Sorry for the absence.

Hi again. It's been awhile since I've done any substantial posting. My apologies. I've just started grad school, and it's been hectic. But I do have some ideas floating around that may or may not turn into posts soon. I've been thinking about things like the difference between moral obligation and moral permissibility, acting from moral duty, and the difficulty of talking morality with a non-philosopher. So many thoughts, so little time.

Why I'll miss Wisconsin

Check this out:


It's the sign from my friend's church in Wausau. Oh how I'll miss this state. For the not-so-sporty readers, famed QB for the Packers, Brett Favre, recently came out of retirement to play for the Jets. So in case you were worried, no, God will not leave you for the Jets. But Favre will.... trader.

Beware of the pickle jar effect...

I'm totally baffled by a recent episode of Oprah that I was watching the other day. I'm still not sure why I was watching it, but when you watch too much tv (like I do) you're bound to catch an episode or two of Oprah. It just happens. Well this is what I learned from her guest Patti Novak, the dating expert:

Allison's take-charge attitude is what Patti calls the pickle jar effect. "We are so successful today, women. We're fabulous. We work hard. We make good money. We parent. Sometimes what happens when we spend a lot of time alone, we forget to let them open the damn pickle jar," Patti says.

"The one thing I don't think is ever going to change on this planet is men still need to feel like men," she says. "So let them open it."

So how does a woman ask a man to do something without compromising herself? Patti says that if he's not in the room, go ahead and open your own pickle jar. But if he's standing there, Patti says it's just as easy to ask him to open it. "And know that you are the smarter, clever one for doing it," she says. "It's about attitude."

You can follow up on that episode here. I'm unsure what to think about advice like this. Is it giving up feminist ideals to submit to (and reinforce, perpetuate) patriarchal social norms? Does it sacrifice the integrity of women? Or, as Patti implies, is this merely a way for women to assert their superiority by use of some subtle manipulation? I'm not sure which is worse. Is it worse for me to "pretend to be incapable" of doing something that I know very well I can do on my own in order to let a man feel like a man, or is it worse to "pretend to be incapable" while feeling smug about my own cleverness? One step, two steps, a giant leap back? No?

This seems too much like those times when girls pretend to be dumber than a boy in school (mustn't damage the ego), or when a woman at work (or in politics) feels like she has tone down her "masculine" attributes (ambition, aggression) that are otherwise rewarded in her male coworkers just because those very same coworkers are threatened by her lack of femininity. It's sad enough to see this happen in the classroom and in the work place... but is it something we should then condone in the context of a relationship? If you can't be yourself with the person you're most intimately connected to... well that bodes ill for women everywhere. Oprah, so many people watch your show, so why are you sending out a message like this?

Don't get me wrong, I caught the part that acknowledged a woman's ability to open the pickle jar herself (metaphorically). That's important. I'm just disturbed by the message that says I must change who I am and hide what I can do if I want to be successful in the dating world. Any type of man that needs to be manipulated and hidden from, well he's not the type of man I'd want to date (or would want my sisters to date, or my friends to date, etc). Maybe it's time for men to redefine what makes them a real man, and not just what society tells them a man ought to be.

This is an unusual post, I'm aware. Feminism isn't typically a topic on my radar often (perhaps because I've been fortunate enough to have good acquaintances/friends/coworkers/teachers etc that don't treat me like an inferior). But when I see the most powerful woman in the world send out a message that I ought to compromise myself for the sake of a man, well I just can't be silent. So there you have it.

Is Batman a consequentialist?

“People are dying. What would you have me do?” Bruce Wayne (Batman) asks his butler. Alfred responds, “Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face—the right choice. Gotham needs you.”

The Dark Knight, what a movie. I'll admit, I went to Batman on opening night at midnight (not my idea, actually, but I'm glad I went). I only vaguely remembered the Batman movies of old, though I was always a fan. The new Batman movie, as you may have heard, is pretty intense (and dark) in comparison to the previous films. What I didn't expect, and this is always a delight, was that this particular summer blockbuster actually had some intellectual food for thought, philosophical issues at that. I was overjoyed. In fact, the movie happens to coincide quite well with a collection of essays that I'm currently making my way through (slowly, but surely, as always). The essays all focus on consequentialism, and for this post, I'll pay close attention to an essay by Bernard Williams called, “Consequentialism and Integrity.” I want to discuss two moral dilemmas in the film, though I'll try and keep the spoilers to a minimum. Take this as a warning, though, so if you don't want to know what happens, I'd stop here.

The first moral dilemma is somewhat comparable to Williams' Indian example, so I'll outline both. In Williams' article, there is a man named Jim who faces a tough choice. He stumbled onto a scene where a government official, Pedro, is about to make an example out of a group of Indians (all names/groups, kept the same as the original story). Pedro has decided that he will kill all of the Indians that are tied up, but he has offered Jim (an outsider) a special privilege. If Jim kills one Indian, then the rest will be spared. If he refuses, then Pedro will kill all of the Indians himself. What should Jim do? What is Jim required to do? What is he allowed to do? The consequentialist will answer this question by comparing the possible end outcomes that Jim could produce. If Jim kills one Indian, then the rest are spared. If he doesn't, then they all die. The latter outcome is clearly worse than the former, on purely consequentialist terms (or more specifically, utilitarian terms-- and yes, I'm skipping the complicated bit about determining which states of affairs are better or worse than others). If picking between preferable end outcomes is our only moral guide, then it seems that Jim has no choice but shoot one Indian. How can that be? Can you be obligated to take a life (or perform any act that is usually considered to be morally wrong)? It seems like there's something wrong with making that option an obligation (though it does seem okay that that option would be morally permissible for Jim). With that scenario in mind, let's take a look at the boat dilemma from the Dark Knight.

There are two ferries floating in Gotham's harbor, and the Joker has rigged both with an explosive device that he can activate. One boat is carrying the who's who of Gotham's elite citizens. The other is full of prisoners. Each boat has detonator that will blow up the other boat, and the Joker gives the passengers a choice: either blow up the other boat before midnight, or he will blow up both boats. What should they do? They can't contact the other boat, and they can't diffuse the explosives. What would a consequentialist moral theory tell us? Well, as a passenger I'd have to take a good look at what I had the power to do or to let happen (negative responsibility is a huge factor in consequentialist theories – you are just as responsible for what you allow or don't stop as for what you actually do, which means you have to factor in the actions of other agents in your deliberation). There are three options: 1) everyone dies, 2) the elites of Gotham die, or 3) Gotham's most wanted die. As a passenger on either boat, what is your moral obligation (or, what are you morally allowed to do?)? You don't know what the other boat will choose, and you have a clock to beat, so time is also a factor. It's possible that both boats could blow each other up at the same time, but unlikely (unless both do it fairly quickly after the Joker's announcement). From a consequentialist standpoint, you have a few considerations: the total number of deaths, and the types of people being saved (if, of course, that can be weighted). Does one boat have a duty to blow up the other, or is it at least allowed to? I have a feeling that the consequentialist would choose to blow up the prisoners (because the city needs officials/leaders to run it), though at a minimum a consequentialist would want to minimize the total number of deaths. So however you slice it, someone has to step up and detonate the explosives for the other boat.

What is the problem with that? Well, should anyone ever be morally obligated to kill others (even if it would save more lives)? What about, as Williams argues, the integrity of the person put in this situation (Jim and the passengers)? The consequentialist view is more worried about minimizing damages than dealing with the internal moral struggle of the agent. There is, after all, a difference between what we actually do and what we allow other people to do. Here's what I mean: both scenarios depend pretty heavily upon a bit of knowledge held by the agent that is more than a little uncertain. Will Pedro really kill the other Indians? Will the Joker really blow up both boats? This type of knowledge, key to consequentialist deliberations involving negative responsibility, is highly dubious. How certain can I be, really, that the other agent will act as they say they will act. Sure, in thought experiments we can stipulate certainty, but in real life (and real life does happen to be our actual moral battleground) how sure can we be? If you've seen the movie you know what I'm hinting at: the Joker never blew up the boats. Some high minded passengers prevented their fellow passengers from hitting the button, and the Joker never got the chance to do it himself. That uncertainty makes my inaction quite a different matter from another agent's possible action. [This also reminds me of the Prisoner's dilemma, given the lack of knowledge on all sides, though it's not quite the same.]

Which leads me to an important question: am I really responsible for Pedro or the Joker's morally wrong acts? What responsibility do we have beyond our own actions? Are we responsible for allowing bad things to happen (if it was in our power to prevent them)? I do see what would motivate us to give some moral weight to what we allow to happen. The kid who silently watches the awkward kid being bullied at school is no hero, and he is not morally praiseworthy for his silence... However, he is not to blame, morally, in the same way that the actual bully is. If I sit by and let the Joker blow up both boats, then I haven't myself blown them up (even if their doom was in someway causally effected by my inaction). Perhaps I should act, but must I? The bully example is less clear because standing up to the bully (which may itself incur risks to the agent) does not require me to do something morally suspect (unless we say that the only way to silence the bully is to punch him/her in the face). Killing some people to save others does. There is something that makes one uneasy about following the consequentialist's prescription on this one. Perhaps it would be okay, maybe even good, if I could ignore my moral squeamishness for the sake of the greater good –but I don't think I am obligated to. Perhaps there is a something more valuable than the end state of affairs that isn't captured by your typical consequentialist or utilitarian solution (though sophisticated versions of these theories do try and take the following into account). As a moral agent I have a moral character, and I build and change that character by my moral decisions. It is a violation of my moral integrity to obligate me to do something that (though it maximizes the good) is itself a morally abhorrent act. Even sophisticated consequentialist arguments can't capture this, as Williams argues, because in the end my squeamishness (or my protectiveness over my integrity) is irrational –because it doesn't contribute to the only morally valuable consideration: the end outcome. Maybe our integrity is valuable enough, that it's morally okay (or maybe sometimes morally praiseworthy) to not make a choice that violates my moral character (and by character I mean the principles upon which my normal moral decisions rest). Asking me to toss them aside for the sake of the bottom line might just be too much (again, not that it wouldn't be allowed, but whether I should be obligated to). Or perhaps I'm just too preoccupied by moral agency and purity, maybe I need to get over it (I'm sure if I were one of the Indians I'd want me to). But then again, why should someone else be made the means to another person's survival (cue the now cliché example of slicing up random people for organ donations, etc).

And this leads me to the other dilemma. In this case, Batman understood a thing or two about both the consequentialist solution and moral integrity. In the quote above Batman was unnerved that the Joker was killing people systematically unless Batman turned himself in. Batman's choice was more complex. His inaction led to other people's deaths, but it also allowed him to remain a fighting force against the Joker and his ilk. In the end, Batman knew what needed to happen, and sometimes that meant performing the unsettling act. He knew that it must get done, but he also knew that the regular citizens of Gotham were not the right ones to do it. They needed to preserve their moral integrity (well, some of them). Is he doing the right thing, being the vigilante? Is it better for some “guardian angel” to do the consequentialist-determined “right act” without requiring that of the masses? I'm unsure.

I had more thoughts about the movie and worries about consequentialism, but I'll end my thoughts here. It's all much less developed than I'd like, but there's never enough time to complete my thoughts. Oh well.

For those who saw the movie, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts...

First Blog Meme

So I've seen these meme things float around, but never have I posted one (or been tagged, I guess you'd say, thanks Harry). Unlike Harry over at CT, I do have quite a few guilty pleasure songs. The problem is picking just 5, and not embarrassing myself too much...

So I guess here are my 5 most recent ones:

1. See you again, Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana)
2. Cold as Christmas, Elton John
3. Camisa Negra, Juanes
4. Le plus beau du quartier, Carla Bruni (yes, France's first lady)
5. Last name, Carrie Underwood


Beat that randomness. I think this is where I tag 3 people, but Harry is the only blogger I know, so.... if you want to be tagged leave a comment! (I'm a failure at blogging, I tell you)

Part Two: History vs Philosophy

Here continues my debate with a history graduate student about the merits/disadvantages of using history and philosophy for studying justice. Please read part one (if you haven't already), before reading this section. My apologies, I didn't split the two parts very well, so this post is rather long (though hopefully you'll find it interesting). Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

HISTORY STUDENT: Ah, dear. No, I am neither a consequentialist nor a utilitarian. What I am saying, however, is that (a) within any moral system, an examination of consequences of behavior is necessary in order to flesh out the details of a just society, and (b) human thought is itself inherently historical.

As for (a): Only rarely can I identify a behavior or system as a clear-cut violation of a moral law. In the case of slavery, for example, the Bible allows it, and so does Aristotle, and so have most societies, even philosophically inclined ones. There are abstract arguments to be made against slavery, but these are relatively new and (especially from an old-fashioned biblical perspective, which doesn't put much stock in self-ownership) far from conclusive. So I mostly condemn slavery not because it inherently violates an unchanging moral law, but because it has been shown to make many clearer violations more likely. I look at the history of how different slaveowners have treated their slaves. That record suggests that slavery typically -- though not always -- involves various moral crimes such as murder, torture, and rape. However it is that I have reached the conclusion that these are indeed moral crimes -- there are many different ways I could have -- their relationship with the social practice of slavery is revealed to me through historical thinking.

Or to take another example, the example of torture: Even if everybody in America today accepted that torture is wrong, we would still be left arguing about whether "waterboarding" specifically is torture. It is very difficult, apparently, to convince some Americans that having water poured on their face is terribly painful. There's nothing in the words themselves to indicate that it would be: "simulated drowning," "a wet cloth placed over the face with water poured over it," or (as Dick Cheney put it) "a dunk in the water" -- it sounds sort of soothing. What might help out in the debate is testimony. And no, not everybody would agree even then. But at least we could start to make sense of our fine words about not-torturing people.

As for (b): Everything I do or think has a context. There is a reason -- aside from mere biology -- that our thought typically becomes more sophisticated as we get older. We have more information, more experience, more understanding of real-world cause and effect, more awareness of different kinds of pain and joy. We have a better sense of who we are and how we respond in different situations. And we have a better idea of what other people are like. This is just history writ small.

So when I was 12, for example, I probably had the vocabulary and the raw processing power of a lot of people older than I, but I lacked other qualities necessary to sound judgment, qualities that I could only get through greater experience. I would jump to conclusions about life based on what I had read in books -- conclusions that made perfect sense logically -- or based on how I would behave, not recognizing that other people behave differently. That is how, for example, I came to be a libertarian for several years. On paper, libertarianism often looks great; it prescribes a very pure, purposeful, tidy sort of government that strictly follows its own founding law. It also claims to maximize general prosperity, minimize arbitrary transfers of wealth, and maximize personal freedom. I could easily have become a communist or a theocrat the same way, had I read different books. All three of these systems put great stock in purity of principle, in logical application of moral law to every aspect of life. All three, in other words, are based on fanatical consistency with moral principles that I pretty much agree with. And in practice, all three systems are likely to have terrible consequences -- "terrible" according to the same moral system that would lead me to embrace them. I base my analysis of that likelihood on history.

You seem to think that humans vary a great deal in their underlying conceptions of justice. I do not think so, on the whole. The communist is not always so very different from the libertarian; both are likely to share a great deal of moral intuition and usually a great deal of acknowledged moral law. Their morality may be terribly sloppy, but it is rarely diametrically opposed except artificially, that is, as a result of being too attached to their respective dogmatisms. Committed Christians from similar churches can be libertarians, communists, or theocrats without too much trouble. Or to take what might be a more persuasive example: I could favor the invasion of Iraq or I could oppose the invasion of Iraq, for exactly the same primary moral reason (wanting to minimize the violent deaths of innocents). This fact astonished my conservative friends in college; in almost every respect imaginable, I agreed with them, yet I was fiercely opposed to their politics in the end because of what I knew about Iraq's past and the history of similar experiments. If anything, my pro-war friends were the ones most concerned about following through on moral principle. They mounted impassioned pleas for liberty and humanity, while I argued that justice is not always attainable, and that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Both of us agreed on what the perfect and the good were ... and although the conservatives refused to believe it, we were pretty much on the same page as most of the liberals and the French as well.

ME: Okay, let me be clear about something: I do think history is important. I agree with you that there is an underlying commonality in our moral intuitions (in basic form), and I believe this because I don't think that each person can make her own morality. I believe morality is an independent thing from human agents, something above us. Your examples illustrate what I mean. When you talk about history/slavery/communism/whatever --you are making value judgments. Sure, you try and make them based on life experience and common sense, and that's fine, but it is still a judgment about value, and that (in essence) is the role of the moral philosopher. So we think morality is too complex/difficult to fully understand based on our intuitions --well that seems to be what you're saying anyways. Only we don't look just to events, but rather look at those events and then beyond them. Sure, you judge slavery because of the murder, rape, or whatever else that tends to accompany it. Well, on what grounds is murder/rape wrong (you do admit that these are moral crimes, but why?? what makes them morally wrong)? That's a moral judgment, not a historical one (though that doesn't mean history has nothing to say about it). You could answer: societies that are rampant in this don't last long, well that's a utilitarian (or efficiency) concern --belying that you value the durability of a society over other considerations. You could answer: it violates respect for other moral agents...well that is a claim that needn't be tied to history (I could claim that we ought to respect aliens from Mars if they have the sort of moral capacities that we do –even if that's only a hypothetical event with no history at all). In the end you have to make judgment calls, and in the end those calls can be messy and complicated, though based on some underlying agreement about principles. Philosophers look to society, past and present, and work through the tangled web of morality --hoping to guide future action. Sure, some things seem evident, but isn't it cool to study why certain evident moral precepts are valued the way that they are? And it's important to remember that some things that were "evident" and "agreed upon" by past societies are now looked at as wrong. We can't rely solely on consensus or what seems to be obviously true.

If a principle cannot be put into place (at this time) without morally bad consequences, that is not always a reflection of the principle itself --but rather our method of applying it. Communism's principles weren't the problem, it was the method used to "implement" them. Equality isn't bad just because some political party got it wrong. Equality can be good regardless (I use that as a blanket term for other justice values, though I don't think it's the most important). So I agree that people differ in their plans of implementation (though they also disagree on the priority of principles, and even on the principles of justice themselves). But that doesn't mean they didn't at some point make a decision about which principles to adopt (whether this decision was made consciously or not).

A woman at a talk I recently attended said, "A moral claim must be wrong if it comes from a morally suspect source." But if Hitler says murder is bad, does that make murder good? No. If communists failed to put their principles into practice, does that mean the principles are themselves wrong? No. They just didn't have the right way to go about it OR there are other, more important, principles. Yes context is important, and it can help enlighten us to moral truths, but it's not the authority on morality. Ultimately, you have to make a value judgment that goes beyond context, and that is moral philosophy, whether you like it or not.

You seem to think I that I want to ignore history, but I don't. It is important. But it's not what solves moral dilemmas, because in the end you appeal to something beyond the immediate circumstance (or even collective history) to some greater principle(s). Whether you notice that you're doing it, or whether you care that a whole field of people spend lifetimes working on these problems, is beside the point. Yes, history helps us get a grasp on the bad consequences of certain institutions or practices. But no, history doesn't tell us why those consequences are bad to begin with. There is always something more to it.

This is where you come back in with: well if it can't be implemented, why bother? Because no matter what you can't escape the type of philosophy I do. You do it yourself, you just underestimate what it is you're doing.

HISTORY STUDENT: For my part, I think you underestimate the importance of historical context (broadly defined) in the conclusions that philosophers reach and their methods of getting there. The thinker is not prior to historical inquiry; being a thinker is historical inquiry. To ask what rape is, is to ask what form it has taken in the past or else how it relates to other past things. To define lying is to describe what lying has or has not been. Even Kant, as far as I can tell, in trying to identify his universals, could not escape the locatedness of immoral actions; he simply tried to locate them everywhere. Intuition itself is largely a product of experience, immediate or vicarious, from which we subconsciously draw inferences. Jesus and his chroniclers induced us to love our neighbors by telling us stories -- and living out a story for us. And even an authoritative moral text has to be interpreted in light of past interpretations and past known uses of the terms in the text.

Now, I am of course saying that history and philosophy are inseparable -- indeed, that history and everything cognitive are inseparable. So perhaps we're not that far apart. But I do not accept the idea that philosophy or any other method of discovering a moral principle is in any way prior to history.

Yes, it is quite true that many people have, in the past, excused (e.g.) rape. I suspect that this favors my way of looking at things more than yours. For it suggests that nobody has ever actually transcended her historical context when reasoning about these things. Generally speaking, the people who first turn against a particular moral evil aren't the people who have attained some sort of intellectual detachment. Instead, they are people who have noticed historical evidence that others have not -- or more likely, who have lived through things that others have not, perhaps by living among the homeless, tending the wounds of war victims, or listening to a former slave. It is probably through hearing the testimony of rape victims, not through abstracted speculation, that we came to condemn rape. And it is through publishing victims' stories that we are likely to persuade others. History makes it possible for those who have not experienced various evils to imagine them clearly.

As a discipline, in other words, history can help us get a little closer to context-transcendence by showing us how things could be different from the way they are for us -- which is essential to minimizing the danger of subjectivity. Without extensive historical knowledge, we tend to assume that everybody is like us; we, or our local sources of information, become the universal standard. This severely limits the value of any rational inquiry. With historical knowledge, however, we can tune our moral intuition to the experiences as well as the common moral sense of others.

ME: I think I see where our paths cross. You want me to recognize, more so, the importance of history as something prior to our transcendent philosophizing. I agree. I just want to make sure you realize that after you study the context, you do make judgments that (in essence) transcend that very context you're studying. So I agree with you that I can't think abstractly until I can understand my reality, even my history. To understand what rape is, I have to understand it's history, other people's stories, etc. This touches on philosophy of language, where the meaning of words (or utterances) is not divorced from circumstance, but rather springs up from our real experiences. That's okay by me. Where I differ is not in our need to understand what things are (or how things were), but in how we understand the way things ought to be. Moral philosophers like to invoke the constraint of "ought implies can." If I ought to do something, then I better be capable of doing it. I think history can play an important role in answering what we 'can' do. We can't begin to understand what we ought to do until we understand what we're doing now, what we have done, what we are capable of doing. But then there is another step, a step that goes beyond historical context. That is the ought. Among the various options for what we 'can' do --and other humanities disciplines are better at getting to these-- we need a mechanism for choosing which ones are better, which ones we ought to do. How do we understand what better is? We need some sort of standard for what is best, or some way to compare the options available to us, even if what is 'best' is not in our grasp.

How do we begin? Well you're right in that we begin after already operating within a historical context/understanding/familiarity or whatever. But then we try and rise above with what's called the reflective equilibrium. The reflective equilibrium takes our context, our intuitions, our history and tries to make a coherent principle that adequately captures our values, and is compatible with our other beliefs (about morality, about reality, etc). The reason I'm okay with relying on intuition about moral judgments (and many philosophers aren't okay with this), is that I believe we were specifically equipped to tap into moral knowledge. I attribute this to the divine, others attribute it to our capability to reason (the same capability that lets us discover mathematical and logical truths, truths I think are akin to moral truths ---though again, not all philosophers would agree). So objective? Yes, because I believe moral principles like "respect fellow moral agents" is as evident as 2+2=4. I think we can all see that when we boil it down. And I think that a moral principle is true regardless of time/location. In a similar way (though probably not entirely the same), the mathematical fact that 2+2 will equal 4 is true here and in China and in back in the year 1500 and even in the year 3500. Yes, we use context to understand those truths (like counting m&ms to figure out the solution, but if you used apples, you'd reach the same answer!). Once we're there, the principles can apply to a multitude of contexts. In the case of the moral truth, it's application can and will vary in appearance dramatically --and it's application will be aided tremendously by understanding historical contexts and such. Take “respect fellow moral agents” as an example. Respect in a Western society will vary quite a bit from respect in an Eastern society (though in some ways it won't or shouldn't), and that's okay. The application can fit the specific context while the principle itself remains unchanged.

Make sense? I don't really think we ever disagreed. I think we both just want our disciplines (or my future one at least) to have their proper due. I wanted you to recognize where you transcended history, and you want me to recognize where I use it. Understood.

Part One: History vs Philosophy

The following is a rather interesting discussion I had with a history graduate student. After discussing a recent approach in political philosophy, our conversation turned to the merits (or faults) of our respective disciplines when it comes to studying justice. Below is the first part of our discussion, and soon I'll post the later portion. We disagreed, mainly about the use of ideal theory, but I think down the line we both gained a (better) appreciation for the other's discipline. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

HISTORY STUDENT: If you'll forgive me, I'm not convinced that it is valid to talk about "political" philosophy unless there is some kind of practical policy application. It would be sort of like arguing about automobile philosophy in the absence of a practical application to cars. It might well be useful for something, but it wouldn't be automotive, and I could hardly blame a mechanic for completely ignoring my insights.

ME: I see the role of the political philosopher as figuring out what is valuable in terms of justice. Before you can make policies, you have to know what is worth pursuing. It sounds easier than it is. Philosophers look for what is valuable, and an ambitious philosopher will even try to determine some sort of ranking for what is valuable (with arguments that would/could appeal to any rational being, etc). More often than not, they don't get that far. And that's okay. Why? Because it's better to figure out what is valuable, if anything is, than not. Philosophers can argue about values, and prioritize them, and even try to get the proportions of importance correct without knowing exactly how things should be actualized in the real world. However, as you can imagine, this is a daunting task, and it takes a complex strategy to even attempt such a feat. Philosophers try to decide *what is good, or what helps people flourish (flourishing is haphazardly used a lot, and I don't like that, but does have some sort of basic meaning that everyone can grasp)? They construct arguments. Your question is an important question, one that philosophers talk about alongside these issues -- though rarely with complete answers.

So think of it this way. Maybe I don't know how to get Florida. Maybe I have no clue. Maybe I'm pretty sure I should head West. If someone can at least tell me to start going South, than I'm in a much better position than I was before. I'd be even better if they knew what states I should pass through, or even better what roads. You seem to think policy makers already know what justice is and what's valuable, but that's just not the case. I'm not sure I could tell you. But that doesn't mean I don't think there is an answer to be found out.

"Political" in political philosophy is a misnomer (if it weren't, I wouldn't like it). It's about explaining/understanding justice, not politics, not even the government. So really it's just a branch of ethics that focuses on justice over other values. And within ethics it's hard to make trade-offs (political philosophy is the most practical, I think; metaphysics might be the least).

After all, what do historians contribute to politics?

HISTORY STUDENT: Historians, my friend, would say that these questions are impossible to answer apart from history. For there is no such thing as justice outside of an historical context, if only because there is no so thing as personality outside of an historical context. "I" do not have any identity unless I have a past. Is a person a murderer, a lover, an artist, a boon companion, a befriender of small animals, a needer of hugs and fuzzy slippers? The only way to know -- even if I am that person -- is to preserve some memory of that person's past. And is a person's behavior just or unjust? The only way to know (whether or not we take a technically "consequentialist" view of morality) is to maintain a record of that behavior's consequences.

Example: Could we reasonably have a discussion about the morality of slavery in the absence of historical evidence about slavery's effects on real people? We could try, I suppose, but it would be highly unwise. People can justify (or condemn) anything as long as they can defer examination of that bottom line. In/justice isn't something that happens to propositions or ideals; it is something that is lived out by people.

For exactly the same reason, I am highly suspicious of anyone's attempt to discuss justice without discussing the means by which it is to be secured. In a perfect world, so to speak, everybody would have a pony. But I am going to benefit far more from the work of somebody who does not recognize the central importance of ponies yet makes ponies possible, than from the work of somebody who understands that ponies are essential yet fails to provide me with any means of getting one. The one makes justice possible (albeit not inevitable); the other merely talks about justice while the real world waits desperately for its ponies.

Sure, it is possible to do both -- to talk about ponies and deliver them, too. But the two things cannot be assumed to go together or even to be compatible with one another. If I miscalculate in the course of a practical campaign to deliver justice (as, say, Mao or Robespierre or G.W. Bush did), I may very well make the world worse than if I had left people alone to pursue justice in their own slapdash ways.

ME: All well and good, but I don't think you quite get it yet. What you're saying already depends upon a specific concept of justice. You're talking about consequentialism, at a minimum, but you have no way to decide which consequences are good and which are bad (though it sounds like you might go with utility --and you should be strongly suspect of utilitarianism). Sure, you have inclinations, but you haven't given me reason to believe that the effects of slavery, for example, are wrong in any sense of the word. You could argue that it's inefficient perhaps, but you haven't given a concept of morality with which to condemn it (or even to way to judge the effects). To measure something you need a ruler. To judge something you need to understand the standard that it's being judged against. Before you can compare the heights of two people, you have to have a concept of tall, and what it means to be taller. The standard can't merely be left to whim or intuition (though our intuitions can help us understand it), or even to what has historically been considered morally right. So you do your work with preconceived notions of morality, some of which may be right (after all, I do believe our intuitions are able to tap into an actual moral truths -- but not everyone believes this). You just aren't giving a concrete way to make those judgments.

How did you even figure out that it would be better for everyone to have ponies? You didn't. You guessed. You have to support it with an argument that is at the same time divorced from specific circumstances, and still responsive to facts about human nature and society (so no, we don't turn a blind eye to historians, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, etc).

Don't get me wrong, I prefer a theory of justice that's not too pie in the sky, but at the same time if it's too dependent on current circumstance then it won't fully appreciate what could and more importantly, what should be. Philosophers give us the goals, the direction, what's valuable to pursue, and other social scientists/historians/whoever else can tell us what's feasible and how to reach those goals.

Even though other political leaders have pursued injustice, or justice in a misguided way (if you can even call it that), does not mean justice isn't a worthy goal to pursued by a collective force (over our individual slapdash ways).

So you say justice or injustice relates to people, and I agree, only I see them as moral agents operating against an actual moral standard (which is not a person on some views, but I believe the actual standard to be God, so perhaps I believe the standard is also an agent, I'm unsure) -- a standard that has principles independent of historical context (though not independent of the nature of the agents themselves). Human abilities to act morally remain unchanged ( at least since we acquired a conscious moral thought that conflicted with survival and instinctual response, if you like). We can do good or bad. Be selfish or altruistic. Pursue the excellent or pursue nothing at all. Yes, the outcomes have been different over time, and in some ways the same, but studying the outcome isn't enough, not without a standard to go by.

I'm giving you a hard time now because I think so many other humanities folks underestimate the importance of knowing where to go, actually knowing what is just. Guessing, pure intuition, personal taste, that's not enough. It's important because, as you say, if it's not justice we pursue than there are bad consequences, it's just you have to make sure you know how to tell what is bad and what is good. Sure, philosophers would do well to then determine which of our values (deemed as such) are feasible and which must wait for another time. That's fine. But our job is not defunct even if other people don't take a critical look at their own (sometimes unnoticed) moral judgments. Perhaps this calls for some teamwork across disciplines?


Continue to part two.