CHAPTER 4
Thick and Thin Virtues & Intercultural Meaningfulness
Philosophical and Historical ReflectionsWorking draft excerpt — “Reverent Coping, Come What May.” Lightly cleaned for readability while remaining faithful to the original argument and structure.IntroductionThis essay grows out of questions that have been with me for a long time. How do contemplative and religious traditions relate to everyday life rather than just to monasteries and retreats? Can anything be learned from them without accepting their full metaphysical packages—about God, karma, rebirth, providence? And what resources do we have, now, for navigating a world in which deep disagreements about meaning and value are not going away? What follows is not a system or a “view from nowhere,” but a set of hunches: attempts to make sense of certain recurring patterns in history and to see what they might offer for our own situation.In earlier chapters, the focus was on individual agency under conditions of uncertainty and luck. The argument, in compressed form, was that agency is neither the old sovereign self—standing outside history, fully in control—nor the mere illusion some post-structural theories imply. Instead, what we have is a kind of weak, mediated agency: people act from within inherited practices, institutions, and discourses; their efforts are constrained and channeled in countless ways; yet their choices still make a difference, sometimes a very large one. Moral luck, on this view, is not an embarrassing anomaly but the normal background against which any meaningful action has to be undertaken.Here I ask what happens when that weak, fallible agency is brought into contact with deep difference: religious, cultural, political. When empires meet, when traders cross frontiers, when scholars translate each other’s texts, when former enemies try to build institutions together—what makes the difference between mutual enrichment and mutual destruction? Why do some encounters, under conditions that look broadly similar, tilt toward syncretism and creative borrowing, while others spiral into crusades, expulsions, partitions? No single factor will ever explain that, but some dispositions seem to matter more than others.I will call a certain cluster of those dispositions “Tier-1 virtues.” The label is not meant to suggest a hierarchy of importance or a fixed taxonomy; it is just shorthand for a family resemblance among traits that keep turning up in very different settings: epistemic humility, tolerance, patience, curiosity about the other, attention to consequences, and a kind of steady equanimity under changing fortune. These are not full moral or religious outlooks. They do not tell anyone what to worship or how to order a society. They are thinner habits of mind and heart—ways of coping with contingency and difference—that can, in principle, be activated inside many thicker frameworks.One of the surprises that emerged as I worked on this material is that moral luck and these Tier-1 virtues are not in simple tension. Luck does undercut any picture in which virtue automatically brings reward or in which the world is guaranteed to be fair. But that very recognition can free agents from waiting on a providential script and push them back onto their own limited but real resources. When you stop assuming that “everything happens for a reason,” or that history is secretly arranged to vindicate your side, the question shifts from “Why is this happening?” to “Given that this is happening, what can still be done?” The stance I will call “reverent coping, come what may” is one answer: a mix of lucid acceptance and continuing care that shows up in Buddhist equanimity, Christian detachment, Islamic sabr and tawakkul, Confucian calm, Taoist non-forcing, and even in naturalistic thinkers like Dewey and Einstein.I have two aims. The first is to sketch this Tier-1 ethos in a bit more detail by pointing to its expressions across several traditions, religious and secular. The second is to see how it actually fares in practice by looking at specific historical episodes, both hopeful and tragic. The cases will range from Achaemenid Persia to Abbasid Baghdad, from Mongol rule to the Ottoman millet system, from early modern experiments in accommodation to the creation and fragility of the European Union and recent peace processes. In each, I will ask a relatively simple question: when people facing difference and danger tried to act, what role—if any—did something like these Tier-1 virtues play, alongside self-interest, fear, pride, and sheer luck? The hope is not to extract a formula, but to learn something about the conditions under which interpersonal and intercultural life becomes more breathable, even when nothing guarantees success.Tier-1 Virtues as “Reverent Coping Come What May”: Cross-Cultural ExpressionsBefore turning to specific historical cases, I want to establish what I mean by Tier-1 virtues by showing how remarkably similar attitudes recur across very different religious and philosophical traditions. What follows is necessarily painted in broad strokes—I am highlighting certain strands and interpretations within complex traditions rather than settling longstanding textual debates—but the pattern is striking enough to warrant attention. These are not abstract principles but lived stances—ways of inhabiting contingency that combine lucidity about moral luck with steady, non-fatalistic agency.These stances are all first cultivated inside thick ontologies—religious, humanist, or ideological; “Tier-1” names not a separate moral code, but the ways those lived habits can sometimes travel into shared spaces where no single ontology is presumed.Many recent projects—for example in positive psychology and “character strengths” research—begin by positing a list of freestanding “thin virtues” (prudence, kindness, curiosity, etc.) that are said to enjoy straightforward cross-cultural validity as universal human strengths. They explicitly claim six “ubiquitous core virtues” (courage, justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, transcendence) and 24 character strengths as universal across cultures, treated as biologically grounded aspects of “good character.” What follows takes a different route. Tier-1 is a heuristic, not a reified layer of morality: it names how habits first cultivated inside thick ontologies—religious, humanist, or ideological—can sometimes function as shared resources in mixed settings without being experienced by agents as “de-theologized” or secularized. A Christian missionary, a lay Buddhist, and a secular humanist may all enact something recognizably like patience, tact, or “skillful means” in a tense encounter, while understanding those dispositions very differently in terms of grace, Dharma, or cooperative intelligence.These contingencies of self-understanding are often opaque in practice; one rarely knows, in a street-level interaction, how another person privately narrates their own virtues. An Orthodox Christian missionary may understand her patience as grace-enabled kenosis, while a lapsed believer from the same tradition may enact similar patterns without any religious self-narration—both count as “Tier-1” in my framework because the observable disposition (patterns of response over time, alignments between stated commitments and sustained practice) is what matters for intercultural cooperation, not the agent’s metaphysical commitments or lack thereof. This is not behaviorism or a claim that inner states are unreal or epiphenomenal; Tier-2 self-narrations—whether theological, humanist, or ideological—are genuine and consequential, shaping how agents understand their lives and make sense of their commitments. But for the purposes of this inquiry into intercultural cooperation, I focus on patterns of practice rather than the full complexity of personal motives because: (1) when actors are multitudinous and span centuries, the historical record does not furnish us with a comprehensive account of the animating motives of all the individual agents involved; (2) multiple self-narrations can be compatible with the same observable patterns; and (3) what enables cooperation across deep difference is whether dispositions actually ease navigation in mixed contexts, not what ultimately grounds them in agents’ interior lives. If I were writing a focused study of contemplative practice drawing on diaries, memoirs, or ethnographic interviews, personal motives and subjective experience would be central; here, they remain important background but not the primary analytical target. What matters for this inquiry is that, under favorable conditions, such enacted dispositions can ease and sometimes deepen interaction across cultural and group lines, regardless of the mixed motives of the historically distant actors we will never meet.What I’m calling “reverent coping come what may” names a family resemblance among virtues that appear again and again when traditions confront the same basic human predicament: how to act well in a world where outcomes exceed our control, where fortune plays a decisive role, and where no cosmic guarantee ensures justice.Christian Mysticism and Orthodox KenosisIn the mystical strands of Christianity, particularly in figures like Meister Eckhart and the Orthodox hesychast tradition, we find a radical detachment from outcomes that is anything but passive resignation. Eckhart writes of Abgeschiedenheit—a “detachment” or “disinterest” where one acts “without a why,” releasing the anxious demand that the world conform to one’s will or that one’s efforts be visibly rewarded. The Philokalia, central to Orthodox spirituality, cultivates hesychia (inner stillness) and kenosis (self-emptying), training practitioners to receive whatever comes—suffering, joy, apparent injustice—as occasion for spiritual formation rather than as proof that “things are as they should be.”This is not fatalism. The mystic continues to act, to love, to engage—but the self’s grip on controlling or justifying outcomes loosens. External fortune becomes training ground, not vindication. What matters is the quality of one’s inner state and one’s responsiveness to the present, not whether history rewards virtue or makes cosmic sense. As the author of The Cloud of Unknowing writes, the contemplative learns to dwell in “the darkness” where God’s justice is not legible but trust remains.Zen and Taoist EquanimityThe famous Zen parable of the farmer captures a recurring East Asian attitude with particular clarity. When the farmer’s horse runs away, neighbors say “Such bad luck!” He replies, “Maybe.” When the horse returns with wild horses, they say “Such good luck!” Again: “Maybe.” This continues through his son’s injury and eventual escape from conscription—always “Maybe.”Common Taoist philosophy articulates the same insight through wu wei (effortless action): responsive spontaneity that works with circumstances rather than rigidly imposing one’s will. The Daodejing’s image is water—it flows around obstacles, takes the lowest place, yet nothing is stronger. Zhuangzi, reflecting on his wife’s death, places grief within endless transformations that exceed human categories of good and bad. The cultivation of the “uncarved block” (pu) aims at inner simplicity that can meet fortune’s reversals without shattering.Confucianism and the Calm JunziThe Confucian tradition, often misread as focused only on social propriety, contains a profound account of inner equanimity under changing fortune. In the Analects (7.37), Confucius observes: “The noble-minded are calm and steady. Little people are forever fussing and fretting.” The junzi (exemplary person) cultivates ren (humaneness) not because the universe guarantees it will be rewarded, but because it provides an inner stability that neither adversity nor prosperity can shake.Another passage (4.2) makes this explicit: “Without ren, you can’t dwell in adversity for long, and you can’t dwell in prosperity for long.” The point is not that virtue ensures worldly success but that it enables one to handle both good and bad fortune with equanimity. The junzi focuses on what lies within personal control—self-cultivation, appropriate conduct, understanding others—and releases anxiety about external recognition or material outcomes. As the Analects (1.16) puts it: “One is not concerned that others do not know one; one is concerned that one does not know others.”This is engaged agency—Confucius explicitly rejects withdrawal from the world—but agency that has relocated its ground from external validation to internal formation.Islamic Sabr and TawakkulIn Islamic tradition, sabr (patient endurance) and tawakkul (trust in God after having done what one can) capture this stance with particular clarity. Sabr is not passive suffering but active, disciplined management of fear, anger, and impulsive reaction—whether in obeying what is right when difficult, restraining destructive impulses, or accepting hardships without complaint. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said: “Whoever persists in being patient, Allah will make him patient.”Tawakkul names the balance between action and acceptance. The famous hadith captures this: when a man asked whether he should leave his camel untied and trust in God, the Prophet replied, “Tie her and trust in Allah.” This is precisely weak agency plus acceptance: act responsibly within your limited sphere, then relinquish demand for control over outcomes. The psychological result—qana’ah (contentment)—comes not because the world is just, but because one has stopped insisting it be fully under one’s control.Hinduism and Karma YogaThe Bhagavad Gita’s teaching of karma yoga—action without attachment to the fruits of action—provides another powerful articulation of engaged, non-anxious agency. Krishna instructs Arjuna on the battlefield: act with full commitment and skill, but release your grip on results. The emphasis is on dharma (right action appropriate to one’s role) performed with wholehearted effort, while understanding that outcomes depend on factors beyond individual control.This is not a counsel to care less or act carelessly. Rather, it is recognition that agency is real but bounded, that one’s duty is to act well, not to control history. The cultivation of this stance—acting without being “the actor” in the sense of claiming full authorship of outcomes—aims to free the agent from the oscillation between inflated self-importance when things go well and despairing self-blame when they do not.Jewish Wisdom: Accepting What Cannot Be ChangedJewish tradition, particularly in its wisdom literature and later Hasidic developments, contains similar resources. Ecclesiastes acknowledges the role of chance bluntly: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all” (9:11). This is not cynicism but realism about moral luck.Hasidic teachings on bitachon (trust) and simcha (joy even in adversity) cultivate an attitude where trust in God coexists with full engagement in the world’s messy contingencies. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s famous dictum—“The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the main thing is not to be afraid at all”—captures the balance: acknowledge precarity, but don’t let fear paralyze action or curdle into resentment when things go wrong.Humanism and Naturalism: Dewey’s “Natural Piety”John Dewey, signing the Humanist Manifesto and writing A Common Faith, articulated a secular version of reverent coping that eschews supernatural guarantees while maintaining what he called “natural piety”—a sense of gratitude and humility before the conditions that make life and growth possible, combined with active intelligence in pursuing amelioration.For Dewey, faith is not belief in providential design but “faith in the possibilities of experience”—a cultivated disposition to continue caring, experimenting, and acting responsibly under conditions of uncertainty. He writes of “enduring the undesirable while maintaining active interest in what is possible.” There is no cosmic guarantee that things will work out, no script ensuring that virtue is rewarded. But there are real possibilities for growth, cooperation, and amelioration if we can act intelligently and maintain hope without demanding certainty.Dewey comes close to my notion of reverent coping, but though no particulars are guaranteed to succeed for Dewey, he incorporates an autotelic trend towards what he terms “growth and progress” in general, so that despite finite and uncompensated loss, it is presented in light of an upward escalator of progress making our stymied best efforts and personal or collective tragedies function in terms of theodicy rather than being accepted as mysterious and morally unsettled events and trends. In short, he failed to accept the tragic as possibly, or at times, containing no value for larger trends in history, somewhat in the way Hegel found that to be difficult.Einstein and Cosmic Religious FeelingAlbert Einstein, in his essay “Religion and Science,” described what he called the “cosmic religious feeling”—a sense of awe before the intelligibility and vastness of nature that generates humility without requiring personalized providence. This feeling, he argued, is the source of genuine scientific motivation: the recognition that we are small, our understanding partial, yet understanding is possible and worth pursuing.Einstein explicitly rejected both traditional theism and mechanistic materialism. What he affirmed was a kind of reverent naturalism: deep respect for the mystery and order evident in nature, combined with recognition that human purposes and sufferings are not written into the cosmic order. This generates what he called “a deep emotional conviction of the rationality of the universe”—not rationality in the sense of moral teleology, but intelligibility coupled with acceptance that the universe is indifferent to human projects. The appropriate response is not despair but a kind of disciplined wonder and humility, continuing to seek understanding and to act decently within the narrow sphere where human agency matters.Synthesizing the PatternWhat emerges across these traditions is not a unified doctrine but a family resemblance—a cluster of attitudes and practices for inhabiting moral luck that recur despite vast differences in metaphysical commitments. We might name the shared elements:Cognitive virtues: Epistemic humility (recognizing one’s perspective is partial), refusal to over-read events as deserved or part of a knowable plan, willingness to track actual consequences rather than defend doctrine.Affective/temperamental virtues: Equanimity under gain and loss, patience without bitterness, what I’m calling reverent acceptance—a stance that can encompass Zen, Taoist, mystical Christian, Sufi, Confucian, and secular naturalist versions.Practical/social virtues: Tolerance and forbearance toward difference, willingness to sustain cooperation and exchange even under tension, non-resentful response to structural constraints one didn’t choose.This is what I mean by Tier-1 virtues: not a philosopher’s abstract list but a widely attested, tradition-crossing way of being in the world. These virtues do not deny luck or guarantee outcomes; they train agents to act responsibly and steadily within a world where contingency always has the last word.Importantly, this Tier-1 ethos often coexists with Tier-2 metanarratives—providence, karma, Pure Land, cosmic justice—that promise ultimate sense-making. But when those metanarratives are strained by severe suffering or moral luck, it is precisely these Tier-1 resources that people draw upon. The mystical paths, the hard disciplines, the acceptance practices all effectively say: in extremis, when felt consolation and visible justice fail, what remains is a cultivated way of standing in the storm.And crucially—accepting moral luck in this way does not diminish agency but paradoxically enhances it. When we stop waiting for providential alignment or external justification, more paths of action become thinkable. The question shifts from “Why is this happening?” to “Given that this is happening, what remains open to me?” As argued in the previous chapter on weak agency, Tier-1 virtues are thus not just compatible with moral luck but are the form that robust, flexible agency takes when agents relocate initiative into inner-directed resources rather than relying on cosmic guarantees.With this Tier-1 profile in view, we can now turn to specific historical cases where these attitudes, or their absence, made decisive differences in how human communities navigated difference and whether intercultural exchange produced synthesis or breakdown.— End of excerpt —
