[whose] rule a man lives, who is so soon to die?”
Augustine is sometimes said to have “interiorized” personal ethics by moving
the focus of ethical evaluation of an agent from the agent’s action and its effect
on the world to the psychological dispositions from which the agent’s actions
proceed. This gains some credence from his discussions of Christian officeholders.
Despite his remarks about putting imperial power at God’s service,
Augustine’s mirror for princes is really an extended paean to the Christian
emperor who loves and fears God and who acts from the virtues of clemency,
mercy, compassion, humility, piety, and generosity. This, conjoined with his
warning that Christian emperors may be deposed, and his argument that
judges must proceed though they cannot be sure they will ascertain the truth,
suggests that public officials, at least, will not be judged by their effectiveness. A
fully interiorized ethic would hold not only that persons will not be judged by
the effectiveness of what they do, but also that they will not be judged negatively
even if what they do seems on its face to be bad. This is what is required to give
full force to Augustine’s famous remark “love and do what you will.” To find
such an ethic in Augustine, it is necessary to turn from his treatment of the duties
of office or his remarks about peace to his discussion of war.
It is ironic that an author who writes so eloquently about the good of peace
should have played a pivotal role in the emergence of a body of Christian thought
justifying warfare. Many in the early Church had interpreted the Gospel’s injunction
to “turn the other cheek” as forbidding the use of force to defend oneself or
others and forbidding participation in warfare. In reply to the pacifist interpretation
of this injunction, Augustine points out that Christ challenged the temple
officer who hit him rather than turning his other cheek toward him. He maintains
that what Christ requires “is not a disposition of the body but of the heart,
for there,” he continues, “is the sacred resting place of virtue.” This suggests
that at least some forms of violence may be justifiable if they proceed from a
heart which loves rightly