The Concept of Virtue and its Role In Political Life in the Writings of Yves Simon
Yves R. Simon (1903-1961) gives a modern formulation for many classical philosophical concepts such as authority, the common good, and natural law. These topics have received extensive attention from scholars. Simon also discusses the nature of human virtue, moral and intellectual, but this topic has been less studied. Yet the idea of virtue, and in our case virtue in political life, runs through, and is fundamental to any understanding of Simon's works. Through a close study of Simon's works and the relevant secondary literature, this dissertation explores Simon's definition of virtue in order to highlight its originality, and show how he weaves the need for it into the fabric of three facets of political life, namely, the common good, the virtue of the ruler and the ruled, and law. After indicating why modern substitutes for virtue--specifically the recourse to natural spontaneous goodness by Rousseau, Descartes and Emerson, the psycho-technology of Freud, and the social engineering of Charles Fourier--fail, Simon returns to classical sources in order to explain what virtue means and how it relates to politics. Regarding how the common good is to be understood, a theme central to all political discourse, Simon's contribution is remarkable. He sees the common good, not just in material terms, but places virtue and the primacy of the ethical at its heart, especially in the many interactions between the common good and valid shades of individual and personal interest. As to the ruler, Simon highlights his role in the volition and intention of the common good formally and materially considered, as among the reasons requiring virtue and wisdom, rather than just technological expertise in him. With regard to the ruled Simon is convincing in explaining how the bad name of obedience may be redeemed. He also successfully argues for a nuanced role for the ruler in matters of truth, particularly transcendent truth. We conclude the dissertation with Simon's significant contribution as to the role of virtue in the knowledge of the existence and functioning of natural law, natural moral law, and positive law. Simon's demonstration of how natural law is rooted in God has been described as a "tour de force."
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