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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
In an interesting and important essay entitled ‘The Soul’s Conquest of Evil’. Professor W. W. Bartley III argues that it is virtually impossible for man to overcome or subdue his own evil will. Bartley claims that it is a conditio sine qua non of man’s conquest of evil that he possess self-knowledge, but he is pessimistic about man’s capacity to gain the self-knowledge needed to triumph over his evil will. Bartley quotes with approval the words of C. G. Jung:
The individual who wishes to have an answer to the problem of evil, as it is posed today, has need, first and foremost, of self-knowledge, that is, the utmost possible knowledge of his own wholeness. He must know relentlessly how much good he can do, and what crimes he is capable of, and must beware of regarding the one as real and the other as illusion. Both are elements within his nature, and both are bound to come to light in him, should he wish — as he ought — to live without self-deception or self-delusion.
It is Bartley’s contention that the search for self-knowledge is a costly and perilous venture, undertaken successfully by only a few exceptional individuals. Prima facie, what Bartley and Jung say seems to be not without plausibility; most of us find it hard to be good precisely because we fail to acquire that clarity of vision which is so important if we are to struggle successfully to be moral beings. Nevertheless, Bartley’s position cannot be accepted without substantial reservations, and in this essay I propose to examine his position more closely, and attempt to show why I am inclined to reject his arguments.
1 In Vesey, G. N. A. (Ed) Talk of God London , Macmillan, 1969. pp 86–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Quoted in Vesey, (Ed) op. cit. p 98. The original is to be found in Jung, C. G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections London , Collins, 1967. p 362. Bartley expounds his position more fully in his Morality and Religion London, Macmillan, 1971, especially pp 49–65.Google Scholar
3 On Jägerstatter see the fully documented biography by the American sociologist Gordon, Zahn, In Solitary Witness New York , Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964.Google Scholar
4 The Sovereignty of Good London, Routledge, & Kegan, Paul, 1970. pp 67–8. A depredation of the alleged value of self‐knowledge is to be found in Coleridge's poem Self‐Knowledge in The Golden Book ofS. T. Coleridge London , J. M. Dent, 1906 p 274.Google Scholar
What has thou, Man, that can be known? Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought, A phantom dim of past and future wrought, Vain sister of the worm ‐ life, death, soul, clod ‐Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!.
5 Anyone familiar with the writings of Donald, MacKinnon on the relation between ethics and tragedy will probably perceive how indebted I am to him. See especially his The Problem of Metaphysics Cambridge , University Press, 1974, chaps. 11 and 12; and ‘Ethics and Tragedy’, in his collection of essays Explorations in Theology London, SCM Press, 1979, pp 182–195.Google Scholar
6 Tragedy in the Victorian Novel Cambridge , University Press, 1979, p 107.Google Scholar
7 The Return of the Native London , Macmillan, 1964, p 371.Google Scholar
8 Op, cit. p 115.1 am indebted to King's book for several critical insights. I have also benefited from reading Draper, R. P. (Ed) Thomas Hardy (The Tragic Novels): A Selection of Critical Essays London , Macmillan, 1975.Google Scholar
9 Morality and Religion, p 62.
10 Joseph, Conrad, Heart of Darkness Harmondsworth , Penguin, 1973, p 100.Google Scholar
11 Almayer's Folly Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, p 123.Google Scholar
12 In referring to the work of Heidegger I am mindful of Edward, Schillebeeckx's warning that theologians who use Heidegger's work inevitably dissociate the philosopher's thought from his distinctively philosophical sphere of questioning, so that we have what Heidegger himself has called a ‘Christian misuse’ of his philosophy. See Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man London , Sheed & Ward, 1969, pp 46–7. Schillebeeckx's warning does not really apply to us since we are not formulating a specifically theological argument.Google Scholar
13 Morality and Religion, p 66.
14 Principia Ethica, Cambridge , University Press, 1959, p 224.Google Scholar
15 Op. cit. p 188. Keynes said of the last chapter of Principia Ethica that “The New Testament is a handbook for politicians compared with the unwbrldliness of Moore's chapter on the Ideal”. See his Two Memoirs London , Hart‐Davis, 1949, p 94.Google Scholar
16 In constructing this concluding argument I am indebted to several works. My skeletal outline of the moral realist position is borrowed from the more substantial treatment in Mark Flatts, ‘Moral Reality and the End of Desire’, in Platts, (Ed) Reference, Truth and Reality London , Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980, pp 69–82; David Wiggins, Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life, Proceedings of the British Academy, 62,1976, pp 331–78; and The Sovereignty of Good. On the pre‐existence of evil I am indebted to Paul Ricoeur, “‘Original Sin’: A Study in Meaning”, in The Conflict of Interpretations Evanston, Illinois, Northwestern University Press, 1974, pp 269–86. An understanding of the atonement which accords with this theory of moral realism is to be found in my forthcoming ‘Atonement and Christology’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und ReligionsphHosophie 1982.Google Scholar
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