What is ‘spirituality’?

As a working definition, by ‘spirituality’ I mean a practical life-orientation towards what is seen as being of great value, where ‘great value’ is understood as something worthy of reverence. I will articulate this in terms of a certain view of ‘the sacred’ that can be acknowledged by theists and non-theists alike. This definition aims to capture a widespread and important phenomenon in human life, and in what follows I will try to bring it into clearer focus by filling out each of its components.

First of all, spirituality is practical; it involves what we might call ‘spiritual practices’: e.g. practices of prayer, meditation, self-examination, repentance, mindfulness, study, worship, thanksgiving, communal living, charity, fasting, pilgrimage, ritual observance, imitating saints, habituation in the virtues, and so on. Thus, spirituality in the fullest sense is more than just belief in God, or a vague sense of a spiritual force, or the recognition of something sacred or holy. Spirituality requires actions that will bring about and be expressive of a spiritual transformation, which involves growth towards spiritual fullness. We can also describe this as a process of sanctification (making holy), where one seeks to have a proper relationship in feeling and action to what is seen as sacred or holy. In other words, one seeks to become more God-like or virtuous in accordance with a spiritually inflected understanding of the good life. The spiritual life in the fullest sense connects up then with the ethical life, and spiritual transformation must always involve ethical transformation. Indeed, on a broad view of the ethical life, where it aims at the good life, we can say that the spiritual life is a species of the ethical life.

It should also be noted that this practical aspect of spirituality requires that we go beyond the popular yet simplistic slogan of being ‘spiritual but not religious’. What seems to be meant here by being ‘spiritual’ is that one has a vague sense of a ‘spiritual force’ or something else of the sort that entails a rejection of reductive materialism. What seems to be meant by being not ‘religious’ is that one does not identify with so-called ‘organized’ or ‘institutional’ religion. As understandable as it might be that some people shy away from certain forms of ‘organized religion’, I think the slogan ‘spiritual but not religious’ is misguided. Spirituality, in the fullest sense, leads to ‘organized’ or ‘institutionalized’ practices – often with others – even if it is not within the context of any major world religion.Footnote ² Indeed, it is no surprise that many people continue to be drawn to the great world religions, even if they end up with their own eclectic or syncretistic forms of spiritual practice.Footnote ³

‘Spirituality’ does sometimes have the connotation of being personal (or even individualistic) and focused on inward life, whereas ‘religion’ can have the connotation of being communal, institutional, and focused on outward expression in rituals or practices. However, people also speak of ‘personal religion’, and there are many communal and institutionalized forms of spirituality (Catholic, Jesuit, Benedictine, Orthodox Jewish, Islamic, Mahayana Buddhist, etc.). Moreover, as should be clear, I think inward life and outward practice go together in the best kinds of spirituality. Thus, in this article I make no strong distinction between spirituality and religion.Footnote ⁴ Indeed, I will be arguing for the view that we are homo religiosus by discussing the draw to spirituality in human life.

Spirituality is not just practical; it is a practical life-orientation. In other words, spirituality involves a way of seeing and directing one's life as a whole. This relates to what has already been said about spirituality aiming at spiritual transformation. We can understand this in terms of living in a certain spiritual/ethical space: we see ourselves as moving towards or away from what we understand to be the good, which connects up with a vision of spiritual/ethical fullness.Footnote ⁵ We achieve fullness (or fulfilment) to the extent that we realize the good in our lives, viz. by acquiring and exercising the virtues. Otherwise put, the degree of fullness in our lives corresponds to our ‘placement’ relative to the good. Moreover, we define our identity or selfhood in terms of the direction of our lives with respect to the good and the degree to which we have realized it in our lives. Because this orientation and degree of achievement can change over the course of our lives, our identity will be understood in terms of an unfolding story. Spirituality is thus a way of seeking to orient one's self better towards the good and to achieve a greater placement relative to it so that one's whole life story is a movement – albeit with ups and downs – towards greater spiritual fullness.

Given that spirituality is concerned with the orientation of one's life as a whole, it is also fundamentally concerned with the issue of ‘the meaning of life’. In other words, to be concerned with the direction of our lives is also to be concerned with how our lives fit into the grand scheme of things and whether there is an ultimate meaning and purpose for human life. Through spirituality we seek to find our ‘place’ in the cosmos. Ideally, it provides a framework through which the universe in general and human life in particular are seen as permeated with meaning and purpose, which in turn informs our conception of the good for human life.

A crucial aspect of this framework is that it is a practical life-orientation towards what is seen as being of great value. The kind of value we are concerned with here involves ‘strong evaluation’.Footnote ⁶ In contrast to weak evaluation, where something is judged to be good – a ‘weak good’ – simply in virtue of being desired, in strong evaluation something is judged to be good – a ‘strong good’ – according to qualitative distinctions of value in terms of higher and lower, noble and base, admirable and contemptible, sacred and profane, and so on that are seen as normative for our desires. In the case of my account of spirituality, the values towards which we orient our lives involve an especially strong kind of strong evaluation: viz. the recognition of what is seen as being of great value. This might be God or some other strong good that is seen as worthy of reverence and which plays a central guiding role in one's practical life-orientation.Footnote ⁷ I suggest that this can be articulated in terms of the sacred or the holy.

The first thing to note is that the terms ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ – which I use interchangeably – are strong evaluative terms.Footnote ⁸ What is sacred makes normative demands upon us for certain ways of feeling and acting in relationship to it; otherwise put, it is worthy of being valued in particular ways. For example, if we regard human life as sacred – as when we affirm the ‘sanctity of human life’ – then this demands feelings of reverence and concern as well as actions that protect the inviolability of human life and promote human well-being. We can also say something similar if we regard the natural world as sacred, as many deep ecologists do.Footnote ⁹ And of course if we regard God as sacred or holy – as theists do – then this calls forth feelings of reverence, awe, worship, and loving devotion and requires actions expressive of these feelings. This idea that the sacred makes normative demands upon us fills out what was previously said about the spiritual life being a species of the ethical life. In the spiritual life, the good life is seen as in part constituted by a sense of the sacred (e.g. with respect to human life, the natural world, God, or some combination of these and perhaps other things as well).Footnote ¹⁰

We can better understand the notion of the sacred if we consider its contrast term, the profane. Sometimes the profane is understood as that which violates or destroys what is sacred: the profane is what desecrates. However, we should consider here another meaning of the profane: viz. that which is ordinary or mundane. A sense of the sacred, by contrast, involves the recognition of something extraordinary, which provokes feelings of reverence, awe, wonder, and the like. Thus, it has a sense of transcendence, as something set apart from ordinary modes of human experience.Footnote ¹¹ Moreover, sacred goods – e.g. the sanctity of human life, the holiness of God, one's own sanctification, etc. – transcend in value the goods that make up ordinary modes of human flourishing, such as individual survival and growth towards biological maturity, physical health, reproduction, and ordinary enjoyments.Footnote ¹² In other words, sacred goods are constitutive of a spiritual fullness that transcends in value ordinary modes of human flourishing, which, we will see, are what neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists tend to focus on.Footnote ¹³ Sacred goods also transcend ‘external goods’ such as money, power, fame, and honour. We can observe this transcendence in value of sacred goods over external goods and the goods of ordinary human flourishing in that sacred goods can require the sacrifice of these other goods when they come into conflict.Footnote ¹⁴

What is sacred thus imposes especially strong demands; indeed, it seems to also exceed the demands placed on us by other strong evaluative judgements, such as those pertaining to ‘dignity’ and ‘nobility’. Thus, when we speak of the ‘sanctity of human life’ rather than ‘human dignity’ we seem to capture an even stronger normative demand. We could say something similar with respect to the ‘life of sanctity’ and the ‘life of nobility’. The spiritual life – or the life of sanctity – makes a particularly strong demand upon us to change our lives, to bring about a thoroughgoing conversion or transformation of self in alignment with what is seen as sacred or holy. As John Cottingham puts it, it requires a ‘radical re-orientation of the self’, or ‘rebirth’, to use the language of the Christian gospels.Footnote ¹⁵ This thoroughgoing conversion is needed in part because the spiritual life is a high-aspiring kind of life; it aims at sanctification – culminating in the state of saintliness – through a proper relationship in feeling and action to what is seen as sacred.Footnote ¹⁶ Indeed, we can say that in the spiritual life what is seen as sacred inspires self-transcendence, where this involves the transcending of a lower for a higher mode of selfhood in concern for sacred goods. Another reason why a radical transformation of self is needed – at least according to many great spiritual traditions – is because human nature, in its untransformed state, is seen as being ‘out of joint’. This might be captured in terms of the problem of sin – as in the major monotheistic faiths – or the problem of selfish craving (tanha) and suffering (dukkha) – as in Buddhism – or in some other terms. In short, human life is seen as in need of redemption or salvation and this requires a radical transformation of self.Footnote ¹⁷

With this account of spirituality in place, I want to turn to discuss why the issue of the place of spirituality in the good life has often either been ignored or explicitly excluded from consideration by neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists and why this is problematic.

Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics: what kind of ethical naturalism?

On the face of it, this stance of neglect or exclusion seems problematic given the prevalence and importance of spirituality in human life throughout recorded history up to the present.Footnote ¹⁸ Moreover, it is worth noting that this stance departs from Aristotle's own stance, as seen in his account of the contemplative life. For Aristotle, understanding (nous) is something we share with God and thus it is a ‘divine element’ – or we might say ‘sacred element’ – within us that we should seek to actualize as far as possible. He writes:

In fact, Aristotle also thinks that the political life can be undertaken as a divine or sacred task, as he writes: ‘while it is satisfactory to acquire and preserve the good even for an individual, it is finer and more divine to acquire and preserve it for a people and for cities’.Footnote ²⁰

As mentioned at the outset, I think the issue of whether there is a place for spirituality in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics turns on how one understands the ‘ethical naturalism’ to which neo-Aristotelians are committed. All neo-Aristotelians accept some version of ethical naturalism that maintains that ethics is to be founded on claims about human nature. More specifically, all neo-Aristotelians seek to articulate an account of what it is to live well as the kind of beings that we are, where this involves living in accordance with a certain understanding of the virtues. In doing so they follow Aristotle's procedure in the Nicomachean Ethics, where he begins with an argument for a particular conception of the ‘human function’ – viz. to live well as rational social animals – and then moves on to specify an account of the virtues that achieve this.

Neo-Aristotelians typically no longer accept Aristotle's ‘metaphysical biology’ that underpinned his function argument; however, many still seek to found ethics on biological considerations. In particular, neo-Aristotelians such as Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Alasdair MacIntyre seek to found a virtue ethic on an account of what it is to flourish qua human being, where this is understood on analogy with what it is for plants and non-human animals to flourish qua member of their particular species. In other words, they attempt to found a virtue ethic on considerations of human beings within the ‘natural, biological order of living things’.Footnote ²¹ Hursthouse writes: ‘[If] there is any truth in ethical naturalism, our ethical evaluations of ourselves ought to exhibit at least a recognizably similar structure to what we find in the botanists’ and ethologists’ evaluations of other living things.’Footnote ²² Here we can see a further specified understanding of ethical naturalism where it involves a quasi-scientific approach to ethics that appeals to a quasi-scientific account of human nature and human flourishing. In short, there is an appeal to a functional usage of the term ‘good’ that denotes a thing's being well-fitted to fulfil its natural end(s) or function(s) as a member of its kind. For instance, for Hursthouse, whether we are good specimens of our kind depends upon whether we are well-fitted in our actions, emotions, and desires to attain what she regards as the four naturalistic ends of social animals: viz. (1) individual survival; (2) the continuance of the species; (3) characteristic freedom from pain and characteristic enjoyment; and (4) the good functioning of one's social group.Footnote ²³ Moreover, as humans are rational social animals it is important that these ends be pursued in a ‘rational way’ through the use of practical reason and the acquisition and exercise of the virtues.Footnote ²⁴

Finally, there is an even further specified understanding of ethical naturalism where it involves an opposition to supernaturalism. For some neo-Aristotelians, the three understandings of ‘ethical naturalism’ described here go together. Hursthouse writes:

One might quibble with the use of the term ‘supernaturalism’ here. The main target is evidently theism; however, ‘supernaturalism’ only seems to capture God's transcendence and fails to capture the theistic belief that God is also in some sense immanent within the natural world.Footnote ²⁶ In any case, it is clear that Hursthouse means to exclude appeals to theistic views in her version of ethical naturalism. Other neo-Aristotelians likewise exclude theistic and other ‘supernatural’ views, while many simply ignore the issue and thus implicitly exclude theistic and other ‘supernatural’ perspectives from consideration in their accounts of the good life.Footnote ²⁷

My concern here is primarily with the general neglect and exclusion of the topic of spirituality and its place in the good life among neo-Aristotelians, and I want to suggest that it is particularly the second understanding of ethical naturalism (the quasi-scientific approach) that is problematic, though this may also give us reason to question the third understanding (anti-supernaturalism). But I think we should affirm the first understanding of ethical naturalism (the attempt to found ethics on claims about human nature); indeed, I want to argue that it is part of human nature to be drawn to spirituality.

Homo religiosus

The main complaint that I want to lodge against the version of neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism that involves a quasi-scientific approach is that it does not adequately account for the first-personal evaluative standpoint from within our human form of life. Indeed, I think this is true as well of some, like John McDowell, who also question the third-personal, quasi-scientific approach and go some way towards accounting for our first-personal evaluative standpoint. McDowell rightly notes that neo-Aristotelians who endorse the quasi-scientific approach neglect the strong evaluative category of ‘the noble’, which is central to Aristotle's ethics.Footnote ²⁸ For Aristotle, virtuous actions are performed ‘for the sake of the noble’ where this is seen as constitutive of a normatively higher, nobler, more fulfilling mode of life (eudaimonia).Footnote ²⁹ Thus, there is a major disanalogy between human happiness or flourishing (eudaimonia) and the flourishing of non-human animals. Aristotle strikingly states: ‘we regard neither ox, nor horse, nor any other kind of animal as happy; for none of them share in this sort of [noble] activity’.Footnote ³⁰ In fact, Aristotle sometimes uses the term makariotēs (‘blessedness’) interchangeably with eudaimonia (‘happiness’) to describe the ultimate aim of human life. For instance, he writes: ‘happiness appears to be one of the most divine things, since the prize and goal of virtue appears to be the best good, something divine and blessed’.Footnote ³¹ Similar to the case of ‘the noble’, I contend that the third-personal, quasi-scientific approach – and McDowell too – neglects the place of the strong evaluative category of ‘the sacred’ within human life.

The experience of the sacred, like other strong evaluative experiences, is made possible for us because of our human distinctiveness as language animals. Through language – which is part of our acquired ‘second nature’, as McDowell puts it – we can possess concepts like ‘the sacred’ and ‘the noble’ that light up the world for us in a strong evaluative manner such that we experience it in a fundamentally different way from non-linguistic animals: from our first-personal evaluative standpoint we experience the world in light of a conceptual framework whereby certain things are seen as being worthy of our concern and fit to be valued in strong evaluative terms; i.e. the world makes normative demands upon us. In the case of the concept of the sacred, we might say that this enables a ‘transfiguration’ of the world. For instance, John Cottingham describes a sense of the sacred that is found in common human experiences of natural beauty, great works of art, and the moral demand, and he remarks:

While theists might interpret such experiences as ‘intimations of the divine reality that is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness’, non-theists can also have these experiences; they are part of ‘our ordinary human birthright’.Footnote ³³

It is part of ‘our ordinary human birthright’ to be drawn towards the sacred, I contend, because of our nature as ‘meaning-seeking animals’.Footnote ³⁴ It is a distinctive feature of human life, as contrasted with the life of non-human animals, that we are concerned with living a meaningful or worthwhile life, where this in understood in strong evaluative terms: we are concerned to orient ourselves within ethical/spiritual space by acknowledging and seeking to align our lives properly with certain strong goods. The most important among such goods will be sacred goods because they are experienced as being deeply meaningful and as making particularly strong demands on our lives such that they play a central guiding role in our practical life-orientations. As previously discussed, such a life-orientation will also involve seeking to find our place in the cosmos, and the concern with this is another facet of our being meaning-seeking animals. As meaning-seeking animals, we understand specific strong goods as meaningful (and as the goods they are) against the background of our overall cosmic outlook: i.e. our sense of how our lives fit into the grand scheme of things and whether there is an ultimate meaning and purpose for human life. Indeed, it would seem that such strong goods require an affirmation that human life does in fact have an ultimate meaning and purpose.Footnote ³⁵ It is in this context that questions about God's existence and the like become especially significant and can acquire a sense of urgency. It is also in this context that we can appreciate the importance of spirituality for human beings throughout recorded history up to the present and why we can be described as homo religiosus.

I want to conclude by noting that if it is indeed the case, as I have argued, that human beings are homo religiosus – i.e. naturally drawn to spirituality understood as a practical life-orientation towards what is seen as sacred or holy – then a certain virtue is crucial to human well-being that has tended to be neglected or seen as no virtue at all: viz. the virtue of piety, which, as I understand it, is the virtue concerned with a proper relationship to the sacred in our practical life-orientations.Footnote ³⁶