Originally Published in 2010*

I was in high school during the ‘60’s. The world was falling apart in many ways. I was young, so I didn’t know where the situation I was living in came from. I didn’t
know what had gone before. I didn’t really know how peculiar the culture had become, because I didn’t know the standard it was leaving behind. But even so, I had an idea that things were not well.

In my senior year religion class I was told that I shouldn’t bother going to church unless I got something out of it. We should, probably, somehow, commune with God, but if walking through a forest was more congenial, then that was fine. There was no discussion of the difference between the Creator and the created, or that worship was the right response of the created to his Creator.

We were also told that premarital intimacy was fine as long as it was an expression of love, and that the Church would have to change its teaching on doctrines pertaining to sexual freedom. The reason we were given? It has to; the world is a different place. Those were strange words to an adolescent. Different than what? The world seemed the same as it had been for my 16 short years. But it was clear that my religion teacher was teaching concepts my parents didn’t agree with. I thought perhaps he meant that people now, represented by him, thought differently about what was good and evil than people then, represented by my parents, had thought. I now think I had it right, even though what I was then was just generally confused. For what did he mean by “the world is different now”? He could hardly have meant that human nature had changed, or that God had evolved into something other than what He was before. Perhaps he supposed that there was no such thing as a human nature that would be a true measure of what is right and what is wrong for men to do. At any rate, what was different (in his view) was the currently prevailing way of thinking, which was not measured by anything given in the order of nature or of grace.

This is not too surprising. What I was being exposed to was the result of subjectivism, the view that there is no objective reality by which we are measured.
That is confusing. This view has particularly significant consequences in the realm of ‘value’ judgments. As CS Lewis says in his essay,

“The Poison of Subjectivism”, “The modern view... does not believe that value judgments are really judgments at all. They are sentiments, or complexes, or attitudes, produced in a community by the pressure of its environment and its traditions, and differing from one community to another.“

This view has philosophic roots in Descartes, whose view that “I think therefore I am” pushed the individual consciousness to the level of the absolute rule or measure. Lewis further says,

“After studying his environment man has begun to study himself. Up to that point, he had assumed his own reason and through it seen all other things. Now, his own reason had become the object: it is as if we took out our eyes to look at them. Thus studied, his own reason appears to him as the epiphenomenon which accompanies chemical or electrical events in a cortex which is itself the by-product of a blind evolutionary process. His own logic, hitherto the king whom events in all possible worlds must obey, becomes merely subjective. There is no reason for supposing that it yields truth.”

But if human thought is not measured by its object, what will determine someone to think this, rather than that, especially when there is a question of good and evil, and of whether to act or not to act? In all likelihood, will and desire. The natural order of understanding and will has been inverted. Instead of desire and will being reasonable, all reasoning now becomes willful.

Thus, once one’s own understanding is the measure, one ‘s desires determine one’s values. When the Nazi’s say that justice is what is of interest to the Third Reich, the subjectivist has nothing to bring against the judgment. There is no absolute standard which can measure such a view. Necessarily the only basis for judgment becomes what is ‘accepted’. One sees this very clearly in academic institutions that have abandoned as impossible the standard of truth.

In the founding document of Thomas Aquinas College this position is addressed:

“... the college professor comes to be judged by standards which have no relation to the purpose of his life as a scholar and teacher. For it is usually maintained that the academic standing of a scholar should be determined by his “competence,” while at the same time academic freedom requires that competence be judged in abstraction from what is true and what is false in that area of his competence......As a result, when scholars must determine the professional standing of one of their colleagues, they must find some definition of competence which prescinds from the very purpose of competence; thus, they are compelled to fall back upon “accepted standards” of competence....The standards are thought to be standards precisely insofar as they are accepted; in other words, the accepted rather than the true is the standard not only in fact (because of human fallibility) but also by intent.”

This results in tyranny. The reason someone is retained in their job is because they conform to the will of those in charge, not because they conform to a rule of reason. This explains why my religion teacher said that the Church would have to change. His view was that what was accepted determined doctrine.

One sees this tyranny of subjectivism in other areas. My sister had made some young friends in her parish. They were liberal in their views. What this meant in practice was that they said it was fine to have all sorts of theological and philosophical differences with each other and with the Church, because there wasn’t an objective moral truth. So you could think what you wanted and they could think what they wanted and that they didn’t agree with you shouldn’t create any problems. That was fine until my sister said that she thought abortion was the killing of an innocent human being, and that it should never be done. That was not an acceptable difference, for it forced them to face the consequences of their position. However unfounded in any objective measure a man’s opinion by be, he will act on it nevertheless. So innocent lives can be taken with impunity, whatever the beliefs of the victims and their defenders to the contrary.

Confronted with this simple fact they attempted to avoid the issue by asserting (without evidence) that those who procure abortions do not know what they are doing. When this was contradicted by one who had firsthand experience to the contrary (me), they refused to pursue the matter further. In fact, they stopped conversing with my sister.

So all differences of opinion are acceptable, except for the opinion that there is an objective truth. Nor does it do any good to manifest the incoherence of such subjectivism, since there is no reasonable basis for insisting on the logical. (Though, as a matter of fact, subjectivists do resent the manifestation of their incoherence; they regard it as a dirty trick.)

This view has other consequences. A man’s despair in knowing the truth about reality results in his excessive hope in and adulation of technology. Since there is no objective measure of the goodness of one’s actions, or any way to determine if he has reached the correct view, because there isn’t a correct view, man turns his attention to control of his environment and he uses his reason as a puzzle solver and a deviser of techniques. Concern for a right understanding of the true and the false, the good and the evil, is replaced by the quest for power. Man no longer tries to understand natural reality and turns to the construction of an artificial reality.

Additionally, sadly, this view can result in an unpleasant attitude toward the faith, even among those who accept the idea that there is truth. They accept the faith by an act of will, but if they are affected by the views of subjectivism, and it is hard not to be, because it is a view by which we are surrounded, they think they can’t bring their reason to bear in understanding the doctrines they accept. In this view, philosophy and theology cannot be taught as intellectual disciplines. Thus it appears that the demands of faith are just that, demands based on some authoritarian principle, rather than an expression of an order that is in accordance with reason, though beyond it.

This view cannot be right. Not only does subjectivism result in tyranny and immorality by any traditional standard, it doesn’t even work internally, as we have noted
above. For to suggest that subjectivism is better than traditional morality invokes a standard against which both are measured. It can’t be better than something
else unless there is a third reality that is measuring both systems.

When one says something is better, one says it is more like it should be than the alternative. That means there has to be a third reality against which both are measured. Also, to say that subjectivism is true, and the traditional understanding of an objective reality is wrong, admits that there is a true and a false. Clearly this view is self-destructive.

Further, if there are only opinions, and no such thing as knowledge, there is really no reason to prefer one opinion to another. For, presumably, the better opinion is the one that is truer, or closer to the truth, i.e. closer to knowledge. But this is an impossible criterion, if there is no such thing as knowledge of the truth. Thus as we noted above, preference will arise from desire and will. But the will cannot be altogether prior to the understanding; the proper object of the will is some good apprehended in knowledge. (Even if the good is only apparent, the good derives its power to move desire from the true good it appears to be.) So even the subjectivist, however willful he maybe, must desire and will from some knowledge of the true goods. This is why his preferences, if not shared by others, are at least intelligible to them. How, then, does he differ from others in the knowledge and pursuit of these goods? 

Lewis points out two propositions that must be understood to understand subjectivism:

“(1) The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of planting a new sun in the sky or a new primary color in the spectrum.

(2) Every attempt to do so consists in arbitrarily selecting some one maxim of traditional morality, isolating it from the rest, and erecting it into an unum necessarium.”

So when one adopts the subjectivist position, he is taking something true from ordinary morality and blowing it out of proportion. “Ordinary morality,” says Lewis, “tells us to honor our parents and cherish our children. By taking the second precept alone you construct a Futuristic Ethic in which the claims of ‘posterity’ are the sole criterion. Ordinary morality tells us to keep promises and also to feed the hungry. By taking the second precept alone you cat a Communistic Ethic in which ‘production’, and distribution of the products to the people, are the sole criteria.” The precepts of ordinary morality are important, but so is their order relative one to another.

Some precepts are positive, others negative, some are principal, others subordinate. With a careful consideration of human nature, and of divine revelation, one can discover this order and conform his thoughts and actions to it.

What makes subjectivism plausible to some is a failure to rightly distinguish between universal principles and the variability and contingency of the particular circumstances in which choices must be made. Thus, even where there is agreement on general principles, along with good habits, and prudence, individuals
often assess a particular situation quite differently. In certain situations, one’s individual position does determine what he sees and knows. When a catastrophic event, such as a robbery, occurs, different people in different parts of the room where the robbery took place will have different pictures of what happened. Their accounts of the same event can be radically different based on where each was standing, what they were doing at the time, or how frightened each was. It is important to note, however, that this kind of discrepancy has to do with the particular, not the universal. A different perception of how long some event took, or where exactly a person was standing when, is not at all the same difficulty as a different view of what is true or good, or more accurately, whether there is something that is true and good.

Confusion also arises from a failure to rightly distinguish between negative and positive precepts. If an action is evil in itself, having an intrinsic disorder, particular circumstances can never make it right. But if it is good, considered in itself, it may be wrong in a particular case. Lying is intrinsically disordered, and particular circumstances can never make it right. Telling the truth , on the other hand, is a good action, considered in itself, but sometimes it is prudent to remain silent. The positive precepts cannot be as absolute as the negative ones. Most of the Ten Commandments are negative.

As I said, intellectually, as regards universal principles, subjectivism is self-defeating. If you hold that something is truer than something else, you hold to an objective standard of truth. You then accept an objective standard of truth, and an objective reality by which you and what you know are measured.

This is the underlying assumption we all have. We would not be interested in liberal education unless we thought there was something real, something outside each of us, that we can come to know. The liberally educated man is a man who uses his reason to discover a reality he did not make, but which he can come to understand. This is opposed both to subjectivism, which denies objective reality, and to humanism, the view that man’s works are of central importance. Humanism, like subjectivism, comes about when men doubt the power of reason to know reality. They begin to care about what is good from man, instead of what is good for man.

This is against every man’s first conception. Children have no doubt that there is an objective standard of truth and falsity, or that there is a measure of good and evil that they are measured by. Further, this has been the view of the greatest thinkers throughout history. Lewis says, “Thus Plato thought, thus Aristotle, thus Hooker, Butler and Doctor Johnson.“ These great thinkers realized that education is not about ideas, but about things. In this view human intelligence is defined by reality as its object, and it has the truth of that reality as its end. Philosophy begins in wonder so that it might end in wisdom. 

My title was ‘the poison of subjectivism’, and rightly so. For subjectivism paralyzes the mind and makes true education impossible. The assertion of the Greek sophist Protagoras, that ‘man is the measure of all things’ reminds us that this position is as old as philosophy. But it is only in modern times, especially since the Enlightenment, that it has become the prevailing habit of thought. So one cannot altogether ignore it. How, then, is one to avoid it, or what is the antidote if it has already infected our way of thinking? Not by arguments that expose the sophistries that seek to make it plausible, for one of the effects of subjectivism is to put the values of reasoning itself in question.  

No, the solution is actually to learn something – that is, to come to know it, by a suitable method and in the right order. One must start with the disciplines that are proportional to beginners, such as the mathematical sciences, for example. The learner is able to see clearly and surely the truth of certain propositions, and the reasons why they are true. He can then proceed to consider certain general questions about nature and the soul, which are raised and discussed determinately in Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, for example. 

A careful reading and study of some of the great doctors of the Church, such as St. Augustine, will give him a firm beginning in Sacred Doctrine. There is nothing like the delight in seeing a worthy truth for dispelling the fog of subjectivism.

I recall an instance of this from my freshman year in college. In our mathematics course, we had been working through Euclid’s elements, proposition by proposition. It was towards the end of the year, and we had reached the final book of the Elements which culminates with a consideration of regular solid figures. We had come to see that there are only five regular solids, and why no others are possible. Delight and joy were universal. We had come to know a wonderful truth. There could hardly be a more effective banishment of skepticism and subjectivism than we experienced on that occasion.  

One of my daughters had a similar experience. She began her freshman year with some anxiety. She did not consider herself adept at mathematics, and she was now confronted with thirteen books of the greatest mathematical treatise ever written. But the course proceeded step by step, the more difficult propositions following upon easier ones, all in the right order. But the time she reached the final demonstrations, she was delighted, and eager to demonstrate the final, quite difficult, propositions. She saw they were true, and she could prove it.

All this supposes, of course, a well-designed course of study. One must begin with matters that are both interesting and well worth knowing, but also proportioned to the abilities of a beginning. Then one can proceed further to more wonderful and more difficult matters, moving carefully and patiently toward wisdom. One should not ask, “Do I know this?”, or “Do I know anything?” Rather, he should ask, “Is it so, and if so, why is it so?” One should not be focused on
oneself, but on the object to be known.

This ends the tyranny of ‘accepted standards’. Who accepts or doesn’t accept the truth of the Pythagorean theorem has no bearing on its truth. Truth brings freedom. “Men become free by finding, or being found by, the truth and abiding in it. For the Christian believes that Christ Himself is the Truth, and believes Him when He says, “If you make my words your home you will indeed by my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.” (TAC founding document)

One might object that we should then only do theology, and ignore the lower disciplines. The view would be that it is theology that is the truth, and theology that frees one from tyranny, so it is theology that one should concentrate on. This view, however, comes from that notion referred to earlier that is fostered by subjectivism, namely that the lower disciplines have no internal truth and are not capable of being understood.

In fact, it is in no way anomalous that in a classical education, even though one recognizes that truth is found most perfectly in Christ, one studies ancient pagan
authors or ideas. For he is not studying them as ancient pagan authors. Classical education is about truth. It is outside of time, and doesn’t consider culture. It is about the perfection of the intellect, both by developing the power of the soul and by studying the right subjects in the right order.

Now, as a matter of fact, some of the people who thought best about these subjects were alive in ancient Greece, notably Aristotle. But it is not as pagan ideas, or as ideas thought by ancient Greeks, that we consider what they said. It is as thinkers and those who pursue the truth. St. Thomas refers to Aristotle as “The Philosopher”, just as he refers to St. Paul as “The Apostle”, throughout the Summa. He doesn’t do this because he is considering Aristotle as an interesting Greek product of the time he lived in. He refers to Aristotle with such deference because of Aristotle’s great knowledge and power of reasoning, the value of which transcends the peculiarities of any particular culture.

Aristotle reasoned to the existence of God, the unmoved mover. Aristotle came to know that man was a substantial unity, body and soul, and that his soul was everlasting. He saw that the separation of body and soul was against nature, and he saw that somehow, something had gone wrong with the order of nature. Even though he had not the benefit of revelation, he had some sense of the Fall, for, he observed, “in many ways, human nature is in bondage.” Aristotle was a remarkable thinker, and it is as such that his works are studied in a liberal education.

In a classical education one realizes that the sciences he studies have an order among themselves. The end of the order is knowledge of the highest things. Theology, the end or goal of education, is sometimes called the queen of the sciences and the other sciences are called her handmaidens. The other sciences support theology. One way that is accomplished is when the arguments from a lower science are used in a higher science. For example, St. Thomas uses the arguments of Aristotle from the Physics in his proofs for the existence of God. The material reasoned to is pressed into the service of the faith, and one’s understanding of the faith is strengthened by it. In this education a man is formed in accord with his nature. His natural potency is brought to perfection, as his mind grasps the nature of reality in its different levels. The student learns the highest truths but he also is delighted by his perception of the artistic spirit that designed every natural being.

Man desires to know and when he knows he is doing what he was made to do. This is freedom, for freedom is found by learning what one is supposed to do, and doing it. The free man is the man able to direct his own life, and the life of the community. He is not the slave of his passions, or of changeable fashion in thought.
He recognizes that he should work to come to an understanding of truth. This is the result of liberal education, and of the moral virtues which are required by such an education and which dispose one to it.

This is freedom, for freedom is found in the ability to act, not just in freedom from restraint. Man is a rational being, with an intellect and will. That intellect and will are naturally ordered to knowing and loving, and doing so in a certain order. Our education needs to reflect the reality found in nature, at all levels, and a liberal education does just that.