Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments
(1995)
Notes, Questions & Answers #10: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate
182: A very clear statement of T.'s social position:
". . . Because a totally unencumbered [radically free with no uncontracted
obligations] self is a human impossibility, the extreme atomist model of society [Benthem
if not J.S. Mill] is a chimera."
Rawls proposed a model for social justice that is
truly blind. You must decide policies without knowing exactly who benefits. If the
benefit/principle is inherently right -- the course of action inherently the right thing
to do -- then it doesn't matter who enjoys the benefit. This is a version of Rousseau's
social contractualism which specifies that legislation is legitimate only when it seeks to
benefit all citizens. Thus lobbies and all special interest efforts & donations are
illegitimate since they seek benefits - not for all citizens - but for members of their
special group: farmers, African-Americans, citizens of a state vs. the nation or my
Congressional district vs. the nation.
1. Explain the difference: "The ethic central to a
liberal society is an ethic of the right rather than the good," 186.
More argument against Util. theory. Utilitarianism
is satisfied to offer economic opportunity so that everyone can earn money, which they
then spend pursuing the good as they conceive it. Most social effort is focused on
means/instruments with a high tolerance or indifference for what the good may be. In
theory the good is a matter of individual taste. T. has argued that some, perhaps even
most, of the good life is social & cannot be construed as an individual possession. If
we acknowledge this, the next step is a Rousseau-ian public discussion about the good that
effects us all; the quality of life in our neighborhoods & cities. When Util. have
this discussion, they assume that the goal is maximum personal freedom (e.g., lower your
taxes, cut social programs, & allow the individual consumer to spend her money
pursuant to her individual desires). When liberals have this discussion they assume that
some virtues can only be realized socially. Consequently the discussion centers on
something like Rawls' idea of justice: a benefit that consensus identifies as enhancing
the quality of life for everyone. Consider a policy like Affirmative Action or daycare at
a factory or business site. Util.s run a cost-benefit analysis to determine exactly who
pays & who consumes. Very few moms win this game. Rawls would ask you to imagine that
you cannot exactly determine who the moms are or how many kids anyone may have. Is the
policy, in general, a benefit to all of us in the group? You cannot legitimately answer,
"well, that depends on whether I have a kid or not."
2. Law can be construed in at least two ways: as coercive,
exterior force which threatens, punishes & rewards. What is the status of justice in
this outlook? It can also be construed (following Kant's ethics & Rousseau's social
contractualism) as the righteous & reasonable thing to do. How does this play out
between Util. & liberalism? See 187: "one has to replace . . . coercion with
something else."
Benthem, if not Mill, said that right & wrong
are reducible to pleasure & pain. Law must deal with instrumentalities (the means to
produce pleasure/pain), not the ends (whether or not something is intrinsically valuable).
If "coercion" has to be replaced by a commitment to some social goal, then the
Util. model fails. Interestingly the Presidential debate offers analogues or markers on
this question. Dole seems to think that his tax cut is irresistible; as it should be in
Util. theory where the simple arithmetic illustrates a personal gain. Clinton offers a
version of Taylor's liberal theory: that there are social values that require personal
sacrifice without a quid pro quo personal return. The return is an enhanced quality
of life that is only measurable collectively or socially.
3. What is the status of patriotism "in the
understanding of Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, or the 20th c. [American] common
sense," 188?
Except for a possible sliver of calculated personal
advantage, the usual understanding of patriotism must be tossed on the junk pile of
"superstition." Superstition (mostly religion) & natural ignorance are the
two evils that Util. ("useful") education seeks to eradicate. "This
implicit ontology [Util.] has no place for functioning republics, societies bonded by
patriotism," 188.
Although T. doesn't bring up phil. of language
issues as such, notice the allusion to how language operates, which is the paradigm model
for pragmatism; which pragmatists believe cannot be adequately explained by either atomism
(Hume/Locke, etc.) nor idealists. "A conversation is not the coordination of actions
of different individuals [which the atomist model would have to claim], but a common
action in this strong, irreducible sense; it is our action," 189.
4. Reagon & the Republican party have nearly succeeded, at least temporarily, in redefining political liberalism as a sneer. Looking at 191 how does T. define a liberal society?
"It is essential . . . that they are animated
by a sense of a shared immediate common good [which cannot be reduced personal
possession]. To that degree, the bond resembles that of friendship, as Aristotle
saw." T. alludes to the Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle says:
"Unanimity seems, then, to be political friendship . . . for it is concerned with
things that are to our interest & have an influence on our life. Now such unanimity is
found among good men [who are committed to the righteous course of action regardless of
personal cost; whereas] . . . bad men cannot be unanimous except to a small extent, any
more than they can be friends, since they [each] aim at getting more than their share of
advantages . . . and each man wishing for advantage to himself criticizes his neighbor
& stands in his way. The result is that they are in a state of faction, putting
compulsion on each other but unwilling themselves to do what is just." Back to T.:
"The citizen is attached to the laws as the repository of his & others'
dignity."
In the 1st Clinton-Dole debate, Dole was
flustered in claiming that, as a liberal, Clinton could not be for free choice in
education. Dole mentioned school uniforms & failed to clearly make the theoretical
point. T. makes the point on the middle of 194 where he talks about "the good"
versus "the right." "The good," entailing Util. theory, necessarily
implies a specific individual choice: I make the choice that I believe is good for me.
Whether or not the same choice is good for you, I cannot tell. I can advise you, informing
you why I thought it was good for me, but ultimately I must allow you to make your own
choice - even when I think it is mistaken. If I interfere with your freedom, the political
cost seems to involve undoing all the revolutionary work of the Enlightenment to drag
society back to the bad old days of aristocratic & church privilege or, worse yet,
gravitating in the direction of totalitarianism (Marxist or fascist). In contrast, the
liberal formula calls for "a common [i.e., socially constructed] understanding of the
right." A third angle is articulated by people like Pat Robertson who believe
that the right is not socially constructed, but revealed. It exists a priori
as a transcendental. For liberals, the democratic, enlightened, & social process of
constructing (or recognizing) "a rule of right" is an irreducible social good.
In fact it makes a liberal society more desirable than a Util. society with an otherwise
equivalent standard of living.
5. On p. 195 T. proposes a question. Citizens of Argentina
& Chile have tolerated "disappearances" assumably because of the principle
of utility: it is an instrument that produces safe streets (i.e., produces the greatest
good for the greatest number). If the USA is so radically committed to the Util. model,
why didn't we wink at Watergate & Iran-Contra as realpolitik methods? Where did the
sense of outrage come from? Certainly not from a Util. calculation of diminished personal
possessions.
"This capacity for outrage is not fueled by any
of the sources recognized by atomism," obviously including Util. theory, 196.
"What generates the outrage is . . . a species [or variant] of patriotic
identification." Americans possess pragmatic notions of fair play & presidential
behavior. We repeat Jay Leno's jokes about Clinton, but the Washington monument, the
Lincoln memorial, & JFK's grave at the Arlington national cemetery are solemn sites
for Americans. It is the standards implied by these icons "that is outraged by the
shady doings of a Watergate," & it is our commitment to these social values that
"provokes the irresistible [moral] reaction" that drove Nixon from office in
disgrace.
On 198 T. paraphrases John Dewey's political theory, which was a paraphrase was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's model of social contractual democracy. The American political system fundamentally compromises one of Rousseau's requirements (because of its contrary commitment to Util.). Writing in the shadow of centuries of European religious warfare, Rousseau specified that in order to work, a social contractual democracy requires that citizens make an unconditional commitment to their identity as citizens. This means that no other identification, grounded in secondary discourse communities, can make claims which are more fundamental than the obligations of citizenship. Consequently, one cannot claim special treatment on any basis. Every citizen must have (& be seen to have) identical rights. Gays, women, African-Americans, Native American Indians, Mormons, Catholics - all such possible ways of identifying individuals or groups who require privileged treatment at the expense of the rest of us, is illegitimate. In the past & perhaps to a lesser extent continuing in the present, white men tacitly made that claim against women, Native Americans, etc.
T. repeats this theory in a reversed way, saying that "the procedural liberal state can indeed be neutral between (a) believers & nonbelievers in God, or between (b) people with homo-- & hetrerosexual orientations, it cannot be [neutral] between (c) patriots & antipatriots." Why not? Because "patriotism" symbolizes public values - all those qualities which make our social life preferable to the way we imagine the Iranians or Saudis or Argentines live. This is the glue that makes society possible: "Patriotism is a common identification with a historical community founded on [& devoted to] certain values," 199. At this point you may be able to see the bridge into the 2nd set of essays we will read, which focus on anthropology, i.e., on how commitment to certain social values pragmatically defines cultures.
We still have a loose end. We object that Soviet
poster art & Nazi propaganda were glaringly obvious methods of "patriotic"
indoctrination & that Americans listen to Rush Limbaugh or at least don't experience
comparable indoctrination. Consider compulsory primary education as political
indoctrination. On not only learns our common language (English) and our common history
(Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower) and our common institutions (Wall Mart,
TV news beginning with Big Bird & Sesame Street, Christian holidays); but the
fundamental rules for social discourse. Watch Oprah & Montel. Very quickly the 12 yr.
whiner will complain that "it isn't fair." Perhaps she even looks around for the
other two whiners or to audience members in hopes of a vote. Where did she learn what is
fair and what isn't? The education began at home, but the social dimension was found at
preschool, kindergarten & in compulsory elementary classrooms. As Dewey told us public
education is the compulsory boot-camp for political indoctrination. It is the place where
we pragmatically learn the social skills necessary to be a member of society.
6. What is the danger that T. perceives to the liberal
model of citizenship. Read 201.
Me-them; we-us. Balkanization, i.e., what we saw happen in Yugoslavia where identification as secular citizens melted into the more primal vocabularies of Orthodox Christian, Catholic, & Muslim. American fissures threaten at other stress points: race, ethnicity, gender, class/money, moral-religious issues like abortion. Strangely, these identifiers are American, i.e., they do not seek to replace one identifer with another, as being an Orthodox Christian Serb replaced being a Yugoslavian citizen. The American dimension is invisible but indispensable. What political sense does it make to define one's identity solely on the issue of race or abortion? These only make sense against the background of American political theory, which T. fears is either eroding (so that pragmatic knowledge cannot be articulated into explicit principles when challenged) or has suffered a subsurface shift. "In consequence, a society in which the citizens' relation to government is normally adversarial, even where they manage to bend it to their [special interest] purposes, has not secured citizen dignity," 200. Literally there seems to be less and less we have in common as a nation; and more & more that fissures us into ethnic groups, gender groups (including gays), etc.
If being called a political "liberal" is really the sneer it is intended to be by Dole & the Republicans, then doesn't it imply that we have virtually nothing in common as Americans? The Disneyfied "bridge to the future" takes us from one segregated enclave to another. It doesn't seem likely that Americans will take up arms against their neighbors on these questions, as happened in Yugoslavia. But if the Republican vision triumphs won't it give us "a less participatory and more procedural republic" (201) where our social relations are pared down to money, voting, and polite tolerance?
On to #11: "Invoking Civil Society"
Oct. 96
