More than 2,350 years have passed since the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote the Nichomachean Ethics. I find his insights into human relationships as relevant as ever.
As I discussed in my last post, the moral virtues are not a matter of rule-following. They are the kind, patient, and consistent directing of the emotions toward that which is truly good.
How does moral virtue actually happen?
Modern philosophers (that is to say, Western philosophers of the last 500 years) keep making the mistake of trying to articulate abstract theories of ethics. Goodness is not something you define in a theory. We humans are hardwired to know goodness when we see it. No one has to teach a baby to laugh with delight, or to want to savor the good moments forever (“Again! Again!”).
Aristotle’s point of reference for virtue was not an abstract definition, nor a list of rules, but the virtuous person himself. This approach is so simple that it is often missed, even by Aristotelean scholars. Aristotle explains that most humans (those not too tangled up in their own vices and delusions) will notice virtue when they see it in another flesh-and-blood human. It is through relationship with virtuous persons that we begin to learn virtue. Over time, through the building of healthy habits, our pursuit of the good gets internalized. As we become virtuous, we are eventually able to pursue the good with relative ease, rather than having to struggle every time.
I used to illustrate these points to my high school students by viewing The Lion King. Young Simba perceived the bravery of his father Mufasa, and wanted to imitate him. He first went to the extreme of rushing into danger, and then to the other extreme of conflict avoidance (hakuna matata). Most of the animals readily recognized and followed Mufasa’s brave and just leadership, even if they themselves lacked courage. By contrast, his vicious brother Scar, in his envy and malice, refused to see his brother’s goodness, telling lies to himself and to others about what was good.
Aristotle emphasized that the very earliest human years are the most crucial for virtue formation. The same truth has reemerged in contemporary studies of neuroscience and human development. Infants and toddlers need nurturing caregivers to attune to them and to help them make sense of their emotions. When parents regularly attune to and respond, little ones learn that even their biggest emotions can be regulated. Regulated, not subjugated or suppressed! But if the parents never learned to regulate their own emotions, they will struggle to give to their children what they are not providing for themselves.
In our first moments of human existence, we are utterly dependent. We need another human to respond to us and soothe us. If that attunement and responsiveness is there most of the time, or even much of the time, we become emotionally secure. Through thousands of experiences of distress and response, our brain and nervous system learn to expect abundance and be more resourceful. We establish broad neural pathways between the calmness of our rational brain and the alarm system of our limbic brain. Little by little, we become self-regulating like the caregivers who are there for us.
Aristotle didn’t know about the nervous system, but he accurately observed how crucial early emotional development is. Without it, we will be emotionally insecure, which means that we will struggle to be virtuous. No affect regulation, no virtue. Thankfully, we can rewire our brains, but only if we become again like little children, receive our emotions with curiosity and kindness, and patiently “grow up” now in all the ways we missed earlier in life. To do all of that, we will need wise mentors and companions. In the words of Aristotle, we need to find virtuous people to learn from.
The more I’ve gotten in touch with my own emotions and learned how to engage emotionally with others, the more aware I’ve become that most human beings in our society today (including our churches) have no small amount of insecurity. I would be glad to be proven wrong on this point! But I find it true of at least 80% of the adults I meet, just as I have found it true in myself.
Again, Aristotle said it first. He describes most human beings as being either weak-willed or strong-willed. The weak-willed person sees what is good, but frequently fails to pursue it due to an intense interior struggle. The strong-willed person often does good things, but still struggles interiorly, experiencing unrest. The vicious person (cf. Scar) doesn’t feel the struggle because he habitually rationalizes his behaviors, calling black white and white black. In Aristotle’s estimation, only a smaller number of humans are truly virtuous, emotionally regulated, pursuing the good, delighting in the good, and rejoicing in the reality that they are pursuing and delighting in the good.
This leads us to Aristotle’s reflections on friendship. The deepest and truest kind of friendship is only possible between virtuous people. Most friendships, he says, are friendships of pleasure or friendships of usefulness. Friendships of pleasure last as long as the fun times last, but dissipate when the shared pleasure passes. When tragedy befalls, it becomes clearer who your real friends are. Friendships of usefulness exist because one or both individuals are getting something out of the relationship. Both of these types of friendship are ultimately transactional. It isn’t necessarily bad to have relationships like these. It can be okay for some relationships to be mutually transactional. It’s just not a real friendship.
I would add a third kind of pseudo-friendship, calling it a “friendship of fear.” If your main motivator in life is fear, you are prone to surround yourselves with other people who feel similar fears. This shared fear-mongering allows you to gang up against “those people” who are the alleged enemy. Such was the vibe of the scribes and Pharisees, who thanked God they weren’t like those other people (Luke 18). Such was the relationship between the older brother in Luke 15 and the servant who joined with him in contempt-filled gossip as they witnessed the father lavishing a feast on the prodigal son. As with friendships of pleasure or usefulness, these fear-based friendship are also highly transactional. Because their fear is not yet integrated and moderated, such individuals are not yet ready for real friendship.
Virtuous people are capable of genuine friendship because of their emotional maturity. They are self-possessed enough that they can freely engage in mutual honor and delight. Aristotle obviously didn’t know Jesus, who was yet to be born, and so he didn’t know the great commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But his understanding of virtue and friendship provide a solid human foundation for that divine commandment. As I’ve written before, the equality taught in “love your neighbor as yourself” means that you are also invited to “love yourself as your neighbor.”
To the extent that I still have contempt for myself, I will struggle in a genuine friendship of equality. Where there is contempt, there is shame. Most of us struggle with a deeply rooted fear that we are not truly loveable. We fear being dismissed or rejected or abandoned. So we posture or build façades. We compare and compete; we envy and scorn. Show me someone who scorns others, tears them down, or calls them names – and I will show you someone who has an enormous amount of self-contempt, and is terrified of a spotlight shining on the deepest places in his heart.
Of all the emotions, shame is probably the hardest one to contend with and regulate. I do not recall Aristotle speaking on this point, but you can see that he “gets” it in the way he describes virtue and friendship. The virtuous person is happy because he desires the good, pursues the good, and delights in embracing the good. He has a healthy self-love, which is the foundation of friendship.
Friendship then allows this goodness and delight to flourish in abundance. If I am virtuous, I can see that this friend shares the same desire for and delight in the good. We can pursue goodness together and share our delight. I can desire the same goodness for my friend as I desire for myself. I can weep when he weeps and rejoice when he rejoices. My friend can delight in the fact that I am delighting in the same good as he is, and vice-versa. He sees and loves in me what I see and love in myself, and vice-versa. We can truly love our neighbor as ourselves.
As Christians, of course, this love of neighbor can surge to new heights, or descend into the depths of humility. It becomes possible to love Jesus in others, even in the distressing disguise of poverty (to quote Saint Teresa of Kolkata). In Luke 10, Jesus shows us that every human being is our neighbor, no matter how wounded or disfigured. We remain bearers of the divine image. The virtue of Charity (divine Love at work in us) allows us to be moved with compassion like the Father, causing us to move closer to littleness. It allows us to be kind to ourselves and to each other in our poverty. So many of us are still infants in our maturity, and need much kindness and compassion if we are to grow in virtue.
Most of what I share today I learned nearly three decades ago. But in so many ways I did not yet “get it.” Now that I am in a much deeper process of engaging and integrating my emotions, I find myself joyfully rediscovering old treasures. Whether returning to the wisdom of Aristotle or connecting with my earliest human needs for emotional security, it is much like the words of the poet T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
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