Digressions&Impressions

28 March 1979: Foucault's Rational Choice Analysis of Science (XXXVI)

In the end, is not economics the analysis of forms of rational conduct and does not all rational conduct, whatever it may be, fall under something like economic analysis? Is not a rational conduct, like that which consists in formal reasoning, an economic conduct in the sense we have just defined, that is to say, the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends, since formal reasoning consists in deploying certain scarce resources—a symbolic system, a set of axioms, rules of construction, and not just any symbolic system or any rules of construction, but just some—to be used to optimal effect for a determinate and alternative end, in this case a true rather than a false conclusion which we try to reach by the best possible allocation of scarce resources? So, if it comes to it, we do not see why we would not define any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever as the possible object of economic analysis.
   In truth, this already extremely extensive definition is not even the only one, and Becker, for example—the most radical of the American neoliberals, if you like—says that it is still not sufficient, that the object of economic analysis can be extended even beyond rational conduct as defined and understood in the way I have just described, and that economic laws and economic analysis can perfectly well be applied to non-rational conduct, that is to say, to conduct which does not seek at all, or, at any rate, not only to optimize the allocation of scarce resources to a determinate end. Becker says: Basically, economic analysis can perfectly well find its points of anchorage and effectiveness if an individual’s conduct answers to the single clause that the conduct in question reacts to reality in a nonrandom way. That is to say, any conduct which responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, in other words, any conduct, as Becker says, which “accepts reality,” must be susceptible to economic analysis. Homo oeconomicus is someone who accepts reality. Rational conduct is any conduct which is sensitive to modifications in the variables of the environment and which responds to this in a non-random way, in a systematic way, and economics can therefore be defined as the science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables.
   This is a colossal definition, which obviously economists are far from endorsing, but it has a certain interest. It has a practical interest, if you like, inasmuch as if you define the object of economic analysis as the set of systematic responses to the variables of the environment, then you can see the possibility of integrating within economics a set of techniques, those called behavioral techniques, which are currently in fashion in the United States. You find these methods in their purest, most rigorous, strictest or aberrant forms, as you wish, in Skinner, and precisely they do not consist in analyzing the meaning of different kinds of conduct, but simply in seeing how, through mechanisms of reinforcement, a given play of stimuli entail responses whose systematic nature can be observed and on the basis of which other variables of behavior can be introduced. In fact, all these behavioral techniques show how psychology understood in these terms can enter the definition of economics given by Becker. There is little literature on these behavioral techniques in France. In Castel’s last book, The Psychiatric Society, there is a chapter on behavioral techniques and you will see how this is precisely the implementation, within a given situation—in this case, a hospital, a psychiatric clinic—of methods which are both experimental and involve a specifically economic analysis of behavior.
    Today though, I would like to emphasize a different aspect. This is that Becker’s definition, which, again, although it is not recognized by the average economist, or even by the majority of them, nonetheless, despite its isolated character, enables us to highlight a paradox, because homo oeconomicus as he appears in the eighteenth century—I will come back to this shortly—basically functions as what could be called an intangible element with regard to the exercise of power. Homo oeconomicus is someone who pursues his own interest, and whose interest is such that it converges spontaneously with the interest of others. From the point of view of a theory of government, homo oeconomicus is the person who must be let alone. With regard to homo oeconomicus, one must laisser-faire; he is the subject or object of laissez-faire. And now, in Becker’s definition which I have just given, homo oeconomicus, that is to say, the person who accepts reality or who responds systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment, appears precisely as someone manageable, someone who responds systematically to systematic modifications artificially introduced into the environment. Homo oeconomicus is someone who is eminently governable.--Michel Foucault, 28 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 11, The Birth of Biopolitics,  269-270 (emphasis added)

At the start of the eleventh lecture, Foucault says he wants to go back to the starting point of the year, which (via Freud and Walpole) was (recall) on the liberal art of governing. This is a bit disappointing because he ended the tenth lecture with hints of a new kind of governmental practice. But before we have time to reflect on this, he turns, quickly, to the nature of (what I have been calling following Talcott Parsons) 'economic imperialism. This is odd because it is the topic (recall) he had introduced at the start of the previous lecture. Foucault quickly name-checks Mises Human Action (268) as the fount of neoliberalism, and then goes on to reveal that he has been reading back-issues of the Journal of Political Economy (hereafter: JPE) the house-organ of the The University of Chicago's economics department, from the years 1960–1970, and recommends a "series of articles" from 1962 by "Becker, Kirzner, and others." (268)*

It is by no means obvious what the liberal art of government and the shifting definitions of homo oeconomicus have in common. But, amazingly, by the end of the lecture it is completely clear. To give away the punchline (and to look ahead to some future posts), in Foucault's hands (and this is already clear in what I quote above), Becker's very redefinition of homo oeconimicus effectively betrays the original achievement of liberalism, which consists in not just "limiting the sovereign’s power," but "stripping the sovereign of power" by revealing an "essential, fundamental, and major incapacity of the sovereign, that is to say, an inability to master the totality of the economic field," (292); and the betrayal is, in a certain sense, as Foucault argues during the eleventh lecture, a return to physiocracy. In Foucault's telling Becker throws away the very achievement of Adam Smith, and creates a subject capable of being (to use the phrase Foucault had introduced in lecture 9) programmed, nudged, and shaped by a knowing sovereign.

But just before Foucault explains the significance of the shift from the Robbins definition of economics ("the optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends") to the Becker definition (the "science of the systematic nature of responses to environmental variables"),** he (that is Foucault) inserts a new analysis of the nature of science. Foucault does this in the first paragraph in the passage quoted above this post.

Now critics of the Robbins definition (itself indebted to Max Weber) tend to notice that it turns economics into a kind of engineering; for the ends are given, and act as constraints on an optimization problem. And since the Robbins definition is topic neutral (neither the resources, nor the ends, nor the implied agent/allocators(s) have to be trading or using money, etc.) it is no surprise that economic analysis so constituted can be applied across many different domains (and economic imperialism is out of the gates). Of course, the critics will see in the Robbins definition a paradigmatic case of instrumental rationality.   

But if one looks at the Robbins definition, as it were, 'formally,' even the pinnacle of substantive rationality -- the inferring of true conclusions from, say, a set of axioms, can be treated, or, better yet, modelled as an instance of it. One is reminded here of Leibniz thinking of the "divine perfection" in terms of God as a perfect geometer in the Discourse of Metaphysics: "He who acts perfectly is like an excellent Geometer who knows how to find the best construction for a problem." (par. 5; Clarke is also tempted by this language.)+ 

So, economic analysis can be applied legitimately to God's choices and to scientific reasoning. Of course, and to be sure, while in God the context of construction/choice and context of justification coincide, one need not claim this about ordinary scientists. So, Foucault, is not here proposing to apply economic analysis to most scientific activity -- what I call 'public choice philosophy of science' of the sort Gordon Tullock and, at Chicago, George Stigler pioneered (and made mature by Sandra Peart and David Levy, now familiar within philosophy in the burgeoning Zollman school of philosophy of science [e.g., O'Connor Weatherall; Kofi Bright, etc.]). To be sure Foucault is not ruling it out. (I follows trivially from what he says.) 

But rather, he is making the more audacious point that economic analysis is a way of conceptualizing disciplined scientific speech speaking the truth (when its claims are justified). And this is a kind of existence proof for the claim that "any rational conduct or behavior whatsoever" is "the possible object of economic analysis" with economic analysis understood in the sense of Robbins' definition. So, economic analysis might be philosophical speech, that is, capable of analyzing itself if and only if it generates "true conclusions." 

I could close with the fate of that lovely sentence hanging in the balance. But I want to note two things here: first, there is a sense in which Foucault agrees with the Frankfurt's school's claim that under capitalism even science becomes conceived as a species of instrumental rationality. But he is not critical of it. He explicitly grants that all rational action can be modelled by economic analysis in this sense. And so, second, he rejects the distinction between instrumental and substantive rationality. For, while Foucault need not accept the much stronger claim that no other form of analysis, no other grid of intelligibility, is possible (he is clearly a pluralist about such matters [Robbins' definition "is not even the only one"]), he does not accept here the possibility that something is a species of rational agency and not capable of falling under the Robbins definition.++ 

And with that, I conclude my seventh full year of solo blogging and will take my customary winter break; I wish you happy holidays my dear reader!

Three Kinds of Clarity in 'early' Analytic (Carnap, Quine, and Nagel)

Philosophers themselves are at variance as to the "proper" task of philosophy. Many students of the history of philosophy agree, however, that the great texts in philosophy are best understood when viewed as so many reflections upon issues raised by the scientific and social developments of their day. The practice, if not always the explicit intent, of a great deal of philosophy has been to function as a commentary on the intellectual life of man - a commentary whose object is to bring some order and clarity into the propositions certified by the sciences or sanctioned by social needs. The commentaries which philosophers have provided have often been confused and unintelligible: they have frequently proved obstacles to clear conceptions of nature and man and have turned out to be fresh occasions for wonder. Nonetheless, the historical fact that so much of philosophy has been a reflection upon science and society suggests that the business of philosophy is not that of adding to the sum of our knowledge of nature, in the sense in which the sciences add to that knowledge, but of clarifying such knowledge. The "wisdom" of Aristotle, accordingly, is not to be identified with his encyclopedic knowledge or with his speculative interpretation of the science and society of his day; it is to be found in the careful distinctions he drew between the meanings of terms current in his day, and in the light his analyses throw on the confusions that arise when the distinctions are not respected. The task of philosophy, on this point of view, is not to supply a cosmogony or cosmology: its task, which may be pursued by professional scientists no less than by professional philosophers, is to serve as a cathartic to men's beliefs and ideas. In other words, according to this conception of philosophy its aim is to perfect principles of logic and method and to exercise them upon the various statements
occurring in everyday discourse and the sciences.--Ernest Nagel (1938) "The Fight for Clarity: Logical Empiricism" The American Scholar 8.(1): 46

Recall that Carnap and Quine have distinct understandings of clarity. For Carnap clarity is a property or by-product of formal systems, of constructed languages. Clarity in the hands of Carnap means to capture a kind of demand for transparency in one's inferential practices, one's commitments, and the use of terms (it very much hopes to prevent equivocation and polysemous use).  Carnapian clarity is really a second-order property of an otherwise esoteric, expert practice.

By contrast, Quine had a tendency, as Greg Frost-Arnold has shown, (i) to associate clarity with more general forms of intelligibility. In later years, Quine might argue that (ii) his program (developed in Word & Object) of the philosopher regimenting scientific language to exhibit its ontological commitments, may also be aiming at a species of clarity (about the 'ontology' of science), alongside systematicity.  He also (iii) came to think of clarity as a more general theoretical virtue of a system. 

The earlier discussion of Carnap and Quine left me a bit puzzled about the to-me-intuitive notion of clarity I had picked up from my teachers as an undergraduate and PhD student. (I assume it is intuitive because of my teachers.) And while I certainly do not want to ignore the contribution of Cambridge (Russell, Moore, etc.) to my intuitive understanding, I think Ernest Nagel gives a sense of where that might have, in part, come from.

The 1938 essay by Nagel that I quote above is, as scholars of analytic philosophy have noted, an important moment in twentieth century philosophy for two reasons. First, the piece partially (re-)introduces logical empiricism to an American audience, while simultaneously defending them from (rather persistent) misrepresentation (in part based on describing the evolution away from strict verificationism). In fact, Nagel puts a kind of neo-Kantian and proto-Foucaultian spin on the mature/more recent version of logical empiricism: "Indeed the proper question is not "what does a statement mean?" but "what are the conditions which empiricists will acknowledge to be necessary for a statement to have meaning? " (51)

Second, the piece aims to contribute to a convergence between what I call the 'scientific wing of pragmatism' (as represented, especially, by Peirce in the essay) and logical empiricism, and so is a signal moment in the development of analytic philosophy. (Regular readers know I treat Nagel as the philosophical prophet of the sociological and conceptual construction, analytic philosophy.) Toward the end of the essay it becomes clear that Nagel sees himself as occupying a (mature) version of the intersection between these two movements.

Okay, while keeping in mind that there are polemical ("fight") purposes being served and that in some sense he is constructing an image of clarity that is to have wide uptake, it may be useful to look at Nagel's version of clarity. For Nagel, the search for clarity is an effect or byproduct from the advanced development and specialization and, so, esotericism of the special sciences. And this means that new criteria of intelligibility distinct from those used in ordinary language are required. As he puts it, "the increased abstractness and generality of modern science require a serious reconsideration and a recasting of those relatively simple canons of intelligibility and validity which are sufficient for the needs of every-day discourse and inquiry." (47-48) So, at a first approximation, Nagel's version of clarity involve the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences.

But the reason why this effort at clarification is a philosophical task is, in part, due to a limitation on the professional scientist:

we cannot fall back upon every-day practices and habitual intuitions for aid, and most professional scientists are not sufficiently conscious of their own procedures to enlighten us; special studies must be undertaken by men sensitive to the logical issues involved. Recent methodological studies aim to supply appropriate answers and their main objectives are therefore the following: the careful analysis, formulation and expansion of those intellectual techniques which have been found reliable for controlling our conjectures about the world we inhabit; the appraisal of the import of science and of the conditions for its successful activity; the analysis of scientific concepts and the formulation of logical standards for distinguishing meaningful statements and questions from those which have no accredited meaning.
The movement known at present as "logical empiricism" is a loosely-organized group of philosophers and scientists interested in such problems of method. (48)

We see here (Nagel emphasizes it again later in the essay) the germ of Thomas Kuhn's idea that there is a sense in which ordinary scientists lack proper self-awareness about all there own practices. We might say that a lot of scientific activity (calibration, measurement practices, hidden assumption in the math) is 'black-boxed' and 'taken off-line,' say in the name of cognitive and operational efficiency. To be sure, Nagel is quick to emphasize (and nods to Mach's influence) that interest in the process of clarification, so not just the results, is widespread among "professional scientists" (47 & 58). So, it would be more apt to say that for Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for  (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims. 

What is nice about this notion of clarity, is  that we see in it the significance of normative epistemology and the philosophy of scientific practice ("One of the most valuable and promising tendencies of logical empiricism is the emphasis it places upon the analysis of ideas
employed in special fields of study, so that the procedures which are relevant to those ideas and which alone make them intelligible are made explicit." (57)) These are two areas of philosophy of science that (under the ongoing influence of Reichenbach) are often orthogonal to each other today. 

I don't mean to suggest this completes my analysis of what Nagel means by clarity. One question one may well ask is what he means by 'intelligibility.' And I hasten to add that Nagel is no friend of the PSR (in the same period he has a polemic against Blanshard's version of the PSR, internal relations, and monism.).  Rather, I think Nagel means by intelligibility something like showing how and the way terms/concepts (etc.) hang together (he's a holist) and function in a system of knowledge and bodies of ordinary practice. I think this because of remarks like this, "the task of philosophy lies in the clarification of terms occurring in scientific and everyday discourse, by exhibiting their interrelations and function in the contexts in which they occur." (59)*

So, finally, Nagel clarification is not just developing the canons of intelligibility and validity apt for (esoteric) special sciences, but also making transparent the methods and practices of science that generate warranted claims in part by showing how and the way terms/concepts  hang together and function in a system of knowledge and forms of ordinary practice. Now, one may think that Nagel here echoes a kind of underlaborer to the sciences conception of philosophy (but note those ordinary practices.) However, he also endorses some of the political aims for clarification by "some" logical empiricists:

Certainly the least one can say of logical empiricism is that even if it accomplished nothing else it is a powerful force that aims to introduce rational methods into all fields of inquiry. One of its functions, that of serving as a disinfectant to the thinking of men, would alone justify the continuance and spread of the movement. It rests its case not on an appeal to authority or the emotional needs of men but on an appeal to a persistent effort to think clearly. The movement is an important arm in the interminable warfare against obscurantism and for clarity. (59)+

As I noted before (recall), for Nagel government by discussion is not about achieving authoritative consensus, but rather, as his conception of science and democracy reveal, as the ongoing practice of being responsive to reasons and criticisms based on experimentally controlled facts. Our cognitive practices in science and political life are made possible, and developed and improved by, our socially embedded interactions with each other. For Nagel it is clear that "Perhaps no intellectual tendency is more dangerous than that accompanying the claim that knowledge of human affairs is the exclusive property of men endowed with a "higher insight" - which is not subject to the control of well established experimental methods."" (55) For Nagel, the cultivation of clarity is a contribution to a democratic ethos.

 

21 March 1979: Foucault on Economic Imperialism (XXXIII)

I would like to talk a little about one aspect of American neo-liberalism, that is to say, the way in which they try to use (i) the market economy and (ii) the typical analyses of the market economy to (iii) decipher non-market relationships and phenomena which are not strictly and specifically economic but (iv) what we call social phenomena. In other words, this means that I want to talk about the application of the economic grid to a field which since the nineteenth century, and we can no doubt say already at the end of the eighteenth century, was defined in opposition to (v) the economy, or at any rate, as complementary to the economy, as that which in itself, in its own structure and processes, does not fall within the economy, even though the economy itself is situated within this domain. In other words again, what I think is at stake in this kind of analysis is the problem of the inversion of the relationships of the social to the economic.--Michel Foucault, 21 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 10, The Birth of Biopolitics,  239-240.

The main point of the tenth lecture is introduced in the first paragraph (quoted above). As I have noted before, the phenomenon described by Foucault is usually called 'economic imperialism,' a phrase that goes back to Talcott Parson's analysis of the effect of Robbins' re-definition of economics back in 1934. 

Now before I get to the main point of Foucault's analysis -- the 'inversion' mentioned in the last quoted sentence --, I want to note explicitly that Foucault does not explain what an 'economic grid' is. It is immediately tempting to assume that the economic grid is the kind of thing studied by (ii) or, if we remember the language of 'programming' in lecture 9, partially constituted by (ii), perhaps in interaction with (i). And my reason for noticing this is that Foucault does not pause to reflect on the relationship between (i) and (ii).

For, as any informed observer can tell you, the relationship between (ii) the typical analyses (note the plural) of the market economy, presumably as typified now by Chicago economics (in particular Becker, Mincer, Stigler, Schultz, etc.), and (i) the market economy is by no means simple. For example, I often joke that the Black-Scholes-Merton formula for (rational) option pricing makes no reference to supply and demand. (While the formula is a product of Chicago economics this formula is far from what Foucault has in mind here.) There is a similar, more sophisticated joke to be made about the absence of money in the GE Arrow-Debreu model (manifestly not Chicago).

Another strange slippage occurs, when Foucault moves from (i) the 'market economy' to the (v) economy. Even nineteenth century laissez-faire economists noticed that not all activity which could be sensibly called 'economic' were within or facilitated by 'the market' (not the least because slavery existed for a good chunk of the nineteenth century). 

When a few pages down, Foucault returns to the theme he speaks, more precisely:

In comparison with the ambiguity, if you like, of German ordoliberalism, American neo-liberalism evidently appears much more radical or much more complete and exhaustive. American neo-liberalism still involves, in fact, the generalization of the economic form of the market. It involves generalizing it throughout the social body and including the whole of the social system not usually conducted through or sanctioned by monetary exchanges. This, as it were, absolute generalization, this unlimited generalization of the form of the market entails a number of consequences or includes a number of aspects and I would like to focus on two of these.
First, the generalization of the economic form of the market beyond monetary exchanges functions in American neo-liberalism as a principle of intelligibility and a principle of decipherment of social relationships and individual behavior. This means that analysis in terms of the market economy or, in other words, of supply and demand, can function as a schema which is applicable to non-economic domains. And, thanks to this analytical schema or grid of intelligibility, it will be possible to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such—a sort of economic analysis of the non-economic. (243)

Here it is pretty clear that what it means to be a market economy (i) involves 'monetary exchanges'. Now Foucault is saying that (ii) just is the canonical way of analyzing (i). And striking one can use (ii) to study activities (iii) that do not involve monetary exchange, but still can be made intelligible (by (ii)) as falling under an 'economic form.' Somewhat annoyingly Foucault does not say what  the content of the economic form is. But it is clear that form of the market economy seems to be constituted by 'supply and demand.'  So, the economic form can be materialized in monetized (market) exchanges and in non-monetized (non-market) exchanges and be studied with the same tool-kit (ii), which involves (inter alia) analysis of supply and demand.

Now, the initial pay-off of this is a new possibility: [A] "to reveal in non-economic processes, relations, and behavior a number of intelligible relations which otherwise would not have appeared as such."

Now the strong version of [A] suggests that without the tools of (ii) some human phenomena would simply remain unintelligible. This strong version presupposes that no other grids are possible or (if we weaken it a bit) available. Because Foucault does not explain the conditions he puts on the nature of intelligibility, it is hard to evaluate this claim (which rules out grids derived from, say, "demography, sociology, psychology, and social psychology," (245) etc.). But it seems to entail that Foucault thinks most of what passes for social science fails to generate intelligibility of what they study (that is the social phenomena). That's no reason to doubt that Foucault did not hold the strong version of [A].

As slightly weaker version of [A] I have hinted at before. And it presupposes the thought that in order to make phenomena involving human  behavior intelligible, we need to see them/us as agents. And, as Foucault notes (recall also lecture 9) it is the Chicago version of tools of (ii) to make it possible to see choice, and thus, agency in the patterns of social life. This weaker version still entails that there is a sense in which passes for social science fails to generate intelligibility of what they study, but they themselves might (legitimately even) think otherwise.

The weakest version of [A] is to make it relative to professional economists; such that non-economic processes, relations, and behavior become intelligible to them qua professional economist. 

When we turn to Foucault' description of  analysis of how (ii) is applied to (iii) and (iv), we see that supply and demand is just one element in a larger analytical tool-kit "of investment, capital costs, and profit—both economic and psychological profit," etc. As Foucault notes, quoting Jean-Luc Migué, "the analytical framework traditionally reserved for the firm and the consumer" is applied to the ''household"...."This involves making the household a unit
of production in the same way as the classical firm." I don't mean to suggest this is exhaustive; I have already noticed (recall) the significance of the redefinition of  homo oeconomicus as utility maximizer in lecture 9.

In addition, among the 'social' are not just phenomena related to education, family, and crime, but also government (recall this post on the relevant passage in lecture 10). This matters because it turns that that if you deploy (ii) you don't just make phenomena intelligible, you can also criticize them, as noted, in light of an "economic tribunal." (247) As Foucault puts it, "these two aspects—the analysis of non-economic behavior through a grid of economic intelligibility, and the criticism and appraisal of the action of public authorities in market terms..." (248)

Now, Foucault does not really make an effort to explain how analysis slides into authoritative criticism. He mentions the use of cost-benefit analysis. But in a way this presupposes what needs to be explained. For, cost-benefit analysis presupposes a further standard. Either comparison with some reference class or the thought that beyond a certain baseline level/ratio some benefits are not worth the(se) cost(s). Now, the moment one writes this it is obvious that there will be contestation over the reference class or the baseline level.

I think a better understanding of the underlying idea of the move to analysis to normativity is also noticed by Foucault, but earlier in lecture 9. That is an effect of Robbins' definition (the one that prompted Parson's musing on economic imperialism), “Economics is the science of human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have mutually exclusive uses.” For the analysis of this relationship allows one to judge some courses of action objectively as ineffective, or with a lot of opportunity costs, or instrumentally irrational. 

And as Foucault notes, in his majestic treatment of the evolution of criminology from the eighteenth century to Chicago neoliberalism, this style of reasoning did not have to await Robbins' definition. In the eighteenth century Enlightenment reformers criticized "the ineffectiveness of the system of punishment, with reference to the fact, for example, that public torture and executions or banishment had no perceptible effect on lowering the rate of criminality, insofar as it was possible to measure this at the time...there was an economic grid underlying the critical reasoning of the eighteenth century reformer." (248) Foucault does not mention Grouchy, but we see such reasoning in her, too. He goes on to claim, that "this great concern of the law, the principle constantly recalled that for a penal system to function well a good law is necessary and almost sufficient, was nothing other than the desire for what could
be called, in economic terms, a reduction in the transaction cost." (248-249)

Somewhat amusingly, the otherwise diligent and excellent editors of the lectures, do not drop a note to Coase (or Commons) here. And so leave unexplained one of Foucault's jokes (one that Coase himself would appreciate, I think) that one strain of Chicago economics is a recovery of insights from the eighteenth century.*

The more important point left hanging now is the question what is distinctive about Chicago post-Robbins? One answer Foucault offers, in his treatment of the Chicago treatment of crime, can be discerned in his analysis of a point made by Stigler, "The regulatory principle of penal policy is a simple intervention in the market for crime and in relation to the supply of crime. It is an intervention which will limit the supply of crime solely by a negative demand, the cost of which must obviously never exceed the cost of the supply of the criminality in question." (256) Here we do see the spirit of Robbins. Because violations of this principle (which presupposes an idea of instrumental rationality) are now to be criticized. (Here, too, one can wonder about the relationship between the analysis and the phenomena analysed.)

I have noted before, and so won't repeat, that by taking the ends for granted, the analysis is weirdly un-transparent, even to itself, about its substantive normative commitments. But as usual Foucault is more interesting than me. He notes the following kind of implication, as a promissory note, we the idea "of a society in which there is an optimization of systems of difference, in which the field is left open to fluctuating processes, in which minority individuals and practices are tolerated, in which action is brought to bear on the rules of the game rather than on the players, and finally in which there is an environmental type of intervention instead of the internal subjugation of individuals." (259-260)

What Foucault is pointing to that if one sees/interprets the regulatory principle as providing one with or reflecting policy mechanisms that help determine different points on demand and supply curves (of crime, etc.), then one has levers by which to manipulate, say, (and I use Stigler's terminology) the "supply of offenses." (In Stigler, this is all articulated in terms of marginal costs/returns.)

For Stigler (who uses a lovely quote from Adam Smith), and Foucault tracks this, "offenses are in a sense demanded by the society." And so once one treats the regulatory principle as governing the (law) enforcement agency, one has a social/planning choice what range of offenses will exist (at what cost).

One may still wonder how one gets from Stigler to Foucault here. After noting that by Stigler's lights (of his economic analysis) much law enforcement is clearly irrational, Stigler offers the following thought: "a second and wholly different reason for the use of what appear to be inappropriate sanctions and inappropriate appropriations to enforcement bodies: the desire of the public not to enforce the laws....Variation in enforcement provides desirable flexibility in public policv," (Stigler 1970: 534-535)** 

Seneca on Freedom (Letter 51)

I have set freedom as my goal [Libertas proposita est]; and I am striving for that reward. And what is freedom, you ask? It means not being a slave to any circumstance, to any necessity [necessitati], to any chance; it means compelling Fortune to enter the lists on equal terms. And on the day when I know that I have the upper hand, her power will be naught. When I have death in my own control, shall I take orders from her?--Seneca, Letter 51, Translated by Richard Mott Gummere (with minor corrections).

When, in a moment of sadness, I decided to return to Seneca, I was hoping for wisdom. My first response in reading Letter 51 is disappointment. The letter understands itself as a polemic/litigious [litigavimus]; and it is clearly written by a man out of sorts, in deep turmoil. We are informed near the start of the letter that he left the luxury resort town, Baiae, the day after he reached it. More importantly, for an author, he can't even keep straight who he has been reading "Messala, – or was it Valgius." And his inner turbulence is matched/echoed by the description of the near omnipresence of volcanoes, "many regions belch forth fire" [cum plurima loca evomant ignem]. 

We don't have to be Freud to discern Seneca is aware his time is nearly up (see also the quoted passage above suggests). There are lots of hints in the letter that he is holding up the modesty of Scipio in political defeat/exile as exemplar to himself. And the reader is left to wonder in what sense Seneca understands his own political retirement as leading to suicide or death. There is, in fact, an interesting historical question, hinted at by Plutarch, whether Scipio committed suicide (admittedly Livy gives no hint of it).*

We know that Seneca found it very difficult to give up his luxury. For some this marks him as a hypocrite. I don't think I am engaging in himpathy when I say that I find more interesting the fact that his inability to live up to his ideals does not make him change his ideals; and his struggles with adhering to his ideals -- the rapid succession of arrival and departure from Baiae are comic and tragic at once -- allow him also to be instructive even persuasive about the challenges to achieve them. The best witnesses against vice are not the saintly preacher, but (as most rehab centers recognize now) former alcoholics. 

And yet, above I quote the more philosophical passage. Is freedom really a kind of inner state or, better yet, a disposition? A disposition that allows one to be immune from even necessity (that is, death). I recognize that immunity from external causes is an attractive thought during a pandemic. 

When I connect the threads of the letter, it's clear that Seneca is trying his hand at inner exile (political and emotional), and aware he is failing. And failing badly; his travel habits and his inner emotional life (those bursting flames) tell another story.+ This gives the start of the letter -- "Quomodo quisque potest" translated by Gummere as 'everyone does his best'; I think I prefer 'each according to his abilities'  -- a double-edged sword. He is falling, and it gives his teaching a harsh quality. 

It is not easy to write these lines, recognizing my own teaching fails. And yet, it is difficult to feel compassion for Seneca, the stern lecturer of the worldly-successful Lucilius; Seneca, the exorcist of pleasures.  

Looking back at the sentence before the one quoted at the top of this post,** what's lacking is not Seneca's desire for pleasure or his fear about his political fate. No, what's missing in the description of Seneca's inner exile is the acknowledgment of his sadness or, if it that is too modern, of his disappointments his frustrated ambitions. This is mirrored in his treatment of Scipio's downfall/ruin [ruina], which is centered on Scipio's management of his manly honor/nobility [honestius].

Of course, the modern desire for psychological realism bumps up against the ancient rules of decorum. It is too easy, perhaps too lucrative, to turn Seneca into self-help or compassion with his sadness; he is quite clear that "if any vice rend your heart, cast it away from you; and if you cannot be rid of it in any other way, pluck out your heart also."

I wanted to stop there, but I noticed on re-reading that this evisceration of the self is a kind of second-best (perhaps third-best) therapy. In fact, Seneca suggests that in order to destroy the vices, passion needs to be set against passion ("Above all, drive pleasures from your sight. Hate them beyond all other things,"). To eliminate (or strangle [strangulent]) the pleasures, they, or their objects, must be hated; and to habituate such self-betterment, this killing off of bad temptations, location matters. 

And just before I press 'publish,' and, think how Christian Seneca sounds, I ask myself why is he reading "Messala...or Valgius?" These are, after all, in addition two significant authors, also two great political survivors of the turmoil of the late republic and early empire. Messala, in particular, was adept at adapting to changed circumstances.

I don't mean to suggest that we should read Seneca's use of freedom in republican terms here. But rather to remark that if freedom is a disposition that allows one to be immune from all circumstance (etc.), it does not follow that one has to be passive in the face of changing fortunes and retreat into an untouchable (and sadness denying) inner citadel. And while it is foolish to think one can escape death (necessity), one may well be able to influence its circumstances and other goods of fortune. I linger on the thought; maybe Scipio is an anti-exemplar here.

It would be a sublime comedy if the very text that is assumed to teach a form of resignation, the killing off of last remnants of pleasures, is really a manual for political survival by a man still hoping for reversal of fortune. Oddly, this cheers me up.   

 

 

 

David Hume, Ibn Khaldun, on Cult of the Leader (and a comment on Hume on race)

I have mentioned parties from affection as a kind of real parties, beside those from interest and principle. By parties from affection, I understand those which are founded on the different attachments of men towards particular families and persons, whom they desire to rule over them. These factions are often very violent; though, I must own, it may seem unaccountable, that men should attach themselves so strongly to persons, with whom they are no wise acquainted, whom perhaps they never saw, and from whom they never received, nor can ever hope for any favour. Yet this we often find to be the case, and even with men, who, on other occasions, discover no great generosity of spirit, nor are found to be easily transported by friendship beyond their own interest. We are apt to think the relation between us and our sovereign very close and intimate. The splendour of majesty and power bestows an importance on the fortunes even of a single person. And when a man’s good-nature does not give him this imaginary interest, his ill-nature will, from spite and opposition to persons whose sentiments are different from his own.--David Hume "Of Parties In General" 

In chapter 2 of The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (2003), Chandran Kukathas draws on Hume's essay, "Of Parties in General," to offer an account of the fundamental motives of human nature rooted in a distinction among interest, affection, and principle. For Kukathas principle is key because in his account of liberalism conscience, and so freedom(s) of association, are central to living a life of integrity. (The intended contrast is with liberalism(s) that privileges justice and/or autonomy.) Since I didn't quite recall Hume linking principle to conscience (he doesn't), I decided to re-read Hume's essay. What follows is unmoored from Kukathas' discussion.

Before I get to the paragraph quoted at the top of the post -- it's the closing one in Hume's essay --, I want to call attention to a different paragraph. It is pertinent to the recent, renewed interest in Hume's racism. It is a paragraph that is devoted to illustrating Hume's idea that "Men have such a propensity to divide into personal factions, that the smallest appearance of real difference will produce them." Some of these appearances are  "trivial" (such as "colour of livery" and another "in horse races"). Hume goes on to offer more such examples, including ones that "have begun upon a real difference, continue even after that difference is lost." He then turns to the following example:  

The civil wars which arose some few years ago in Morocco, between the blacks and whites, merely on account of their complexion, are founded on a pleasant difference. We laugh at them; but I believe, were things rightly examined, we afford much more occasion of ridicule to the Moors. For, what are all the wars of religion, which have prevailed in this polite and knowing part of the world? They are certainly more absurd than the Moorish civil wars. The difference of complexion is a sensible and a real difference: But the controversy about an article of faith, which is utterly absurd and unintelligible, is not a difference in sentiment, but in a few phrases and expressions, which one party accepts of, without understanding them; and the other refuses in the same manner.

Now, a racialized civic war is, in some sense ridiculous. But Hume's point is that European religious wars are far more ridiculous than an ethnic civic war. And the reason for Hume's point is that European civil wars are, at bottom, rooted in disputes over unintelligible disagreements; whereas for Hume differences in skin color "is a sensible and a real difference."

Now, it is not entirely clear if form Hume there is a further implied contrast between "polite and knowing part of the world," that is civilization, and barbarism here (recall). The reason for my hesitation is that (a) it is possible to read Hume's "polite and knowing part of the world," as dripping with satire (given that people are killing each other over unintelligible principles) and (b) it is possible that here Hume thinks the Moroccan Moors are just as civilized as the Europeans. But on (b) there is evidence to think not because in a companion piece, "Of the Refinement in the Arts," Hume treats "Moor or Tartar," as the barbarous contrast to "civilized" (a word he uses here) "French or English."  So, it seems, then, that Hume think that when 'barbarians' have ethnic warfare this is more intelligible than when civilized have religious warfare.*

Ethnic differences are, then, for Hume real enough. And, in fact, Hume uses the Moorish civil war as an example of a real difference giving rise to differences of affections.+ (I don't think there is historical connection between the current conflict between Morocco and Polisario Front; but happy to be corrected.) And affection can itself be the effect of social differences that have had political significance ("they contract an affection to the persons with whom they are united, and an animosity against their antagonists"). So, affection is a social mechanism that facilitates group loyalty in possibly existing social group(s).**

Of course, some politically salient social groups are themselves rooted in affection, that is attachment to a person or family. Hume here is in the territory usually (recall this post) associated with Ibn Khaldun's discussion of 'Asabiyyah or 'asabiyya (Arabic: عصبيّة‎, ‘) or group feeling. Humean affection is one of the mechanisms (like sympathy) that generates or facilitates or reinforces group feeling. 

The reason I mention Ibn Khaldun is that he anticipates Hume in noting that in political life, affection as a form of group loyalty presupposes a form of self-subordination that is not obviously rooted in self-interest or even shared principles/conscience and often cannot be truly explained by these. It is clear that Hume thinks that affection may itself be caused by a kind of aesthetic ('splendour') or dramatic identification of the sort we have with Dramatis personae on a stage or a screen. (I think Ibn Khaldun would agree, although he has a tendency to emphasize more the significance of blood-lines/houses.)

Now, crucially, as Hume notes in the passage quoted at the top of this post, Hume is explicit that such attachments, we might call them personality-cults, are generally, or more likely, accompanied by violence. That is to say, if affection is the main source of group loyalty/cohesion, then on Hume's account violence is a more natural byproduct (because un-tempered by interest or principle). I wouldn't be surprised if Hume were thinking of blood feuds among clans. And this points to the other context or reason in which or why affection can turn violent is that in already polarized contexts affection amplifies contrasting life-styles ("spite and opposition to persons whose sentiments are different from his own.")

Now, Hume's own broader interest in his discussion here may well be due to his concern for lingering affection for the Stuarts among Tories and Scottish Highlanders. (This is clear from earlier versions of a companion essay, "Of The Parties Of Great Britain.") So I don't want to suggest his discussion is completely disinterested.

Okay, let me wrap up. One might have thought that as parliamentary regimes evolve and become more democratic with a broader franchise that affection reduces in significance. This is especially so once one is accustomed to see political parties either as aggregation of interests (as Madison and rational choice theory encourages) or as rooted in principle/ideology as (recall; and here) Burke has emphasized. But it is notable that even in the age of mass democracy, and open primaries, democratic political parties themselves give rise to family dynasties (Kennedy, Bush, Gore, Trudeau, Gandhi, etc.). It is an empirical question, that my comparative colleagues may be able answer, to what degree affection increases/decreases with more democratic primaries and selection mechanisms. What Hume alerts us to, is that personality-cults -- I know I have an oblique eye on the news -- may have fewer internal checks on turning violent not just in virtue of the nature of leadership, but also, and perhaps especially, in virtue of the form of identification and self-subordination (and spite toward others) of the followers.

 

 

 

Scientific Pragmatism Confronts Political Realism (Nagel vs Morgenthau)

Mr. Morgenthau's positive proposals as to how social problems ought to be approached exhibit an irresponsible romanticism. He rejects "scientism" because its universalist conception of social laws is allegedly unhistorical--though already J. S. Mill, for example, was entirely clear that the principles of Ricardian economics are applicable only under certain historical conditions. But what is sauce for the goose is evidently not sauce for the gander, for as the passage cited above shows, Mr. Morgenthau has no scruples in affirming "eternal" laws, provided that "more-than-scientific" man asserts them. There can be no mistaking Mr. Morgenthau's low opinion of what controlled inquiry can contribute to the understanding of social processes, or his enthusiasm for men of "higher insights." He has the courage to say that "There is no indication that the trained social scientist as actor on the social scene is more competent than the layman to solve social problems, with the exception of technical problems of limited scope"; and he does not hesitate to assert that "while fundamental social problems are impervious to scientific attack, they seem to yield to the efforts of ill-informed men who, while devoid of scientific knowledge, possess insights of a different and higher kind." Advances made through institution of rational methods of inquiry into such matters as public health, treatment of the insane, administration of the law, or education of the young, are apparently insignificant and merely technical achievements in his eyes! Just what social problems exist which are not specific and technical, is not clear from Mr. Morgenthau's rhetoric. And it is worth at least passing mention that the high esteem he exhibits for the daemonic "ill-informed" man endowed with a "higher kind" of wisdom, involves a fundamental surrender of critical intelligence to dogmatic authority. For to accept an insight simply because it is claimed to be a higher wisdom, is to declare as out of bounds the demand for a critical public appraisal of policies arrived at by such insights.
The pinnacle of political wisdom, Mr. Morgenthau contends, is recognition of the tragic character of life. Life is necessarily tragic, according to him, simply because all action is inherently "sinful" and "evil"-sinful and evil, since the springs of action are "irrational" forces, and the consequences of our actions can be neither calculated in advance nor controlled. However, political success must be measured by the degree to which one can and increase his power over others; and accordingly, "To know that the political act is inevitably evil, and to act nevertheless, is Mr. Morgenthau does not realize that his supposition that inherently irrational is intelligible only on an anthropomorphic nature. For the term "irrational" is meaningful only if the term is-and how is one to conceive of "rational forces" if not on the hypothesis an over-all plan and design? Indeed, Mr. Morgenthau's entire conception human nature is built squarely on Calvinistic foundations, though benefit of Christian theology. He defines the good life (with, despairing "alas!") in terms of domination over others; but he himself of any basis for evaluating political behavior except successful assertion of power. His political ethics is thus inherently and in his conception of things the anguish of those who have the struggle for power must simply be accepted as part of the sinful character of the world. That Mr. Morgenthau should think higher wisdom is certainly good reason for adopting a tragic view.

Mr. Morgenthau has misconceived the issue which those who see in the extension of scientific method to social problems regard emphasis is on intuition and insight as sources of political wisdom, to think proponents of scientific method wish to exclude religious experiences as contexts in which inspiration and belief But what is at stake in the debate between himself and "scientism" question concerning the sources or origins of political ideas and is at stake is the question how claims to knowledge and wisdom The recommendation to use scientific method is the recommendation of a way for deciding issues of factual validity and adequacy; it is not the recommendation of an exclusive way in which the universe may be confronted and experienced. Until Mr. Morgenthau recognizes this difference between questions of validity and of origin, he will be fighting with wind-mills. And until he proposes a better and more reliable method for establishing claims to knowledge than the method of science, his eloquence in behalf of "more-than scientific" man will count as eloquence in behalf of intellectual obscurantism.--Ernest Nagel The Yale Law Journal, May, 1947, 56(5): 908-909 reprinted in Logic Without Metaphysics.

Morgenthau's Scientific Man vs Power Politics is one of the founding documents of the so-called realist stream in international relations theory. IR theory has a kind of shadowy existence within contemporary analytic philosophy. In so far as there is any engagement with it, it tends to come through a Kantianized global justice perspective (with more recent work on ethics of immigration, global justice, global environmental ethics, human rights law, etc.) or various utilitarian approaches. I have found, for example, no mention of Morgenthau in Rawls, who is incredibly well read, in Nozick, or Amartya Sen.* Unsurprisingly, Shklar does cite Morgenthau.

I don't wish to claim that the hostile review Nagel gave of Morgenthau can explain such a pattern of silence. But it may be instructive for the mutual indifference. It also opens a window into Nagel's larger political theory. A key part of Nagel's response to Morgenthau is to claim that Morgenthau is criticizing "the dead duck of 19th century individualistic liberalism;" Nagel agrees with Morgenthau that it had a "shallow optimism" and "tidy rationalism of what is essentially the philosophy of the Enlightenment." Nagel agrees that mere "appeals to reason" won't solve humanity's problems. (LWM 378). Much of the best parts of Nagel's review expose the dated (implicit) philosophy of science of Morgenthau.  

The mention of Mill, above, signals that for Nagel liberalism can take on board not just a more historicized understanding of social explanation/science, but also, romanticism's insights into human need and individuality. That is to say, against Morgenthau's "irresponsible romanticism" (indebted to Nietzsche), Nagel places a more responsible romanticism indebted to Mill.** 

In fact, the previous paragraph alerts us to the fact that for Nagel, liberalism itself has changed character. In a companion review  of a political history (of A Generation of Materialism: 1871-1900) by Carlton Hayes it becomes clear that Nagel shares in the liberal self-understanding (familiar from people as broadly apart as Hobson, Mises, Hayek, and Lippmann) that "traditional liberalism" (LWM 383) was defeated by the rise of "neo-mercantilism" and "imperialism" amongst other isms (not the least racialized eugenics) at the end of the nineteenth century. And while Nagel's own views should not be confused with the neo-liberalism that can be traced back to the 1938 Lippmann colloquium, he understands his own liberalism as new, too. And while it is tempting to call his pragmatist liberalism, I am going to use 'scientific liberalism' as a term of art for Nagel's version.

Unlike other liberal friends of technocracy, Nagel's scientific liberalism is not oriented toward (possible) consensus. As I have noted (recall) it embraces pluralism, and this pluralism is rooted in a pluralist metaphysics in which no single perspective is ultimately privileged. In addition this metaphysics provides a kind of template for society: each individual has objective existence, but is simultaneously socially embedded. For Nagel, science is exemplary for, and instrumental to, how societies can progress in light of an be responsive to reasoned criticism. This is echoed in the criticism of Morgenthau's great man politics, when Nagel hails the "advances made through institution of rational methods of inquiry into such matters as public health, treatment of the insane, administration of the law, or education of the young." (LWM 380)

Now, much can be said about Nagel's diagnosis that Morgenthau's anthropology is de facto Calvinist. And that the recognition of a tragic character of life is no more than a mild cover for treating domination over others as the true end of politics. It is a tricky question to what degree this is a misreading. 

Nagel clearly thinks that a scientific politics ground in rational methods of inquiry is possible. And the implication of his argument is that Nagel thinks this is also possible in international affairs. It is unclear, however, whether Nagel believes that this is so because the international arena is not characterized by "the ineliminable struggle for power" (LWM 378) or whether he thinks, more likely I think, that rational methods of inquiry are also capable of properly analyzing such a struggle.

Somewhat surprisingly, part of Nagel's response to Morgenthau is to claim that Morgenthau confuses what may be called the context of origin/discovery from the context of validity/justification. And Nagel is happy to grant Morgenthau that non-scientific methods can be good sources of, what we may call, political nous. But Nagel denies that we should ground policy on them. Public policy should be guided by claims/theories have has survived the stringent testing and experimentation of science. 

It is a bit of shame that Nagel does not say a bit more about how scientific practice can develop experimental knowledge of international affairs. And one wonders to what degree he has developments at the Rand Corporation in mind. But let's leave that aside. While one can heartily embrace Nagel's #noheroes. Nagel's argument against Morgenthau is weaker than he may have realized, even on its own terms.

For, science is by its very nature a slow and at times frustrating process. Even if one grants that science is the only "reliable method for establishing claims to knowledge," it does not follow that the knowledge one would like to be guided by is ready at hand. (I am also leaving aside the question to what degree the values of public policy are aligned with the assumed values in the scientific community.) International crises and emergencies, or new technologies or diseases may cause new circumstances, that may unfold more rapidly than science can handle at first. As we have learned this year, fast science may create its own political challenges that call for forms of ungrounded- decisions. In conditions of radical or even moderate uncertainty it is possible that Morgenthau's statesman have to rise to  the occasion. To say that is not to slide into the dark side of obscurantism, but it is to recognize the possible present imperfections of our best forms of knowledge.

 

 

 

On the Polemics against Religious Philosophy in Analytic Philosophy

The views which have been noticed thus far attempt to limit the scope of scientific methods on the basis of considerations that are at least nominally scientific in character. The criticisms of science to which attention must next be directed do not even pretend to adduce scientific grounds for their claims, and are frankly based upon explicit theological and metaphysical commitments for which no experimental evidence is invoked. The chief burden of their complaints is that science offers no ‘'ultimate explanation” for the facts of existence; and their chief recommendation is the cultivation of “ontological wisdom” as the sole method for making “ultimately intelligible” both the order of the cosmos and the nature of the good life.

Some citations from recent writers will exhibit more clearly than would a paraphrase the unique mixture of pontifical dogmatism, oracular wisdom, and condescending obscurantism which seems to be the indispensible [sic] intellectual apparatus of this school of criticism. Ernest Nagel (1943) "Malicious Philosophies of Science" reprinted in Sovereign Reason, 37.

One of the sad spectacles of our age is to see otherwise mild-mannered and virtue-seeking religious philosophers cheer on the at times intemperate polemics of, say, Anscombe, Geach, and Plantinga. To say that it not to deny their philosophical contributions and skill in many contexts. And since I am not a stranger to polemics (and willing to grant I make fewer contributions to philosophy), even ill-tempered ones on the role of religion in philosophy, I am not casting stones that couldn't be thrown harder at me! 

It took me a long time to recognize that the championing of philosopher-brawlers (which is still endemic in wider analytic philosophy despite moves toward niceness), and the not infrequent closing of factional ranks, was itself a reflection of the sense of beleaguered-ness. And the reason I found it so hard to enter into that mind-set is that it seemed so self-evident to me that in the wider culture, Stateside, Christianity was by no means going extinct. But in riper age, I have come to recognize that behind all the aggressive political bluster, Christianity today exhibits all the signs of a world-historical implosion in the wealthier parts of the world. (That's compatible with phenomenal growth of Christianity elsewhere on the Planet.)* If I were Hegelian, I would say that the recent joyous flowering of analytic Christian, metaphysics is a sign of this! 

But I am not Hegelian. One oddity, however, is that if one goes over the classics of analytic philosophy, there is little explicit engagement with the status of theology and the role of religion in philosophy. Even Russell, who clearly was no friend of organized religion, claims, in a surprising moment of candor (not the least for the willingness to admit to an esoteric/exoteric distinction), that were he "speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God." ("Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas," 1947.)

And while I do not deny that verificationism undoubtedly also had an anti-Christian element to it, it was, as philosophical doctrines go, short-lived. Even so, it may well have reflected a broader climate that was very slow to disappear. One telling data-point for this thought, and to get a sense of that philosophical climate, it is notable that Gödel never published his ontological proof even after safely ensconced at the Institute for Advanced Studies. 

Okay, with that in place, I return (recall) to Nagel's "malicious philosophies of science." (See also, this post on the role of its companion piece, "Recent Philosophies of Science," in the displacement of dialectical materialism.) The role of 'malicious' in the title of the paper, gives a sense of its tenor. 

Nagel's paper itself has many virtues. He shows that many philosophical discussions -- which are still familiar -- about the purported gulf between mind and world; or how to make the qualitative nature of experience compatible with the purportedly mathematical character of modern science; or  the ways in which mechanistic (and/or deterministic) and physicalist science are taken to be incompatible with an orientation toward (emergentist) life or mind, all tend to rest on impoverished conceptions of the nature of science and the practice of experimentation in which much of science is rooted. 

But, it is notable, in the quoted passage above, that Nagel simply assumes that "experimental evidence" is required to ground or justify "explicit theological and metaphysical commitments." And while one can grant Nagel that science itself need not offer "ultimate explanation" for the "facts of existence" -- and, perhaps, in his day wisely does not try to do so [modern cosmology is frequently not so self-limiting] --, it follows straightforwardly from the undeniable possibility that experimental evidence may not settle all philosophical questions.+

The previous paragraph is not to excuse pontifical dogmatism or oracular wisdom. It's Thursday, and I carry my analytic membership proudly today. Nagel goes on to quote a number of eminent neo-Thomists (Gilson, Maritain and, although no neo-Thomists, Whitehead). I have to admit I do not find what they say especially puzzling or obscure. (But you may disagree.) What these positions have in common is a demand for (i) forms of explanation that go beyond efficient causes; (ii) an ultimate ground for existence beyond experience; (iii) and some connection between (i-ii) that conforms to cannons of intelligibility and a PSR.

The more interesting point I wish to make is that when Nagel shows, correctly, that science itself often goes beyond efficient causation, and even offers answers to 'why' questions, he himself notes that these (tentative) scientific answers are not themselves based on direct experiment: "in science the answer to the question "why" is...always a theory, from which the specific fact at issue may be deduced when suitable initial conditions are introduced." (SR: 29) And Nagel grants that these initial conditions are going to be arbitrary or brute in some sense on so at odds with (iii). (In addition, the theory may well go beyond the experimental evidence that helped generate and confirm it.)

That Nagel recognizes the significance of (iii) is itself made clear when he insists that the appeal to causa sui is itself "mystery." (SR 30) And while I have some sympathy with Nagel's point -- which echoes, in a curious reversal, Clarke's Newtonian response to Spinoza -- that there is something unsatisfactory, especially to those familiar with science's ability to explain surprising difference makers in the world, about the fact that "no matter what the world were like, no matter what the course of events might be, the same Ultimate Cause is offered an "explanation,"" (SR 30) it is a mistake to charge this 'explanation' with mystery. That something is relatively bad at explaining particulars does not make it oracular or mysterious. 

I do not mean here to re-litigate Nagel's polemics. But it is easier to understand that in an intellectual milieu dominated by ideas like, and presumably influenced by, Nagel's a certain kind of counter-polemic may have been welcome. 

Now, so far I have done little to make the animus behind Nagel's position intelligible. But there is no mystery there. Nagel fundamentally objects to two ideas: first, that "only one conception of spiritual excellence is valid." (SR 33) And Nagel clearly believes, not without reason, that his targets promote such (ahh) spiritual monism. And, second, he rejects the dogmatism about such spiritual monism ground in a kind of intellectual hierarchy. The second point is more implied (but see what he says about Maritain).

For, Nagel the two ideas he rejects have no standing because they are not "based upon objective measures of well-being." (SR 33) And such measures must, according to Nagel be ground in careful experimental practice. To be sure it is in virtue of his commitment to this that he lets the reader grasp that shares with the neo-Thomists a rejection of the utilitarian tendency toward eugenics (SR 32). So, unlike many friends of science and experimental practice, Nagel does not deny that science is implicated in many contemporary problems. But he believes that a kind of anti-scientism, "rejects the one instrument from which a resolution of these difficulties may reasonably be expected." (SR 33)**

Of course, even somebody sympathetic to Nagel, like myself, may note that he has no experimental (or historical/conceptual) ground to suppose there is just "one instrument" that can offer such a resolution. He smuggles a lot into what is 'reasonable' to expect. 

Let me wrap up. So while Nagel's heart is in the right place -- after all in line with (recall) his pluralism, he is defending the diversity of spiritual excellence! --, Nagel's argument goes off the rails because he thinks that the neo-Thomists (and other fellow travelers" unfairly take advantage of the fact that in "“in the midst of actual and impending disaster” and in “period of social crisis, when rational methods of inquiry supply no immediate solution for pressing problems” people are to listen to those that disparage or stress the limitations of the sciences. (SR: 18; see also “the mounting economic and political tensions of our age,” further down the page). That is to say Nagel echoes the epicurean and Humean polemic against superstition that it takes advantage of fear. But we don't need to be Yoda, to recognize that countering polemic with polemic is no path to wisdom.

 

 

 

21 March 1979: Foucault Returns to Ordoliberalism (XXXII)

Let’s go back to the theme of German liberalism, or ordoliberalism. You recall that in this conception—of Eucken, Röpke, Müller-Armack, and others—the market was defined as a principle of economic regulation indispensable to the formation of prices and so to the consistent development of the economic process. What was the government’s task in relation to this principle of the market as the indispensable regulating function of the economy? It was to organize a society, to establish what they call a Gesellschaftspolitik such that these fragile competitive mechanisms of the market can function to the full and in accordance with their specific structure. Such a Gesellschaftspolitik was therefore orientated towards the formation of a market. It was a policy that had to take charge of social processes and take them into account in order to make room for a market mechanism within them. But what did this policy of society, this Gesellschaftspolitik have to consist in for it to succeed in constituting a market space in which competitive mechanisms could really function despite their intrinsic fragility? It consisted in a number of objectives which I have talked about, such as, for example, avoiding centralization, encouraging medium sized enterprises, support for what they call non-proletarian enterprises, that is to say, broadly, craft enterprises, small businesses, etcetera, increasing access to property ownership, trying to replace the social insurance of risk with individual insurance, and also regulating all the multiple problems of the environment.
Obviously, this Gesellschaftspolitik includes a number of ambiguities and raises a number of questions. There is the question, for example, of its purely optative and “light” character in comparison with the heavy and far more real processes of the economy. There is also the fact that it entails a weight, a field, an extraordinarily large number of interventions which raise the question of whether they do in fact correspond to the principle that they must not act directly on the economic process but only intervene in favor of the economic process. In short, there are a number of questions and ambiguities, but I would like to emphasize the following: in this idea of a Gesellschaftspolitik there is what I would call an economic-ethical ambiguity around the notion of enterprise itself, because what does it mean to conduct a Gesellschaftspolitik in the sense this is given by Röpke, Rüstow, and Müller-Armack? On one side it means generalizing the “enterprise” form within the social body or social fabric; it means taking this social fabric and arranging things so that it can be broken down, subdivided, and reduced, not according to the grain of individuals, but according to the grain of enterprises. The individual’s life must be lodged, not within a framework of a big enterprise like the firm or, if it comes to it, the state, but within the framework of a multiplicity of diverse enterprises connected up to and entangled with each other, enterprises which are in some way ready to hand for the individual, sufficiently limited in their scale for the individual’s actions, decisions, and choices to have meaningful and perceptible effects, and numerous enough for him not to be dependent on one alone. And finally, the individual’s life itself—with his relationships to his private property, for example, with his family, household, insurance, and retirement—must make him into a sort of permanent and multiple enterprise. So this way of giving a new form to society according to the model of the enterprise, or of enterprises, and down to the fine grain of its texture, is an aspect of the German ordoliberals’ Gesellschaftspolitik.
What is the function of this generalization of the “enterprise” form? On the one hand, of course, it involves extending the economic model of supply and demand and of investment-costs-profit so as to make it a model of social relations and of existence itself, a form of relationship of the individual to himself, time, those around him, the group, and the family. So, it involves extending this economic model. On the other hand, the ordoliberal idea of making the enterprise the universally generalized social model functions in their analysis or program as a support to what they designate as the reconstruction of a set of what could be called “warm” moral and cultural values which are presented precisely as antithetical to the “cold” mechanism of competition. The enterprise schema involves acting so that the individual, to use the classical and fashionable terminology of their time, is not alienated from his work environment, from the time of his life, from his household, his family, and from the natural environment. It is a matter of reconstructing concrete points of anchorage around the individual which form what Rüstow called the Vitalpolitik. The return to the enterprise is therefore at once an economic policy or a policy of the economization of the entire social field, of an extension of the economy to the entire social field, but at the same time a policy which presents itself or seeks to be a kind of Vitalpolitik with the function of compensating for what is cold, impassive, calculating, rational, and mechanical in the strictly economic game of competition.
The enterprise society imagined by the ordoliberals is therefore a society for the market and a society against the market, a society oriented towards the market and a society that compensates for the effects of the market in the realm of values and existence. This is what Rüstow said in the Walter Lippmann colloquium I have talked about: “We have to organize the economy of the social body according to the rules of the market economy, but the fact remains that we still have to satisfy new and heightened needs for integration." This is the Vitalpolitik. A bit later, Röpke said: “Competition is a principle of order in the domain of the market economy, but it is not a principle on which it would be possible to erect the whole of society. Morally and sociologically, competition is a principle that dissolves more than it unifies.” So, while establishing a policy such that competition can function economically, it is necessary to organize “a political and moral framework,” Röpke says. What will this political and moral framework comprise? First, it requires a state that can maintain itself above the different competing groups and enterprises. This political and moral framework must ensure “a community which is not fragmented,” and guarantee cooperation between men who are “naturally rooted and socially integrated.”-Michel Foucault, 21 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 10, The Birth of Biopolitics, 240-243

The quoted passage, really a mini-essay, is Foucault's attempt to set up one side of the comparison between the German Ordos and the Chicago-school variants of neo-liberalism. In broad outlines Foucault is summarizing his earlier interpretation of the ORDOs, and we may see in this, just sound pedagogic repetition. Even so, this return to Freiburg, and the earlier Lippmann colloquium, also allows Foucault to be more precise in his own analysis and to deepen his treatment of the relationship between the Ordos' conception of Gesellschaftspolitik and their approach to Vitalpolitick. Foucault had touched on this, briefly, in his sixth lecture on 14 February (see p. 148). But clearly he felt the inadequacy of his earlier treatment. So, the repetition is not merely restatement, but also needed improvement in light of, I submit, the larger theme of the lecture course (that is the liberal art of government in relation to biopolitics).

And the key point Foucault wishes to make is that in one crucial respect, or at least a major theme in, the ORDOS' thinking is that it is not centered on let's say context-free, individual choice at all. But rather on embedding individuals into, and constructing the preconditions for, what we may call umwelts suitable to the needs and scale of humans. (We may call this the Protagoras commitment in Ordoliberalism.) The point then is to create environmental/social conditions such that meaningful choice is possible. And one way meaningfulness is operationalized by the ORDOs is by the circumstance of meaningful feedback mechanisms between choices (as causes) and their effects ('the individual’s actions, decisions, and choices to have meaningful and perceptible effects,").

In addition to creating the conditions of meaningful choice -- which echoes Adam Smith's conception of liberty --, the ORDOS favor, second, social circumstances in which the individual cannot be dominated by large businesses (and other institutions). That is to say, it must be possible to have meaningful exit options in the market place and other important social orders.

Somewhat surprisingly, and as I noted in commenting on lecture 5 (of 7 February), Foucault does not remind the audience that this second circumstance echoes and reinforces the ORDOS' political understanding of the, quoting now (recall) Mestmäcker, "restraining power" purpose and mechanisms of anti-trust policy, which is designed to prevent concentration of political power, and rent-seeking, by corporations and other favored social institutions through vigilant promotion of competition in the market place. 

That is to say, the commercial enterprise is supposed to be vulnerable to exit from below and horizontally from competitors. In both cases the independent state has responsibility to create these umwelt conditions. Foucault is right to wonder to what degree one can expect the state to have the will and competence to get this program right. 

Now, for those habituated in reading political thinkers of the past in terms of 'left' and 'right' (etc.), there is no doubt that the vitalpolitik of the ORDOS has distinctly illiberal socially conservative overtones connected to corporatist, even catholic traditions of social thought. And in light of the American experience of the conservative-libertarian alliance over (the policing of) family values, so ably documented (recall here; here) by Melinda Cooper.

I don't think this is how Foucault is reading them. But in the lecture he has a strange reticence to explain what the political purpose of their vitalpolitick is. So what follows is a bit speculative, but it is informed by Foucault's analysis of the ORDOS response (in lecture 5 and here) to liberal defeat in the 1930s. And, what I want to claim is that the justification for their vitalpolitik shares, and to some degree anticipates, Hannah Arendt's analysis that totalitarianism was made possible by, to simplify greatly, the mechanisms of alienation and isolation, reinforcing a stifling loneliness or solitude (personal and spiritual) characteristic of modernity. And on this picture totalitarianism is a kind of gigantic rein of the false that becomes a coping mechanism for this fragile existence.*

So, that's to say, the ORDOS choices becomes fully explicable if we see them not just as addressing the problem of how to design countervailing institutions that allow the individual to make meaningful choices and prevent corporate rent-seeking, but also, and primarily, as grounded in their analysis of, and a response to, the rise of totalitarianism. And while I do not want to ignore the ways in which the ORDOS are indebted to Marxist ideas of alienation and Republican ideals about non-domination, we cannot understand their analysis if we remove from it the lived reality of the democratic victory not just of caesarianism, but totalitarianism.

And so, while strictly speaking, Foucault is not wrong to say that the "enterprise society imagined by the ordoliberals is therefore a society for the market and a society against the market, a society oriented towards the market and a society that compensates for the effects of the market in the realm of values and existence;" what gives the ORDOS project its urgency and also its political salience, is the specter of totalitarianism.  The point of the “warm” moral and cultural values is not just to put a humane face on Homo Oeconomicus, but it is to prevent, to create inoculation against (viz., the road to serfdom) the rise of Hitlerism, which is what happens in the dissolution effectuated by wrongly directed, that is, monopolistic competition.

I should stop here. To offer this interpretation of the ORDOS is not to ignore the down-side risks of and instabilities (Foucault's "ambiguities") in their approach. But it is to note that Foucault's comparison between the ORDOS and Chicago is hampered by the fact that the latter, but not the former, take, as Foucault himself noted (recall) in lecture 9, the survival of liberal political life for granted. And while Foucault is clearly indifferent to that, we cannot afford that luxury.

 

David Hume's unusual (Lockean) argument for free trade

Nothing is more usual, among states which have made some advances in commerce, than to look on the progress of their neighbours with a suspicious eye, to consider all trading states as their rivals, and to suppose that it is impossible for any of them to flourish, but at their expence. In opposition to this narrow and malignant opinion, I will venture to assert, that the encrease of riches and commerce in any one nation, instead of hurting, commonly promotes the riches and commerce of all its neighbours; and that a state can scarcely carry its trade and industry very far, where all the surrounding states are buried in ignorance, sloth, and barbarism.

It is obvious, that the domestic industry of a people cannot be hurt by the greatest prosperity of their neighbours; and as this branch of commerce is undoubtedly the most important in any extensive kingdom, we are so far removed from all reason of jealousy. But I go farther, and observe, that where an open communication is preserved among nations, it is impossible but the domestic industry of every one must receive an encrease from the improvements of the others. Compare the situation of Great Britain at present, with what it was two centuries ago. All the arts both of agriculture and manufactures were then extremely rude and imperfect. Every improvement, which we have since made, has arisen from our imitation of foreigners; and we ought so far to esteem it happy, that they had previously made advances in arts and ingenuity. But this intercourse is still upheld to our great advantage: Notwithstanding the advanced state of our manufactures, we daily adopt, in every art, the inventions and improvements of our neighbours.--David Hume "Of the Jealousy of Trade"

Of the Jealousy of Trade presents itself as a companion piece to "Of the Balance of Trade," and is easily overshadowed by it. That's a shame because Hume's particular argument is still timely, as I look at the news reporting on Brexit talks. Unlike the more familiar Smithian ('absolute advantage') and Ricardian ('comparative advantage') arguments,* Hume's here is focused on what we may call the epistemic effects (or positive externalities) of trade. I assume this is familiar in the literature, but I had not noticed it before.

For Hume trade exposes us to innovations of others and induces imitation, learning, and what he calls "emulation" from them. And the effect of this is enhanced technology and productivity ("we daily adopt, in every art, the inventions and improvements"). I don't want to overstate the originality of Hume's argument not just because I may be unfamiliar with relevant contemporary authors, but also because it is pretty clear that Hume is extending an important argument by Locke.

Recall that in Locke's art of government (in sections 41-42 of the chapter 5 of "Two Treatises") and in his (1695) "Further Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money," Locke advocates for policies that would grow the population and simultaneously grow their skill/productivity. This argument was noticed and emphasized by Toland in his argument for Jewish emancipation (recall). And, in fact, Hume' echoes one of Locke's key arguments. Hume writes, shortly after the passage quoted above, "But if our neighbours have no art or cultivation, they cannot take them; because they will have nothing to give in exchange. In this respect, states are in the same condition as individuals."

In section 43, of Chapter of the Two Treatises, Locke had made the same conceptual point in terms of the American Indian being unable to benefit from the same amount of labor in land as the European because he lacked wealthy neighbors. Locke's point here is often missed because scholars and critics are more focused on debates about his labor theory of value and to what degree these passages support colonialism. But it would be very surprising if Hume had not noticed the point. After all, this is treated as axiomatic by Hume in this essay ("it is obvious, that the domestic industry of a people cannot be hurt by the greatest prosperity of their neighbours;").

I do not mean to ignore the significance of pro-European free trade argument ("a British subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany, Spain, Italy, and even France itself") lodged at the end of  the little essay. But I have already discussed it in the context of Foucault's arguments of 24 January 1979, lecture 3, The Birth of Biopolitics. 54-6.

 

On Caesarian Democracy

For these are inherent in plebiscitarian Caesarism, or so-called 'Caesarian democracy', with its direct appeal to the masses: demagogical slogans; disregard of legality in spite of a professed guardianship of law and order; contempt of political parties and the parliamentary system, of the educated classes and their values; blandishments and vague, contradictory promises for all and sundry; militarism; gigantic, blatant displays and shady corruption. Panem et circenses once more and at the end of the road, disaster.--Lewis Namier (1958) "The First Mountebank Dictator" in Vanished supremacies, 55.

A few weeks ago, I read Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. (One of the few works by Marx I warmly recommend!) A book I publically bemoaned I had wished I had read it before. In discussion on social media, Michael Rosen, I think, encouraged me to seek out Namier's short essay partially quoted above. This essay is like Marx's focused on Louis Napoleon/Napoleon III. Namier (a historian) himself is, as the first sentence suggests, indebted, in more ways than one, to Max Weber, who had also used Napoleon III as an example of plebisciarian Caesarism. 

While thanks to modern media, caesarian democracy is a risk in all democratic systems, as Weber argued, it is especially a danger in political systems where there is an elected president who has broad executive powers, and with norms that allow for even broader extra-constitutional powers in emergency circumstances. I tend to think of these presidential systems (e.g., France, Brazil, Russia, the United States, etc.) as approaching elective monarchies with serious downside risks lurking in the background of devolving into dictatorships/tyrannies. For, once power has been legally obtained, usurping more power, and destroying or corrupting the would be countervailing powers, is not unachievable if the circumstances permit and there is a ruthless will.

Namier offers three important observations: first, the plebiscitarian Caesar is generally most underestimated by those that know him best: political rivals and intellectual/business elites. We might say that a certain kind of functional distance enables the plebiscitarian Caesar. By this I hope to capture the thought that for those whose business it is to judge functional and what we may call situational competence, the would be plebiscitarian Caesar tends to underwhelm. (Often, these elites share an anti-democratic tendency.)

But that is compatible with the further thought that such a would be leader may have the image of good leadership qualities from, as it were, a distance--even if, due to effects of mass modern media, this is not felt as distant at all. And in fact, the rejection by the cadres, intelligentsia or clerks or functionaries and other elites of the would be plebiscitarian Caesar may well be treated as a proxy for good leadership by the larger electorate.

Of course, and this gets me to Namier's second and connected observation, "modern dictatorship arises amid the ruins of an inherited social and political structure, in the desolation of shattered loyalties it is the desperate shift of communities broken from their moorings." (54) The connection between these two observations is that rejection by the cadres/elites (etc.) starts to be a signal in the would-be-plebiscitarian-Caesar's favor once the trust and even legitimacy of existing elites is endangered or broken (by revolution, financial crisis, public health disaster, defeat in war, religious crisis, hyper-inflation, famine, etc.).

To be sure, Namier allows that dictatorship can arise in other ways (he is discussing a particular "modern" kind). And what he says is also compatible with the thought that would-be-plebiscitarian Caesars can be defeated before they rise to power and, perhaps (although Namier does not explore this), even after they have so risen. Namier leaves it unclear how desperate and how broken the community needs to be.

There is a third, more subtle and helpful observation lurking in Namier's analysis. On his view the would-be-plebiscitarian-Caesar re-activates the past in highly "peculiar" ways. There is a particular kind of "imitation" of the past "engendered by historical memory." In contemporary scholarly discussion this is often treated in terms of nostalgia, but I don't think that's quite right. For there is a real desire to repeat the past,  but a past that has been now sanitized or, as Namier notes, influenced by legend or myth and without complexity.

Now, rather than closing with commentary on contemporary politics/politicians, I want to close with a concern. I often notice in my best students the following reflex: many of today's real problems (unfolding environmental disaster, redistributive monetary policy, etc.) are theorized and understood in terms of a lack of democracy or imperfectly functioning democracies which are taken to thwart the will of the people. But when I note, say, that most of the problems they diagnosed have been generated by liberal democracies -- including some they admire greatly --, we reach a stale-mate. There is very little room for suggesting that the people can get it wrong or that our ordinary democratic functioning may be the problem without simultaneously becoming or sounding genuinely anti-democratic (or elitist in various ways).

But Caesarian democracy is always a latent possibility. And it is a possibility in virtue of features of ordinary democratic life. For, ordinary democratic politics cannot prevent major economic and natural disruptions to the social order. It can at best mitigate the effects of these, but as we have learned in the last decade, it will do so in ways that are generously described as 'messy.'  And while the conditions under which caesarian democracy will achieve victory may not be regular, they are frequent enough that they should be a constitutive feature of democratic theorizing. But that requires we theorize democracy without self-serving myths; denying such myths may not be welcome.