Ethics and Politics

Aristotle wrote two books on Ethics, one called Eudemian Ethics, where Ethics is based on seeking happiness, and another called Nichomachean Ethics where ethics and virtue are described come from doing certain actions repeatedly, so that they become a habit and virtue consists in the development of character.  Then he wrote a book on Politics.  It was his intention that the Politics followed the Nichomachean Ethics.  In the Ethics he talked about virtue in terms of the individual,  while in the politics he talked about virtue in terms of society and government.  It’s logical after all to think that from a strong individual character a strong society and government should emerge.  Ever since then, Ethics Philosophers and Political theorists have linked the two together, except in the most recent times. 

Likewise there has been a tendency in Judeo-Christian thinking to link the Kingdom of God concept with the morality of the individual.  The Kingdom of God hereby is a logical extension of a more personal morality, which we of faith are commanded to follow.  Given these two parallel strains of thought, throughout the Middle Ages, and even the Enlightenment, Politics, Religion and Morality have been linked together.  Some like the Utilitarians have focused on happiness as the end of both personal and public morality, and others with a more deontological stress have linked personal morality with Duty, and by extension the duties of public life (politics).  It should be noted  at this stage that politics doesn’t only concern legislators and rulers, but also ordinary citizens and what it means to be a good citizen.  Politics is therefore not just for politicians, but for all persons who are members of any society, i.e. everybody. That being said, I think one is right to link one's religious faith with one's politics, but caution has to be exercised here, because one's religion may not be everybody’s, and in order to have a cohesive society where everyone gets along, there may be points at which one will or should allow others to exercise their faith tradition, or lack thereof, so that one does not impose one's faith on others. We may try to convince, but impose legislatively ought to be out of the question. One of the problems in today’s world, as others see us, is that Americans are “Yankee Imperialists” not only in our economic and political policies, but also in our religious views.   A good novel to read, which shows the connection between religious imperialism and economic imperialism quite well, is James Michener’s Hawaii where the religious imperialism of the New England missionaries imposed upon the natives became in the next generation an economic imperialism during the time Hawaii turned from an independent Kingdom to a territory of the US.

I disagree to a certain extent that Ethics is a matter of personal behavior. An interesting preacher once told me that as a Christian I have to decide whether the Christian message is about personal piety, or social concern.  I suggest that in order to answer this question one should not read the Gospels or Epistles in bits and pieces as we do in Churches, when we read the scripture from the Pulpit, but to take one of the Epistles of Paul, James, Peter, or John and read it through from beginning to end, as it was meant to be read, and one will quickly realize that the Christian faith is not so much about one's personal behavior in order to get to heaven, but more one's public behavior and how one treats others.  The Kingdom of God is not something beforehand (vorhandensein), in the sense of being back there in the past, nor in a world to come, but right before our eyes right here and now.  This is the Kingdom of God and we are its citizens (Children of God), after all God created it, it is His, therefore His Kingdom.  It is my considered opinion that the purpose of the Christian message is not to make you a pious individual who seeks entrance into Heaven inhabited by saints and angels, nor is it something that occurred in the Past say at Mount Sinai, when Moses received the commandments that we should always unquestionably obey.  Rather the purpose of Christianity, and for that matter any religion, is to make you good citizens of the Kingdom of God, right here and now. Should we not take seriously the notion that the Kingdom of God is within (among) us  (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν -  Luke 17:21)?  One ought to read Tolstoy's book on the subject Царство Божие внутри вас.  After all, isn’t the new Commandment given by Jesus that we “Love one another, even as he loved us (ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους.)”?