Friday 30 January 2009

Medieval Philosophy



Here's part 2 of a great discussion of Medieval Philosophy between Bryan Magee and Anthony Kenny.

Sunday 25 January 2009

Obama's Inaugural Preachers

So, Barack Obama's presidential election was accompanied by rituals of prayer by two leading figures in America's diverse Christian community, Bishop Gene Robinson (the only gay bishop of the Episcopalian church, the US wing of the Anglican church) and Pastor Rick Warren (a self identified Biblical Christian who 'planted' his own church, has earned millions of pounds in the process, and looks very unfavourably upon such 'liberal' causes as e.g. the practice of homosexuality).

In a nutshell, we have here the polar extremes not just of American Christianity but of the American psyche itself. Robinson, who defied church policy to accept his nomination as bishop represents the progressive wing of the Anglican communion whose ideals wait for no (wo)man - especially if s/he is an African....and Warren, the entrepreneurial demagogue preacher, replete with cosy conservative values and political contacts: the businessman Christian who speaks for 'everyman'.

I don't condemn either because they don't wash enough feet (though how many feet *do* they wash?) nor does it sadden me to see the unquestioned stranglehold of Christianity on American public ceremony...since good Christianity is good for everyone, this blog says. The problem is getting it on stage!

What *is* worrying, however, is what the whole affair brings to light: that the (milder) voice in the middle so rarely gets an outing in American culture - in politics or anywhere else. It's always the mavericks who get the attention. Perhaps I'm deluded if I think it's any different here.in the UK. Ahem, Boris Johnson and Stephen Fry. And of course our mavericks come as dripping with prejudice as does any American maverick. But really: couldn't a (single?) more unifying voice have been found for an historic occasion such as Obama's moment of accession? And would it have been so lamentable if that voice had happened not to be a maverick champion of some divisive cause? Maybe another time. Or maybe it's the case that voices of this kind are really rather hard to find. Can this really be so? O tempora, o mores.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Economics and Moral Progress

The economist must be a good utilitarian. He must want to see the greatest good provided for the greatest number. His job, amongst other things, is to play a role in enabling this to happen. Yes, he might admit, 'good' has its problems of definition. These, however, are seldom too great a cause for concern. It can be taken for granted for the most part that what is good can be distinguished with confidence from what is less good. And insofar as distinctions cannot be made, an increase in what an economist would call 'information' would hopefully - though (I hope he'd say) not necessarily - help remedy the problem.

The economist must, I think, be a believer in moral progress - and at the very least, in the possibility of moral progress - for society as a whole. He need not, however, be a committed political or social theorist. If push came to shove, he could conceive of himself as a (kind of) 'rule' utilitarian, or 'act' utilitarian, or 'preference' utilitarian. He could even, one supposes, disavow the underlying philosophical validity of any form of utilitarianism altogether - so long, that is, as 'private' judgements of this kind did not come to affect his 'economic' output. The analytical output of the economist, one might say, should orient itself solely to explorations of how far an increase in 'good' or welfare might be achieved, however much the economist in question doubts how far the hypothetical 'good' or welfare in his models will (ever) find itself transferred into the world at large.

How secure, though, is the economist's underlying assumption that moral progress can, has and will occur? The problems of definition here are immense. How do we measure morality? And what might moral progress consist in? Better health care? Better education? More equality? (How, moreover, should 'good' in each of these spheres be conceived?) The economist could and arguably should suggest all of them, at any rate, as necessary criteria. What, though, if 'progress' in each of the spheres in question were to bring about some cataclysmic event or events? The moral progress (if that is what it was) which human cultures made from the time of classical antiquity to the twentieth century was, after all, a 'progress' which included much increased potential for mass-suffering, murder and genocide. The mechanisms of control which civilisation had built up - through its own 'economic' institutions of education, health and civil service - led to these abuses. Economic institutions, of course, were also necessary for the combatting of sinister social influences in these spheres - albeit that they were often populated by negligent people of poor judgement. Even if this is so, it is some task to find some coherent doctrine of moral progress when we come to look at the total picture of our - not exactly very blameless - postcolonial, postimperial world. Such, of course, is the dilemma of postmodern man - whose confidence in the forward proceeding, upward trajectory of the historical process has been justly diminished by the horrors of the twentieth century. Must he, on their basis, abandon all hope of moral progress - in this or any other culture? And must he for this reason make a bad, or perhaps simply a compromised, economist?

What is certain is that he must take due account of the full extent of the warning of the twentieth century experience. That century - which in the popular consciousness is regarded as an 'age of progress' no less than the two centuries which preceded it - may well in future generations be viewed as nothing less than an age of (sinister) 'progress' towards the mass extinction of human beings in an overpopulated, overheated world. Historians of all stripes will be for the present inclined to take the view that the progress humanity made during and leading up to the twentieth century resulted in the most catastrophic humanitarian disasters ever witnessed. The utilitarian philosopher must conclude that if moral progress is being made, or has been made, across the human world as a whole, it came in the last century at some considerable price. The moralist must observe also that a persistent problem of the twentieth century experience was the behaviour of groups who felt able to justify bizarre and horrendous actions on the basis of some or other moral or scientific prerogative. Both morality (including utlilitarian moralities) and science can be and are abused by their practitioners. This abuse - and one might even go so far as to call it a systemic abuse which is endemic in our social structures where imperfect agents go about constantly making decisions in the absence of full information - should be held up forever as a constant barrier and limitation to any confidently expressed doctrine of moral progress.

As far as I'm concerned, insofar as twenty first century man can even dare to think in terms of moral progress (and, in his societal institutions, he must surely remain in some degree committed - as the economist is, at least in his professional life - to precisely such thoughts), an overwhelming sense of human limitedness and the appropriateness of feelings of humility concerning the insurmountable moral problems which bare upon human processes of decision making should surely characterise his outlook. This much need barely be said: it should be obvious enough that it is so. It is alarming that confident proclamations of the 'progress' made by human rationality in and through the natural sciences should sometimes so obviously lack this utterly necessary dimension. The deep problem, perhaps, is that humans have failed to doubt in appropriate degree the validity and authority of their own moral judgements. This is by no means a new problem. And however much 'progress' is made, what prospect is there that this perennial issue will melt away as we 'proceed' to new heights? There is much here, we should remember, that should trouble even the most confident economist whose work bears the hallmark of his utilitarian assumptions. The human world, we must always remember, is positioned delicately but unalterably in the palm of a totally unmeasurable, untameable, 'hand'.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Peace and Proportionality

The horrendous events of the past weeks in Israel and the Gaza strip have given rise to some tentative discussions of the ethics of war. An important word on all sides in these discussions has been 'proportionate'. Is the Israeli response to the Hamas rockets 'proportionate'? Some Israeli commentators have distanced themselves from the idea of proportionality altogether. War, they say, is not about proportionality. It's about subduing the enemy.

Ideally, one supposes, we can all agree that subduing the enemy need not amount to killing them all off and razing their territories. And if it's possible to presume this much - that killing all one's enemies is not a necessary or preferable course of action - then an implicit argument for proportionate responses would seem to be in place.

Of course, many conquering peoples have found down the centuries that peace can be easier to achieve through mass murder than through accommodation and discussion. By simply wiping out one's enemies, one can (perhaps) achieve peace without weighing up niceties in military engagement. Peace, of course, for the conquerors. No peace, apart from in death, for the conquered.

Surely, this attitude is to be deplored. What hope, though, does the idea of 'proportionality' offer in its place? How can we think of 'proportionality' in such contexts? Can it be calculated, for example, by the number of dead soldiers or children, or by the number of deaths or bombs launched? Was Hiroshima proportionate? Was Iraq? Can we ever look at military campaigns and assess how 'proportionate' was their armed response? No doubt most of us are devoted to thinking in such terms - however we might go about configuring and calibrating the variables.

Rather than merely wondering whether the Israelis are being proportionate, however, perhaps we should also be asking ourselves whether the kind of peace they are trying to achieve - and which we as a world community are encouraging them and the Palestinians to pursue - is the right kind of peace. The most basic assumption we need to make and to insist upon in this context is that all military acts of killing are evil acts which should not occur. It needs to be made clear that peace of a good sort - of the kind we should like to see - cannot and will not be achieved by killings. For the biggest problem in the Middle East is that both sides are of the view that killing is a good way of making peace. It is a vote winner. It raises cheers. It offers the chance for 'vengeance' or 'revenge'.

The biggest battle we face in the middle east, we ought surely to say, is a battle where victory must be over hearts rather than territories. It is for this reason that talk of proportionality will never do or be enough. Peace, rather than 'proportionality', is what needs to be talked about and to be insisted upon. The greatest tragedy of the present situation is that talk of this kind is playing such a minimal role.