Digressions&Impressions

Parfit, Long Termism and Existential Risk: and Nietzsche's Fearless ones.

Some people believe that there cannot be progress in Ethics, since everything has been already said. Like Rawls and Nagel, I believe the opposite. How many people have made Non-Religious Ethics their life’s work? Before the recent past, very few. In most civilizations, most people have believed in the existence of a God, or of several gods. A large minority were in fact atheists, whatever they pretended. But, before the recent past, few atheists made Ethics their life’s work. Buddha may be among this few, as may be Confucius, and a few Ancient Greeks and Romans. After more than a thousand years, there were a few more between the Sixteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Hume was an atheist who made Ethics part of his life’s work. Sidgwick was another. After Sidgwick, there were several atheists who were professional moral philosophers. But most of these did not do Ethics. They did Meta-Ethics. They did not ask which outcomes would be good or bad, or which acts would be right or wrong. They asked, and wrote about, only the meaning of moral language, and the question of objectivity. Non-Religious Ethics has been systematically studied, by many people, only since the 1960s. Compared with the other sciences, Non-Religious Ethics is the youngest and the least advanced.

I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most people think. Compare three outcomes:

(1) Peace.
(2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of the world’s existing population.
(3) A nuclear war that kills 100%.

(2) would be worse than (1), and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between (2) and (3) is very much greater.
My view is held by two very different groups of people. Both groups would appeal to the same fact. The Earth will remain inhabitable for at least another billion years. Civilization began only a few thousand years ago. If we do not destroy mankind, these few thousand years may be only a tiny fraction of the whole of civilized human history. The difference between (2) and (3) may thus be the difference between this tiny fraction and all of the rest of this history. If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a second.
One of the groups who hold my view are Classical Utilitarians. They would claim, as Sidgwick did, that the destruction of mankind would be by far the greatest of all conceivable crimes. The badness of this crime would lie in the vast reduction of the possible sum of happiness.
Another group would agree, but for very different reasons. These people believe that there is little value in the mere sum of happiness. For these people, what matters are what Sidgwick called the ‘ideal goods’—the Sciences, the Arts, and moral progress, or the continued advance towards a wholly just world-wide community. The destruction of mankind would prevent further achievements of these three kinds. This would be extremely bad because what matters most would be the highest achievements of these kinds, and these highest achievements would come in future centuries.
There could clearly be higher achievements in the struggle for a wholly just world-wide community. And there could be higher achievements in all of the Arts and Sciences. But the progress could be greatest in what is now the least advanced of these Arts or Sciences. This, I have claimed, is Non-Religious Ethics. Belief in God, or in many gods, prevented the free development of moral reasoning. Disbelief in God, openly admitted by a majority, is a recent event, not yet completed. Because this event is so recent, Non-Religious Ethics is at a very early stage. We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement. Since we cannot know how Ethics will develop, it is not irrational to have high hopes.--Parfit (1984) Reasons and Persons, Section, 154. "HOW BOTH HUMAN HISTORY, AND THE HISTORY OF ETHICS, MAY BE JUST BEGINNING"

After my rant went viral this past weekend, Richard Pettigrew reminded me that if I really want to understand the intellectual roots of contemporary long-termism I can't ignore the last two pages of Reasons and Persons, quoted in full above. (Strictly speaking these are not the last two because the appendices are not wholly irrelevant, especially the material on social discounting.) And my hypothesis was that it would help explain, perhaps, something of the evident sectarianism that longtermism generates in its adherents. And when I returned to this material, I was, of course, immediately struck by the choice between 99% vs 100% extinction. And I started to think of objections.

But I hope you will forgive me if I step back first. For, I noticed that the hypothetical extinction scenarios are introduced with, and framed by, an implied contrast between [A] "Non-Religious Ethics" and Religious Ethics. The first oddity here is that the contrast is not drawn in the linguistically more accurate contrast between atheist ethics and theistic ethics (which in turn comes in monotheistic and polytheistic versions). Embedded in this contrast [A] is another explicit contrast (non-trivially indebted to Kant's "What is Enlightenment?") between [B] the "free development of moral reasoning" and the unfree development of moral reasoning (found in so-called 'Religious Ethics). And this, in turn, is connected to the contrast between [C] young ("recent past") and old ("more than a thousand years" etc.), which turns out to track [D] a contrast between the possibility of "greatest progress" and proven failure. And, again, this is connected to the contrast between [E] the "very few" and the very many. In addition, there is an implied contrast between [F] (a pacific) "a world-wide community" and the state of nature among nation-states. This, in turn is linked to the fact, [G] there is a to be hoped for possible consensus which contrasts with our existing cacophony. There are, finally, two further connected contrasts: (i) there is a contrast (again echoing Kant) between [H] irrational hopes (characteristic of superstition) with rational (or at least not irrational) hopes, and (ii) [I] the contrast between knowledge (of the past) and uncertainty (of the future).

As a two-fold aside, first, Parfit explicitly leaves open -- one need not be Straussian about this -- that this last contrast [D] may involve the practice of esoteric speech or dissembling: "A large minority were in fact atheists, whatever they pretended." One wonders what grounds this 'in fact.' And second, it is interesting that Parfit treats Buddha and Confucius as possible exemplars of this practice of pretending. To the best of my knowledge (and I know slightly more about the case of Confucius) this idea was popular in the wake of Bayle's linking of Spinoza to both Confucius and Buddha. (I have no idea if Parfit gets it directly or indirectly from Bayle, but in Bayle, too, we find the linking of these matters to esotericism.) And my guess is that Bayle shaped some of the orientalist tropes that helped found the study of comparative civilizations in the late nineteenth century.

I don't mean to suggests that nine-fold contrast [A-I] is exhaustive. Nearly all of these contrasts are not argued for in Parfit's book. (Please feel free  to correct me!) Such a list of contrasts is characteristic of what I call 'philosophic prophecy' by which I mean the structured ways in which concept formation by philosophers is aided by rhetorical or literary imagery that shapes the reception of (more rational) arguments and thereby can shape possible futures. And I would have given you a more detailed explanation of this claim in light of the typical nature of philosophic prophecy.

But then I noticed something remarkable. In the quoted paragraphs, Parfit is treating the 'death of God' as a world-historical thesis which gives ground to the greatest possible (non-irrational) hopes. This is a feature and not a bug because it also informs the very plausibility of Parfit's rather dramatic claim that the gulf between (2) and (3) is larger than the gulf between (1) and (2). (For a certain kind of theist this would be question begging.)

That the death of God is a world historical event -- in part for its effect on morality -- is a thesis associated with Nietzsche. And one of its canonical formulations is in Nietzsche's Gay Science, Book V, section/aphorism 343. So, it is no surprise -- although it shocked me -- that this very aphorism supplies Parfit with the epigraph to his book:

At last the horizon appears free to us again, even granted that it is not bright; at last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an ‘Open sea.

Parfit's epigraph also evokes the end of Book I of Hume Treatise as well as a famous passage of Socrates in Phaedo 99c–d, and all three cases (just like in Parfit) the very nature of philosophy, and its future, can be said to be at stake. Parfit himself reminds of his affinity with them in a passage in the book, "I would far prefer to have lived through the previous two and a half centuries, having had among my friends Hume, Byron, Chekhov, Nietzsche, and Sidgwick." As it happens Gay Science, Book V, section/aphorism 343 also is one of the texts that gave me idea of the existence of philosophical prophecy (since in it Nietzsche describes two kinds of such prophecy).

Crucially for present purpose is Nietzsche's attitude toward the rather grim immediate future: "This lengthy, vast and uninterrupted process of crumbling, destruction, ruin and overthrow which is now imminent: who has realised it sufficiently today to have to stand up as the teacher and herald of such a tremendous logic of terror, as the prophet of a period of gloom and eclipse, the like of which has probably never taken place on earth before?" Nietzsche feels not "sympathy" with the victims of history, "but rather like a new and indescribable variety of light, happiness, relief, enlivenment, encouragement, and dawning day? ... In fact, we philosophers and "free spirits" feel ourselves irradiated as by a new dawn by the report that the "old God is dead"; our hearts overflow with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation." (If you are shocked by this God is not dead for you.) In Nietzsche the price of progress is destruction of the old order so that we can breed (either culturally or genetically, i leave that aside) higher kind of men.

Now, notice that Parfit gives a classical utilitarian and elitist (that is, Nietzschean) argument for why 3 is worse than 2.* But that's not sufficient for his argument. He also needs to offer an argument for why 3 being worse than 2 is itself worse than 2 being worse than 1. But no such argument against "most people" is given. (I have some sympathy for the idea that philosophy is not a democracy.) We only receive an explanation for why total extinction (3) is worse than (2). And I do not think Parfit has an argument that is non-question begging because it presupposes the unfolding (as of yet "uncompleted") Death of God, that is, a kind of rational faith or hope that once completed will become self-evident. Among the fruits of this hope are the captains of longtermism.+

 

The Long Haul Covid Glass is very half empty.

It's time for another long haul covid update at ca 11 months. (For my "covid diaries," see here;  here; here;  here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here;  here;  here; here; here,  here; here; here; here; and here). It's pretty clear now that my situation has deteriorated since the late Summer, but before I get to that first some of the decent news:

1. The ENT (ear nose throat) specialist came up with a plausible plan to tackle the after-after-effects of a swimmer's ear (which was interfering with my sleep patterns), which in combination with chronic sinusitis and a malfunctioning Eustachian tube was causing irritation when I am horizontal. I think the new meds are working. But it's not gone yet.

2. Since the break, I have now taught two sessions of my course without collapsing half way and feeling almost normal in doing so. (We'll see what the students say on the evals later.) It's really joyous to be in the class-room.

3. At the suggestion of my better half, after a week of no painkillers at all, I now (largely) only take pain-killers when the headaches prevent me from sleeping. Otherwise I rest in bed. The good news is that the permanent headache and nausea have ended. (Her hypothesis was that I was suffering side effects from the painkillers.) The bad news is I do spend a lot of time in bed feeling crappy.

4. On the not too crappy days, I walk about 8km/day. (Some of you may have noticed my new hobby: pictures that make me peaceful.)

Okay, that exhaust the glass is half full part. Here's a lot of the mediocre news:

A. The morning after the seminar, I start having a headache in my sleep. I woke up with throbbing headache and nauseau. And that headache can last up to 36-48 hrs. (That is now!)

B. All multiperson social interactions trigger what I call head fatigue and headaches. (One on one, especially casual conversation is not so bad.) Zoom is even worse.

C. I avoid cycling because it too gives me a weird head fatigue and headache. (Most of my walks I do with noise canceling headphones on--but wouldn't dare to bike like that.)

D. My occupational physician has decided that I am in no position to increase my workload next semester. So, I will remain half-time. Even though I agree, this depresses me greatly because the undergrad teaching brings the best out in me. (We're now deciding whether I should teach the large tried and tested lecture course on history of political theory or a new course on feminist theory.)

E. I have been referred to an ergo-therapist/occupational therapist. Unfortunately, they have long wait lists, but it looks like I can start in a few weeks with someone near my home.

F. I had such an unpleasant interaction with my (Dutch) neurologist, that I wrote a pointed email the next day which led to a new appointment later in the month. Short version: intake was done by a medical student. By the time the neurologist showed up, I has such a headache and fatigue that all i wanted was the meeting to end. He thought all my symptoms were due to post-viral effects (so no stroke or tumor--good news!) But what I found astonishing was that the physician claimed (a) I was clearly improving, and (b) that I would make full recovery. The next morning I wrote the email from my work address (and signed 'prof') and name-dropped my better half and a comment that most patient complaints are due to miscommunication. I got a response within 30 seconds, and a new appointment in a few weeks.:)

G. As a comparison, I am supposed to see a neurologist in February in London in the NHS. For various reasons that's bad timing. Trying to change that meeting earlier in the week involved four phone calls--several transfers, and a voice message that may or may not get a response! 

H. Meanwhile thanks to sleuthing of my better half, I am now exploring experimental medical trajectories, especially low dose naltrexone in a private clinic in London. My Dutch and UK GPs will give me their view on this treatment this week. The Long Haul clinic in London have promised me feedback next week--I am especially interested in what they have to to say. My occupational physician thinks it worth a try.

I. Because of the class prep/grading, my serious headaches and the effort to obtain more specialized medical care are so exhausting, I am not doing much of any academic writing or even refereeing. (I try to do a few blogs each week, so as not to get too down.) But the headaches make it hard to find space/time for it. 

J. Starting in January my work status will change subtly because there will be an effort to start preparing a possible social security file. (After two years of illness I would get kicked into social security system.) This means that the university has to make a good faith effort to create 'fitting' work for me. That will be interesting, but more about that next year.

K. On Sunday, my sister took me to the unveiling of the stone of (recall) Arthur Wijnschenk. I was sick after. But it felt important to show support for his sister and her family. More selfishly, I wanted a moment to mark my own loss. I was sad I could barely interact with a lot of old friends, but I made some small talk in the edges of the event.  My sister found a bench under a tree near the grave, so I could stay for the whole ceremony.

 

That wraps it up. It's fascinating to see physicians avoid giving you care because they know they can't help you (leaving aside the subtle pressures of rationing operating in the background). Because covid started with lung problems, a lot of the chronic care is oriented toward lungs/breathing, and this generates odd passive aggressiveness among rehab facilities--the emails to me and my occupational physician are really quite striking. (My heart and lungs seem fine.) 

I get a lot out of the mutual support of others who are struggling with long haul. That's basically a few chat messages per week checking in. Because of these posts of mine I have also become a resource for new, long haulers. I hate to tell them I don't have any magic cures.

A few years ago I did a series of posts on Elizabeth Barnes' The Minority Body (recall here; here; here); and here). For me, the take home message was that all living is living within one's constraints. The adjustment process to my new constraints is frustrating, and generates lots of fantasies of sabbatical-like research escapism (especially because I can read and write pretty much normally again). And I don't especially like it (recall) when philosophizing is a source of escapism. But it could be worse.

 

Contextual Naturalism, Ernest Nagel, and The Philosophy of a Free Society.

It follows that the human scene is as much an integral part of nature, and as valid a subject for the philosopher's concern with basic features of existence, as is any of its other sectors. As contextualistic naturalism views them, man and his works are not inexplicable occurrences, incomparable in every respect with other natural processes. Men come into being and act the way they do only because of the operations of natural forces, and they perish or cease to behave as men when forces no less natural disrupt the normal organization of their bodies and of their fields of behavior. On the other hand, though the conditions of man’s life are thus continuous with the rest of nature, his behavior exhibits features which are discontinuous with other parts of existence. For man is not simply another odd item in the inexhaustible catalogue of created things. He possesses the apparently unique gift of an inquiring mind, which enables him not only to act under the compulsion of internal springs of action and external pressures, but also to direct his impulses and to master many of the forces in his environment.

This gift of intelligence man owes to the organization of his body and the character of his environment, and no supernatural agency or disembodied soul is required to explain it. It is this organization, complicated by the structure of his surroundings, which also accounts for men’s moral and evaluative behaviors. The possession of needs and preferences, and the exercise of reflection upon them in the interest of fulfilling and harmonizing them, are as natural to man as is, for example, the property of a magnet to repel or attract another magnet. In any event, it is in the radical plurality of men’s needs and in the limitations which their physical and social environment impose upon their fulfillment, that contextualistic naturalism locates the source and urgency of moral problems. Accordingly, it does not conceive the primary moral problem to be that of discovering or actually instituting some fixed set of ethical norms valid everywhere and for all time. For basic moral problems are plural in number and specific in character, and are concerned with the adjustment, in the light of causes and consequences, of competing impulses occurring in specific environmental contexts. There can therefore be no general or final solution to the moral predicaments of mankind; the moral problem is the perennial one of finding ways and means for eliminating needless suffering and for organizing in a reasonable manner the energies of men.

The advocacy of a responsible intellectual method, especially in matters pertinent to social and ethical issues as well as in philosophy, is thus an emphatic strain in the writings of contextualistic naturalists. For reliable knowledge is the end-product of a reflective process, involving the use of experimental controls over ideas which initially have the status of tentative hypotheses; and it is this procedure which must be employed if reliable knowledge and reason- able evaluations are to be attained in the settlement of social and moral conflicts. This method of science supplies no guarantees against error, it does not preclude alternative solutions to problems, and it certifies none of its conclusions as eternally valid. But since it is in essence a self-corrective method, and involves the continued criticism of its findings in the light of evidence capable of public inspection, it is a method which can discover its own errors. It is in any case the sole method which has historically shown itself able to yield intellectual and practical mastery over various segments of nature. From the systematic extension of the use of this method to the problems of men, contextualistic naturalists confidently anticipate an increased moral enlightenment. Compared with many fashionable philosophies contextualistic naturalism is almost prosaically sober. It contributes to the current intellectual scene no apocalyptic visions, no thunderous absolutes, no unshakeable certainties. It offers no spectacular promises of salvation. It is essentially scientific and secular in temper, but confident that the concentration of scientific methods upon specific problems will yield a rich harvest of genuine knowledge. It is sane and reasonable at a time when the tides of irrationalism run high in the world and when substitutes for the Appolonian virtues are at a premium. It expresses the convictions of a people confident that a bold but disciplined intelligence is still a creative power in the world.--Ernest Nagel (1947) "Philosophy and the American Temper" reprinted in Sovereign Reason (1954), pp. 56-7 (emphases added).

The other day, I called attention to Ernest Nagel's vision for philosophy of science (which is how he is remembered, if remembered at all). I wouldn't call his (1961) The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation especially lyrical. But even if we leave aside his role in constructing what became analytic philosophy, his essays -- mostly reviews, polemics, and serious studies of the major intellects of his day -- are full arresting asides and rhetorical gems (below I quote a few more).

The passage quoted above was written for a "European audience, and appeared in a French translation in the Chronique des Etats-Unis, a bi-monthly publication of the American office of Information in Paris, In April 1947" (309). I have found almost nothing about this periodical, but it stands to reason it was an instrument of the US State Department or the CIA. But I assume here that it was written before the cold war was a reality, although Nagel was already (recall) hostile to Marxism. In the following years he would publish withering reviews (in the Partisan Review; and Jphil) of Cornforth's Leninist attempts at refuting Carnap, logical empiricism, and pragmatism. So, while anachronistic, it would not be misleading to call "Philosophy and the American Temper" (hereafter: American Temper) a philosophy for cold war liberalism.

American Temper is a short essay. Part of the argument of the essay is a denial that there is a distinctive American philosophy. (Nagel shows no interest in indigenous thought.) He claims this follows straightforwardly from commitment to a "democratic way of life," which shows itself in a restraint from top-down imposition of an authorized philosophy and the expectation of pluralism that is, that the freedom to develop "alternative conceptions of nature and man" will be pursued (50). 

While I tend to think of Nagel as the leader of the scientific wing of twentieth century pragmatism, in American Temper, Nagel describes pragmatism as a decaying research program (53). That here Nagel is describing his own commitments as a 'contextual naturalist,' we can accept on no less authority than Isaac Levy (writing in the Routledge Encyclopedia). I mention this because while Nagel's association with contextual naturalism was noted by contemporary readers and reviewers of Nagel's essay (see here; here), the term never caught on. In a beautiful essay, Lawrence Cahoone makes an excellent case that Nagel's contextual naturalism is very indebted to Morris Cohen. In American Temper Nagel himself grants (53-4) that it grows out of later writings of Dewey, Sheldon's (1942) America's Progressive Philosophy, which is a species of process philosophy, and a collection edited by Krikorian (1944) Naturalism and the Human Spirit, which includes many philosophers associated with Columbia at mid century.

The cardinal thesis of contextual naturalism is "the essentially incomplete fundamentally plural character of existence, in which no overarching pattern of development can be discerned, and which qualitative discontinuities and loose conjunctions are as ultimate features as are firm connections and regular cycles of change." (54) This is clearly now an unfashionable, metaphysical doctrine.+ But we can hear in its pluralism echoes in the (dappled world, disunity) commitments of those associated with the Stanford School of the Philosophy of Science.* Since Nagel was Suppes' supervisor the connection is not wholly coincidental. 

The point of calling it 'contextual' is explained by the "emphasis upon the contextual conditions for the occurence and for the manifested properties of everything whatsoever--upon the fact a quality an objective constituent of nature even though its existence depends on the relations in which it stands to other things." (55) This generates an anti-reductionism and a general mistrust of eliminativist strategies. (How this fits with so-called Nagel reduction is not my present concern.)

Now, I noted recently, that Nagel's philosophy of science is not attracted to the idea that science is a means of silencing others in the name of a unified authority. Kuhn's philosophy of science is not just a methodological alternative, but also a political alternative. And while science contains differential expertise and skill, Nagel views it more as an open-ended conversation responsive to criticism and reasons. This point is echoed in American Temper: "involves the continued criticism of its findings in the light of evidence capable of public inspection." And in this sense Nagel views science as a model for democratic society worth having. To what degree the science of our day would still be thought of as such an apt model is worth asking.

Alongside this is a rejection of ethics as a monistic, authoritative discipline imposing normative rules on the rest of us. Rather Nagel views ethics more in the spirit of what is now known as mechanism design. Its task is to find local, temporary ethical solutions to practical problems in light of our plural commitments in "specific environmental contexts." If there is an overarching theme it is the elimination of needless suffering. Obviously this slogan does not settle important questions (whose suffering will count; by whose light needless; and at what cost elimination?, etc.), but it gives the sense of the spirit of the project which is really about the never final organization of energy of men. The liberalism on offer is one with affinity to the New Deal.

We can also see that Nagel's vision for the philosophy of science as a template for a democratic society is itself ground 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. 

Given that circumstances are constantly changing this is a philosophy of forever-unfinished-business, self-conscious of the fact that any proposed solution in the moment will seem archaic at a later date. As I wrap up, Nagel's comment on this point is worth quoting: 

contextualistic naturalists exhibit a profound distrust of philosophic systems which attempt to catch once for all the variegated contents of the world in a web of dialectical necessity. They are keenly conscious of the limitations of purely formal analysis even when they engage in it. For they recognize that a logic, no matter how subtle, provides no warrant concerning matters of fact unless it is supported by controlled observation. Indeed, they sometimes show an almost pathological fear that those concerned with formal analysis may be deceived into supposing that nature is as coherently organized and as simple as are their intellectual constructions. (54)

I hope readers have noticed that Nagel calls his own contextual naturalism 'sane and reasonable' and a 'sober' alternative to more fashionable and fanciful philosophies. There is an unapologetic willingness to develop the  apollonian edifices of civilization. But this way of framing it, and the acknowledged pathology -- the fear that controlled technique may facilitate a form of intellectual self-deception --, suggests recognition of the fact that some forces in our environment, including our own impulses, have dionysian roots that may haunt us. Nagel's analytic head is conjoined to the heart of a disciplined romantic.  

Digressions in the Time of Cholera

How are you feeling? If you are like me, you've been in lockdown in your house for several weeks now. 

Likely, your experiences are unlike anything you've felt before. Because of the ubiquity of your experiences--weird as they are--they seem too banal to write down. Yet, it's important to do so. Keep a journal. We know a lot about the Great Plague because people like you and me chose to keep diaries, not letting the narrative be dominated by the few. Look back on what you have learned later. Hopefully there is a later. 

Initially, you might have tried to soldier on as you did before, synchronously teaching your classes through Zoom, and getting utterly exhausted in the process. You might have tried to remain a productive scholar, maybe even crank up your productivity, because that's what Newton did, apparently. Maybe you've started baking, knitting, doing your own home repairs, cutting your own hair. 

But now, as the weeks wax on, all that busyness cannot take away this growing feeling of clarity. This clarity is not merely an intellectual feeling. The ubiquitous sound of cars has all but died away. The air is crisp and clear. The birds have never sung more loudly than before. The streets are all but abandoned. 

There are lots of things presenting themselves to you that you have always known, but that you have never truly known. You always knew that departmental meetings are mostly not needed. Now you really know how many meetings we need (it seems more than a few a year, but fewer than weekly. We met weekly in the months leading up to the closure and all those meetings that seemed so important seem like they can often be handled through a vote by email).--Helen de Cruz, "Clarity"@Cocooners.

Helen's piece deploys the phenomenological method by using an irruption, or bracketing, to make visible the previously suppressed and, thereby, to change our practices. There is no doubt something therapeutic and cathartic about that at a time where one may justifiably feel vulnerable and powerless. I am, of course, partially joking about Helen's embrace of phenomenology. But what we may label as the critique of busyness [or Betriebsamkeit] is a recurring theme of Heidegger's thought.

With Heidegger in mind, it's indeed a bad thing when philosophy becomes any kind of soldiering, including soldiering on. And in so far as Helen is calling for both self-care and a critical attitude toward existing oppressive structures, including structures ordinarily not felt to be oppressive, it is difficult to disagree. In addition, her particular desire to keep track of the injustices and outrages that occur during the pandemic (in order, no doubt, to do better after) is salutary.

And, yet, and yet.

At any given time, the world outside of professional philosophy is full of genuine misery: torture, refugees, famine, abuse, war, discrimination, etc. In addition, professional philosophy itself is characterized by bad structural features and some awful practices many of which not conducive to true philosophy. Against those that wish to say that we live in special times, I am inclined to say back, not from the cosmic perspective Sub specie aeternitatis, but from the all-too-human imperfect limited perspective: the-pandemic-present is not really so special. Not because I buy into a narrative of progress, but rather because suffering, including politically preventable suffering, is part of the human condition. 

By this I do not wish to promote indifference or quietism, or to attack philosophy from a position of service or (since Helen invokes Dewey) a pragmatist conception of philosophy that aims to improve the world. I also do not wish to attack those that wish to bring their expertise or difficult questions (or distinctions) to bear on the present circumstances. 

But insofar as philosophy is necessary, and one's individual philosophising is necessary, this moment is no different than other moments. And while one sometimes can't philosophize on the precipice of disaster -- we have other attachments, needs, and obligations -- , sometimes philosophizing is also the highest and most urgent need.

By this I do not mean that I agree with Godwin's utilitarian argument that we must save Fenelon and not his valet. It is truly doubtful whether from an impersonal perspective of utility or the (philanthropic) policy-maker (or effective altruist) philosophy or the philosopher is more valuable than other activities; or that qua philosopher we must even understand ourselves as always contributing to the "happiness, information, and improvement of others."*

But rather, philosophizing is human need; sometimes as a species escapism; sometimes as a delirious dance above the abyss; sometimes as the reaching for mere clarity, understood as an aesthetic virtue; and now, more than ever, as a crutch to survive cruel indifference. 

 

 

 

 

When a Continental Philosopher Hasn't Heard the News that The War is Over

This leads me to my conclusion concerning the present volume. It could have profited from an in-depth investigation into the conceptual and philosophical architecture of existentialism and existential thought as they have developed over the last two hundred years. This would have led to the insight that neither neuroscience nor the interaction of empirically grounded psychology and physics with the existentialist tradition are anything very recent. This is not just a matter of historical negligence on the part of the volume; it leads to a very shallow understanding of both existentialism and neuroscience among the majority of the contributors. Many of the older contributions of existentialists to the mind-body/mind-brain-problem, or to articulating the role of modern science for our self-understanding as human beings, are so much more sophisticated that the current volume as a whole does not live up to the standards of first and second-wave of existentialism. More significantly, though, I think we ought to deny that there is even such a thing as "neuroexistentialism". Yet, whatever the validity of this negative existential assertion, it seems clear enough that neuroexistentialism is in pretty bad existential shape.--Markus Gabriel, reviewing Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan (eds.), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, [email protected]NDPR

A decade ago, I think, analytic philosophers grasped that they had won the fraternal war with continental philosophers over jobs in the discipline. While continental philosophy maintained some of its cultural capital -- especially (recall) in the lucrative art market -- its students were increasingly consigned to seeking positions in shrinking humanities programs, whereas philosophy was tapping into science-friendly interdisciplinary programs. Perhaps coincidentally, simultaneously, analytic philosophers turned against the bullying and blood sport culture within the profession. After all, bullies, who are especially status conscious, are  useful to create dominance over other factions and to police unity within the ranks. With the war won, the costs of the toxic culture have become increasingly apparent and intolerable.

The previous paragraph is of course a stylized representation of a messy reality. But one nice consequence of this new state of affairs is an increasing interest among folk to draw on resources from outside one's own traditions -- this is, in fact, how analytic philosophy always replenishes itself -- and a willingness to collaborate with folk, including Continental types, who previously would have been outside the margins of respectability. Another potentially healthy feature is that various sub-field-echo-chambers can draw on wider pool of reviewers and referees. 

Problem is, Markus Gabriel, a mediagenic and high-profile (non-analytic) philosopher in Germany, has no desire to play nice. In the quoted review that raised considerable eyebrows for lots of reasons, he basically charges that (primarily analytic) folk use the term 'existentialism' in a shallow way and have no business messing with that 'tradition.'* (For the record Gabriel doesn't frame the review in terms of the contrast between analytic/continental--so what I am doing is kind of uncharitable.) Now, Gabriel's range of charges is wider than this, but one of his claims is that the third kind of existentialism (articulated by Flanagan and Carusso) seems to "more or less the opposite of the two other forms of existentialism" that constitute the existentialist tradition.  One may say then, cheekily perhaps, that Gabriel objects to a form of intellectual appropriation that ends up undermining the very tradition that is being appropriated (so there is no criticism of appropriation as such, although the spirit of the review is so uncharitable that one wonders if the appropriation itself generated the hostility). Because of the stakes involved, Gabriel is unwilling to review most of the contributions to the volume on their own terms. 

I don't have much evidence for the spin I am putting on the review, but notice that it relies on a distinction between "actual existentialism" and (let's say) fake existentialism. The fake existentialism is the one introduced/coined by Caruso and Flanagan. I offer two observations.

First, Gabriel here tacitly assumes that extending a tradition always must involve a form of continuation such that no essential features of the tradition are undermined. But of course what is thought essential in the tradition is, often, a matter of (quietly or more explicitly) retrofitting of the tradition to the newly extended version of it. The previous sentence is, of course, natural to analytic philosophers, who have a hard time articulating any necessary and/or sufficient condition of their own tradition at any given time, and to those that have reflected on the change course of some traditions in the past.

Second, Gabriel claims the authority to distinguish between the actual and fake versions of existentialism. This reveals his commitment to the tradition. And he does so in a way in which he denies others the right to speak on its behalf and extend the tradition. Such boundary policing can be quite entertaining to those who enjoy blood sports, and, even for those of us who may find this less than tasteful, can provide an opportunity for learning about deep-seated, otherwise submerged differences. (It tends to be more instructive about the polemicizing reviewer than the work reviewed.) It exhibits what above (and in the title of the post) I call the state of 'war.'  Despite this being an age of global and instant communication, news of the armistice has evidently not reached Bonn.

 

Three bodies on a bed.

[This is the last Digression before my annual Summer break. I thank you, loyal reader, for your continued interest. I hope to be back later around the end of August, or early September.--ES]

Gute Nacht, Freunde, es wird Zeit für mich zu gehen.

Was ich noch zu sagen hätte, dauert eine Zigarette und ein letztes Glas im Stehen.--Reinhard Mey

My dad's least breath was a loud snore. I was holding his hand, while stealing a glance at my sister and his face. Before I could grasp it, his hand stopped resisting my grip. Then, we were three bodies on a bed.

Yesterday, I wrote that my post was "prompted by a chance encounter with Rachel Carson's (1962) Silent Spring, which was sold as a cheap paperback, 'modern classic' in a general bookstore." That was factually correct. But it felt untrue; I had omitted that I had seen her book mentioned in Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem (see here) a science fiction novel I read earlier in the Summer.

In Letter 36, Seneca says that fortune has no right over our conduct [in mores fortuna ius non habet]. The underlying point is that we should so cultivate our dispositions that we can react to bad fortune with equanimity, and that when we have the good fortune of riches we can let our good characters shine. 

Seneca, anticipating my objection, recognizes that fortune shapes our conduct.  Our starting points matter, "if you had been born in Parthia [si in Parthia natus esset], you would have begun, when a child, to bend the bow, etc."

In the 1961 version of "Two Dogmas," Quine inserts the claim that "asking which points in Ohio are starting points" is meaningless.* In context, Quine omits to mention he was born in Ohio.** The point is, perhaps, irrelevant in the debate with Carnap over the status of postulates, but once made aware of it, it changes the meaning of the text (if you are a semantic holist). It's an oblique, even existential joke.

Seneca urges to meditate, so we learn to scorn death (Quid ergo huic meditandum est?...mortem contemnere). Seneca is easily misunderstood here, but his point is familiar enough: we should overcome the fear of death. What's less familiar is that Seneca grounds this advice on the claim that nobody doubts that death has some element which inspires terror in everybody [quae quin habeat aliquid in se terribile... nemo dubitat]. (In fact, this has the character of a political postulate.) 

Seneca's postulate consists of a claim about what nobody doubts about the opinions of anybody else. (Does the absence of  such doubt count as knowledge?) I feel a recalcitrance toward Seneca--with what authority is he speaking on behalf of us? But a few lines down, he goes on to qualify the claim; infants, kids+ and the mad are untouched by the property of death that gives rise to terror in everybody else. Strikingly, he urges reason to emulate their folly (stultitia).++ It's too easily overlooked that he also implies that what nobody doubts about others' views is itself constituted by patterns of omitting those whose voices don't count.  

Seneca's version of eternal return, that everything which seems to die merely mutates (omnia quae videntur perire mutari), leaves me indifferent today.  

Before my dad died, he smoked a last cigarette. In German he quoted Mey. I marveled at his performance. Mey's tune had been the theme song of a Dutch late-night radio program which has been going strong for more than forty years.

As I grasped the significance of that snore, I intuited that we must have often listened to the same radio program lying in bed, without realizing it, before sleep.

 

 

On the Problem of Death in Socratic Philosophy

I will die – of course I will – and I suppose that represents a challenge of sorts. But the problem I have with death is that other people die. Whatever trouble my own death poses is but dull afterthought to more potent longings against loss. Where one wants help with this, one must look elsewhere, to poets, memoirists, or novelists. If one wants a philosopher, though, best look to China. There one finds philosophers who feel the trouble of graves.--Amy Olberding "Philosophical Undertakings" [HT Dailynous]

I was halted in my digressions by the first two, fiery lines of the quoted passage from Olberding's essay. One may wish to paraphrase its polemical intent (and Olberding is polemical) of these as follows: Socratic Philosophy -- in the broad sense of the philosophical practices that can be traced back to the claim that “the true philosophers practice dying, and death is less terrible to them than to any other men" (Phaedo 67e)* -- , fails to confront other people's death. The problem is not, as Nietzsche charges, that philosophy is life-denying, rather the problem is that philosophy is unwilling to face honestly the possibility of the most valuable loss. And the main problem is not loss of one's own life, but loss of relationships and (one may add) practices that make life worth living due to other people's deaths.

But to speak in terms of loss, I fail to do justice to Olberding's treatment, which calls attention to the "helpless, hopeless, and most important desire that" the dead could come back. Olberding treats this "wish" as "one of the more exquisite human facts, the felt power of our longings to go on a little longer with those we love." I think with 'love' she also means to include our friendships and our partners in crime (this becomes clear from the rest of the essay). Olberding understates the problem; for when beloved others die, our lives get diminished and, after a certain age, start circling in on themselves with each passing death. I suspect that one reason why our senior faculty dislike the idea of retirement -- which releases them from the tedium of administration and grading -- is that they are aware that university campuses are a tremendous place to keep meeting new interlocutors.

So, one way (and this is not the focus of her piece) to understand Olberding's charge against Socratic philosophy is that it misunderstands the significance of our deaths--if we have lived well, our deaths are not so much a loss to ourselves but a loss to our friends (and community,) and loved ones. Saying you'll miss me when I am gone, may well undermine the relationship or remind the audience of a popular tune, but it may well be the most truthful thing one can say about one's own death.

Olberding's essay suggests that the tradition of Socratic philosophy is useless on offering therapeutic guidance for grief. Some of my friends will not care about the charge; they may well think that grief is best left for the self-help section or the bio-chemical industry. Philosophy is not about the art of living, it's about truth, explanation, the generic metaphysical facts, logical form [pick your favorite entry], etc.  I am not so sure about Olberding's suggestion (Montaigne, Adam Smith), but about that another time more.

For, even if philosophy is not in the therapy-wisdom-wellbeing practice(s) anymore, I have come to recognize that Plato's choices, including ones on areas of thought we find of little interest now, have created certain enduring constraints on philosophical reflection in the tradition inspired by him. (No need to nod to Heidegger, just see my posts on rustic wisdom here, here, and here; or for more scholarly treatment, Rachel Barney on Gorgias's Encomium.)

Because Plato takes friendship very seriously (Phaedrus, Symposium, etc.) after all, I went back and re-read the Crito. The key passage is early (in the short) dialogue:

No, no, by Zeus, Socrates, I only wish I myself were not so sleepless and sorrowful. But I have been wondering at you for some time, seeing how sweetly you sleep; and I purposely refrained from waking you, that you might pass the time as pleasantly as possible. I have often thought throughout your life hitherto that you were of a happy disposition, and I think so more than ever in this recent misfortune, since you bear it so easily and calmly.  Crito 43b...

Too clear, apparently. But, my dear Socrates, even now listen to me and save yourself. Since, if you die, it will be no mere single misfortune to me, but I shall lose a friend such as I can never find again, and besides, many persons who do not know you and me well will think I could have saved you if I had been willing to spend money, but that I would not take the trouble. And yet what reputation could be more disgraceful than that of considering one's money of more importance than one's friends? For most people will not believe that we were eager to help you to go away from here, but you refused.

Socrates: But, my dear Crito, why do we care so much for what most people think? Crito, 44b-c

Plato clearly recognizes Crito's perspective that the death of Socrates would be a great loss to Crito: he shall be bereaved [ἐστερῆσθαι]. What I had never noticed before is that Socrates never engages with this would be loss. Rather, the conversation turns very rapidly to Crito's other problem: that the many will think that he did not use his wealth to find Socrates an escape from jail/execution. (In re-reading, I also noticed that the dialogue starts with a clear allusion to Crito's ability to bribe Socrates's guards.) This is not to deny either that the impact of Socrates's death on some of his social roles (as a parent, citizen, teacher, etc.) nor that the would-be-effects of Socrates's death on Socrates are treated throughout the dialogue. But Socrates fails to address Crito's loss.

I think Plato intends us to notice Socrates's failure to engage with Crito's loss. (In part, by showing us a Crito that fails to pay attention to all kinds of details.) To recognize limitations in Socrates the man or Socrates's philosophy is not to be avoided (that is, Plato is not writing about a Stoic sage).

Perhaps, it's too much to ask the dying, not to mention the exemplary would-be-dead (Socrates, Cato, etc.), to be busy teaching their interlocutors that when they are gone there will be huge desiring holes in the hearts of their companions. Olberding suggests that "if we are not to be false to this more important fact [that we long to continue or revive the conversation], we need somewhere to go with it, to give it its due, and the rooftop seems as good a place as any." This inspired a closing reflection:

By his own lights, Plato is undoubtedly superior to Crito in lots of ways (assuming that Crito was not a philosopher), but it is not too far-fetched to see that in articulating Crito's wish to continue the conversation, he is also articulating his own--all-too-human-longing-to-go-on-a-little-longer-with-all-to-human-Socrates.  And, one may well say, with considerable justice, that nearly all of Plato's surviving writings testify to his desire to give this longing its proper due.

On Should Ethics Professors Be Held to Higher Ethical Standards in Their Personal Behavior?

I think we can reasonably expect ethicists to shape and improve their personal behavior in a way that is informed by their professional ethical reasoning. This is not because ethicists have a special burden as exemplars but rather because it's reasonable to expect everyone to use the tools at their disposal toward moral self-improvement, at least to some moderate degree, or at least toward the avoidance of serious moral wrongdoing...If our ethicist knows that as soon as she reaches a demanding moral conclusion she risks charges of hypocrisy, then our ethicist might understandably be tempted to draw the more lenient conclusion instead. If we demand ethicists to live according to the norms they endorse, we effectively pressure them to favor lenient moral systems compatible with their existing lifestyles.--Eric Schwitzgebel Should Ethics Professors Be Held to Higher Ethical Standards in Their Personal Behavior? The Splintered Mind [Emphases in original]

Schwitzgebel and I have been fellow travelers in exploring to what degree the norms and morals we investigate and even come to endorse as professional philosophers should be the standard(s) we live by. That is, we resist the recurring tendency to accept unquestionably that our professional practice is an innocent game (I say 'innocent' because there are many games  that demand from its practitioners to live according to their needs), and rather to turn it (reflexively) into an existential practice. Schwitzgebel has gone beyond my own musings on these matters by doing experimental work on the topic (I tend to confine myself to historical studies). We also agree that the question which gives Schwitzgebel's latest post its title is not exclusively moral nor individual he (correctly) points to the social, epistemic significance (and costs & benefits) of the nature of the answer. Schwitzgebel's post (go read the whole thing!) articulates and exhibits a kind of aporia about the question that appeals to my sensibility

Even so, Schwitzgebel and I have a different understanding of what is at stake in answering the question.

My starting point -- and this is quite evidently not Schwitzgebel's -- is that moral philosophy has a real impact on policy and policy science and a variety of 'applied' ethics practice (medical ethics, professional ethics, just war theory, etc.). In this respect, professional moral philosophy is no different from other practices that we come to understand as policy relevant science. The imperfect and partial translation or transference of bits of moral philosophy into policy is a complex and diffuse (and often opportunistic) process in which some moral philosophers are not innocent bystanders but major agents. (The diffusion also goes in the other direction, the range of problems and topics that are deemed important as well data/social science theories that matter, etc. are not merely given.) There are also be non-moral philosophers who play an important role (journalists, politicians, donors, grant agencies, various institutions)--the ecology is complex and there is a lot of local detail.

In my view (see my piece with Lefevere), within any professional community there are so-called Aggregators, who function as gate-keepers within the community (and whose proteges get influential positions) as well as agents that partially represent the community within policy environments and public opinion. Not all Aggregators perform all roles at the same time, and not all Aggregators are in all respects the intellectual leaders or trend-setters of the community. Among contemporary moral philosophers famous Aggregators include (just to offer some examples) Peter Singer, Thomas Pogge, Martha Nussbaum, Norman Daniels, and Jeff McMahan.  Obviously, your list is allowed to be different! To be sure, not all influential moral philosophers take on the role of Aggregator within the profession or as a conduit to the world of policy, but quite a few do.

The role of Aggregators is, in part, epistemic and, in part, political. They represent the insights and understanding of the profession and also are, fairly or not, representative, exemplars of it within the profession and without. Aggregators tend to be powerful within the profession, and (without exaggerating their public influence) in virtue of their professional accomplishments also consequential in the policy environment. There are considerations of public prudence that enter into the evaluation of and expectations on Aggregators, who are subject to all kinds of temptations from massaging their message (or selling out) to taking advantage of various 'success goods.' Because considerations of prudence tend to be situational, I tend to constrain them in light of an appeal to integrity (which is a mixture of coherence, substantive norems, and role-relative demands).

Philosophical integrity is the way(s) in which one's professional arguments, professional credit, and public utterances and comportment cohere. The idea behind it is simple: it is meant to capture the thought that there is an intimate relationship (perhaps one of partial identity or accountability) between our words and our professional character; that there is some relationship between our lived experience and 'our' disembodied arguments. The nature and content of philosophical integrity is different for different kinds of philosophers--not all of us have a non-professional, public profile; not all of us theorize about (the possible) world(s) we inhabit.

One important fact about philosophical integrity is that it is context sensitive. It also accommodates those who wish to keep their distance from or frown on a moralized conception of professional life--their philosophical integrity will be constituted by practices that can deviate significantly from such mores. But we live in a public culture in which sincerity is a dominant (even exaggeratedly dominant) virtue. In fact, sincerity may well be thought to trump [sic] any other virtues. In such an environment, hypocrisy is, in fact, a deadly sin. I recognize that Schwitzgebel is right to wish to be extremely cautious about charges of hypocrisy. As he writes, "If we expect high consistency between a professional ethicist's espoused positions and her real-world choices, then we disincentivize highly demanding or self-sacrificial conclusions." My way to respond to this concern is that such a demand for high consistency is increasingly unavoidable for the Aggregating professional ethicist. But it does not follow that it is necessary for all professional ethicists.

In fact, there is lurking in my analysis here a commitment to epistemic pluralism in which we can get to keep the epistemic cake that Schwitzgebel wishes to eat [see this useful piece by Ryan Muldoon], by insisting that some (non-Aggregating) professional moral philosophers may live a life of doctrinal experimentation in word (without adjusting their deeds), while others can explore these very same doctrines in word and deed. In fact, one can maintain one's (less demanding) professional integrity, by merely experimenting in word if one has the right meta-philosophical stance toward words (e.g., it's just a low stakes game) [recall this post; and this one.] On my understanding of professional Aggregators they have a role to play (as thought leaders and gate-keepers within the profession) to maintain the right epistemic, professional structure within it such that this kind of experimentation occurs (and we don't fall into epistemic stagnation or fragility).

So, given the world we live in, I think it is no-brainer that professional Aggregators have to live lives of philosophical and professional integrity. (Considerations of integrity can also be applied to the character of the whole community, but that's not the present topic.) If they promote higher ethical standards (not all need to do so), then it is reasonable to "demand that they also behave according to higher ethical standards." It does not follow, however, that their professional and philosophical integrity are the only relevant standard. For, their integrity (and the standards of evaluation presupposed in it) may not cover all the relevant moral and prudential considerations. For example, a lot of professional Aggregators are tempted by and, perhaps, selected for technocratic approaches to political life in which the downside risks of implementation are (predictably) not properly captured by either the professional moral philosophical discussions or by the Aggregation mechanisms that are rewarded by the profession or society. 

To put my disagreement (well, different emphasis) from Schwitzgebel in his vocabulary. I agree that the question he poses is "multi-dimensional." It follows that it does not have a univocal answer (that depends, in part, on one's role in the profession). But in my analysis I am also inclined to privilege a dimension -- the policy relevance of moral philosophy -- that Schwitzgebel tends to down-play such that the dimensionality of the problem is compressed a bit. So, for some ethicists their personal behavior just is political.

Philosophy, Social Progress, and Analysis

The ameliorative project asks us to look at more than these familiar considerations when evaluating explanatory adequacy. When evaluating theories of social categories, the ameliorative project asks us to consider what role these categories have to play in social progress--with the background assumption that understanding and explaining social injustice is part of what will help us to address it....When we're dealing with theories of social kinds and social categories, part of the work such a theory needs to do is distinctively social work...

What is interesting, worthwhile, useful, etc. about disability as a category is, I content, that it's a social category people have found useful when organizing themselves in a civil rights struggle...The social category of disability is philosophically interesting, that is, because of the disability rights movement.  -- Elizabeth Barnes (2016) The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (41-2)

Yesterday, I noted in passing, that in her analysis Barnes relies on a notion of progress. But there are really multiple notions of progress at work in her arguments. First, the one described above, is the notion of social progress that is embraced by the "disability rights" movement that understands itself as a "civil rights struggle." (Among the most interesting passages in the book are Barnes's treatment of the role of 'pride' in this struggle to be found in the sixth chapter.) This struggle is about many things, in addition to gaining "civil rights" including obtaining (political, social, legal) recognition (not Barnes's term, but it includes the right to a social space to "celebrate a marginalized feature" (182)), combat prejudices and stereotypes (173), and develop -- as Barnes emphasizes -- insights into what we can know (183). That is, Barnes's explanatory project hopes to contribute to progress.

As an aside, participation in such a civil rights struggle can also generates what I (with a nod to L.A. Paul) have called 'Transformative Political Experience' (TPE [recall]). Such a struggle is intended to change the identity of both society as well as the individuals that participate it in lots of intended, but also (foreseeable) surprising ways. Barnes quotes many activists whom express sentiments like these, "My life and my thinking were liberated...These disability warriors taught me a new way to live that frees me from my past." (184, quoting Tammy S. Thompson) TPEs are to be expected from participation in social movements.

Second, Barnes appeals to previous social progress in other social categories during her arguments. She has to do so, in part, because she is combating the (let's stipulate) prejudices of deeply entrenched common sense, including practices of "social ostracism" (153) as well as the authority of numerous moral and metaphysical theories who take the intrinsic badness of disability for granted. The idea is something like, if common sense and moral theory has been wrong in the past, it can be so again.

This strategy is especially notable in her treatment of adaptive preferences, where she draws on let's call them enlightened attitudes that have become more widespread and the consequence of overcoming a "history" in which the "female body was pathologized in much the same way that the disabled body is currently pathologized" or the "more recent" common attitudes that "being gay was a type of psychological disorder" (134). This history of successful social progress is presupposed as (i) a partial template for the progress she wishes to contribute to and (ii) as a shared understanding between Barnes and her readers. And, rhetorically, Barnes relies on (ii) throughout the book. By embracing (ii) Barnes, thus, runs the risk of alienating those readers who are reserved about (say) gay liberation or other aspects of modernity in various ways.*

Third, the "conception of disability" Barnes wishes to explain is distinctly "modern" (44). It is itself the consequence of the partial success of the "disability rights movement" and the "social solidarity" found in  it. (44) I say 'partial' because as we have seen, Barnes is clear that more progress is needed (see, for example, 52).

Even though the conception is modern, Barnes allows herself to apply the concept (anachronistically) to prior historical agents: "Richard III had a physical condition such that the (actual, present) rules for making judgments about solidarity employed by the disability rights movement classify that condition as something the disability rights movement is promoting justice for," (50; emphases in original). I leave aside here, the interesting question if such a judgment hinders or promotes historical understanding about Richard III (for us or for him [somewhat controversially among historians, I have defended  the use of anachronism [recall here and here]). But reflection on this points the way toward a fourth, notion of progress embedded in her treatment.

Barnes is interested in the category of what "we currently call disability." (52) She never fully explains who belongs to this (perhaps thin) unity, 'we.' It's clear from the passage I just quoted (and lots of other things Barnes say) that it applies to those who are likely to accept or fall under the "rules" of application (of the term 'disabled') as worked out in the (evolving and sometimes fractious) 'disability rights movement' that help Barnes 'rigidify' the content of 'disability.' Barnes is admirably clear that her species of (modest) social constructivism is compatible with (i) social indeterminacy (49--no surprise because Barnes is one of the leading metaphysicians of indeterminacy [recall])--, (ii) social contingency (53), and (iii) that our interest in this category can change even disappear across "times and worlds." (52)

But she does not address what to make of those in our times who may not be part of the disability rights movement because, say, either (a) they are not on board with the first three notions of progress* (because they are reactionaries in some sense) I had listed above or, more interestingly to Barnes's aims, (b) because they live in culturally distant lands where various civil rights movements are seen as threatening indigenous ways of life. Let's stipulate that the disability rights movement is also intended for them (that is, (b)) and culturally sensitive and inclusive; even so, there may be cultural and social routes to the empowerment and amelioration of their locally entrenched, 'disabled' lives that are not well-served by the categories and aims of 'us.'

That is, there is an unacknowledged danger in Barnes's project of giving a "philosophical account of disability in general" (55; emphasis only added on 'in general'), which may unintentionally hinder or displace other ameliorative projects. Here Barnes participates in (fourth) a totalizing progressive, tendency characteristic of philosophy since Plato (but distinctive of Enlightenment thought). That would be no problem if the culturally distant lands were culturally isolated from 'us.' Yet, because Anglophone philosophy and culture is (still) dominant and, in academic context, the template that is to be emulated by university and grant administrators everywhere, this is not an idle speculation. As it happens I am an ignoramus about the ways in which disability is conceptualized and empowered/ameliorated in different cultures, so I can't judge if this danger is truly real or mere idle speculation.

The point is this: Barnes's project is set up to allow for "contextual variation" (53) within a culture. Yet, the way I understand her project it (unintentionally, perhaps) runs the risk of tacitly assuming cultural hegemony at a given time even though it is nobly committed to combating hierarchy within our culture. To the best of my knowledge performing analysis of social concepts that does not run such risk has eluded analytical philosophy thus far (recall also this post and this one.)

Adaptive Preference(s) and Status Quo Bias

A diagnosis of adaptive preferences is licensed only when preferences are directed toward something suboptimal. We don't, however, make decisions about what is subotimal from Plato's heaven (or from our armchair). We observe, we evaluate, and -- crucially -- we listen to testimony. The problem with the adaptive preference model is that it allows us to dismiss certain kinds of testimony as irrational or misleading. And so the adaptive preference model can quickly become a way of defending the moral status quo. (135)

Insofar as it justifies in discounting first-person testimony, the adaptive preference model can be a way of preventing this kind of progress. Misapplied, the adaptive preference model can simply entrench pre-existing biases. Elizabeth Barnes (2016) The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (137)

Yesterday's Impression (recall) was inspired by passages in which Barnes criticizes certain applications of an adaptive preference model to discount testimony. But that post otherwise ignored her account of adaptive preferences which is the subject of today's Digression. As the quoted passages reveal, Barnes appeals to a notion of moral progress. This appeal to moral progress (and an accompanying presupposed moral community between Barnes and her sympathetic reader) is quite important in her overall argument, and in a future post I will be critical of the role it plays in her treatment.

But I don't think the idea of moral progress is central to her critique of certain uses of adaptive preferences model. Nothing substantial (as opposed to rhetorical) is lost if we rewrite the last quoted sentence from p. 135 as follows, And so the adaptive preference model can quickly become a way of defending the status quo as understood by expert. And the first sentence from p. 137 can be rewritten as follows, Insofar as it justifies in discounting first-person testimony, the adaptive preference model can be a way of preventing moral understanding of victims of testimonial injustice. This is not to deny that moral progress plays an important role in Barnes's presentation--to motivate some of her arguments, she appeals to her readers willingness to grant that prior discounting of the testimony and preferences of women and gays as adaptive was obviously wrong (134-6).+

For, in fact, Barnes cleverly applies the growing insights of the literature on (Fricker's) testimonial injustice and (Dotson's) testimonial smothering to undermine over-reliance of adaptive preference model (especially in the capability literature inspired by Nussbaum and Sen) to ignore first person testimony of disabled people.* (I am assuming here some familiarity with these concepts.) As she writes, "whether being disabled is somehow bad or suboptimal is precisely what's up for debate." (133)+  To be sure, Barnes allows that there are occasions one can still diagnose adaptive preferences in others, especially when there are fundamental conflicts between what a person says about herself and other factors of her well-being (but the discussion is a bit brief, see 140-1).

To understand the historical significance of Barnes's critical treatment of the misapplication of the adaptive preferences model it is worth briefly reminding ourselves of the rule it played in Elster's (1983) Sour Grapes, which formulated the modern conceptual apparatus of adaptive preferences (recall). (Barnes also mentions Sour Grapes.) He did so, in part, to combat certain perverse implications of utilitarianism (see chapters III.3-4 especially). What interests me here is that in Elster's account, one role for the invocation of adaptive preferences is to combat a certain form of status quo bias when one takes (historically conditioned) given wants or subjective preferences for granted (say in one's utility calculations in evaluating some policy or another). By giving a principled justification for discounting (some) existing preferences, the theorist who relies on the adaptive preferences model can propose normative improvements.

As an aside, this is not to deny that there is not some status quo bias built in Elster's approach. Elster takes political orders and regimes largely for granted and, while he allows changing of wants by “rational and public discussions,” (140 referring back to I.5 and its discussion of the political “transformation of preferences rather than aggregation” of preferences, (35)) his notion of “collective rationality” (42) has no space for the radical, even violent, transformation of institutions. Moreover, he embraces a further status quo bias by insisting that, while acknowledging that intuitions may be “culturally relative,” we “must require of a theory of justice that it does not strongly violate our ethical intuitions in particular cases” (137—emphasis added; to be sure, Elster is less optimistic than Rawls about possibility of consensus). As Michael Della Rocca taught me, this reliance on the method of reflective equilibrium has considerable status quo bias built into it.

By contrast, Barnes shows that there are two predictable risk of (moral and economic) experts relying on an adaptive preference models. First, and this is the one she emphasizes, is that (a) they put themselves in a situation of defending an imperfect status quo (that they themselves understand as moral) while, simultaneously, (b) discounting evidence that could correct the status quo. That is to say, the adaptive preference model does not generate methodological and conceptual incentives to self-correct. Second, and this is strongly implied by her treatment, the down-side risks of (let's stipulate, well-intentioned) application of the adaptive preference model is primarily born by often vulnerable member of society.

Given that the research ethics that I propose in light of methodological analytical egalitarianism is especially critical of approaches where the down-side risk of use/application by non-expert vulnerable, one might expect me to be very critical of the adaptive preferences model (as another danger of expert over-confidence in their own model [justness, etc.]). Strikingly, the adaptive preference model was, in part, designed to address the needs of the most vulnerable in the context of the history of oppression.

Not unlike Barnes, I don't think experts should never rely on an adaptive preference model. But experts and policymakers that rely on it should also be alert for the two foreseeable risks in the approach. As noted above, Barnes supplies us with a further test in application: do the preferences expressed by particular subjects cohere with other features of  the subjects' lives. (For example, if a victim of abuse says they're flourishing, but otherwise has lots of symptoms of depression.) This is an empirical question and requires considerable and careful contextual judgment(s). I would add, in addition, corrections to the very theory of adaptive preferences to account for the foreseeable and known cognitive and status quo biases of experts and policymakers alike. But that's for another time.