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Hero For Christ

KierkegaardPlato



I wrote this recently as a writing sample to support my admission to the Ohio University program in Philosophy.

Kierkegaard's Teleological Suspension of the Ethical

as a solution to the problem of individuality posed by Plato's Republic

by Christopher Sunami

July 26, 2006

The central thesis of Plato's Republic is that the person ruled by the best elements of his or her nature is better off than a less-disciplined peer ruled by desire. To support that thesis, Plato draws a comparison between the person ruled personally by internal wisdom and the city ruled by its wisest men and women. He argues that the wisdom-ruled city is better off than the city ruled by a tyrant, and that the same is true of the wisdom-ruled individual versus the desire-ruled individual.

Plato does not, however, introduce his ideal city purely for the sake of metaphor. It is fair to claim he believes a city ruled by those who love wisdom to be the best and happiest of cities in actuality, rather than simply in theory. Although to be personally ruled by wisdom is Plato's ideal, he finds that state to have a close equivalent in the state of being ruled by a wisdom-loving leader. In either case, the individual is governed wholly by wisdom, and whether that wisdom is his or her own or borrowed from the leader is largely irrelevant.

Although Plato's theoretical republic was long accepted as a political ideal, it meets stiff resistance from modern critics, who find many of its stricture's repellent. The reason for this reaction is simple. The modern viewpoint cherishes individuality; but Plato's society seeks to eliminate it.

The reason Plato's republic is incompatible with individuality is because of its extreme linearity. All citizens of the republic can be identified and evaluated entirely by a single variable: the strength of their wisdom. Further, social status and position are fully determined by the same variable. The more wisdom a person contains, the higher up the social hierarchy he or she is placed, with the rights and responsibilities of leadership following accordingly. Any change in a persons individual wisdom automatically changes their social position, with the overall result that the society as a whole remains substantively invariant, no matter what changes among the citizenry might take place. In other words, as long as there are sufficient numbers of citizens, and they are sufficiently varied to cover the range of wisdom-loving, the society as a whole will not change based on the identity or actions of individuals.

In such a context, meaningful individuality, which is to say, individuality with significance, can only manifest as harmful deviance. Given the perfection and invariability of the republic as initially designed, no subsequent modification of the base social structure in response to individual initiative can be counted as a good.

Although the rigidity of Plato's republic makes it a particularly apposite example, the problem it raises is by no means unique. In fact, it might be universal. Given that all societies structure themselves by legislating rules of behavior, pursuing membership in any society of non-trivial size will inevitably involve the acceptance of limits on the free expression of individuality.

This can be proven by contradiction. Suppose we consider the extreme case of anarchy, a society composed entirely of individuals unbounded by social rules or regulations. Although the particulars of the destiny of that society would be unpredictable (resting as they would on the free actions of unique individuals), it is possible to foretell with confidence the immanent destruction or dissolution of the society as a whole. For example, there would be nothing in particular to prevent murder, rape, destruction or thievery (other than the good will of the citizens involved). While it might seem pessimistic to expect such eventualities, the probability of there being at least one bad egg in the carton increases along with the population size, towards virtual surety at any reasonably urbane numbers.

While the same might also be true with a more conventional society, the difference would lie with the conventional societys established methods of restoring order. In the anarchic society, there would be a greater likelihood that the negative behaviors would continue or intensify until some group action was taken. At that point, however, even if the solution was extra-legal (for example, vigilante justice), a primitive social compact would have been formed, and effective limits would have been placed on the free and perfect individuality that had previously held sway.

In actuality, as Plato argued persuasively, an anarchic society is uniquely vulnerable to the subsequent establishment of a tyranny. When faced with the uncertainties of social chaos, most people will eagerly trade their freedoms for the relative safety of a strong leader. This was a thesis history had already proven by the time Plato wrote the Republic, and the subsequent evidence of many centuries has done nothing but reinforce its certainty.

Of course, there are milder gradations of individuality possible between the all-encompassing Platonic state on one hand and the null-encompassing anarchic collective on the other. For example, we could picture a society in which certain base-level social rules are established and enforced, but where all other individualist behaviors are encouraged.

In many ways, this hypothetical middle-ground society appears to be a better support to true individual identity than even the anarchist society. By establishing a structure of commonly accepted behavior, the society functions almost as a framed canvas within which individual expression can flourish. In the world in which nothing is forbidden, all actions are of identical significance, because there is nothing against which they can be measured or contextualized. By providing that context, the middle-ground society grants added meaning to individuals actions.

However, there is a sense in which this is merely an illusion. Given the underlying stability of the social system, the boundaries set for individual actions necessarily strip them of larger social significance. To phrase it otherwise, you can do anything you want as long as nothing you do makes a difference. The middle-ground society (which is not so very different from our own) is revealed as analogous to an ice-cream store with an unlimited variety of flavors. Some flavors are popular, some are obscure, and some might even be repulsive. Each one is recognizable, however, as ice cream. The difference between one and another is strictly a question of subjective taste.

Is it even possible to conceive of a society where this compromise might not hold sway? If individuals are allowed to alter and amend the very fabric of the society itself, to what extent can that society be said to have a sustainable identity of its own? Does the meaningful existence of the society preclude the meaningful existence of the individual and vice versa?

One possible solution to this problem is to introduce the concept of the progressive society, the society whose identity is expressed as a process rather than as a destination. In such a society, each individual could make significant constructive alterations to the society, in pursuit of a better future forever out of reach.

In addition to addressing the problem of identity, this concept also rectifies one of the most serious objections to the Platonic republic. As presented by Plato, the republic can only degrade and never improve. No other type of city leads to the republic, and each other type discussed degenerates into a city that is worse rather than better. Particularly as the republic is presented as an unobtainable ideal, the possibilities of creating such a city in reality seem dim. Even the best effort would inevitably contain corruptions and imperfections that would magnify themselves until the entire social structure came undone. The progressive city, conversely, although it starts in a state of imperfection, and continues in a state of imperfection, improves itself continuously, and thus comes ever closer to its ideal form (rather than ever farther away).

As compelling as this notion may be, however, it too suffers from a serious practical objection. Given that even the basic social structures of the society are subject to alteration, how are the changes (and indeed, the city as a whole) to be administrated? The only hope seems to rest with a benevolent dictator who would generally administer the laws of the city as written, yet grant individual exemptions in all and only those cases where individual initiative would move the city forward by improving upon the status quo. Of course, this would seem to require a dictator of superhuman wisdom, discernment and judgment.

It is at this point in our discussion that Kierkegaard becomes of interest, in particular regards to his study of a problem which is unrelated at the superficial level, and yet on deeper examination reveals a profound connection with the problem already under inspection. Kierkegaard calls his problem the “Teleological Suspension of the Ethical,” and it deals with a purpose-driven interruption of moral law.

Kierkegaard introduces the concept with the aid of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was given a son in his old age by God, and promised that his son would be the ancestor of a mighty nation. However, before his son reached adulthood, Abraham was commanded by God to offer Isaac as a human sacrifice. Abraham began to obey, but was stopped by God just before the sacrifice, and released from the command.

The part of the story that most fascinates Kierkegaard is that neither God’s command nor Abraham’s willingness to obey can be justified by any reasonable system of morals and ethics. The sacrifice of Isaac is morally indistinguishable from infanticide, as defined as the murder of the trusting and innocent child of the murderer. Nor does the fact that Isaac is ultimately saved expiate any of Abraham’s supposed guilt, given his complete acquiescence to the act. And yet, Abraham is not censured as a criminal, but rather celebrated as a model of faith.

The only resolution to this paradox, according to Kierkegaard, is a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” God, or obedience to God, is the telos, the ultimate source, goal and justification of all actions. Accordingly, God, or obedience to God, has the ability to supersede any moral or legal code at any given instant, or on any given occasion.

Even accepting this conceptualization, the story can be interpreted in two contrasting ways. The first is as proof of the absolute unknowability of God, who makes decisions that (presumably) match a divine plan, but who cannot be questioned or understood by human beings. (This, as a side note, is the argument advanced in the book of Job). The second is as proof of the intercession of God in human affairs in ways that are not independently imaginable by human beings, but which bridge between comprehensible states of existence towards comprehensible ends. In the first version, both God’s order to sacrifice Isaac and his subsequent salvation of Isaac are equally incomprehensible. In the second version, the first order remains initially incomprehensible, but the second restores Abraham to a sensible universe and conventional moral framework. Further, the benefit of hindsight grants meaning to the first order as well. By removing Abraham and Isaac briefly from world of morality, God has consecrated Isaac for his future role as the father of a nation, and established the primacy of his (Isaac’s) relationship with God over his relationship with Abraham. These are ends which could not be pursued from within the moral framework, but they may at least be understood within that framework ex post facto.

The two interpretations are not as incompatible as they first appear, differing more in emphasis than in actuality. Nevertheless, it is the second interpretation (divine intervention as a bridge across boundaries of human structure, towards a knowable larger purpose, i.e. a “teleological suspension of the ethical”) that is relevant to the problem of identity, as follows: Suppose we re-imagine our progressive city as a theopolis, a city ruled directly by God. In this case, God takes the place of the benevolent dictator, but without human limitations. God grants individual exemptions to moral, legal, and cultural rules, but only towards the larger purpose of improving the city. Thus the city moves continuously towards a perfect ideal state that may not be humanly realizable, but which already exists in the imagination of God.

For a resident of such a city, the majority of life would be spent in obedience to the base-level rules of society, as augmented by the ice-cream-flavor type of individuality available in the middle-ground city. However, at any given point each individual would have the potential of making a unique, constructive contribution to the city, resulting in significant but positive alterations to the life of the citizens. Of course, the existence of such a city would be entirely dependent not only on God’s existence, but on the willingness of God to administrate the city directly, unambiguously, and in support of individuality.

There is an interesting side-note to this line of inquiry. Although it is easiest to picture the progressive theopolis as a wholly fated phenomenon, it is also possible to conceptualize it in a manner that preserves free will. In the fully determinist version, the finished city can be said to pre-exist as part of God’s plan. In addition, God already knows what each person will contribute towards the city, and each person’s individual choices are predetermined so as to progress towards that end. In this model, individuality is largely an illusion, but no more so than free will itself.

In the semi-determinist version, the ideal city once again pre-exists in the mind of God. In this case, however, individuals do have free will and the ability to make unique choices. However, in this model, God supports only those actions and choices that will progress towards the predetermined goal state. Of course, this means that progress will be uncertain, uneven, and perhaps slow, but none of those problems pose an inconvenience to an eternal deity.

The non-determinist version is the hardest to picture and understand. It begins not with a single ideal city, but with an infinity of possible cities, each good in its own way (whether because we admit an infinity of possible goods, or because each is a different declination of a single ideal). At each step of the city’s progression, therefore, it approaches (through divine intervention) one of the infinite possible cities, but which and how is dependent on the specific individuals who compose the citizenry, as well as upon the choices they make.

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