Will D. Desmond

This is a reflection on the gift of beauty and the passion of being in light of the fact that today we often meet an ambiguous attitude to beauty. Beauty seems bland and lacks the more visceral thrill of the ugly, indeed the excremental. We crave what disrupts and provokes us. Bland beauty seems to be the death of originality. How then be open at all to beauty as gift? In fact, we often are disturbed paradoxically by beauty: both taken out of ourselves, hence disquieted, yet awakened to our being at home with beauty. Beauty arouses enigmatic joy in us, and we enjoy an elemental rapport with it as other. Surprised by beauty, our breath is taken away; we are more truly there with the beautiful yet taken outside of ourselves: both at home with ourselves and not at home, in being beyond ourselves. We are first receivers of the gift of surprise and only then perceivers and conceivers. My attention to the passion of being stresses a patience, a receptivity to what is other. What happens is not first our construction. Our being disarmed by the beautiful I hold to be in tune with our being as marked most deeply by what I call a primal ‘porosity’ to being. Beauty sensuously communicates in and through this awakened porosity. We are a patience of being before we are an endeavour to be. In modern aesthetics and culture, originating receptivity tends to be downplayed as a depreciation of our claims to creative power. The predominant stress often falls on human autonomy, such that we love only what we construct ourselves, not what we receive. By contrast, I argue there is something of the godsend in what is truly beautiful. This might not be a fashionable way of talking but the vocation of the philosopher is not to be fashionable but to be true.

ZusammenfassungEs ist eine gängige Praxis ethischer Reflexion, zwischen verschiedenen Systemen moralischer Werte zu unterscheiden und dann die einen gegen die anderen auszuspielen. Im Text wird eine Reflexionsform vorgestellt, die gewissermaßen einen ‚Schritt zurück‘ von derartigen vordergründigen Wertsystemen tritt und stattdessen die Quellen des Ethischen betrachtet, Quellen, die wir in unserer alltäglichen ethischen Praxis oft genug nicht beachten oder für selbstverständlich halten. Zu diesen Quellen oder Potentialen des Ethischen zähle ich das, was ich als das Idiotische, das Ästhetische, das Dianoetische, das Eudaimonische, das Transzendentale, das Transzendierende und das Transzendente bezeichne. Ethische ‚Systeme‘ manifestieren diese Potentiale in der einen oder anderen, je eigenen Ausformung. Die ethischen Potentiale gehen auf mancherlei Wegen in ethische Systeme ein, ohne je ganz in einem einzigen System aufzugehen. Der ‚Schritt zurück‘ ist ein Rückgang auf die vielfältigen Quellen des Ethischen in den Potentialen. Er kann uns auch dabei helfen, etwas über die Zukunft der Ethik zu sagen.

Introduction. Why did Cynicism emerge throughout the Greek world when it did? Survey of relevant literature; criticism of previous suggestions and assumptions. Cynic individualism represents a radical internalization of widespread ideals of individual excellence. Cynic asceticism is a paradoxical response to the perceived problems of wealth and poverty in the fourth century B.C.E.: to escape poverty one must embrace it. Outline of chapters. ;Chapter one: Praise of poverty and work. Popular attitudes to work and wealth precede the Cynic praise of po&d12;nov and the paradoxical claim that the Cynic beggar is "rich." Work is morally beneficial as well as economically necessary. Praise of the Greek poor in various authors: the poor are honest, just, and do the most productive work; the rich are often hubristic and exploitative. The critique of wealth from a variety of perspectives: wealth is the "mother-city of all evils," particularly class-struggle; in a democracy, wealth is dangerous given the power of the people; the limited nature of Greek production ensured that the rich could spend their money only on public services or invidious luxuries---benefits possibly dubious to some. The Cynics appear in cities with democratic traditions during times of heightened class-tension, as strident critics of wealth and the wealthy. ;Chapter two: Praise of poverty and war. Poverty trains individuals and nations to martial excellence---strength, courage, temperance, patriotism; therefore, the poor are the best soldiers, as many wars seem to demonstrate. Political theorists of the fourth century recommend that the fighting nobility embrace a voluntary poverty to maintain their preeminence. The Cynics' claim to "kingship" and their boast that asceticism makes them "invincible" vis-a vis Fortune exaggerates the traditional and more recent philosophical link between poverty and the ideal soldier's virtues. ;Chapter three: Praise of poverty and philosophical wisdom. The dichotomy between absolute and contingent Being introduced into philosophical discourse by Parmenides tends to isolate the Greek thinker as an unconventional, even solitary creature whose knowledge and goals are somehow superior to the norm. The ethical implications of this split between the philosopher and the external world become most apparent in two fourth-century versions of philosophic poverty, the Platonic and the Cynic. For both, the temporal and external cannot be really known or possessed and therefore should not be desired. As a result, the ideal sage eschews material wealth as a hindrance from the higher "wealth" of wisdom, which consists in contemplation of timeless Forms or immersion in the present moment.

This is a special edition of Ethical Perspectives devoted to the issue of autonomy. While the issue of autonomy has its own particular form in Anglo- American discussion, the essays in this issue focus, in the main, on questions arising in the more continental tradition. The essay by William Desmond examines certain dialectical equivocities in the notion of self-determination. These are related to an underlying sense of valuelessness marking modernity’s feeling for the ethos, to a propensity to privilege self over other in the process of self-determination, and to a temptation to evade the question of transcendence as other to human self-transcendence. These dialectical equivocities are explored especially with reference to such major thinkers as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche.

Richard Kearney's Dialogues attempts to speak across the divide between Anglo-American philosophy and recent Continental thought. The book does not sound any fashionable fanfares regarding rapprochement between these two traditions. More soberly, it tries to introduce to Anglo-American philosophers certain European thinkers who have recently exerted significant influence. Unlike a more conventional approach that would anthologize some representative writings of these thinkers, Richard Kearney here takes a different, more direct approach. He tries to let these thinkers introduce themselves through dialogue. The result is a very interesting introduction that preserves something of the human voice of the conversational occasion. In some cases also, given the directness of the questions put by Richard Kearney, we are offered a revelation of the authors not always vouchsafed by their written, hence more controllable, works. A further benefit to those already initiated into the written works of these thinkers is an additional perspective on the written works themselves. Hence the work will be of interest to those familiar with the thinkers interviewed and to those coming to recent European thought for the first time.

The current issue of Ethical Perspectives is a double issue reflecting significant discussions of ethical issues that occurred in Leuven in the very recent past. The volume is composed in the main of two seminars, one led by Michael Walzer, the other by Bernard Williams. These well-known and highly respected thinkers were guests at Leuven in the past year. Michael Walzer was the holder of the Multatuli Chair, while Bernard Williams was the holder of the Mercier Chair at the Institute of Philosophy. In addition to the responsibilities of offering a public lecture or lectures, both were generous with their time, and open to critical discussion of their work. The results are to be found in the intellectually stimulating seminars published here.Michael Walzer's contribution is threefold. First, we publish here the lecture he delivered to a wide public, as the holder of the Multatuli Chair. This was entitled: International Society: What is the Best We Can Do? The lecture was delivered on May 1, at a time when the whole issue of the international community and its moral and political responsibilities was widely discussed, with reference to the war in Kosovo. That war, and other considerations, might suggest something too optimistic about such discussions of the international community. Walzer is no stranger to the topic of war, as those familiar with an earlier work, Just and Unjust Wars, will know. Walzer's title, on the present occasion, indicates the modesty of his proposal: what is the best we can do? With a theme that might seem to include too much, his discussion offers a sober and ordered approach, which works towards its goal by strategic steps from the left and right extremes of a continuum of possibilities. Second, in addition to this Multatuli lecture, a workshop was convened on the theme of The Power and Impotence of Multilateral Organizations. Marc Hooghe and Bart Pattyn had prepared in advance papers bearing on the work of Walzer. Marc Hooghe wrote of: “The Notion of Complex Equality and the Beauty of Alcibiades”. Bart Pattyn offered: “Two Questions about the Meaning of Meaning.”Subsequent to his response to these, the discussion was again wide-ranging, touching on the themes of the Multatuli lecture, as well as Walzer's other works. This seminar was held at the Institute of Philosophy, but Walzer's third contribution was a further seminar on the themes of his work, this time in the Faculty of Theology, and among the participants were students and teachers who had just spent time carefully studying his work. Among other things, the issues discussed here reflected Walzer's own interest in biblical themes, with repercussions in religion, but also beyond.The seminar with Williams was ordered around the questions of a number of participants who had prepared some questions on the basis of their study of his work. Williams responded impromptu, and as the reader will see the terrain covered is extensive. Williams has been an influential philosopher in the Anglo-American world, notably with reference to his explorations in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy.The seminar reflected some of the themes of that work. Williams raises questions about the obsession with theory in ethics, and seeks to explore a domain more ecumenical, so to say, than morality, understood in a more restricted sense, such as we find in forms of utilitarianism and Kantianism. The neutral universal is not enough. Or as he says pithily here: “I'm not living my life in order to exemplify a mathematical theory.” Ethics points to something more inclusive, and moreattentive to the nuances of concrete details and situations.This is not entirely unlike forms of thinking we find in Greek culture, whether among the philosophers, such as Aristotle, or among the poets and tragedians. Something of the latter is explored in Williams's Shame and Necessity. Among the many issues touched on in this discussion was the issue of universality, and as the reader will notice the seminar closed with an exchange with Jaap van Brakel over the nature of the `we.' The reader will find an extensive discussion of `we' in the paper that follows, indicating perhaps also that the `we' of the seminar itself had a post-seminar life.All in all, these different contributions provide us with lively and thought-provoking dialogue, from a diversity of ethical perspectives.

The new introduction to the second edition of Habits of the Heart is a very helpful reminder of the main points of the first edition. Moreover, it is very useful in situating, indeed resituating the book’s concerns, given the lapse of time since the book’s first appearance. It provides new insights made possible by second thoughts, as well as by the questions and criticisms of others. The problem of individualism and the slackening, not to say refusal, of traditional communal ties, has accelerated in American society since the first writing. We find phenomena such as middle class ‘cocooning,’ as well as an often low grade civil war, let us say the culture wars. There is a widespread disquiet — to the left, to the right, in the anxious middle — about the future direction of society. One thing is noted from the beginning as common across the divisions, namely, a certain view of the economy. Correspondingly, the authors themselves seem more insistent on issues of class than they were previously: “the festering secret that Americans would rather not face.”I will confine myself to two points: first, the issue of economy in terms of more basic metaphysical assumptions in the whole notion of ‘use.’ I will suggest some connections between serviceable disposability and the culture of autonomy, and between these and the equivocal relation to the other that besets the identification of freedom with autonomy. I work towards the question: must not our communal relations to others be placed in a deeply ambivalent position, if economic relations are dominated by serviceable disposability and freedom as autonomy is idolized?Second, I want to remark on how far we dwell in an ethos of will to power of which use and autonomy serve as masks. I must summon to our discussion the roaming, uninterred ghost of Nietzsche. Whence comes the spell that spoils our taste for the good? Whence comes this, this blandness of the good? The issue of nihilism and religion cannot be buried. Is this issue even more urgent than Bellah and his collaborators, in their essential decency, acknowledge?