Four philosophical approaches to moral theory dominate contemporary discussions. These approaches are duty-based ethics (inspired by Immanuel Kant, 1724–1804), consequentialist ethics (inspired by John Stuart Mill, 1803–1873), nihilistic ethics (inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844–1900), and virtue ethics (inspired by Thomas Aquinas, 1224–1274) One can place most approaches to ethics in one of these four traditions of inquiry. To adjudicate among these rivals and the innumerable combinations and permutations of each is a task for a series of books. I would recommend those written by Alasdair MacIntyre, the author of After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory; Whose Justice? Which Rationality?; Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry; and Dependent Rational Animals. The purpose of this essay is to briefly outline and evaluate these four moral theories.

I. Duty-Based Ethics

Kant’s Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals) is the magna carta of duty-based, deontological ethics. The Groundwork’s famous opening line asserts that there is nothing in or outside of the world that is good without qualification besides a good will which “shines forth like a precious jewel.” The good will is inherently valuable is in spite of intervening circumstances that may make such a will ineffectual. This insight is predated by a similar one from Plato, namely the idea that the good person cannot be harmed by outside forces: “Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death” (Plato, Apology 41d). Kant’s view is also an echo of the Stoic Epictetus, who held that the character of a person is the only thing that really matters, and that whatever is outside the character of the person (and therefore outside the person’s control) is a secondary issue. Epictetus wrote, “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own” (Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5).

For Kant, the will is made good by acting in accordance with the demands of duty. Act and motivation both count in moral evaluation. We can fail by failing to do our duty and by acting contrary to what duty demands. We can also fail by doing what duty demands but with a flawed motivation, such as the desire to avoid punishment or to feel good about what we do. The only proper motivation of an act is that it be done for the sake of duty (aus Pflicht).

Kant in turn defines duty as obedience to a law which is binding on all rational creatures, categorically (i.e., unconditionally) and not hypothetically. This law is a consequence of the ability to reason, and so the law is an autonomy (self-given law) rather than a heteronomy (other given law). Any heteronomy exercised by one’s own or another person’s inclinations would involve motivations such as fear of punishment or desire for reward. These motivations, being only accidentally related to duty, corrupt a pure motivation to do what is right for the sake of duty. For Kant, actions motivated by anything of than duty have “no moral worth”(Groundwork, chapter 1). Autonomy of the will is necessary for proper moral action.

This emphasis on the will as the origin of ethical justification is an echo of late medieval voluntarism, according to which what is right is determined by God’s will. Divine Command Theory bases right and wrong solely on what God wills. If God willed differently, then what is right would be wrong and what is wrong would be right. For Kant, the moral law arises from autonomy, a law given by the self, rather than a law given by God (theonomy). According to Kant, the moral law arises from reason, and reason is necessarily linked to necessary and a priori truths. Thus, just as reason invariably sums 7 and 5 to equal 12, so too practical reason (if it is truly reason and not influenced by outside forces) invariably arrives at a basic ethical truth: the moral law as the categorical imperative.

A test of whether a law is a categorical imperative is its universalizability. In other words, one asks the question, “What if everyone in similar circumstances were to act in the proposed fashion?” This test of universalizability reveals that the maxim, “when I believe myself to be in need of money, I will borrow money and promise to pay it back, although I know that I can never do so,”{1} is self-contradictory and therefore contrary to the reasonableness of law. If people broke promises when it was in their interest to do so, then whenever someone said, “I promise...,” no trust would be inspired. Thus, to will the maxim in question is, in effect, to will that the practice of promise-making cease to exist. But to make any promise is to will that promise making continues. The situation is contradictory because the person wills both that promise making continue and that it cease. Since the moral law is rational, and this maxim is irrational, it thus contradicts the moral law.{2}

A second test of the suitability of a maxim is whether or not it treats humanity as a means to an end rather than an end-in-itself. The good, for Kant, is the only thing that is good without qualification, and the rational nature is the seat of the good will. Thus, rational nature, unlike things that have only a price, has a dignity and intrinsic value. Therefore, to use humanity (an instance of rational nature), either in the person of oneself or in the person of another, only as a means, while not also respecting it as an end in itself, is to act contrary to reason. Thus, Kant would say that suicide is always wrong, since the person who commits suicide uses his own person as if it were a tool to bring about a pleasing state of affairs or as a means to end a bad state of affairs such as experiencing pain). It is interesting to note here the contrast with classic Stoic thought, which deemed suicide permissible.{3} Similarly, stealing makes use of another’s effort as a tool to be used by the thief. These Kantian insights about the ontological and not merely functional value of the human person lead to a recognition of inalienable human rights for all human beings, regardless of age, race, sex, physical condition, or religion.

Kant’s ethics faces difficulties in so far as it historically rests on assumptions that have been called into question, such as the sharp distinction between analytical and synthetic propositions and the particular presupposed scientific and anthropological theories. Kant’s Groundwork also begins with a principle that does not appear to be justified: that the “only thing that can be said to be good without qualification is the good will.” His argument for this is that other characteristics often considered good can lead to tragic outcomes. Kant is right that a person with intelligence, determination, and strength who lacks a good will can be a monster. But he also holds that the good will is that which is good without any qualification. That is to say, regardless of its combination with other elements, the good will remains good.

This reasoning is problematic in two ways. First, just because an -intelligent person with an evil will is a very dangerous person, it doesn’t follow that intelligence is not good without qualification. Intelligence, dexterity, determination, wit, etc., even if used by a bad will for an evil purpose, remain goods in themselves as perfections of a human person. The eye that looks to steal is not evil in itself but is an instrument used badly by the person who directs the eye. Secondly, the good will itself leads to catastrophic results when combined with erroneous knowledge. A person with a good will can kill, maim, or disfigure due to a lack of knowledge of relevant particulars (e.g., the surprise loaded gun). Hence, the good will would not seem to be “good without qualification” according to the same criteria by which intelligence, wit, and dexterity are said not to be good without qualification.

Despite these nagging questions about Kant’s system of ethics, no one can doubt its power. Kant remains, centuries after his death, one of the most influential philosophers of all time. Unfortunately, some contemporary Kantians take up conclusions that explicitly contradict Kant and undermine some of his unique insights into moral theory. For instance, in arguing for abortion and physician assisted suicide, contemporary Kantians characteristically misappropriate Kant’s understanding of autonomy, using this misunderstanding to argue for conclusions explicitly rejected by Kant. Rational nature should be respected in its rightful autonomy, but contemporary Kantians construe this autonomy in a way which undermines the very basis of autonomy. Richard Munson exemplifies this misunderstanding:

For Kant, an autonomous rational being has a duty to preserve his or her life. Thus, one cannot rightly refuse needed medical care or commit suicide. Yet our status as autonomous rational beings also endows us with an inherent dignity. If that status is destroyed or severely compromised, as it is when people become comatose, and unknowing because of illness or injury, then it is not certain that we have a duty to MAINTAIN our lives under such conditions. It may be more in keeping with our freedom and dignity for us to instruct other either to put us to death or to take no steps to keep us alive should we ever be in such a state. Voluntary euthanasia may be compatible with (if not required by) Kant’s ethics. (Munson, <em>Intervention and Reflection</em>, 167)

This neo-Kantian view is incompatible what Kant actually says.{4} Kant explicitly characterizes suicide as always immoral. Indeed, it is one of his stock examples of illicit behavior in the Groundwork. Autonomy is discussed by Kant not as the ground for human dignity, but rather as a consequence of Kant’s strict requirement that we do what duty demands and be motivated by duty (pflictmäßig und aus Pflicht). Were the inclinations of ourselves or others (heteronomy) to dictate our actions, our motivations would be corrupted by the desire of reward or the fear of punishment. It is the human inclination of fear of suffering or humiliation that motivates people to commit suicide or to have abortions. On Kantian grounds, the motivations of such choices should be suspect and the actions themselves deemed contrary to since they fail to respect humanity as an end-in-itself.

Moreover, some contemporary Kantians undermine perhaps the greatest insight of Kant’s ethics, namely that all human beings, due to their rational nature (but not necessarily their rational functioning) have inherent dignity. Kant would view the step towards evaluating human worth in terms of functionality instead of ontology as a confusion of persons and things. Things are evaluated according to how they function, and the price of a thing is determined by the human desire for it. Rational nature, as the possible seat of the only thing good without qualification, the good will, has dignity but not price. Its value follows from its nature, not its function (e.g., healthy or ill, young or old, beautiful or ugly, valued by others or not valued by others). We have autonomy and freedom only insofar as this freedom respects the intrinsic dignity of human nature. In Kant’s words, “This principle of humanity and of every rational nature generally as an end in itself is the supreme limiting condition of every man’s freedom of action” (Metaphysics of Morals, line 431).{5} Contemporary Kantians put the cart before the horse in arguing that autonomy grounds dignity. If the individual in question is worthless, then there are no grounds for respecting the decisions of the individual.

Finally, since, for Kant, morality is primarily rule-based, questions arise about which rules to follow when rules come into conflict. Kant solves the problem by appealing to the difference between perfect duties, which always bind (e.g., the duty not to kill any innocent person, including oneself), and imperfect duties, which do not always bind (e.g., benevolence). Imperfect duties should be fulfilled only after perfect duties. But what should one do in cases in which two perfect duties cannot be fulfilled? John Stuart Mill notes that Kant’s own appeal to the categorical imperative is really an appeal to the bad consequences that follow from universalizing a maxim. Thus, Kant’s duty-based ethics relies at least arguably on utilitarian considerations.

II. Consequentialist Ethics

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism that seeks to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Just as elements of Kant’s view can be traced back to ancient Stoic views, so too, elements of Mill’s utilitarianism can be traced back to the ancient philosopher Epicurus. Epicurus focused on individual happiness, which he understood as tranquility and the avoidance of suffering. John Stuart Mill (1803–1873) agreed that happiness was pleasure and the lack of pain, but Mill focused not only on individual happiness but on the greatest happiness for the greatest number of individuals. This emphasis on the greatest happiness for the greatest number led utilitarians such as Mill and Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) to seek social reforms in England to remake prisons, schools, and law codes in accord with the principles of utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism, as it has been developed since the time of Mill, commonly distinguishes between rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism holds that one should follow the rules that bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Act utilitarianism holds that one should do whatever act brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Generally, only act utilitarianism contradicts common sense in practical conclusions. Although rule utilitarianism may not provide a sound theoretical basis for moral judgment, this version of utilitarianism may be used to defend the exceptionless precepts of common-sense morality. On the whole, the rules “Never intentionally kill an innocent human being” and “Never have sexual intercourse against someone’s will” lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Hence, according to rule utilitarianism, one should never break these rules.

Act utilitarianism, on the other hand, excludes the possibility of exceptionless rules or intrinsically evil acts. No act, even having sexual intercourse with another person’s spouse (adultery), having intercourse against someone’s will (rape) or intentionally killing an innocent person (murder), may be excluded a priori from consideration. In so far as murder, rape, or adultery could at least conceivably bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number, these acts would be not only licit but also obligatory. In Catholic thought, this view is known as proportionalism.{6}

Mill’s argument in favor of utilitarianism begins with the truth that all people clearly desire happiness for themselves. The happiness of others is integral to the happiness of each person. This is the first principle of utilitarianism.

The initial plausibility of utilitarianism as well as its most potent weakness lies in the ambiguity of the word “happiness.” An early British advocate of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, understood happiness to be mere pleasure. Objects occasioning every kind of pleasure, from baseball and boogie-boarding to Beethoven and Backgammon, were to be treated exactly the same in the utilitarian calculus. As Bentham put it, “Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry” (Rationale of Reward, 206). The only difference among pleasures is quantitative (more or less in terms of duration and intensity) and not qualitative (better or worse as pleasure). Mill, however, disagreed with Bentham by holding that there are higher and lower pleasures. The higher pleasures engage the distinctively human aspects of a person, such as music, poetry, and philosophy. On the other hand, lower pleasures, such as eating, drinking, and reproducing, are shared by human beings and animals alike. Higher and lower pleasures differ in quality, not just quantity, and we should seek the higher pleasures over the lower pleasures. Mill believes that competent judges, who have had experience of both higher and lower pleasures, would choose higher pleasures over lower pleasures.

As MacIntyre pointed out in After Virtue, by distinguishing higher from lower pleasures, Mill opened the door to the undoing of utilitarianism’s appeal to simplicity. For not only are there higher and lower pleasures, as Mill admitted, but there are also manifold kinds of pleasures arising from every sort of activity. The pleasure of listening to fine music differs from the pleasure of writing a novel, which differs in turn from the pleasure of solving a physics equation. Each different activity has its corresponding pleasure. This leads to a grave problem of impracticality for utilitarianism. How does one compare the pleasure of philosophy with the pleasure of poetry, and this in turn with the pleasure of painting? It would seem that any comparison between these pleasures—or almost any other set of pleasures—would have no objective basis whatsoever but rather would reflect the biases and prejudices of the one making the judgment. With so many different pleasures to try to balance, utilitarianism becomes simply unworkable as a form of decision making.

Additionally, utilitarianism fails to account for the fact that pleasures vary from person to person according to their habits. Playing the violin may cause suffering for the beginning player who can screech out only a few disharmonious notes, but an accomplished violinist can enjoy playing beautiful music. Aristotle distinguished four kinds of persons: the virtuous, the continent, the incontinent, and the bestial. The virtuous person does the right action and takes pleasure in it. The continent person (enkratic) does the right action but takes no pleasure in it. The incontinent person (akratic) does the wrong action but takes no pleasure in it. Finally, the bestial person does the wrong action and takes pleasure in doing the wrong action. What gives a person pleasure depends in great part upon what sort of habits the person has. One who develops a habit of being kind will enjoy beneficent activity as a concomitant property, such as the bloom of youth (NE 9.4), whereas one who has the vice of malice will enjoy malicious activity. By simplistically focusing on pleasures and pains, utilitarianism mistakes a consequence of good moral activity, such as the pleasure accompanying the exercise of virtuous habits, for a cause of good moral activity. The consequence of habitual right action is enjoyment, but enjoyment is not what makes an action right, for a vicious individual also enjoys doing vicious actions.

Finally, utilitarianism is incompatible with individual human dignity. Imagine that a killer makes a video of the torturous death of one innocent person. The video t becomes wildly popular. How do the pleasures and pains weigh up? The film gives small amounts of pleasure to countless viewers and a good deal of pleasure to the killer, who thus enjoys financial reward and celebrity. On the whole, the pain of the victim is easily outweighed. But by that argument, since in most cases, the pleasure outweighs the pain, there is a moral duty to make snuff films. Thus, utilitarian theory validates actions incompatible with the dignity of the individual person.

Consequentialism, an ethical theory related to utilitarianism, holds that the fundamental principle of morality is that an agent is obligated to produce the best state of affairs possible. In other formulations, consequentialism requires that an agent choose the lesser of two or more evils. There is no unanimous agreement among consequentialists as to what the best state of affairs might be or what scale should be used to determine the lesser evil. Some consider the greatest pleasure for the greatest number to be the best state of affairs (utilitarianism), while others, such as Richard Hare, hold that maximum preference satisfaction or the greatest amount of pre-moral good (proportionalism) or some other alternative should be considered the best state of affairs. What all forms of consequentialism have in common is a rejection of “intrinsically evil acts.” Like its sub-species, utilitarianism, consequentialism rejects the idea that some actions, such as the intentional killing of innocent persons or sexual intercourse with someone other than one’s spouse, are forbidden no matter the consequences.

According to some ethicists, every situation is in some sense a choice among evils. This is because one can never achieve all the good one possibly could achieve and because few activities are without harmful side-effects. This being the case, the principle that should guide human activity is the following: one should always choose the greater good or the lesser of two evils. This insight seems indisputable. The only alternative is the rival principle: choose the greater evil. This, of course, seems absurd.

However, further examination suggests the following difficulties with consequentialism. Although it seems commonsensical that we should always choose the “lesser evil” or “greater good,” grave problems arise when such principles are consistently applied to everyday life. First, as was suggested above, there is no consensus whatever as to what constitutes the “best state of affairs.” What constitutes a “lesser evil” or “greater good” depends upon what is to be considered “good” and “evil.” This determination cannot be provided by consequentialism. Hence, consequentialism fails in its bid to be the fundamental principle of morality. Consequentialism needs other principles to help determine what is good or evil.

Nor is it plausible to say that pleasure alone is good and suffering alone is evil. Pleasure is by definition enjoyable, and suffering is by definition not enjoyable. And yet, if Aristotle is right, there can be pleasures that are evil and suffering that is good. For example, the sadist takes great pleasure in hurting his victims. This pleasure is an evil pleasure because its cause is an evil action. The more pleasure the sadist gets from his evil actions, the worse it is for him since the pleasure motivates repeated action. And the more an evil action is repeated the more vicious the agent becomes. Likewise, suffering can be (instrumentally) something beneficial. It is good that the pain of the hot stove motivates an immediate removal of the hand from the burner because the suffering results in less damage to the hand. Those who have Chronic Insensitivity to Pain Syndrome -can go blind because they lack normal pain sensitivity and so scratch out their own eyes. They often die young because they don’t realize the severity of a serious injury, whereas someone who experiences pain seeks medical attention after a serious injury. So too, in the moral life, it is good that a good person suffers when they occasionally do something bad. The suffering they endure serves as a motivation to move away from vice and towards virtue. We can recognize many things other than pleasure, such as friendship, knowledge, health, and virtue, that are good. We can also recognize many things that are evil aside from suffering, such as isolation, ignorance, sickness, and vice.

Consequentialism also taxes the moral capacities of agents by demanding perfection. According to the consequentialist, if one is not bringing about the absolute best possible state of affairs, then one is acting wrongly. There is no room for good but unsupererogatory behavior. Consider, for example, a group of soldiers who realize a grenade is about to explode in their bunker. The solider nearest the grenade could either jump behind a large oak chest, thereby saving himself, or he could jump on the grenade, sacrificing his own life for the lives of his comrades. Traditional morality holds that either option is permitted. However, on consequentialist grounds, one is required to sacrifice oneself (or even someone else) when this is necessary to bring about the greater good. One is either maximizing the best states of affairs to a heroic degree, or one is acting wrongly. In a consequentialist world, anything less than maximizing perfection is nothing more than wrongdoing.

As Bernard Williams has pointed out, consequentialism alienates the agent both from his own action and from a sense of community (Williams, Moral Luck). In the consequentialist model of moral reasoning, individual aspirations, desires, and plans must all be sacrificed on the altar of maximization. Human action then becomes like a machine which produces a product stamped “best state of affairs” without regard for any other considerations. One may foster personal relationships of marriage, family, and friendship, if and only if, this leads to maximizing good. That an action affects one’s own mother, brother, or roommate negatively does not make any difference in the consequentialist calculation of the best state of affairs.

Furthermore, consequentialism relies on unrealistic assessments of the intellectual capacities of the agent. One rarely, if ever, knows fully or can even control all the consequences of one’s actions. Consider a woman contemplating having an abortion. On consequentialist grounds, she should weigh the good and bad consequences which would result from having the abortion and from not having the abortion. But how can this comparison possibly be made? The very best she can do is guess about the concrete consequences of her action. Though the child will be deaf, dumb, and blind, the child could also have been another Helen Keller. The child could be a musical, artistic, and scientific genius, but perhaps these talents will be put to bad ends. Having the abortion could rob her of all fertility, or she could meet the future father of her six other children on the way home from the clinic. There is, practically speaking, no way she can be certain of the results of having an abortion, apart from the certainty a dead baby and the choice she has made to kill her offspring. Additionally, insofar as other agents with free will are involved, a human agent could never know the consequences of any given act. This makes any prediction of consequences involving human beings not just particularly difficult, but in principle impossible. This unpredictability of outcomes often makes consequentialism merely a mask for rationalizing the choice the agent wishes to make.{7} 

III. Nietzschean Ethics

In the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that all moralities are simply masks used to advance the will to power. Just as Kant echoes themes in the Stoics{8} and Mill finds a precursor in Epicurus, Nietzsche finds a predecessor in the ancient world as well, namely Thrasymachus from Plato’s Republic. Thrasymachus held that justice is the advantage of the stronger. Nietzsche held that “slave morality” arises from the resentment of the Jews and especially that most famous Jew, Jesus, who could not take physical revenge on their enemies and so took a spiritual revenge through the transvaluation of values. The knightly-aristocratic evaluation of the Romans (good=elite=strong=warlike) came to be inverted in this priestly-slave evaluation of the Jews (good=common=weak=peaceful). Jewish ethics came to dominated Europe through Christianity. According to Nietzsche, Christians renamed the inability to take revenge as “forgiveness,” impotence as “goodness” of heart, subjection to those one hates as “obedience,” and cowardice as “patience” (Genealogy of Morality, First Essay, no. 14).

Nietzsche wanted to pull off the mask of “Judeo-Christian” morality, both in its explicitly Christian form and in its philosophical forms in Kant, Mill, and their inheritors. He argued that Kant and Mill, while appealing to “reason,” were simply putting secular clothes on a Christian framework. The argument that the inherent dignity of human beings dictates that they should not be used as a means was, for Nietzsche, just a badly disguised, secular version of the idea that man is made in the image of God. Caring about the happiness of the greatest number is an explicitly Christian ideal. According to Mill, “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality” (Utilitarianism, 17). For Nietzsche, moral theory was akin to a study of Santa Claus, leprechauns, and unicorns. According to Nietzsche, man needed move beyond “good” and “evil” and recognize the workings of the will to power in all those who propose any ethics whatsoever. He posited that the “free spirits” of his day had not yet recognized how “unfree” they remained:

These are very far from being <em>free</em> spirits: <em>because they still believe in truth</em>.... When the Christian crusaders in the East fell upon that invincible order of Assassins, that order of free spirits <em>par excellence</em>, the lowest rank of whom lived a life of obedience the like of which no monastic order has ever achieved, somehow or other they received an inkling of that symbol and watchword which was reserved for the highest ranks alone as their <en>secretum</em>: “nothing is true, everything is permitted.” (Nietzsche, <em>Genealogy of Morality</em>, Third Essay, no. 24. Emphasis original.)

Since there is no truth of anything, there is no moral truth. Nothing is “good” or “evil.” To operate as if such categories existed is to turn one’s will to power on oneself in the self-torture that is conscience. Stealing, lying, raping, and murdering may in cases be imprudent on account of the punishments one’s society might inflict, but they are no more “right” or “wrong” than picking up a piece of straw. For Nietzschean thinkers, the Holocaust, like the hula-hoop, is beyond good and evil.

But Nietzsche’s denial of truth is self-contradictory. A self-contradictory statement cannot possibly be true because the claim being made is undermined by itself, such as in the statement, “I am not writing in English right now,” or, “I never, never, never use the word never.” A statement that is self-defeating is like a mixed martial arts fighter who knocks himself out. To claim, as Nietzsche does, that there is no truth is to assert a self-defeating statement. For if we hold that the proposition that “there is no truth,” then we are holding that this proposition is true. And if one proposition is true, then it is not the case that “there is no truth.”

MacIntyre critiques Nietzsche on several other grounds as well. First, Nietzsche fails by his own standards of creativity since he is parasitic rather than truly creative. While more persuasive in his denials, his positive contributions e.g., the eternal return, the Übermensch, “belong in a philosophical bestiary” (After Virtue, 215). Secondly, a key moral question for both Nietzschean and Aristotelian ethics is what sort of person one ought to become (After Virtue, 118). Which sort of life is to be preferred? What sorts of goods are ultimately fulfilling to human persons? Which is preferable: deep happiness or immense power? Imagine that one had deep happiness but little or no power, as in the case of a small-time farmer with a loving family and several close friends. Imagine, on the other hand, that one was the President of the United States, with immense power but no or very little happiness. Perhaps Nietzsche is right that only the Englishman pursues “happiness” understood as pleasure and the lack of pain. But it is a disturbed German who considers power the greatest good. The Nietzschean Übermensch ends in mere solipsism; Aristotle’s person of virtue is able to share the goods of community.

In this way, one could write a genealogy of the genealogy of morals. Nietzsche lays bare the various hidden motives for the creation of morality. One might admit the genetic fallacy involved in his mode of reasoning, however, and apply the same suspicion to the Nietzschean project itself (MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, 147). As McIntyre suggests, from a Thomistic perspective, this project appears as a rationalization for the pride of an injured ego. Rather than admit to a failure to meet the objective standards of morality, Nietzsche sought to justify his frequent trips to the brothel and his tumultuous relationships with friends and family.

Nietzsche’s argument is self-contradictory in a number of ways. According to Nietzsche and those who follow in his tradition (e.g., Lacan), there is no “self.” Yet, as MacIntyre notes, “The function of genealogy as emancipatory from deception and self-deception thus requires identity and continuity of the self that was deceived and that self that is and is to be.” (Three Rival Versions, 215). The genealogist does not consistently apply the “unmasking” to all facets of the argument:

Yet in so dismissing the Thomistic mode of understanding and acting, the genealogist poses a problem for him or herself. For in repudiating all the key features of accountability, understood in terms of either a Socratic dialectic or of Augustinian confession, the genealogist has perhaps made it impossible to satisfy the preconditions for at least those ascriptions of identity and continuity which involve accountability. Yet the genealogist almost invariably and perhaps inescapably uses language in such a way as to presuppose ascriptions of both identity and continuity to persons. (MacIntyre, <em>Three Rival Versions</em>, 205).

Similarly, inconsistency is shown in the rejection of all hierarchical valuation while insisting that it is somehow “better” not to be deceived than to be deceived, as required by the genealogical project. There is an explicit disavowal of metaphysics and logic, yet metaphysics and logic are presupposed by any argument, even a genealogical one. Finally, Nietzsche “illegitimately generalized from the condition of moral philosophy in his own day to the nature of morality as such” (After Virtue, 113). Even were the Nietzschean critique of morality not incoherent, it would not have succeeded in showing that all morality is a mask for the will to power but only that the morality he explicitly critiques is such a mask.

Just as Kant is the founder of deontological ethics and Mill the founder of utilitarian ethics, Nietzsche may be said to be the founder of moral relativism in the contemporary world.{9} One hears often in common parlance, and occasionally from academics, slogans of moral relativism that are compatible with, if not actual developments of, Nietzschean aphorisms. Such influence is particularly felt in the championing of “choice,” which is seemingly unguided by any criteria other than the choosing.

It should be noted that here the Neo-Kantian and the Nietzschean overlap, for both emphasize the primacy of choice. Michael Sandel describes this view of the human person, according to which, “we are free and independent selves, unbound by antecedent moral ties, capable of choosing our ends for ourselves" (Sandel, review of Political Liberalism, 1768). If this is an accurate view of the human person, then power is the ultimate end, for there is no such thing as choice without the power to make the choice. In the end, the emphasis on choice, championed also by those like Jean Paul Sartre, is ultimately the endorsement of power as the ultimate end.{10}

It is common in ethical discourse for some to claim that we have “no right to impose morality on another person.” In a certain sense, this is true. By and large, with certain exceptions, we cannot hold others captive to prevent their wrongdoing. However, no one is proposing this. In a legal sense, we do have the right to impose our moral views on others. Do we not have a right to free speech and the right to elect officials that reflect our views? My morality holds stealing, murder, and lying under oath are wrong, and do we not as a society “impose” these standards on others? Even if for the sake of argument we admit that we do not have the right to impose our morality, we certainly have a right to propose our morality to others. Finally, isn’t the speaker who claims “we have no right to impose morality on another person” himself imposing or at least proposing his morality of radical autonomy on another person?

Others support moral relativism with a claim that tolerance demands such relativism and that it is ethnocentric to claim otherwise. A question arises: is tolerance an objectively true or only a relatively true value? If it is an objectively true value (i.e., it is morally wrong to interfere with the ways of other people), then what is the basis for this objective value, and why couldn’t there be more objective values? If a relative value(i.e., it is not really objectively wrong to interfere with others, but merely the speaker’s preference), then what objective basis can the speaker appeal to against another’s alleged “ethnocentric intolerance”? Norman Melchert in the book Who’s to Say? A Dialogue on Relativism suggests another difficulty: “I worry that relativism may enhance rather than weaken ethnocentrism, leaving us smugly content with what we have, immune to any real challenge to its goodness and truth" (Melchert, Who’s to Say?, 80). If we reject moral relativism, we can look to other cultures to help us discover what is true, good, and beautiful, rather than assuming we have already found the true, good, and beautiful, or that there is no such thing as the true, good, and beautiful.

Subjectivism is another form of moral relativism. In his book Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Bernard Williams wrote that subjectivism holds one or more beliefs: First, a person’s moral judgments merely state (or express) his own attitude. Second, moral judgments are matters of individual opinion and thus, unlike scientific statements, cannot be probed, established, or shown to be true. Third, there are no moral facts, only the facts that science or common observation can discover and the values that men place on those facts.{11}

How might one critically evaluate the first? Williams points out that this statement is either false or harmless. It is false in so far as moral statements do not make merely autobiographical claims (e.g., “I feel sick.”) but also express disagreement or agreement. One does not disagree about autobiographical claims. In other words, when someone says, “That may be true for you; but it’s not true for me,” this statement is either self-contradictory or harmless. On the other hand, the first statement is harmless, for, though moral judgments certainly express one’s belief, this does not mean that all moral beliefs are merely subjective any more than expressions of other judgments (e.g., “It’s raining”) are merely subjective. People may change their minds about moral matters as a result of an argument, but no one changes taste in ice cream as a result of argument.

As Melchert notes, “true for me” is simply another way of saying, “I believe.” Hence, the person asserting that one thing is “true for me” and another “true for you” is really saying, “I believe this is the case, and you do not.” But the same statement cannot be true and false at the same time and in the same respect. Hence, “Either you deny absolute standards absolutely—and then you do seem to be caught in a [self-referential] contradiction [of asserting something is true and denying that anything is true]. Or else your denial has no force for anyone else. It makes no claim that anyone else needs to consider and expresses a purely private impression on your part” (Melchert, Who’s to Say?, 18). Hence, “true for me, but not for you” is either self-referentially contradictory or irrelevant.

Ethical relativism is defended by means of positivism. Positivism is defined as the belief that, unless a statement can be shown to be true or false through empirical evidence, such a statement is a matter of taste or is even meaningless. Moral statements fit this description. However, a difficulty with this argument is that positivism is self-referentially incoherent. There is no empirical evidence to support the statement that, “unless a statement can be shown to be true or false on the basis of empirical evidence such as statement is a matter of taste, mere preference, or meaningless.” Therefore, positivism itself must be a matter of taste or even meaningless and therefore in no position to undermine morality.

Others bolster ethical relativism by means of the fact/value distinction. Facts inhabit the realm of science and are statements to which all agree (e.g., force equals mass times acceleration). Values inhabit the realm of philosophy and are subject to perpetual disagreement. Facts deal with the truth; values deal with feelings. It makes sense to argue about facts, which are objective and thus matters of truth and falsity, but not about values, which are as relative as one’s taste in music or in ice cream.

This leads to the question of whether the fact/value distinction is itself a fact or a value? Many people would deny that there is a distinction between facts and values (see MacIntyre, After Virtue, 79–87). Furthermore, since science treats that which is observable, repeatable, and quantifiable, there is no scientific way of discovering a fact/value distinction. By definition, values lack these qualities. These considerations would lead us to believe that the fact/value distinction itself is not a fact but a value. But if this is so, it provides no objective ground for critiquing moral values since it is just another personal preference, taste, or prejudice. Furthermore, the consensus of people can only recognize reality and thereby come to the truth; it does not determine reality in science or in ethics. Reality is reality long before anyone discovers it or a consensus is made and long after a consensus falls apart.

In Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Bernard Williams describes other difficulties with relativism. He suggests that the relativists hold that “right” means, and can only be coherently understood as meaning, “right for a given society”; that “right for a given society” is to be understood as functionally valuable for that society; and that therefore it is not right for people in one society to condemn, interfere with, etc., the values of another society.

What is wrong with this? Williams notes several ambiguities in the argument. “Right” in the conclusion has a non-relative sense denied in the first proposition. Hence, the argument rests on ambiguous terms and is logically invalid. If “society” means the survival of a group with their original values intact, then it would follow that one undermines society by undermining values. If “society” means the actual flourishing of people, then this is not clear. A central confusion of relativism is the attempt to conjure out of societies’ differing attitudes and values an a priori, nonrelative principle to determine the attitude of one society to another. This is impossible because it straightforwardly exemplifies the is/ought fallacy (i.e., that the ways things are is the way they ought to be). Finally, Williams also notes a practical difficulty. On relativist grounds, we have no way to judge the morality of sacrificing of Aztec maidens to the gods, the burning of witches at Salem, or the terminating of six million Jews during the Holocaust. If relativism were true, how could anyone condemn imperialism, colonialism, or racism, which, after all, express the views of various societies?

Moral relativists often ask, “Who’s to judge? Who decides?” Although there may be no such thing as a dumb question, there is such a thing as the wrong question. If I lose my watch and ask another, “Where’s my watch?”, it would not be a satisfactory response to ask me, “Who’s to judge? Who decides?” No one judges or decides where my watch is. It is where it is. Hence, to ask, “Who is to judge? Who decides? Who am I to say someone else is wrong?” in a moral context is to presuppose either that moral questions are also political questions (which may or may not be always true) or to presuppose that what makes an act right or wrong is the judgment or determination of another rather than the nature of the act. But this is to implicitly deny that there is objectivity in ethics without having, as yet, given any reasons for said denial.

In his book Who’s to Say? A Dialogue on Relativism, Norman Melchert suggests another response to this challenge to objectivity in ethics: “Who’s to say? I am, you are, and we are together. These questions about the good life are not ones we can shrug off this way. They do get answered one way or another. And if we don’t do our best to answer them well, the lazy, wicked, and self-interested will answer them for us. Or we will become like them ourselves” (78). Further, acceptance of objective moral standards does not imply judgment of the subjective culpability of individual persons but rather of the objective morality of an individual’s-behavior. We can know stealing is wrong despite not knowing whether an individual is guilty of theft. The motives and personal responsibility of the agent are not at issue but rather what the agent does.

Often implicit in the “Who’s to say?” challenge is the assumption that claims to objective or absolute truth in morals lead to an absolute mess. In this view, relativism is the only ethical view that is compatible with respect for others. Of course, if the truth or falsity of a view is in question, considerations about the consequences of holding one or another view would seem to presuppose a consequentialist view of reasoning. Thus, this way of defending relativism presupposes a quite distinct and non-relative moral stance. However, even if we admit this view of truth, it is not at all clear that relativism does a better job of protecting others than moral realism. If relativism is true, then there really is nothing objectively wrong with murder, theft, adultery, or assault. Were this belief to be widely accepted, it is difficult to see what, other than the raw power of a totalitarian state, would hold human passion in check. Paradoxically, it is precisely moral realism, objective values, or ethical absolutism that enables democracy and tolerance of difference to flourish by providing a ground for these practices in the objective, ontological value of the human person.

IV. Virtue Ethics

Having examined Kantian ethics, utilitarian ethics, and Nietzschean ethics, what is left? Perhaps the most viable alternative to these three is the ethics of Thomas Aquinas.{12} As Kant drew on Plato and the Stoics and as Mill drew on Epicurus and Bentham, Aquinas drew on insights from Aristotle and Augustine to provide a powerful synthesis and development of their traditions of inquiry.{13} Both Aristotle and Augustine advocate what is today called virtue ethics, which has, under the influence of authors like MacIntyre and Pinckaers, become one of the chief ways of understanding the moral life.{14} Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue is widely recognized as articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. Augustine’s emphasis on virtue is on clear display in his work On the Morals of the Catholic Church, in which he argues that the virtues are necessary for happiness and that all the virtues are forms of love. Although many of his contemporaries thought Augustine and Aristotle were irreconcilable, Aquinas drew heavily on both thinkers in forming his view of the moral life.

In the Thomistic view of ethics, the human person is understood as a dependent, rational animal. Rather than viewing human beings as essentially autonomous, atomized wills, unencumbered prior to choice, Thomas views human beings as dependent both on God and other human beings and embedded in human communities within a framework of shared vulnerability and responsibility. As O. Carter Snead pointed out in his book What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, the Kantian, Utilitarian, and Nietzschean paradigm of ethics (which dominates bioethical discussions) fails to understand the true nature of the human person. Snead writes:

[H]uman beings do not live as mere atomized wills and there is more to life than self-invention and the unencumbered pursuit of destiny of our own devising. The truth is that persons are <em>embodied</em> beings, with all the natural limits and great gifts this entails. We experience our world, ourselves, and one another as living (and dying) bodies. Because we are bodies, vulnerability, mutual dependence, and natural limits are inextricable features of our lived human reality. (Snead, <em>What It Means to Be Human</em>, 3. Emphasis original.)

The Thomistic account, as explained by Snead and earlier by MacIntyre,{15} grounds ethical judgment in the reality of human dependence. Every ethics presupposes an anthropology. If Snead is right, the ethics of Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche presupposes a false anthropology. Human beings are in fact radically interdependent, vulnerable, and communal. Without the practice of the virtues, the delicate harmony required for human flourishing is undermined.

Virtue is central in Thomas’s account of the ethical life. Some would characterize Thomas as a natural law thinker, and there is no doubt that natural law plays a key role in his thought. But when one compares, for example, the amount of attention Thomas pays to natural law with the amount of coverage given to the virtues, the centrality of virtue for Thomas’s ethics is evident. Thomas dedicates a single question to discussing natural law (ST I-II, q. 64)but 188 questions to discussing the virtues (ST I-II, q. 49–67; ST II-II q. 1–170). In addition, Thomas wrote the Disputed Questions on Virtue, but Disputed Questions on Natural Law was never written.{16} By contrast, in some later Thomistic writers, in particular the Jesuit manualists of the late 19th and early 20th century, natural law is the central theme and virtues play little to no role in their moral theory.{17}

While diverging at key points, Thomistic ethics does overlap considerably with the three other views already examined. Like Kantian ethics, Thomistic ethics acknowledges the unique, ontological value of each person. Human beings have dignity, not price; their value follows from what they are, not what they do. Like Kant, Thomas stresses that the ethical life is based on reason. Unlike Kantian ethics, Thomas’s ethics provides a motivation to do what is right aside from naked duty: the possibility of finding one’s happiness both in this life and in the next. Like Mill’s ethics, Thomistic ethics evaluated acts based on their consequences. An action that is in itself morally permissible may become impermissible if undertaken in undue circumstances that lead to bad outcomes. However, Thomas differs from Mill in arguing that circumstantial consequences alone do not determine whether an action is permissible; other aspects of the action considered as a whole (act itself, motivation, and circumstances) are also relevant in determining the moral permissibility of an act (ST I-II, q. 18) This allows Thomistic ethics, unlike utilitarianism, to condemn unequivocally certain intrinsically evil acts, such as rape (sexual intercourse without consent), child abuse, racism, and murder (intentionally killing innocent human beings). Such a moral foundation gives rise to inalienable human rights. Like Nietzsche, Thomas recognizes that pride and weakness of the will may shape our judgments about moral matters. Hence, there is room for a healthy skepticism about moral claims, and an even more robust skepticism of those presenting themselves as paragons of perfection. Yet this skepticism for Thomas is not so radical that it undermines all objectivity of judgment. Like Nietzsche, Thomas recognizes that all human persons seek satisfaction for a restless heart. Unlike Nietzsche, Thomas believed that happiness rather than power ultimately satisfies.

Each of the authors we’ve examined presupposes that human beings have or ought to have a fundamental drive towards some end. Kant held that this end should be duty. Mill held that this final end was pleasure, while Nietzsche said this end was power. Aquinas held that human action is oriented toward happiness.

Aquinas’s view gains support by means of a thought experiment. Would we want to be a miserable Caligula, the most powerful person in the world with very little happiness, or one of the happiest people in the world with almost no power (e.g., a person in love who is loved in return)? If we would choose happiness rather than power, then Nietzsche is mistaken. Human beings want power for the sake of getting what they want, but what they want most of all is happiness.

Considering this point further, would one choose to be one of the happiest people in the world but have very little pleasure? Explicating a thought experiment of Robert Nozick and Germain Grisez, John Finnis shows the limitation of the value of experience:

Suppose you could be plugged into an “experience machine” which, by stimulating your brain while you lay floating in a tank, would afford you all the experiences you choose, with all the variety (if any) you could want: but you must plug in for a lifetime or not at all. Would you choose to plug in for the sake of a lifetime of (nothing but) “pleasure:  as imagined in the early utilitarian tradition, i.e. of thrills or pleasurable tingles or other internal feelings? (Finnis, <em>Fundamentals of Ethics</em>, 37)

Most people would not choose the pleasure machine, and thus it must not be an experience, even the experience of “pure pleasure,” that is man’s real goal in life. Aristotle put the point this way: “[N]o one would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his life, however much he were to be pleased at the things that children are pleased at nor to get enjoyment by doing some most disgraceful deed, though he were never to feel any pain in consequence" (Nicomachean Ethics X, 3. 1174a1–3). We want more than just pleasure, even maximal pleasure. We do not want to lose our adult minds even for the sake of childish pleasures. Additionally, we don’t want the enjoyment of what is disgraceful, even if we could “get away with it.” Aristotle notes that “there are many things we should be keen about even if they brought no pleasure, e.g., seeing, remembering, knowing, possessing the virtues” (Nicomachean Ethics X, 3. 1174a1–3). We want more than pleasure. As Aquinas puts it, “Thus it is clear that pleasure is not a good in itself (per se) because it would have to be chosen under every circumstance” (Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 10, ch. 3, lect. 4, no. 2002).

Our real goal must be something infinitely more satisfying than pleasure. People give away money, power, and pleasure, but no one willingly gives away happiness. People universally seek happiness, and there are many who reject money, power, or pleasure in pursuit of it.{18}

Aquinas begins his ethics, as Aristotle and Augustine do,{19} with the search for this goal of eudemonia, or happiness. People seem to share the same idea of happiness, even if they believe that different things realize the goal of happiness. They want complete rather than partial satisfaction of desire. They want happiness without taint of evil, a happiness that fulfills their nature as beings who seek the truth and want the good. They want a happiness that cannot be lost against their will rather than a happiness that can be undermined by, to use Shakespeare’s language the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, … by chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed” (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1 and Sonnet 18, respectively). Aquinas grounds morality in this ubiquitous human desire for happiness, thereby ensuring the universality sought by Kant while providing the motive for goodness which Kant lacked. At first glance, Aquinas’s account may seem like a system of hypothetical imperatives that lacks the unconditional nature of moral duty. But in fact, Aquinas’s account of the moral life is just as categorical and unconditional as Kant’s. The “if” always obtains. If one desires happiness, then one must act in accordance with the virtues. It is always the case that human beings seek what they perceive (perhaps mistakenly) as happiness, so human beings always act unreasonably and wrongfully when choosing evil acts (which, by definition, impede true happiness). The moral absolutes of Aquinas as just as absolute as Kant’s. Aquinas, in the Prima secundae pars of the Summa Theologiae theologiae, gives a very detailed analysis of what actually realizes the universal notion of human happiness, thereby avoiding the difficulty raised by Kant that “happiness” is too vague and equivocal idea on which to base morality.{20}

According to Aristotle, happiness is activity in accordance with virtue in a complete life with friends. Thus, having virtue is a necessary condition for a flourishing life. We have no direct control over the other elements of happiness. We might die young, and a tyrant could deprive us of our friends. But we do have some control over whether we grow in virtue. Thomas agrees with Aristotle’s conception of earthly happiness but holds that there is also happiness that goes beyond the imperfect happiness we can achieve through our action in this life. Perfect happiness, as the terms suggests, transcends the imperfect happiness of earthly existence and is the complete fulfilment of human desire (i.e., Heaven). So, in addition to the virtues that are gained through repeated action (acquired virtues),{21} Thomas holds that there are also virtues gained through openness to divine action (the theological virtues).{22}

For Aquinas, the most important of all these theological virtues is love (ST II-II, q. 23, a. 6). Without love of God and love of neighbor, no perfect happiness is possible. To love is to will the good of another for the other’s sake. So, someone who knowingly and willingly chooses what is evil for a neighbor is ipso facto acting contrary to love, contrary to that which secures the desired final end. To do what is evil is to act contrary to the first principle of practical reason, the fundamental precept of natural law: good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided (ST I-II, q. 94, a. 2).{23} Aquinas views the Ten Commandments as an expression of the fundamental norms of loving God and loving neighbor, of doing good and avoiding evil (ST I-II, q. 100, a. 1). For Thomas, there is no contradiction whatsoever between an ethics of virtue and an ethics of natural law.

Richard Munson objects to the project of Thomistic ethics because of its teleological orientation. Thomas wrote at a time when Aristotle was recently recovered. This recovery, especially of Aristotelian natural science, led Aquinas to posit that all things were ordered to an end. Munson notes the following difficulty with this assumption: “Physics surrendered the notion of a teleological organization in the world as long ago as the seventeenth century—the rejection of Aristotelian physics also entailed the rejection of Aristotle’s teleological world view…. Without its foundation of teleology, Aquinas’s natural law theory seems to collapse” (Munson, Intervention and Reflection, 31).

Seems is the operative word. The rejection of a teleological orientation in the universe is a signature element of mechanistic Newtonian physics, itself now rejected in favor a quantum mechanics which, it turns out, is not hostile to but may even support a teleological account of nature.{24} Nevertheless, even if it is true that not all beings in the universe are teleologically ordered, human beings do seek ends.{25} Human beings have innate desires for various ends (food, shelter, sexual intercourse, etc.), and above all human beings have an innate desire for happiness. We can seek these ends intelligently or haphazardly. Morality aids us in doing the former and avoiding the latter.

A second objection to Thomas’s ethics is that there is a gap between what “is” the case and what “ought” to be the case. We cannot derive morality from any “is” whether that be statistical surveys of behavior or opinion, human nature, or human desire. Aquinas’s analysis presupposes this fallacy, called by some the naturalistic fallacy. Hence, even were Aquinas correct in his analysis of the shared human desire for happiness, this would provide no basis for morality.

This worry is a modern one, arising from a reading of Hume, so Aquinas has nothing explicit to say about this objection. One solution, suggested by Ralph McInerny and others, is to say that the notion of there even being an “is/ought fallacy” is itself a fallacy. From the fact that I borrowed $50, that I said I would pay back the $50 today, and that it is possible and easy for me now to do so, it follows that I have a moral obligation to do so. As Anscombe put it, “I owe” is a fact from which “I ought to pay back” follows. As Alasdair MacIntyre notes,

There are several types of valid argument in which some element may appear in a conclusion which is not present in the premises. A. N. Prior’s counterexample to this alleged principle illustrates its breakdown adequately; from the premise “He is a sea-captain,” the conclusion may be validly inferred that “He ought to do whatever a sea-captain ought to do.” This counter-example not only shows that there is no general principle of the type alleged; but it itself shows what is at least a grammatical truth—an “is” premise can on occasion entail an “ought” conclusion. (MacIntyre, <em>After Virtue</em>, 57)

There is, therefore, no logical problem in moving from “is” to “ought.”

Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that the idea of an is/ought fallacy is a fallacy. Another solution proposed by contemporary Thomists Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and others is to accept this as a fallacy but to deny that Thomas commits it. In their view, moral truths are truths of the practical reason which, unlike theoretical reason, does not concern itself with determining what is or is not the “real.” Rather, practical reason begins with self-evident principles for an agent. Theoretical reason is descriptive; practical reasoning is prescriptive.

Needless to say, there are scores of other objections to Thomistic ethics, as there are also scores of objections unexplored to Kantian, Utilitarian, and Nietzschean ethics.{26} Yet the theoretical and practical issues addressed by Aquinas are virtually unmatched in their scope. Thomas’s ability to adapt seemingly “foreign” elements, synthesizing them and making them his own, makes his approach particularly useful in contemporary times. Given the challenges to Kantian, Utilitarian, and Nietzschean ethics explored earlier in this article, the ethics of Thomas Aquinas has much to teach us even 800 years after his birth.