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The Philia ProposalAdapted
from a presentation delivered in Vancouver, May 2001 by Jacques
Dufresne. dufresne@agora.qc.ca
These ideas occurred to
me while thinking about persons I have come to know and that I like
to think of as moral athletes. They are otherwise ordinary persons
who would likely have led quite ordinary lives, but, when loss and
tragedy struck and excluded them, their children or their loved ones
from active social life, they chose to stay and care. Their
commitment represents a moral summit, a spiritual Mount Everest. But
even that comparison is wanting: climbers who reach the summit of
Mount Everest quickly head back to altitudes where they can find
oxygen. The persons I am thinking about remain on their moral
summits day after day, year after year, long after they run out of
the oxygen they need for their spiritual well-being. Onlookers,
standing at a distance, reel at the thought of the effort demanded
of them and wonder where sources of inspiration can be found to
support them. We tend to equate 20th
century with war, destruction, and the worst crimes against humanity
ever. But that is also the period during which, perhaps in response
to the hardship, the sense of a moral obligation to care for
suffering and the commitment to include those that are left out have
risen to highest levels ever reached in human history. Thinkers,
especially philosophers and theologians, have yet to develop a
compelling conception of humanity, of the world, and of suffering
that can make sense of and support the countless examples of moral
excellence and courage on the part of otherwise ordinary people. Christianity, we know,
has been and still is a powerful source of moral commitment. This is
visible in the work of Jean Vanier, for example. But today’s high
level of moral demand has two other, more recent but equally
powerful sources in what are, ironically, two opposite philosophical
traditions: idealism and materialism. There is a story of how
the frail and ailing Kant, a few days before his death, got out of
bed to welcome a visitor and remained standing until his guest had
been properly seated. Finding his breath, he explained: “I have
not yet lost all sense of humanity”. Inspiring this remark is one
of the key ideas of Kantian idealism: objects are means to ends but
humans, all humans, are ends in themselves and, as such, are
entitled to unconditional respect. All human beings: Kant rejected
all forms of racism, discrimination and exclusion. He once said that
whenever he noticed outstanding moral behavior on the part of
servants, he stopped to pay a silent tribute and would have bowed
openly if prevailing customs had allowed him to. |
