Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Follow-up on Michael Sandel

Trevor Burrus weighs in on Michael Sandel's new book. He revealingly calls his review "The Moral Majority of the New Left." Excerpt:
Rick Santorum and Michael Sandel should go fishing some time. If they put preconceptions aside, they will quickly realize they have a lot in common. They both feel the “national character” is eroding and that “we” need to have a serious conversation about where our culture is going. They can even trade knowing nods over their shared conviction that, while there’s nothing wrong with certain voluntary relationships (same-sex couples and corporations), why do they have to do it in public?
Aside from being provocative, I think the review is helpful in pointing out what I think is the ultimate flaw in these moralizing arguments about markets and/or culture: who is this "we"?
Conservative and communitarian arguments are thus equivalent in form. For both philosophies, “we” are supposed to be engaging in a collective conversation about what values will run “our” lives.
I think most of us are inclined to instinctively respond to this pronoun "we." It is a word which invites people to feel like they are part of something. But once definite propositions are put on the table, so to speak, one immediately realizes how polarizing the debate can be, and how infinite in scope questions of detail can become. We should not treat our bodies as commodities. OK, but what about wearing a t-shirt with a brand on it? We should not pay students to study. OK, but what about taking them out to eat when they get straight A's? We shouldn't make a commodity out of free public theater. OK, but what if we don't really like the public theater that we're being forced to pay for?

Burrus points out that communitarians try to argue that the interconnectedness of all people and all behaviors demands that we be able to make public determinations concerning individual behavior, but actually our interconnectedness implies just the opposite. We are so interconnected that if the community has the right to make determinations on some personal choices, then it's very hard to see what limits there will be. As I just explained above, there are too many details to fight over.

Come to think of it, that's exactly what happens: the left and right are locked in a never-ending fight over which areas of our lives to invade. Some want to take away our freedom to watch pornography. OK, sounds reasonable, but what else can't we watch? Some want to take away our freedom to smoke marijuana or perhaps tobacco. OK, but what else can't we consume? (Some are already proposing limits on our sugar intake.) Some believe the government should place certain mandates on health insurance purchases. OK, so what else do we have to buy? There are infinitely many details to be worked out, and the fact is, having a "national debate" about these things is impossible. It invariably becomes a polarizing political death match in which people's opinions are constantly being shaped by the two-sided establishment. We come to accept a list of moral imperatives which have no relation to one another and no coherence with any over-arching moral philosophy. This is an inevitable result of a system which seeks to decide all moral questions democratically.

What is the alternative to this endless tug-of-war between competing cultural factions? Instead of pretending that "we" can solve these moral questions collectively, we ought instead embrace a very simple moral concept: leave individuals with the right and responsibility to their own bodies and their own property. Moral questions concerning the proper use of person and property will have to be left up to the individual. It's not as if they have to figure it all out on their own. I promise, people occasionally listen to their parents, their teachers, their pastors, or whoever they might look up to and respect. The constant sense of urgency that there needs to be some "national debate" is honestly a bit mystifying to me sometimes. It seems we are instinctively trapped in a paranoid fear of the collapse of morality and social order. The facts just don't support that paranoia.

If Michael Sandel wants to guide people toward what he thinks is a better moral life, more power to him. I guess in that way he is functioning as a pastor of sorts. But if he wants to talk about politics, I'd like to know where he is going with this.

10 comments:

  1. Freudian slip on the pronoun in the last sentence, there...

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    1. This is a pretty obnoxious comment, especially for someone posting anonymously. If you're insinuating that I'm the one trying to make this about politics, that's fine, but at least make it clear that's what you're saying.

      Pronoun fixed, by the way. (originally read "But if we wants to talk about politics, I'd like to know where he is going with this"--for confused readers)

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  2. Sandel sounds like he's romanticizing the past. I appreciate his contributions to some ethics issues, but this book sounds like he's trying to broaden his argument to a wider audience and losing some of the nuance. (However, you still need to read his book Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality...it will blow your mind)

    We come to accept a list of moral imperatives which have no relation to one another and no coherence with any over-arching moral philosophy. This is an inevitable result of a system which seeks to decide all moral questions democratically.

    Totally agree...government can really only pick and choose very particular moral projects here-and-there...it will inevitably result in a piecemeal version of moral life.

    But after reading the Burris piece and your response, I think libertarians suffer from what I'd call delusional amoralism.

    Conservative and communitarian arguments are thus equivalent in form. For both philosophies, “we” are supposed to be engaging in a collective conversation about what values will run “our” lives.

    and your post...
    Instead of pretending that "we" can solve these moral questions collectively, we ought instead embrace a very simple moral concept: leave individuals with the right and responsibility to their own bodies and their own property.

    So you've admitted you're professing a "moral concept," which is good, but also need to admit your favored moral concept (however minimal) occupies the same realm of moral "solutions" that Sandel and Santorum also profess. Professing individual rights and autonomy from the state is still an incredibly morally-loaded vision of how "we" are going to live our lives. I'm confused why this is somehow presented as an escape route from questions of societal good: promoting the right over the good (in this case, individual rights) is an incredibly morally-significant stance on society.

    It's comical to me how Burris seems to be repulsed by a national conversation about the values that run "our" lives, immediately after championing Enlightenment political thinkers. What did Enlightenment political thinkers do? Led a national conversation about the values that would run our lives.

    Again, liberalism is the moral system that tries to convince us it's not a moral system. Its neutrality is a pure delusion: it contains "its own particular epistemological presuppositions and its own assumed conceptions of justice and of practical rationality" (quoting MacIntyre) that it will consult to rule on when individual rights will prevail and when they will not. While we might celebrate its minimalism, history shows this to be its consistent weakness, one that consistently demands "borrowing" from other systems in time of crisis. Is the slave-owner granted sovereignty from state interference, or is the slave granted sovereignty from the slaveholder? Frederick Douglas was pretty convinced the former was true. Liberalism doesn't have an intuitive answer how to adjudicate between these claims: in these cases it will always turn to the Sandels and Santorums (or Lincolns) for a way out. Turns out "we" have to do something about values at times.

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    1. No, you're just completely wrong on this. All I'm talking about in this is our relationship to the state. If Sandel or anyone else wants to go moralize and have a pulpit from which to do so, that's great. Maybe Burrus was just totally wrong to even bring politics into the discussion; maybe Sandel's book had nothing to do with how governments should behave. But if coercive measures become involve, then I have a problem.

      Since you know me personally, I find it offensive that you somehow jump to the conclusion that I have no moral vision of the universe beyond this minimal requirement of non-coercive intervention. If you didn't know me, I'd just find it idiotic.

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    2. Oh of course, I would assume you have a moral vision beyond the minimal requirement, I'm sorry I didn't say that explicitly. But I'm drawing out the Lincoln case because coercive measure had to get involved. And that "getting involved" looks a lot like "we" took on a moral issue collectively.

      Your original words...
      "Instead of pretending that "we" can solve these moral questions collectively, we ought instead embrace a very simple moral concept: leave individuals with the right and responsibility to their own bodies and their own property."

      What I'm saying is, this didn't work for slavery. We actually did take on a moral question collectively. And we did arrive at a solution that involved coercion. Slavery is one of many cases where this happened. Perhaps I am reading Burris and you incorrectly, but you both seem to be claiming "we" never need to do things like that. History seems to suggest otherwise. Am I not reading this correctly?

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    3. What you're not reading correctly is which moral questions should be decided definitely by a majority. The moral questions that ought to be decided by the society as a whole are those which related explicitly to a person's individual rights--life, liberty, and property. What exactly a person intends to do with those things, however, is a question that cannot be settled collectively. Yes, the government has to intervene in the case of slavery because it violates the individual rights of those who are enslaved. Where there is no violation of an individual's rights, the state has no right to interfere.

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  3. Just to give an example of how morally significant the "delusionally amoral (or morally minimalist) libertarian" is:

    Sandel points out that when modern societies strip off an positive notion of the common good or citizenship, the minimalist procedural liberalism left behind has a glaring void in the middle of it. While Civil Society fans like me can champion the role of "mediating institutions" to jump in fill that void, I think most would agree capitalist-consumerism has done far more to fill that void and actually shape the values and desires of our society. Random example: Israel now has a law stating female models used in advertising cannot be underweight. The "delusionally-amoralist libertarian" may proclaim their disgust at "nanny-state meddling" with private business. But (assuming such measures work, which studies of globalization patterns suggest they would), the delusionally-amoralist libertarian who rejects such policies is choosing the good of individual rights and freedom over the good of non-anorexic 12-year-olds. Again, this is an incredibly morally-significant stance on "our" values as a nation, in the same realm of Santorum and Sandel.

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    1. "But (assuming such measures work, which studies of globalization patterns suggest they would), the delusionally-amoralist libertarian who rejects such policies is choosing the good of individual rights and freedom over the good of non-anorexic 12-year-olds."

      No, you're wrong. I have every right to express moral outrage at *both* a private business using anorexic girls in their ads *and* government intrusions on people's private affairs. Although with children, I admit there is reason for special government protections.

      Frankly, I'm a bit surprised and pretty disgusted with this kind of rhetoric coming from you. For someone who supposedly had some contact with libertarians before, you seem completely oblivious about what we're actually saying.

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    2. Yes you can express moral outrage to both wrongs, that's fine. But I'm asking: is freedom from coercion the ultimate moral good? You say there "is reason for special government protections" in the case of children. That's great, that's what I'm looking for. But this means you're going fishing with Sandel and Santorum too. In other words you're ready for that "we" to collectively take on and solve a moral problem, at least for children. And you're ready to put coercion on the table as an option. I would not have guessed that to be true from your original post.

      I apologize for some of the hyperbole. I am simply trying to follow these arguments to their conclusions. I am not trying to make libertarians out to be moral monsters, I'm just curious what sort of bullets they're willing to bite to maintain their moral system. It sounds like there are cases where individual autonomy and freedom coercion are not ultimate goods. I'm confused why this isn't stated more explicitly, but it's helpful for my understanding of libertarianism.

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    3. Freedom from coercion is not the ultimate moral good. Rather, from a classical liberal perspective, it is a prerequisite for other moral goods, some of which may very well be "ultimate." It's also worth saying that I, like most classical liberals, don't profess to know what exactly is the ultimately moral good. But we learn from seeing where it is that we've been wrong. How else can we learn other than by first freely taking responsibility for the results of our own actions?

      I don't think I've gone fishing with Sandel and Santorum. The reason I think children deserve special protection is because they are easily coerced, and the line between free choice and coercion is not so clear. I would like to say that the ultimate responsibility for the child should fall on the parents, but it does seem that there are cases when a parent might either out of negligence or maleficence allow their children to get in situations where they are easily coerced. This is why statutory rape, for instance, is defined the way it is: the consent of a child is held to be less meaningful than the consent of an adult. From the perspective of government, I think this is a meaningful distinction. Similar exceptions can be made for the mentally incompetent, etc.

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