The Secular Saints: And Why Morals Are Not Just Subjective

by Hunter Lewis

Overview

The term “secular saint” may immediately raise questions or even objections. Each religion specifies grounds for being considered a saint. What does it mean to be a secular saint? Presumably an exemplary life. But exemplary based on what? Exemplary according to whom? Perhaps an exemplary life is not even enough to qualify. Perhaps the life must also be inspiring or have something to teach us. But, again, inspiring or instructive according to whom? These questions are variants of the perennial question: are ethics and moral objective in some way or completely subjective? Is anybody’s opinion worth hearing? Most people would agree that Hitler’s morals were horrendous. But is there a way to distinguish good from bad without reliance on revealed religion? All of this in turn leads to questions humans have always asked themselves. What is right or wrong? What is good or bad or just less good? What is just or unjust? These are not just questions for confused or searching teenagers. Human beings are guided day by day by our beliefs and values, and are absolutely lost without this kind of guidance. This book provides “brief lives” and thoughts of some leading candidates for the term secular saint. Many of them are famous moral philosophers. Taken together, they offer a kind of history of moral thought. Some of them are not what we would today consider philosophers. All of them have much to teach us about how we lead our lives and think about the fundamental questions. This book also offers a conclusion: that morals and ethics are not just subjective, that they are grounded in very objective realities. There is such a thing as right and wrong, better and worse, and as thinking creatures we should recognize this and act on it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604191189
Publisher:	Hunter Lewis Foundation
Publication date:	03/06/2018
Pages:	435
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Hunter Lewis is co-founder and former CEO of global investment firm Cambridge Associates, LLC and author of 12 books on economics and moral philosophy. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Times of London, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic Monthly, as well as numerous websites such as Forbes.com, RealClearMarkets.com, and many others. He has served on boards and committees of fifteen leading not-for-profit organizations, including environmental, teaching, research, and cultural and global development organizations, as well as the World Bank.

Table of Contents

Part One: Introduction Chapter 1 Are Morals Subjective? Part Two: Ancient Moral Thinkers Chapter 2 Socrates (469–399 BCE) Chapter 3 Aristotle (384–322 BCE) Chapter 4 Epicurus (342–270 BCE ) Chapter 5 Epictetus (55–135 CE) Part Three: Modern Moral Thinkers Chapter 6 Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Chapter 7 Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) Chapter 8 Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677) Chapter 9 David Hume (1711–1776) Chapter 10 Adam Smith (1723–1790) Chapter 11 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Chapter 12 Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) Chapter 13 Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) Part Four: Modern Moral Thinkers and Doers Chapter 14 Jane Addams (1860–1935) Chapter 15 Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) Chapter 16 Eudora Welty (1909-2001) Chapter 17 Edna Lewis (1916–2006) Part Five: Conclusion Chapter 18 Why Morals

Editorial Reviews

Hunter Lewis has set himself a difficult task: he endeavors to explain why morals are not subjective. To understand his project, we must understand what Lewis means by “subjective” and its contrasting term “objective.” Consider the two statements “Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939” and “Stalin was evil.” Whether Stalin signed the pact is a factual question, not dependent on people’s attitudes toward it. Either he did or he didn’t. What about the second statement? Is this true or false, in the same sense as the first statement? Are there “moral facts”? To some people, it is obvious that there are no moral facts. Questions of good and evil, right and wrong, are “value judgments.” Ludwig von Mises expressed this position with characteristic force and lucidity: “All judgments of value are personal and subjective. There are no judgments of value other than those asserting I prefer, I like better, I wish.. .Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things.” (p. 363, quoting Mises) Lewis agrees with Mises; but, like Mises, he thinks there is more to be said. Value judgments express our desires; but to get what we want, we must deal with the world as it objectively exists…. “We must face the reality of the physical and social worlds in which we live, and this reality imposes on us many objective rules. If we want to survive, we must eat, and if we want to eat, we must gather food, and so forth. By using our logic, and learning from experience, we can develop a system of objective rules that will enable us to consider the long term as well as the short term and to work together to meet our needs and even realize many of our desires…." (pp. 380-81) I have [ so far] ... discussed only one thread in this rich book. There is much more, e.g., a discussion of the view that God’s commands are the foundation of ethics. The writers whom Lewis treats reject this view. They are “secular,” though not all are hostile to religion; Hume, e.g., is much more a religious skeptic than Kant. The book also offers portraits of remarkable people, whose lives show their various attempts to make sense of the world. Lewis’s long and learned treatment of Montaigne is especially insightful. One cannot read Lewis’s book without being impressed by the author’s philosophical acumen, scholarship, and humanity.

Mises.org, May 19, 2018 - David Gordon