The Scale of Value and Human Intentionality

The scale of values is an ascending theme as notes on a piano – so there are values vital, social, cultural, personal and religious – but the structure achieved in a mature and holy person rests on the lowest level, on vital values, for as human beings we need to be alive for starters.
The scale of values as expounded by Lonergan and Doran is intimately connected to the scale of intentional consciousness as expounded by Lonergan. So we have sense experience, and alongside the data of sense, the data of consciousness. Correspondingly there is the level of vital values, such as the excellence of a cup of coffee, or, in the desert, a glass of water. Vital values include conscious spontaneity towards others and so perhaps a primordial sense of human unity, for as Pope Paul VI taught ‘God made man to be brothers not enemies’. There can be disorder in our spontaneity, dramatic bias, and the recognition that the censor can be worked upon to be constructive rather than repressive in Doran’s ‘psychological conversion’. Vital values include also the wider ecology, for example, problems arising from sun-spots, CO2 emissions and climate change or a disease affecting the world bee population which is essential for fertilising crops. Health problems have to do with vital values. Starvation, floods, earthquakes have to do with vital values.
One can see that vital values in their entirety compose a colossal agenda, with the health of the world on one side and the health of man including his basic psychic health on the other. As an agenda though, human intentionality must get involved. We witness other levels of value. For example it may be out of religious values that some people busy themselves heroically helping lepers.
One might suggest that higher levels of value, as they emerge, have nothing to do but sort out disorders at the vital level. Where disorder is as it were disorder made visible then the good works can be seen and all will praise the Father in Heaven. As we ascend the scale of values we find ‘disvalues’, disorder at a higher level, so here too good works are to be done. Indeed it is at the highest level of religious values that we find the disorder which is sin. It remains true though that disorders at the natural level of vital values show up human failure at the higher levels.
Ascending from vital values are social values. Social values move from inter-subjective organisation in families and friendships to rationally (or irrationally) organised entities whereby man’s capacity to transform the potencies of nature into a standard of living is organised. This level of operation corresponds to man’s intelligence rather than his rationality, to the understanding which believes what it is taught rather than to the level which asks ‘is it so?’ We learn by trusting others. So in our present society some people believe you ought to get married and some people believe marriage is only an unnecessary bit of paper.
As growing up and maturing in a society we trust others in learning a language, in learning to read, in learning what is good conduct and what is not, and on the whole we can make our way and even pass exams without asking deeper questions. We have to learn that the term ‘water’ applies to that wet stuff. We do not ask ‘why’ we use the term ‘water’, or why there are 26 letters in the alphabet. We accept the truths we are taught or how shall we get started? The social world I am presenting is full of affirmations and intelligibilities – you need petrol for the car – and the affirmations are based on unquestioning trust. Because our ancestors got it right we may hope to get it right. Of course at this level of simply operating intelligence you deal with cultural, personal and religious values. One goes to church with everyone else perhaps but does not think about the matter too much. As I am describing the level of social meanings and values, I think one can recognise Cardinal Newman’s ‘notional assent.’
The society we belong to has the task of seeing that vital values are somehow attended to for all and that the ecology is reasonably cared for. The society though may be biased in some way so that for example slaves don’t matter. The society is guided by higher values and disvalues, religious, personal and cultural.
Cultural values correspond with the level of consciousness described by Lonergan as ‘rational’. This level of consciousness belonged to Aquinas who described it in terms of ‘possible intellect’. Aquinas in turn was influenced by Augustine who recognised that our task was to recognise the truth. At the Council of Nicaea it was not claimed you could imagine the Son as equal to the Father as Tertullian tried to do and failed; or that you could understand the matter perfectly, as Origen might have tried to think; rather the matter was declared to be true, and to deny it merited an anathema. With divine matters we are saying Amen and then, with St Anselm and with Vatican One seeking deeper understanding reverently, diligently and piously. Rational consciousness though recognises the truth of other matters which are proportionate to the human intellect.
The matter is really important because philosophers have not understood the matter. So Lonergan could write ‘There is no modern philosopher who could say Amen’. If the Church were to attempt to base herself on such modern philosophy the faith would be disastrously undermined, for our faithful assents depend upon natural assents. Do we not see the result in a widespread way in current lapsation?
I will give two examples. In both cases, to make a judgement depends on evidence, but for some sorts of judgements the evidence may be very simple. I get a bank statement. The account seems low. The incomes are there, but what is this expenditure for £450? Of course, I had my car serviced and repaired. I accept the bank statement as true.
The President of the Royal College for Science declares that the world is warming because of CO2 emissions. Aquinas said the argument from authority is the weakest of arguments – so, what is the evidence? Some people think the problem might be to do with sunspots. I find I am not in a position to simply assent. I might agree that as a cautionary measure certain things should be done – the Amazon allowed to grow for example – but I would be distressed at cautionary measures which removed food from the tables of the poor. I find I am not in a muddle but in a state of having questions unanswered. I do not know what the case is.
The cultural level deals with what is and what is not the case, and so informs or possibly misinforms the social level of values. So for example if at the cultural level the philosophers fail to notice that it is possible to reach a conclusion, then it will be hard to argue that people ought to get married, for that is a sort of conclusion. Weakness at the cultural level will lead to a drift at the social level. That is our situation today and if we live by notional assents alone we will be adrift with the society.
Lonergan’s fourth level has to do with deliberation and decision and it gives rise to an area for personal values. The level follows on being alive, being socialised and having some level of understanding. Personal values entail knowing when one knows and knowing when one has a question. One has to decide about oneself as well as about other people. Should I eat so much? What shall I wear? How should I develop my understanding about climate change? Do I need to work on the censor which disallows certain images and affects so that I overcome a block in myself? Personal values inform cultural values in the sense that if I know I can know and know I can decide freely then certain cultural positions cannot stand, for example, human beings should be ruled by the stick and the carrot.
Personal values show up a problem of intentionality. We do not always carry out our good resolutions. We need help ‘from above’. We genuinely look for love, to receive, to give. I think one can claim that all human cultures witness to holiness, but such witness is not problem free. Can one identify holiness with the gift of God’s love in other world religions? I think that is Lonergan’s position. Love leads to family life and I think one should add in friendship. Lonergan refers to friendship in his essay on marriage, quoting the Greeks to the effect that friendship normally requires high virtue, but in marriage so much is going for the couple that all you need is decency and then you get friendship. I guess today that we are coming to realise that a reasonable level of virtue is required for marriage. One must though recognise that marriage is a help for ordinary people and in the Catholic world a help to holiness. There is then ‘love for the community’ witnessed to by soldiers but also for all of us as we give our assent to legitimate authority.
The three loves, religious, intimate and social witness to something more than sheer rationality and intentionality about man. Where one such love is at work the others are probably there too. Lonergan at the end of his life speaks very simply of ‘affective conversion’ and of how we become a part of something greater. One recalls St Augustine’s words: ‘When you love, look to the source of your love and you will find God.’