Truth and Faith in Ethics

Dame

Editorial Introduction

Hayden Ramsay

In 2008 the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney Campus hosted a conference on Truth and Faith in Ethics. A number of key thinkers in the area were attracted to the city by the combination of a new university campus and the visit some weeks later by Pope Benedict XVI and a hundred thousand students to celebrate World Youth Day.

The Conference invited reflection on what religious (and in particular, Catholic) faith contributes to ethics, and what it can learn from ethics. An unprecedented range of international and national philosophical ethicists contributed to the event, which also sought to engage the community through public debate, Q and A and media engagement.

The resulting publication sets out a range of approaches to moral truth and truths, and to the relationship of faith to ethics. All thinkers have a positive view of the effect of faith upon ethics; most agree that faith has an intrinsic connection to sound ethical thought and not just an apologetic or preaching function. Some argue for this by looking at the role of God in ethics, others look at religion or revelation or at the contribution of historical religious thinkers or moralists. Meanwhile, those considering ethical truth in its own right in independence of faith, focus on natural law or virtue, dignity or elements of individual or communal happiness.

The question of what difference, if any, God makes to morality was discussed by John Haldane and Rai Gaita in a lively public debate, hosted by Philip Adams and broadcast throughout Australia on Radio National’s Late Night Live.[1] Philip Adams is well-known as a commentator and writer for his atheism and for the skepticism with which he discusses religion. Adams genial Chairing and the sharp questions of audience members enhanced a debate which surprised many as the two debaters revealed much in common concerning value and meaning—though a clear difference over the existence of the deity. The quality of discussion was lifted by bypassing the often unimpressive ‘new atheism’ for deeper discussion of ‘truth and faith in ethics’.

Edward Spence asks whether belief in God is necessary for morality. He thinks not, though he thinks such belief is compatible with the systems good secular ethics have devised. Spence explores Alan Gewirth’s views in particular and looks at forms of (non-religious) faith these imply. The answer to the question ‘why be moral?’ is that this is rational; but in answer to ‘why be rational?’ one can only respond with faith, ultimately love of the Good, however understood. The traditional view is presented by Jude Dougherty in the course of a historical reflection on moral truth. Morality is not possible without God, or at least a metaphysics and anthropology that point towards belief in God.

Talk of God introduces religion. There are many religions, and many conceptions of religion; the question of philosophical and sociological identity criteria for religion is complex. The view that religion has a role to play in the secular state, albeit a very different role from that of a secular power, is the theme of Anthony O’Hear’s contribution. He develops a rich pluralism in which common restrictions are accepted to allow people to pursue their own philosophies of life, including religious traditions. The public role of religion is commended, but O’Hear believes that religion is at its core a private matter of believers’ relationships to God. O’Hear is generous towards aspects of religion and generally hopeful about consensus. In a rich paper on public reason in bioethics Nicholas Tonti-Filippini discusses how the understanding of difference can lead to consensus in policy-making and advisory bodies. Believers have a right to put forward their (reason-based) views for inclusion in public debate; but there is an obligation too to make decisions and to achieve from the morally acceptable outcomes on the table the best for the Church. Tonti-Filippini’s point is not that we should seek agreement by hiding difference, or that we should underscore difference and relegate consensus to secondary importance; rather, it is through others coming to understand and appreciate the difference that faith makes to believers that good decisions can be taken and policy advanced.

Of course, this is not to downplay the contribution Catholic faith has made to ethics and bioethics. Bernadette Tobin critiques the reigning theory of preference utilitarianism in ethics, proposing reason-based (as opposed to faith-based) principles of the Judeo-Christian ethic as an alternative. She cites the teaching on hope of Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi to explain why most Australians felt so good after the Australian Government’s apology to indigenous Australians for policies that have caused harm and unhappiness. Others today criticize the Christian ethic, some for moral reasons, others because of its supposed irrelevance in the light of new scientific, particularly biological discoveries. Richard Hamilton offers corrective here, arguing that followers of Aristotle and Aquinas in particular should take heart that modern versions of the theory of natural selection do not imply we have to give up on natural law views about animal life. Hamilton joins Alasdair MacIntyre in giving us a virtue ethics with important relationships to human biology.

Virtue is of course one of the major forms of ethical reflection in discussion about ethical truth. The virtue tradition here is represented by two major thinkers, each taking the debate into less charted waters. Julia Annas explains how Aristotle on virtue and eudaimonia provides us with a naturalistic ethic that does not require God. She then explores how eudaimonism does sit with the religious (Jewish) faith of Philo. Through this examination she shows that an account of virtues constituting eudaimonia as specified by a religion is possible. The notion of commitment provides a way of linking truth and faith in ethics. The final ends of the virtuous come either from rational intuition, a naturalistic account of the flourishing of the person or a religious vision and teaching. The question of final ends emerges too in the contribution of Nancy Sherman. Her contribution considers the inner motivational battles of soldiers as they attempt to understand and appraise the causes for which they are sent to fight. Here, real-life moral participants struggle to assess the justice of military causes against their own understanding of just ends. Serious issues of personal integrity arise here; and where integrity is compromised there are dangers of taint, shame, betrayal and disillusion. Sherman reminds us truth in ethics matters to ordinary men and women; keeping faith with final ends matters if people are to develop self-respect and practise courage.

Sherman is interested in first-person experience of warriors and this interest is focus of Christopher Cordner’s chapter. Cordner presents a Wittgenstein-like account of the absolute value of human beings ‘in his own voice’ (which by his wish we retain in this volume). He queries whether we might have benefited today if great ethical thinkers and agents of the past had avoided the language of philosophical speculation when communicating their views. Cordner discusses both Plato’s Gorgias and aspects of Christian thought within this context of discovering ethical truth without philosophical reflection as it is commonly understood. This leads to an extended discussion of the value of human beings and of the place of love, including divine love, in Western ethics.

Cordner’s view, together with remarks by Gaita in the public debate, is an important reminder of what we could call first-person ethics—ethics that tries to downplay its own philosophical history the better to understand the value of human relationships. By comparison, Sandy Lynch finds much in the tradition of Western philosophy to explain and interpret human relationships. She is alive to the uncertainty and dangers in friendship but finds ethically informative here a range of philosophical thinkers and concepts. In particular, she does what Pope Benedict chose not to do in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est: she discusses St Thomas Aquinas’s De Caritate. Lynch argues that the fragilities of friendship can all be cured by reception of, and growth in, charity.

Perhaps the key area in which truth and faith have come together in contemporary ethics is in the work of those holding a natural law theory of action and morality. Surprisingly, the in-roads made by such ‘new natural law’ theories to contemporary moral consciousness and debate have been limited. One exception is among those natural law adherents contributing towards human rights talk and argument. John Lamont examines Michel Villey’s establishment of a case for the Aristotelian concept of the objective right of persons over the late medieval concept of the subjective rights of individuals. This argument is of importance for the current debate on the foundational place of rights in political and legal systems. Robert George joins the debate with an explanation of how the new natural law theory regards human rights, as well as human dignity and religious faith. This practical reason-based account of natural law principles (as opposed to a natural law account that derives principles from metaphysical premises) justifies ascription and talk of human rights, but without the individualism and subjectivism that worried Villey. Rights matter, but like dignity, they are ways of talking about moral principles that enable reasonable participation and sharing of fundamental human goods, nothing more.

George also discusses the relation of natural law principles to faith and the question of whether without faith in God we can reach objective truths about rights and dignity. His answer is ‘yes’, but it is surely true that without revelation there are differences—in understanding and in motivation. Anyone might understand ‘love your neighbour’ but on the question of just who is my neighbor, without revelation we are mired in philosophical disputes. John Finnis believes that morality precedes faith: it is having a moral sense and sense of obligation that disposes us for the possibility of faith; and it is a positive moral view of religious prophets and teachers that leads us to find religious beliefs worthy. Thus revelation proposes universal truths but through particular events and choices to which individuals are already disposed to give a hearing.

Finnis’s work on the inter-dependence of revelation and reason draws together much of the tradition of truth and faith in ethics. His contribution includes important critique of Bernard Williams’s Truth and Truthfulness: an essay in genealogy, against which Finnis defends Plato and Christian tradition. Consistent with his views argued over many years Finnis gives fresh illustration that we can identify first principles of practical reason and do so in the ways proposed by new natural law theory. Contemporary academic ethics may stand back from engagement with new natural law, but Finnis does the job by engaging with Williams, Rawls and others in the defence of truth.

In different ways we often feel that moral truth and faith are under attack in moral philosophy. This volume suggests, however, that just as in life, attempting to reflect on ethics without truth and faith is actually very difficult. Where utilitarian and pragmatic views are followed in the literature or applied in professional situations there comes a moment each day at which they are put aside. ‘For good utilitarian and pragmatic reasons’, replies the adherent. But in fact, though such external reasons for turning back to truth and faith may exist, this is surely not why we usually do so. People tend to turn to truth and faith because, like health and friends, they need them. If that is a weakness, it is a good one; for it is part of being human and impossible to extract from the ethical debate real human beings have about what matters to them.

Thanks are due to Prof. John Haldane for his guidance and assistance with this publication, to the University of Notre Dame Australia and the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney for sponsoring the 2008 Conference on which this publication is based, to the Deputy Coordinator of that Conference Mrs Trish Egan and to Assistant Editor Matt Beard for his dedication and hard work.

1 A lightly edited transcript of the broadcast is printed as an appendix to this collection of essays.

Faith in Reason: The Unity of the Right, the Good and the Good Life

Edward Howlett Spence

1. Introduction

This chapter will address two key questions both of which are in keeping with the theme of this volume, namely, truth and faith in ethics. The first question, which relates to the role of truth in ethics, is whether a belief in a divine being such as God is necessary for human morality. The second question is whether faith has any part to play in ethics. For insofar as human reason or rationality is sufficient for establishing the legitimate authority of morality then faith it would seem has no direct role to play in ethics, at least not the central role traditionally assigned to it by different religions.

The first part of this chapter, based on an Argument from the Unity of the Right, the Good and the Good Life will address the first question and seek to show that a belief in God is not necessary for morality. Although not necessary, a rational belief in God is nevertheless not inconsistent with a secular morality.

Importantly, my concern will also be with the question of moral justification and not with that of moral compliance. That is to say, my enquiry will be concerned only with whether the authority of morality can be justified on secular grounds alone without the need of invoking the existence of a benevolent divinity that creates and sanctions that authority. Thus even if the authority of morality can be shown to be justified on secular grounds alone this in itself does not show that religion does not have an important role to play in encouraging and promoting social compliance with morality even if that morality is shown to be justified on the basis of non-religious grounds.

The second part of the chapter will address the role of faith in ethics and seek to show that faith and reason are mutually supportive concepts and as such faith has an indeterminate but important role to play in ethics, including secular ethics.

2. Truth in Ethics: The Rational Authority of Morality

The problem with basing morality on a religious belief in a benevolent God, one who commands us to be good, is that such a belief cannot be rationally justified without first justifying God’s existence. Since it has proven difficult if not impossible to prove God’s existence, basing morality on the existence of something that cannot be proven with any degree of certainty, and can therefore rationally be doubted, is not a secure foundation for morality. The problem of ascribing the foundation of morality to divine authority is illustrated by an argument in Plato’s dialogue the Euthryphro. Although in that dialogue the argument refers to piety and not morality, the argument can be adapted to refer equally to morality. The argument asks us to consider whether an act is moral because God commands it, or God commands the act because it is moral.

If an act is moral just because God commands it, morality is the product of God’s will and that renders morality problematic. This is because morality becomes mysterious and arbitrary—it is whatever God commands. Insofar as God’s Will can be variable and changeable, so can morality. Hence, moral conduct becomes unpredictable and therefore impractical as a way of predicting and regulating human conduct[1] on a day to day basis.

If on the other hand, God commands an act because it is moral, morality seems to be independent of God’s Will. God himself can only recommend acts that are already moral on some independent criterion other than his own Will. But if this is the case, the authority of morality is independent of God’s authority and thus the existence of God is not required for the justification of morality. But if the existence of a benevolent God is not what underwrites morality’s authority, what else does? Can morality have its own independent secular authority?

The Rights of Agents: The Rationale for Alan Gewirth’s Argument for the Principle of Generic Consistency[2]

The answer to the above question is yes. Morality can have a secular authority based on reason alone. However, in order to be able to establish the legitimate secular authority of morality, one that does not require the support of a prior belief in God, a secular theory of morality must be able to address and answer the question ‘why be moral?’ For unless a convincing answer can be provided to this fundamental question of morality, known as the authoritative question of morality, the secular authority of morality cannot be established.

Alan Gewirth, following in the tradition of rationalist ethics starting with Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and later the great modern philosopher, Immanuel Kant, has provided such an argument. His argument for the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) purports to show that we have prima facie rights to freedom and wellbeing and have to respect these rights on pain of self-contradiction. The argument locates morality not in any divine authority or human convention such as contractarian theories of morality but in our own human nature; specifically, the natural characteristic of the human capacity for purposive agency and action.

It will be impractical for me to explain here Alan Gewirth’s argument for the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) on which his derivation of rights to freedom and wellbeing is based, as this is well beyond the scope and limits of this chapter. I offer such a detailed defense in my Ethics Within Reason: A Neo-Gewirthian Approach (2006). I will, however, offer a brief summary of the rationale of the argument for the PGC, as well as a summary of my reconstruction of the argument around the concept of dignity, which is designed to show that although agents have only prima facie rights to freedom and wellbeing they hold those rights absolutely with respect to their personal dignity, which is also partly constituted by their membership of a particular cultural community. A person’s dignity is therefore constituted by a personal as well as a communal orientation.

Gewirth’s main thesis is that every rational agent, in virtue of engaging in action, is logically committed to accept a supreme moral principle, the Principle of Generic Consistency. The basis of his thesis is found in his doctrine that action has a normative structure, and because of this structure every rational agent, just in virtue of being an agent, is committed to certain necessary prudential and moral constraints.

Gewirth undertakes to prove his claim that every agent, qua agent, is committed to certain prudential and moral constraints in virtue of the normative structure of action in three main stages. First, he undertakes to show that by virtue of engaging in voluntary and purposive action, every agent makes certain implicitly evaluative judgments about the goodness of their purposes, and hence about the necessary goodness of their freedom and wellbeing. Secondly, he undertakes to show that by virtue of the necessary goodness which an agent attaches to their freedom and wellbeing, the agent implicitly claims that they have natural rights to these, from within their own individual subjective perspective.

At this stage of the argument, these rights being self-regarding are merely prudential. That is to say, that given that freedom and wellbeing are the necessary generic conditions of agency as such, an agent comes to realize from within their own internal subjective perspective that they have a prudential right to their freedom and wellbeing, these being the necessary means for the exercise of their agency in the fulfillment of their individual purposes.

Thirdly, Gewirth undertakes to show that every agent must claim these rights in virtue of the sufficient reason that they are a purposive agent (PA) who has purposes they want to fulfill. Furthermore, every agent must accept that, since they have rights to their freedom and wellbeing for the sufficient reason that they are a PA, they are logically committed, on pain of self-contradiction, to also accept the rational generalization that all PAs have rights to freedom and wellbeing.[3] The conclusion of Gewirth’s argument for the PGC is in fact a generalized statement for the PGC, namely, that all PAs have rights to their freedom and wellbeing just by virtue of being PAs. These rights are universal and objective everywhere and at all times without exception.

The Absolute Right to Personal Dignity: A Reconstruction of Gewirth’s Argument for the PGC

My reconstruction of Gewirth’s argument for the PGC around the notion of dignity in my book Ethics Within Reason: A Neo-Gewirthian Approach shows that an agent must not only claim rights to their freedom and wellbeing on the basis that these are the necessary conditions for all their purposive actions, but they must also claim rights to their freedom and wellbeing because these are the essential and fundamental constituents of their dignity as a person.[4] In sum, an agent must consider that they have rights to their freedom and wellbeing not only because they are the sort of being who engages in voluntary and purposive action but also because they are the sort of being who needs dignity, that is to say, a being who is a person.

We can now see that to some degree at least, a person has the generic rights to freedom and wellbeing in virtue of being a person irrespective of what they do or omit to do as an agent. For every person, no matter what they do or fail to do, needs their dignity. Because all persons need their dignity equally in virtue of being persons, each person will need a certain degree of freedom and wellbeing, in order to preserve and maintain a minimal degree of dignity so as to preserve and maintain their personhood. Thus, a criminal needs their dignity as a person as much as a law-abiding citizen. In this sense, they must both have sufficient freedom and wellbeing to allow them to preserve and maintain their dignity as persons. To the extent that a person has a right to have enough freedom and wellbeing in order to maintain their dignity, that right is absolute. The right to minimal freedom and wellbeing, sufficient for a person to preserve and maintain their dignity, cannot be removed without at the same time removing the very conditions necessary for an agent’s personhood. Personhood is the fundamental common denominator of our shared humanity.

According to Gewirth:

[A] right is absolute when it cannot be overridden in any circumstances, so that it can never be justifiably infringed and it must be fulfilled without any exceptions.[5]

The Unity of the Right, the Good and the Good Life

Following the Gewirthian analysis of the normative structure of action and the necessary ethical commitments to which it gives rise, I will now offer a theoretical account of the good derived indirectly from the notion of rights, specifically the generic rights to freedom and wellbeing that all agents have, both individually and collectively as a society, as a matter of rational necessity. This unified account of the right and the good is moreover required for offering a dialectical and objective framework for assessing the notion of a good life, more specifically, the essential conditions that must be present for a good life, defined in this chapter as a life capable of resulting or contributing to the attainment of self-fulfillment. I will refer to this model as the Model of the Unity of the Right, the Good and the Good Life (MURG).[6] Although the PGC is a meta-ethical model of morality that describes what is right, it is also essential to provide a theoretical account of the other two components of this model, namely, the good and the good life. This is necessary in providing not only a secular theory of morality framed within the notion of rights based on the natural property of purposiveness but also a secular account of the notions of the good and the good life.

Let us first begin with the good: insofar as the PGC requires all agents to act ethically or at least acknowledge that they ought to act ethically in respecting the rights to freedom and wellbeing of other agents including their own, and insofar as virtues of character such as the cardinal virtues of justice, courage, moderation and prudence, as well as the Humean moral sentiments, such as sympathy (positive) and remorse (negative), can be conceived as enabling dispositions that allow agents to act ethically in compliance with the PGC, especially under difficult circumstances, then the inculcation of those virtues and cultivation of those sentiments are also rationally required, at least prudentially.

Secondly, a good life is one that is at least minimally capable of enabling a person to attain self-fulfillment, happiness or eudaimonia. For insofar as self-fulfilment, happiness or eudaimonia is the ultimate object in life as Aristotle claimed, it is difficult to conceive a life that was not at least capable of leading to self-fulfilment, as good—what would it be good for if it were incapable of realizing one’s ultimate objective in life? A good life in turn is capable of attaining self-fulfillment or eudaimonia if it at least accords with the minimal requirements of morality in accordance with the PGC. Those requirements can more successfully be complied through the inculcation of the virtues and the moral sentiments, in accordance with an indirect application of the PGC. That is, a good life capable of resulting or at least contributing to self-fulfillment is more likely to be realizable if one is good—that is, if one has a good character comprising both the moral virtues and moral sentiments. And by being good one is also more likely to be righteous in complying with the requirements of the PGC by respecting the rights of other people including one’s own.

In conclusion of this section, my Neo-Gewirthian model of the Unity of the Right, the Good and the Good Life provides a comprehensive secular account of morality that requires no external divine sanction or other authority other that the authority provided by reason itself. Thus the truth of ethics is based on our individual and collective capacity for rational purposive agency. This secular unified model of ethics is moreover neutral and open as to the origin of this capacity. That is to say, it is consistent with both a naturalistic as well as a theological explanation.

3. Faith in Ethics: The Quarrel between Reason and Faith

I shall now address the second question that I raised in the introduction of this chapter, which was the question whether faith has any role to play in ethics.

I shall address the question concerning the role of faith in ethics in terms of the traditional rivalry between reason and faith and their supposed incompatibility. I hope to show that this rivalry when properly understood is unwarranted. As such, faith, and in particular faith in reason has an important motivational and compliance role to play even in secular ethics, since reason is the basis of secular morality.

The argument in brief is that even if reason is sufficient for providing objective justification for a secular morality it may not be sufficient in providing adequate motivation for compliance with its normative prescriptions unless people believed, trusted, and respected reason’s moral authority. In short, secular morality requires faith in reason. In this section of my presentation I will therefore examine what faith in reason amounts to.

First, however, I will offer a very quick historical perspective on the traditional quarrel between reason and faith, in order to situate that rivalry within the context of modern philosophy.

According to Martin Luther (1483–1546), ‘reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has’.[7] Ever since those (in)famous words were uttered, faith has traditionally been pitted against reason. Like two indomitable combatants in a ring, reason and faith have been delivering body blows at each other in a relentless fight for the minds and souls of humanity.

However historically concrete the division between reason and faith may appear, it is not clear or certain whether philosophically the dichotomy holds true. As it turns out, the struggle between the embattled twins might only be apparent and illusory.

David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, thought that reason was a mere slave to passion,[8] describing our belief in the very existence of the natural world as irrational and based ultimately on animal faith. He arrived at that startling conclusion through a series of impeccable logical moves based, of course, on reason. His skeptical point was that our belief in the existence of the external world could not be supported: either by deductive reason since a belief in the non-existence of the world involved no logical contradiction and neither by inductive reason based on empirical evidence since such evidence based on sense experience alone would involve going beyond what our senses actually describe. Moreover, the experience of mere sense data is also, at least rationally, compatible with the existence of a merely illusory world, a grant illusion, a mere mirage.

This was also the conclusion arrived at previously by Rene Descartes, the 17th century’s foremost rationalist philosopher and founder of the scientific method of enquiry. Through a series of skeptical arguments in his Meditations, the most famous being that of the argument from the Deceitful Demon, he arrived at the impeccably rational conclusion that our belief in the reality of the external world could not be rationally supported with any degree of certainty if the mere logical possibility of a deceitful demon causing us to experience the reality of an external world through a grant deception, could not first be eliminated. Insofar as no other rational argument or empirical evidence can eliminate the logical possibility of the Deceitful Demon, our belief in the reality of the external world can not therefore be either rationally or empirically supported. He thought that ultimately belief in the external world could only be supported by a prior belief in God’s existence as empirical evidence based on sense perception was subject to radical skeptical doubt. Certainty could only be secured by the existence of a benevolent God who would not trick us about something as important as the existence of the natural world.

Unfortunately, Descartes’ ingenious rational arguments, like those of Thomas Aquinas before him, failed to prove God’s existence. David Hume’s brilliant counter arguments in his Dialogues and Natural History of Religion demonstrated that the arguments for God’s existence though ingenious were not sound and therefore not convincing. Of course, as Hume himself conceded, although the arguments for God’s existence are unconvincing and inconclusive, their failure does not prove the opposite, namely, God’s non-existence. At the end of the Dialogues, Hume remarks, that belief in God is ultimately a mystery:[9]

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear, the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

Immanuel Kant, the great German rationalist and moral philosopher, himself a believer in the divine, who thought the sun shone out of Hume’s skeptical gaze,[10] agreed. Proof of God’s existence is beyond the scope and power of reason. It remains to this day a beguiling challenge if not mystery.

If these philosophers are right and neither the existence of the world nor that of God can be conclusively proven by reason, does it all come down to faith in the end? In a word, yes. But faith must itself be rational, it cannot be blind. Ultimately we must have faith in reason. This might strike us as a paradox. However, the paradox points us in the right direction. Faith and reason are twin siblings of the same parents: human nature and human need.[11]

4. The Three Conceptual Components of Faith in Reason

Faith in reason has at least three components: an epistemological, an ethical, and a metaphysical component.

Epistemologically we can have faith or trust in reason because of its proven veridical capacity to provide the most effective means for arriving at the truth. The success of science attests to reason’s maximal veridical capacity.

Defining reason as the power or capacity of ascertaining and preserving truth, Alan Gewirth, employs what he calls the Purposive Ranking Thesis (PRT) to demonstrate that reason is the best of human capacities. For insofar as reason is the best capacity for the purpose of discovering and preserving truth, and truth is essential for ascertaining what is best for each person to become in achieving self-fulfillment, then clearly reason is the best of human capacities with regard to that purpose.

As Gewirth puts it, ‘such self-fulfillment will achieve the best that it is in one to become because it will be the veridically best part of oneself that guides such achievement … for by being the best veridical capacity [reason] … can help to ascertain what kind of person one should try to be, what kinds of aspirations one should have’.[12]

More importantly reason, as the best veridical capacity is, according to Gewirth, not merely theoretical or intellectual (as a means of discovering truth for its own sake) but practical too, in using truth for discovering the best means for making the best of oneself.

Note, however, that our faith in reason is based on the proviso that we have for the purpose of practical living bracketed-off Descartes’ skeptical challenge. Unbeknown to us, our best science might be no more than a grand illusion caused by the Deceitful Demon in a Matrix-like scenario. Since we cannot rationally discount the logical possibility on which Descartes’ Deceitful Demon argument is based, and let us not forget that it is merely a logical possibility, one for which we have no empirical evidence for or against, we have no certainty concerning