Guest Lecturer Discusses Civic Virtue | Thomas More College

Guest Lecturer Discusses Civic Virtue

By Patrick Kuplack, ’21

Last week, Thomas More’s Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture hosted guest lecturer Geoffrey M. Vaughan, D. Phil. to give a talk at Mercy Hall, the College’s historic mansion, on “What is Civic about Virtue?” Educated at the University of Toronto, Boston College, and Oxford, Dr. Vaughan is currently the chair of the Political Science Department at Assumption College. 

Dr. Vaughan opened his talk with the memorable line: “Civic virtue, like apple pie, is not something one tends to criticize.” And he went on to ask the question: “What is it about civic virtue that makes it specifically ‘civic’ and not just virtuous?” The statesman, as the head of the polity, is the only one capable of exercising all the virtues, says Aristotle. Not all virtues can be practiced by all citizens because the practice of many virtues is relative to one’s state in life. Virtues need to be understood in the political context if they are truly to be understood at all. Since the beginning, the political minds have reflected that politics has the greatest scope for action and yields the greatest consequences; political decisions have the capacity to affect thousands and even millions of lives, and yet are made by the very few (notable exceptions are the American and French revolutions, the former going relatively well, the latter ushering in the Reign of Terror instead of the intended republic of virtue). 

John Adams wrote in a letter to his wife that he practices politics so that his descendants will not have to. Adams suggests that the virtue of the ruler will cease to be necessary at some point and that civic virtue will be void once politics reaches a sort of apotheosis. Aristotle tells us that the man who lives apart from the polity is either a beast or a god; man falls somewhere in between and ceases to be man when he stoops below or assumes himself above the mean. It is the polity which exerts that necessary and healthy ‘social pressure’ that helps man maintain that mean and remain virtuous. 

St. Augustine, in his City of God, delineates the limits of civic virtue and explains that just because one may not fully be able to know oneself, much less another person, justice does not allow those in authority to abandon judgment, even if that judgment risks being unjust. The cultivation of virtue, if that virtue is to be right, must be tempered by the means to virtue, and that is the tranquility of order. The phrase ‘tranquility of order’ comes to us from St. Thomas and the natural law tradition; it emphasizes that the state has the right and duty both to prevent evils that disturb the peaceful condition of the state and coerce (properly understood) the populace into the exercise of virtue. 

United States prohibition laws are the perfect example of civic virtue pushed too far. Temperance is a virtue and something most need to work on; however, it makes for poor public policy, particularly as the policy itself is intemperate. The prohibition failed to lead the population to virtue and therefore the state (in this instance) failed in its purpose. For all this, though, it is a fiction to believe that the republic of self-interest, wherein the populace is permitted to do as it wills, is a good. It is certain that many things do merit prohibition, but that is where prudence comes in. 

Civic virtue cannot exceed the bounds of its proper role and think that it can make the individual citizen virtuous. That simply does not work, although civic virtue may create the environment wherein the individual may become virtuous more easily. Although contemporary political thought since Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau entered the scene is largely a rupture from traditional views, modernity still maintains elements of traditional Christian principles. For without the ‘Christian revolution’ which rocked the ancient world, modern society would not be what it is. That being said, Christianity is not a political program but rather underlies—at least in part—the political order, as no government can survive without virtue. Civic virtue is the moderator wherein we may keep a sane state. We can achieve and maintain the dignity of what we are, creatures neither beasts nor gods, only through the use of virtue. And as we move further into Huxley’s ‘brave new world’, these civic virtues will be more necessary than ever.

 

For further reading:

An Update from the Center

Visiting Lecturer Speaks on Christianity and American Progressivism

 

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