81 Fear, 15, 49–50, 148, 177 Fickleness, 96–97 Fight, flight, or freeze response, 49 Flourishing as ancient concept, 212 and dependency, 92 as excellence, 21 historical concept of, 3 as moral topic, 11–13 pathways to, 5–9 recommendations for, 230–235 and relationships, 44, 84–85, 94, 157 as translation of eudaimonia, 20, 37

256       index

and vicious character, 65–66, 203 and virtue, 25 Focus, 115–122 Forgiveness, 148–150 Fowers, Blaine J., 83 Fowler, James, 27, 160 Frailty. See Human frailty Frankl, Viktor, 172–173 Fredrickson, Barbara, 6–7 Freedom and isolation, 115 ontological, 170 reduction of suffering through, 157–161, 218–219 and rights, 43–44, 77 Freeman, Mark, 80 Friedenberg, Edgar, 138 Friendship activities involved in, 24 and antigenerous impulses, 51–52 commodification of, 107 as constitutive activity, 199 decline of, 160 dependency in, 93–97, 212 and human frailty, 214–215 as human good, 23, 225 importance of, 26–28, 69, 214–215, 232–233 loyalty in, 56 openness in, 124 relational approach to, 114 types of, 26–27, 37 virtue of, 36–37, 93–95, 212 Function argument, 21, 27, 84–85, 221–223 Gacy, John Wayne, 196 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 117 Gallese, V., 136 Generosity and human limits, 148–150 overview, 51–52 relational approach to, 114 virtue of, 51–52, 58, 60, 148–150 Genetic enhancement, 141–143 Genocide, 195, 196, 198, 206, 220. See also Holocaust Giftedness, 142–144 Goals, 23–29, 42–43, 184–185, 226–228 Goetz, Jennifer, 175, 176

Goods, 19–45. See also specific types of goods, e.g.: Shared goods in Aristotle’s natural ethics, 13–14 and Aristotle’s theory of human good, 22–25 and components of good human life, 20–22 defined, 12 and eudaimonia. See Eudaimonia and goals, 226–228 and human frailty, 226–228 human frailty as pathways to highest, 213–221 and humans as physical beings, 32–33 and humans as reasoning beings, 21–22, 28–32 and humans as social beings, 25–28 individual and shared, 42–45 instrumental and constitutive, 38–42 loving of, 67, 199–201 and virtuous dependency, 91–93 Gorillas, 135 Government surveillance, 207 Gravity, 104 Greed, 51–52, 65, 182, 185, 192 Grief and social behaviors, 25–26 and suffering, 9, 157, 172 Group allegiance, 97 Group membership, 27, 51–52 Group therapy, 81 Guignon, C. B., 75 Gunton, Colin, 103 Habits of the Heart (R. N. Bellah), 75 Happiness and dependency, 87–89, 97 and eudaimonia, 20 and group membership, 27 and individualism, 80 Hare, Robert, 196 Health, 33, 89–90, 157 Hearts (organs), 21 Hedges, Chris, 107–109, 113 Hedonism, 223 Helplessness, 95 HIV epidemic, 161 Holocaust, 184–185, 189, 196, 198, 206 Holtzclaw, Daniel, 190

Homophobia, 205 Honesty, 229 Human frailty, 211–230 and living a complete life, 221–228 as pathways to highest goods, 213–221 perspectives on, 6 and virtues, 15, 22, 48–55, 212–213, 228–230 and well-being, 6 Human goods. See Goods Human limits, 127–151 acceptance of, 232 and cooperation, 134–137 and human frailty, 217–218 obscuring of, 130–131 search for wisdom of, 137–144 virtues of, 144–150 wisdom of, 130–134 Human potential, 41 Human rights, 158, 204–205 Human trafficking, 190, 203, 220 I Am (film), 132–134 Identity in developmental psychology, 83 emergence of, 72–74, 83–84 and natural feelings of loyalty, 96 sources of, 159, 172 Ideology and evil, 183–186, 201–203 of individualism, 61, 70, 160, 185, 199, 202, 230–231 of instrumentalism, 193 recognition of, 201–203 Illness, 220 Immature dependency, 86–87, 91, 95, 222 Incontinent character type, 63–65, 181, 187 Independence, 79. See also Autonomy Indifference, 175–176 Individual freedom, 158–161. See also Freedom and Autonomy Individual goods hierarchy of shared goods and, 43–45 and individualism, 42 overview, 42–43 subjectively chosen, 185–186, 202 index     

257

Individualism defined, 42 and dependency, 79, 214–215 and evil, 185–186, 199, 201–202 and human limits, 147 as ideology, 42, 53, 75, 185–186, 199, 201–202 and justice, 53–54 liberal, 70, 74–79, 106–113 in psychology, 80–84 shortcomings of, 43, 212, 230–232 and value neutrality, 185–186, 231 Infants, 83–85, 90, 143–144 Infectious diseases, 161 Instant gratification, 229–230 Institutionalized injustice, 53 Instrumental activity, 31–32, 38, 134, 187–188, 203, 230 Instrumental goods hierarchy of constitutive goods and, 41–42, 183 and human limits, 139–140 overview, 38–40 value of, 139, 200–201 Instrumentalism, 38–40, 163, 166, 193, 199–200, 202–203, 230–232 Integrity, 203–206 Intentionality, 181, 188–189 Intentions of others, 136 Interdependence, 87, 214 Interethnic mistrust, 122 Internet commerce on, 54 human progress with, 161 information on, 110 Intimacy, 81, 91, 92 Intolerable harms, 182, 188 Isolation, 159 Jonas, Hans, 206 Justice and acting justly, 138 activities involved in, 24 and complications, 104 as constitutive good, 39, 41 and evil, 200, 204–205 as human good, 23, 28, 225 overview, 53–54 relational approach to, 114

258       index

and social behavior, 28 virtue of, 53–54 Kant, Immanuel, 146 Kashdan, T. B., 8 Kipsigis people (Kenya), 159–160 Knowledge, 23, 41, 225, 226 Lasch, Christopher, 140, 141 Las Vegas, Nevada, 107 Leadership, 184 Learning, 39 Legalization, 199 Levinas, Emmanuel, 173, 206, 208 Lewin, Kurt, 10 Lewis, C. S., 88, 121 Liberal individualism, 70, 74–79, 106–113 Life expectancy, 131 Limits, human. See Human limits Loneliness, 26, 159 Long, E. T., 173 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 99–100 Love, 142 Loyalty, 56, 58, 93–97, 114, 215 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 85, 157 Marital principles, 104–105 Materialism, 169 May, Rollo, 169, 170 McGruder, Juli, 160 McPherson, M., 160 Meaning and existential psychotherapy, 169–170 goals for, 23, 29–30, 163 and suffering, 172–173 and well-being, 6, 9, 15–16, 92, 223 Means–end activity, 31, 38–40 Meditation, 167, 168 Methamphetamine, 192 Midgley, Mary, 121 Miller, Ron, 164–165 Mindfulness, 167 Mirror neurons, 136 Misguided ends (evil), 183–187, 189–192, 200 Monkeys, 136 Morality differences in, 233 and friendship, 93–94

and the good, 34–37, 200 and values, 11–13 Morally neutral therapists, 113–118 Moral neutrality, 11–12, 113–118, 200, 216, 231 Moral nihilism, 113 Moral perception, 60, 120, 177 Moral will, 62, 63 Mortality, 29 Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 163 Multicultural competence, 122 Murder, 189–190 Music, 172 Narrative coherence, 30 National loyalty, 96 Natural ethics, 13–14 Natural world, 110–112, 121–122 Neff, Kristin, 176 Negative emotions, 7 Neuroscience, 136 News media, 109 Nichomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 119 Objectification, 165 Objectivity importance of, 11–12, 231 psychology’s emphasis on, 12 in psychotherapy, 117, 118 On the Origin of Species (Charles Darwin), 133 Ontological freedom, 170 Ontologies, 71, 101–103, 114, 136–137 Openness to the other, 122–125, 216 relational approach to, 114 research on, 233 virtue of, 122–125 Organized crime, 190, 220 Orphans, 26, 85–86 Ostracism, 26, 50 Otherness, 108–110, 122–125, 216 Overinvolvement, 95 Pain, 9, 26, 32, 50, 70, 88–91 Paradox of choice, 158–159 Parenting, 142–143 Patience, 229–230 Peer pressure, 70 Perfection, 141–144, 146, 151, 184–186

Personal growth, 31 Peterson, Chris, 61, 64, 171 Phronesis. See Practical wisdom Physical abuse, 182 Physical health, 33, 89–90, 157 Physicality, 32–33 Physical pain, 50, 89–90 Physical threats, 50 Plato, 13, 20 Pleasure and activity, 32, 39, 59 and emotions, 59 and eudaimonia, 24, 32–33, 167, 223–224 and friendship, 93, 103 and the good life, 167–168, 223–225 as human good, 20, 24, 32–33, 225 Politics, 94, 145, 147 Pol Pot, 185 Positive emotions, 6, 7 Positive psychology, 170–171 character in, 61 and dependency, 84 flourishing as key idea in, 3–5, 170–171. See also Flourishing individualist notions in, 80–81 instrumentalism in, 90 interpersonal and intercultural differences in, 233 and morality, 11, 55–56 neglect of negative experiences in, 6, 10 neglect of relationships, 8, 25, 36, 69, 80 neglect of vice, 61, 65, 186–187 outcomes with, 4–5 suffering in, 170–171, 218 values in, 231 Positive relationships, 6 Power, 201 Practical wisdom and complications, 119–122, 216–217 and human frailty, 216–217, 228 overview, 60–61, 228 and suffering, 177 Predatory behavior, 135 Premeditation, 190 Privacy, 81 Progress, 140–141 Prostitution, 66 index     

259

Psychotherapy and abstractionism, 110 cognitive behavioral, 165–168 existential, 169–170 group and family, 81 ideologies in, 231 and individualism, 81–82 moral neutrality in, 113 objectivity vs. subjectivity in, 117, 118 and problematic dependency, 86 Purpose, 23, 29–30, 167, 169–170, 223 Putnam, Robert, 94 Racism, 53, 122–123, 205 Radical evil, 183 Rape, 189–190 Rational emotive behavior therapy, 166 Rationality, 38, 84, 92 and dependency, 84–85, 92 and evil, 190 humans as rational animals, 21, 28–32 Rationalization, for evil, 65, 182, 193–195, 199, 201–203, 221, 229 Reasoning, 21–23, 28–32, 37, 58, 84, 222–223 Refrigeration, 161 Reich, Robert, 106 Rejection, 26, 70 Relationality as approach to complications, 102–106, 114, 116, 216–217 dependency in. See Dependency and eudaimonia, 79, 84–97 and identity, 83, 136 overview, 72–74 and virtues, 93 Relationships. See also Friendship philosophies of, 71–74 positive, 6 Religion, 94, 145, 147, 233 Respect, 145–146 Responsiveness, 175–176 Revenge, 196 Reverence, 144–148, 217–218 Richardson, Frank C., 75 Romania, 26, 85–86 Rusesabagina, Paul, 47–48, 55, 177 Rwandan mass murders, 47–48, 122, 197

260       index

Sabhnani, Mahender, 203 Sabhnani, Varsha, 203 Sacks, Jonathan and commodification of humans, 106–107 on differences, 104–105 and emergence of identity, 74, 84 and suffering, 172–173 on transformative suffering, 171 Sandel, Michael, 141–143, 217 Sanitation, 161 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 169, 170 Schizophrenia, 160 Schumaker, J., 159, 165 Schwartz, B., 158 Schweigert, W. A., 112 Science abstractionism in, 75, 99–100, 104–113, 200 and honesty, 55–56 and ideology, 11–13, 75, 117, 223, 231–232 incorporation of differences in, 104 preference for simplicity in, 99 and scientific methods in psychology, 115–116 social, 11–12, 199, 231 and suffering, 158 value-neutrality of, 11–12, 56, 117 The Screwtape Letters (C. S. Lewis), 121 Self, consciousness of, 83 Self-awareness, 92 Self-compassion, 176 Self-defense, 182, 199 Self-deprivation, 229 Self-harm, 182 Self-interest, 34–35. See also Egoism Self-recognition, 83 Self-restraint, 64 Self-sufficiency, 157 Self-transcendence, 172 Seligman, Martin and classification of virtues, 61 and continent character, 64, 187 and frailty, 6 and individualism, 80, 81, 90 and pathways to flourishing, 5, 6, 65 and suffering, 171 Selikoff, Irving, 205–206

Separability, 102–104 Serenity Prayer, 174, 177 Serial killers and rapists, 189–190, 196, 220 Sexism, 205 Sexual abuse, 182 Shadyac, Tom, 131–134 Shallowness, 148 Shame, 145–147, 182, 219 Shared attention, 92–93 Shared goods hierarchy of individual goods and, 43–45 overview, 42–43 and suffering, 157 value of, 200–201, 231 Similarity, 102, 104–105 Simplicity, 99–100 Slavery consequences of, 122 domination through, 66, 205 evilness of, 180, 190–191, 197 immorality of, 143 Smith-Lovin, R., 160 Social behaviors, 25–28. See also Friendship Social dominance theory, 54 Social exclusion, 50 Social harmony, 199 Social isolation, 94–95, 107 Social networks changes in, 94 and well-being, 160 Social order, 23, 225 Social sciences, 11–12, 199, 231 Socrates, 13, 20 Solar panels, 131 Soodalter, R., 180, 203 Spontaneous loyalty, 96 Stinginess, 51–52 Stoicism, 13 Strayer, D. L., 112 Strokes, 131 Subjectivity in flourishing, 80 in instrumentalism, 166, 170 negative connotations of, 112–117 and psychology research, 113, 117 in psychotherapy, 117, 118, 168

Suffering, 153–178 diagnosis as replacement for, 164–165 and eudaimonia, 156–157 and grief, 9, 172 and human frailty, 218–220 inevitability of, 234 minimizing of, 6, 16, 170–171 modern project to reduce, 157–163 psychological approaches to, 164–171 transformative, 171–177 and well-being, 6 Suicidality, 182 Survival of the fittest, 133 Sussman, Warren, 138 Symbolic expression, 84 Systems approaches, 82 Systems justification theory, 54 Taylor, Charles, 158 Technology and environment, 121–122 government surveillance with, 207 and human limits, 130 insulation from complications with, 109 and integrity, 205 Internet, 54, 110, 161 reduction of suffering through, 158, 161–163, 218–219 transportation, 110 Teller, Edward, 99 Temperance, 93, 114, 229 Theory, 10–11 Theresa, Mother, 156 Time awareness, 29–30 Totalitarianism, 206 Traffic accidents, 131 Transformative suffering, 171–177 Transforming love, 142 Transportation technology, 110 Trevarthen, Colwin, 83 Trivialization, 199 The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (Christopher Lasch), 140 Trust, 28, 54, 195, 229 Twain, Mark, 147 Tyranny, 213

index     

261

Ulterior motives, 39 Universities, 113 The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self—Not Just Your “Good” Self—Drives Success and Fulfillment (T. B. Kashdan & R. Biswas-Diener), 8 Utopia, 184, 201, 207 Vaccines, 161 Values insulation from, 112–113 and morality, 11–13 and neutrality, 11–12, 113–118, 200, 216, 231 in positive psychology, 231 Veterans, 160–161, 164 Vice(s). See also Virtue(s) of compassion, 175–176 contrast to virtue, 10, 16, 65–66, 186–187, 220 of courage, 49 of deficiency, 51–55 of excess, 51–55 in friendships, 95 and human limits, 148 of immature dependency, 86 lack of attention paid to, 10 of loyalty, 96–97 of openness to the other, 124–125 understanding of, 206–207 virtue vs., 187, 220–221 Vicious character, 65–66, 181–187, 193–195, 203, 207, 234–235. See also Evil Violence and beastly character, 67 domestic, 197, 205 and evil, 191 in human history, 122 Virtue(s), 47–68. See also specific headings in action, 57–58 and character, 61–67

262       index

characteristics of, 48–49 classification of, 61 courage as, 48–50 and emotion, 58–59 as essential, 25 and the good life, 55–56 as habit, 56–57 and human frailty, 51–55, 212–213, 228–230 of human limits, 144–150 as moral topic, 11–13 piecemeal approach to, 61 and practice wisdom, 60–61 psychological understandings of, 10 and reason, 58 as relational, 114 and suffering, 156 vice vs., 187, 220–221 Virtuous action, 230 Virtuous character type, 62–63, 181 War, 195–197, 213 Watters, Ethan, 160 Weakness, 6 Well-being, 6, 79 Western culture, 52, 82, 87, 112, 158 “What Suffering Does” (David Brooks), 171–172 Whitman, Walt, 100 Williams, Kip D., 26 Wiman, Christian, 137 Wisdom of human limits, 130–134, 137–144, 217–218 practical, 60–61, 119–122, 177, 216–217, 228 Woodruff, Paul, 64, 144–147 Yalom, Irvin, 169, 170 Zanzibar, 160 Zeno, 20

About the authors

Blaine J. Fowers, PhD, is a professor of counseling psychology at the University of Miami. He is the author of four other books, including The Evolution of Ethics: Human Sociality and the Emergence of Ethical Mindedness and Virtue and Psychology: Pursuing Excellence in Ordinary Practices. He conducts theoretical and empirical research on virtues, higher order goals, and their links to choiceworthy goods and human flourishing. Dr. Fowers has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham, England, in 2016. He is a past president of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and a recipient of the Joseph B. Gittler Award for Contributions to the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology. Frank C. Richardson, PhD, is an emeritus professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author or editor of several books, including Re-Envisioning Psychology: Moral Dimensions of Theory and Practice and Critical Thinking About Psychology: Hidden Assumptions and Plausible Alternatives and the author of over 100 articles and chapters in theoretical psychology and the philosophy of social science. He is a past

263

president of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24), from which he recently received a Lifetime Achievement award. His current scholarly interests include topics in psychology and religion. Brent D. Slife, PhD, is the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding and a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University. Honored with an APA Presidential Citation for his contribution to psychology, he has served as the president of the Society of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and is currently the editor-in-chief of the APA Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and the editor of the Routledge book series in theoretical and philosophical psychology. Dr. Slife has authored or coauthored over 200 articles and 10 books, and continues his psychotherapy practice of over 30 years where he specializes in marital and family therapies.

264       about the authors