Why morality hasn't declined

Where ages past spoke of two things — ability and character — we now speak of one: ability. I have a friend, as do we all, who grasps mathematical principles with alacrity, has read at least as much text as other Princeton students, is quick enough to follow the thread of any argument and commands a prose style that fulfills even the demands of writing seminars — certainly more arduous than those inflicted upon students at ordinary universities and unambitious citizens. He is, in short, what the 19th century would have called a man of ability. However, this friend we all have is not to be relied on. His tongue is loose, and his promises do not correspond systematically to his actions. In short, he is what the 19th century would have called a man of little character.

The second of the two ideas has almost disappeared from our minds. Someone considering my friend as a potential partner in a business venture would certainly see that my friend might lose him a substantial sum of capital and would no doubt reject him as a result. But in explaining his reasons, he would not allude to my friend's moral constitution. Though my friend is not lacking in intellect or judgment, the putative potential partner would explain his disinclination as if the shallowness of a CV were its cause and not a mistrust of the man qua man. The modern lexicon simply lacks a distinct entry for such a thing. The very word character sounds archaic when used in this sense.

And yet, character is incomparably more valuable than ability. Unlike ability, you can cultivate virtue. After all, reckless Fortune is just as likely to strew ability in sandy soil as fertile soil — or if my Christian readers are too scrupulous to abide so unbiblical a metaphor, you might say Providence is just as likely to play Onan as Judah with ability. Character is more valuable, but despite my implication in the previous paragraph that my friend's character is a part of his moral constitution, I am not sure that character stands on moral ground any different than the obviously morally neutral ability. I certainly never would have implied that character and morality are coterminal, though Ben Franklin, if he had been inclined to anything so unprofitable as speculative moralizing, might have erected a theory of moral sentiments with their coterminality as the chief cornerstone. In truth, I believe an earnest privatdozent may yet discover a Weberian footnote thought lost, explaining in detail this peculiarity of Protestant morality.

Character and morality are not coterminal. The question is whether they intersect or if one rather begins where the other ends. Naturally, in a country deeply indebted to its first postmaster general for the platitudinous avarice that passes as a national philosophy, I am suspicious of any claim that morality isn't bad for business. Morality is bad for business, unless it lives wholly in the businessed and not at all in the businesser, in which case it may be very profitable indeed. If my suspicion is warranted, the conclusion we must draw about the difference between 19th and 20th century thought confirms my prearranged opinion about it, which is as much confirmation as any rational argument can hope for in our world — namely, that while the 19th century suffered under the explicit and wholly reprehensible conflation of the good with the profitable, the confusion the 20th suffers from is so total that it cannot be reprehensible but only pitiable. David Schaengold is a philosophy major from Cincinnati, Ohio. He can be reached at dschaeng@princeton.edu.