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Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Floss
Mind Floss is back. He's talking about Chomsky, and it ain't a linguistics post. Mind Floss understands leftist notions of autonomy and redistribution of wealth perfectly. The liberal idea is that everyone has a right to freedom (technically "autonomy"), freedom requires dough, and if you won't give me some dough you're depriving me of my freedom. Leftism (my term, Kekes says, "liberalism") is hopelessly confused. It's a non-starter. It's naive pacifism is, too. This is all coming to a head now. Leftism is imploding. The political landscape twenty years from now will be much better.
Mind Floss is back. He's talking about Chomsky, and it ain't a linguistics post. Mind Floss understands leftist notions of autonomy and redistribution of wealth perfectly. The liberal idea is that everyone has a right to freedom (technically "autonomy"), freedom requires dough, and if you won't give me some dough you're depriving me of my freedom. Leftism (my term, Kekes says, "liberalism") is hopelessly confused. It's a non-starter. It's naive pacifism is, too. This is all coming to a head now. Leftism is imploding. The political landscape twenty years from now will be much better.
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#4)
The book, Against Liberalism (Post D). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
In one chapter of the book, Kekes presents some problems for the liberal scheme of wealth redistribution. He has developed the criticisms even more thoroughly in a book, The Illusions of Egalitarianism, which will be published later this year. In Against Liberalism, the problems number four.
First, redistribution schemes misunderstand the problem of poverty. They are couched in the egalitarian tenet that gaps in wealth are bad. As I’ve argued before (and Kekes attributes the argument to Harry Frankfurt), a gap in wealth is not essentially unjust, as can be seen in the fact that there is no injustice in the gaps in wealth between certain well-to-do people. The problem is the undeserved misery of poverty, and not any gap. Moreover, liberals don’t understand that it isn’t the case that the riches are simply spread around unevenly in a way that can be remedied, as jelly spread poorly on a slice of bread. For there isn’t enough wealth to close the gap without depleting the wealth required for production of more wealth. Concentrations of wealth keep us all afloat.
Second, absurd consequences follow from liberal egalitarianism. For example, if egalitarianism were true, men ought to receive compensation for the fact that their life expectancy is markedly shorter than women’s. Benefiting the worst off does not serve justice. Only benefiting victims of injustice does (including sufferers of undeserved harm). And some in the liberal’s target group - the poor, minorities and women - are not victims of injustice. If all poor people deserve aid, whether or not they are responsible for their poverty, and all minorities and women deserve aid, whether or not they are well-to-do, then men deserve aid for their shorter life expectancy, whether or not they are responsible for its shortness or well-to-do. The basic premise of egalitarianism, that inequality is unjust, is inconsistent with the fact that some inequality, such as some cases of short life expectancy, is a matter of simple misfortune. There has as yet been no sufficient argument that all inequality due to misfortune ought to be eradicated by taking property from the well-to-do (more on this in the next post).
Third, there is no basis to exclude from equality people of other states and count only our state’s citizens. To reserve equality for Americans is to put it on a basis - a cultural one perhaps - other than the mere fact that everyone has a capacity for autonomy (on which term, see previous posts). This would be to take a first step from liberalism to conservatism. To bite the bullet and demand equality for all human beings would require (a.) advocating a one-world government to enforce equality against the reasonable preferences of many, who won’t yield without a fight, and (b) expecting this government to be wealthy enough to supply enough resources for all to achieve and maintain autonomy (i.e., comfortable shelter, good food and medical care, education, security, etc.). This is a utopian fantasy (in other words, a dystopia).
Fourth, egalitarians say that all people matter equally. But surely the wicked matter less and ought to be treated worse than the good. Liberals will reply that what they mean is that we ought to assume that a person is not wicked and treat him equally to the way in which we treat the best of people, until evidence is found that he is in fact wicked. But this reply is as implausible as saying that we should assume that for any given star, we should assume that it is nearby and plan a mission to it until it has been shown that it is not nearby. One’s worthiness of good treatment depends upon one’s moral merit, and not merely on one’s personhood, or capacity for autonomy.
The book, Against Liberalism (Post D). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
In one chapter of the book, Kekes presents some problems for the liberal scheme of wealth redistribution. He has developed the criticisms even more thoroughly in a book, The Illusions of Egalitarianism, which will be published later this year. In Against Liberalism, the problems number four.
First, redistribution schemes misunderstand the problem of poverty. They are couched in the egalitarian tenet that gaps in wealth are bad. As I’ve argued before (and Kekes attributes the argument to Harry Frankfurt), a gap in wealth is not essentially unjust, as can be seen in the fact that there is no injustice in the gaps in wealth between certain well-to-do people. The problem is the undeserved misery of poverty, and not any gap. Moreover, liberals don’t understand that it isn’t the case that the riches are simply spread around unevenly in a way that can be remedied, as jelly spread poorly on a slice of bread. For there isn’t enough wealth to close the gap without depleting the wealth required for production of more wealth. Concentrations of wealth keep us all afloat.
Second, absurd consequences follow from liberal egalitarianism. For example, if egalitarianism were true, men ought to receive compensation for the fact that their life expectancy is markedly shorter than women’s. Benefiting the worst off does not serve justice. Only benefiting victims of injustice does (including sufferers of undeserved harm). And some in the liberal’s target group - the poor, minorities and women - are not victims of injustice. If all poor people deserve aid, whether or not they are responsible for their poverty, and all minorities and women deserve aid, whether or not they are well-to-do, then men deserve aid for their shorter life expectancy, whether or not they are responsible for its shortness or well-to-do. The basic premise of egalitarianism, that inequality is unjust, is inconsistent with the fact that some inequality, such as some cases of short life expectancy, is a matter of simple misfortune. There has as yet been no sufficient argument that all inequality due to misfortune ought to be eradicated by taking property from the well-to-do (more on this in the next post).
Third, there is no basis to exclude from equality people of other states and count only our state’s citizens. To reserve equality for Americans is to put it on a basis - a cultural one perhaps - other than the mere fact that everyone has a capacity for autonomy (on which term, see previous posts). This would be to take a first step from liberalism to conservatism. To bite the bullet and demand equality for all human beings would require (a.) advocating a one-world government to enforce equality against the reasonable preferences of many, who won’t yield without a fight, and (b) expecting this government to be wealthy enough to supply enough resources for all to achieve and maintain autonomy (i.e., comfortable shelter, good food and medical care, education, security, etc.). This is a utopian fantasy (in other words, a dystopia).
Fourth, egalitarians say that all people matter equally. But surely the wicked matter less and ought to be treated worse than the good. Liberals will reply that what they mean is that we ought to assume that a person is not wicked and treat him equally to the way in which we treat the best of people, until evidence is found that he is in fact wicked. But this reply is as implausible as saying that we should assume that for any given star, we should assume that it is nearby and plan a mission to it until it has been shown that it is not nearby. One’s worthiness of good treatment depends upon one’s moral merit, and not merely on one’s personhood, or capacity for autonomy.
Monday, February 03, 2003
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#3)
The book, Against Liberalism (Post C). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
Whole groups can be held responsible for evil (or for good) done by only some of their members, whenever the action flows from the values shared by the group. Upholding a group's values is a way in which a member of a group counts as a supporter of evil (or good) done by another member in service to those values. The bloodthirsty denizens of Jenin and Gaza are somewhat responsible for killings they do not do. (I've blogged on a related issue before.)
Kekes argues that the trouble with (left-)liberalism is that it is inconsistent with these facts about collective responsibility, and also it likes to hold a group collectively responsible when these facts - necessary conditions - do not obtain. Liberalism attributes responsibility only to autonomous actions (actions done after full evaluation of the alternatives and in full understanding of their moral status and implications). But many cases of collective responsibility are cases in which many of the blameworthy (or praiseworthy) members of the group are not autonomous, but merely hateful (or merely kind). And liberals like to hold rich people or white men collectively responsible for injustice caused by rich people or white men, even though those they hold collectively responsible have never shared the values of the wrong doers and have on the contrary fought to abolish those values. Collective responsibility is important to moral life. Not only does the concept of it elude liberalism, but also liberalism misapplies it.
Throughout the book, Kekes makes it clear that left-liberals have a tendency to ignore morally relevant properties of actions and characters and procede to judgment merely on the basis of gaps in wealth. This tendency is why I maintain that envy (or guilt in the face of envy) is a plausible explanation for someone's maintaining left-liberal values.
The book, Against Liberalism (Post C). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
Whole groups can be held responsible for evil (or for good) done by only some of their members, whenever the action flows from the values shared by the group. Upholding a group's values is a way in which a member of a group counts as a supporter of evil (or good) done by another member in service to those values. The bloodthirsty denizens of Jenin and Gaza are somewhat responsible for killings they do not do. (I've blogged on a related issue before.)
Kekes argues that the trouble with (left-)liberalism is that it is inconsistent with these facts about collective responsibility, and also it likes to hold a group collectively responsible when these facts - necessary conditions - do not obtain. Liberalism attributes responsibility only to autonomous actions (actions done after full evaluation of the alternatives and in full understanding of their moral status and implications). But many cases of collective responsibility are cases in which many of the blameworthy (or praiseworthy) members of the group are not autonomous, but merely hateful (or merely kind). And liberals like to hold rich people or white men collectively responsible for injustice caused by rich people or white men, even though those they hold collectively responsible have never shared the values of the wrong doers and have on the contrary fought to abolish those values. Collective responsibility is important to moral life. Not only does the concept of it elude liberalism, but also liberalism misapplies it.
Throughout the book, Kekes makes it clear that left-liberals have a tendency to ignore morally relevant properties of actions and characters and procede to judgment merely on the basis of gaps in wealth. This tendency is why I maintain that envy (or guilt in the face of envy) is a plausible explanation for someone's maintaining left-liberal values.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Iraq
The anti-war red herrings grow tiresome today. ("But Saddam will be more inclined to use a WMD if we do invade!" Yes. And the likelihood of his using a WMD now is therefore tolerable? And we won't be able to disarm him quickly enough to reduce the likelihood to zero? These are pseudo-inquirers, most of them (not all). Under almost no circumstances would they accept that the U.S. should invade Iraq. Therefore, they aren't engaged in genuine search for the right answer.) Here's the case, free of red herrings:
Put the chance of Saddam having a nuclear or bio/chem weapon smuggled into some large American or Israeli cities and exploded at, say, 2%. That's a lowball. It's intolerably high.
Assume that the American casualties in an invasion will be far lower than the casualties we would suffer in case he managed to smuggle in and explode those weapons. Assume that the number of dead enemy innocents will be lower, as well.
Note that we will be liberating oppressed people by invading.
It seems like a good case for invading, to me.
In other words, there is a treacherous Arab tyrant who poses a threat, who hates us and Israel, who screws his people, and who can be taken out without catastrophe. That's enough.
The anti-war red herrings grow tiresome today. ("But Saddam will be more inclined to use a WMD if we do invade!" Yes. And the likelihood of his using a WMD now is therefore tolerable? And we won't be able to disarm him quickly enough to reduce the likelihood to zero? These are pseudo-inquirers, most of them (not all). Under almost no circumstances would they accept that the U.S. should invade Iraq. Therefore, they aren't engaged in genuine search for the right answer.) Here's the case, free of red herrings:
Put the chance of Saddam having a nuclear or bio/chem weapon smuggled into some large American or Israeli cities and exploded at, say, 2%. That's a lowball. It's intolerably high.
Assume that the American casualties in an invasion will be far lower than the casualties we would suffer in case he managed to smuggle in and explode those weapons. Assume that the number of dead enemy innocents will be lower, as well.
Note that we will be liberating oppressed people by invading.
It seems like a good case for invading, to me.
In other words, there is a treacherous Arab tyrant who poses a threat, who hates us and Israel, who screws his people, and who can be taken out without catastrophe. That's enough.
Saturday, February 01, 2003
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#2)
The book, Against Liberalism (Post B). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
Kekes’s target is left-liberals. One theme in his argument is the kinds of ascription of moral responsibility that liberalism makes or is precluded from making. Liberals are intent upon designing a society in which autonomy is maximized. They thus lose sight of the goal that any moral system must have, that of reducing evil. It is well known that liberals tend to forget about victims and excuse evil doers. Why? Is there a philosophical flaw underlying this remarkable tendency?
The flaw is the liberal ideology that only autonomous people are subject to moral judgment. “Autonomy” is a technical term in liberalism; it doesn’t just mean free. It means being fully reflective on the significance of various alternative paths of action, understanding the morals involved, and fully weighing their consequences before acting. Such action will almost always be good, according to the liberal faith given us my Kant, but the point here is that many evil actions are not autonomous, and it is inappropriate for us to consider their agents evil. You know the story. We aren’t to blame these people or label them as wicked, since they can’t help what they do. (And, after all, it is the oppression by the wealthy and powerful which deprives them of the necessary conditions for autonomy - wealth, free time, education; to label them wicked would be doubly perverse.)
The flaw in this liberal doctrine derives from a misunderstanding of the principle that people are responsible for, ought to do, only that which they can do - the principle that “ought” implies “can.” Having raised the standard for what counts as genuine human freedom and called it “autonomy,” the liberal infers that what the hoards of non-autonomous people do is all they can do. “Can” is defined very strongly, very narrowly, as entailing autonomy, which most evil doers don’t have. Since they can’t do otherwise, they are excused from moral censure. A man, a thug, who is hateful and greedy, who likes to beat up and rob people, and who never gives much thought to alternative ways of life, is not autonomous and therefore not evil, on the liberal view. (Kekes thinks that the liberal can’t simply renounce this silly view and remain a liberal; see previous post.)
Of course, the principle that “ought” implies “can” is valid in its uncorrupted form. Any intentional action, not forced upon the agent by external forces, and not deriving from insanity, is optional, free; the agent can do otherwise. Autonomy is not necessary. Only plain (Lockean) freedom is. Therefore, if he ought to have done otherwise, and if his action was evil, we can say that he is somewhat evil. The degree of evil which it is appropriate to attribute to him is partly determined by how much autonomy he has. A fully autonomous evil doer (a rare bird, according to the liberal faith in the goodness of human nature) should be judged more harshly than the thug I described. But the thug should be judged very harshly indeed. In other words, lack of autonomy is perhaps a mitigating factor, but not much of one. The disposition intentionally to do evil is all it takes to count as an evil person.
The point is that liberalism eliminates moral judgment of character from a vast area of human life, thus making it impossible to combat much of the evil in the world. Liberals would instead give wealth, rehabilitation, and education to the evil, in effort to make them more autonomous. But there is no evidence that this will reduce evil, rather than, at best, make the evil autonomously evil. Liberalism accepts evil because the ideal of its ideology - autonomy for all - requires this. The defense that there will be no more evil in a society of universal autonomy, that no one would autonomously choose evil, is a mere hope. (I think you can see the Marxism lurking beneath liberal ideology.)
The book, Against Liberalism (Post B). Previous post here.
[This is a series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.]
Kekes’s target is left-liberals. One theme in his argument is the kinds of ascription of moral responsibility that liberalism makes or is precluded from making. Liberals are intent upon designing a society in which autonomy is maximized. They thus lose sight of the goal that any moral system must have, that of reducing evil. It is well known that liberals tend to forget about victims and excuse evil doers. Why? Is there a philosophical flaw underlying this remarkable tendency?
The flaw is the liberal ideology that only autonomous people are subject to moral judgment. “Autonomy” is a technical term in liberalism; it doesn’t just mean free. It means being fully reflective on the significance of various alternative paths of action, understanding the morals involved, and fully weighing their consequences before acting. Such action will almost always be good, according to the liberal faith given us my Kant, but the point here is that many evil actions are not autonomous, and it is inappropriate for us to consider their agents evil. You know the story. We aren’t to blame these people or label them as wicked, since they can’t help what they do. (And, after all, it is the oppression by the wealthy and powerful which deprives them of the necessary conditions for autonomy - wealth, free time, education; to label them wicked would be doubly perverse.)
The flaw in this liberal doctrine derives from a misunderstanding of the principle that people are responsible for, ought to do, only that which they can do - the principle that “ought” implies “can.” Having raised the standard for what counts as genuine human freedom and called it “autonomy,” the liberal infers that what the hoards of non-autonomous people do is all they can do. “Can” is defined very strongly, very narrowly, as entailing autonomy, which most evil doers don’t have. Since they can’t do otherwise, they are excused from moral censure. A man, a thug, who is hateful and greedy, who likes to beat up and rob people, and who never gives much thought to alternative ways of life, is not autonomous and therefore not evil, on the liberal view. (Kekes thinks that the liberal can’t simply renounce this silly view and remain a liberal; see previous post.)
Of course, the principle that “ought” implies “can” is valid in its uncorrupted form. Any intentional action, not forced upon the agent by external forces, and not deriving from insanity, is optional, free; the agent can do otherwise. Autonomy is not necessary. Only plain (Lockean) freedom is. Therefore, if he ought to have done otherwise, and if his action was evil, we can say that he is somewhat evil. The degree of evil which it is appropriate to attribute to him is partly determined by how much autonomy he has. A fully autonomous evil doer (a rare bird, according to the liberal faith in the goodness of human nature) should be judged more harshly than the thug I described. But the thug should be judged very harshly indeed. In other words, lack of autonomy is perhaps a mitigating factor, but not much of one. The disposition intentionally to do evil is all it takes to count as an evil person.
The point is that liberalism eliminates moral judgment of character from a vast area of human life, thus making it impossible to combat much of the evil in the world. Liberals would instead give wealth, rehabilitation, and education to the evil, in effort to make them more autonomous. But there is no evidence that this will reduce evil, rather than, at best, make the evil autonomously evil. Liberalism accepts evil because the ideal of its ideology - autonomy for all - requires this. The defense that there will be no more evil in a society of universal autonomy, that no one would autonomously choose evil, is a mere hope. (I think you can see the Marxism lurking beneath liberal ideology.)
Friday, January 31, 2003
Evil
My post on Kekes (please see, just below) mentions the prevalence of evil, and some might doubt that there is that much evil. Well, one yardstick for telling whether human nature is largely evil - not to say "mostly," but just "largely," to leave it ambiguous - is the fact that the UN is largely evil. You could say that humanity is 98% good, with just a handful of evil oppressors holding power and holding sway at the UN. But cultures, people, produce evil oppressors. A society which century after century produces only evil dictators is likely to have a largely evil culture. And culture is produced by human beings. Moreover, the UN is hailed as legitimate, though it is largely evil. So, Kekes is right.
My post on Kekes (please see, just below) mentions the prevalence of evil, and some might doubt that there is that much evil. Well, one yardstick for telling whether human nature is largely evil - not to say "mostly," but just "largely," to leave it ambiguous - is the fact that the UN is largely evil. You could say that humanity is 98% good, with just a handful of evil oppressors holding power and holding sway at the UN. But cultures, people, produce evil oppressors. A society which century after century produces only evil dictators is likely to have a largely evil culture. And culture is produced by human beings. Moreover, the UN is hailed as legitimate, though it is largely evil. So, Kekes is right.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
"He"
About six months ago, I was struck by a revelation, and since then I say and write, "he," and not "they" or "he or she" when referring to a person of unspecified sex. I realized that if the listener or reader is sexist and assumes that the individual of unspecified sex about whom I am speaking is a male, then the fact is just that - the listener is sexist. The language is not sexist. "He" has the meaning "third person pronoun, sex as yet unspecified." I can't believe I bought into that PC social engineering stuff. And it's nice to have my streamlined language back. There is no obligation to substitute "they" or "he or she" for "he". In fact, there is an obligation not to do so, since doing otherwise condones an important error. Plus, life can be humdrum sometimes, and going back to saying "he" can give you a giddy thrill in some situations, in which you are sure that some of your listeners are being rubbed the wrong way by it. Here you are thinking of your referrent as of unspecified sex, whilst a member of your audience is undergoing spasms of twee consternation. Hey, I have to get my kicks somehow.
About six months ago, I was struck by a revelation, and since then I say and write, "he," and not "they" or "he or she" when referring to a person of unspecified sex. I realized that if the listener or reader is sexist and assumes that the individual of unspecified sex about whom I am speaking is a male, then the fact is just that - the listener is sexist. The language is not sexist. "He" has the meaning "third person pronoun, sex as yet unspecified." I can't believe I bought into that PC social engineering stuff. And it's nice to have my streamlined language back. There is no obligation to substitute "they" or "he or she" for "he". In fact, there is an obligation not to do so, since doing otherwise condones an important error. Plus, life can be humdrum sometimes, and going back to saying "he" can give you a giddy thrill in some situations, in which you are sure that some of your listeners are being rubbed the wrong way by it. Here you are thinking of your referrent as of unspecified sex, whilst a member of your audience is undergoing spasms of twee consternation. Hey, I have to get my kicks somehow.
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#1)
The book, Against Liberalism (post A)
This is the first in a long, numbered series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.
Against Liberalism is a painstaking critique of liberal philosophy. Kekes usually targets left-liberals, rather than libertarian liberals (classical liberals), but he offers a conception by which both may be encompassed. Liberalism is the belief that we should take as our highest values the promotion of liberty, equality, and autonomy of the individual, and the allowance of a plurality of good ways of life. The liberal ideal is a society in which everyone is allowed and enabled to act autonomously. The left-liberal and the libertarian deeply disagree about whether forced redistribution of wealth makes sense as a way of achieving this goal. But they are both liberals in sharing an ideal of equal entitlement to autonomy. The conservative argues that we ought to value many other things at least as much as autonomy, and liberalism runs aground in the midst of this criticism.
The shoal upon which liberalism runs aground is evil. Evil is prevalent. It should be inhibited. Maximizing autonomy and liberty would promote evil, rather than inhibit it. The liberal offers the proviso that in addition to maximizing autonomy, we should also act to inhibit misuses of autonomy. But this action would require severely curtailed liberty (law enforcement, military) and a strong social commitment to enforcing morality, including the inculcation in youth of moral character traits. The egalitarian aspiration of liberalism is inconsistent with the recognition of widespread evil. The vicious should not enjoy economic equality or equal opportunity, and people should not be left alone, free of paternalistic pressure, as if in a private and autonomous vaccuum, to determine what is good. Since there are many vicious people, what remains after instituting mechanisms for combating evil is hardly recognizable as liberal. It would be a system in which freedom, pluralism, and equality were not higher values than prosperity, order, civility, peace, security, happiness, and law-abidingness. Good lives require that these and other values be treated as just as important as liberalism's preferred values.
Liberals may argue that evil doers are often psychologically corrupt and unable to act autonomously, and that the liberal program of increasing autonomy will eliminate this evil. If people could only be made to understand right and wrong and to learn how to make decisions rationally, they would be virtuous and not vicious. But this premise is the belief in the fundamental and overriding goodness of human nature. And there is no evidence for it. Rather, the plenitude of evil but autonomous actions refutes it. The liberal faith that human nature is good is hopelessly naive and utterly undermines liberalism.
The liberal predicament is that the great measure of evil in human nature is inconsistent with the liberal doctrine that liberty and autonomy are the highest values.
The book, Against Liberalism (post A)
This is the first in a long, numbered series of posts on the contemporary philosopher John Kekes. I will very concisely present the ideas in five of his books: Against Liberalism, A Case for Conservatism, Facing Evil, The Art of Life, and Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. I hope you will read them. They are quite readable.
Against Liberalism is a painstaking critique of liberal philosophy. Kekes usually targets left-liberals, rather than libertarian liberals (classical liberals), but he offers a conception by which both may be encompassed. Liberalism is the belief that we should take as our highest values the promotion of liberty, equality, and autonomy of the individual, and the allowance of a plurality of good ways of life. The liberal ideal is a society in which everyone is allowed and enabled to act autonomously. The left-liberal and the libertarian deeply disagree about whether forced redistribution of wealth makes sense as a way of achieving this goal. But they are both liberals in sharing an ideal of equal entitlement to autonomy. The conservative argues that we ought to value many other things at least as much as autonomy, and liberalism runs aground in the midst of this criticism.
The shoal upon which liberalism runs aground is evil. Evil is prevalent. It should be inhibited. Maximizing autonomy and liberty would promote evil, rather than inhibit it. The liberal offers the proviso that in addition to maximizing autonomy, we should also act to inhibit misuses of autonomy. But this action would require severely curtailed liberty (law enforcement, military) and a strong social commitment to enforcing morality, including the inculcation in youth of moral character traits. The egalitarian aspiration of liberalism is inconsistent with the recognition of widespread evil. The vicious should not enjoy economic equality or equal opportunity, and people should not be left alone, free of paternalistic pressure, as if in a private and autonomous vaccuum, to determine what is good. Since there are many vicious people, what remains after instituting mechanisms for combating evil is hardly recognizable as liberal. It would be a system in which freedom, pluralism, and equality were not higher values than prosperity, order, civility, peace, security, happiness, and law-abidingness. Good lives require that these and other values be treated as just as important as liberalism's preferred values.
Liberals may argue that evil doers are often psychologically corrupt and unable to act autonomously, and that the liberal program of increasing autonomy will eliminate this evil. If people could only be made to understand right and wrong and to learn how to make decisions rationally, they would be virtuous and not vicious. But this premise is the belief in the fundamental and overriding goodness of human nature. And there is no evidence for it. Rather, the plenitude of evil but autonomous actions refutes it. The liberal faith that human nature is good is hopelessly naive and utterly undermines liberalism.
The liberal predicament is that the great measure of evil in human nature is inconsistent with the liberal doctrine that liberty and autonomy are the highest values.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Calvinist Libertarians has a reply to my post on abortion. I'll give it some thought, busy now.
UPDATE: The reply is a good one. I am forced to bit the bullet and accept that certain very retarded and very brain-damaged human beings are not people. This is almost as tough a bullet to bite as the admission that infanticide in the case of a two-week-old baby is also permissible. I'm forced to accept these things by the fact that it's clear to me that at the time when the fetus has no brain tissue it is permissible to kill it. I know it is okay to remove and let die a cell of my skin. I can't see any relevant difference between that cell and the brainless fetal cells. I must therefore accept that killing is permissible in the aforementioned very unsettling cases. Anyway, it's clear to me that this is the only plausible pro-choice argument. The usual one is hopeless. It's either pro-life or the case I'm making. Nothing else is tenable.
UPDATE: Calvinist Libertarian has more. I ask him to consider how powerfully common sense tells him that crushing a skin cell is permissible. Anyway, as for this partial-birth abortion issue, it's a monstrous issue about which the pro-choice side is full of utter nonsense, and their nonsense is due to the fact that their case for abortion is full of holes.
UPDATE: The reply is a good one. I am forced to bit the bullet and accept that certain very retarded and very brain-damaged human beings are not people. This is almost as tough a bullet to bite as the admission that infanticide in the case of a two-week-old baby is also permissible. I'm forced to accept these things by the fact that it's clear to me that at the time when the fetus has no brain tissue it is permissible to kill it. I know it is okay to remove and let die a cell of my skin. I can't see any relevant difference between that cell and the brainless fetal cells. I must therefore accept that killing is permissible in the aforementioned very unsettling cases. Anyway, it's clear to me that this is the only plausible pro-choice argument. The usual one is hopeless. It's either pro-life or the case I'm making. Nothing else is tenable.
UPDATE: Calvinist Libertarian has more. I ask him to consider how powerfully common sense tells him that crushing a skin cell is permissible. Anyway, as for this partial-birth abortion issue, it's a monstrous issue about which the pro-choice side is full of utter nonsense, and their nonsense is due to the fact that their case for abortion is full of holes.
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
This is a moral philosophy blog, but let’s take a break from that for a moment. It’s epistemology and metaphysics time.
Falsification and Consciousness
Aaron Haspel asked about falsification in the comments below. I gather that “all men are mortal” seemed to him to be meaningful and true though not falsifiable. (I was confused when I suggested that his comment was slightly confused, by the way.) “All men are mortal” is falsifiable, meaningful, and, for presently living men, we are justified in accepting it as true. If we found some billion-year-old people who easily survived all the disasters we could imagine, and if we found that this resilience indicated resistance even to any final state of entropy of the universe, or any ultimate return to singularity that the universe might experience (say, we noticed that their bodies underwent no entropy, and we exposed them to black holes to no effect, etc.), then we would be justified in believing that these people were not mortal but would live forever. Even lying on our death beds, we would be justified in believing this. We wouldn’t need to see that they have lived forever, which it would be conceptually impossible for anyone, immortal or not, to do.
The claim that “all men are mortal” is not falsifiable is an attractive claim only when it seduces one into believing that one would need to see that someone has lived forever in order to falsify it. But one needn’t see that a proposition is certainly false in order to falsify it; certainty isn’t necessary for sufficiently robust falsification. If this weren’t so, then “some men are mortal” would not be falsifiable. We’ve seen apparent deaths, but one might wonder whether the corpses were mere decoys, that all of these apparent deaths were actually placements of these decoys and simultaneous light-speed transports of the real, living person to another planet. One can never see that someone certainly has died.
So, yes, maintaining that a proposition is meaningful only if falsifiable does not run aground on the sentence “all men are mortal.” Therefore, it can be true only if falsifiable. Why does this matter? Because of the deeply important question of the nature of consciousness: Is it physical?
Some like to say that the smell of lilac and the taste of chocolate - that is, these two experiences - are not physical. But - and here is a crucial point - if mind is non-physical, then it would be meaningful to say, “Joe is physically and behaviorally just like anyone else, but he has no conscious states, no mind; in other words, Joe is a zombie.” But this concept of a zombie, a being physically just like us and acting just like us - saying “ow” to pin pricks and “mmm” to chocolate licks - is meaningless. No one has any idea what would count as evidence that showed that the claim “Joe, who is physically and behaviorally normal, does not lack non-physical consciousness; in other words, Joe is not a zombie” was false. This is because nothing could count as evidence that the claim “Joe is a zombie” was true. Therefore, the concept of consciousness as something non-physical is a pseudo-concept. Using that concept of “consciousness,” you couldn’t even in principle prove that there was someone like us who didn’t have consciousness. But there would have to be a way to prove this in principle, if the concept were to have meaning. In other words, if there is an attribute A which you like to believe that some things have, you need to have standards by which to demonstrate that two things with other attributes being the same were different only in the respect that one has while the other lacks A. No one can tell the zombies from the conscious people. This proves that conscious is physical; mind is brain. The proof turns on the premise that meaningfulness requires falsifiability (and verifiability).
(The attempt to get a materialist to accept that “all men are mortal” is meaningful, true and non-falsifiable is often made in order to force the materialist to admit that the non-falsifiability of the proposition “consciousness is non-physical” is no basis for denying its meaningfulness or truth. But “all mean are mortal” is falsifiable. The same holds for the concept of soul. It’s a pseudo-concept, so it’s not the case that we have souls. What would you take as evidence that you didn’t have one?
In other words, the attempt to rescue anti-materialism from charges of meaninglessness is a move to argue that (a.) the standard of meaningfulness has been raised too high by the materialist when he requires falsifiability, given that (b.) even the materialist will find the standard illegitimately high in the case of propositions which he himself accepts, such as “all men are mortal”. The move that I, as the materialist, have made, is to maintain the high standard and to argue that nothing I ought to believe, including “all men are mortal,” fails to meet it. I then proceed to show that the belief that our minds are non-physical requires that the proposition “Joe is a zombie” is falsifiable, when in fact it is not falsifiable.)
Falsification and Consciousness
Aaron Haspel asked about falsification in the comments below. I gather that “all men are mortal” seemed to him to be meaningful and true though not falsifiable. (I was confused when I suggested that his comment was slightly confused, by the way.) “All men are mortal” is falsifiable, meaningful, and, for presently living men, we are justified in accepting it as true. If we found some billion-year-old people who easily survived all the disasters we could imagine, and if we found that this resilience indicated resistance even to any final state of entropy of the universe, or any ultimate return to singularity that the universe might experience (say, we noticed that their bodies underwent no entropy, and we exposed them to black holes to no effect, etc.), then we would be justified in believing that these people were not mortal but would live forever. Even lying on our death beds, we would be justified in believing this. We wouldn’t need to see that they have lived forever, which it would be conceptually impossible for anyone, immortal or not, to do.
The claim that “all men are mortal” is not falsifiable is an attractive claim only when it seduces one into believing that one would need to see that someone has lived forever in order to falsify it. But one needn’t see that a proposition is certainly false in order to falsify it; certainty isn’t necessary for sufficiently robust falsification. If this weren’t so, then “some men are mortal” would not be falsifiable. We’ve seen apparent deaths, but one might wonder whether the corpses were mere decoys, that all of these apparent deaths were actually placements of these decoys and simultaneous light-speed transports of the real, living person to another planet. One can never see that someone certainly has died.
So, yes, maintaining that a proposition is meaningful only if falsifiable does not run aground on the sentence “all men are mortal.” Therefore, it can be true only if falsifiable. Why does this matter? Because of the deeply important question of the nature of consciousness: Is it physical?
Some like to say that the smell of lilac and the taste of chocolate - that is, these two experiences - are not physical. But - and here is a crucial point - if mind is non-physical, then it would be meaningful to say, “Joe is physically and behaviorally just like anyone else, but he has no conscious states, no mind; in other words, Joe is a zombie.” But this concept of a zombie, a being physically just like us and acting just like us - saying “ow” to pin pricks and “mmm” to chocolate licks - is meaningless. No one has any idea what would count as evidence that showed that the claim “Joe, who is physically and behaviorally normal, does not lack non-physical consciousness; in other words, Joe is not a zombie” was false. This is because nothing could count as evidence that the claim “Joe is a zombie” was true. Therefore, the concept of consciousness as something non-physical is a pseudo-concept. Using that concept of “consciousness,” you couldn’t even in principle prove that there was someone like us who didn’t have consciousness. But there would have to be a way to prove this in principle, if the concept were to have meaning. In other words, if there is an attribute A which you like to believe that some things have, you need to have standards by which to demonstrate that two things with other attributes being the same were different only in the respect that one has while the other lacks A. No one can tell the zombies from the conscious people. This proves that conscious is physical; mind is brain. The proof turns on the premise that meaningfulness requires falsifiability (and verifiability).
(The attempt to get a materialist to accept that “all men are mortal” is meaningful, true and non-falsifiable is often made in order to force the materialist to admit that the non-falsifiability of the proposition “consciousness is non-physical” is no basis for denying its meaningfulness or truth. But “all mean are mortal” is falsifiable. The same holds for the concept of soul. It’s a pseudo-concept, so it’s not the case that we have souls. What would you take as evidence that you didn’t have one?
In other words, the attempt to rescue anti-materialism from charges of meaninglessness is a move to argue that (a.) the standard of meaningfulness has been raised too high by the materialist when he requires falsifiability, given that (b.) even the materialist will find the standard illegitimately high in the case of propositions which he himself accepts, such as “all men are mortal”. The move that I, as the materialist, have made, is to maintain the high standard and to argue that nothing I ought to believe, including “all men are mortal,” fails to meet it. I then proceed to show that the belief that our minds are non-physical requires that the proposition “Joe is a zombie” is falsifiable, when in fact it is not falsifiable.)
Abortion
Calvinist Libertarian has this and this on Roe v. Wade.
Consider Sally. She lives out in the boonies. No phone, no car, no neighbors. Somehow a six-year-old child appears in her house. (Either she created him or some jackass put him there by force.) She dislikes his presense on her property, and she puts him out. He finds his way in, and again she puts him out, but he finds his way in. So, she either bludgeons him to death and puts him in the trash, or she carries him out a hundred yards and lets him die of exposure, hunger and thirst. I assume that Sally has done something illegal and terribly immoral. She had a duty to care for the child for some time, until she could manage to hand him off to someone else, even if this would amount to nine months of care. So, I find the commonly proffered moral and legal basis for abortion to be full of holes. On the other hand, you legal experts might inform me that by putting the child out to die of exposure, Sally has not violated the law. If so, I'm wrong, and Roe v. Wade is what our laws commit us to.
Don't get me wrong, I believe abortion is permissible. The fetus is not a person (a being with preferences, and with reflective knowledge of itself and its preferences and of its having a future in which it can discover ways in which to fulfill them). But if it is a person, as the commonly proffered moral a legal basis assumes, it is a hideous crime to kill it. It is murder.
Calvinist Libertarian has this and this on Roe v. Wade.
Consider Sally. She lives out in the boonies. No phone, no car, no neighbors. Somehow a six-year-old child appears in her house. (Either she created him or some jackass put him there by force.) She dislikes his presense on her property, and she puts him out. He finds his way in, and again she puts him out, but he finds his way in. So, she either bludgeons him to death and puts him in the trash, or she carries him out a hundred yards and lets him die of exposure, hunger and thirst. I assume that Sally has done something illegal and terribly immoral. She had a duty to care for the child for some time, until she could manage to hand him off to someone else, even if this would amount to nine months of care. So, I find the commonly proffered moral and legal basis for abortion to be full of holes. On the other hand, you legal experts might inform me that by putting the child out to die of exposure, Sally has not violated the law. If so, I'm wrong, and Roe v. Wade is what our laws commit us to.
Don't get me wrong, I believe abortion is permissible. The fetus is not a person (a being with preferences, and with reflective knowledge of itself and its preferences and of its having a future in which it can discover ways in which to fulfill them). But if it is a person, as the commonly proffered moral a legal basis assumes, it is a hideous crime to kill it. It is murder.
Monday, January 27, 2003
"Inquirer"
The contemporary philosopher Susan Haack (in various articles and books, such as Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate) offers us a nice distinction amongst three kinds of inquirer. The first is the good kind, the real inquirer. This is the person who desires to know the truth and therefore conducts disinterested inquiry in order to get it. (Haack points out that "disinterested" means lack of bias in interpreting the evidence. It doesn't mean "uninterested in what the truth turns out to be." You might hope that the truth is that, for example, substance X will cure cancer and make you rich, but you can still engage in disinterested inquiry, as you do when you fully acknowledge evidence that your hoped-for belief is wrong.)
It's the other two kinds of inquirer which are the bad ones: the fake inquirer and the pseudo-inquirer. They are dishonest, and what they do is not really inquiry at all. The fake inquirer merely digs up evidence and slings arguments around in order to convince people of propositions because doing so is fun, will make him rich, will make him seem sophisticated, etc., but not because he wants to know the truth or because he desires that those certain propositions turn out to be the truth. He doesn't care about inquiry or truth. He cares only about the other things I mentioned. Still, he is biased and not disinterested, in that he uses mere rhetoric and dishonest argument in order to win at debate. He wants the proposition he upholds (but doesn't really care about) to be accepted by others.
The pseudo-inquirer is differently perverse. He is the dogmatist. He has a cherished belief. He thinks it is true and won't give it up under any circumstances. He is thus biased and not disinterested in his evaluation of the evidence but will forever attempt to distort it. He doesn't desire to know the truth, whatever it is. He desires that his dogma be the truth.
(Haack's Evidence & Inquiry is a great work in epistemology. She's best known for Philosophy of Logics.)
The contemporary philosopher Susan Haack (in various articles and books, such as Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate) offers us a nice distinction amongst three kinds of inquirer. The first is the good kind, the real inquirer. This is the person who desires to know the truth and therefore conducts disinterested inquiry in order to get it. (Haack points out that "disinterested" means lack of bias in interpreting the evidence. It doesn't mean "uninterested in what the truth turns out to be." You might hope that the truth is that, for example, substance X will cure cancer and make you rich, but you can still engage in disinterested inquiry, as you do when you fully acknowledge evidence that your hoped-for belief is wrong.)
It's the other two kinds of inquirer which are the bad ones: the fake inquirer and the pseudo-inquirer. They are dishonest, and what they do is not really inquiry at all. The fake inquirer merely digs up evidence and slings arguments around in order to convince people of propositions because doing so is fun, will make him rich, will make him seem sophisticated, etc., but not because he wants to know the truth or because he desires that those certain propositions turn out to be the truth. He doesn't care about inquiry or truth. He cares only about the other things I mentioned. Still, he is biased and not disinterested, in that he uses mere rhetoric and dishonest argument in order to win at debate. He wants the proposition he upholds (but doesn't really care about) to be accepted by others.
The pseudo-inquirer is differently perverse. He is the dogmatist. He has a cherished belief. He thinks it is true and won't give it up under any circumstances. He is thus biased and not disinterested in his evaluation of the evidence but will forever attempt to distort it. He doesn't desire to know the truth, whatever it is. He desires that his dogma be the truth.
(Haack's Evidence & Inquiry is a great work in epistemology. She's best known for Philosophy of Logics.)
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Blogs
Hey, there's another philosophy blog in the world! It's The Philosophy Site of Rafe Champion. Also, a blog for parents: Rational Parenting. Who knew?
Hey, there's another philosophy blog in the world! It's The Philosophy Site of Rafe Champion. Also, a blog for parents: Rational Parenting. Who knew?
The Blogosphere
We were speaking of the blogosphere just below. Let me just say this: Bigwig, Aaron Haspel, Noel, Vodkapundit. Good gracious! And that's just a few (already: Cold Fury, Cinderella, Blowhards, The Corner....). Okay, now look at what your daily newpaper editorial/op-ed/letters page puts out. Not so bad, but it's no blogosphere. And they work full time for good pay to put that stuff out, while those bloggers casually spin gold daily.
One Good Turn has this post and this post on intuition, consciousness, and conservatism. Eddie's brought to light an important part of the puzzle. I think anti-conservatism (leftism, liberalism, progressivism) is an effort to reinvent life and value. It's more than simply wrong. It's not even in the ball park. Consider a coach that tells the baseball team, "I will preserve for each of you a special stadium where you can play baseball of the kind you like." Put one player in each of nine equally good stadiums. Play ball! Your rights are perfectly protected now! That's liberal government. A conservative government is a coach that just stands by, lets the players play as they have done for generations, according to their intuition. He says little, but sometimes interjects softly, or forcefully, a word of advice, according to his intuition.
John Ray has insteresting stuff on Christianity and moral anthropology.
We were speaking of the blogosphere just below. Let me just say this: Bigwig, Aaron Haspel, Noel, Vodkapundit. Good gracious! And that's just a few (already: Cold Fury, Cinderella, Blowhards, The Corner....). Okay, now look at what your daily newpaper editorial/op-ed/letters page puts out. Not so bad, but it's no blogosphere. And they work full time for good pay to put that stuff out, while those bloggers casually spin gold daily.
One Good Turn has this post and this post on intuition, consciousness, and conservatism. Eddie's brought to light an important part of the puzzle. I think anti-conservatism (leftism, liberalism, progressivism) is an effort to reinvent life and value. It's more than simply wrong. It's not even in the ball park. Consider a coach that tells the baseball team, "I will preserve for each of you a special stadium where you can play baseball of the kind you like." Put one player in each of nine equally good stadiums. Play ball! Your rights are perfectly protected now! That's liberal government. A conservative government is a coach that just stands by, lets the players play as they have done for generations, according to their intuition. He says little, but sometimes interjects softly, or forcefully, a word of advice, according to his intuition.
John Ray has insteresting stuff on Christianity and moral anthropology.
Friday, January 24, 2003
Anti-War
With all the anti-war protests around these days, I'd like to chime in.
I, too, disapprove of what the U.S. did in Vietnam. We didn't fight hard enough or with decisive enough violence.
With all the anti-war protests around these days, I'd like to chime in.
I, too, disapprove of what the U.S. did in Vietnam. We didn't fight hard enough or with decisive enough violence.
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