Digressions&Impressions

14 March 1979: Foucault's Science Fiction of Neo-Liberal Eugenics (XXX)

[I]n Gary Becker there is a very interesting theory of consumption, in which he says: We should not think at all that consumption simply consists in being someone in a process of exchange who buys and makes a monetary exchange in order to obtain some products. The man of consumption is not one of the terms of exchange. The man of consumption, insofar as he consumes, is a producer. What does he produce? Well, quite simply, he produces his own satisfaction. And we should think of consumption as an enterprise activity by which the individual, precisely on the basis of the capital he has at his disposal, will produce something that will be his own satisfaction. Consequently, the theory, the classical analysis trotted out a hundred times of the person who is a consumer on the one hand, but who is also a producer, and who, because of this, is, as it were, divided in relation to himself, as well as all the sociological analyses—for they have never been economic analyses—of mass consumption, of consumer society, and so forth, do not hold up and have no value in relation to an analysis of consumption in the neo-liberal terms of the activity of production. So, even if there really is a return to the idea of homo oeconomicus as the analytical grid of economic activity, there is a complete change in the conception of this homo oeconomicus.
So, we arrive at this idea that the wage is nothing other than the remuneration, the income allocated to a certain capital, a capital that we will call human capital inasmuch as the ability-machine of which it is the income cannot be separated from the human individual who is its bearer. How is this capital made up? It is at this point that the reintroduction of labor or work into the field of economic analysis will make it possible, through a sort of acceleration or extension, to move on to the economic analysis of elements which had previously totally escaped it. In other words, the neo-liberals say that labor was in principle part of economic analysis, but the way in which classical economic analysis was conducted was incapable of dealing with this element. Good, we do deal with it. And when they make this analysis, and do so in the terms I have just described, they are led to study the way in which human capital is formed and accumulated, and this enables them to apply economic analyses to completely new fields and domains.
How is human capital made up? Well, they say, it is made up of innate elements and other, acquired elements. Let’s talk about the innate elements. There are those we can call hereditary, and others which are just innate; differences which are, of course, self-evident for anyone with the vaguest acquaintance with biology. I do not think that there are as yet any studies on the problem of the hereditary elements of human capital, but it is quite clear what form they could take and, above all, we can see through anxieties, concerns, problems, and so on, the birth of something which, according to your point of view, could be interesting or disturbing. In actual fact, in the—I was going to say, classical—analyses of these neo-liberals, in the analyses of Schultz or Becker, for example, it is indeed said that the formation of human capital only has interest and only becomes relevant for the economists inasmuch as this capital is formed thanks to the use of scarce means, to the alternative use of scarce means for a given end. Now obviously we do not have to pay to have the body we have, or we do not have to pay for our genetic make-up. It costs nothing. Yes, it costs nothing—and yet, we need to see ... , and we can easily imagine something like this occurring (I am just engaging in a bit of science fiction here, it is a kind of problematic which is currently becoming pervasive).
In fact, modern genetics clearly shows that many more elements than was previously thought are conditioned by the genetic make-up we receive from our ancestors. In particular, genetics makes it possible to establish for any given individual the probabilities of their contracting this or that type of disease at a given age, during a given period of life, or in any way at any moment of life. In other words, one of the current interests in the application of genetics to human populations is to make it possible to recognize individuals at risk and the type of risk individuals incur throughout their life. You will say: Here again, there’s nothing we can do; our parents made us like this. Yes, of course, but when we can identify what individuals are at risk, and what the risks are of a union of individuals at risk producing an individual with a particular characteristic that makes him or her the carrier of a risk, then we can perfectly well imagine the following: good genetic make-ups—that is to say, [those] able to produce individuals with low risk or with a level of risk which will not be harmful for themselves, those around them, or society—will certainly become scarce, and insofar as they are scarce they may perfectly well [enter], and this is entirely normal, into economic circuits or calculations, that is to say, alternative choices. Putting it in clear terms, this will mean that given my own genetic make-up, if I wish to have a child whose genetic make-up will be at least as good as mine, or as far as possible better than mine, then I will have to find someone who also has a good genetic make-up. And if you want a child whose human capital, understood simply in terms of innate and hereditary elements, is high, you can see that you will have to make an investment, that is to say, you will have to have worked enough, to have sufficient income, and to have a social status such that it will enable you to take for a spouse or co-producer of this future human capital, someone who has significant human capital themselves. I am not saying this as a joke; it is simply a form of thought or a form of problematic that is currently being elaborated.
What I mean is that if the problem of genetics currently provokes such anxiety, I do not think it is either useful or interesting to translate this anxiety into the traditional terms of racism. If we want to try to grasp the political pertinence of the present development of genetics, we must do so by trying to grasp its implications at the level of actuality itself, with the real problems that it raises. And as soon as a society poses itself the problem of the improvement of its human capital in general, it is inevitable that the problem of the control, screening, and improvement of the human capital of individuals, as a function of unions and consequent reproduction, will become actual, or at any rate, called for. So, the political problem of the use of genetics arises in terms of the formation, growth, accumulation, and improvement of human capital. What we might call the racist effects of genetics is certainly something to be feared, and they are far from being eradicated, but this does not seem to me to be the major political issue at the moment.--Michel Foucault, 14 March, 1979,  translated by Graham Burchell, Lecture 9, The Birth of Biopolitics, 226-229 [emphasis added on 'inevitable'].

It is difficult to write this blog post because I am so in awe of Foucault's analysis. For, in these pages, and the ones that follow and precede it, Foucault basically articulates the whole paradigm in which economic analysis becomes incapable of self-limiting and, thus, totalitarian. The question becomes not just how the genetic endowment, but the "child’s family life will produce human capital?" (229) And as Foucault notes this means that everything that can be measured in this environment must be measured to uncover its effect on human capital formation. Deep learning was made, we might say, for human capital theory.

And this human capital will not just be the principle that generates (possible) income into the future, but also the skill to consume it. Foucault's analysis of Becker's treatment that consumption isn't merely a passive doing, a mere hedonic receptacle, but an effect of human capital is masterly. We must not merely acquire taste but must gain the skill to enjoy our acquired commodities. We might say, as a serious joke, that Becker and Mincer (and Schultz, etc.) re-discover Rousseau and Kames in the vernacular. Foucault alerts us to his own interest in this merging of the philosophy of culture and education with the logical of capital/computing by calling it 'very interesting' (226) which is a stark contrast to the 'banalities' when he discusses political history (216/218). 

As an aside, I noted last week the brilliant almost counterfactual history of economics inscribed in this ninth lecture. But it is also worth noting a bizarre lacuna. For in Foucault's hands it is immediately obvious that this strain of Chicago economics -- the human capital, economic imperialism one -- rediscovers and revives the eugenic features of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century economics most associated with names like Galton and Pearson, but visible and significant in wide variety of American and British progressives, such that it infected the foundation of the welfare state nearly everywhere.* 

That is to say, what Foucault misses, and with him many other well-meaning intellectual commentators, is that part of the neo-liberal reaction against "Keynesian policy, social pacts of war, and the growth of the federal administration through economic and social programs" which "formed the adversary and target of neoliberal thought, that which it was constructed against or which it opposed in order to form itself and develop" (217) had a further moral underpinning (other than the anti-war, anti-collectivism already explicit in Foucault's analysis) one that had high salience after the Nazi-era is that of human moral equality. And this fits even Becker and his Chicago allies/teachers because in their version of human capital theory, after the Robbins redefinition of the nature of economics, the individual agency of each (recall last week) of us matters.  

My language of 'misses' in the previous paragraph is misleading. Given Foucault's knowledge of the study of deviance, it is unlikely he is not aware of this. And, in fact, he clearly signals he is aware of it: "call the racist effects of genetics is certainly something to be feared, and they are far from being eradicated," but he tells us why he does not alert us to this in his treatment: it "does not seem to me to be the major political issue at the moment." This comment raises tough questions about the hermeneutics of Foucault. 

The whole lecture series is (recall) oriented around the liberal art of government. And foucault makes clear that in one sense his is descriptive treatment of praxis and theory, and in other sense he is constructing what we may call the optimal art of liberal government. Now, it comes as no surprise that Foucault is aware of his situatedness in a particular political context; I have tried to be alert in where he hints at this. But here he alerts us to the fact that his decisions about what to highlight are themselves a function of his judgment of what he takes to be a major political issue at that moment. But he does not tell us what -- to be reflexive for a moment -- what enters into the formation of, and what secures the ''output'' of this judgment, and what counts as political for him.

Okay, let's close with a final observation. Above I noted that Foucault rightly discerns a kind of totalitarian element in the neo-liberal turn of Becker, Mincer, Schultz because as a domain of enquiry it is incapable of self-limitation. What he discerns is that (nearly) everything that can become data or a data-set connected to human activity is, in principle, possible evidence (about genes, environment, learning, production, risk, etc.) in this theory. (The remainder of the lecture Foucault spells this out nicely and ambitiously--very much worth re-reading for its significance to theories of capitalism, imperialism, and development.) In so far as there are constraints these are determined more by search costs than by the nature of the paradigm. This is really a contrast to how many other forms of enquiry function, where the paradigm limits severely what may count as possible evidence. 

But, of course, one may object that the totalitarian tendency in enquiry is not sufficient to count something as totalitarian in political praxis. The objection misses the point here. For Foucault is clearly committed to the idea once certain questions become intellectually pertinent -- not to an individual but (notice the bourgeois or at least Weberian terminology of Gesellschaft) "society"* -- then they become also necessarily ("inevitable") pertinent to, and actionable for, political practice ("control, screening, and improvement of the human capital of individuals.") He does not explain why he believes in this kind of weirdly friction-free market in ideas such that the social problem must generate its own social praxis. It is notable that he does not offer a mechanism for why this is inevitably so, and a critique of the present must originate here. But that's for another time.  

To put the more arresting point of the previous paragraph as a serious joke, if one raises the question of what Plato [Republic 546d] calls the marriage number (viz. "the human capital of individuals, as a function of unions and consequent reproduction"), then even in a liberal society (focused on "individuals") there is, contra the hopes of Bacon no self-restraint on its pursuit.* That is to say, Foucault accepts the kind of Heideggerian/Thomistic critique of modernity without their moralism or, despite his latent political "fears," existential angst. 

 

 

On Vestal Virgins, Marxism and Final Causes (via Ernest Nagel, Huxley, and Bacon)

The third type of philosophy of science will require only brief exposition. It is professed, among others, by a number of scientists in this country and England, whose object is to show the social implications of theoretical research and thereby to rob modem theories of their air of mystery. They explain, frequently with admirable lucidity, the new sources of power opened up by science, the economies in human effort which it is capable of effecting, and the close interdependence of science and the technological arts. The dominant emphasis is thus placed upon scientific theories as engineers' "blue-prints for action," rather than as disclosures of some final reality.
There might be little to object to this approach to science if those who take it would not confuse their thesis by other claims: that scientific research ought always to be conducted with the social good in view, or that all significant research is in fact deter­mined by the organization and practical needs of society. There is, however, no evidence for the proposition that a warm social conscience is the best guide for the conduct of research; there is no ground for assuming that everyone knows what is socially desirable, that what is not of immediate social value will never prove to be so, or that devotion to socially valuable results neces­sarily contributes to the fullest development of systematic knowl­edge. There is overwhelming evidence to show that the content and direction of theoretical research is in the main controlled by technical problems internal to the sciences, and that changes in the social economy do not in general constitute the sufficient con­ditions for the specific content of theoretical inquiries.
A number of writers in this group make the further claim that the methods as well as the conclusions of science conform to the triad of "dialectical principles" sacred to many followers of Hegel and Marx. For example, Levy has argued that the occurrence of a distinct type of wave produced by a ship after it reaches a critical velocity illustrates the law of abrupt change of quality with sufficient increase of quantity; and Haldane has borne witness to the inestimable value of all three laws in his own biological researches. Space is lacking to examine these and other claims for the virtues of the dialectic laws. It must suffice to recall Einstein's remark that philosophers are fortunate indeed in beingg always able to establish the agreement of the latest findings of science with their own metaphysical principles. The principles of dialectic can be guaranteed never the fail, because their terms have no fixed content; they can be stretched to cover any facts whatsoever, after the facts have been independently established.
Were it not for the mysterious profundity claimed for them, and did they not serve to check inquiry by the glib finality with which they resolve all problems, the laws of dialectic could be left unreproached as a curious verbal game. As instruments for disentangling the web of theoretical constructions, however, they are as barren as the purest of vestal virgins.--Ernest Nagel (1941) "Recent Philosophies of Science," Kenyon Review (Vol 8), reprinted in Sovereign Reason (1954) 45-46.

I have quoted all of section 3, from a brief, critical "survey" of then prominent four philosophies of science by Ernest Nagel. Near the end of the paper, Nagel himself is forthright that he favors the fourth approach, which "does not aim at a compact system bt at painstaking analyses of the details of scientific procedure (46); but he associates it with names like "Mach, Poincare, Duhem, Campbell...Pierce....Russell, Wittgenstein, Tarkski...Carnap...James, Dewey, Cohen, Neurath, and Woodger;" (46) This approach frequently "goes under the somewhat unprecise and misleading of of "operationalism." (39) The two other approaches are associated with Whitehead (which gets a respectful critical treatment) and Eddington (which does not: his "philosophy of science consists of "outrageous puns."" (45)) 

The third type involves what we may call Marxist philosophy of science and Nagel's two exemplars are Haldane and Levy (surprisingly Bernal is not mentioned). I assume J.B.S. Haldane is somewhat familiar to readers of this blog. (And his work is due a rediscory given his interest in infectious diseases and pandemics.) I am pretty confident that most of my readers are less familiar with Levy. The index to Sovereign reason suggests this is a H. Levy. And with help of Google, I am pretty confident this is the author of (1938) A Philosophy for a Modern Man because it is also mentioned by Robert S. Cohen in "Marxism and Scientific Philosophy" a longer and more scholarly (and fascinating) review article in Metaphysical Review (1951).

The four features of Marxist philosophy of science that Nagel rejects are: (i) the normative claim that science ought to be guided by social aims; (ii) the empirical claim that it is always guided by social aims. In addition, (iii) the historicist thesis that science is determined by social economic context. And, finally, (iv) dialectical principles and its laws.

As an aside, (iii) was not just associated with Marxist philosophy of science. Institutional economists who were progressives (but not necessarily socialists or marxists) also accepted a version of (iii). As I have demonstrated, George Stigler, the Chicago economist, who was well read in philosophy of science (including Nagel) polemically rejects a version of (iii) in the 1950s-1960s; Stigler called it the “environmental theory" and he associated it with the historian of economics (and sociologist of knowledge) W. Stark and Wesley Mitchell, one of the leading institutionalists of the previous generation (who had died in 1948) and one of Milton Friedman’s mentors at NBER. 

Some other time I want to reflect a bit, from a sociological perspective, on the significance of the polemical rejection of dialectics by (would be) analytic philosophers, including those self-proclaimed analytic marxists more friendly to Marxism. Unlike his treatment of (i-iii), and his criticisms of the other approaches to philosophy of science, Nagel clearly does not think it is worth his effort to try to argue against dialectic and its laws. His only criticism that does not reduce to name calling ("no fixed content';" "mysterious profundity;" glib" etc.)* is that its practitioners engage in retrospectifve confirmation ("after the facts have been independently established"), which may be true but it is not a criticism of it qua philosophy of science. (As Nagel frankly admits it his own favored approach is not interested in "canons" of discovery. (47))

Here I want to close with an observation on Nagel's assertion that the laws of dialectic are as barren as the purest of vestal virgins. As it happens (friend of the blog, recall), David Haig discusses some of the history of this phrase in the history and philosophy of science in chapter 1 of his (2020) From Darwin to Derrida, a book I have had occasion to mention before. For, it is often the case that final causes are likened to barren virgins and, thereby, to be rejected. As Haig shows a version of the phrase goes back to Bacon's (1623) De Dignitate et augmentis Scientiarum, where Bacon is referring to the virgins consecrated to God (as vestal virgins were). Although it is likely, as Haig, suggests that the modern association of Bacon with the phrase "vestal virgins" is due to William Whewell, the founder of philosophy of science. (Whewell himself thought of final causes as constitutive and regulative to speculations.) It is with Huxley, while reviewing Darwin (1859), that the association of final causes as "barren virgins" to be left aside is put in place. (Haig and I both agree this was not exactly how Darwin thought about it.) 

We can assume that Nagel, who was widely read, was reasonably familiar with the association of the rejection of final causes as barren virgins since Huxley.[UPDATE: SEE FOOTNOTE]** Circumstantial evidence for the widespread familiarity of this point can be found in an essay in 1927 by C.D. Broad on "The Philosophy of Francis Bacon," where Broad warns his readers not to assume that in Bacon the phrase signals rejection of final causes. (I can't prove Nagel read this paper, but he was familiar with Broad's writings on the mind as a teleological system.) In the philosophy of biology, Nagel wrote quote a bit on teleological explanation. Much of it is naturally read as redescribing teleological concepts in terms of efficient causation or underlying laws. But near the end of his career he granted that "teleological concepts and teleological explanations" are not obscure (301) 

So, to sum up, Nagel treats the dialectics of those inspired by Hegel and Marx as fundamentally obscure. Writing in 1941, he thereby foreshadows the more common criticisms by analytic philosophers of folk who much later came to be known as continental philosophers.+ But the trope he activates to do so is one then commonly associated with the rejection of final causes.

But at no point were final causes thought obscure or unintelligible (even Spinoza did not go that far); rather from Huxley's polemics onward they were taken as local final causes to be thought unfruitful in scientific or experimental research. Because (recall) Huxley himself was an agnostic about fundamental matters, Huxley could acknowledge that general final causes were intelligible and perhaps appropriate in the domain of fundamental metaphysics. 

Nagel treats dialectics a bit like the early moderns treat the terms of scholastic philosophy: as fundamentally unintelligible. He simultaneously treats dialectics in the way Huxley treats local final causes: as intelligible albei unfruitful in (the philosophy of) science. But Nagel is so focused on his polemics that he forgets it can't be both.

 

 

 

On (Seneca on) Being Slaves to Pleasures and Insatiable desire

I shall indeed arrange for you, in careful order and narrow compass, the notes which you request. But consider whether you may not get more help from the customary method than from that which is now commonly called a "breviary," though in the good old days, when real Latin was spoken, it was called a "summary." The former is more necessary to one who is learning a subject, the latter to one who knows it. For the one teaches, the other stirs the memory. But I shall give you abundant opportunity for both. A man like you should not ask me for this authority or that; he who furnishes a voucher for his statements argues himself unknown. I shall therefore write exactly what you wish, but I shall do it in my own way; until then, you have many authors whose works will presumably keep your ideas sufficiently in order. Pick up the list of the philosophers; that very act will compel you to wake up, when you see how many men have been working for your benefit. You will desire eagerly to be one of them yourself, for this is the most excellent quality that the noble soul has within itself, that it can be roused to honourable things.

No man of exalted gifts is pleased with that which is low and mean; the vision of great achievement summons him and uplifts him.  Just as the flame springs straight into the air and cannot be cabined or kept down any more than it can repose in quiet, so our soul is always in motion, and the more ardent it is, the greater its motion and activity. But happy is the man who has given it this impulse toward better things! He will place himself beyond the jurisdiction of chance; he will wisely control prosperity; he will lessen adversity, and will despise what others hold in admiration. It is the quality of a great soul to scorn great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too great. For the one condition is useful and life-giving; but the other does harm just because it is excessive. Similarly, too rich a soil makes the grain fall flat, branches break down under too heavy a load, excessive productiveness does not bring fruit to ripeness. This is the case with the soul also; for it is ruined by uncontrolled prosperity, which is used not only to the detriment of others, but also to the detriment of itself. What enemy was ever so insolent to any opponent as are their pleasures to certain men? The only excuse that we can allow for the incontinence and mad lust of these men is the fact that they suffer the evils which they have inflicted upon others. And they are rightly harassed by this madness, because desire must have unbounded space for its excursions, if it transgresses nature's mean. For this has its bounds, but waywardness and the acts that spring from willful lust are without boundaries. Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous? It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them when once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable. And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills, – and that is the worst ill of all! Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits. --Seneca, Letter 39.

lt's always a surprise to encounter a thought in a figure one canonically or subjectively associates with a later author. For example, Seneca says that "our soul is always in motion" [ita noster animus in motu est,], which I associate with Hobbes's idea that "all mankind [has] a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death." (The association is made firmer and clearer by the fact that for Hobbes the soul, and such desire, just is matter in motion.) A thought, in turn,  associate with Nietzsche's will to power (and Spinoza's Conatus doctrine). Obviously, Seneca need not be talking about power, but in context it's clear that Seneca assumes that the vast majority of most of us, ordinarily, constantly strive for pleasures and power (the things admired by the many). We are, in fact, slaves of our pleasures--a phrase that evokes Hume's infamous idea that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, we are slaves to our passions." Of course, Seneca denies Hume's ought, but not the underlying fact.

I am not claiming Hobbes or Hume are indebted to Seneca. They are targeting his philosophy, and so it's no surprise that they enjoy using rhetoric that evokes it. Rather, I am noticing the more quirky fact that certain phrases get connected pedagogically and by way of shared short-hand with certain thinkers even if these phrases may have been articulated first by (equally eloquent) opposite philosophies.  There is a historical irony lurking here because that Seneca's choice phrases became available for such re-use is, in part, due to the fact that his quotes would be passed on the list of philosophers/summaries/breviaries (etc.) circulating in the renaissance and early modern period. 

Be that as it may, one striking claim by Seneca is that a key quality of a magnanimous soul is to despise great things and to prefer that which is ordinary rather than that which is too superfluous [Magni animi est magna contemnere ac mediocria malle quam nimia.] This is rather distinct from Aristotelian μεγαλοψυχία (megalopsychia), which is primarily characterized in terms of a great-souled man's relationship to others (see the Nicomachean Ethics,  1124b). In so far as the desires of the great-souled man are characterized by Aristotle, these are articulated in terms of their uncommonly high honors or achievements (themselves also positional goods). Of course, Aristotle and Seneca agree, in a sense, that ordinarily the non-great-souled are mistaken about what matters, but that's the extent of the agreement.

While in this Letter, Seneca is annoyingly terse about the content of his version of magnanimity, it's crucial that is not subject to the jurisdiction of fortune [ponet se extra ius dicionemque fortunae] It's pretty clear that Seneca means to be suggesting that the magnanimous person embraces the empire of necessity (recall Letter 1 and  Letter 4); but see Letter 13). This is a genuine contrast with Aristotle, where a willingness to face danger in a great cause is especially praiseworthy. In Aristotelian great dangers, there is always an element of chance. 

For both Aristotle and Plato, chance is uniquely democratic (recall this post). And there is indeed no doubt that Seneca rejects the commercial and political market place, which he takes to be ruled by utility and open-ended and so destructive desire. But Rancière correctly reminds us that for Plato philosopher-kings need chance, a providential fate, to become rulers (recall also this post). (See Republic 592; also, perhaps, Laws 708e-709a). And so in rejecting the role of chance, Seneca is de facto also refusing the possibility of direct philosophical rule. The embrace of necessity entails, then, a form of magnanimity that is oriented toward goods that are commonly not taken to be very special.

One may worry here that what Plato relies on is not strictly speaking the Atomist/Epicurean fortune; that the Socratic providential fate is something distinct from that. And that Seneca, as a good Stoic, is willing to embrace some such conception providence.* I can't rule that out here. If one that's that possibility seriously, it would also entail that the kind of rule Seneca is willing to embrace is invisible from the majority mankind.

As should be clear the speculative thought of the past paragraph is not the position I am attributing to Seneca. But it is notable that it coincides with the position of Francis Bacon (where true ruler-ship by would be philosopher-kings is hidden from mankind (New Atlantis)), who was one of the funkier readers of Seneca. 

Omelas, Dotson, and Revealing the Souls of Readers

Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however--that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc.--they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that; it doesn't matter. As you like it....I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don't hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas--at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all.--Ursula Le Guin, Walking Away from Omelas.

Before the quoted passage, the narration starts with a description of the Festival of Summer, the physical geography and architecture of Omelas, some of its political and religious institutions (although the narrator suggests lack of familiarity on both), and the happiness of (nearly all) its inhabitants. The narrator also calls attention to the fact how difficult it is aesthetically and rhetorically to convey happiness in light of (as the narrator notes just below the passage I have quoted) "modern tastes." In fact, in addition to an (incomeplete) characterization of Omelas, the main pre-occupation of the narration op to this point is (recall this post) the nature of (modern) narrative itself (and the characterization of genre).

In the quote, the narrator explicitly calls attention to (a point much emphasized by Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus and, if it is authentic, the seventh letter) the fact that a written text must accommodate itself somehow to a diversity of souls (who may be unknown, but anticipated by the author) or (if you prefer less metaphysics) to human heterogeneity in aesthetic and other engaged responses.+ The narrator doesn't merely explicitly admit she (why not!) may not be able to satisfy all her readers, but she also invites, no challenges ("rise to the occasion") her readers to use their own imagination to constitute a version of Omelas that will satisfy their image of a happy place. These are souls that assume a happy place must have technology (trained on, say, Bacon's New Atlantis) and lots of freely available sex (trained on, say, Brave New World). Of course, the narrator isn't just inviting readers to develop their own version of Omelas with accidental properties inessential to the true nature of Omelas, while simultaneously revealing that these properties may be essential to the kind of readers they are. The narrator is also calling attention to the fact that she is aware that she may disappoint some of our expectations; may, in fact, disapprove of our expectations (e.g., we want to be able to blame organized religion for the cruelty at the heart of Omelias; we want a narrative of technological progress or out of control desire and so blame these, etc.).   

The issue of the politics of readership (see this very important paper by Julie Klein) raised in the previous paragraph is not just a matter of aesthetic and intertextuality (or meta-fiction); it also bears on the nature of how to understand the psychomyth (HT John Holbo's very fine piece) that Omelas is. (Psychomyth is Le Guin's own term.) A psychomyth is a certain kind of thought experiment, which is the occasion for (to quote Williams James) “a specifical and independent sort of emotion.” For, Walking Away From Omelas, shows two kinds of characteristic responses to the cruelty at the core of Omelas. Two natures are revealed: (i) those that stay and embrace the misery of the innocent child as a necessary feature, "the terrible justice of reality;" and those that (ii) quietly leave town (that's the closing "incredible" paragraph of the story) keeping their hands clean.* 

As an aside, both (i) and (ii) do not violate the terms of the social compact that gives Omelas its social structure. (The only difference is that the group of folk that belong to (ii) refuse to go on to benefit personally from the contract.) This social compact (which almost certainly precedes the narrated time) is grounded in the opinion of all. (In this sense the social compact mimics Hobbes's unanimity requirement.)

Even so, and to return to the main argument, and as it happens, (iii) anyone could bring "the child...up into the sunlight out of that vile place"** and so destroy the social compact which is thought to bring happiness to all. Such a noble soul would have to be willing to reform society's institutions against the common understanding of happiness. That is, as the Cave analogy emphasizes (in Kristie Dotson's felicitous summary) worldviews are resilient against change.and very difficult to disrupt (especially if they characterize the truth of the phenomena). Even those that recognize the abhorrent truth have incentives to exit rather than to change the social status quo. If they are humane they may well wonder if acting on their perception of wrong isn't reckless given that the downside risk is carried by all of society and there is always a possibility that their perception is wrong. (This is why revolutionaries often seem like fanatics.)*** 

By treating the structure of the story as a reverse Utility Monster (and so the standard case), we may miss the third character as a live option. It's not a live option in the sense that one should expect to live in times when they naturally pop up. Le Guin's narrator is more plausible by effacing the very possibility. But by insisting that how we respond to the narrative says something about how we might be, we are also encouraged to cultivate in ourselves habits of thought, and, perhaps shared systems of thought, that make possible efforts to resist resigning ourselves to given options.++

 

On An Unphilosophical Legislation of Utopia.

[1] But they report (and there remains good marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men’s expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion....

[2] They say the whole scheme of the town was designed at first by Utopus, but he left all that belonged to the ornament and improvement of it to be added by those that should come after him, that being too much for one man to bring to perfection. Their records, that contain the history of their town and State, are preserved with an exact care, and run backwards seventeen hundred and sixty years [244BC].

[3] At the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since, instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves. After he had subdued them he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavor to draw others to it by the force of argument and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery. This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it.--Thomas More, Utopia

While much of the narrative  of book 2 of Utopia is focused on the present, the reader also learns quite a bit about the origin of the polity. While More himself is no Aristotelian, and so may be unmoved by this consideration, an explanation is incomplete without analysis of the origin, which is of independent interest.Above I have collected the three main passages pertaining to the pre-history and founding of Utopia. 

We learn that its origin is in conquest. The original inhabitants lived on a peninsula. This peninsula was eminently defensible, but they lost their freedom for two reasons: first, they were technologically inferior to the conquerors; second, they were dis-unified due to religious disagreements. The latter is significant because it shows that the effects of religion on the dispositions conducive to unity cannot be ignored by those who wish to remain politically independent.

Unusually, the conquest is not followed by permanent subordination, slavery, or destruction of the original inhabitants by the conquerors. For the conquerors are force-ably leveled down and put to work. This has the symbolic significance that the conqueror and conquered are treated equally. It also symbolizes two further facts: first, it dignifies work and, in particular, public works.  Second, no permanent leisure or extractive renter class is permitted to emerge. More subtly, Utopus is ehibited not just as a skillful military commander, but also a kind of despot capable of forcing his own followers to do things against their will (and presumably expectation).

In the previous paragraph I used 'public work.' But the digging of the channel turns the peninsula into an island. This exhibits the control by mankind over nature aimed at in Utopia (which anticipates New Atlantis in this respect).* A further effect is to turn the society into a fortified castle. While it's not the main focus of the description of Utopia, military prowess, even imperial conquest, is not an irrelevant element of its ongoing function (recall this post too).

As an aside, it's unclear how the initial succession of Utopus was arranged. But (eventually) Utopia has evolved into an elective principality. This prince is chosen for life but can be removed if he appears to wish to become a tyrant. He has power to punish crimes, and to pardon them (because he has kept the "prerogative.") In other respects the elected prince has not much further power (except that I assume he is at the head of armed forces).

To return to the main point. Utopus's design for utopia is deliberately unfinished in various respects; it presupposes the possibility of open-ended economic and aesthetic progress ('ornament and improvement'). I am not claiming that modernity is here first invented, but it is a notable break from the more cyclical template(s) that can be found in the classical models to which More richly alludes. 

The possibility of open-ended progress can also be found (recall) in the laws of religion. This is an unusual mixture of requiring core doctrinal agreement about a few core dogmas -- in particular, that souls are immortal and will be punished/rewarded in the afterlife; that God is watchful and providential -- all of which quite clearly conducive to enforcing morality on earth, while simultaneously allowing religious innovation outside the core. However, such religious innovation is, in turn, constrained by the requirements of public order. (All of this anticipates the outlines of Spinoza's position.) The state religion is, with those qualifications, broadly ecumenical and tolerant in spirit. The underlying idea is the product of the fact that "Utopus judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety." Underlying this is the providential idea -- often attributed to J.S. Mill --  that in the long run through the force of polite arguments truth will prevail "he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind.")

There is more to be said about this. But the important point is this. Utopus anticipates the Rousseau-ian legislator who introduces and sets a constitution on sound footing and then becomes dispensable. Notably, while there is room for technological and medical innovation on the island, there is little room for genuine political philosophy (or [recall] civilized philosophy) or even speculation (or school philosophy) on Utopia. Moreover, there is little evidence he was guided by such philosophy. This last point may be speculative, but it is made explicit in one of the poems (often attributed to Peter Gilles) that accompanied Utopia in its early printings.

My king and conqueror Utopus by name,
A prince of much renown and immortal fame,
Has made me an isle that once no island was,
Full fraught with worldly wealth,

with pleasure and solace.
I one of all other without philosophy,
Have shaped for many a philosophical city.
And mine I have nothing dangerous to impart,
So better to receive I am ready
with all my heart.*--probably Peter Gilles.

 My only reservation is that the judgment on the philosophical character of Utopia (the city) is incomplete without further evaluation of the blue print in light of the conversations (and the different polities) described in Book I. But that's for another time.

On the Natural Limits of Epistemocracy, Le Guin's Earthsea, III

When a storm begins, it is only a little cloud on the horizon.--Ursula Le Guin, in The Farthest Shore, Earthsea, III.

Regular readers know (recall) that I am an admirer of Ursula K. Le Guin. (I have blogged about Earthsea, here and here.) The Farthest Shore is, in addition to a thrilling adventure and buddy story, a meditation on the natural limits of epistemocracy (the rule by the knowledgeable) and the embrace of inductive risk ("Having choice, we must not act without responsibility"). For in Earthsea, there is (despite local kingdoms) no central authority in the continental archipelago, but -- not unlike New Atlantis -- behind the scenes the Masters of Roke maintain balance in the world. They use their carefully calibrated powers (recall the metaphysics), especially, to facilitate agriculture, navigation, and medicine. I speak of powers (and not technology), because the paradoxical effect of their knowledge is to retard the growth of technology. (I speculate is due to the fact that Le Guin recognizes that a paternalist, well-intention-ed caste creates a kind of tutelage.)+

A whole book could be written on the internal organization of the meritocratic Masters of Roke;++ they are ruled by a kind of politburo or, if that sounds too negative, a deliberative council, with a primes inter pares, the Archmage. This council operates, I think, by cooptation and consensus. The council represents the very best of all the specializations to be found among the Masters--true masters of knowledge are teachers; the Archmage is both the most powerful and the one true generalist (and the one permitted to deviate from the too-status-quo-friendly-consensus). The series is successful in casting doubt on, without fully undermining, the Archmage's practical wisdom. The Masters are hierarchically organized, and lesser wizards are found all over the archipelago generally (but not always) facilitating order and harmony locally.

The Masters do not meddle much with politics (but some of their local disciples do). And absent a central political power, the merchant classes run things on broadly republican grounds in the political center. They have done so successfully for many centuries, but the present Book III suggests that a commercial republic is fundamentally unbalanced. The reason for this is that in a commercial republic, the general interest is not properly cultivated and attended to. It falls on the The Masters of Roke to look after, somewhat imperfectly, the general interest. 

One may wonder why the Masters do not become (benevolent) tyrants. In part this is due to the fact that there is an external threat (represented by dragons confined to the edge of Earthsea).* The significance of external threats is emphasized by the fact that the delicate political balance of Earthsea is undermined by the present Archmage (in Book II), when he had helped destroyed the symbols of power of Earthsea's sole militaristic society (the Kargs on the other edge of Earthsea),which has a sacred kingship and a clerical religion. (Le Guin is no friend of clerical religion; but she recognizes that emancipation can have costs.) 

But the more significant fact is that the Masters are governed by an esprit de corps and religiosity which emphasizes moderation, prudence, and balance indoctrinated by a long apprenticeship.** Not all the great Masters think this sufficient; one of the greatest, Ogion has withdrawn himself to an insignificant corner committed to extremer forms of moderation and self-mastery. But even Ogion is willing to teach his arts to the elect.

Books III-IV, chronicle the necessary undoing of the equilibrium maintained by this epistemocracy. These are produced by two natural defects common, in principle, to all epistemic orders: first, hubris (prompted by competitive emulation among them), or expert overconfidence, and, second, desire for immortality. The first is a natural, even an inevitable response to a history of continued success; while the second is itself the new desire generated by knowledge of natural powers. On this point Le Guin (echoes Bacon and) disagrees with Plato, who clearly thinks that it is uncontrollable sexual desire among the elite which undermines kallipolis (Republic 546b).*** By contrast Le Guin thinks sexual desire is controllable if the alternative rewards (in power, status, etc.) are sufficient and if (and, perhaps, only if), women are not deemed part of this elite. In Book IV, it is suggested, in fact, that power over nature is made possible by sexual abstinence--something foreshadowed in Book III, by the Archmage's claim that he desires "nothing beyond" his "art." 

The disagreement between the Le Guin of Earthsea and Plato's Socrates is not about underlying natural ability of women. Le Guin shows us the existence of women with the powers of would be Mages. But these are kept away from the Masters who, on the whole, believe their own ideology. Ogion is shown to be the (cautious) exception. That is, Platonic feminism, which (recall) rejects natural equality of all, but asserts that the best women are just as capable of ruling as the best men if they are properly educated/cultivated, is always a possibility on Earthsea, but it only comes into being in the closing page(s) of Book IV.

 

The Influence of Plato's Republic: On The Kuhn Loss of Skipping the Islamic Philosophers (and Bacon, De Gournay, and Bodin)

Plato's impact on European political thought is not easy to describe. Plato's metaphysics was influential on Christian thinking almost from the beginning, especially by way of his Timaeus; but when the cultural renaissance of the twelfth century reinvigorated classical scholarship in western Europe, it was Aristotle''s Politics rather than Plato's Republic that scholars turned to for political illumination. The revival of interest in Plato during the Renaissance was a revival of interest in his metaphysics; although Republic was translated into Latin, and could now be read in  Greek by a substantial number of scholars, it was the metaphysical dialogues that were important. Quite when Republic acquired its present dominant status is hard to say; in part it seems to have been an artifact of the Victorian obsession with educing young men for public life. Ever since, many commentators have thought of Republic as a treatise on education...Alan Ryan (2012) On Politics, 32-3.

Ryan calls attention to the right question -- when and why did Republic acquire its present dominant status? -- and offers a plausible answer {in the 19th century}, but because he does not know where to look he also makes some obvious mistakes here. Before I get to that; Ryan understands his own book "not [as] a textbook so much as a context and a pretext book, concerned with settings and motives as well as the works themselves." (xxv) In that genre it is, I think, very successful. Ryan writes well and is able to convey judicious (almost too judicious) judgments with clear and economic prose.

I have already noted [recall] that Ryan mentions some of the leading Islamic philosophers in chapter 6, "Between Augustine and Aquinas." I have  noted that he treats the Islamic philosophers as metaphysicians and contrasts them with the (somewhat later) Ibn Khaldun, who is considered as the first Islamic political theorist. So, this means that Ryan makes no mention of Al-Farabi's Political Regime [recall, for example, here], Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan [recall, for example, here], and Ibn Rushd's Commentary on Plato's Republic [recall, for example, here]--all three some of my favorite blogging topics.(And that this has peculiar consequences on his treatment of platonic feminism including the absence of (recall) De Gournay.)  Now, I mention these three particular texts because the first and third are direct and fairly explicit engagements with Plato's Republic, and Ibn Tuyfayl's philosophical novel is much less puzzling if it is seen as such. To say this is not to deny other influences on their writings.

Now, there are five issues lurking here: first, Plato's impact on Islamic political thought (quite interesting in its own right) is effaced here. Second, some of that takes place on the European continent so their contribution to European thought as such is effaced--these days that's a very political move (recall). Third, it is now left unasked what the influence of Islamic political thought on later streams of European thought might of have been. I have not studied this, but there are important links with Dante (see here for example--it is especially important for the history of toleration) and Spinoza (in whose circle Ibn Tuyfayl was translated into Dutch).

Fourth, because he treats Timaeus exclusively as a metaphysical work, which is peculiar because one need not be a Straussian to see that the very start is clearly a nod  to a work resembling the Republic, he does not notice later that interest in Timaeus may well also sometimes signal political interest. Ibn Tufayl's work is an instance of this (work is mostly metaphysics, but there are also clear political themes), but so is (another of my blogging favorites!) Bacon's New Atlantis (recall for example here). Yes, the very end of it, s primarily about the organization of scientific research (and education), but the vast majority of that that (short) text is a clear response to both More's Utopia and Plato's Republic. Ryan mentions New Atlantis when he discusses Harrington's Oceana, but there to distinguish it from the more Machiavellian work by Harrington. The connection between metaphysics and politics is not contingent--it's intrinsic to what as once known as political theology. This is a topic he largely ignores and considers (to quote a bit unfairly out of context!) problematic. This absence goes largely unnoticed because Spinoza is irrelevant to the study he tells (one passing mention of Spinoza in context of Hegel), and Philo is unmentioned. [That political theology is also not discussed in context of Hobbes' philosophy is peculiar.)

Fifth, Ryan shows almost no interest in Bodin. He mentions The Six Bookes of a Commonweale as the source of the modern conception of the sovereign state. But he does not mention that the original title was Les Six Livres de la République, which gives at least more of a hint of the Platonic resonances. Bodin starts the book by disassociating himself from Plato: "Not that we intend to describe a purely ideal and unrealizable commonwealth, such as that imagined by Plato, or Thomas More the Chancellor of England. We intend to confine ourselves as far as possible to those political forms that are practicable." In this he echoes Machiavelli and anticipates the trope we also find in Spinoza, Hume, and Smith, who all (recall) three treat More's Utopia as a species of useless and inapplicable philosophy because it (purportedly) relies on, shall we say, wishful thinking about human nature (and social reality). But throughout the text Bodin returns explicitly and implicitly to Plato.

Now, Ryan is also aware (see p. 139) that Cicero was fully engaged with Plato's Republic, although he treats Cicero political theoretical works not as a full fleshed philosophy ["caring" about "foundations,"] but rather as contributions to statecraft. But, as far as I can tell, he makes no mention of early Stoic political theory, and so basically misses the enduring influence of Plato's Republic on Hellenic and Roman thought as well as its impact on Islamic political philosophy. I do not mean to suggests there were no gaps in the Republic's influence, but the real question is, perhaps,* why did Europe in the twelfth century show now interest in the Republic?

 

On Katrina, Sandy, Harvey and the Rot in American Governance [No, this post is not about Trump]

Roughly a third of the US population—more than 100 million people—lives in coastal counties [7]. US coastal county populations are also growing much denser than non-coastal counties. Between 1980 and 2008 coastal counties increased population density by 28 percent (excluding Alaska). "Hurricanes and Climate Change" (September 2016) Union of Concerned Scientists

Hurricane Katrina was in 2005.  It was a tragedy that, also, revealed racialized and economic injustice in New Orleans. It was probably also one of the central turning points (fairly or not) when the good fortune of the Bush administration ended. The US has had 12 years since to prepare its major cities against flooding damage in light of increasingly loud climate scientists predicting, in virtue of climate change modelling, increasing flooding and other effects of Hurricanes which are becoming more frequent and powerful.

A lot of attention is paid to Trump's embrace of climate change denial. During the twelve years since Katrina, Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012 and caused major damage. These twelve years include the whole of the Obama Administration. I know a lot of attention is focused on President Trump, but he is not responsible for the status quo.  Any particular Administration is responsible for how it responds to natural disasters and how it coordinates relief and reconstruction. (On the political significance of coordination, recall Sabl 's book on Hume.) However, preventing, mitigating, and preparing for major natural disasters transcends administrations and is a matter of structural governance (at local, regional, state, national, and international level [and when aliens discover us, cosmic level]).* What follows ignores the non-trivial significance of disaster-relief (Stateside the task of FEMA) and reconstruction/renewal.  (See Anna Jacobson for a sober perspective.)

The flooded streets of Houston reveal a deep rot in American governance and political life. For, it is a central task of modern states to prevent or mitigate, and prepare for, major natural disasters. It requires long range planning capacity, enormous skill at coordination of knowledge and engineering know-how, the ability to harness financial resources, gigantic control over land-use, and the power to enforce prudential rules and regulations along many different dimensions (health, safety, housing, roads, industrial plants, etc.), and etc.  When levees, dams, and dikes are built the natural order is re-directed and transformed with enormous amount of downstream consequences.

While the Ancients executed great engineering feats, they treated natural disasters as (depending on their metaphysical outlook) fate or chance or divine providence. It could hit anywhere and anytime. Life is fundamentally uncertain. What really matters is how one (or the state) responded to it. (Recall some of my posts on Seneca.)

Starting with Bacon's New Atlantis, I think (or, if Roger Masters is right, perhaps in Machiavelli's response to Leonardo Di Vinci), one sees reflection on ordering society in which nature is domesticated and harnessed for fruitful ends. That the state can prevent natural disasters, and legitimately impose obligations and regulations on citizens in light of this mission, is taken for granted (as common background to appeal to) in Book 2 of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: "The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed." (The passage is often quoted. In context Smith is defending his bank regulations.) That is to say, in modern political thought the state confronts natural uncertainty and re-directs to other more fruitful ends (fill in your favorite end, leisure, commerce, the arts,  etc.).

The modernity in this sense of the US is illustrated and exemplified by the impressive history of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. In this agency engineering and state power come together. While nobody would deny that, in  practice, all decisions of USACE, have political significance and may well be informed by some broad political values, it is symbolically significant that this primarily civilian agency is a part of the defense department. This shows that preventing and mitigating natural disasters is a  matter of national security. While being housed in the Department of Defense does not shield the agency from ordinary political debates, it is understood that the mission of USACE is also, in large part, reliant on its technical expertise and impartiality. The rise and flourishing of the Corps is a key causal vector in the rise of America as a Continental power.

I leave it to the experts to explain why the US seems to have become unable (in a political sense) to exercise one of the central task of modern states. But it seems to have lost the ability to marshal the necessary resources to mitigate seriously the effects of (reasonably foreseeable) natural disasters. It is pretty clear that many of the most populated and economically important parts of the US are structurally vulnerable to hurricane-related floodings and tsunamis. All signs suggest that reckless development is increasing (see here Scientific American). This recklessness is mystifying not just because it violates minimal enlightened self-interest, but because the United States government remains quite a powerful and wealthy organization full of talented individuals.

I know that the media will turn this into a question of how Trump performed (or his stance on climate science, or his real estate focus on redevelopment, etc.). We will soon be offered (racialized) tales of heroic-ism and vandalism. My libertarian friends will remind us that private companies perform very well in disaster relief, and soon my Bayesian friends will tout the benefits of widespread adoption of Bayesian modeling in policy sciences (and etc.). But I do not see any signs that the structural rot in the US's governance is being addressed. We have become addicted to watching and discussing (in polarized fashion) Trump's spectacle. My regular readers know I think this is awful, but he is a symptom of a more fundamental weakness in American governance.

 

Why Not?* In defense of Utopian Thought

Another reason for engaging in ideal theory is that what today seems like a fantasy may one day become quite realistic. It therefore makes sense to aim high. As Brennan observes, throughout most of human history, deaths due to violence were vastly more common than they are today. If someone a thousand years ago described a society like ours, they would likely have been dismissed as utopian. Perhaps similar dramatic advances, that today appear overly utopian, will be made in the future.
I share Brennan’s optimism: we will one day live much better than we do now. Nevertheless, I think utopian theorizing is largely useless.

Compare Ida’s hypothesis, in the flat tire story, that we may one day develop antigravity technology. This might be true, but this possibility has no practical bearing on Ida and Nora’s trip. Antigravity technology is not available to them presently, and they do not know how to make it available. You might think that their present behavior might nevertheless affect their prospects for attaining antigravity technology at some distant future time. But Ida and Nora have no idea whether antigravity will ever be available, nor do they know even in broad outline how it would work. In that context, the speculation that something they do today might somehow help or hinder future antigravity efforts is idle. Discussion of such a possibility does not help them solve any problem or pursue any goal that they have any rational way of pursuing.
The same is true of G. A. Cohen’s speculations about a future society in which everyone interacts like people on a friendly camping trip. We do not have such an option available to us now, we have no idea whether it will ever be available, nor do we know even in broad outline how it would come about. In that context, discussion of this possibility is idle. It does not help us solve any problem or rationally pursue any goal.
I think the future holds great promise: our distant descendants will live much better than we, due not only to technological and economic advancements, but probably to institutional and cultural advancements as well. But we have no way of predicting these developments and no rational way of trying to either help or hinder them. Imagine the position of someone in 1500 A.D., trying to plan for the world of 2016. There is no reasonable way that they could have guessed even roughly what our society would be like. As a result, if anyone in 1500 A.D. made plans for the twenty-first century, those plans are surely worthless. Because the pace of change has dramatically advanced in the past few centuries, the future is even less predictable to us than our world was to the denizens of 1500 A.D. Thus, any plans we might make for the next age are almost surely worthless. The point here is that Brennan’s general observation about the likelihood of progress — even if true — does not give us good reason for engaging in utopian theorizing.
There is no sharp dividing line between possibilities that are too remote to be usefully entertained and those that are close enough to be worthwhile. My claim that Cohen’s utopia is idle speculation is thus a judgment call: in my judgment, a society in which socialism would work would have to be so far from our society that we cannot now productively discuss that society or plan for its arrival.--Michael Huemer "Confessions of a Utopophobe." Social Philosophy and Policy  (2016), 223-224. [HT Hanno Sauer]

This seeems to be Michael Huemer week in the philosophical blogosphere (see Dailynous). The quoted passage is from a larger essay, which defends the methodological use of intuitions in political philosophy. Let me stipulate here, that in this Digression, I am agnostic about the fruitfulness and soundness of methodological use of intuitions in political philosophy. The section I quote is also part of a larger argument against so-called 'ideal theory.' (In fact, the paper is quite helpful in distinguishing between "perfection theory" and strict compliance theory" within ideal theory.)

The oddity of the section is that while it purports to criticize aiming high, it never actually confronts its target. Nobody would deny that at many decision moments ideas about the  distant future are "useless." But it does not follow that ideas about the remote future are inert; it never gets around to discussing how utopian ideas and words about ideals connect to the future. For example, between 1815 and 1940 (say, from Mazzini to Hayek) many different kind of authors articulated different visions for a united Europe in which independent or federated nation-states would no longer be at war with each other. This required both a willingness to imagine the disintegration of the most powerful empires in existence and a leap into speculation about how, say, future republics could be allied in (say) a republican confederation. While some of these texts took the form of a prediction, the point of even the predictions was not scientific prediction, but, rather, to change the beliefs and  commitment of readers and a wider public and, thereby, change future possibilities (not the least by generating a call to action). 

Now, to be sure, Huemer is going after ideal theories that themselves (often) assume without compelling argument that they are required as a "necessary fundational part of normative social theory" (219) and that normative theory "must pursue perfection." (219) Even if one thinks there is space for such foundational and perfectionist inquiry it does not follow, as Huemer correctly argues, that these are needed for all normative purposes.** But it also does not follow that it cannot serve any useful purposes (even if one grants it is pretty useless in some very concrete choice situations).

I have already suggested that ideas can connect the present to the future. And that they can do that in ways distinct from (scientific) prediction in the context of deep uncertainty about how to future will be--I fully agree with Huemer's sense that we have no access to reliable means of long range forecasting about as-of-yet-non-existent technologies (e.g., antigravity). But it does not mean we can't have access to information about its feasibility. For, another obvious way in which the present shapes future possibilities is debt (recall this post). In fact, one annoying feature of Huemer's argument is that he simply assumes that "trying to plan for the world in 2016" is a hopeless task in 1500. It's true that (as Keynes argued) one really cannot make such long range predictions in the same way that buying insurance in 1500 for an event in 2016 is silly (although some versions of portfolio theory can suggest buying some such option as a hedge). Yet, many states did sell perpetual bonds (recall my piece on Stasavage, Machiavelli and Hume). One such (slightly younger) bond is still in existence: "The oldest known bond in the world that still produces interest is the perpetual 2.5% loan worth 1200 guilders, issued in 1624, of the Lekdijk Bovendams water board....it still pays interest." Once ideas and debt start reinforcing each other the shape of the future is much constrained. 

Clearly, the previous paragraph is itself no defense of (Rawlsian) ideal theory nor helpful in taking sides in the debate between Cohen and Brennan. But it is a defense of the potency of certain kinds of "speculations about a future society." While it is, perhaps, quixotic to expect that books are still the medium by which the future is shaped, these speculations (and that can include ideal theory!) may shape the generation of the future they are speculating about (or some alternatives to those speculations) in non-mysterious ways . (I have explored the nature of the genre in terms of philosophical prophecy.) We know, as a historical fact, that, for example, Bacon's imaginative speculations about how to organize a scientific society influenced the deeds of several generations of readers and, somewhat uncannily, he also foresaw many of the problematic social and political byproducts of such a society. (While it is true "there is no reasonable way that they could have guessed even roughly what our society would be like," it is surprising how many crucial fundamental relations of our society were foreseen.) We know that Hume's "Of a Perfect Commonwealth" (recall here and here) influenced an American revolution and its Constitution, etc..

Of course,  it's true that no author ca 1500-1650 guessed the role of YouTube in contemporary education. But it is also true that our conceptual-social-legal-political possibility space is, in part, constituted by speculations in the past that were self-consciously written for the future we inhabit now (and determined by ordinary social forces like the institutions of debt, inheritance law, etc.). This is, in fact, the conceit behind Socratic political philosophy from the start.

Finally, it is especially peculiar to see a university professor write, "any plans we might make for the next age are almost surely worthless." By now we there are many universities that are many hundreds year old! (Even UC Boulder dates back to 1876.) There is no doubt that these corporations have changed in light of many circumstances due to local, contingent decisions. But it is also true that they have generated corporate spirits that have provided continuous stewardship and a willingness to plan for future ages (recall this post, itself a response to Jacob Levy's). This is no coincidence: the whole enterprise of learning and science has long been constituted by the thought that each of us inherits the accomplishments and insights (etc.) of the past and we will do our best to pass these on enriched and transformed by our labors without having a clue about the details to be added by later generations.***

 

On introducing the God(s) in Bacon and Cavendish

"About twenty years after the ascension of our Saviour, it came to pass, that there was seen by the people of Renfusa...within night, (the night was cloudy, and calm,) as it might be some mile into the sea, a great pillar of light; not sharp, but in form of a column, or cylinder, rising from the sea a great way up towards heaven; and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar. Upon which so strange a spectacle, the people of the city gathered apace together upon the sands, to wonder; and so after put themselves into a number of small boats, to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But when the boats were come within (about) sixty yards of the pillar, they found themselves all bound, and could go no further; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer: so as the boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as an heavenly sign.--Bacon New Atlantis.

A spectacle that introduces wonder and marvel precedes the introduction of a idiosyncratic version of the Christian religion on Bensalem (accompanied by further miracles). As commentators have noted, the reader later learns that the members of the Society of Salomon's House are fully capable of creating the recounted spectacle and other marvels. Given the docile and orderly nature -- itself a marvel -- of the citizens of Bensalem, it's hard not to infer that a properly managed and crafted religion can help pacify a population; New Atlantis shows the reader how this is done. (The previous sentence is compatible with the existence of other forms of pacification.)

A natural question to ask is what problem is the introduction of religion meant to solve on Bensalem? There are hints throughout New Atlantis, that in the remote past [recall] Bensalem had suffered some kind of civil war (or turmoil) that was only settled by King Solamona, who along with other constitutional reforms, founded Salomon's House a few hundred years before the marvelous introduction of Christianity. My own -- anachronistic, Spinozistic -- guess is that the members of the scientific society recognizes that religion is needed to offer the promise of salvation to the non-elite (i.e., the vast number of folk not members of the House of Salomon, who seem to have found the key to extending life indefinitely but don't seem intent on sharing it with the population at large).  

Anyway, I was reminded of Bacon's oblique presentation of how religion was deliberately introduced into society because I was discussing Cavendish's presentation (with Jon Shaheen) of a similar phenomenon:

With that shot off his pistoll into the breast of the chief Priest, wherewith he straight fell down dead; the noise of the pistoll, and the flash of the fire, which they never saw before, and the effect of it upon the Priest, strooke them with such a horror, and did so terrify them, as they all kneeled down imploring mercy, and forgiveness, with trembling limbs, and weeping eyes, whereupon he told them, there was no ways to avoid punishment, but first to fast two dayes from any kinde of nourishment; Next, not to open their lipps to speak, and then to obey whatsoever he shall teach them, as being sent from the Gods; bidding them go home untill their time of fasting were out; and then to return to the Temple again.--Margaret Cavendish, Assaulted and pursued Chastity.

Here the lead characters of Cavendish's short story overawe a native/savage population. What's central in the episode is not the murder of the chief Priest (who was about the sacrifice and cannibalize the heroine,who is disguised as a man, and her/his adopted father) as such, but rather the fact that it is done with unknown technology, which, due to unfamiliarity and surprise, generates awe-inspiring effects (sound, fire, death). This becomes the occasion of the introduction of a new (Deistic) religion, after the two days of enforced fasting, by a (self-appointed) prophet who abolishes human sacrifice. 

That is, Cavendish (whose more familiar Blazing World plays with and rejects themes from New Atlantis) and Bacon both show how technology can be marshaled to create marvelous appearances that are taken as divine signs and, thereby, used to create political power. While it may be tempting to read in these stories a kind of retrospective unmasking of the great monotheistic prophets-legislators, one may also see in them a kind of prophecy (inspired, say, by the Spanish Conquest) of the European, imperial projects.