The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense

379 Pages·1996·16.63 MB·English

by  Mortimer J. Adler

of
Mortimer J. Adler
Introduction by Deal W. Hudson
/
The Time
of Our
Lives

The Time
of Our Lives
THE ETHICS OF COMMON SENSE
by
Mortimer J. Adler
Introduction by
Deal W. Hudson
♦ ♦
♦ +
Ford ham University Press
New York
Copyright © 1970 by Mortimer J. Adler
Introduction Copyright © 1996 by Fordham University I^ess
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt & Company, Inc.
Fordham University Press edition 1996
LC 96-1629
ISBN 0-8232-1669-1 (clothbound)
ISBN 0-8232-1670-5 (paperback)
Fifth Printing, 2002.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adler, .Mortimer Jerome, 1902-
The time of our lives : the ethics of common sense / by Mortimer
J. Adler
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8232-1669-1 (hard cover).—ISBN 0-8232-1670-5 (pbk.)
1. Fthics. 2. Common sense. I. Title.
BJ1012. A3 1996
171'.2—dc20 96-1629
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY SONS
DOUGLAS AND PHILIP
FOR THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Contents
Introduction to the 1996 Edition
Preface
Part One
The Common-Sense Approach to the Problem
of Making a Good Life for One's Self
i Introduction
» How Can I Make a Good Life for Myself?
! The Accidents of Fortune and the Need to
Earn a Living 2
f. The Disposition of One's Time 2
i The Five Parts of Life 3
> What Should One Do About Earning a Liv-
ing? 4
1 Why Strength of Character Is Needed to Lead
a Good Life 5
Part Two
Defending Common Sense Against the Objections
of the Philosophers
8 The Philosophical Objections Stated 67
9 The End We Seek Can Be Ultimate Without
Being Terminal 76
10 The Significance of the Distinction Between
Real and Apparent Goods 84
11 The Obligation to Make a Good Life for One's
Self 98
vii
viii CONTENTS
12 Relativity to Individual and Cultural Differ-
ences 110
Oughts Can Be True 124
13
»4 Real Goods Make Natural Rights '37
Fart Three
The Ethics of Common Sense
'5 The Common-sense View Philosophically De-
veloped: A Teleological Ethics '57
16 Obligations to Self and to Others: Individual
and Common Goods 170
17 Presuppositions About Human Nature '85
18 The Only Moral Philosophy That is Sound,
Practical, and Undogmatic 188
Part Four
The Present Situation in Which We Find Ourselves
19 Are There Criteria by Which We Can Judge
Our Century and Our Society? 203
20 Is This a Good Time to Be Alive? 2'3
21 Is Ours a Good Society to Be Alive In? 2'7
22 The Moral and Educational Revolution That
Is Needed 223
23 A Concluding Word About the Critics of Our
Century and Our Society 230
Postscript 235
Notes 261
References 345
Index of Proper Names 357
Introduction to the 1996 Edition
This book, first published in 1970 but based on lectures
from the late '60s, seems like nothing else produced in
that chaotic era of American culture. Its author, Morti-
mer J. Adler, would be not surprised by that observation,
but would, in fact, be pleased. The student protests of that
generation, the cultural upheaval, the cynicism bred by an
unpopular war remain only at the fringes of Adler's reflec-
tions. Adler's time frame is far too long to tailor his thinking
to the preoccupations of a single generation.
Adler's own preoccupations, it might be said, are trans-
historical; he is engrossed by human nature, its genuine needs,
and the moral governance of our professed wants. Me un-
doubtedly recognizes the political progress represented by
democratic society but measures that progress in terms of hu-
man nature as understood over two thousand years ago. For
Adler, moral and political freedom are not mere conventions
or products of a communitarian consensus; they are the real
product of the immaterial intellect belonging only to human
beings. Adler's remarkable defense of human nature as dif-
fering in kind from other animals is found in The Difference of
Man and the Difference It Makes (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1993).
Adler's reliance on the great books and ideas of the Western
tradition in The Time of Our Lives was not exactly in vogue
with the radicals of the '60s. Matters have hardly improved.
The radical that Adler described then, a "self-alienated refu-
gee from reason" (pp. 230-31), has reached maturity a full-
grown postmodernist who views human reasoning as nothing
more than the expression of political power and class interest.
Adler's confidence in the human intellect has withstood all
the scientific and philosophical challenges of this century.
Darwinianism, Freudianism, positivism, pragmatism, existen-
■ X