The Politics of Gratitude

Ed Feser reflects on how liberalism erodes the virtue of gratitude, yet Thanksgiving actually reconnects us with the politics of virtue necessary for building a postliberal order.

Imagine a day specially set apart to call us to practice together a virtue such as wisdom, or moderation – “Wisdom Day,” say, or “Moderation Day.” The very idea may seem odd. Yet Thanksgiving Day is precisely such a day, because thanksgiving or gratitude is a virtue. In particular, as Aquinas points out, it is a species of the virtue of justice (Summa Theologiae II-II.106.1). Thanksgiving or gratitude is the disposition to acknowledge and appreciate the benefits one has received, and to repay in some way (even if just by expressing thanks) the one from whom one has received them. It is part of justice insofar as those who have benefited us are owed this thanks, and we do them wrong by withholding it.

To whom do we owe thanks? Here, moral theologians traditionally draw a fourfold distinction. First and foremost, we owe it to God; second, to our parents; third, to authorities (teachers, clergy, policemen, governing authorities and the like); and fourth, to personal benefactors. Theologians also distinguish between narrow and broad senses of “gratitude.” In the narrower and technical sense, gratitude is the virtue that governs our relationship to personal benefactors, specifically, whereas our relationship to God, parents, and authorities is governed by the virtues of religion, piety, and reverence, respectively. But in the broader (and much more familiar) sense, of course, we owe gratitude to all four.

Like other virtues, gratitude is a middle ground between opposite extreme vices. It might seem odd to suggest that there is a vice of excess where gratitude is concerned, but a little thought shows that there can be. For one thing, it would be wrong to be grateful for something that is not in fact good and should not be given or desired (for example, if you are thankful to a friend for giving you drugs). For another, a person might be excessive in the manner in which he shows gratitude (for instance, over-the-top thanks for a trivial benefit). Some writers label this vice of excess “overgratitude.”

But far more common, of course, is the vice of deficiency, namely ingratitude. Aquinas illuminates its nature by first noting the ways gratitude is shown, and then explaining how they correspond to distinct ways in which ingratitude can manifest itself (Summa Theologiae II-II.107.2). Gratitude involves recognizing the benefit one has received, expressing thanks for it, and repaying it in some way. One form of ingratitude, then, would be not to acknowledge a benefit – or, even worse, to behave as if one had actually been positively harmed. A second form would be to fail to express thanks, and here too one can do even worse, by instead complaining that the good one received was imperfect. A third form would be to fail to repay a favor, or worse yet to return evil for the good one has been given.

However, not every good one receives from another requires gratitude. For example, as one manual of moral theology notes, “no thanks are due for what was owed in justice (e.g., wages for work performed), though courtesy demands a pleasant response to every good one receives, even when it is not a favor” (John McHugh and Charles Callan, Moral Theology, Vol. II, p. 429). Similarly, it would be odd to suppose that one owes gratitude (as opposed to mere politeness) to the shopkeeper from whom one buy’s one’s morning coffee or groceries. Market transactions are not governed by the virtue of gratitude, but only by mere civility.

This indicates one of several ways in which liberalism tends to erode the virtue of gratitude. I hasten to emphasize before proceeding that I do not deny for a moment that people who happen to be liberal can and do show gratitude. Doing so is a natural human tendency, and such tendencies are never entirely erased even by the most deep-rooted ideologies.

All the same, liberalism as an ideology does tend to erode gratitude by making it less common and deep than it otherwise would be. Consider, first, liberalism’s general picture of society as grounded in consent, and its tendency to model human relationships on market or contractual relations. The pre-liberal view of social order, preserved in natural law theory, is that society and government are natural to us, being extensions of the family and of paternal authority, respectively. Patriotism is for this reason taken by natural law theory to fall under the virtue of piety. Hence, just as we owe gratitude to our parents, we owe gratitude toward our country and toward public authorities.

But for the social contract tradition that inaugurated liberalism,society and authority are artificial rather than natural. And they arise only by way of a kind of contract, analogous to the kind of contract that might exist between buyer and seller or employer and employee. On this picture, one’s country is like a homeowner’s association one has joined rather than a family one has been born into, and governing authorities are like security guards one has hired or a lawyer one has retained. And gratitude is simply not the sort of thing one generally feels toward one’s homeowner’s association, employee, or lawyer.

That is not to say that every individual liberal, or even most liberals, actually look at society exactly this way. People do not always behave in a way consistent with the ideas to which they are committed. The point is that the liberal ideology nevertheless does have these implications, so that the more influence this ideology has on a society, the more its people will at least approximate this attitude, so that gratitude toward one’s country will be weaker and less widespread.

There is also the fact that liberalism, especially in its modern guise, tends to regard traditional institutions in general with suspicion. When reflecting on the family, religion, and authorities of all kinds, the liberal emphasis is on their defects,and in particular on ways liberalism takes them to be sources of oppression from which individuals need to be liberated. And it is difficult to feel gratitude toward those whom one thinks of primarily as sources of oppression rather than of benefits. Liberalism’s relentless rhetoric of liberation and reform tends to foster in citizens a culture of complaint and disillusionmentrather than appreciation and thanksgiving.

In recent years this culture has, in the guise of “wokeness,” morphed into a hermeneutics of suspicion that denies the legitimacy even of liberal civilization itself. Wokeness is essentially what one gets when the inherently subversive tendencies of liberalism have spiraled out of control, to the point of threatening the very ideology that spawned them. As I have argued elsewhere, the spiritual fuels of wokeness are envy and ressentiment, which are incompatible with gratitude. Religion, country, family, authority – these are all seen as masks for bogeymen such as “systemic racism,” “patriarchy,” and “heteronormativity,” and thus to be hated and torn down rather than thanked.

And yet even in the era of late-stage liberalism, Americans retain their attachment to and affection for the traditions of Thanksgiving Day. The reason, I submit, is that it appeals to something deeper in human nature than any ideology can extirpate. That gives us reason for hope. For restoring a culture of gratitude and thanksgiving is integral to building a postliberal order.