By Daniel Hruschka, Science of Virtues scholar
Today
with a population of more than half a million, the Iban of Borneo are heirs to
15 generations of intrepid pioneers who spread their way of life throughout the
island’s northwest coasts and rivers.
Traditionally, the Iban farmed rice and hunted, living in impressive
wooden long-houses in groups of 100 to 200 people. Iban praised and immortalized exemplary men as “wealthy and
courageous”, qualities that not only helped these men and their families, but
also promoted flourishing in their long-house and their tribe. Notably, such men excelled in
three spheres of activity—farming, pioneering, and prior to the imposition of
Dutch law in the early 20th century, the taking of human heads.
I
do not imagine that anyone reading this post would approve of
head-hunting. From our
perspective, killing another human being is horrific and inexcusable (although
some of us may entertain conditions when it is appropriate!). Thus, at first glance it is tempting to
dismiss the Iban case as irrelevant for a science of virtue. On the contrary, I
argue that diverse cross-cultural cases, like that of the Iban, provide
important material for honing our own definitions, intuitions, and
understandings of virtue, and for clarifying what we mean by core concepts
of ‘flourishing’ and
‘excellence.’
For
the purpose of this post, let us focus on flourishing. If the central themes of Iban festivals
and mythology are any indication, Iban assessed flourishing in several ways. Flourishing families and communities
were harmonious and were rich in rice, children, and something we might call spiritual
energy. All of these goods
reinforced each other, but an important part of fostering these goods was
through the taking of human heads.
If a community member were fatally ill, the blood from a killed human
might cure the malady. If a
deceased community member was stuck in limbo, taking a human head would permit
the deceased to become dew, thus nourishing the land for future rice
harvests. If a community member’s
head had been taken, then the person’s soul had become a slave in another place
for another people, and the only way to set that person free was to take a head
from the captor’s community. All
of these were reasons for taking heads.
Rather
than an unreflective convention or a narrowly self-interested activity, taking
heads was aimed at promoting the flourishing of one’s self, one’s family, and
one’s community. Indeed, not taking heads when a community member
(alive or deceased) was in need, would have been cowardly at best and immoral
at worst. Moreover, a good
head-hunter possessed many of the character traits laid out by Aristotle in the
Nicomachean Ethics, including bravery, temperance, generosity, justice, and
practical wisdom.
So
why is a good head-hunter not a paragon of virtue? I argue here that this depends on how we answer important
questions about our bounds on flourishing. In short, flourishing for whom? It is important to note here that indiscriminate killing was
not acceptable among the Iban.
Indeed, killing a fellow group member was equivalent to incest. It upset
the universal order and could lead to sterility, in terms of offspring, rice
production, and the future taking of heads. On the other hand, individuals outside the group were fair
game. From our modern mindset,
this seems horribly parochial, limiting the locus of flourishing to a small,
select set of human beings.
However,
even prominent philosophical accounts of virtue have circumscribed (often
implicitly) the locus of flourishing.
Aristotle started off his Nichomachean ethics focusing on the good for
an individual and for a city (p. 3), and in other work defends differential
treatment for slaves. Alisdair
MacIntyre more recently defined the locus of flourishing as the “whole set of
social relationships in which we have found our place” (p. 108). According to this definition, if
Aristotle had grown up among the Iban, and had found his place in a set of
tribal relationships, perhaps he could have justified taking the heads of
outsiders as long as it was for the “common good.” Rather than promoting smug
self-approval, the Iban case should also provoke us to examine our own implicit
biases in who deserves what and when and whose flourishing matters. Who do we think should have access to
healthcare, to citizenship, and to our charity? How do our daily habits, from
our driving routine to our consumer purchases, negatively affect individuals
and communities that conveniently lie outside of our immediate gaze? If we hope to define virtue in terms of
its effects, specifically whether and how it promotes flourishing, we will need
to examine how we define the locus of flourishing. Is it our species, our long-house or some place in between?
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