Ideals and Compromise
The only reason to call something an ideal is to distance yourself from it, to name it impossible and therefore unnecessary. Once we introduce ideals we have also introduced legitimate compromise. David Tracy (Plurality and Ambiguity, 26) assumes that ‘ideal’ always means ‘counter-factual,’ as a sort of thought-experiment to demonstrate goals. This is why the ideal-compromise schema is destructive when applied to the Bible, and why it seems important that Aquinas does not use this schema: because it assumes that what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (for example) is automatically counter-factual, not something really to be practiced. When Thomas asks ‘what must we do?’ it is always a question of real possibilities, never moral description with reference to some unachievable goal. So collecting interest is forbidden us not ideally but really; and buying and selling a thing only at its worth is also achievably required.
What’s the difference between a vow against committing violence and a vow against committing adultery that makes the former ‘ideal’ and the latter non-negotiable? I refuse to allow that my pacifism be called an ideal. It is, like every other Christian precept, a practiced part of Christian life. The language of ‘ideals,’ with its necessary correlate of ‘compromise,’ have no place in the vocabulary of Christian discipleship.
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well said, Brian. The very word, “Ideal” connotates an impossible goal where failure is expected and acceptable. Hope things are going well at Notre Dame.
Thanks for the comment, Jay. Things are busy but exhilarating here. Hope things are going well at Duke too!
Yes, Nietzsche’s pun on ideal/idol in Twilight of the Idols also highlights the ‘hollowness’ of ideals: vacuous nothings which demand our worship.