Man Dismantled

Like a building in which the top floors are dependent on the integrity of the floors below, ethics as a branch in the field of philosophy is largely dependent on another lower branch, that which we call anthropology. For we cannot speak of the moral activity of man (ethics) without first defining what and who man is (anthropology). All philosophy works in this backwards aggregate sequence: in defining man, we must first have an understanding of existence itself, that is metaphysics; of course, knowing existence presupposes that we can know anything at all, so prior to metaphysics we must delve into the limits of what we can know, that is the study of epistemology. From epistemology to metaphysics, metaphysics to anthropology, anthropology to ethics- but the whole thing is grounded in the truth established by God and discoverable through the use of human reason.

Different ages have emphasized their focus on certain limbs of philosophy over others, but philosophy in general must be seen as a wholly integrated search for truth, a healthy tree with no branch overshadowing another so that each branch receives enough light so as to help wisdom continue to grow.

The culmination of philosophy is found in ethics because integral to our purpose, our telos- what we are here for- is how we are to act. "Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" asks the rich young man (Lk 19:18). It is in the moral activity of man that his end is defined and his destiny found. The eternal life of his soul is wrapped up in how he is to live. Ethics is indeed the crown of the tree of man's wisdom for it involves the knowledge of who he is ordered to be. Yet, we must remember that an ethical framework is built upon the prior foundation of what comes before it: anthropology. Unfortunately, it is no surprise that in our day, modern anthropology has threatened man's ability to live well (i.e. to live morally) because it has eliminated any fundamental and common orientation in his makeup. The contemporary view man has of himself has dismantled his intrinsically ordered search for the good which he has historically found in living virtuously.

What do we mean by this? It is characteristic of the physical sciences to aggressively distinguish and reduce nature into smaller and fragmented parts, the study of which is accomplished by specialists. In addition to the positive results of such individually specific study that enables man to expand his capabilities in manipulating the individual parts of the world to his benefit, in our time, man's all-encompassing emphasis on the empirical sciences has also been the source of much of his confusion: the world's fundamental and overarching unity is simply dismissed vis-a-vis the myopia of the specialist. In our day, because scientific knowledge has eclipsed all other avenues to knowledge available to man ("Science is real" is the mantra of the hypnotized masses which choose not to see anything else as real besides its own scientific ideology), this ever microcosmic way of categorizing the world has also shaped modern man's vision of himself as no longer being a unified person, but one that is fragmented- an individual with conflicting and often incongruous parts, when thrown together, make him a sort of tin-man type of person, possessing interchangeable limbs and lacking at his core a heart.

The most recent movement that has taken on explosive force in this regard has been shaped by a particular understanding of gender dysphoria. Within the radicalized ideology that has proceeded from an interpretation of this disorder, it is commonplace to see distinctions made within the human person as having 1. a physical body, 2. a psychological makeup, and 3. emotional attachments and aversions. In days gone by, these distinctions would be referred to as the body, mind, and heart of man. The danger of the modern outlook is found in overemphasizing these artificial distinctions and seeing them as oftentimes contradictory and irreconcilable with each other. This gender ideological onslaught slices the intrinsic unity of the human person into pieces and says that, instead of man being a person with a form wholly oriented towards goodness and truth through the matter of his body, the body may show one thing about a person's sex, his mind may think differently from the biology of his body, and the heart is attracted to whomever or whatever it pleases.

Moving far beyond the Judeo-Christian view of man as a body and spirit united together to make up one distinct person, this disjointing view shreds man into pieces by severing his internal unity- a unity which in former times was referred to as his soul. No longer is man looked at as a body and spirit united together, now he is seen as a machine with disconnected parts and no soul (i.e. no unity).

It will become clear as to how this would influence one's ethics. If man is no longer seen as a corporeal-spiritual person governed by the will (drawing him towards goodness) and guided by the intellect (orienting him towards truth), what he does and what he thinks and what he wants are given isolated value in their own right. Long ago has a hierarchy of goods and values been jettisoned from modern man's vocabulary about himself. Indeed, whichever way the wind blows for one element in man is seen as the guiding direction in which his identity is constructed, often to the utter neglect of his original and obvious created identity by God. Justice Kennedy's words in defining a truly free human being as having "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life" comes to mind (Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992). Nothing is received any more, all are constructions. One's gender identity and one's ethics are determined by us and the varying inclinations of our component parts. Existentialism has found a comfortable home in such a "freedom" loving culture.

To make the case as to how this perception of man shapes his understanding of ethics can now become clearer by looking at traditional ethics more closely. Formerly, for a moral judgement to be made and praise or culpability given to an individual, an evaluation of three things was considered: A.) the act itself was regarded (whether it was objectively good or evil), B.) the intention of the actor (what he desired as an end result and whether his cooperation in the act was formal or simply material), and C.) the situation in which the act was performed. This wholistic approach to morally evaluating an action was a natural result of man being viewed not merely as complex and conflicting, but as a unified person. In this type of ethics, no element can be evaluated in isolation of others, save the objective value of the act itself (for only the intrinsic nature of good or evil acts provide the foundation upon which a moral order can be established).

However, with the compartmentalization of man, ethics is often viewed solely from the intention of the doer (see B above) to the neglect of considering the objective goodness or evil of the moral action (see A above). Compare this to the gender ideologue's view of placing primary emphasis on how a person feels or thinks- what his heart or mind appear to tell him (compare this to B above)- as a determining factor in his sex, to the neglect of the anatomy of his body (compare this to A above). It sounds a lot like the ethical subjectivist who judges the moral value of an action by his material or formal cooperation in it without considering the objective goodness or wrongness of the it he is talking about! Intention seems to be the only criteria that matters in modern ethics as personal feelings and desires are the only criteria in anthropology. Within the ethical realm the consequence of such thinking creates complications in understanding the moral order because it no longer acknowledges universally good acts or universally bad acts, apart from the situation in which they are performed or the intention of the actor. In our current ethics all is now dependent on the nebulous and elusive idea of intention; just as in our anthropology all is now dependent on the insecure and unstable idea of how one "identifies". The result of such confusion in not knowing who we are directly creates the ignorance of how we are to live.

But just as there is an objectivity in the biological makeup of the body, so too there is a sort of anatomical pattern to be apprehended within morality. Because of this, in order to hold fast to an anchor in the moral realm, man must regain an anchor in his anthropology. He must see himself once again as a unity of body, mind, and spirit oriented towards truth and goodness rather than a creature haphazardly thrown together with no metaphysical unity nor purpose beyond what he himself desires. Ethics and anthropology go hand-and-hand for it is "only by obedience to universal moral norms [that] man finds full confirmation of his personal uniqueness" (St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor). What a comfort it is to know that our own personal uniqueness is to be found as a consequence of following that which we share in common with others.

Man does not just have a body, he is a body. Man does not just have a mind, he is an embodied mind. Man does not just have a soul, he is a soul made intelligent so as to love. No good can come from eliminating or separating one of these dimensions of his person from the others. Once a natural separation occurs in the material realm, death is the physical result. In the intellectual realm, we should not expect anything less than mental and spiritual death when man artificially separates his different modes of being so as to reconcile reality to his own ideology.