MORAL EDUCATION AND CULTURAL RENEWAL

    This essay proposes cultural renewal as the most important task for humanity in the Third Millennium at the center of which is the rediscovery of the human telos--the nature, goals, purposes, and ends of human flourishing. The central question of what it means to be human thus implies a teleological imperative. The teleological imperative of human flourishing entails a rational ordering of human faculties and sensibilities predicated on character development, personal integrity, and civic responsibility. This, then, constitutes a cultural mandate, an educational philosophy or paidea, and an individual and societal challenge.

    The present volume of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies on "Virtue Ethics" addresses this overall theme from various perspectives. It is clear by now that ethical issues are central not only in philosophical discourse, but also in all walks of life across a wide range of professional and existential concerns ranging from beginning and end of life issues, business and corporate ethics, medical ethics, ethics in scientific research, including bio-engineering, stem cells and cloning, to ethical conduct in government, public affairs, law, and the professions. The essays in this volume revisit major schools of ethical discourse, from purely utilitarian or cost-benefit, to full-fledged theistic ethics whose metaphysical underpinnings draw on assumptions, values, and norms which transcend the subjectivity of individual and group preferences and self-interests.

    The central question to be addressed, then, is how can there be a genuine ethics which safeguards human rights and liberties and enhances individual choice while connecting human choices and actions to universal norms valid for all times and places, that is, norms which clearly preserve both individuality and universality as reflected by Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative and the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament? And, how can Old Testament virtues which emphasize justice and the redress of wrongs be reconciled with the New Testament vision of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and love? In brief, what are the prospects for an objective, universal grounding of ethics in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective?

    Culture critics like Jeffrey Hart contend that we have lost the capacity for moral reasoning and, thus, the ability to locate ourselves, let alone other cultures and civilizations (2001: x). To Hart, the recovery of moral reasoning is essential for sustaining a liberal order and a civilization which "can handle the polarities of freedom and order, self and society, reason and love" (2001: 122). Hart counsels that a true education in the liberal arts needs to address "the deepest of human matters, the ideas of good and evil, the nature of the universe, the ultimate bases of civilization, the goals of life" (2001: 190).

    Yet, such a project of recovering a paradigm of moral reasoning and character development challenges the postmodern Zeitgeist of subjectivism and moral/ethical relativism both in and out of academe. Already William K. Kilpatrick noted the decline of moral and intellectual reasoning in education and the society at large in his Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong (1993). Kilpatrick concludes that the introduction of moral relativism into the curriculum, supplanting character education, has raised a generation unable to distinguish reasonable moral arguments from mere rationalizations. Relativism's postmodern progeny are aware of their own subjective feelings, but are largely ignorant of concepts of absolute right and wrong.

    Adam B. Seligman relates that Modernity's Wager (2000) to liberate the individual from external social and religious norms undermines all authority and reduces individual and collective moral action to motives of self-interest, which enervates both liberty and democracy. As James and Kathleen Gow (2007) observe, the god of "self-esteem" reduces all moral and intellectual standards to the subjectivity of the isolated human self. Jean M. Twenge characterizes today's college students in Generation Me (2006) as the most narcissistic in recent history. Twenge also points to the "self-esteem" movement as responsible, in part, for a wired and coddled generation of Millenials who are narcissistic, lack empathy, behave aggressively when insulted, and tend to ignore other people.

    There is a growing consensus among both liberal and conservative thinkers that something is amiss in postmodern educational culture. Vittorio Hoesle views the postmodern dilemma as a reluctance to communicate value judgments, and points out the need for character education, self-discipline, and exemplary teachers (2004: 923). Hoesle is equally critical of the disconnect between morals and politics, overspecialization, and what he calls "a special peculiarity of modern science," namely, its "disconnection from knowledge about values" (2004: 926). In his conclusion, which echoes the analysis of "The Third Culture" thesis (Gruenwald 2005), Hoesle bemoans the growing skepticism, especially in the human sciences, that "ultimately abandons the idea of truth" (2004: 926). The basic underlying dilemma of postmodern normlessness, in Hoesle's view, is that today's academic culture industry "dissolves the basic moral convictions that have governed ethical life up to this time, without proposing a substitute" (2004: 928).

    It is therefore encouraging that educators like Derek Bok (2006) call for renewing higher education, with emphasis on delineating purposes, learning to communicate and think critically, building character, along with career preparation, acquiring broader interests, appreciating diversity, and enabling students for citizenship in a global society. In a welcome response to Bok's influential study, Our Underachieving Colleges (2006), Harvard University proposed a major curricular reform focusing on real-life issues, including culture and belief, ethical issues in science and technology, empirical reasoning, ethical reasoning, science of living systems, as well as aesthetic and interpretive understanding (Wilson 2006: A49). One of the eight new requirements, dubbed "societies of the world," aims to help students overcome U.S. "parochialism," while "culture and belief" is also meant to introduce students to social, economic, political, and religious ideas in cross-cultural perspective. It seems that students and faculty would do well to incorporate the insights explored in the thematic volumes of this Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies since 1989.

    Still, the unanswered question is whether Harvard's envisioned strengthening of its core curriculum could become a new standard for higher education institutions in the U.S., if not the world. A more salient question in terms of this essay is: Will Harvard's curricular reform be subsumed under the prevailing postmodern ethos of moral/ethical and cultural relativism, or will it pursue the rediscovery of moral/ethical knowledge rooted in universal standards accessible to human reason, will, and conscience reflecting an underlying universal human nature? In fact, one should not overlook the hundreds of private and public colleges in the U.S., large and small, which have pioneered and continue to offer their students a great diversity of character-enhancing initiatives and programs, recognized by a Templeton Foundation Honor Roll (2000).

    Admittedly, moral education and character development are not the exclusive prerogative of universities, but should be cultivated at all educational levels as well as by families, churches, sports and professional societies, communities, and society as a whole. In brief, moral education and character development--the teleological imperative--is a task for entire societies, cultures, and civilizations. James Davison Hunter, for one, is less than optimistic regarding such an enterprise. In The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil (2000), Hunter laments the fact that America's youth are taught self-esteem and self-actualization, rather than ethical ideals and character development, since the former inevitably leads to relativism and a sort of nihilism. College faculty are themselves split whether an undergraduate education should address the development of moral character and values. This in spite of the fact that more than two-thirds of freshmen in a recent survey would welcome the prospect of enhanced self-understanding as part of their college experience (Rainey 2006: A1). Proponents of liberal democracy like Peter Berkowitz would only agree concerning the relevance of greater self-understanding for the continued vitality of a free, self-governing polity: "Greater self-knowledge is today one of the keys to repairing the liberal spirit and restoring its luster" (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 159).

    Yet, observers point out that the liberal tradition, which Berkowitz defines as comprising "individual liberty, human equality, religious toleration, and systematic intellectual inquiry based on the free exercise of human reason" (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 154), requires universal standards that transcend a particular culture. Thus, Christopher Wolfe argues that contemporary liberal democratic theory is in crisis because it "fails to provide an adequate public philosophy" (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 205). Wolfe suggests that for liberalism to flourish, it needs to retrieve essential elements from the natural right and natural law traditions such as: (1) a realist epistemology: "the belief that it is possible to attain objective knowledge, including knowledge of human ends and moral values"; and (2) emphasis on the centrality of natural intermediary institutions such as the family and church (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 206-7).

    Pope John Paul II never tired of recalling that there is a moral structure to freedom. In a passage surprisingly attuned to the classic conception of eudaimonia or happiness, John Paul commended that: "In acting ethically, according to a free and rightly tuned will, the human person sets foot upon the path to happiness and moves toward perfection" (1998: 39). Robert Nisbet, among others, confirms John Paul's linkage of freedom, morality, and faith, when he muses that: "Above all, man is what he thinks the transcending values are in his life and in the lives of those around him" (1975: 233). Yet, Daniel J. Mahoney notes that liberalism in practice tends to erode its moral capital, thus undermining the moral foundations essential to liberal democracy's well-being (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 26). Are liberalism and virtue compatible, then? Douglas J. Den Uyl believes that liberalism and virtue are compatible in principle, if we recognize that "virtue is itself fundamentally rooted in individual choice and responsibility" (in Boxx & Quinlivan 2000: 86).

    But this returns us to the seminal question concerning the relevant norms, standards, or yardsticks for judgment required for reasoned, ethical, free choice, and attendant individual and collective responsibility. Put another way, can ethics be taught as a science? Is moral knowledge indeed objective knowledge or merely subjective preference? According to the postmodern dictum that "all positions are principled," no perspective can be deemed privileged or excluded from consideration. But this postmodern ethos reflects an epistemological, axiological, ethical, and ontological deconstruction of reality and an essential contradiction. If "all positions are principled," and if God is dead, then everything is allowed, nothing forbidden, since there is no objective, transcendent grounding of moral obligations or ethical categories such as right and wrong, good and evil. For a consistent postmodernist, then, it becomes impossible to accept any ethical/moral standards at all, and thus impossible to condemn even such great evils as the Holocaust, communist genocide, or Islamic jihad (Gruenwald 2000). Moreover, a consistent moral/ethical relativist cannot even act, since all human action presupposes a choice, whether conscious or unconscious, and hence an implied moral predisposition as well as factual and moral consequences inherent in a specific act. In contrast, what a liberal order and human flourishing require is a virtue ethics which transcends individual subjectivity and personal or group preferences.

                                                NATURAL RIGHT AND VIRTUE ETHICS

    Epistemically, there are two promising strands or schools of thought which explore the human condition and the question whether there is such a thing as a universal human nature. The first of these strands is a renewed interest in the natural right or natural law tradition, which stretches back to the classics like Plato and Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The second strand is the growing interest in virtue ethics, which may be understood as a subset of natural right theories. Indeed, the two strands or constellations of thought intersect in their pivotal concern with human nature and, especially, the moral "ought" in human affairs. What is remarkable is the flowering of Thomistic natural right theories espoused by such theistic philosophers as Robert P. George (2001), Russell Hittinger (2003), Vittorio Hoesle (2004), Jean Porter (2005), and Fulvio Di Blasi (2006), among others. These thinkers offer the most comprehensive, systematic conceptualizations of natural right or natural law, and their integral connection with human rights and human dignity, rooted in a supernatural or transcendent metaphysics.

    Yet, there are two older traditions of natural right, which hold important insights into the human condition relevant to virtue ethics: (1) Socratic/Platonic; and (2) Aristotelian. One of the best-known proponents of Socratic natural right theory was undoubtedly Leo Strauss. In his Natural Right and History, Strauss sought to recapture the classic form of natural right, which entailed a teleological view of the universe based on the pre-modern insight that: "All natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them" (1968: 7). One may not agree with Strauss' conception of the philosopher-king or the elitist implications for a social order and politics to appreciate his critique of historicism which rejects natural right in favor of positive right, resulting in an inability to adjudicate the conflicting needs of society, which leads to nihilism (1968: 2-5).

    Equally relevant is Strauss' critique of Max Weber and proponents of a value-free science, especially the supposed ethical neutrality of social science and social philosophy, which deny "any genuine knowledge of the Ought" (1968: 41). Strauss' conclusion was that where there is no knowledge of natural right as such there can be also no philosophy worthy of the name (1968: 81). Yet, Strauss' natural right theory rejects divine revelation, resting his case on human reason which unassisted can discover the crucial distinction between nature (physis) and convention (nomos), and thus fulfill the task of philosophy (1968: 85-90). This contrasts with a Thomistic approach, since for Aquinas, natural right/natural law is a "participation in the eternal law by a rational creature" (cited in Di Blasi 2006: 1).

    Curiously, the other classic tradition, inspired by Aristotelian thought, notably his Nicomachean Ethics, offers a theoretical bridge between Platonic and Thomistic natural right, antiquity and modernity, as well as a naturalist foundation for virtue ethics. Henry B. Veatch's Rational Man (1962) is a closely-reasoned and impassioned plea for recovering a natural law moral theory as a paidea for teaching ethics as a science. As Douglas B. Rasmussen sums it up, Veatch--considered the father of virtue ethics--sought to establish "three claims: (1) that ethical knowledge is possible; (2) that ethical knowledge is grounded in human nature; and (3) that the purpose of ethics is to show the individual human being how to `self-perfect', which was Veatch's way of writing about eudaimonia in Aristotelian moral theory" (in Veatch 2003: x). What is interesting and highly relevant to a secular age in Veatch's study is that he grounds moral claims not in religious revelation, but solely by an appeal to what used to be known as "the natural light of reason," that is, a naturalist metaphysics (2003: xxvii). Veatch concedes that an ethics of rational man is compatible with religion, but his focus or primary aim is "to rehabilitate the subject [of ethics] once more and make it a respectable scientific discipline" (2003: 17).

    Now, contemporary studies in virtue ethics such as Stan van Hooft's emphasize the social context and personal fulfilment as a function of adhering to norms and rules of professional conduct, professional roles, or "honourable social living," and even dispute that virtue ethics belong to "the discourse of morality" (2006: 155). In contrast, Veatch asserts in the Foreword to his volume that it will investigate not one's responsibility to society, but rather "the individual's responsibility to himself" (2003: xxvi). Yet postmodernists who might expect another reductionist exercise in "self-esteem," understood as a simple stroking of an individual's subjective self, are likely to be disappointed. The chief reason is that Veatch's approach recalls the classic, pre-modern, notion of the right ordering of the human soul and intellect, which challenges postmodern relativism and subjectivism. In fact, Veatch offers an antidote to the modern penchant for controlling physical nature, while disregarding human nature. According to Veatch, "what is needed for ethics is knowledge not of how to control nature, but of how to control oneself" (2003: 10).

    Veatch thus challenges not only moral/ethical relativism, but the postmodern ethos which celebrates the id and the unrestrained ego, the hubris of wishful thinking and subjectivity which abolishes all norms, standards, and limits, and enthrones human subjectivity--the naked self--as the arbiter of human desires and choices (Gruenwald 1981-82). It is clear that Veatch's virtue ethics is founded on a theory of human action. Indeed, Veatch's most persuasive critique of ethical relativism centers on the fact that the very act of human choice--daily living--entails a choice between different courses of action and outcomes which refute conclusively a relativist's stance--since the relativist must also choose and thus in-act a specific preference. In Veatch's poignant formulation:

"no human being can stop with just having convictions, he also has to live and to act. But to act is to choose and to choose is to manifest some sort of preference for one course of action over another. However, to manifest any such human preference means that, conscious-ly or unconsciously, implicitly or explicitly, one has made a judgment of value as to which course of action is the better or the wiser or the more suitable or preferable" (2003: 22).

    Veatch is also critical of the fact-value dichotomy, pointing out the logical untenability of a strict separation of fact and value. He observes that facts already incorporate certain value aspects. Veatch thus argues persuasively that ethics and values entail an objective, factual basis, just as causes entail consequences. While Veatch realizes the existence of cultural diversity in human moral standards, he nevertheless affirms the Aristotelian ethical position that there is a telos, end or purpose toward which the human being is directed by its very nature, and that "man's natural end is simply to live intelligently" (2003: 137). But, if man is by nature a political animal, that is, a being that can realize its telos only within society, and a corresponding political and cultural milieu, how can one assert the normative aspect of a universal code of ethics applicable to all people, times and places?

                                                 MAN AS A SYMBOLIC ANIMAL

    Anthropologists, linguists, and philosophers have long held that man is a symbolic animal (Buswell 1989). In the very act of coining words, man ascribes meaning to the universe. Perhaps this is why God let Adam name the animals in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2: 19), thus intimating to humans their divine pedigree, while reminding His children that they are an integral part--and the crowning--of God's Creation. Yet, man's divine capacity to create meaning via symbols presupposes a Reality--an underlying structure of the cosmos--which man does not create, but only discovers. Scientists like Jacob Bronowski and Albert Einstein marveled at the intelligibility of a universe accessible to human reason due to the regularity, orderliness, symmetry, beauty, elegance, and mathematical encryption of the laws of Nature.

    A new scientific discovery is like an epiphany, or, an "Ah-ha" experience. That is why to a perceptive mind, scientific exploration appears not simply as a discovery, but "an act of creation" (Bronowski 1972: 20). However, this should not be misunderstood in a reductionist sense as implying that apart from human perception, there is no Reality. Rather, a scientist, artist, philosopher, indeed any human being, co-creates the meaning of specific aspects of a pre-existing Reality or world that is "out there," independent of the human observer. Furthermore, this human understanding and ascription of meaning to the plethora of phenomena in the universe is always provisional, fallible, and imperfect, subject to trial and error, correction, confirmation or refutation. Great scientists recognize the challenges, complexities, and limits of their exploration and investigations, along with its beauty and satisfaction of decoding the created Order. In brief, there is an underlying Reality which the human mind can explore, and where the truth of natural laws is the norm, standard, or yardstick for judging how far, to what extent, or whether human understanding of those laws is warranted.

    Whereas natural laws operating throughout the universe are accessible to human reason, there are, nevertheless, different orders of complexity. Thus, while natural scientists have excelled in applying the reductionist methodology to non-human nature, social scientists and humanists face a far greater challenge of complexity, integration, and synthesis when studying human nature. Alas, in the twentieth century, the overzealous application of the reductionist "scientific method" greatly impoverished the social sciences and humanities (Gruenwald 2005: 144-50).

    The central question posed in this essay concerning the proper end or telos for man, which is moral education and, ultimately, how to live well, addresses the truth of human nature, ends, and purposes. How can one discover the truth about human nature? It is fascinating that the natural right tradition intersects with theories of human motivation. The Bible has much to say about this. But, even intellectuals like the psychologist Abraham Maslow, not known for religious proclivities, confirm the classical view of human nature as a complex, hierarchical structure. Indeed, Maslow's (1943) famous hierarchy of human needs is rendered as a pyramid consisting of ascending levels from physiological needs such as food, water, shelter, and sex, to psychological needs, including safety, love, belonging, social, and esteem, to cognitive and aesthetic needs, to the more spiritual growth needs of self-actualization and self-transcendence.

    It is clear that Maslow's hierarchy of human needs--regardless whether one agrees with his further proposition that the lower-tier needs must be satisfied before engaging the higher needs--raises the question central to this essay: the right ordering of the human soul or self. Naturalists reduce this question to a naturalist metaphysics. But such a naturalist metaphysics is inadequate for grasping the nature of man as a symbolic animal. Surprisingly, Kenneth McElhanon, a Christian anthropologist and linguist, claims that man is "a basic level creature," and hence that supra-cultural absolutes remain beyond his reach (2007: 127). It is true that all human under-standing and faculties are developed in society, that is, in a specific cultural milieu where the very symbolic universe--especially language--already pre-determines human conceptualization of right and wrong, good and evil, and thus what constitutes truth, beauty, and moral conduct. The inescapable conclusion seems to be that we are all culture-bound, and since all cultures are relative, humans are incapable of recognizing, let alone following, supracultural absolutes. If true, this would confirm the social construction of reality where social prescriptions set boundaries, and where virtue ethics would amount simply to fulfilling one's professional and other roles prescribed by a society's mores.

    The only problem with such a virtue ethics or cultural theory is that the social construction of reality lacks an exterior or extra-systemic criterion for judging its adequacy or truthfulness, and abolishes man qua man (Gruenwald 1992: 22). Yet, without extra-systemic criteria or normative standards for evaluating particular social, economic, and political structures and processes, cultural mores and assumptions, there can be no meaningful critique of unjust institutions, processes, or human conduct, and hence no genuine ethics or real human progress. In fact, the social construction of reality ultimately collapses into moral/ethical relativism of postmodernity whose educational outcome is, at best, an educated savage, or in C. S. Lewis' parlance, "a trousered ape" (1996: 25).

    Yet, supracultural absolutes--including symbols such as the alphabet, language, mathematics, the scientific decoding of the universe, and universal moral codes reflected by the Tao--can be found embedded in every culture across time and space. In fact, different cultures may be compared with each other, and also with the supracultural absolutes, in terms of the degree to which they incorporate, and thus em-body, such ideals. It is only in terms of supracultural absolutes that humans are able to assess the justice or injustice of particular human institutions, processes, and conduct. Absent supracultural absolutes, men and societies would still remain in a pre-civilizational Stone Age. Critics like C. S. Lewis and Oswald Spengler (1926) intimate that without a moral compass humanity may indeed be heading back to the Stone Age or worse.

    It is intriguing that modern science increasingly questions its own reductionist scientific methodology which tends to reduce all Reality to simply its empirical, material component. Thus, studies of the human brain remain inconclusive, but philosophers and scientists like Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles postulate that the self-conscious mind directs or programs the physical brain. Modern scientific research appears to confirm Immanuel Kant's insight regarding man as both phenomenon and noumenon (Gruenwald 1981). Kant proposed that human knowledge is possible only by the joint action of human sensibilities or empirical perception of reality and the pre-existing normative architectonic structure of the human mind (1929: 429). Kant insisted that a priori principles built into the human constitution were a necessary precondition for human cognition and, indeed, the very possibility of experience:

"pure a priori principles are indispensable for the possibility of experience, and so . . . prove their existence a priori. For where could experience derive its certainty, if all the rules, according to which it proceeds, were always themselves empirical, and therefore contingent?" (1929: 45).

This is also why Kant posited two sets of laws governing the universe: laws of nature and laws of freedom.

                                                      THE TELEOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE

    This brings us back to the teleological imperative that affirms a conception of human nature whose end, purpose, or telos is "self-perfection," or human self-realization and self-transcendence, which entails a proper ordering of the soul or self and the development of all human faculties guided by a moral sense. Virtue ethics needs to address both this individual telos of self-perfection and its societal implications. Virtue comes from the Latin root for virtu, but it harks back to an even earlier classic notion of arete or excellence. Is it not curious that contemporary society, and especially the academy, praise the excellence of everything under the sun--from beer commercials to cars, cosmetics, medicines, movies, music--and universities grade student performance in all subjects on a scale measuring excellence? Yet, societies and academe seem to take for granted that students and the public at large can figure out for themselves the most important skill there is: how to live their lives. Alas, in a postmodern context, moral discourse in general tends to encounter an automatic negative response as somehow infringing on the individual's autonomy and prerogative of free choice.

    But, the postmodern aversion toward any rules or moral codes as infringing individual autonomy and freedom of choice appears misplaced. Crucially, though poorly understood, the teleological imperative also implies the priority of freedom. This is so because only a free being, with the capacity and possibility of choosing between alternative courses of action, may be considered a moral agent. This is why Hoesle can write that only humans are capable of great virtues and great vices. Of all creatures, only a human being--as far as we know--has a clear conception of his self-identity, and thus can conceive of one's self as an "I." Hoesle sees this ability to conceptualize the "I" as crucial for both human dignity and the human capacity for moral reasoning. This is so because a human's self-consciousness, or personhood, can not only affirm the self-identity by saying "I," but also "transform this indexical into a norm and thereby see others as I's" (2004: 278). The Golden Rule or the Tao (the Way) is widely acknowledged as a universal code of conduct, though it needs embodiment and en-culturation, that is, it needs to be woven into the tapestries of diverse cultural expressions. Nonetheless, Hoesle emphasizes the classical natural law injunction and presupposition for just societies and communities, which begins with the task for man to first "set himself in order, to bring self and I into agreement. From Fichte and Kierkegaard to Nietzsche and Heidegger, this has rightly been emphasized as the first moral act" (2004: 282).

    If there is a central aspect of a truly human civilization and culture, it is certainly the moral fiber of its citizens, what Alexis de Tocqueville called the habits of the heart. But, lest the reader conclude that this is either moralistic or trivial, history confirms the opposite expressed in the recollections of Holocaust survivors and the eye-witnesses of other genocides and Gulags. Thus, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn learned many lessons in the Soviet Gulag--the system of prisons and forced labor camps--but one stood out as a preeminent insight: "Oh, how difficult it is, how difficult it is, to become a human being" (1974-78, II: 367). The camp experience etched onto the writer's mind the imperative of choosing between good and evil, right and wrong, and that this fateful choice crystallized the ultimate cost of moral striving under a tyrannical regime which trampled human freedom and dignity--preserving one's life but compromising one's conscience, or following the dictates of one's conscience and losing one's life. In Solzhenitsyn's inimitable prose:

"This is the great fork of camp life. From this point the roads go to the right and to the left. One of them will rise and the other will descend. If you go to the right--you lose your life, and if you go to the left--you lose your conscience" (1974-78, II: 603).

    Solzhenitsyn's vision may strike some as too pessimistic. After all, it reflects his harrowing experiences in the Gulag--the dehumanizing system of prisons and camps in the Soviet totalitarian system--whose major purpose was to work the prisoners to death, and where all human values were inverted. Hence, the camp experience is not to be taken as the model of virtue ethics in ordinary circumstances. In fact, prisoners who were willing to risk their life often survived, though few escaped without psychological, emotional or physical scars. This is so because the Gulag tried to reduce humans to the animal or subhuman level and, as Solzhenitsyn writes, it largely succeeded. This is another dimension unknown and incomprehensible to the average citizen in the West. In essence, the Gulag is a warning to one and all that tyrannies are to be avoided, since they brutalize humans and reduce them to the subhuman. It also reaffirms the need to preserve freedom, democratic self-government, and all the constitutional guarantees of human rights as the prerequisite for moral choice and human flourishing. Solzhenitsyn's message is thus timeless, as it highlights the postmodern drama of the lack of a moral compass without which men and societies can end up in the Gulag (Gruenwald 1980).

    Moral education should, thus, be recognized for what it is: a universal pan-human challenge for all individuals and societies. The capacity for moral education is, indeed, a supreme affirmation of an inalienable human dignity and sociability. We do not expect dogs to become more dignified. Obedience school for dogs means just that--that dogs should learn to obey certain human commands and expectations concerning man's best friend. But, as Popper avers, while a dog can have a more or less friendly disposition or personality, only a man can become a better man:

"A higher animal may have a character: it may have what we may call virtues or vices. A dog may be brave, affable, and loyal; or it may be vicious and treacherous. But . . . only a man can make an effort to become a better man: to master his fears, his laziness, his selfishness; to get over his lack of self control" (1977: 144).

In brief, only a human being created in the image of God (Gen 1: 27), a free, creative, and self-creative being possesses a transcendent dignity, which cannot be purchased, bartered, or taken away. For Hoesle, this human dignity "consists precisely in the fact that he must make himself what he ought to be, and that he can either fail or succeed in doing so. Great vices as well as great virtues are the prerogatives of humans" (2004: 281).

    It should be clear by now why Hoesle, among others, recommends a new political ethics for the twenty-first century. Following in the natural right/natural law tradition, Hoesle endeavors to restore the classical perspective of moral reasoning, drawing on Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, as well as contemporary theorists. In this context, one might note that Augustine, Aquinas, and the Church Fathers Christianized Plato and Aristotle, and thus laid the foundations of Occidental civilization and culture. Augustine's Confessions (397-400) offer a classic Christian understanding of the concept of sin, while Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (1267-73) pointed to the love of God as the summum bonum, surpassing all classical notions of goodness as man's true telos, end, purpose, and fulfillment. Aquinas' great synthesis fused two contending propositions: credo ut intelligam (I believe in order that I may understand) and intelligo ut credam (I understand in order that I may believe). Hoesle acknowledges that Christianity's sense of evil is "completely different from antiquity's," and that, for Aquinas, true joy "arises from love for the highest divine good" (2004: 299).

    Particularly encouraging is Hoesle's thesis concerning the need for schools and educators to teach moral knowledge, values and virtues, which at their best confirm the Biblical high view of man created in the imago Dei. Hoesle writes for postmodern intellectuals, educators, and practitioners in politics, affirming the proposition that there is an intimate and necessary connection between morals and politics. One does not have to subscribe to Hoesle's particular socio-economic or political prescriptions, whether regarding ecological awareness or world government, to appreciate his emphasis on recovering moral knowledge in and out of the classroom. In brief, Hoesle's magnum opus contributes to a growing body of literature on natural law and virtue ethics which, though not always admitted, confirm both the Old Testament's Decalogue (Ex 20: 1-17) and the two Great Commandments of the New Testament--love of God and love of neighbor (Matt 22: 37-40)--which Hoesle sums up as charity. And charity is where tolerance might begin and end.

    At the dawn of the Third Millennium, America remains a land of paradoxes. Arguably the world's leading scientific, technological, economic, political, and military superpower, America is at a crossroads questioning its own moral and religious roots. America, with its vast human and natural resources and high levels of education and professional workforce, contrasts with the other America of substandard education, health care, and pockets of poverty and illiteracy where some high school graduates can barely read, write, or do simple math. America, whose legendary middle class enjoys unprecedented blessings of freedom and prosperity, still has the more dubious distinction of incarcerating two millions of its citizens for breaking the law--the largest proportion of any Western industrial democracy. If only half of America's prison population could be rehabilitated and became contributing members of society, it could help fund educational and employment opportunities for many who might otherwise slide to a life of crime or doing time. Yes, morality has consequences; as does immorality (Gow 1985).

    It is true that you cannot force men to be virtuous (Gruenwald 2004: 16-17). Nonetheless, all societies try to legislate morality by prescribing certain minimal codes of conduct whose transgression incurs social opprobrium and/or legal sanctions. The setting of the bar for minimal codes of conduct, in turn, is a function of a society's self-understanding expressed in, and reflected by, its culture. In the U.S., the steady downward ratcheting of the level of culture puts increased strain on the social fabric and the body politic, reduces civility, respect for the law, and governability, thus endangering both liberty and equality. The question which echoes through millennia of humanity's checkered history is still pertinent today: And who shall educate the educators?

    In conclusion, rightly understood, there should be no conflict between moral codes of conduct and individual freedom of choice. Equally, there need be no conflict between religion and liberty, though these two orders need to be reconciled in the individual's conscience. America, perhaps more than any other nation, is a convincing example of how this can work in a multicultural setting. What puzzled an astute French observer of pre-Civil War America the most was that, unlike Europe, Americans seemed to reconcile religion and liberty, conjoining an individualistic commercial ethos with a moral community, democratic institutions of self-government, and piety (Tocqueville 1956: 47-48). Providentially, the nation's moral compass needed adjusting to overcome the universal yet degrading social institution of slavery, and once more align its aspirations with a supracultural ideal--that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While today the fabric of this great American experiment is fraying at the edges, the historical precedent offers hope that liberty, morality, and religion may once more inspire individuals and societies to follow the Golden Rule or the Way, and thus reclaim the telos of human dignity.

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Oskar Gruenwald, IIR-ICSA Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.