Digressions&Impressions

Mill's Pessimism on Public Opinion (again)

It is hardly to be expected that this question will be asked in respect to the change proposed in the condition of women in marriage. The sufferings, immoralities, evils of all sorts, produced in innumerable cases by the subjection of individual women to individual men, are far too terrible to be overlooked. Unthinking or uncandid persons, counting those cases alone which are extreme, or which attain publicity, may say that the evils are exceptional; but no one can be blind to their existence, nor, in many cases, to their intensity. And it is perfectly obvious that the abuse of the power cannot be very much checked while the power remains. It is a power given, or offered, not to good men, or to decently respectable men, but to all men; the most brutal, and the most criminal. There is no check but that of opinion, and such men are in general within the reach of no opinion but that of men like themselves. If such men did not brutally tyrannise over the one human being whom the law compels to bear everything from them, society must already have reached a paradisiacal state. There could be no need any longer of laws to curb men's vicious propensities. Astraea must not only have returned to earth, but the heart of the worst man must have become her temple. The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human being, in the hope forsooth that this other will use the power solely for the good of the person subjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.--The Subjection  of Women, Chapter 4. 

The immediate context of these remarks is Mill's (and perhaps Taylor's) attack on the marriage laws. In the quoted passage Mill presuppose here background knowledge on the way the nineteenth century common law makes wives and their properties, the properties of their husbands along many different dimensions (see chapter 2). Not unlike other nineteenth century feminists, Mill's compares these marriage laws to the servitude of slaves. As quotes passage suggests ("modern world"), the argument presupposes (but does not excessively rely upon)  Mill's commitment to civilizational, stadial progress, which is, in part, a painstakingly slow -- what, while commenting on his Hebraism in Representative Government,  I once (recall) called dialectical -- process of moral discovery ("those principles slowly and painfully worked out.") This stadial theory is, alas, racialized (or has essentializing tendencies about cultures), and it infects quite a bit of Mill's thought (recall also this post on Utilitarianism). It is quite amazing, horrifying, really, to see this moral prophet of progress regress so sensibly from, say, Smith's or Bentham's perspective.*  

But my present focus is something less essential to Mill's argument, but still worth marking. Mill recognizes that public opinion may be a possible check and likely correction to potential abuses of legally sanctioned power. We expect no less from the author of Of Liberty.

But recall that in Of Liberty, Mill is rather despairing about public opinion in reality; it not only tends to be conformist, but, even when of good will, can also be intimidated and silenced by dedicated, or strategic, vituperative speech. In the passage quoted above, Mill goes on to claim that public opinion is least likely to deter those most in need of deterrence. And the reason for this is not just that such men have no shame or sense of conscience of wrongdoing, but that opinion can be corrupted by  -- and here he echoes Adam Smith --  (recall this post) the sympathy of like-minded, that is, the power of faction ("such men are in general within the reach of no opinion but that of men like themselves.") 

Mill's recognition of the limitations of free speech are too infrequently recognized.** He knows that public opinion is corruptible and that interested groups can side with oppressors. In fact, if I understand his present argument correctly, he assumes that for public opinion to function properly people must be in some sense not just be receptive to moral argument, but also not so base, that they won't act on it. That is to say, Mill's defense of free speech and the fruitfulness of public opinion relies on the idea that society is, in  some sense, already a moral community (or aspiring to be one).

It doesn't follow, of course, that when society is (manifestly) an immoral community, one should automatically prevent, however tempting this may be, free speech or the exercise of public opinion. But it does follow that one should not be (let's use a Millian phrase) unthinking about the very predictable harms that follow from such freedoms.+ 

 

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.

Ibn Tufayl and the Three Kings

§3.  they say, that there lay, not far from this our Island, another Great Island very fertile and well peopled; which was then govern'd by a Prince of a Proud and Jealous Disposition: he had a Sister of exquisite Beauty, which he confin'd and restrain'd from Marriage, because he could not match her to one suitable to her quality. He had a near Relation whose Name was Yokdhân, that courted this Princess, and Married her privately, according to the Rites of Matrimony then in use among them; it was not long before she prov'd with Child, and was brought to Bed of a Son; and being afraid that it should be discovered, she took him in the Evening, and when she had Suckled him she put him into a little Ark which she closed up fast, and so Conveys him to the Sea shore, with some of her Servants and Friends as she could trust; and there with an Heart equally affected with Love and Fear, she takes her last leave of him...  

§98. They say that there was an Island not far from that where Hai Ebn Yokdhan was born (no matter according to which of those two different Accounts they give of his Birth) into which one of those good Sects, which had some one of the ancient Prophets (of pious Memory) for its Author, had retir'd. A Sect which us'd to discourse of all things in Nature, by way of Parable and Similitude, and by that means represent the Images of them to the Imagination, and fix the Impressions of them in Men's Minds, as is customary in such Discourses as are made to the Vulgar. This Sect so spread it self in this Island, and prevail'd and grew so eminent, that at last the King not only embrac'd it himself, but oblig'd his Subjects to do so too.'--Ibn Tufayl  The Improvement of HUMAN REASON, Exhibited in the LIFE of Hai Ebn Yokdhan [also known as Philosophus Autodidactus], translated by Simon Ockley (1708).

Regular readers know, I think of Ibn Tufayl's book as one of the great gems of the history of philosophy with great thought experiments, a beautiful account of humanity's place in the order of things, and a serious reflection on the tensions between a philosophical life and living in society. It's also a book that invites a lover of riddles to try to unravel the many little mysteries lodged in the book. (Ibn Tufayl  closes the book with a reminder that it contains "hidden Knowledge." §120) Today's post may be a garden path, and evidence for the kind of scholarly chase that Umberto Eco ridiculed so well in Foucault's Pendulum (and lovingly described in The Name of the Rose). But here goes; it presupposes, alas, some knowledge of the narrative. 

Ibn Tufayl's text mentions three kinds of kingship. I have quoted the pertinent passages of two of these in passing. The first kind of kingship is tyranny. The sister of this tyrant, Hayy's mom (in the version of his origins that emphasizes ordinary birth--in the other (recall) he is generated spontaneously), is not allowed to marry. The underlying politics are barely disguised: the tyrant wishes to use his sister for his dynastic ambitions. In addition we can infer that he clearly lacks off-spring, and so his sister's progeny are  a danger to his throne. I call him a tyrant because his court his characterized by fear. It is also characterized (and this is even more speculative) by political faction because Hayy's mom is said to have friends she can trust. (In the context of a tyranny the personal is, to adapt a famous slogan, political.)*

The second kind of kingship is mentioned very briefly, but it is, in the terms of Islamic political philosophy, a democratic king, that is, one whose rule is grounded in the opinion of the people. This king adapts to their changing views on religion, and once he is confident that the majority is one his side he is willing to use force to convert the rest of his population.

I am assuming that this democratic king is the same king under which Absâl and Salâman grow up together. (That's not entirely clear because it could also be a king who lived longer in the past; I think not because it is explicitly said that Absâl and Salâman meet with the religious sect, and the wording implies that they do so before it is state religion.) So, if this is correct, than prior to establishing a state religion, this king permitted religious diversity (and again, this fits with calling it a democracy--see Al-Farabi.) In addition, he allowed freedom of movement, in particular, the right to exit. That this is so is established by the fact that Absâl is allowed to leave the island undisturbed. That this is significant, is made clear by the fact that when Salaman becomes ruler, he thinks a right to withdrawal is explicitly un-lawful.** 

The third king is Salaman. He is explicitly one of the three characters we are instructed to focus on by the narrator/Ibn Tufayl in his introduction. The name is significant of cause because it echoes King Solomon, the Biblical king who is also venerated in Islam, (in New Atlantis, Bacon uses (recall) a similar device) and recalls a famous companion of Muhammad. We are not told how he gains power. We are given some information that he rules in his own image: he is disinterested in further religious innovation and he focuses on the literal meaning of Scriptures, showing a marked lack of intellectual curiosity. He himself follows the religious rites strictly (§99). He is outgoing, and sees society being in society as a means to (useful) self-disciplining (§100). He has a clear dislike of pluralism -- and this is the cause of his falling out with one-time friend, Absal-- and this makes him intolerant.++  

It's not entirely clear how to evaluate Salaman. From the perspective of political order, he is a very successful king: his subjects echo his attitudes and they are obedient. They reject abstract and mystical knowledge, sticking to material world and sensory evidence. This is not a society that will produce great innovations in knowledge and science. Moreover, his people are described as small-minded, committed to acquisitiveness and show little regard for the (possibility of) the afterlife (§115-116). These are observant, but not godly people, slaves to their appetites. 

I want to close with a reflection. The book naturally raises the question what role a (mystic) philosophy can have in society. Hayy's and Absal's return to exile is dramatic. In so doing the book also clearly demonstrates the political limits of theoretical knowledge absent understanding of political rhetoric and the ways one can rule through the effective use of symbols (Al-Farabi calls this 'religion'; see also here.) The means of the "true religion," which is the one that forces the conversion of the second king, succeed where Hayy's methods of preaching fail (see the quote from §98 above). The truth is not self-vindicating among those not made receptive toward it. 

But the question that Ibn Tufayl pursues is more subtle. In Deliverance from Error (a text mentioned by Ibn Tufayl at the start of his book), Al-Ghazali had grandly and self-confidently rejected a form of inherited religious, servile conformism un-grounded in inquiry. And after some time in self-imposed exile and contemplation of Sufi mysteries, he re-entered society in order to teach again (and call people to God's way). One way to understand Ibn Tufayl is to see in him the suggestion that religion is a tool for strict conformism, which generates political order and stability. If one values such stability, then, perhaps, the costs (no science, knowledge, etc.) may be a price worth paying. But, perhaps, the more remarkable observation lurking here -- and this is very much in the spirit of Al-Ghazali -- is that such conformist religious practice, focused on rule-following and obedience, is also fundamentally hollow when it is not a means toward further spiritual development and the only end it serves is political stability.

 

 

 

Ibn Rushd and Functional Explanation of Scriptures

Copulation ought not to be permitted them [the guardians] whenever they wish and with whomever they wish, since we wish that this activity be human among them and that their copulations not be of any chance character. The arrangement of their procreation will be the best possible with respect to their conditions of guardianship, but at fixed times an with determined individuals and characteristics. This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements. We ourselves will here briefly what Plato asserts about these things.---Ibn Rushd on Plato's Republic, the first treatise, 54.20-8, translated by Ralph Lerner.

At the start of the quoted passage, Ibn Rushd is referring to the breading program of the guardians of Socrates's Kallipolis (see Republic, 457-8). It is part of a larger passage, which is explicitly presented as a what "he said" (see 54.19).* But at the second to last sentence of the quoted passage he has slipped into his own voice, something he then calls attention to in the last sentence. The next paragraph then starts with a "we say,"and Ibn Rushd is officially speaking in his own voice. But what concerns me here is the second to last sentence {This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements.} This claim is not in the Republic, and it's Ibn Rushd's addition. 

But to see what's at stake we must first turn to the first sentences of Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic; these tell us that Ibn Rushd's "epitome" only presents the scientific, that is, demonstrative elements of the Republic. (Ibn Rushd claims to have  removed the dialectical arguments.) To be clear, Ibn Rushd does not present a summary of the Republic, but rather only conveys the bits that can be taken to be true,+ and useful (because it is a practical science).  So, this is an epitome in both senses: it's the best parts of the Republic and a synopsis.

As an aside, the most immediately striking omissions are that Book I of the Republic is skipped almost entirely (because as he says at the of the  third and final treatise, "it is entirely dialectical arguments") and the contents of Book 10 are barely conveyed. In addition, the dialogical structure of the Republic is entirely effaced. Socrates himself is only mentioned once, en passant, to remind the reader that Socrates chose death when he could not serve the polity anymore.** Ibn Rushd mentions this to convey accurately one of Socrates's claims (that physicians should not cure those who can't contribute in their functional role to society anymore), but this detail is absent in the Republic.

Okay, let me return to the main point. Two key claims of Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise are (a) that the hidden meaning of allegorical interpretation of Scriptures should not be shared with the masses, and (b) that (recall) such hidden knowledge can only put in texts that are demonstrative treatises, but these may only circulate among the cognitive elite. As I noted, the reason for (a) is that Ibn Rushd thinks this is the cause of (religious and political) faction; the reason for (b) is that the demonstrative sciences are recondite, and so ordinarily of little interest to the masses. (One can imagine him thinking that a text about Plato would be of even less interest!) Of course, the commentary on the Republic, does not advertise itself as offering evidence of the hidden meaning of Scriptures as revealed by allegorical interpretation. And, now we can return to the point at hand.

In the passage, Ibn Rushd is claiming that Kallipolis is not the only political constitution in which constraints on copulation serve an eugenic or domestic/artificial selective purpose. He says that this is also the point of other polities, including Islamic Sharia. And, in fact, the Quran and the Haddith, regulate, for example, when sex is and is not allowed. De facto, Ibn Rushd is offering a functional explanation of the meaning behind some of Scriptural practices.++ Another function of Sharia is to point (or to use the language of the Decisive Treatise, indicate) to the significance of good governance and good counsel (48.17).

A very important instance of Ibn Rushd's engaging with a kind of functional interpretation of Scripture occurs just after he has explained why woman ought not just be, in principle, guardians (as they are in Kallipolis), but that there is empirical evidence that they can be quite capable warriors (praising the Berber, female warriors of the dessert). And just before he goes on to explain (recall) that the institutions of his own time have the effect of dumbing down women (and causing economic hardship), he briefly pauses to note that Sharia has a tendency to prevent women from being part of the clerisy. He explains this fact as a consequence of an empirical regularity in which -- presumably in the time of revelation -- there are fewer capable women. But as the next page makes clear this regularity is itself a consequence of badly designed institutions. So, here, Ibn Rushd comes extremely close to saying that Scriptures didn't know any better based on the empirical evidence available; and that [the author(s) of] Scripture lacked the demonstrative understanding to correct for this. So, this is a case in which the hidden functionality of Scriptures reveals a defective understanding of nature.***

 

On Eugenics, Armed Robots, and Sparta; (Asimov's Libertarian Utopia)

Now Sparta in its hey day consisted of a relatively small number of Spartiates, the only full citizens, plus a somewhat larger number of second class individuals, the Perioeci, and a really large number of outright slaves, the Helots. The Helots outnumbered the Spartiates a matter of twenty to one, and the Helots were men with human feelings and human failings. In order to make certain that a Helot rebellion could never be successful despite their overwhelming numbers, the Spartans became military specialists. Each lived the life of a military machine, and the society achieved its purpose. There was never a successful Helot revolt.

Now we human beings on Solaria are equivalent, in a way, to the Spartiates. We have our Helots, but our Helots aren’t men but machines. They cannot revolt and need not be feared even though they outnumber us a thousand times as badly as the Spartans’ human Helots outnumbered them. So we have the advantage of Spartiate exclusiveness without any need to sacrifice ourselves to rigid mastery. We can, instead, model ourselves on the artistic and cultural way of life of the Athenians, who were contemporaries of the Spartans...

“Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue happiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex. For instance, even the most poorly off humans on Aurora are better off than Earth’s aristocrats, but they are dispossessed with respect to Aurora’s aristocrats, and it is with the masters of their own world that they compare themselves.

“So there is always social friction in ordinary human societies. The action of social revolution and the reaction of guarding against such revolution or combating it once it has begun are the causes of a great deal of the human misery with which history is permeated.

“Now here on Solaria, for the first time, the apex of the pyramid stands alone. In the place of the dispossessed are the robots. We have the first new society, the first really new one, the first great social invention since the farmers of Sumeria and Egypt invented cities.”--Isaac Asimov (1957) The Naked Sun

The passage is quoted from a speech Quemot, a sociologist sought by the main protagonist, Elijah Bailey, a detective from (future, post-Nuclear apocalypse) Earth invited to investigate a murder on Solaria.* Solaria is a very wealthy society in which robots vastly outnumber humans and in which eugenics has been perfected.

In an interesting and potentially far-seeing twist, in this society people avoid nearly all direct (they call it seeing) contact with each other, and if they must interact at all, they do so entirely through remote devices (viewing). [This is also true for married couples, which meet at scheduled moments to do the deed if they have clearance to have children.] In fact, from a young age kids are socialized not just to experience the world through viewing, but to feel intense disgust being around each other in person (there is no such disgust when viewing such that they completely lack a taboo on nudity).  

As an aside, there is an unintentional irony in noticing that a novel set in the future treats sociology as the queen of the human sciences. Bailey seeks out Quemot because on his home planet, the sociologists are the leading experts to government -- no surprise because it must keep a huge human population, which is literally holed up underground quiet --, and he thinks it useful to get some useful background to Solarian society. On Bailey's Earth, sociology is a sophisticated mathematical science, but in his militarily and economically advanced society, Quemot shows little interest in it.

Solaria approaches the character of a community of wise people because there is very little in the way of organized government, yet it flourishes. (I say approaches because philosophy is clearly absent.) There is no need for government due to the lack of 'friction.' I call it a 'libertarian utopia' (somewhat jokingly) because initially uninhabited, Solaria was founded without original sin violence by very wealthy individuals who appropriated the land and turned this planet of holiday villas into a self-supporting, exclusive gated community. There is no exploitation on Solaria because the robots do nearly all the work. (From the perspective of a robot-ethicist the previous sentence may require considerable modification.)

One may correctly quibble in calling Solaria 'libertarian' because of the existence of three important constraints: (i) estates are not allowed to be divided or sold; (ii) estates are not inherited (and on the whole parents do not know who their kids are); (iii) the population of Solaria is held constant (at relatively small number of 20,000). Once an estate-holder dies (after many centuries), one of society's genetically optimized kids, who are reared communally at a planetary wide center, takes possession. So, while there is some inequality among the estates, this is wholly due to luck. One may suspect that these three constraints are a limitation on people's choices. But the narrative strongly implies that the constraints are fully consensual, agreed upon at the original founding and not disputed by any of the Solarians. Of course, a libertarian may well object to the collective brainwashing of kids even if their parents and society decide to do so.

The reason why these constraints are not disputed is because Solarians lack (what we may call) drive; they do not desire accumulation nor desire each other. They also lack competitive emulation. However, they do have pride in their genetic make-up (see here; and here), which is notable given that they possess this without any personal merit. 

It is notable that in a society full of robots, the Spartans are seen as machine-like. The implication is that each Spartan fulfilled a singular functional--that is, military hegemony over the more fully rounded human-Helots through self-mastery. Quemot does not stop to consider that his own people are machine-like in their singular devotion to disease-free, longevity without signs of aging.** 

Asimov's robots obey the three laws of robotics. These are meant to prevent the foreseeable, inductive risk of robots being deployed to harm humans. The Naked Sun relies on the distinction between reason and logic, and this distinction is exemplified by illustrations of how in virtue of robots's reliance on logic, they can be tricked into unknowingly harming humans. In a society in which humans are vastly outnumbered by robots the most dangerous taboo centers on weaponizing robots that can be knowingly and without effort be used to harm other humans without the robots realizing they do so. With the development of fully autonomous weapons systems, we can say that humans are crossing a disastrous threshold.

 

On Productivity in Philosophy; a mitigated defense

A few minutes into the conversation she asks the inevitable question.  “So, what are you working on?”  You say, “nothing.”  Or to make it perfectly clear, you say, “I am working on nothing.”  You are met with a suppressed shock (without the awe) that barely obscures your companion’s dark thoughts: you are living “dead wood,” worse, someone who has the gall to admit it. ...

No doubt this motivational desert was in part created by personal and familial challenges, as well as the extraordinarily disturbing current political climate.  But I’ve become convinced that my deepening disappointment with professional philosophy is what broke the camel’s back.  The solution might have been to sever all ties with professional philosophy—people do—but I’ve been part of this discipline for too long and know too many people.  It remains part of my identity.  It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t stop all writing.  There were blog posts (some relating to the philosophy profession), as well as miscellaneous unpublished writings.  But no traditional scholarship in philosophy...

Academic disciplines in our time have been subjected to a productivity principle: more is better, and a lot more is even better than better, giving rise to a kind of productivity syndrome, in which “more is better” becomes one’s modus operandi.  Alternatives to this MO come to seem unnatural, and quantitative measures take center stage.  For example, while we may rail about the importance of quality, the reality is that for tenure and promotion decisions, as well as a host of other professional perks, quantity rules the day.  Honestly, how often have you heard of someone not receiving tenure because his or her colleagues said that the quality of the work was unacceptable?  Of course this happens, but I am asking you to consider how often.  Having served on many internal and external reviews, my take-away is that quantity, and prestigious venues, are typically what win the day.  Yet, there is no guarantee that a book or article published by a prestigious press is of high quality.  We all know that weak or mediocre books slip through, for various reasons.  Quantity is so much easier....

Academic culture has become monomaniacally infatuated with productivity as a marker of accomplishment, of a successful academic life, of a successful life, and quantitative measures have become increasingly important in determining what counts as success, as we see, of course, in other sub-cultures of endeavor.  It’s increasingly difficult for people in America to consider non-productivity markers as acceptable indicators of a successful life, and academics are not immune to this productivity syndrome.  Quite the contrary.   Although they can be found resisting (mildly) the measurements of productivity foisted on them by university administrators, they also enthusiastically measure themselves.  It’s hard not to impress oneself by the number of one’s publications. ...

Philosophy was supposed to be different from other disciplines, or so I thought some 45 years ago when I was hooked.  Philosophy has been deeply committed to the honing of critical skills for millennia, as well as to enhancing our capacity for thoughtful and sustained reflection on matters public and private.  Philosophers were supposed to be the fearlessly critical ones.  The ones who wouldn’t be sucked in.  The ones who stood back and said, look, don’t uncritically buy into the values of your society.  Question.  Reflect.  Think.  Are these values truly those of a good life?  Socrates was the archetype.  Sadly, too many philosophers have decided to set old Socrates aside, embracing the productivity principle with varying degrees of fervor.  And to make matters worse, a lot of these people have highly visible positions, which makes them, even more unfortunately, the face of the profession.

I was naive to have believed that philosophy would be different—that philosophers would be more vigorously critical (even about their own professional activities) than those in other disciplines—but I never fully gave up on the hope over the years.  Today I am close to despair on this front–hence the motivational crisis.  I don’t want to be part of the productivity system.  I don’t want to be identified with academics or philosophers who suffer from the syndrome....

I left Penn State for Juilliard....You don’t get a more competitive crowd than Juilliard students and faculty, and yet there are significant differences from traditional academia.  There is an intense investment in quality, but few ways to translate this quality into numbers.  It’s not how many Haydn quartets you have played.  Rather, it’s how well you are playing this one.  I am not saying that there isn’t careerism.  But that careerism isn’t tied to quantifiable productivity in the same way it is in academia.  

...

Where were the philosophers who should have been saying that philosophy doesn’t play the productivity game?!?  The unexamined life is not worth living.  And living as a vehicle for production—as an instrument of production instead of as an instrument of action, of life—must be resisted, must be fought.  And fought in the name of philosophy.

...

None of this speaks to the deeply personal and tradition-bound reasons we have for wanting to write philosophy.  But we must find a way to separate the activity of expressing ourselves from the commodification and commercialization of that expression, which is at the heart of the productivity syndrome.

Here is another suggestion: stop writing philosophy for publication for an extended period of time.  Announce this decision to colleagues.  Be willing to say that this is for your good and for the good of philosophy.  Acknowledge that you need time to reflect on what the productivity preoccupation is doing to philosophy and to you as a philosopher.--Mitchell Aboulafia "The Productivity Syndrome (or why I stopped writing philosophy)"

Aboulafia's piece resonated with quite a few friends and was circulated widely on social media. While the piece touches on many issues along the way that I ignore in what follows, in it he offers at least six competing visions of philosophy. Let me list these first:

1. The Socratic one, which involves "thoughtful and sustained reflection on matters public and private" and is willing to be critical of ruling values..  
2. Philosophy as self-expression (in the context of a tradition). 
3. The sophistic one, that focuses on productivity and is incentivized by measures of these.
4. The artistic model focused on quality of performance.
5. The dilettante who writes blog posts and other occasion pieces.*
6. The teaching of philosophy.

It is a bit unfortunate  that Aboulafia runs the question of professional philosophy and the question of philosophy together. Perhaps because I spent a good part of my professional-scholarly life writing about men and women who were never employed in universities or by the Church [Descartes, Hume [who tried to get a position], Hobbes, De Grouchy, Margaret Cavendish, Toland, Mandeville, Spinoza [who declines an offer], Du Chatalet, Leibniz, J.S. Mill, Wollstonecraft, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.], I think it's important to keep track of the difference.

So, first, today it is unlikely that Socrates, who disliked writing for publication, would get tenure on his public philosophy. (The turn to emphasis on productivity is actually fairly recent, I am just old enough to remember tenured folk with very short publication records in many department.)  But there are additional reasons to doubt he would be tenurable; Socrates would be a bad colleague: he would show up late for meetings, be uncollegial, and would take an unhealthy interest in the sexual lives of some of our students. In addition, his relentless willingness to scrutinize and deviate from the norms of society would make him a liability to any university. Socrates's execution is a warning that his is a high risk approach to philosophy for society and the person pursuing it.** I call this the Socratic Problem for philosophy. Nobody has solved it.

To move on: the artistic model is an attractive one because quality is grounded in technique and elite, daily scrutiny by teachers and peers. As Coetzee is fond of noting (see "What is a Classic" and my response here), these can sustain interest in relatively neglected artists, works, and approaches. We can understand literary criticism, Coetzee argues, as a contribution to a culture focused on quality.  But the political economy and infrastructure that sustains such elite art, including Julliard, is ultimately rooted in performance to a wider public or rich donors. And so, in part, in uninformed opinion (which, when applied to philosophy, opens the door to the Socratic Problem). While the artistic model can be applied, in part, to philosophy [and is to be discerned in the ways that philosophers are increasingly becoming ornaments to and the in-house futurologists or ethicists of billionaire-software-entrepreneurs], philosophy faculty and graduates are not public performers in the relevant analogous sense.  That is, and to be a bit deflationary, the artistic model is rooted in institutions focused on professional education (and they rise and fall with the market for these professionals). I don't deny the artistic model is worth having. I admire Robert Pirsig and, more recently, Mathew Crawford, who have both pursued it in their writings (both by pointing to it and living it). Adrian Piper is finally getting the recognition for her version of it. 

Third, philosophy as self-expression within tradition has important merits. It taps into a human need, and connects and extends the past (tradition) into the future. But there are two not quite related problems: (i) few selves are really all that interesting--and, when interesting (note Socrates above), they tend to be a poor fit for department life; (ii) it's hard to see this being a promising strategy for survival in publicly funded institutions, where both financial scarcity and the need for public justification are non-trivial. 

Fourth, the dilettante is by definition unprofessional. I hope it is clear I am no enemy of the dilettante (I hope i am not delusional in saying that I have a track record in which I exhibit and show a certain fondness for blogs and occasion pieces). But by definition the dilettante is not at home in a profession. It's not to deny that all the fruits of a dilettante can be turned into sophistry (I could share my blog numbers and citations, after all), but that would be self-defeating given the aims of Aboulafia. 

So, that leaves teaching and sophistry which is (ahh), despite many national and institutional differences (which can make a huge local difference), the status quo for the profession. Aboulafia and I agree that teaching of philosophy is noble and justifiable, and that the sophistic model is corrosive of philosophy in various way (although it need not be corrosive to society [recall])--most of my blogging history is an attempt to document this corrosion so won't repeat today. Even so, it is a bit unfortunate that (i) Aboulafia ignores that many of us (sophists in our research) keep teaching Socrates, Plato and the other critics of Sophism (then and since) to our students (few other professions can say that!); and (ii) Aboulafia ignores some other noble and self-vindicating alternatives that can be housed in universities:

7. Together with Roger de Langhe, I have offered an ameliorative (and very broad tent) strategy (here) for those of us fated to be professionals in a sophistic system: philosophy as exploratory research. (Go read it, and tell me what you think!)

8. Philosophy as service (recall Dotson).

9. Synthetic philosophy (recall this post)

How to do 7-9 without being corrupted by the pervasive sophism is for another day.

Here I want to close with a critical thought on Aboulafia's conflation of careerism and productivity. For in his disillusionment, he loses sight of the fact that there is nothing wrong as such with people publishing lots of philosophy in scholarly journals (unless one buys into Socrates's privileging of the spoken world over the written one).+ Yes, there are some technical problems (shortage of referees, journal capture, echo-chambers, etc.), and some publications generate inductive risk to society. But intrinsically publishing philosophy is a pleasing activity that keeps all kinds of conversations going -- that just is (recall) the mark of civilization -- and is a public record of our individual and collective efforts. In addition, it is a discovery procedure of what one thinks over time (so, oddly, it contributes indirectly to (2) philosophy as self-expression in a tradition [recall!]) and, if not pay-walled, it is a public good, that is a means to discovery by others (recall).

In fact, I sense in Aboulafia a suspicion of quantity as such. That is, there is not just a veneer of careerism that hangs over quantity, but, in his hands, also superficiality, a lack of profundity and depth. Aboulafia's rhetoric is one that used to be espoused by gentlemen-amateurs in hierarchical societies annoyed at the upstarts (professional, rootless, meritocratic, etc.) who upend existing hierarchy (and the old-boy networks they sustain). But this rhetoric rests on a mistake. (Aboulafia recognizes it is a mistake -- "the system makes it too easy to substitute quantity for quality" --, but can't resist himself.) Most of the best philosophers (we know of today in our traditions) were manifestly addicted to writing their thoughts (in notebooks, letters, etc.). This is no surprise: philosophy is, in part, a written craft, which requires enormous amount of exercise even for those that have scaled -- sorry for the elitism, but I am addressing an elitist argument -- the peaks of our history. This need to practice and exercise the skill is also true for the professional journeymen/women, who publish in journals. Of course, not all of these exercises are worth publishing (that's why we have editors and referees, etc.).

Some of us are so good at writing professional philosophy that taking an occasional break from such writing can do no harm and may even advance philosophy in the broader sense.  But professional writing, publication, requires exercise, and the best form of such exercise for many is ultimately regular, attempted publication.++ 

 

Mill's Despair on Free Speech

I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood...  

while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; … It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while [public] opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candor, or malignity, bigotry or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves, but not inferring these vices from the side which a person takes…; and giving merited honor to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor. This is the real morality of public discussion. J.S. Mill On Liberty, Chapter 2.

Teaching an author is often the best antidote against underestimating them. While thanks to Jill Gordon's classic article I already knew that Mill really did  not hold (despite Wikipedia's claim to the contrary) to the 'marketplace of ideas'  with the  truth emerging from free competition of ideas, I had, however, always assumed that Mill does have  a kind of strange providential faith in the effects of freedom speech. But I now see that's mistaken; there is a sense that for Mill free speech is the least worst alternative. I do not deny that for Mill there are genuine goods that may sometimes come from free speech ("truth and justice"), but on the whole his analysis is unlike contemporary free speech absolutists, clear-sighted on the dangers of free speech (more about this below). His real analysis focuses on the evils that follow from suppression of free speech -- no surprise given the significance of the harm principle in his thought (recall)--; and, in fact, the greatest political harm done by suppression is the removal of "hope."  

Mill is not entirely explicit on why political hope matters; but a moment's reflection reminds one that the existence of political hope (in a person/population) prevents people from resorting to violence. And Mill's approach to free speech is informed by his aversion to violence (and the harm principle). Political hope is also, I think, the key political reason to have regular competitive elections: this allows, in principle, no political issue to be settled forever and allows the politically defeated time to reconsider and re-articulate their views and develop new coalitions (a version of this point was made yesterday in Dutch by my former colleague Annelien De Dijn). 

I do not mean to deny that Mill's approach to free speech is informed by his anti-paternalistic doctrine of individual sovereignty or "independence" directed at government regulations and censorship ("legal penalties") and community standards (he is very concerned about the (“moral coercion of public opinion;” recall here and here). But he is remarkably frank about the political dangers of unfettered free speech. By this I do not mean the familiar thought that some free speech is directly dangerous because it is incitement to violence or armed revolution. 

Rather, I mean, first, Mill's recognition that free speech is a contributing cause to fanaticism and partisanship and free speech is itself unable to reduce these ("the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated thereby.") It follows from this insight that in the context of very polarized societies -- that is, where there are few indifferent bystanders -- one should not expect many positive effects from free speech. (It's not a suggestion to censor speech because that may, in fact, cause a civil war.)  

Second, the other clear danger that Mill recognizes is that one can use mere speech to silence others (without any threat of actual violence). Invective and vitriol, extremely harsh language ("unmeasured vituperation"), when on the side of existing dogma, successfully silences others. This suggests that the contemporary guardians of civility are not all wrong, but they (the civility guardians) tend to ignore, in practice, that the threat to speech arises only when incivility is joined to power and that the deployment of civility in the service of power is also a means of silencing (recall this classic piece by Johnson/Kazarian; and my evolving responses, especially those in response to Bejan's book and in response to Srinivasan's account of anger in politics).  

Interestingly enough when faced with the problem of silencing, Mill wishes to develop a non-legal moral solution--one that relies on situational judgments by public opinion. Real impartial spectators are meant to judge and carefully adjudicate when invective is in the service of existing dogma and power (and then denounce it, etc.). Obviously, this is impossible in heavily polarized societies (where who has the power and who is being silenced unfairly are themselves heavily contested and bad faith abounds). But by Mill's lights such public morality is also unlikely to work in even non-polarized societies.* And the reason for this is that according to Mill the general tendency of public opinion is itself conformist (that's really the lesson of chapter 3 of On Liberty). So, by Mill's lights public opinion cannot provide the solution here because if it has an interest in public morality at all, it is heavily status quo biased.

The point-scoring-professional-philosopher in me wants to say to Mill, gotcha. But, in fact, it says something of Mill's recognition of the depth of the problem of silencing that he offers a manifest (by his own lights) imperfect solution: the real morality of public discussion. That is to say, the problem of silencing is still with us (and with modern technologies quite visibly so),** and to the best of my knowledge nobody has figured out how to develop a solution to it which isn't a worse evil. 

 

On Plato's Noble Lies (and a bit on Spinoza and Hobbes)

“How, then...might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods of which we were just now speaking, so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?...Nothing unprecedented, but a sort of Phoenician tale, something that has happened ere now in many parts of the world, as the poets aver and have induced men to believe, but that has not happened and perhaps would not be likely to happen in our day and demanding no little persuasion to make it believable....I hardly know how to find the audacity or the words to speak and undertake to persuade first the rulers themselves and the soldiers and then the rest of the city, that in good sooth all our training and educating of them were things that they imagined and that happened to them as it were in a dream; but that in reality at that time they were down within the earth being molded and fostered themselves while their weapons and the rest of their equipment were being fashioned. And when they were quite finished the earth as being their mother delivered them, and now as if their land were their mother and their nurse they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth.”

“It is not for nothing,” he said, “that you were so bashful about coming out with your lie.” Plato, Republic, 414B-E (Shorey's translation)

In this post I want to reflect on what the doctrine of Noble Lies reveals about Plato's understanding of  political philosophy. But before I get to that, I will ignore the controversies about hidden doctrines/esotericism/Straussianism. (Yes really; that's not a coded message!) Perhaps, what follows is also ready well known to students of Plato, but in preparing for class, I realize, that the main point of the Noble Lie is actually explicitly stated in the myth: to get people to sacrifice their lives for others in defense of the polity. That is, the Noble Lie is explicit that the ultimate defense of the state will benefit other citizens. What's remarkable about this, is that it's true. It is also notable that the Noble Lie does not disguise that the patriotic sacrifice benefits others (rather than just  the more abstract state).

I want to elaborate on the previous paragraph. But I do not want to disguise some of the peculiarity of the rest of the Noble Lie, which entails that (i) the reality of lived experience is a kind of successful simulation -- there are strange echoes with the cave analogy here -- and (ii) that the truth is that we come preformed into the surface world (a thought that Hobbes exploits in his treatment of the state of nature in De Cive, where he treat people as emerged from the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity (De Cive, ch. 8, 1)).  I call this 'peculiar' not just because it is so hard to imagine that this would be really believed, but also because (iii) the rulers are also supposed to buy into it. That is, nobody in society is expected to see through the myth, which is, then, de facto, an origin myth in both senses: (a) it tells the story of human origins and (b) it is an ideology that is part of the original founding of the state (derived from Socrates).

Okay, let's return to the main thread here. As I said, the Noble Lie is explicitly aimed at encouraging the ultimate sacrifice on behalf others. In fact, it's pretty clear that the rationale for the Noble Lie is not to encourage the totalitarian use of propaganda for any purpose. Rather, the purpose is to defend the survival of the state when it requires a willingness to sacrifice one's life in the defense of others. (I think here Socrates is also tacitly relying on the thought that one always has the option to flee the battlefield or go into exile.) Of course, the practice of Noble Lying can be abused in practice, and so one wonders why it is introduced at all. In particular, recall, that the whole point of the ship of state analogy is to argue that one of the main problems of a direct/popular democracy is that truthful politics is impossible [recall here].

I think the answer lies in the thought that Socrates clearly insists that this particular end -- the requirement that one is willing to sacrifice one's life to ensure that others can thrive in the state's survival -- justifies the means (some deception). And the underlying thought seems to be, and this is why I mentioned Hobbes already, that without the survival of the state nobody can enjoy any fruits of existence. I think this fits Socrates's/Plato's more general rejection of what I have labeled 'rustic wisdom'--and the clear preference for urbane/city life  (Phaedrus, 230D).*

Before I close with Spinoza, just one more point: I call the Noble Lie a species of 'ideology' and not 'civic religion.' I take the latter, which is very important to Socratic political thought, to involve no falsehood. Civic religion provides images of the good/true for the masses, but does not engage in falsehood. The Noble Lie -- while really speaking the most important political truth** -- uses false means.+

In the preface Theological Political Treatise, Spinoza attacks the use of Noble Lies to encourage the ultimate sacrifice:

It may indeed be the highest secret of monarchical government and utterly essential to it, to keep men deceived, and to disguise the fear that sways them with the  specious name of religion, so that they will fight for their servitude as if they were fighting for  their own deliverance, and will not think it humiliating but supremely glorious to spill their blood and sacrifice their lives for the glorification of a single man. But in a free  republic, on the other hand, nothing that can be devised or attempted will be less successful. For it is completely contrary to the common liberty to shackle the free judgment of  the individual with prejudices or constraints of any kind. Spinoza, Preface, Theological Political Treatise 7 (Translated by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel)

I don't mean to ignore the fact that a (Christian) monarchy is not a Platonic Kallipolis. Nor to deny the differences between really existing religions and Socrates's fable. The point is rather that on Spinoza's account the function of religion in a monarchy is to produce the kind of effects of Socratic Noble Lie. But that in a monarchy only one person really benefits--namely the one who is not asked to sacrifice (the monarch). That is to say, for Spinoza a monarchy requires something like religion in order to survive.

I introduce Spinoza not to compare religion to Noble Lies. But rather that Spinoza plainly asserts that one can have a society without the need for such a Noble Lie. His claim is that in a true republic a reign of truth is possible because people will be willing to sacrifice themselves for distant others and do so knowingly without propaganda or ideology.** For all I know Spinoza is right about this possibility (and he surely was influenced by some Roman republican examples). But it is a notable empirical fact that most republican-democratic governments have not trusted Spinoza's advice.

 

On Seneca's Self-Reliance

Sail, therefore, not just past one insidious place because of its treacherous delights, but past every city. Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they good natured [bono animo] pray for the wrong sort [mala] of things on your behalf. And, if you would be happy [felix], entreat the gods that none of their fond desires for you may be brought to pass. What they wish to have upon you are not really good things; there is only one good, the cause and the main prop [firmamentum] of a happy life,-trust in oneself [sibi fidere].--Seneca, Letter 31

It is often the case that unsolicited advice from others is more informative about the person proffering the advice than the one receiving it. It can be allowed that practical wisdom may not be rare (even if as Seneca suggests in this letter it involves a certain skill or artistry [prudens atque artifex]), but that, in practice, other people tend not to see your circumstances with the clarity they deserve because it is your path to be trodden not theirs. This is familiar enough. 

In our age of religious pluralism, it is not uncommon for an atheist, say, to receive well wishes by way of prayers to a deity. It does not take any effort to show gratitude and among friends to comment that even if the success of the procedure is doubted, the effort is appreciated and, when efficacious, the benefits welcomed. After all, we can all use all the help we can get when the sailing gets rough. (Seneca deliberately echoes Socrates's understanding of philosophers as the true sailors at Republic 488-9.)

Seneca, however, challenges us to reject, even actively challenge (at least with their gods!), other people's good wishes even prayers because they tend to desire the wrong sorts of things (success, beauty, money, etc.) for us. What we should desire is to become the kind of person that does honorable, enduring things; others have a tendency not to pray for that on our behalf.

And this gets me to the two radical thoughts lurking here. For one may well think surely the god(s) won't listen to and heed misguided prayers. And why is there even a need to ask the gods to ignore the wrong sort of prayers? And Seneca's answer is not to deny the power of the common gods, but to suggest that they don't know what's good for us. Rather, we ought to make ourselves happy [fac te ipse felicem] by doing the right sorts of things.

For, the point of the highest good is not to be a supplicant of the gods but to become godlike (or to be joined in fellowship with god) [incipis deorum socius esse, non supplex]. And to make clear what this entails, Seneca sketches the contours of what we may call (and I now get to the first of two radical things), a philosophical non-anthropomorphic (without beauty or violence) god: the highest and most powerful of beings, who is the true support of all things [deus ille maximus potentissimusque ipse vehit omnia.] With such an (philosophical) godly exemplar, we should turn ourselves into great souls who exhibit integrity and goodness [playing around a bit with animus, sed hic rectus, bonus, magnus]. I emphasize integrity because the highest good for Seneca is to be virtuous and have an internally harmonious and proportionate life [aequalitas ac tenor vitae per omnia consonans sibi] which relies on knowledge of human and divine things.

As an aside, Seneca quotes Virgil's Aeneid "et te quoque dignum/finge deo" to emphasize the point that we should model ourselves on a godly exemplar. He had used the same fragment in Letter 18. (There he had (recall my post) done so to illustrate the rejection of riches as fellowship with the gods.) Seneca hereby shows, without having to say it, that true philosophy needs to rely poetry when it teaches virtue. (He uses a passage in which Aeneas is being exhorted to emulate Hercules by humble Evander--the exact spot is where Rome's symbols of imperial might will stand.)

And, second, Seneca emphasize that each of us [e.g., a Roman knight just as well as into a freedman's son or a slave] can become godlike in this fashion. One can leap to the heights from the slums [Subsilire in caelum ex angulo licet].* For -- and here Seneca puts his own political career in its proper perspective -- human hierarchy is always and everywhere the offspring of human ambition and misdeeds [nomina ex ambitione aut iniuria nata].

Let me come to a close. Seneca poetically introduces his philosophical conception of God at the very moment when he rejects the very idea of any human exemplar to the best form of life.  He does so, however, with  a kind of anti-poetics, which anticipates Romans 9.21 (and, recall,  Smith and Spinoza), because the god we must emulate is molded not from gold or silver, but clay. The point is to inspire us to become generous souls [Generosos animos] who promote noble causes through hard work. And to do this we must dare to be steadfast and turn our backs on the wisdom and wishes of crowds.

And, yet, by withdrawing from popular opinion, and inspiring heroic deeds, Seneca flirts with abjuring kindness and disowning gentle love. And so his prototype of self-reliance edges perhaps too closely to the sort of fanatic who shudders at human touch.

 

 

On the Political theory of The Last Jedi (II): the Socratic Problem

An important theme in The Last Jedi, notably treated in a series of flashbacks, is Luke Skywalker's failed education of his gifted student, Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (and, as is quietly acknowledged, some of his less distinguished peers). By a 'failed education' I mean here that dangerous skills are taught to somebody who will abuse these skills. The abuse consists of using the skills for wrong ends. In treating Luke Skywalker's sense of responsibility over this failure, the film exhibits herein an important sensibility often absent in many contemporary experts and professional educators, who treat skills as something neutral and the use/abuse of them as the personal responsibility of the student; when things go wrong, we point to a character flaw in the student not the failure of the teacher. (Given the low intensity of contact in much contemporary mass education that can also be defended.) Similary, in contemporary applied ethics, the inventors of (so-called) dual-use technologies are generally let off the hook for the failures in application. (One is almost tempted to suggest that the pure/applied distinction is maintained in order to absolve the theoretical innovators from any of society's ills.)

One reason why I call it an important theme, is that The Last Jedi echoes the disastrous failures of the original Jedi council in Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader's education (recall this post). The missteps of the original Jedi are a consequence of (a) their failure to adhere to their own rules (about age requirements) and (b) they do not heed the advice of Yoda who does have correct insight into Anakin's character. This failure is a consequence of their superstition. To be precise, they think they can apply prophecy to particular individuals absent determinate identifying criteria. In the Revenge of the Sith (ep III), those failures precipitates the fall of the republic and the wiping out of the membership of the priestly-military Jedi order (a kind of galactic knights-templar).

The echo of the Jedi Council's failure is captured beautifuly in a haunting scene where Luke Skywalker is in the position -- like Abraham lording over  Isaac on mount Moriah -- to kill Ben Solo, but fails to do so. In response, Solo manages to kill most of Luke Skywalker's apprentices thereby dooming any revival of the Jedi as a priestly-military class. That is to say, Luke Skywalker had initially failed to learn anything from the original collapse of the Jedi order. Skywalker's self-imposed exile (mimicking Yoda's after the fall of the galactic republic) is his response to his failure.

I usually treat the risks of such a failed education in terms of the Socratic Problem because these echoe both the accusations against Socrates (and his failures with Critias and Alcibiades) and what we see exhibited subtly in some Platonic dialogues (Meno, Critias, Charmides, even Symposium). The problem is most immediately pressing in magisterial pedagogical cultures (such as the Jedi's) in which there exists long apprenticeships with particular masters (it's not just in traditions inspired by Greek/Hellenistic philosophy; a cursory glance at Mencius's treatment of the relative  merits  and dispositions of Confucius' students shows the issue also shows up, for example, in Chinese philosophy). The contemporary PhD is also conceived in terms of an extended apprenticiship with a particular Doktorvater/mutter (or committe/lab). But regular readers know that I think the issues carry over to non-magisterial-educational contexts, but about that some other time.

The film shows us three ways in which Luke Skywalker responds to the Socratic problem:

1. Total withdrawal from the world (recall for example Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān's withdrawal from the world after his failure to educate in Ibn Tufayl). In The Force Awakens, Han Solo had already intimated this when he said that "Luke felt responsible… He walked away from everything." Withdrawal is a way to limit damage and to take responsibility for failure. It's also a way to keep purer hands, even maintain one's faith in the future. For it is notable that in so doing Skywalker piously maintains fidelity in the holy books of the Jedi, which he treats as venerable relics, and their religious rites.* 
2. Teaching by way of a certain species of non teaching; this is the kind of thing Feyerabend seems to have flirted with he embraces a species of anarchism. I have in mind elements of Luke's (rather) partial training of Rey. Some other time I'll say more about the specifics of such teaching by non-teaching.
3. Teaching by way of modified example. I have in mind the final scene which has all the makings of a final show-down, but turns out to be an instance of fighting without violence [Gandhi (recall here and here)].** This has the down-side risk benefit that those who do not understand the true meaning of the teaching, and who imitate mindlessly, are not encouraged to use violence.

In point 3 I hint at The Last Jedi's broader understanding of the political uses of violence. This is connected to its presentation of different kinds of heroicism and nuanced attitudes toward suïcide missions. But about those topics soon more.