Philosophy Now

ISSUE 149 APRIL / MAY 2022

Philosophy Now

a magazine of ideas

The Plum-pudding in danger

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

war & peace • decolonization • social contracts
revolt & complacency • mapping ideologies

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Editorial

A Serious Matter

“Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” hear the narrative that the rulers want them to hear about the
causes and nature of that war. This suggests that the reluctance
Charles de Gaulle of democracies to wage war on one another depends on their
voters having not only the genuine possibility of changing their
Our special theme in this issue is political philosophy rulers, but also access to a free press, without which nobody
and in planning it our intention was to take a close knows what is going on in the first place.
look at a few of the newer concepts and less familiar
thinkers you might encounter. The terminology, the conflicts Political philosophy is a busily active field of thought, almost
and the arguments in politics all change over time, and if you as much in turmoil as the actual world. An idea much in vogue
look away for too long it can all come to seem unfamiliar. lately has been decolonization, as in “We demand the decolo-
Political philosophy at its best can bring clarity, can map out nization of the curriculum!” Originally decolonization meant
the territory and blow away some of the fog. the process whereby colonies achieved political independence,
so clearly the sense of the word has changed or expanded. I’m
For our opening article we picked an intriguing short piece delighted that Gustavo Dalaqua of Brazil explains it for us in
by Dan Corjescu asking why the world is generally a much context in this issue, making a compelling case for its
more peaceful place now than it was in the past. Sadly, Putin importance as a concept. Also in our political philosophy
apparently heard about this and decided to make a nonsense of section we’ll consider John Locke; one of history’s greatest
our editorial plans by invading his neighbouring country with political philosophers. He is widely seen as one of the intel-
tanks, missiles and 150,000 soldiers, bombing maternity lectual founding fathers of Western democracy and a major
hospitals and theatres, and shooting civilians in the street. In a influence on the framers of the United States Constitution.
few short weeks, Putin’s mixture of dead-eyed ruthlessness and John Irish uses a curious and disturbing short story to discuss
spectacular incompetence has dragged Ukraine’s citizens – the nature of consent within societies and political systems, with
men, women and terrified children – through horrors unseen particular reference to Locke’s social contract ideas. Phil Badger
on this scale in Europe since the days of Hitler. puts forward one scheme for mapping the ideological landscape
of Western secular democracies and thereby throwing some
So naturally, we then thought of dropping the article about light on recent political conflicts. And on the subject of political
why the world is so peaceful. But on reflection, it occurred to conflict, Stefan Catana looks at some famous twentieth century
us that one way to understand the occurrence of war is to look rebels: Marcuse, Weber, and Malcolm X. He explains their
at what causes peace and then to examine how the causes of analyses of society and the techniques they used to break
peace have failed in this particular case. For this reason, I through complacency and inertia to bring about political
recommend Corjescu’s article, which is only slightly updated to reform.
reflect current events. He considers several theories of peace
suggested by different philosophers, among them the famous Current politics engages many; enthuses some; infuriates
idea that democracies don’t go to war with one another, a claim others. As a result, many people even find themselves moved to
made by Immanuel Kant in his essay On Perpetual Peace way protest, either on the streets or online. For as De Gaulle said,
back in 1795. Corjescu says more recent thinkers have repeated politics is too important just to leave to politicians.
this claim, arguing that it is supported by the historical record.
Defending this claim too rigidly can lead you to commit a type Rick Lewis
of informal fallacy first identified by our former contributor
Prof. Antony Flew. He named it the No True Scotsman fallacy, The Plum Pudding in Danger
but in this case the dialogue might be: “Democracies never go
to war with one another” “No? What about America and Great Our front cover by Steve Lillie was inspired by a famous Gillray cartoon
Britain in 1812, then?” “Oh... well, true democracies never go from 1805, called ‘The Plum Pudding in Danger’, which depicted
to war with one another.” So let’s just say that democracies Napoleon and Pitt the Younger carving up a giant plum pudding repre-
seem to fight wars with one another only infrequently. But senting the world. In Steve’s version, political philosophers do the carv-
why? Perhaps because democracies like to trade and therefore ing: John Locke, credited as one of the brains behind liberal democracy,
develop interdependence. Perhaps because in democracies and Karl Marx (obviously). This issue does contain an article about John
rulers are nervous that the voters won’t like them declaring war Locke. There is no article this time specifically about Marx, so if you
and might boot them out of office. However, that only applies bought this issue because you hoped there would be, then it looks like
if there is a free press. If the press is tightly controlled, then the you’ve been expropriated by the forces of capitalism. Again.
voters either won’t know that there is a war, or else will only

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 3

Philosophy Now ISSUE149
April/May 2022

Philosophy Now 52

43a Jerningham Road, DROR ROSENSKI
Telegraph Hill, DIOGENES SAYS HI
London SE14 5NQ Editorial & News
United Kingdom
Tel. 020 7639 7314 3 Editorial Rick Lewis 62
[email protected] 6 News Anja Steinbauer

philosophynow.org 7 Shorts Matt Qvortrup: War & Peace General Articles

Editor-in-Chief Rick Lewis Political Philosophy 26 Robert Nozick’s Metaverse Machine
Editors Grant Bartley, Anja Steinbauer Lorenzo Buscicchi considers plugging in
Digital Editor Bora Dogan
Book Reviews Editor Teresa Britton 29 The Golden State Killer
Film Editor Thomas Wartenberg
Assistant Editor Alex Marsh 8 The Causes of Peace & Deleuze’s ‘Dividual’

Design Grant Bartley, Rick Lewis, Dan Corjescu looks ahead hopefully Angela Dennis surveys online surveillance
Anja Steinbauer
Marketing Sue Roberts 10 ‘The Lottery’ & Locke’s Politics 32 The Goodness of Existence
Administration Ewa Stacey, Alex Marsh
John Irish tells us why Tessie must die, Jarlath Cox argues against anti-natalism
Advertising Team
according to John Locke 36 What is Truth?
Jay Sanders, Stella Ellison
[email protected] 14 A Map of Contemporary Political Ideas Richard Oxenberg says it is about seeing
Phil Badger is our cartographer of cogitation the Good
UK Editorial Board 40 Paradox Lost
18 Cultural Colonialism
Rick Lewis, Anja Steinbauer, & Aesthetic Injustice Paul Tissier says Russell was wrong,
Bora Dogan, Grant Bartley Gustavo Dalaqua explains why and how we paradoxically
should to decolonize our minds and culture
US Editorial Board Reviews
22 Revolt & Complacency
Prof. Timothy J. Madigan (St John Stefan Catana brings together Max Weber, 52 Book: Freedom: An Impossible Reality
Fisher College), Prof. Teresa Britton Herbert Marcuse and Malcolm X, for one by Raymond Tallis
(Eastern Illinois Univ.), Prof. Peter big revolutionary party Reviewed freely by Jonathan Head
Adamson, Prof. Raymond Pfeiffer,
Prof. Massimo Pigliucci (CUNY City 53 Book: Humankind: A Hopeful History
College)
56 by Rutger Bregman
Contributing Editors Reviewed hopefully by Tim Moxham
2001 HAL 9000 © MGM 1968
Alexander Razin (Moscow State Univ.) 55 Book: Beyond Bad
Laura Roberts (Univ. of Queensland)
David Boersema (Pacific University) by Chris Paley

UK Editorial Advisors Reviewed beyond good & evil by Jane O’Grady

Piers Benn, Constantine Sandis, Gordon 56 Film: Androids at the Cinema
Giles, Paul Gregory, John Heawood
Alessandro Colarossi watches the Hollywood
US Editorial Advisors
imitation of the imitation of humanity
Prof. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, Toni
Vogel Carey, Prof. Harvey Siegel,
Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Cover Image by Steve Lillie

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4 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

some of our

Contributors

COVER BY STEVE LILLIE 8 Angela Dennis

Regulars Poetry, Fun & Fiction is based in Melbourne,
Australia and writes on
17 Philosophical Haiku: Sir Karl Popper 9 Philosopher’s Café Guto Dias topics relating to science,
Terence Green pops out proper Popper poetry 13 The Global Village Boghos Artinian economics, culture and law. She
28 Simon & Finn Melissa Felder holds degrees in law and physics
42 Question of the Month: 34 Sour Emma Freudig on Schopenhauer and has written for magazines,
What Is A Person? 65 The Determined Will radio and documentary broad-
Read readers’ personal answers casts. One of her most popular
Stephen Brewer dialogues freedom, or its lack projects is a podcast discussing
45 Interview: Duane Rousselle discusses the music of Kate Bush.
modern postmodernism with Julie Reshe 9
Jane O’Grady
48 Letters to the Editor
51 Philosophy Then: Looking to the Past co-founded the London
School of Philosophy,
Peter Adamson on the history of having previously lectured for Birk-
philosophers doing history beck’s Faculty of Continuing Edu-
58 Tallis in Wonderland: cation, and at City University. She
Perception as a Controlled Hallucination co-edited Blackwell’s Dictionary of
Philosophical Quotations with A.J.
Raymond Tallis looks into seeing things Ayer, writes philosophers’ obituar-
62 Brief Lives: Diogenes the Cynic ies for the Guardian, and authored
Knowledge in a Nutshell: Enlighten-
Martin Jenkins on a difficult customer ment Philosophy (2019), 16 entries
for the Oxford Companion to Phi-
losophy, and introductions to edi-
tions of works by J S Mill and Plato.

Gustavo Dalaqua

teaches in the Philosophy
Department at the Uni-
versity of the State of
Paraná in Brazil and is a
member of Coletivo Paulo Freire
de Filosofia. He is currently a fellow
of the Brazilian Center of Analysis
and Planning (CEBRAP), where he
conducts a research project on
democracy, representation, and
decoloniality.

Emma Freudig

grew up all over the US,
and now lives on a
coastal Maine island.
She studies at Tulane Uni-
versity and is majoring in Legal
Studies in Business and Account-
ing. When she isn’t laying in the
sun and writing, she can be found
lifting heavy things in the gym.

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 5

News • Ukrainian philosopher’s 300th birthday
• AI shows increasing ethical problems.
• Qubit pioneer David Deutsch wins prize.

News reports by Anja Steinbauer

Philosopher on Hunger Strike becoming magnified,” the coauthors of the he considered the task of philosophy: the
report comment. Yet they warn: “Larger search for truth. When his death neared, he
In August of last year, a number of promi- and more complex and capable AI systems turned up at a friend’s house in a village
nent thinkers in Belarus were arrested, can generally do better on a broad range of near Kharkiv, announcing that he had
among them the philosopher Uladzimir tasks while also displaying a greater poten- “come to stay permanently.” He then dug
Mazkewitsch and the sociologist Tatjana tial for ethical concerns, researchers and his own grave nearby and, on the comple-
Wadalaschskaja. They had founded the practitioners are reckoning with [the] real- tion of this last task, died. The village,
‘Flying University’ in Minsk, where world harms, [including] commercial facial renamed Skovorodinovka in 1922 in his
philosophers, historians and other aca- recognition systems that discriminate on honour, is now the site of a small museum
demics working within the humanities race, resume screening systems that discrim- dedicated to his work. He chose this epi-
offered courses for the general public in inate on gender, and AI-powered clinical taph for his grave: “The world tried to cap-
Belarusian and Russian. Their arrests were health tools that are biased along socioeco- ture me, but didn’t succeed.”
part of a government crackdown taken nomic and racial lines … As startups and
against the few independent education established companies race to make lan- David Deutsch Wins Newton Prize
providers in the country. Organisations guage models broadly available through The Isaac Newton Medal and Prize, given
such as the Flying University became rare platforms and APIs, it becomes critLiecvailntaos each year by the Institute of Physics, was
bastions of free thought in the wake of the understand how the shortcomings of these awarded to the Oxford quantum physicist
2020 elections, and became a model for models will affect safe deployment.” Professor David Deutsch in 2021. This
citizens to come together in their own free was to recognise Deutsch for “founding
associations. After more than half a year in Hryhoriy Skovoroda the discipline named quantum computa-
prison, Mazkewitsch is still on remand, not tion and establishing quantum computa-
having been formally charged with any Hryhoriy Birthday tion’s fundamental idea, now known as the
offence. In an attempt to force the authori- This year marks the 300th birthday of Hry- ‘qubit’ or quantum bit.” Deutsch’s
ties to set a date for a trial and to convert horiy Skovoroda. The Ukrainian Enlight- approach has a metaphysical dimension as
his prison time leading up to it into house enment philosopher (also known as Gre- well as a practical aspect. Back in 2000
arrest, Mazkewitsch went on hunger strike gory Skovoroda) lived from 1722 to 1794. when he was interviewed by Filiz Peach
earlier this year. Following assurances that This highly educated and original thinker for Philosophy Now Issue 30, he said that
his case would be processed with greater wrote poetry, dialogues, fables and apho- the easiest way to understand quantum
urgency, Mazkewitsch has, for now, risms in Church Slavic, Ukrainian and Rus- computing is to assume that we live in a
broken off his hunger strike. sian, as well as quoting in Greek and Latin. multiverse consisting of many parallel uni-
Having spent much of his life as a teacher verses, with weak interactions or interfer-
AI Ethics Problems Getting Worse of poetics, ethics and other disciplines, as ences taking place between particles in
well as a notable composer, he spent his neighbouring universes.
AI in its diverse manifestations continues to later years as an ascetic hermit, wandering
be an exciting area of research bringing Sloboda Ukraine, devoting himself to what Ethics for Drone Enthusiasts
about real developments in technology and France, Germany, Italy and Spain, acting
attracting massive funding from wealthy through the Organisation for Joint Arma-
investors. However, while the technology is ment Co-operation, recently signed a con-
rapidly improving, at least in certain tract with Airbus and other companies for
respects, such as the trainability of AI units, a project called Eurodrone. The project
it is lagging behind in others. Recent lan- aims to develop unmanned aerial combat
guage models, more sophisticated than their systems – like drones, but the size of small
predecessors, surprisingly show greater bias aircraft, with bombs and cameras. Mike
and generate more toxic text than the ear- Schoellhorn, CEO of Airbus Defence &
lier, more basic models. Such are the find- Space, says that the signature “kicks-off
ings of Stanford’s Institute for Human- the development of one of the most ambi-
Centered AI in a recent report. “This year’s tious European defence programmes.” But
report shows that AI systems are starting to the project is not without controversy and
be deployed widely into the economy, but has brought a renewed focus on the moral
at the same time they are being deployed,
the ethical issues associated with AI are

6 Philosophy Now l April/May 2022

Shorts

issues around the use of military drones. Philosophy Shorts
There are demands that the project must
not breach EU values. The intended uses by Matt Qvortrup
of the drones include spying and surveil-
lance (raising privacy concerns), as well as ‘More songs about Buildings and Food’ was the title of a 1978
what is known in industry circles as “blow- album by the rock band Talking Heads, about all the things rock stars
ing shit up”, so a number of rights and laws normally don’t sing about. Pop songs are usually about variations on
may be affected. Critics fall into two the theme of love; tracks like Rose Royce’s 1976 hit Carwash are the
camps: those who unequivocally oppose exception.
any use of military drones and those who
believe their use can only be condoned Philosophers, likewise, tend to have a narrow focus on
under strictly limited conditions. epistemology, metaphysics and trifles like the meaning of life. But
occasionally great minds stray from their turf and write about other
Ethics for Photographers matters, for example artichokes (Wittgenstein), buildings (Martin Heidegger), food
Interested in photography, eh? What could (Hobbes), and tomato juice (Robert Nozick). This series of Shorts is about these
be the harm in that? Well, a campaign unfamiliar themes; about the things philosophers also write about.
called the Photography Ethics Centre has
now called on all photographers to publish Philosophers on War & Peace
a statement of ethics on their websites.
PEC founder Savannah Dodd explains that “Iam off to read Leo Tolstoy’s Special bit more succinct, observing merely that
photographers make ethical decisions every Military Operation and Peace”, read a “war produces thieves and peace hangs
time they take a photograph, whether or meme that did the rounds on social them.” (The Art of War, p.492)
not they are aware of it: “Ethics shapes our media after the Russian Duma banned
decisions around what we photograph, how the word ‘War’ concerning the invasion It follows from this that most philoso-
we photograph it, how we edit that photo- of Ukraine. Certainly, Tolstoy’s great phers are keen to establish peace at all
graph, where we publish a photograph, and epic about the French invasion of Russia costs. But how?
how we caption it.” in 1812 is a rich source for those who
want to understand the gruesome nature Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously
Ethics for Engineers of armed conflict through literature. But wrote of the “Warre of every man against
A new report recommends that ethical con- philosophers too have poured over and every man” (Leviathan, p.67), and that the
siderations should become embedded in analysed the horrors of war. remedy for this was that “the Arts of
engineering practice in the same way as Peace, enclineth men to obey a common
health and safety. “Engineers act in the ser- Nietzsche, always the enfant terrible Power” – the State, which he called
vice of society, making decisions that affect among thinkers, sought to see something ‘Leviathan’.
everyone, from small-scale technical positive in wanton destruction, and
choices to major strategic decisions that famously opined, “From the warrior Other philosophers saw it differently.
can affect the lives of millions and even the school of life: what doesn’t kill you, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a liberal
future of our planet. We want to make sure makes you stronger.” (Twilight of the before that term was generally used, and
that ethical practice is at the heart of all Idols, p.8) believed that “the spirit of trade… cannot
these decisions,” said Professor David coexist with war.” (Perpetual Peace, p.65)
Bogle, chair of the Engineering Ethics Ref- He was the odd one out. Most But he also asserted that democracies
erence Group. His group’s report suggests philosophers are critical of war. “There were less likely to go to war, for, “If the
instituting the equivalent of a Hippocratic is no instance of a nation benefitting consent of the citizens is required in
Oath for engineers: “Ever-growing expec- from prolonged warfare” wrote Sun Tzu order to decide that war should be
tations of society” and constant technologi- (544-396 BCE) in The Art of War. A declared… nothing is more natural than
cal advances mean engineers must “contin- couple of thousands of years later, Jean- that they would be very cautious in com-
ually evaluate how ethical behaviours need Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) described mencing such a poor game.” (p.75)
to improve and evolve.” Engineers must the aftermath of a battle in a way that
negotiate the tensions between profitabil- shows that very little has changed: “I see Sadly, for most of history we have wit-
ity, sustainability and safety. fire and flames, a countryside deserted, nessed wars; as G.W.F. Hegel (1770-
villages pillaged. I bear witness to a mur- 1831) observed, “Periods of peace are the
Ethics for Ethicists derous scene, to ten thousand slaugh- empty pages in the history books” (The
A new organisation invented just now has tered men, the dead piled together, the Philosophy of History, p.55). Maybe we
recommended that ethicists “should reflect dying trampled… everywhere the sight should simply quote folksinger Pete
carefully” before trying to implement of death and agony” (The State of War, Seeger’s ‘Where have all the Flowers
codes of practice into every human activ- p.609). This scene from the Seven Years’ Gone?’, and ask the warmongers of the
ity. “Perhaps ethicists need a code of prac- War of 1756-1763 applies equally to world, “When will you ever learn? When
tice about the real world application of Kyiv in 2022. Niccolò Machiavelli will you ever learn?”
ethics?” said Prof. Madeupname. (1470-1527) was no less horrified, but a
© PROF. MATT QVORTRUP 2022

Matt Qvortrup is Professor of Political
Science at Coventry University.

April/May 2022 l Philosophy Now 7

Politics

The Causes of Peace

Dan Corjescu looks briefly but hopefully at possible causes of peace.

Until Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine, it was often Modernization has meant many things. It has meant an expo-
claimed without irony that the world had become nential growth in wealth and comfort to those it benefits. It has
generally more peaceful than in most previous eras. increased the possibilities for the enjoyment of life through
Leading intellectuals even developed competing urbanization, the sexual revolution, consumerism, the political
theories to explain this happy state of affairs. Let’s look at three integration of women, and demographic changes which have
of them. meant there are comparatively fewer young men – historically
the major practitioners of war, if not the instigators. In the pre-
The first is Francis Fukuyama. In his celebrated debut book modern world, war was a potentially lucrative, if risky, endeav-
The End of History and The Last Man (1992), Fukuyama argued our, and it did not much matter against whom it was waged as
that Hegel’s nineteenth century insights into human history long as there was a good chance of winning. However with the
were relevant to understanding the political nature of our own rise of the industrial-technological society, the payoff matrix
times. Influenced by the Russian-French Hegel interpreter has changed. Increasingly, it has made (and still makes) more
Alexander Kojève, Fukuyama argued that history’s trajectory sense to avoid conflict and not to put at risk the considerable
was towards societies that facilitate individual freedom and benefits of peace, including health, wealth and comfort.
recognition. In this story, the rise of modern science and tech-
nology are not enough to explain the historic spread of demo- Where I take issue with Gat is around the question of how
cratic governments and the belief in human rights. Science can much wealth and comfort is necessary to persuade nations to
produce a vibrant consumer society; but only the strong human peace. A degree of modernisation and the trappings of democ-
desire for the recognition of one’s self-worth in the eyes of others racy haven’t persuaded Putin’s Russia to peacefulness. And cer-
can explain the demand for political liberty and rights. tainly, the Great European Powers of 1914 were considerably
more wealthy than they were in 1814. Trade among them was
Michael Doyle’s work on ‘democratic peace theory’ is partly booming – in particular between Germany and Britain. Yet,
based on the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant and their increasing wealth and comfort did not prevent the out-
Thomas Paine. Doyle, among others, noticed in the 1970s that break of WWI, which, among many other losses, meant the loss
‘a separate peace’ between democracies seemed to have been of massive reserves of national wealth. Thus, I find the outbreaks
practically achieved. This appeared to him to support Kant’s of the two World Wars as well as modern conflicts, not suffi-
and Paine’s eighteenth century beliefs that for a peaceful world ciently explicable through Gat’s modernization theory. Indeed,
to be secured states would have to become republics (or in I think ideological motives and cultural beliefs play a determin-
modern terms, democracies), which would then combine to ing part in conflicts. In the case of the ascendancy of fascism,
form a federation of pacifist states, which would effectively abol- for instance, pre-modern notions of honor and masculinity, the
ish war. The fact that, according to the democratic peace theo- rise of social Darwinism welded to belligerent nationalism, and
rists, no war had broken out between democracies for a hun- even the philosophies of Nietzsche and Sorel, played an out-
dred years (1815-1914), verified these Enlightenment thinkers’ sized role in creating the conditions for World War II. Mod-
conjectures in their eyes. ernization, while perhaps important for explaining the relative
peace between the European powers from 1815-1914, is not
However, before celebrating the triumph of Hegelian desires sufficient, I think, to account for the violence of the first half of
for recognition or Kantian republics in contributing to world the twentieth century and after.
peace we should, says Azar Gat, be aware of the peace-making
power of modernization itself. Prof. Gat, a noted Israeli histo- Ultimately, if Gat is right and despite recent appearances the
rian of both war and peace, believes that neither the human desire world is reaching a qualitative threshold of peace-making pros-
for freedom and recognition nor the spread of democratic gov- perity, then one could argue that it is not so important for coun-
ernance were responsible for the long spell of peace between the tries to be democratic as it is for them to be wealthy. Wealth
great democratic powers. He cites as evidence the mutually bel- often softens the warlike spirit. This has been known to philoso-
ligerent nature of ancient democracies – the case of democratic phers for thousands of years. But the way to modern wealth is
Athens vs democratic Syracuse is of particular interest – as well through trade, technology, and overall scientific development
as the war of 1812 and the US Civil War, all involving democ- and education. So we may for example find some not inconsid-
racies. Also relevant is the fact that both democracies and non- erable solace and hope in the recent economic rise of China, a
democracies have had an increasing tendency to refrain from country presently very focused on the increase of national wealth
warfare over the past two hundred years. For Gat, the main vari- and well-being. Maybe material development will be enough to
able explaining the recent long state of peace is the transforma- avoid further great power conflict in the future. Even now, this
tion of the world though the industrial revolution, leading to the is a test of much more than mere academic theories of peace.
creation of a consumerist-technological society and culture. Sig-
nificantly, this peace predated the advent of the atomic bomb, © DR DAN CORJESCU 2022
although that event also contributed to world stability, accord-
ing to Gat in War in Human Civilization, (2006). Dan Corjescu teaches Cooperation and Conflict, among other courses,
at the University of Tübingen.

8 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

© GUTO DIAS 2022. PLEASE VISIT FACEBOOK.COM/PG/GUTOZDIASSTUDIO

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 9

Politics

‘The Lottery’ & Locke’s Politics

John P. Irish considers social contract theory through an infamous lottery.

SHIRLEY JACKSON UPLOADED TO CREATIVE COMMONS BY ARMEN 2020 Shirley Jackson article, I want to show how Jackson’s story can be used to illus-
trate aspects of Locke’s social contract theory.
On June 26 1948 Shirley Jackson (1916-65) published
what may be the most infamous short story in Amer- The Natural State v. the Political State
ican literature. Called ‘The Lottery’, it was featured Locke begins the Two Treatises by articulating the difference
in The New Yorker, and at the time became one of between what he calls the ‘natural state’ and the ‘political state’.
the most controversial pieces ever printed, resulting in the mag- The differentiation of these concepts had been well established
azine receiving more hate mail and subscription non-renewals before Locke and was rooted in the ‘natural law’ political tradi-
than anything else up to that point in its history. Even Jackson’s tion. For Locke, though, juxtaposing these ideas was critical for
mother shared her dislike for the story with her daughter, claim- laying the foundations of his political philosophy, particularly
ing that the younger generation was too obsessed with violence. for establishing his view of human nature.

The story is about a fictional small town in America which The state of nature, or natural society – the condition in which
conducts an annual ritual known as ‘the lottery’, whose purpose we find ourselves before the establishment of political society –
is to choose a human sacrifice to be stoned to death to ensure consists of two essential conditions: freedom and equality. Both
the community’s well-being and continued prosperity. I have of these are fundamental principles for humanity for Locke. “To
used the story many times in my American Studies classes – I understand Political Power right” he writes, “and derive it from
typically use it as a way of introducing post-WWII American its Original, we must consider what State all Men are naturally
society – but it only recently struck me that this story can also in... a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions, and dis-
be used to teach certain aspects of Locke’s social contract theory, pose of their Possessions, and Persons, as they think fit... [with-
as found in his Two Treatises of Government. out] depending upon the Will of any other Man… [It is] A State
also of Equality, wherein all the Power and Jurisdiction is recip-
John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher and rocal, no one having more than another” (Two Treatises, Book
physician, and is considered to be one of the most influential II. Chapter II. Paragraph 4). For Locke, the central point is not
thinkers of the Enlightenment. In fact, in 1689 he published whether the natural state ever actually existed, (although he
two classic works which have each had a profound effect on the believes that it did). The idea’s more of a device to allow him
history of philosophy: An Essay Concerning Human Understand- to make observations about human nature.
ing, which outlined his empiricist philosophy, and Two Trea-
tises of Government, which outlined his political theory. The Two As opposed to his fellow Englishman Thomas Hobbes (1588-
Treatises is considered today to be one of the foundational texts 1679), who viewed the state of nature as one in which people
of political liberalism. It describes his ideas on topics such as constantly war against each other in a nightmarish existence in
natural law, the evolution of political society, the social con- which life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’, Locke
tract, majority rule, and the dissolution of governments. In this believed the state of nature to be one of relatively peaceful co-
existence among individuals. It was not the utopian paradise
outlined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78); but it was also
not the living hell described by Hobbes. It was however a state
where individuals found themselves in competition with others
for resources. A rational response to this would be to set up a
system where conflicts can be mediated and resolved based on
accepted rules and regulations. This transition constitutes the
move from the ‘natural state’ to the ‘political state’.

The primary goal of political society is to maintain a safe envi-
ronment and relieve humanity of the inconveniences of the state
of nature: “I easily grant, that Civil Government is the proper
Remedy for the Inconveniences of the State of Nature, which
must certainly be Great” (TT, II.II.13). This transition is an
important concept for Locke, as it provides the theoretical foun-
dation upon which the rest of his political philosophy will be
built. The transition must be voluntary, and be done for the good
of everyone who enters into it, since Locke believes we would
not willingly enter into an agreement which we would consider
worse for us. The political condition is also governed by the prin-
ciple of majority rule: “When any number of Men have so con-

10 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Politics

sented to make one Community or Gov- Collecting stones.
ernment, they are thereby presently Scene from the graphic
incorporated, and make one Body Poli-
tick, wherein the Majority have a Right to novel of ‘The Lottery’
act and conclude the rest” (II.VII.95). by Miles Hyman,
This transformation takes place through Suntup Editions
individuals entering into what Locke and
others termed ‘the social contract’. As he THE LOTTERY GRAPHIC NOVEL ILLUSTRATION © 2019 BY MILES HYMAN. FROM THE LIMITED EDITION PUBLISHED BY SUNTUP EDITIONS.
says, “this is done… [by] agreeing to unite
into one Political Society, which is all the
Compact that is, or needs be, between the
Individuals, that enter into, or make up a
Common-wealth” (II.VII.99). This ‘social
contract’ is the foundation for the legiti-
macy of political power and authority in
political society.

The Social Contract in ‘The Lottery’ slips of paper. The reader is kept in the tening to the young folks, nothing’s good
dark as to why the community continues enough for them... Next thing you know,
Jackson’s story ‘The Lottery’ opens on the the lottery, since there are rumors that they’ll be wanting to go back in caves.”
clear sunny morning of June 27, which in other communities have done away with Old Man Warner also gives another
1948, the year it was published, was a the archaic ritual. reason for continuing the lottery: “Lot-
Sunday. The small community of roughly tery in June, corn be heavy soon.” The
three hundred clearly constitutes an One character in the story, Old Man implication is that if the lottery stops their
example of a Lockean political society, as Warner, explains what he believes is economic prosperity will also dry up.
Jackson notes that it has a post office and important about the ritual: that some in There are no other justifications or expla-
a bank, implying coordinated collabora- the community believe the tradition keeps nations for the lottery in the story, but
tive institutions that would not exist them in a state of prosperity. Old Man everyone seems willing to accept it as part
within the state of nature. Warner is the voice of the traditionalists, of their social duty. Neither are there any
expressing the perspective that the lottery discussions before the lottery begins about
The children are the first on the scene, must continue to happen because it always the morality or unfairness of the ritual; all
as they are already on summer break. has happened. What’s the point of doing participants seem perfectly willing to
Little Bobby Martin is already in the pro- something that’s not grounded in tradi- engage in it. Indeed, there is only one
cess of collecting stones for the antici- tion or history? “Pack of crazy fools... Lis-
pated stoning. Once the adults begin
arriving, they exchange pleasantries as
they laugh and smile. Nothing would
indicate that something nefarious was
about to happen.

There exists a basic hierarchy of power
within the community, as Mr Summers
not only organizes the lottery but also
coordinates local dances, the teen club,
and the Halloween events. The lottery is
itself a very structured social ritual. For
each family in the community there is a
slip of paper inside the old wooden black
box, which itself has been around as far
as anyone can remember. One slip of
paper has a black dot on it; the family
which draws the slip with the black dot
advances to the next round of the lottery.

Jackson explores the juxtaposition of
the old and the new in the ritual of the
lottery. The lottery itself is as old as the
community (it is also a ceremony which
is shared with other communities), but
there are several things about it which
have evolved as the society has grown,
such as replacing wood chips with the

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 11

Politics

THE LOTTERY GRAPHIC NOVEL ILLUSTRATION © 2019 BY MILES HYMAN. FROM THE LIMITED EDITION PUBLISHED BY SUNTUP EDITIONS. agreement to the community’s rules and
regulations. So when I benefit or take
advantage of the conveniences of the
political state, I have, according to Locke,
agreed to the terms of the social contract.
In Jackson’s community, these individu-
als actively participate (almost enthusias-
tically) in the lottery, thus accepting the
consequences of the event. By freely par-
ticipating in the ritual, they actively con-
sent to its consequences.

person who seems to feel very strongly form a political society, yet society nev- The Principle of Self-Preservation
about it at all – Old Man Warner: this is ertheless has the right to implement rules Another important concept in Two Trea-
his 77th lottery! But since the majority and regulations on the members of that tises of Government is the notion of self-
seems to embrace the ritual, it continues. society, even if some of them object to preservation as a fundamental moral prin-
There is talk, as some communities have those rules. Not everyone is going to like ciple. Self-preservation is derived from
already quit lotteries; but Old Man all the rules implemented in their society, reason even while in the state of nature,
Warner continues to chime in with his but because of the insecurity of the state and according to Locke the idea consti-
opposition to even entertaining the idea of nature, most consent to the rules, and tutes a fundamental part of human nature.
of finishing. However, the people in the the will of the majority must always pre- He says that there are two laws that all
community continue to have freedom. vail. The community willingly comes humanity must follow while in the state
Any members strongly opposed to the lot- together each year to perform the ritual of nature: preserve oneself, and preserve
tery would be free to leave that commu- of the lottery, and this universal action others when one’s own preservation is not
nity and join one which has banned it. symbolizes the actualization of their at risk: “Every one as he is bound to pre-
Locke himself believed that individuals Lockean social contract. Locke believed serve himself, and not to quit his Station
never give up their freedom even when that the social contract obligations could wilfully; so by the like reason when his
they enter into the social contract and be imposed on individuals by their tacit own Preservation comes not in competi-
tion, ought he, as much as he can, to pre-
serve the rest of Mankind” (II.II.6). This
principle is not given up when one enters
into political society. There are some
things which individuals have as a matter
of right within the state of nature, which
they give up once they enter into politi-
cal society (for example, the right to
punish those that have wronged them),
but self-preservation cannot be aban-
doned, even though the power for its
implementation passes hands, into the
hands of the society: “He that is Master
of himself, and his own Life, has a right
too to the means of preserving it”
(II.XV.172) .

The Lottery Winner
As the lottery begins, Mr Summers
explains the rules. All the family names
are called alphabetically, beginning with
Adams and ending with Zanini. When
their family name is called each head of
the house approaches the black box and
draws out a slip of folded paper, keeping
it hidden in their closed fist until the last
slip of paper is removed. Once the draw-
ing is finished, Mr Summers asks each
family head to hold up their slip so that
everyone can see who has the slip with

12 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Politics

The Global Village standard of what is just and unjust. “You have certainly no reason
for holding that each person’s own interest is the standard of
Entities are fusing and it is too late what is just and right” (Essays on the Law of Nature 207). After
to reverse the amalgamation. all, she willingly engaged in it, which implied her acceptance
Capitalism is prevailing and it is too late of the consequences. Indeed, the drawing might have been
to ban monopolization. unfair, but on this particular instance, it seems that everyone
Bugs are rampant and it is too late recognized its fairness (everyone except Tessie!). All the proper
to control infection. protocols seem to have been followed.
Internets are cast and it is too late
to curtail misinformation. Tessie’s complaint about the unfairness of the lottery does
Interdependence is rife and it is too late not stand the scrutiny of analysis, given Lockean guidelines. For
to advocate dissociation. instance, for Locke, the legislative authority wielding power
Reality is virtual and it is too late within a society has rules and guidelines it must obey. First, its
to attempt solid realization. actions cannot be arbitrary and must be limited to the public
Frail folk are reproducing and it is too late good. But there are strict rules that have been established and
to implement natural selection. which are adhered to within the ritual of the lottery. The com-
munity also accepts the lottery as they believe it ensures their
© BOGHOS L. ARTINIAN 2022 economic prosperity. Second, for Locke, the authorities must
dispense justice according to accepted and known laws and rules.
Boghos Artinian is a graduate of the American University Again, the lottery satisfies this condition. “These are the Bounds
Medical Center (Beirut) MD, in 1968, and MRCP (UK) in which the trust that is put in them by the Society, and the Law
1973. He has published many poems since 1986. of God and Nature, have set to the Legislative Power of every
Commonwealth, in all Forms of Government” (II.XI.142).
the black dot. Bill Hutchinson is the one holding the slip with
the dot. His wife Tessie begins questioning the fairness of the By agreeing to the lottery, Tessie willingly gives up her right
ritual: “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he to protest on the grounds of unfairness – assuming that all the
wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!” The crowd tells her to be rules and proper procedures were implemented during the
quiet and accept the consequences: “Be a good sport, Tessie... drawing. She then shifted into self-preservation mode, trying
All of us took the same chance.” Even Tessie’s husband is embar- to defend her life; but the rules of the ritual are clear and have
rassed by her behavior and orders her to shut up. been accepted by all individuals within the community. Indi-
viduals are free to leave if they object to them. As noted, some
The next phase of the lottery now begins: they place a slip of communities have already given up the lottery. So there were
paper back in the black box for each Hutchinson family member, options for Tessie and her family if she felt the lottery to be
one of the slips having the black dot. One by one, the Hutchin- unfair or unjust. Instead, she agreed to remain and continue to
sons approach the box and draw out a slip of paper. Once all are be a member of the community. We also must assume she’s par-
done, they reveal to the crowd who now holds the dot. Tessie ticipated in the lottery in previous years, in which she’s also
draws her slip, but refuses to show her paper to the crowd, so engaged in the final act of state-sanctioned murder.
her husband opens it up for her. Tessie has won the lottery! Mr
Summers orders the crowd to finish the ritual. As the mob falls The Final Analysis
on Tessie, throwing the stones they’d gathered, she pleads with Jackson’s story was written to demonstrate the dangers of con-
the crowd, she shouts, “It isn’t fair!”, but to no avail. Even her formity and mob rule. It is a warning about how easy it would
youngest child is handed a stone to throw at his mother. As more be for us to regress to the kind of poisonous atmosphere which
and more stones fall upon her, Tessie eventually grows silent. plagued Germany during the lead up to the war which had only
In Tessie’s defiance of the lottery she was reverting to the prin- recently ended when ‘The Lottery’ was first published. How-
ciple of self-preservation. She knows what drawing the slip with ever, by 1950, Joseph McCarthy’s ‘witch hunts’ had begun in
the dot means; it means death – and not a quick and painless America as he pursued and persecuted individuals he believed
death either. Old Man Warner comments about Tessie’s reac- to be Communist sympathizers. Jackson’s indictment spreads a
tion: “It’s not the way it used to be... People ain’t the way they wide net. She herself condemned the social, political, and eco-
used to be.’ Recent winners like Tessie, Old Man Warner seems nomic institutions which created that condemnation culture
to be implying, are refusing to accept the consequences of the (and are still creating such a culture). But her story is also a cri-
lottery. They entered freely into it, but now that they are nega- tique of human nature. Indeed, it allows several interesting
tively affected, they question its legitimacy. philosophical perspectives and potential interpretations. Read-
ing her story through a Lockean social contract lens allows us
For Locke, under the social contract, society can legitimately to contemplate some of the fundamental ideas Locke outlined
pass laws which would result in harm to individuals within that in his Two Treatises of Government.
community. Tessie’s complaint about the unfairness of the lot-
tery is a little puzzling. She may not like the outcome, and she © DR JOHN P. IRISH 2022
has the right to defend herself, but none of these facts make the
ritual ‘unfair’. In fact, individual self-interests cannot be the John P. Irish teaches American Studies at Carroll Sr. High School
in Southlake, Texas. He received a Doctorate in Humanities from
Southern Methodist University. He hopes that no one will throw any
rocks at him for his interpretation of Locke.

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 13

Politics

A Map of Political Ideas

Phil Badger draws the boundaries of political thought and explores the territories.

! "#$%&'$(&$)! *&+($(,-&,$%! imposed from above, since they tend to think that politicians
./001)&'$(&$)! !"##$%&'()&(%*+,-'.* 2)(3&'&"%(+* are no more rational than the rest of us.
0"%1,)4('&4,1*
2&3+($%! /"0&(+&1'1* When taken to the extreme, this position can include ideas
5%3&4&3$(+&1'1.* !+(11&0(+.* of racial or ethnic superiority (or at least ‘cultural purity’), or
! 6)"7),11&4,*+&8,)(+1* 9,":+&8,)(+1* radical nationalism.

There are many ways to classify political ideologies Classical/Neo-Liberalism
and map out the boundaries between them. I cor- The ‘bottom-right’ corner of our map is the home of ‘Classi-
dially invite you to consider mine. Although my cal’ and ‘Neo-’ liberals. They share a belief in hierarchies with
examples are drawn mainly from the United King- the ‘top-right’ conservative folk , but by contrast with them see
dom’s political history, I think it is broad enough and subtle these hierarchies of status and wealth as justified in terms of a
enough to describe the ideological landscape of most Western meritocratic process in which the best rise to the top, and,
secular countries, and to help clarify the nature of many of the through pursuing their own self-interest, bring significant ben-
disagreements in recent political life. So consider this chart. Its efit to the rest of us. The last thought is the idea that wealth
four quarters could be respectively called ‘hierarchical-com- ‘trickles down’ or (flowing in the other direction) that ‘a rising
munitarian’ (top right), ‘egalitarian-communitarian’ (top left), tide lifts all boats’.
‘hierarchical-liberal’ (bottom right) and ‘egalitarian-liberal’
(bottom left). Strange terms perhaps; but as we shall see, Classical and neo-liberals are individualists who see us as
together these divisions enable us to delineate the major politi- ‘rational calculators’ of our own self-interests. This again sets
cal positions taken in today’s world. So let’s look at these four them apart from traditional conservatives. Being less attached
positions, and the relationships between them. to both tradition and nationalist notions of identity, they are
the cheer leaders of globalisation and the ‘creative destruction’
Traditional Conservatism it brings. Being liberals, they are often tolerant of non-standard © HARLEY SCHWADRON 2022 TO SEE MORE, PLEASE VISIT SCHWADRONCARTOONS.COM
sexual orientations and generally take a ‘pro-choice’ position on
The ‘hierarchical-communitarian’ slot in the top right corner abortion: some would also legalise recreational drug use. Clas-
is where traditional conservative thinkers live. For them, the sical and neo-liberals also favour low taxation and a ‘minimal’
central concern of politics is what is sometimes called ‘The or ‘night-watchman’ state: they often want to leave welfare to
Problem of Order’, and we can have considerable sympathy the voluntary sector, and here they have things in common with
with these concerns. Traditional conservatives ask how soci- conservatives. Taxation is often seen as a form of theft. For clas-
eties are meant to maintain cohesion and social peace in the sical and neo-liberals, the able and industrious are entitled to
face of the dizzying pace of social change. This question is hardly the fruits of their efforts, and state welfare leads to dependency
new – Aristotle asked it – but since the Industrial Revolution it
has become increasingly insistent. In our own era, racked as it
is by concerns about mass migration and technological disrup-
tion, climate change, war and waves of pandemics, the question
of how some semblance of social continuity is to be maintained
is particularly acute.

Conservatives are prone to defend the cohesive power of tra-
dition and to speak of ‘organic models’ of society, in which dif-
ferent individuals and sections of society play different roles.
Here they tend to defend hierarchies in which ‘natural differ-
ences’ between classes of people are assumed to be shown. Dom-
ination – historically especially in terms of paternalistic rela-
tionships – is considered both natural and right. People are
generally held to be irrational and even vicious in their moti-
vations, so that integrating them into a community of shared
values, often defined in national terms, is an essential process,
in which discipline plays an important role. Often, however,
conservatives are uncomfortable with authoritarian solutions

14 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Politics

promotion of so-called ‘faith schools’, run by religious organi-
sations but still funded by the state. In part these measures were
seen by New Left leaders such as former British PM Tony Blair,
although not a socialist himself, as a way to stitch the commu-
nitarians and individualists together by fusing cosmopolitanism
(which tends to the individualist) with collectivism.

Questions about the distinctiveness of communitarianism
from conservatism become acute once it is noted that tradi-
tional communitarian thinking is often as concerned with
national identity as with class identity – for example, in talking
about ‘British Jobs for British workers’, or an equivalent for
your own country. What mostly divides communitarians and
conservatives is the tendency of the latter to endorse and defend
hierarchical social arrangements, which socialist folk see as
socially divisive. Egalitarianism, from their perspective, is good
for social cohesion.

Map of Thomas Individualism
More’s Utopia People in the bottom left corner are individualists, and tend to
be just as sceptical of tradition as their classical/neo-liberal
and ‘free-riding’. cousins – rather, they believe in people freely entering into what
‘Classical’ liberalism, conspicuously a ‘free market’ doctrine, we might call ‘communities of choice’. However, ‘progressive
liberals’ (as people in this corner are sometimes labelled) are
was for a long while partly eclipsed by the ‘progressive’ indi- also greatly sceptical of the ability of unfettered free markets –
vidualistic version of liberalism, so those who wanted to reani- markets that are not regulated by states – to actually deliver the
mate it needed a fresh title for their project. Thus in the 1970s, personal freedom they promise. The problem comes down in
‘neo-liberalism’ was born, largely as an economic doctrine: its part to the issue of ‘equality of opportunity’, which is thought
liberty is centrally the freedom to make money. impossible when unregulated markets create radically different
starting points in life for different individuals. Progressive lib-
When taken to the extreme, the ideas of economic liberals eral individualists tend to be well educated city dwellers, and,
results in a ‘libertarian capitalism’, which sees all state involve- perhaps crucially, have youth on their side (especially when
ment in market relations as illegitimate. compared to traditional conservatives). Progressive liberals are
also sometimes called ‘social liberals’, or even ‘social democrats’.
Socialism
The top left quarter belongs to the ‘communitarian left’, or Progressive liberals are cosmopolitan, and share with classi-
more generally speaking, the socialists. Like the conservatives, cal and neo-liberals a belief in ‘human’ as opposed to ‘local’ (or
they are sceptical about extreme individualism, and see a mean- ‘tribal’) rights. However, they differ from their neo-liberal
ingful life as one rooted in a community of shared values. They cousins in tending to believe these rights to be positive rather
also see life as being about more than economic well-being, and than negative: that is, progressive liberals think your right to
fret about the socially disruptive impacts of capitalism in gen- life places an obligation on me not just to refrain from harm-
eral and globalisation in particular. Traditionally, class is seen ing or hindering you, but to positively help you when you are
by socialists as a key aspect of social identity, and work as a in need.
source of pride, dignity and community. More recently, and
often dividing the political Left, there has been a concern about At the extreme, progressive liberalism can shade into ‘liber-
the breakdown in moral values and social bonds that comes from tarian socialism’, a.k.a. anarchism – a position which sees states
people feeling alienated from their cultural heritage. This think- as the tools of those wishing to maintain inequality. But pro-
ing has led to a significant increase in the valuing of diverse cul- gressive liberalism itself is more likely to be associated with the
tural traditions and a consequent rise in the belief of multicul- idea that the state can be a tool for attaining progressive goals.
turalism. In the UK, where I live, this led for example to the
Relating the Quarters:
Top Right & Bottom Right
On the face of it traditional conservatives and classical/neo-lib-
erals don’t have much in common, and it is fair to say that his-
torically speaking their relationships have been fraught. For
example, in the 1840s in Britain, the then Tory Party was torn
apart by a fight between those who wanted to maintain the
advantages of the traditional ruling class, which were partly
reliant on high import taxes, and those who saw those protec-
tionist trade tariffs as unable to meet the needs of a current food
crisis. The Prime Minister Robert Peel split the Tory Party in

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 15

Politics

order to abolish the so-called Corn Laws, and thus allow cheap by neo-liberals that this will cost jobs because firms can’t then
imports of grain to feed the starving population of Ireland during compete with foreign ‘sub-living’ wage rates. The progressives
the Great Famine (an Gorta Mór). In the short run the political counter that a living wage would generate savings from welfare
result was the emergence of a new, radical Liberal Party, com- which could be offered to firms as training and capital invest-
mitted to the benefits of free trade (this is classical liberalism) ment grants, and that, like the ‘living wage’ itself, these could
and opposed by a protectionist Conservative party. be regionally variable and targeted to help struggling areas.
However, such grants might still decrease employment, as they
Things, however, are seldom static in politics, and in Britain could be spent on labour-saving mechanisation or computeri-
the Conservatives became pragmatic converts to free trade, sation. Indeed, the coming ‘new machine age’ is a particular
while by the latter part of the nineteenth century the (once clas- problem for both kinds of liberal because economies depend on
sical) Liberals were beginning to have reservations about unreg- consumers, and, traditionally at least, consumers get their
ulated markets. This was the beginning of ‘new’ or ‘progres- money from work. Progressive liberals sometimes respond with
sive’ liberalism. talk of a ‘social wage’, a.k.a. ‘universal basic income’, where
everyone would get subsistence money, even for not working.
For conservatives the tension between the dynamic power But this idea, involving huge state action in redistributing
of free market capitalism and their belief in natural social hier- wealth, is anathema to most (but not all) classical/neo-liberals.
archies and social continuity has long been problematic; but
from the mid-1970s, they became moot with the election of Bottom Left & Top Left
Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party in There is a particular tragedy for those on the left side of our
Britain, with Ronald Reagan having a similar impact on the map, the socialists and the progressives, because the two groups
Republican Party in the USA. Thatcher and Reagan were radi- on that side of the border, former allies, currently seem to have
cal free market liberals, but they also held profoundly conser- a lot of trouble getting along.
vative views about social issues such as sexual conduct and tra-
ditional family structures (in Reagan’s case this was underpinned In some ways the problem starts with the success of neo-lib-
by conservative religious values). One way to think about this eral politicians in shaping the economies of both Britain and
situation is to consider Reagan and Thatcher as seeing social the United States, as well as more widely across the world. The
conservatism as a necessary brake on the disruptive power of last forty years have witnessed a transformation of Western
unrestrained capitalism, which they would otherwise endorse. economies from a model founded on heavy industry to one much
Both leaders were strong on ideas of personal responsibility, more dependent on services. In part, the process of globalisa-
and unsympathetic to what might we’ll call ‘social luck’ theo- tion, which shipped lots of industrial jobs to the southern hemi-
ries, which say that our circumstances in life owe much to genetic sphere, was inevitable. However, the de-regulation introduced
and environmental factors beyond our immediate control. They by neo-liberal politicians (for example, making it easier to move
both consequently favoured harsh responses to law-breaking, capital around the globe in order to seek higher profits) accel-
and a moralistic ‘war on drugs’. erated the process to the disadvantage of the old industrial work-
ing class in the developed world. In electoral terms the rise in
Bottom Left & Bottom Right unemployment was a huge challenge for Western politicians to
The relationship between progressive and classical/neo-liber- deal with. But for a while, Democratic Party in the USA and
als has been especially fraught, with each side asking the other the Labour Party in the UK responded to this challenge with
a series of extremely pointed questions. The classical/neo-lib- great success. The key was to compensate those who had lost
erals, suspicious of the ‘tax and spend’ tendencies of their pro- out by milking the ‘new economy’, while hoping to engineer
gressive neighbours, want to know why the talented and hard-
working should give up their cash to the government, and how CARTOON © CHRIS GILL PLEASE VISIT CGILLCARTOONS.COM FOR MORE.
giving welfare payments to those who lack these qualities could
ever incentivise them to do better. For their part, the progres-
sives want to know how much ‘tax and spend’ the neo-liberal
free marketeers have themselves actually benefited from (free
education, street lights, roads, law, etc), and in general, how
much the surrounding society has contributed to their current
personal wealth. They also ask if neo-liberals really think that
lack of ability justifies people living in poverty (progressive indi-
vidualists are ‘social luck’ theorists), and generally question the
validity of the neo-liberal image of the plucky, risk-taking
entrepreneur: in fact, major companies are often run by risk
averse shareholders who are more interested in short term prof-
its than long term investment.

Like all civil wars, the one between the liberals is especially
vicious, and attempts to bridge the factions have been tortu-
ously difficult. The progressives have suggested the introduc-
tion of a ‘living wage’, which they argue incentivises work and
gets around the issue of welfare dependency – only to be told

16 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

the growth of new, high skill, high productivity jobs. Unfortu- Philosophical Haiku KARL POPPER © DORIANKBANDY 1987 CC
nately the second part of the plan didn’t work out. There was
no real incentive for investment in ‘rust belt’ areas, for exam- Karl Popper
ple, and profits instead fed a credit bubble that, for a while, sus-
tained demand (and created huge trade deficits) via a financial (1902–1994)
services sector which saw weak regulation as the price govern-
ments paid for all the tax money it generated for them. From planning spare us.
From ignorance set us free.
The bursting of the credit bubble from 2007 onwards, when From falsehood comes truth.
people on falling wages just couldn’t pay their loans back, saw
massive welfare cuts, as governments rushed to bail out the ‘too Sir Karl Popper was born into a Viennese Jewish family that had con-
big to fail’ banking sector (doing otherwise might have placed verted to Lutheranism – not out of any devout belief, but because
the world on a path to complete economic collapse). Thus the they wanted to be invited to all the best parties. His father enjoyed a
anger of the so-called ‘left behind’ was unleashed at both the good book, and so collected about twelve thousand of them.
progressives who had accommodated themselves to the neo-
liberal legacy, and at globalisation itself. Isolationism, fuelled Like A.J. Ayer, Popper was initially influenced by the Vienna Circle of
by fears about jobs, combined with an unprecedented refugee philosophers of the early twentieth century. But he came to reject their
crisis in Europe to produce a nationalistic backlash against the ‘principle of verification’ (we can know that an idea is true only if it can
economic ‘experts’ who failed to predict or manage the chaos be verified) on the basis that, no matter how many times you confirm a
of globalisation. Part of the problem was that transnational cor- fact by observation, somewhere or sometime there might be a contrary
porations are too powerful to be regulated by individual states. case. So, he said, generalisations from observations are only useful for
Add to this the rise of a jihadist movement with complex roots science if they can in principle be falsified – that is, potentially shown to
in old enmities; Western and Russian power-plays; and the be wrong through a contrary observation.’The sun rises every day’ is a
resentment of new inequalities (oil wealth is very inequitably useful generalisation, because in principle it can be proven wrong – by
distributed, for example), and we had the perfect conditions for the sun failing to rise on a particular day. On the other hand, an untestable
social and cultural reaction. Most of the political benefits of all statement such as ‘God prefers coffee to tea’ isn’t useful, because it could
this chaos have accrued to the more radical inhabitants of the never be falsified. However, until it’s proven wrong, it’s reasonable to pro-
top right corner of our map, where communitarian conservatism ceed on the assumption that a highly-confirmed observation is correct.
morphs into a militant protection of vested interests.
Popper wasn’t just concerned with what might seem like arcane philo-
The Future sophical problems. Having witnessed the dangers of totalitarian regimes,
In the short term there is little doubt that an idea suggested ear- he feared any political system that gave all the power to politicians and
lier – requiring a living wage from employers in exchange for bureaucrats to decide on our behalf how society is to be shaped. Anyone,
business investment grants – has much to recommend it. To he said, who claimed to be able to create an ideal society was both deluded
start with, it holds out the prospect of rehabilitating progres- and dangerous. Revolutionary politics, no matter how well-intended,
sive liberalism by meeting some of the concerns of both neo- invariably have unintended consequences: no one can foresee precisely
liberals and socialists: work rather than welfare is the source of how things will pan out, and more often than not, they pan out badly. Only
income, yet skilled employment is promoted. Nowadays, all an ‘open society’, in which citizens can freely criticise policies and peace-
political parties rely on coalitions of voters (Thatcher and fully and regularly change their rulers, alleviates the worst of these dan-
Reagan’s nationalism and traditional values played well with gers. Popper experienced this open kind of society when he moved to
many communitarians, and Blair and Clinton did not rock the New Zealand for a time prior to WWII. With no one around to hear him but
neo-con boat, while mollifying traditional conservatives with the sheep, he found he could say whatever he jolly well pleased.
authoritarian penal policies). For a while the progressive liber-
als have been out of the game, although the relative youth of © TERENCE GREEN 2022
their supporters gives them a big hope for the future. But all
political perspectives are going to have to face profound changes Terence Green is a writer, historian, and lecturer who lives in
brought about by the rise of the robot workforce. The result- Eastbourne, New Zealand.
ing challenges will profoundly impact our identities and our
sense of purpose. The era of mass employment will perhaps be April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 17
over. In addition, climate change will produce more existential
shocks, and probably a migration crisis that will dwarf anything
we’ve seen so far.

It is easy to envisage a imminent dystopia in which mass
poverty and ethnic conflict overwhelm our societies. The chal-
lenge is for political ideas to emerge which allow us to harness
our technology for the common, and global, good.

© PHIL BADGER 2022

Phil Badger studied social sciences, including economics, psychology,
and social policy with philosophy. He teaches in Sheffield.

Politics

Cultural Colonialism
& Aesthetic Injustice

Gustavo Dalaqua on decolonizing minds.

My first sight of an openly gay man was on televi- boys’ perspective: “Through empathy the children abandon
sion. In my early teens back in the late Nineties, their own universe, the need to defend what is theirs, and incor-
almost every Saturday evening, my family and I porate, empathically, the Yankee invader’s universe, with his
would watch A praça é nossa, one of the most desire to conquer the lands of others.” The second example Boal
famous comedy shows in Brazil. Vera Verão, played by Jorge cites is Sesame Street, an educational program that, according to
Lafond (1952-2003), a black gay man, was one of our favorite Boal, sought to help poor families by teaching their children the
characters. Her sketches varied considerably. Sometimes, her importance of working hard and saving money. This is cultural
race was the main reason for mockery. In other sketches, what colonialism because, by internalizing the discourse that the priv-
led viewers to chuckle was Vera Verão’s fights with the women ileges of the wealthy were the fruit of merit and effort, the poor
whose men she wanted to have. Yet despite their differences, a tended to accept social inequality. The oppressed become docile
common event present in all sketches that Vera Verão played when they see the world through the oppressors’ lenses.
is that someone with disgust calls Lafond ‘bicha’ (‘faggot’). This
was the moment my parents, my sisters, and I laughed the most: As the Sesame Street example indicates, cultural colonialism can
the moment when Lafond was humiliated for being gay. It is happen not only between countries, but also within a single coun-
not surprising, then, that the Grupo de Gays Negros da Bahia try, if only because no country has a completely homogenous cul-
(Group of Black Gay Men from Bahia) protested when the gov- ture. Racism and misogyny also provide examples of cultural colo-
ernment announced that Lafond was chosen to advertise a nialism expressed among the inhabitants of the same country.
public campaign against STDs among homosexuals. Accord-
ing to them, Lafond should not have been chosen because his Aesthetic injustice designates the atrophy of aesthetic capac-
work as a performer disseminated racism and homophobia. ities caused by oppression. By aesthetic capacities, Boal means
our abilities to feel and perceive things. Oppression changes the
What does Vera Verão have to do with ‘cultural colonialism way we perceive and feel things. The cultural structures that per-
and aesthetic injustice’? To answer this question, it is necessary petuate oppression in thinking generate certain modes of feel-
to first explain what each term means. ing that stunt the epistemic and aesthetic capacities of the
oppressed. Indeed, such manipulation of their experience is
Cultural Colonialism & Aesthetic Injustice instrumental in maintaining oppression. In order to remain in
Cultural colonialism and aesthetic injustice are two related phe- power, every system of oppression must hold sway over people’s
nomena examined by the Brazilian cultural theorist and activist desires, affections, and thoughts. Of course, oppression is also
Augusto Boal (1931-2009). By cultural colonialism, Boal means transmitted through socioeconomic structures such as the police,
the oppression that remains in the realm of culture even after
the end of formal political colonialism. To put it in a nutshell, Augusto Boal in 2008
it is a practice of either promoting or denigrating different cul-
tures in a way that begets oppression. IMAGE © ANNMARI 2008 CC

In his 2009 book The Aesthetics of the Oppressed, Boal men-
tions the legendary singer and actor Carmen Miranda as an
example of cultural colonialism. Miranda, who abandoned her
artistic career in Brazil to try her luck in Hollywood, became
in 1945 the highest-paid entertainer in the United States. Danc-
ing with bananas and pineapples on her head, Miranda person-
ified like no one else the Latin exoticness created by Holly-
wood. The Brazilian characters she played on the screen con-
firmed to the mainstream US public their stereotypes about
Latinx and Latin American people and helped consolidate an
image of Latin culture that is still believed by a significant
number of Anglo-Americans today.

In Theatre of the Oppressed (1979), Boal gives two other exam-
ples of cultural colonialism. The first one is Old West movies
– classic Westerns – which were popular among the youth in
Mexico when Boal was writing his book. Boal argues that these
movies made young Mexicans sympathize with the foreign cow-

18 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Politics

IMAGE © ROSE DE CASTELLANE 2022

Branching Away from Aesthetic Injustice by Rose de Castellane 2022

banks, courts, schools, and legislative assemblies. Yet these appa- Resisting Cultural Colonialism
ratuses only work as conduits for oppression because of the
people who occupy and operate them. If policemen, bankers, The rage some LGBTQI+ people felt toward Lafond is under-
judges, teachers, and lawmakers began to feel, perceive, and standable. I also ask myself whether accepting my sexuality
think in ways incompatible with capitalism, racism, etc., it would would have been less difficult if Vera Verão and similar cultur-
not take long for these modes of oppression to crumble. We ally colonized characters had not existed in my youth. Lafond
can say that the structural aspect of oppression remains opera- gained fame and money with his work, yet harmed many people
tive to the extent it finds shelter in people’s subjectivity. by turning himself into an active perpetrator of racism and
homophobia. Nevertheless, we should not forget that he was
Some philosophers today study ‘epistemic injustice’, by which both oppressor and oppressed. Westernism, racism, homopho-
they mean any harm done to someone specifically with regards to bia, and other types of cultural colonialism, can only guarantee
their capacities to know things. Few philosophers, however, have their predominance because they find support in the desires,
paid much attention to aesthetic injustice. This neglect is trouble- affections, and thoughts of the majority of a culture, including
some because epistemic injustice feeds on aesthetic injustice, since those who are demeaned by them. As Boal put it, “whatever its
your capacity to know is dependent on your capacity to perceive type, oppression can only sustain itself because it is accepted by
and feel. To be sure, one of the major contributions that Boal has its victim. We are oppressed because we are somehow willing
to offer contemporary philosophy lies in his demonstrating that to make concessions” (Games for Actors and Non-Actors, 2002).
effective resistance against epistemic injustice requires tackling aes-
thetic injustice. Yet aesthetic injustice is in its turn provoked by Lafond was an oppressed person who made concessions to
cultural colonialism, because by preventing different cultures or the oppressors, and his complicity came at a high price. In 2002,
subcultures from being appreciated, the aesthetics of the ‘superior’ he was playing Vera Verão on a live TV show when he was asked
social group smothers the aesthetics of the ‘inferior’ people. Cul- to leave the stage because Marcelo Rossi, a Catholic priest who
tural colonialism treats the oppressors’ aesthetics as if it were the was about to participate in the show, refused to appear publicly
only valid form. Lafond did not protest to his being humiliated due with him. Marcelo Pádua, who was then Lafond’s manager,
to his race and sexuality because he had been culturally colonized. recalls that a few minutes after being expelled Lafond had a ner-
vous breakdown. He was sent to a hotel, where he remained in

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 19

Politics

A Mappe of ye
Colony
Ricardo da Luigi,
1621

severe depression, almost without leaving the bed. Pádua became niques, for instance, were created by Boal (The Rainbow of Desire,
increasingly worried and, after a week, took Lafond to the hos- 1995) to help the oppressed resist in a specific domain where cul-
pital. The doctors diagnosed heart problems in Lafond and tural colonialism thrives, namely the domain of our desires. When
decided to hospitalize him. A few weeks later, in the hospital, we are under the boot of cultural colonialism and aesthetic injus-
Lafond had a heart attack and died. tice, most of us end up desiring the colonising cultural product,
and find it difficult to appreciate aesthetic diversity. This is why
Cultural colonialism and aesthetic injustice kill people. Lynch- most Latin Americans listen to Anglo music instead of, say, indige-
ings, police violence, and suicide are examples of practices exacer- nous music, and it also explains why most people generally watch
bated by cultural colonialism and aesthetic injustice which exter- romantic movies that feature straight couples, not those featur-
minate many lives. Even in their less extreme manifestations, cul- ing same-sex couples. Boal says that our desires are not unitary,
tural colonialism and aesthetic injustice go against democracy, for but contain many different colours like a rainbow. The colours
they deny citizens’ equality. It is therefore imperative to investi- of this spectrum can be picked apart and recombined in different
gate them and to study how we can resist them. How can we pro- ways. So Boal developed a set of techniques using theatre and
mote cultural decolonization and aesthetic justice? therapy to do just that, and thereby to decolonise desire.

Before answering this question, I should point out that the latter Teatro do oprimido e outros babados (Theatre of the Oppressed and
cannot come to pass without the former. Since aesthetic injustice is Others), edited by Flavio Sanctum and Helen Sarapeck, illus-
produced through cultural colonialism, aesthetic justice requires cul- trates remarkably well how the rainbow of desire technique can
tural decolonization. Therefore, creating aesthetic justice will involve accomplish cultural decolonization and aesthetic justice. In one
the development of either an environment or a type of confidence chapter, Sanctum describes how the technique helped him accept
that allows people to feel and perceive the world in ways that do not his sexuality. Before practicing the technique, Sanctum could
segregate their own culture into an ‘inferior’ camp. Cultural decol- not explore his desires because he felt that heterosexuality was
onization is conducive not only to aesthetic justice, but to justice superior to homosexuality. Nowadays, Sanctum no longer feels
generally, for it permits people to interact with human diversity with- ashamed of being gay. Moreover, through the use of Boal’s leg-
out turning their differences into a matter of ranking. islative theatre, he drafted a petition that asked Rio de Janeiro’s
city councillors to create a law establishing a fine for restaurants
Cultural decolonization is furthermore a collective process of that refused service to customers on the basis of their sexuality.
dismantling the social hierarchies furthered by cultural colonial- Enacted by the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro in 1996,
ism, such as the hierarchies of racism and sexism. We should keep law 2475 was the first anti-discrimination law in Brazil that
in mind that not all of the groups privileged by cultural colonial- specifically protected LGBTQI+ people. Resisting cultural colo-
ism are willing to renounce their superior status. If an erstwhile nialism and aesthetic injustice requires transforming not only
‘inferior’ cultural group is accorded the same value as other groups, our subjectivity, but also the structures that shape it.
then that means the latter have lost their superior standing vis-à-
vis the former. So, for instance, the conservative philosopher John © GUSTAVO DALAQUA 2022
Finnis is right to claim that recognizing same-sex unions as mar-
riages will thereby diminish the value of heterosexual marriage Gustavo Dalaqua is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at
(Law, Morality, and Sexual Orientation, 1997). Universidade Estadual do Paraná, a member of Coletivo Paulo
Freire de Filosofia, and a fellow of the Brazilian Center of Analysis
In his books Boal elaborates techniques for promoting cultural and Planning (CEBRAP).
decolonization and aesthetic justice. The ‘rainbow of desire’ tech-

20 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

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Politics

Revolt & Complacency

Stefan Catana on three revolutionary thinkers and their ideas
for creating progress in politics.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the birth to get a share of that power, increase it, or distribute it to the
of modernity, as Enlightenment ideas about science, population or certain groups of the population.
reason and progress started permeating the intellec-
tual circles of the Western world. Accompanying this, Weber says that to preserve its legitimacy, the state justifies
the very idea of ‘modern’ became identified with progress itself in three main ways: (1) The ‘eternal yesterday’, which is
towards improvement and innovation. History was the march the authority embedded in custom, culture, and tradition; (2) A
of civilizations and peoples in the direction of something better, charismatic leader who is able to garner the support of big crowds
something to look forward to which would bring more peace through his or her ‘charming’ personality; and (3) It upholds the
and move away from war and desolation. But such hopes were legal system, with its myriad rules, which control day to day life.
eradicated as the twentieth century took these ideals and one by
one rendered them baseless. World wars, fascism, communist For Weber this array of ideas has some ominous repercus-
authoritarianism, and an overall wave of illiberalism, became the sions in the modern context. On the one hand, capitalism has
stark opponents of Enlightenment ideals. This encouraged a been able to absorb some of the tenets of the Enlightenment to
widespread perception that the ideals themselves were but an develop an economic system that has brought tremendous ben-
illusory dream. According to its new opponents, the Enlighten- efits by vastly increasing the resources available to both con-
ment was vague, had limited practical applications, wrongfully sumers and producers, lowering prices, increasing interdepen-
idealized human nature (and implicitly, human history) and dis- dence between states and nations, and facilitating a liberal order
regarded the many differences among the myriad of cultures and responsible for maintaining security and peace. It has raised mil-
lived experiences in pluralistic societies. Reason and progress lions of people from abject poverty, led to technological devel-
were, apparently, never really true. opments that play an important part in everyone’s daily lives,
and has aided the transition from feudal, monarchical, and
Thus the first half of the twentieth century drastically altered authoritarian regimes to ones grounded in the ideas of liberal
what was to come afterwards. Today, it seems that dema- democracy. But Weber also describes how one of the by-prod-
goguery, false idols, and illiberal populism have risen from their ucts of this process has been the emergence of a highly bureau-
slumbers, forcing us once again to ask: are we really enlight- cratic system of agencies and agents who live for and off poli-
ened, or at least on our way to a better world, or are we doomed tics, running a hierarchical establishment which creates laws and
to repeat the calamities of the previous century? And what are policies impacting individuals all the time. However, as a result
we as individuals in relation to the state – especially when the of this bureaucratic situation emerging, we can arrive at a point
state and those around us constantly seem to let us down? Three where we believe we’re getting progress and more freedom,
highly influential thinkers with three very different standpoints without necessarily questioning how, or even if, we get progress
can help us better understand our times, and provide intellec- and more freedom. The possible bad consequences of this atti-
tual tools to aid us in fighting our contemporary demons. tude is the ‘crisis of the Enlightenment’ that Weber was afraid
of. They include an increasing materialism/consumerism, and
Max Weber an unbalanced promoting of the individual over the collective
In 1919, as Europe lay in ruins, Max Weber (1864-1920) wrote good with the accompanying erosion of shared values. So how
an essay called Politics as a Vocation which reflects on the origins does one begin to bring about change in a situation where we
of the state. What makes it a state in the first place? How it is already assume we’re getting increasing freedom?
able to persist over time? He reaches the conclusion that what
allows a state to exist is power, the ultimate instrument to ensure Weber himself advocates a politics based on an ethics of respon-
stability and order, or ‘keep things in place’. Not just any type sibility, saying that those who treat politics as their vocation
of order, either, but one which does not allow itself to descend should choose to act cautiously rather than revolutionarily. This,
down the path of tyranny of the majority, as it did during the he says, is the only way to deal well with the ugly realities of pol-
1789 Revolution in France, which overthrew the monarchy only itics, an environment filled with disagreements, hate, and com-
to pave the way for the Terror of the guillotine. Weber claims petition for power and prestige. Unfortunately, Weber thus
that a state is a “human community that (successfully) claims the seems to run into the same cul-de-sac as Immanuel Kant did
monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given with his pamphlet What is Enlightenment? (1784). Kant’s appar-
territory” (p.1). The state is the sole authority which can enforce ent paradox of ‘Think for yourself, but obey the state’ cannot
rules through legitimate means of force, and the sole entity which lead to any progress in a situation where people do not have any
can justifiably exert control over the people who reside within power to change the status quo. Both Weber and Kant offer
its territory. Politics becomes essentially about having the means precautions against adopting an ethics of absolute ends (that is, of
saying that the ends justifies the means, as the communists often
did, for example). But how are regular people supposed to chal-

22 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Marcuse, Weber and Malcolm X
by Darren McAndrew, 2022

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 23

Politics

lenge authority if it becomes clear that people freedom, equality, and opportuni- Dimensional Man (1964) by arguing that
demagogues or dilettantes are leading a ties, while those are just make-believes, part there is a great ‘democratic unfreedom’;
state down a dangerous path? If the of an act put up by the politicians to retain that contemporary industrial society is
middle road stops being an appealing their power. Malcolm X says that at the end totalitarian by having suppressed all true
option, does that mean that revolution is of the day it’s voters who choose who makes forms of freedom. There is a distinction
the only remaining choice? the decisions for them, so therefore those between true and false psychological/emo-
same politicians depend on the people to tional needs, and the former are being suf-
Malcolm X vote for them – they’re utterly powerless focated and slowly exterminated at the
In his 1964 book The Ballot or the Bullet, without them. Once black people them- expense of the latter.
Malcolm X issued a powerful message to selves recognize this, they will understand
black Americans by advocating what he how to create the window for changes to Unfortunately, keeping people in their
called ‘black nationalism’. For him the happen. They will understand that every- place by not freeing them to pursue that
term encapsulates black people’s means of thing is about power: about amassing polit- which they find meaningful renders them
self-determination. It refers to people ical power and retaining it as much as pos- unable to really think for themselves. In
making their own political decisions for sible. An awakening of the masses is the particular, they’re unable to realize the
their communities. It also implies, for only thing which can change their situa- necessity to detach themselves from a
instance, the right of black business owners tion, by their being politically active, by repressive culture which promotes noth-
to retain the rights to their businesses with- registering to vote and using that vote; and ing but conformity and the status quo,
out being bought out by more powerful if the ballot does not work, he says, then where the people think they are free
white companies or being forced to move perhaps the only solution that remains is despite, for instance, the fact that they
out due to white businesses moving in. the revolutionary bullet... have little say in how the policies and laws
enacted by those in power affect them. So
Malcolm X offers a scathing critique His message remains strong today, but effective is this system that often the indi-
that’s relevant to everybody. He believes now speaks on a more universal level. vidual does not even think to challenge
that a predatory political/economic its authority. The concept of revolt – of
system has historically acted reprehensi- Herbert Marcuse even imagining a world where he or she
bly towards black people (and who could The German critical theorist Herbert is not dependent on the system and its
sensibly disagree?). He further points out Marcuse (1898-1979) agrees with Malcolm authoritarian practices – simply does not
that politicians suffer from execrable and X that history has always been written by exist for them. The mechanization of the
blatant hypocrisy, as they only pretend to the victors, and that many political con- outside world has been replicated inside
care about the plight of the black commu- cepts, rather than being objectively true, the individual’s mind, making them a cog
nity when they seek their votes to get are socially constructed by those in power. in the industrial machine. It’s Weber’s
reelected, but at the end of the day they’re worst nightmare come to life:
still part of an elite group that looks to For example, Marcuse rejects the ide-
protect its own interests without really alised Western concept of progress. “We are again confronted with one of the
caring about the people they represent. Instead, he believes that through its vari-
He argues that black people have for too ous processes of mass production and most vexing aspects of advanced industrial
long allowed themselves to be tricked by mechanization, modern industrial society
people who just want their vote; and, has had a very dangerous impact on the civilization: the rational character of its
moreover, that participating in a rigged individual. He begins his book One-
game of politics that is systematically irrationality. Its productivity and effi-
designed to work against them helps
inequality and racism to persist. ciency, its capacity to increase and spread

It is critical to note that Malcolm X not CARTOON © CHRIS GILL PLEASE VISIT CGILLCARTOONS.COM FOR MORE.
only advocates a radical change in politics,
but also places a strong emphasis on indi-
vidualism. He’s proposing a ‘self-help pro-
gram’ and a ‘do-it-yourself philosophy’
(p.5) which stresses the importance of
people being able to think for themselves
and make intelligent decisions without
being pressured by external forces. This is
along the line of Enlightenment thought,
and agrees with Kant in asking people to
think for themselves. The difference is that
Malcolm X does not share Kant’s respect
for authority. He knows that the particu-
lar authority with which he’s dealing has
been falsely saying that it’s giving black

24 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Politics

comforts, to turn waste into need, and destruction into construction, – a rejection of commodity-based living in favour of artistic self-
expression. Here he lays the groundwork for a future move-
the extent to which this civilization transforms the object world into ment that rejects the consumerist nature of modern life and
instead embraces a new sensibility that places importance on
an extension of man’s mind and body, makes the very notion of alien- the things that we really value as individuals, and not what people
on the TV or in advertisements tell us to value. It is a replace-
ation questionable. The people recognize themselves in their com- ment of a capitalist subjectivity (touted by industrial society as
‘objectivity’ and ‘progress’) with one’s own subjective values. If
modities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level only we can connect with those inner values, we will understand
that the things that we truly want are different from the things
home, kitchen equipment. The very mechanism which ties the indi- we think we want. This realization would lead to a better,
cleaner, more equal world, where profit is not prioritized over
vidual to his society has changed, and social control is anchored in the well-being of people, and where those who are now
neglected or oppressed would be integrated into society.
the new needs which it has produced.”
Paths To Revolutions
(One-Dimensional Man, p.9). But how are we supposed to find the path to our own subjec-
tivity if we are already cogs in the machine? Maybe Dostoevsky
This is, quite frankly, terrifying; yet also very familiar. was right in saying that people prefer to be controlled, if it means
Marcuse claims that as industrial society becomes more they can enjoy the daily comforts of life.
modern and advanced, this also strengthens the perception that
it is the embodiment of reason itself, and thus needs to con- How do we reconcile the revolutionary spirit, which is brutal
tinue unchallenged. Sadly, people just accept this because the and violent, with the ideals of the monotonous, unfulfilling, yet
sheer ubiquity of technology has led us to believe that all of it reassuring life that modern society offers? Here is where I
is necessary. Eventually there will be no one left to challenge believe the three authors converge. They all address the reader
the industrial-technological system, and the entirety of human- as the personally-realised individual, not as the socially created
ity will be left in a state of paralysis, of unconscious inertia, in one. They’re looking you in the eyes and asking: What do you
an unawareness that has grown over the course of the last few want ? What is the impact you want to make in this world, and
centuries. As the mass production of information and material how will you do it? For instance, will it be by adopting an ‘ethics
goods that we now consider essential to our daily lives – includ- of responsibility’ which balances a revolutionary spirit with the
ing our phones, tablets, and laptops – reaches a global scale, and caution that one maintains when dealing with politics and
when we all believe that the purpose of life is to work, to make power? Or will it rather be through the ‘ethics of absolute ends’,
money, then the indoctrination of the masses will be complete. which does not take into consideration the way something is
When the commodification of everything becomes a way of life, achieved, but only cares that the goal is reached – and if that
one-dimensionality reigns. This is how the system ends up con- requires thousands to die, then so be it.
trolling the people.
Through arguing that everything it tells you is true and rep- How to best implement necessary changes in society is a dif-
resents Reason, the system also acquires another weapon. Every ficult, and possibly impossible, question. Weber might prefer the
idea which cannot fit the contemporary standards – indeed first option – cautious development – while Malcolm X and Mar-
everything which is different from what’s normally expected – cuse would possibly go for the second: revolution ‘by all means
is ostracized on the basis of being otherworldly, arcane, strange, necessary’. Nonetheless, one conclusion I have come to, is that
or evil. The system can even perpetuate its ideals through cat- the first step must take place within ourselves. Before we decide
egorizing alternative ways of thinking as potentially bringing upon the ethics we must follow, it is better to understand our
about the end of the world if they’re allowed to exist. The Cold own condition and our own purpose in this highly complex world.
War provides a prime illustration of such panic-mongering.
These are the reasons for Marcuse’s blistering attack on posi- The spirit of revolution can spread very easily; but it can just
tivism, the Enlightenment, and even rationality itself. His cri- as easily descend into chaos and ravage an entire society. Yet at
tique of society is in line with Malcolm X’s in that they both argue the same time, complacency makes one oblivious to existing cor-
that the socially-constructed nature of accepted political truth ruption and inequality. By being a mere passenger, one allows
has always been used to keep both the masses and minority groups the trains of unfairness and immorality to continue on smooth
within the population down, justifying their oppression and rails. Change is as timely as it is inevitable – yet before we rush
making them inferior. Marcuse’s critique is also reminiscent of to make decisions about the future shape of the world, it is better
Weber’s, in that technological innovation and mass production to detach ourselves from the social dynamics which place us in
in a capitalist system, while providing a sense of liberty, freedom, limbo in a cycle of political insensibility. First understanding
and increased wealth are but novel forms of domination: “Free who we are can make it easier for us to understand who we must
election of masters does not abolish the masters of the slaves” he be, and can allow us to engage knowledgeably in ardent debates
writes (p.7). Political relationships are based on one person exer- about the social dynamics that constrain us. Perhaps only then
cising power over the other. This does not change in modern will we be able to master modern society and our role in it.
industrial society; it is even exacerbated by technology.
How does Marcuse propose we fix this situation of control? © STEFAN CATANA 2022
His solution involves a distancing from the systematic oppres-
sion in industrial societies through negating the power dynam- Stefan Catana is a recent graduate of the University of Southern
ics that have been forced upon people by those in power. It is California, in Los Angeles.
an attempt to understand that what we’re being sold, both in
terms of goods and ideologies, is fabricated. First, Marcuse
argues that individuals need to adopt his so-called ‘great refusal’

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 25

Robert Nozick’s Metaverse Machine

Lorenzo Buscicchi asks, would you plug into Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual world?

He finds that the question has been considered by philosophers for decades.

At the end of October 2021, Facebook announced its Concerning the experience machine and drugs, it seems quite PLEASE VISIT PARABLEVISIONS.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/CAMERONGRAYTHEARTIST
‘Metaverse’ project, an entire virtual reality world that possible to change the thought experiment from involving an
will be up and running ‘in the near future’. Laymen experience machine to involving an experience drug. Indeed, in
tend to have a stereotype of philosophers as being 2017, Frank Hindriks and Ivan Douven asked experimental sub-
techno-sceptic. However, philosophers have been discussing jects if they would be willing to take, for the rest of their life, a
virtual reality since before Mark Zuckerberg was born. pill with no side-effects that would provide them with almost
exclusively pleasant experiences (see ‘Nozick’s experience
A comparatively recent contribution to the debate was the machine: An empirical study’, Philosophical Psychology 31:2, 2018).
‘experience machine’ thought experiment advanced by Robert Facing this choice, 53% of the respondents said yes. However,
Nozick in 1974 in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia (though Hindriks’ and Douven’s pill does not resemble a psychedelic drug
it’s probably based on a short story called ‘The Happiness such as LSD or DMT; rather, their (hypothetical) pill enhances
Machine’ published by Ray Bradbury in 1957). In this thought pleasure without seriously affecting our experience of reality, so
experiment, Nozick asks you to imagine a machine that can sim- is more similar to amphetamines or cocaine. That said, it would
ulate every experience you would like to have until the end of be interesting to test how many people would drop an experience
your life. Once you programmed this machine and plugged drug that provided a life-long mind-altering trip.
yourself into it, you would not be aware that the blissful expe-
riences you are having are simulated, and you would live out The simulation hypothesis is the idea advanced recently by
your fantasies until the end of your life. philosophers including Nick Bostrom, that our world and all in
it are part of a computer simulation being run by a hyper-
Nozick asks: would you plug in? He thinks that the major- advanced alien race. Regarding the experience machine and the
ity of readers would reply ‘no’, and advances a series of reasons simulation hypothesis, and the debate on the nature of reality
for this. First, he says, we want to have a genuine relationship more generally, there is no doubt that Nozick’s thought exper-
with reality, not live a fictional life that only feels real. The iment might make us question what reality is (the metaphysical
second reason has to do with personal identity/authenticity. issue) and how we know it (the epistemological issue). Hilary
According to him, we want to be certain kinds of people, and Putnam’s ‘brain in a vat’ thought experiment from his book
connecting to the experience machine would make us merely Reason, Truth and History (1981) indeed adopts a narrative some-
an ‘undeterminate blob’. Finally, the fact that the virtual world what similar to the experience machine to question the view that
of the experience machine is artificial is taken by Nozick to be there is an mind-independent reality – as opposed to you just
in itself bad. He believes the experience machine would pre- being a brain in a vat being fed artificial stimuli – and how we
vent us from grasping any deeper reality. can know that there is. Yet rather than exploring metaphysics,
for Nozick the experience machine was a thought experiment
Before moving to considering the implications of this thought in ethics. He was concerned with what constitutes well-being,
experiment and some reactions to it by philosophers, I want to or the good life for the individual, and assumed the common-
clarify some things concerning the relationship between the expe- sense view that there is such a thing as external reality.
rience machine and The Matrix, psychedelic drugs, the simula-
tion hypothesis, and the ongoing debate on the nature of reality. Experience Machine Experiences
Let’s now go back to Nozick’s question: would you plug into
The Matrix saga is sometimes brought up when discussing the experience machine and live the rest of your life out as a fan-
the experience machine because it similarly involves a choice tasy? The majority of people, asked this, reply no. In one study,
between living in touch with reality (take the red pill) and living by Dan Weijers, (‘Nozick’s experience machine is dead, long
a more comfortable – although in The Matrix not really a bliss- live the experience machine!’, Philosophical Psychology 27:4, 2014),
ful – life in a simulated world (take the blue pill). However, in 84% of the participants refused the offer. From this sort of result
addition to the significant gap in the pleasantness of the two it has been argued that ‘mental statism’ must be false. Mental
virtual words, there is another important difference between statism is the view that only how experiences feel can make a
the Matrix movies and Nozick’s thought experiment. In The life good or bad. The experience machine allows us to have the
Matrix the simulation is provided by machines that enslave us best experiences we can imagine; and still, the study showed that
for their benefit, while the experience machine is maintained a large majority have the intuition that the life plugged into it
by benevolent neuroscientists. This difference is important is not a good life. This means that for many people there must
because in the Matrix scenario we understandably have an intu- something – perhaps reality itself – that is valuable in addition
ition for reality in favour of our human rights (“I don’t want to to the feels of experiences just as Nozick himself. Consequently,
be a battery for machines!”), but this isn’t necessarily true for
in Nozick’s scenario, as here the virtual reality is entered into
voluntarily.

26 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Into the Metaverse
by Cameron Gray, 2022

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 27

by Melissa Felder might be deceiving because of the ‘status quo bias’ – a phe-
nomenon well-established in psychology, according to which
people tend to irrationally prefer to leave things as they are.

This idea was picked up by Filipe De Brigard in 2010 in ‘If
you like it, does it matter if it’s real?’ (Philosophical Psychology,
23:1). Here he put forward the idea of the ‘reverse experience
machine’. Describing a thought experiment of his own, De
Brigard asked study participants to imagine finding out that
they have been plugged into an experience machine up until
now. At this point, they are offered the possibility to leave the
virtual world they’re accustomed to, knowing that reality will
be much less pleasant. Facing this scenario, only 13% of the
participants said they would leave the virtual world. Thus De
Brigard’s study, as well as others following it, have indicated
that refusals of the original experience machine offer are largely
determined by status quo bias rather than by our valuing of real-
ity. In fact, the majority of people declare they prefer reality
when thinking themselves to be in the real world, but appear
to prefer the simulation when imagining themselves to already
be in the virtual world! Under the spotlight of this discovery,
mental statism about well-being, once thought dead, seems to
be resurrected and in reasonable shape.

SIMON & FINN © MELISSA FELDER 2022 PLEASE VISIT SIMONANDFINN.COM Facing Reality

Nozick’s thought experiment has long been considered the So, what are the implications of the debate on the experience
death knell of mental statism and its more prominent version, machine for how we might think about Facebook’s Metaverse?
hedonism – the view that only pleasure or pain contribute to I want to present four take-away points.
the goodness or badness of a life.
First, according to Weijers’ study, we are split about the value
End of story? No. In 1994, in ‘Mental Statism and the Expe- of virtual lives. Weijers devised modified versions of his thought
rience Machine’ (Bard Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 3), Adam experiment in order to reduce the influence of the status quo
J. Kolber advanced the idea that Nozick’s thought experiment bias. Study participants then become much more likely to choose
the simulation. In the final, modified version, they found that
55% of the participants become pro-machine and only 45%
pro-reality. Also, notice that Weijers’ study was published in
2014. Time seems to play in favour of the pro-machine intu-
ition. Perhaps the more people become familiar with virtual
reality technologies, the more they would be prone to plug into
the experience machine. A second take-away point is that, since
the status quo bias is at work, if you ask people would you plug
into the Metaverse for life, you can in any case expect that the
vast majority of people would say no.

My two other take-away points are perhaps more closely
related to The Matrix. Instead of assuming the benevolence of
the neuroscientists of Nozick’s thought experiment, we might
doubt the pure good faith of Facebook when it entices us to join
its virtual world. Indeed, if we look at the recent scandal that
embarrassed the company concerning the abuse of its users’ data,
we might not completely trust its intentions. And finally, Face-
book’s Metaverse seems that it would be more a world of com-
fort and stimulation rather than the blissful virtual reality offered
by Nozick’s experience machine: the preview of the Metaverse
offered by Zuckerberg seems to resemble more a videogame
than a mind-blowing new life. Basing our intuition on the pre-
view alone, then, for many of us, Facebook’s Metaverse might
be entertaining for some hours, but quite boring to play for life.

© DR LORENZO BUSCICCHI 2022

Lorenzo Buscicchi completed his PhD at University of Waikato, NZ,
in which he researched descriptive and normative claims on pleasure.

28 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

The Golden JOSEPH JAMES D’ANGELO © SACREMENTO SHERIFF’S OFFICE 2018 CREATIVE COMMONS
State Killer

& Deleuze’s
‘Dividual’

Angela Dennis computes the use and The Golden
abuse of digital data. State Killer,
finally brought
to justice

In June of 2020, the infamous Golden State Killer was experience of living. D’Angelo discovered this to his detriment,
finally brought to justice. From the late 1970s to the early when biological information he left behind in the late Seventies
80s he had terrorised neighbourhoods in California, creep- placed him in a prison cell in 2020.
ing into homes at night and robbing, raping, and often
killing their occupants. Police had few leads, the trail went cold. It is almost impossible in today’s world to avoid offering up
Then in 2018 investigators put a sample of DNA found at one data about oneself to organisations, corporations, and govern-
of the crime scenes into a genealogical database called GED- ments. We may do it knowingly for a specific reason, such as
Match. GEDMatch was not designed to find criminals, it was when we deliberately send genetic information to a genealogy
intended to help people find people they were related to. It website in order to find family members, or when we offer the
worked by making connections between the DNA sequence same data to a medical organisation to learn our propensity for
data of its members. The user, by entering their DNA sequence particular diseases. But even when we provide our information
into the website, would be given information on likely relatives to organisations or governments for a purpose, with our advance
who were also members, creating a possible family tree. When knowledge and consent, we may not know all the ways in which
investigators put the Golden State Killer’s DNA into the the information may be used, including ways which we never
database, the system offered up some close matches – possible intended (who reads those user agreements, anyway?). In fact,
distant relatives of the suspect. This material, painstakingly tri- D’Angelo’s case generated heated debate within the normally
angulated with previously known information, allowed investi- genial community of genealogists, with many declaring this new
gators to narrow their focus down to one person, Joseph James partnership with law enforcement to be a betrayal of trust.
D’Angelo, who by then was an old man of seventy-two years.
The police had found their killer. There is also the data which we reveal inadvertently whilst
in pursuit of another goal. For example, in using the Google
After three decades of evading capture, eluding brilliant map function on our smartphones, we may provide Google with
investigators, D’Angelo was caught by the brute power of mass information as to our place of work, favourite pastimes, common
data and algorithms, and he never saw it coming. This merg- ways of travel, and even our relationships. A web search by us
ing of forensic science and genealogy has now become a mas- may offer the search engine’s controllers information on our
sive success, kicking off the burgeoning field of ‘forensic geneal- likes, dislikes, future plans or problems. Online purchases reveal
ogy’ and leading to the resolution of over sixty other cold cases. our buying history and patterns. Then there is the data which
is recorded without our knowledge or involvement, such as in
D’Angelo’s capture offers some solace to his living victims satellite tracking of GPS positions. Simply put, a revolutionary
and the families of the deceased. But this case has wider impli- change has occurred, such that many of the basic activities of
cations – it reveals the power of the web of ever-increasing digi- everyday life which we have engaged in for millennia now entail
tised data about each of us, which may be classified, parsed up, the offering up of data to various organisations. Merely travel-
separated, and recombined ad infinitum, and which is able to be ling, communicating with friends, buying food and clothing, lis-
used, and is being used, in a myriad of unknown and unknow- tening to music, because of the digital media through which
able ways, both for and against us. This bears real implications they are performed, are creating a data picture of each of us,
for privacy, agency, control over our own lives, and the human stored in a myriad of memory vaults.

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 29

Deleuze in the Digital World world. To this I would add permanence. While matter eventu-
ally degrades, digital data can in theory be copied infinitely and
Well, what of it? So Facebook has photos of me. Is this a cause kept forever. So, while D’Angelo’s original biological sample
for concern? Is it benign or malign, or neutral? will degrade, the unique sequenced code representing his
genome will endure. Likewise every message I have ever posted
The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze died in 1995, but his on Skype could theoretically be ready to re-emerge. Therefore,
concepts of the ‘Dividual’ and the ‘Control Society’ offer a way like D’Angelo, we all run the risk of having some piece of our
to understand the changes which enabled D’Angelo's capture, and data used against us later in life – of being faced with the incon-
their possible implications for life in the Twenty-First Century. venient words and actions of a previous version of ourselves.
In his 1990 piece, ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control’, Deleuze We are already familiar with this: politicians are regularly apol-
suggests that humans have moved from a discipline-through-laws ogising for past tweets or Facebook posts.
society in which a human was seen as an individual (as contrasted
with a mass), towards a society of continuous control and surveil- The resurrection of previous embarrassing behavior may not
lance in which the human has become ‘dividual’ – parsed into var- be totally new – consider Bill Clinton’s “I did not inhale” – but in
ious informational units. He states, “We no longer find ourselves a world in which so much is recorded and kept digitally, this phe-
dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become nomenon must accelerate. There can be no disappearance, no for-
‘dividuals’, and masses, samples, data, markets, or ‘banks’.” getting. The theorist Gerald Raunig captures the timelessness in
this way: “These enormous multitudes of data want to form a hori-
For Deleuze this is a new kind of power structure, charac- zon of knowledge that governs the entire past and present and so
terised by a form of control of people which is less visible but is also able to capture the future” (Dividuum, p.116, 2016). This
more continuous: surveillance through data. It may on one level also raises the question of how humanity might change in such an
seem more freeing, but it is perhaps simply more flexible. As he environment. Perhaps we will become more cautious in sharing
states, “the different [new] control mechanisms are inseparable something which may one day harm us; or perhaps we will become
variations, forming a system of variable geometry the language inured to or forgiving towards people’s shameful secrets.
of which is numerical (which doesn’t necessarily mean binary).
Enclosures are molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modu- The prospect of an accessible, almost complete recording of
lation, like a self-deforming cast that will continuously change one’s lifetime digital communication recalls a previous seismic
from one moment to the other, or like a sieve whose mesh will change in human experience – that of the invention of the mass-
transmute from point to point.” Yet like a mesh or mould, con- produced mirror. An accurate representation of our appear-
trol of this kind seems total. Consider D’Angelo’s case – his own ance may not be so different to an accurate recording of a life-
genetic data was not already in the database, but that of his dis- time’s worth of communication. Ian Mortimer argues that the
tant relatives was. He was caught because of the DNA informa- invention of the silver-glassed mirror in 1835 brought on a ‘new
tion of others, and because of the inherent connectivity of human individualism’. He states,
genetics. An analogous situation arises with Facebook. Facebook,
whose expressed purpose is connectivity, holds data on people “The very act of a person seeing himself in a mirror or being repre-
who are not Facebook members (see A. Quodling at theconversa-
tion.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-about-you-even-if-youre- sented in a portrait as the center of attention encouraged him to
not-on-facebook-94804). These ‘shadow profiles’ are born of the
data of people who do use Facebook, from their email lists, photos, think of himself in a different way. He began to see himself as unique.
phone lists, etc. No one is an information island, and one cannot
simply opt out of the control born of connectivity. Previously the parameters of individual identity had been limited to

Deleuze stresses the continuity of control in the digitised an individual’s interaction with the people around him and the reli-

© HARLEY SCHWADRON 2022 TO SEE MORE, PLEASE VISIT SCHWADRONCARTOONS.COM gious insights he had over the course of his life. Thus individuality

as we understand it today did not exist: people only understood their

identity in relation to groups – their household, their manor, their

town or parish – and in relation to God.”

(Millennium: from Religion to Revolution: How Civilization has Changed

over a Thousand Years, 2016)

No More Free Agents?

There is not just the risk that our own data will be used against
us, there is also the potential for aggregated mass data, pro-
cessed though complex algorithms, to be used as a tool for con-
trol. Mathematics professor David Sumpter describes algo-
rithms as a way of converting our data into an automated deci-
sion about us. Professor Sumpter warns, “The average person
nowadays increasingly has their lives if not controlled, then at
least curated by more than half a dozen algorithms every day”
(from ‘The algorithms that control your life and the one thing
that you really should be worried about’, The Daily Telegraph,
25th April, 2018). A familiar example is the ‘filter bubble’, which
filters search engine results based on our previous searches. And
Cambridge Analytica famously attempted to use a ‘personality

30 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

GILLES DELEUZE © WOODROW COWHER 2022 pull of machines, their attraction, has
PLEASE VISIT WOODRAWSPICTURES.COM undoubtedly led to new, very bodily
desires, to relations of appending, treat-
ing and enveloping… The desire to be
online, for instance, has aspects of being
permanently reachable, Internet addiction
and apparatus fetishism at the same time.
There is also an urge for increasingly
strong haptic techniques of streaking,
swiping, stroking” (Dividuum, p.109).
This image of the human-technology
relationship in the control society appears
almost erotic, and certainly addictive.

algorithm’ to target and tailor informa- Gilles Deleuze Is It All So Bad?
tion to voters during the 2016 US Presi-
dential election. by Woodrow Cowher Bodily compelled, attention-divided, sated
by a false illusion of choice, embedded in
Evident here are issues around human 2022 a total data-web and looking towards a cap-
agency and decision-making. If, for exam- tured future, humanity would appear to
ple the news we receive is tailored towards human agent behind the algorithm, even have nowhere to turn. Yet seeing the sheer
views with which we already agree, our though we’re not yet at the point where relief and joy on the faces of D’Angelo’s
perception of the world may become the algorithm has no master. Moreover, if surviving victims, one must wonder if per-
skewed and our ability to make good deci- we are ceding decision-making power, haps this new society of control has its
sions may be impaired. Mark Hansen then it would appear that we are doing so compensations and liberations. Restora-
takes this loss of decision-making control willingly. Thinking again of D’Angelo’s tive justice, improved health knowledge,
a step further, arguing that agency itself capture, the all-important genetic data was better contact with loved ones, work flex-
is becoming dispersed into cyberspace. He not forcibly taken, but freely given to the ibility, increased mobility – these are just
states, “through the distribution of com- genealogical platform. Likewise, we freely a few of the ways in which big data con-
putation into the environment by means offer up our photos to Instagram, our nectivity appears to have opened up
of now typical technologies including friendship networks to Facebook, and our unforeseen options. Indeed, a society in
smart phones and RFID tags, space home addresses to Uber. The generalised which rapists and murderers are much
becomes animated with some agency of control we are subject to in the ‘control more likely to be caught for their crimes
its own… When ‘we’ act within such society’ even appears to be comfortable. It may open up new safety and freedoms too,
smart environments, our action is coupled may even be pleasurable – until the leash especially for women and children. The
with computational agents whose action suddenly tightens. harsher elements of the control society
is not only (at least in part) beyond our may yet be tempered by new norms, just
control, but also largely beyond our Most readers will be familiar with the as the use of forensic genealogy is currently
awareness” (‘Engineering pre-individual self-satisfied boost one feels when a post forming new ethics and codes of conduct
potentiality’, Substance 41(3), 2012, p.33). on Facebook is liked. This and similar to manage its new powers. Likewise,
phenomena have been studied by psy- ‘Rights to Privacy’ and similar calls may
This captures well the invisibility and chologists M. Mauri et al, who found that curtail the outsize influence of social net-
flexibility of the digital control society Facebook can evoke a ‘‘psychophysiolog- works. Perhaps, like the advent of the
described by Deleuze, as well as our per- ical state characterised by high positive mass-produced mirror, this new paradigm
ception of having agency but lacking it in valence and high arousal” (‘Why Is Face- will also open up new avenues for authen-
actuality. However, the difficulty of this book So Successful?’, Cyberpsychology, ticity and individuality, not yet imagined.
approach is that it seems to obscure the Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(12),
2011). These findings are consistent with There’s no going back, but I agree with
Raunig’s thinking. He suggests that the Deleuze when he says the control society
human in the modern world has devel- is no worse nor better than the disci-
oped new appetites and desires which plinary society: “There is no need to ask
cohere it to the society of control: “The which is the toughest or more tolerable
regime, for it’s within each of them that
liberating and enslaving forces confront
one another.”

© ANGELA DENNIS 2022

Angela Dennis is a writer and researcher in
Melbourne with a particular interest in issues
relating to science, economics, culture and
law. angeladennis.journoportfolio.com

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 31

RAINBOW OVER LAKE ONTARIO © JASONPETTIT 2018 CC

The Goodness of Existence

Jarlath Cox says whether life brings pleasure or pain, the value of being born
is the ability to experience at all.

Nearly everyone is led to question the goodness of their Into Existence, although much of this article refers to his papers
existence at some point in their life. Whether this is ‘Why coming into Existence is Always a Harm’ and ‘How Bad
due to an accumulation of personal set-backs, an is Coming into Existence?’ (2017), available at Oxford Scholar-
event badly affecting a friend or family member, or ship Online. Benatar highlights our psychological predisposition
simply due to nightly news reports of widespread tragedy, suffer- to discount memories of suffering, and instead tend not only to
ing, and war throughout the world, such things can make us ques- look favourably on past events, but also to view possible future
tion the goodness of being born at all. Is existence, all in all, really events optimistically, something known to psychologists as the
as good as we’re often inclined to believe? Or is the peaceful state Pollyanna Principle. Contrary to our proclivity for pollyan-
of non-existence not getting the endorsement it deserves? naism, Benatar insists that from an objective standpoint we expe-
rience much more harm than benefit. In line with the pessimistic
One who affirms the latter position is the South African views of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), he maintains that
philosopher David Benatar. He is an advocate of antinatalism, pleasure is not our default state, but merely a temporary relief
the position that procreation is morally wrong due to the inher- from the pain of being.
ent suffering and harm with which people are afflicted upon
being born into this world. Antinatalists believe the human race Benatar goes further than saying non-existence is a neutral state:
should stop reproducing. he argues that non-existence necessarily is a positive benefit. He
expatiates this assertion through an argument which claims that
Benatar sets forth a rational and logical argument, devoid of the values we ascribe to pleasure differ between describing an exis-
any appeal to emotion, as to why our existence is objectively tent state and a non-existent one. So when Person X (let’s call them
more harmful than beneficial to us. He does so most extensively ‘Xavier’) exists, this symmetrical evaluation holds true:
in his 2006 book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming

32 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

1) The presence of pain is bad; and 1) For something to harm somebody, it must make that person
2) The presence of pleasure is good. worse off.
2) The ‘worse off’ relation is a relation between two states.
However, when Xavier does not exist, the symmetry breaks 3) Thus, for somebody to be worse off in some state, the alter-
down thus: native state with which it is compared must be one in which he
is less badly, or better, off.
3) The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed 4) But non-existence is not a state in which anybody can be,
by anyone; whereas and thus cannot be compared with anybody’s existing states.
4) The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody 5) Thus coming into existence cannot be worse than never
for whom this absence is a deprivation. coming into existence.
6) Therefore, coming into existence can never be a harm.
When Xavier exists, the presence of pain is bad and its
absence good. Pain maintains its symmetrical value even when However, Benatar’s asymmetry argument mitigates much of
Xavier does not exist, as its absence is also then valued as good. this. Benatar claims that someone need not exist for them to
However, the symmetry breaks down regarding pleasure, since benefit from the absence of pain. As he maintains, the absence
when Xavier exists the presence of pleasure is good, yet in his of pain is good even if there is nobody about to appreciate it.
non-existence the absence of pleasure isn’t bad, it is only ‘not Asymmetrically, however, the absence of pleasure does need a
good or bad’, that is, it is morally neutral. relevant person to exist for its absence to be a deprivation.

By allowing this asymmetry, Benatar can positively evaluate In his response to Feinberg that to appraise the absence of
the non-existent state. In this evaluation there is nothing nega- pain in non-existence does not require us to be non-existent,
tive about non-existence, as somebody who does not exist is not Benatar appears to have mitigated the strength of the non-iden-
deprived of anything. They are not missing out on pleasurable tity problem. It’s reasonable to grant that we can evaluate a sce-
experiences; they simply don’t exist. On this account, depriva- nario without having actually experienced it. Yet our evalua-
tion affects only people who do exist or have existed. However, tion of that scenario is grounded in its relation to our experi-
on Benatar’s account, the absence of pain is good even if its ences of other, present states. This causes problems for the
absence is not enjoyed by anybody! So all in all, the state of non- asymmetry argument, which I will address later.
existence is a positive one. Thus Benatar holds that non-exis-
tence is preferable to existence. (This evaluation is supposed to The late Derek Parfit also criticises the antinatalist stance. He
be true even for someone who is afflicted with only the most made the point that if saving a life is a positive thing, then so is
minimal pain throughout their life. Even if throughout their creating one. Parfit further claims that it is a positive thing to save
entire life someone suffers only a pinprick on their thumb, the a person’s life – even if doing so causes the person a major impair-
non-existent state retains its ‘absence of pain’ benefit, therefore ment, such as losing a limb. And if it is positive to save a life even
it is still a more positive state on aggregate.) at the cost of impairment, then it is also positive to start a life,
even if that life may be similarily impaired, whether physiologi-
Benatar’s ‘asymmetry argument’ supposedly nullifies the cally, socially, economically, environmentally, or in any other
‘deprivation theory’ and its account of the goodness of exis- way. This argument aims to show that our existence is good even
tence. Shelly Kagan defines the deprivation theory as an if we are deprived of many things. As Parfit states, “if I am bene-
“account of evil or the badness of death, since it holds that what fited by having my life saved after it started (even at the expense
is centrally bad about death is that it deprives you of the goods of acquiring some severe but non-catastrophic impairment), then
of life you might otherwise be getting” (Death, 2012). Benatar it is not implausible to claim I am benefited by having my life
argues that we would not be deprived of pleasurable experiences started (with such an impairment).” However, Benatar replies
if we never existed in the first place. Benatar’s argument for that “where there are no (or very weak) interests in existing, caus-
antinatalism essentially rests on the asymmetrical value of plea-
sure between existent and non-existent states. By asserting that
the absence of pleasure in non-existence is neither good nor
bad, he avoids problems from the deprivation account. How-
ever, the deprivation theory is not completely dispelled, as it
remains relevant for those who once existed who have passed
away. Through death they have been deprived of pleasurable
experiences.

Criticisms of Antinatalism Arthur
Schopenhauer
Critics of antinatalism, such as Joel Feinberg and Derek Parfit, on one of his
have attempted to invalidate antinatalist claims by highlighting good days
what is known as the non-identity problem. Feinberg’s argument
maintains that for somebody to be better-off (or worse-off) in
a non-existent state, they would have to have previously existed.
His argument is as follows:

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 33

Sour sure/pain must be the same even for non-existence as for exis-
tence. There is no reason to assume that conceptually, the rela-
Should I ever meet Mr Arthur Schopenhauer, tionship between positive and negative sensations alters simply
(a man so incredibly dour), because we do not exist. So if in our existent state the presence
I’d invite him to supper, of pain is bad and the presence of pleasure is good, there is abso-
so he could come in, see my mother– lutely nothing to suggest that this should change for the non-
hands all a-flutter, existent state, even though there is nobody present to experi-
over the piano, ence pleasure or pain. The asymmetrical evaluation of pleasure
singing Hosanna. between existence/non-existence appears to be a creation of
And I’d tell him, Benatar’s mind ex nihilo, purely for the purpose of avoiding prob-
See? lems from the deprivation account. Regarding pleasure in the
Life’s not grim. non-existent state, Benatar maintains that its absence is not a
It’s really not so grim. deprivation due to the fact that nobody exists for this absence to
be a deprivation; yet he maintains that somebody does not need
© EMMA FREUDIG 2022 to exist for the absence of pain to be a positive! I agree with
Benatar that the absence of pain is positive, in both existence
Emma Freudig lives on an island off the coast of Maine and and non-existence. However this symmetry must also hold for
is currently pursuing Legal Studies and Business, with a the presence of pleasure being good for both these states, too.
minor in Accounting, at Tulane University.
Although this refutation of Benatar’s asymmetry argument
ing impairments (bringing people with defects into being) cannot has significance regarding antinatalism, it is not the coup de grace
be warranted by the protection of such interests.” to that theory. It is still possible that even if non-existence is a
harm existence could be a bigger harm. Even if the absence of
He also highlights a distinction between ‘present lives’ and pleasure in the non-existent state is a deprivation, the harm
‘future lives’ – a distinction he claims Parfit attempts to min- endured by existing could still outweigh the benefits. If we were
imise. Benatar holds that when people make judgments of ‘lives to accept Schopenhauer’s notion that our brief interludes of plea-
worth living’ and ‘lives not worth living’, they’re making judg- sure are temporary reliefs from the chronic suffering we endure
ments about present lives. Yet for him there is a great ethical daily, then existence would indeed be more of a harm than a good.
difference between present lives and future lives, since present
lives have a moral relevance that future lives lack. Peoples’ pre- However, when Benatar talks of pains and pleasures, he fails
sent lives have moral relevance because they’re conscious beings, to acknowledge that our evaluations of pleasure or pain are rela-
with sentiments, thoughts, interests, agency and so on – but no tive to our experience. If a person grew up in an extremely wealthy
such things now exist for future lives. family and never had to work, then suddenly went bankrupt and
was forced to into a minimum wage job, it could be imagined
My Response to Benatar’s Argument their experience may be physically and emotionally painful, even
There appear to be a number of oversights in Benatar’s evalua- traumatic. Yet if a starving homeless person managed to gain
tions which cause problems for his argument. But before respond- minimum wage employment, they may view such an event as pos-
ing to his claims we must look at the relationship between plea- itively pleasurable. Since evaluations of pleasure/pain are relative
sure and pain, since the nature of this relationship is integral to to our experiences, and so our existence, all evaluations regarding
his argument. First, there is no accurate objective assessment of alternative non-existent states must hold the same conceptual
pleasure or pain. What one person might regard as painful, another relationships as they do for existence. Therefore, the absence of
might regard as pleasurable. Take the phenomenon of masochism, pleasure is always bad, even if nobody is deprived of it.
for instance. Further, the relationship of pleasure to pain is a zero-
sum game: pain detracts from pleasure, and vice versa. One could The Intrinsic Goodness of Being
have the pleasure of eating an ice-cream while suffering from a
sprained ankle, and the pleasure of eating the ice cream is depre- So far I've argued that nonexistence is not intrinsically good or
ciated by the pain from the ankle. Some people may also have a benefit due to the absence of pleasure and pain, as Benatar
mixed feelings about an event. However, one sensation will always claims with his asymmetry argument. From my argument, it
predominate, even if this predominance is infinitesimal. Some- may be possible to establish a further claim: that existence may
times we might assume we have a neutral state of sensations or be intrinsically good.
feelings towards something; yet all this means is that our sensa-
tions are less pronounced. For example, some ‘neutral state’ may Pain is generally understood to be a harm, even an exemplar
leave us feeling bored, which is negative; while in other situations of harm. However, pain can also be viewed as a benefit. Pain
a ‘neutral state’ may mean we feel at peace, which is positive. There serves an evolutionary or personal survival purpose, in that it
is no entirely neutral state of ‘neither good nor bad’ experience. warns of threats to our lives or bodies. There are also occasions
where people actively seek painful experiences; for example, the
The relationship between harms and benefits is also zero-sum pain endured while working out at the gym, or having to sit exams.
in the sense that the absence of one indicates the presence of the It may even be the case that no significant benefit can be attained
other. So the absence of pleasure must be a harm. Therefore, without a certain degree of pain. Nevertheless, it is clear there is
non-existence is not ‘entirely beneficial’, but rather, a harm. This a degree of goodness dependent not only on pleasure, but also
claim rests on the point that the relationship between plea- on pain. Hence we might ask: could there be something intrinsi-
cally good about the experiences of both pleasure and pain?

34 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

To answer this, one must ask, is there a good that is common PREGANANT WO,MAN © MILU92 2018 CC
to both pleasurable and painful experiences? The answer is, the
ability to experience at all. From this, one might say that what
is intrinsically good about any sensation, is the ability to experi-
ence it at all. So it may be claimed that experience, that is to say,
conscious existence, is intrinsically good.

It might be countered that experiences of pleasure may equally
have contingent elements of badness in them. If painful experi-
ences can be good, pleasurable experiences can also be some-
what bad: consider drinking alcohol, or smoking. Therefore exis-
tence is also ultimately harmful, and intrinsically bad, just as the
antinatalist argues.

However, this last assertion opposes our knowledge of what
constitutes harm. If we accept the antinatalist implication that
existence is intrinsically bad, then anything that terminates our
existence must be deemed ‘beneficial’. And since benefit/harm
is a zero-sum game, this would entail that walking in front of
speeding traffic is not harmful, jumping off a tall building is not
harmful, and so on. With regard to our common understanding
of ‘harm’, this idea is absurd.

Benatar might respond to this by referring to a distinction he
claims Parfit failed to recognise between ‘a life worth starting’ and
a ‘life worth continuing’. Benatar claims there is a great moral dis-
tinction between these two judgments. According to him, people
already in existence have an interest in continuing their lives, whereas
those that have not yet begun life lack any such interest. He further
asserts that future people, who lack this interest in living, lack moral
relevance. However, this claim appears to contradict his previous
stance regarding future lives. While here he asserts that future
people lack moral relevance, previously he asserted that we ought
not to bring future people into existence, due to the harm they will
suffer through their life. Therefore they do have moral relevance!

This contradictory stance regarding moral relevance has pro-
found implications regarding Benatar’s theory. If future lives do
not have moral relevance, then procreation cannot be morally
wrong. But asserting that procreation is not morally wrong is
no longer the antinatalist stance. Contrarily, if future lives do
have moral relevance, then there is no important moral distinc-
tion between their lives and our own. So, among other things,
Derek Parfit was correct in stating that if saving a life is a good
thing, so is creating a life.

Conclusion
I’ve attempted to highlight some of the discrepancies in David
Benatar’s argument that ‘coming into existence is always a harm’,
in particular, problems with his asymmetry argument and his con-
tradictions regarding the moral relevance of future people. My
counter-argument to Benatar’s asymmetry argument rests on two
points: 1) there is no neutral state of ‘neither good nor bad’, and
the absence of one indicates the presence of the other; and 2) eval-
uations of pleasure and pain are relative to our existence, therefore
the symmetry which holds for existent states must also hold for
nonexistent states. I also contended that since experiences of plea-
sure and pain can both be somewhat good experiences, what is
good about either is the ability to experience at all. From this we
can infer that existence is always a benefit rather than a harm.

© JARLATH COX 2022

Jarlath Cox holds an MA in philosophy from University College, Cork.

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 35

What Is Truth?

Richard Oxenberg on the need for an old paradigm, especially in ethics.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to Pontius Pilate: “I was the price of everything and the value of nothing. We know, as IMAGE © VENANTIUS J PINTO 2022. TO SEE MORE OF HIS ART, PLEASE VISIT BEHANCE.NET/VENANTIUSPINTO
born and came into the world to testify to the truth. Every- never before in human history, how to do what we want. Our
one on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate famously problem is that we don’t know what to want.
responds, “What is truth?”
This question has reverberated through the ages, not least So how do we begin to think meaningfully about truths per-
because, as Pilate’s question suggests, different religions and taining to ‘the good’? First we must endeavor to locate the
cultures have presented us with very different versions of what domain of value – of what is good – within our own experience.
they’ve called the truth. Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Let us, then, turn to a consideration of the domain of value.
Communists, Fascists, and many others, have fought violent
battles to promulgate and defend their particular version of ‘the The Axiological Dimension of Being
truth’. Imagine the following scenario: A man and woman sit across a
restaurant table from one another. They have been married for
The bloody battles over truth in Europe between Protes- many years and are now contemplating divorce. They are
tants and Catholics played a significant role in motivating the engaged in a tense conversation. We have been assigned the task
scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. of observing their exchange and expressing, as far as we are able,
It was the hope of the early scientists and their champions to the truth of what is taking place between them.
find a reliable and verifiable method of distinguishing truth
from falsehood based on generally available evidence that would Let us suppose for the sake of argument that we have been
yield truths of universal validity – truths that all informed, intel- asked to restrict our account, and our understanding, to what
ligent, and rational people would be able to agree upon. may be observed empirically, that is, to an account of their observ-
able physical interactions. We might describe what is taking place
The sciences have been hugely successful in their endeavor. thus: The woman’s right arm moves so many inches upward from
Our ability to predict and control events in our physical envi- the table and her fingers spread apart. The man’s eyebrows tilt
ronment has advanced immeasurably due to the employment of downward toward his nose and his head pivots on his neck from
scientific methods. There can be no question about this. What left to right. Her left hand, resting flat upon the table, begins to
might be questioned, however, is whether the sort of truths the quiver; and so on... As for their conversation, we might give this
sciences provide are the truths we most fundamentally seek. account: His diaphragm contracts, causing air to be expelled from
his lungs, pass through his larynx, and escape from his mouth.
Aristotle writes in his Metaphysics: “The science which knows This causes modulated waves of air to spread from his mouth
to what end each thing must be done is the most authoritative outward. Some of these waves strike the woman’s eardrums, caus-
of the sciences, and more authoritative than any ancillary sci- ing them to vibrate. These vibrations, in turn, causes neurologi-
ence; and this end is the good of that thing, and in general the cal impulses to be conducted through her brain. Impulses from
supreme good in the whole of nature.” And when Jesus speaks her brain then pass into her spinal cord and cause the muscles of
to Pilate of ‘the truth’ he is not, of course, talking about what her right arm to contract, which causes it to move toward her
we would think of as scientific truth. Like Aristotle, he is speak- chest. Other impulses lead to a contraction of her own diaphragm
ing of the truth concerning ‘the supreme good’. Indeed, it might and a release of air from her lungs, causing new air waves to arise
be argued that the very success of the physical sciences has led and vibrate the eardrums of the man. And so forth.
to an obscured understanding of just what we seek when we
seek the truth. Can such a strictly physical account ever reveal the important
truth about what is taking place between this man and woman?
My contention in this article is that we need a paradigm shift I think it is fairly clear that it cannot. No matter how elaborate
in our conception of truth that will return us to the philosoph- and detailed a physical account we give, we will never be able to
ical insight that the highest truths are those concerning ‘the reveal the meaning of their exchange. What’s missing?
good’. Let us call this ‘ethical truth’ (a subset of ‘philosophical
truth’). The pursuit of ethical truth employs different methods This example makes it clear that there’s another dimension
and procedures than are offered by the sciences. They are meth- of reality besides the physical that must be accessed in order to
ods and procedures that must be, by the very nature of what reveal the meaning of what is occurring. Indeed, it is only because
they pursue, less rigorous and reliable than those of the hard we automatically infer from the physical account what is taking
sciences, since data about ethics cannot be collected and manip- place in this other dimension, that the physical account could
ulated in the same precise way as the data of natural science. strike us as having any meaning whatsoever. What is this other
Still, to recognize the importance of pursuing this higher-order dimension, and how are we to discover its truths?
truth is, I believe, an imperative of our time. We have increas-
ingly become a culture that, as Oscar Wilde might put it, knows Unfortunately, even though we are constantly immersed in
it, we have no good name for it. Or perhaps it is because we are

36 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Tilting at Truth
Venantius J. Pinto,
2022

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 37

so constantly immersed in it that we have no good name for it. stand others not in terms of how they care, but in terms of how
We take the domain of meaning so much for granted that we they affect our caring. To the extent that we do this, we may
only tend to notice it when, as in the above example, we quite misconstrue them.
deliberately exclude it from our purview. Then we realize some-
thing is missing. Beyond this, whereas physical events seem to operate on
mechanistic principles, such that each event occurs in response
But we can get some idea of what’s missing from consider- to prior events, caring seems to operate primarily on teleological
ing the physical account. One thing such an account fails to pro- principles: we value something because of the way it affects some
vide, is any understanding of the way in which what is taking goal (Greek, telos) we seek. Thus, if we ask why the woman cries
place between the man and woman matters to them; that is, how we would not consider a mere physiological account of how
they care about what’s happening. The discussion between them moisture comes from her eyes a sufficient answer. We would
has meaning to them as something that they care about, and the instead need to know how events are causing her to feel the loss
words they speak refer to these matters of care. This caring is of something she cares about, something she wants or values.
not, as such, a physical reality – that is, it is not anything avail-
able to the five senses: we cannot see, taste, smell, touch, or hear Values – political, moral, spiritual, and otherwise – have their
their caring. Still, we will never understand what is going on basis in an axiological dimension of being. This is why the phys-
between the man and the woman until we gain insight into the ical sciences, restricted to the investigation of physical objects,
nature of this caring. can tell us nothing about values, and why the physical sciences
can describe, in elaborate detail, what is occurring in the bodies
What shall we call this ‘dimension of care’? We care about of the man and the woman at the table, but cannot tell us the
things in relation to the worth they have for us. Something that meaning of their interactions. The axiological dimension of
has no worth to us we do not care about at all. The Greek word being is not accessible to empirical observation, it is accessible
axios means ‘worth’. So, to give the dimension of care a name, only to inner reflection. In our scientific age, this has led some
let us call it the axiological dimension. When Jesus says that he to simply dismiss the dimension of values as if it’s not real. But
has come to testify to ‘the truth’, it is to truths pertaining to the such a dismissal is a huge blunder.
axiological that he refers. When Aristotle writes that the most
authoritative science is the one that seeks to understand ‘the Ethical Truth
supreme good’, it is, again, to the axiological that he points.
Historically, it is through philosophy that the axiological has been
What is the nature of the axiological dimension, the world rationally examined. The word ‘philosophy’ itself is derived from
of values? What is its origin or source? What, if you like, is its two Greek words, philia and sophia. Philia means ‘love’, sophia,
ontological status? ‘wisdom’, hence philosophy can be defined as ‘love of wisdom’.
But what do we mean by ‘wisdom’? Following Socrates, we can
This, I must admit, is a mystery. A neurologist might sug- say the wise person, the true philosopher, is one who understands
gest that care or value arises whenever matter configures itself the good of life and how to achieve it. Or, to put this in the terms
into certain dynamic spatio-temporal patterns which we call ‘a I have been developing, the wise person is the one who under-
caring brain state’, but we have no conception of how this occurs. stands the axiological dimension of being and knows how best to
How does inert matter, through some rearrangement of its apply its truths to our dealings with one another and with the
form, suddenly begin to care? There seems to be nothing about physical world. This is to understand ethical truth.
matter – as we currently understand it anyway – that could give
rise to valuing anything. This is the reason we must speak of Aristotle, just like Socrates and Plato before him, recognized
caring as pertaining to another dimension of being than the the attainment of such wisdom to be the ultimate goal of the
physical: although there can be innumerable arrangements and intellect. From this perspective it might be said that ‘ethical
rearrangements of spatio-temporal forms, no such spatio-tem- truth’ – truth that yields wisdom about how to live – is truth in
poral arrangement per se amounts to caring. Caring cannot be its fullness. The sort of truths provided by the natural sciences
reduced to one or another physical state. It is something else; a – truths pertaining to the operations of the physical world –
state of mind. Further, if we assume that something cannot would then have meaning only as supplementary truths: truths
emerge from something else that does not at least contain the that have their full significance only by reference to ethical truth.
seeds of the emergent something within it, then we must con- Thus, to use Aristotle’s term, modern sciences are ‘ancillary sci-
clude that caring, or the dimension from which value springs, ences’. Our ability to wisely use the truths science provides will
is somehow fundamental to being itself, since nothing physical depend entirely upon our progress in attaining ethical truth.
is anything like the experience of caring.
This is not in any way to denigrate the value of the physical
The axiological dimension has features that distinguish it sciences. It is, rather, to place their value in its proper context.
sharply from the physical dimensions accessible to empirical Our knowledge of the physical world has meaning and worth for
research. In particular, although we all participate in this axio- us only as it pertains to the axiological, that is only as it pertains
logical dimension insofar as we all care, the quality of our par- to our caring and values. This is simply a tautology. To lose sight
ticipation (how we care), and indeed the very fact of our partic- of this, quite simply, is to lose sight of what we are all about.
ipation (that we care), is shielded from the view of others. We
must infer, or intuit, the nature of others’ caring from the ways Again, this centrality of ethics to knowledge is an old insight.
they behave; and frequently – more often than not – we under- We see a remnant of it in the fact that we still call those who
have attained the highest level in any academic discipline ‘doc-

38 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

tors of philosophy’. The implication of this phrase is that the appreciation for the axiological dimension of being, the dimen-
highest attainment in any discipline is not just the attainment sion of values. Such an appreciation entails recognizing that the
of knowledge but of wisdom in that particular field. Unfortu- axiological is a feature of reality itself.
nately, this understanding of the meaning of ‘Ph.D.’ has long
been lost, just as philosophy itself has long been sidelined in As I write this, I am struck by how strange it is that I should have
academia. If we are to intelligently explore the axiological to write it. That we have lost sight of the axiological dimension of
dimension of being, the values and meanings by which we live, being (or reality) – from which our values and ethical concerns arise
we must recover our respect for the place and role of philoso- – testifies to the extent to which we have come to see ourselves as
phy in our intellectual pursuits. alien to the very reality from which we spring. The universe, so
the materialist conception suggests, is a great pile of insentient
The Centrality of Philosophy things blowing about hither and thither, with sentience in this view
As things stand now, philosophy has come to be thought of as being an accidental and superfluous byproduct of insentience.
something of a ‘boutique’ study for those with extra time on Where has caring come from in all this? Whence moral values?
their hands who wish to amuse themselves by dallying in ideas. Materialism doesn’t so much fail to answer the question as fail to
This is a dangerous misconception of the significance of phi- ask it – as if the question itself simply does not occur to material-
losophy – dangerous precisely because it is through philosophy, ists. The late Stephen Hawking, for instance, spent his brilliant
and in particular, through ethics, that we rationally apprehend career working on what he called ‘a theory of everything’. The
and critically examine the basic values by which we live. ‘everything’ of which Hawking wrote, however, did not include
Hawking himself. But in truth, there can be no comprehensive
Let’s take a simple example. In the Declaration of Independence, ‘theory of everything’ that does not take into account the axiologi-
Thomas Jefferson writes, “We hold these truths to be self-evi- cal dimension of being. Until we have understood the values aspect
dent; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by of reality, we have, quite simply, not understood reality.
their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...” The first thing Can we, nevertheless, explore the axiological dimension
to note is that this is an ethical statement. The ‘truths’ to which scientifically? Sam Harris and others have suggested that we can
Jefferson refers are truths pertaining to the axiological dimen- – see for instance Harris’s book, The Moral Landscape: How
sion of being, and the truth-status of his statement can only be Science Can Determine Human Values (2011). But much depends
assessed philosophically. There is no scientific test by which we here on just what we mean by the word ‘science’. Of course,
can determine whether ‘inalienable rights’ exist. Therefore to there are the psychological, political, anthropological, and
the extent that we restrict our understanding of ‘truth’ to the social sciences, which may honestly be said to explore the
scientific, we must dismiss this statement as meaningless, since axiological in various ways and to a limited extent. But it must
it asserts nothing that can be examined in a scientific manner. be noted that, given that our only immediate access to our
But this statement is far from meaningless. Rather, it is the pri- values and what we care about and gives us meaning is through
mary declaration of one of the basic truth-claims on which the inner reflection, our understanding of values cannot be strictly
United States is founded. Only a philosophical examination will and only empirical – if by ‘empirical’ we refer to that which is
permit us to understand and assess such claims. As our culture observable through the senses. In fact, the ‘human sciences’ are
becomes more and more philosophically illiterate, we lose our on the border between the strictly empirical and the philo-
ability to engage in such an examination. We thereby gradually sophical, and we are able to understand their findings only by
lose intellectual access to the very values by which we live. reference to a prior ‘non-scientific’ understanding of human
caring that we get from our subjective experience. This means
Of course, the nature of philosophical inquiry is such that we that we couldn’t effectively explore the axiological ‘purely
cannot hope to achieve the kind of certainty with respect to philo- scientifically’ without radically revising what we mean by
sophical claims that the hard sciences provide. But that is not a ‘science’. Rather than do that, we would do better to return to
good reason to abandon philosophical investigation. On the con- an old paradigm that sees science as only one branch of philos-
trary, the limitations of philosophical claims, and the implications ophy. Indeed, the original term for what we now call ‘science’
of these limitations for how we should dispose ourselves toward was ‘natural philosophy’, in recognition of the fact that the
them, are themselves important philosophical issues to address. physical sciences, in their ways, also reflect human values,
insofar as they arise out of our concern to understand, and to
In a brief article such as this it is not possible to enter upon live well within, the physical world. What is needed, then, is not
a detailed examination of how philosophical inquiry should pro- to reduce the ethical to the scientific (as Harris et al misguid-
ceed (which is yet another philosophical question). My aim here edly propose), but to bring the scientific back within the philo-
is simply to argue that it should proceed. We ignore philosophy sophical fold, by recognizing science as only one mode of philo-
at our great peril. Philosophical inquiry is essential to our self- sophical inquiry. We need a restoration of the Aristotelian
understanding, both as individuals and as a society. As such, it insight that the ultimate study is the one that seeks ‘the good’.
is essential to the health of civilization. Every other study only has its value as ancillary to this.

A New Old Paradigm © RICHARD OXENBERG 2022
What is most urgently required, is a return to a rather old under-
standing of what ‘truth’ is. In particular, we require a renewed Richard Oxenberg teaches philosophy at Endicott College in Beverly,
Massachusetts.

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 39

Paradox Lost

Paul Tissier argues that Russell’s Paradox isn’t really a paradox.

Bev and Ali are deep in discussion. lack of sense shows itself if we ask, ‘‘If a set ‘S’ is a member of
itself, what exactly is ‘itself’ referring to?’’ S without S included
Ali: There can’t be real paradoxes, can there? Those that pur- would mean S is non-self-membered, which is contrary to our
port to be paradoxes actually contain ambiguities in meaning, definition. Yet S with S included is not just S, but S with an addi-
neglected information, hidden assumptions… In short, it’s all tion. In neither case do we have S being self-membered. Thus
smoke and mirrors. no set can be self-membered. Russell’s paradox disappears.
Bev: You might think so. However, Russell’s Paradox in set Bev: But against that, one could argue that there is no logical
theory has attracted a lot of serious attention in the literature. priority necessary for the construction of a set, since there is no
In fact, Gottlob Frege, a leading logician and mathematician at ‘construction’. A set either exists as defined, or it does not. So if
the time, felt that this paradox devastated his fundamental work set S is a member of itself, then as we go through the members
on set theory and the foundations of mathematics. of S, we find S itself included. It has not had to be added in. It
Ali: So if Russell’s Paradox holds up, it would, rather worry- is simply there by the same token that all the other members of
ingly, shake the foundations of mathematics? the set are there.
Bev: Right. So let’s see what is involved. We all know – or think Ali: So the set of all non-self-membered sets might be self-mem-
we know – what a ‘set’ is: a collection of all those and only those bered, or it might not be?
entities with a defined property. A set’s members can be simple Bev: I think we can make a more telling argument. Two points
objects, or can be sets themselves. It’s the last possibility we’re need to be stressed concerning the properties ‘self-membered’
interested in here. Sets can also be non-self-membered, or self- and ‘non-self-membered’. Firstly, the properties are derivative
membered: they can belong to themselves, or not. Examples of – they cannot stand alone, as ‘being finite’ or ‘being infinite’
the former would include the set of all finite sets, which is infi- can. They come into existence solely due to prior existent set
nite and hence non-self-membered. On the other hand, the set properties. Secondly, and encompassing the first point, being
of all infinite sets is itself infinite and so must be included in ‘self-membered’ or ‘non-self-membered’ must be the result of
itself, so it is self-membered. All sets either are non-self-mem- a definite decision procedure: the ascription must be true or
bered or self-membered. false, be logically possible, ascertainable. In light of this, how
Ali: OK… But I feel like I’m about to be trapped, or perhaps could the question ‘Is N self-membered or non-self-membered?’
conned. have an answer? It couldn’t. To give an answer is to answer an
Bev: Well consider the set of all non-self-membered sets, which unanswerable question, and that’s a contradiction. And of course,
for the sake of argument, let’s call ‘N’. it would be quite absurd to suggest that N is self-membered
Ali: Hang on! Does such a set even exist? because it is non-self-membered – and vice versa.
Bev: Why not? Just as with all other sets, membership in the Ali: The same seems to apply to N* – the set of all self-mem-
set is clearly defined, and a set is defined by its members. bered sets, a kind of symmetrical partner to N. So in the case of
Ali: OK. Fine... N*, if we say that N* is self-membered, or indeed non-self-mem-
Bev: So we can ask – as Bertrand Russell himself did, no doubt bered, for no other reason than it is self-membered, or non-self-
with an impish grin – is the set N self-membered or non-self- membered, then we are saying nothing at all. The same goes
membered? Is the set of all non-self-membered sets a member for N, despite the fact that it appears paradoxical.
of itself, or not? If the set of all non-self-membered sets is self- Bev: Right. Russell’s Paradox is not a paradox. The apparent
membered then it is non-self-membered; yet if it is non-self- paradox is merely the result of following through a form of words
membered then it is self-membered! See? A blatant paradox. which purport to describe an actuality; but actually nothing is
Ali: (after a long pause) So what’s to be done about it? picked out from mathematical reality by the phrase ‘the set of
Bev: There have been various suggestions. For example, that all sets that are not members of themselves being self-mem-
set N simply doesn’t exist; or is too large, too unruly to be called bered or non-self-membered’.
a set, so we should call it something else, perhaps a ‘class’; or, Ali: The statement then that all sets are self-membered or non-
members of a set are a different kind of thing to the set con- self-membered is clearly wrong in the case of N and N*. Both
taining them, so that no set can be self-membered. are neither non-self-membered nor self-membered.
Ali: The last alternative seems to me to be nearest the mark. Bev: And this should not be surprising. Perhaps we have a paral-
After all, if we imagine a set to be constructed from members lel with the square root of -1. It is a perfectly serviceable number,
of the set, this suggests that these members are somehow logi- yet neither greater than or equal to zero, or less than zero.
cally prior to the set to which they belong. If so, then it makes
no sense to say one of the members of the set is the set itself – © PAUL TISSIER 2022
the very set which is in the process of being constructed! This
Paul Tissier is a Physics and Maths tutor at Brighton College, East
Sussex.

40 Philosophy Now April/May 2022

Bertrand Russell
by Stephen Leach

April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 41

? ?

Q uestion of the Month ?

What is a

Person?

Each answer below receives a book. Apologies to the entrants not included.

One of the most fundamental questions of anthropology is minor is not a person, a foetus is not a person, and a humanoid
that of personhood. We might also consider it the starting robot like Hansen Robotics’ ‘Sophia’ is not a person. This high-
point for all philosophy. Indeed, it was Martin Heidegger who lights that legal personhood is dependent solely on legal recog-
most forcefully underlined the connection between anthropol- nition. In this sense a legal person is similar to a political person.
ogy and ‘the apprehension of Being’, that is, metaphysics. For A political person is anyone who has citizenship. The robot
him, only the human person might hope to find meaning in the Sophia has been granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia, which
world around them. Hinging on this dilemma of how to define demonstrates the contingency of political personhood. More-
the person are all of the perennial issues of philosophy, of ethics, over, there is no shortage of people who have had their citizenship
and of sociology. stripped, whose political personhood is therefore non-existent.

To define it succinctly: a person is a being endowed with imagi- In philosophy, morally, a being is a person if they’re a moral
nation. A person is able to think abstractly, to project themself agent, making moral judgements and taking moral actions.
into imaginary situations, to plan for the future, and to reflect Metaphysically, the set of criteria for personhood include ratio-
on the past. In other words, a person acts in the present moment nality or logical reasoning, consciousness, self-consciousness, use
not bound by mere instinct, but usually able to transcend the lim- of language, ability to initiate action, moral agency (again) and
its of the animal mind. A person is also inherently social. In order intelligence. Robot Sophia, a young child, and even an alien may
to flourish, a person should exist in communion with other per- meet sufficient criteria here. Even a foetus would potentially
sons, and in sovereignty over its inanimate surroundings. Its fac- meet the criteria.
ulty of imagination is constructed of accumulated experience,
and thereby continually works in relation to the world and to In practice, however, only legal and political personhood are
other beings inhabiting it. of significance, and these are contingent on recognition by polit-
ical or legal institutions. However, metaphysical and moral per-
This definition covers many possibilities. It seems likely that sonhood provide an intellectual foundation upon which to discuss
our Homo erectus ancestors would qualify for personhood. It also legal and political personhood. Therefore I suggest that a person
seems plausible that future artificial intelligence could hit the in its full sense – both theoretically and practically – is a metaphys-
mark. Perhaps certain animal species might exist on this spec- ical and moral being with legal and political recognition. The latter is
trum, at the lower scale. But what happens when we pass through sufficient for practical personhood, the former for theoretical per-
the spectrum of personhood onto something greater? Why sonhood, and both are necessary for full personhood.
should consciousness end with personhood? Might there be
other levels of consciousness superior to that which the person DIOGO JOAO BAPTISTA GOMES
enjoys? Such a state would pass beyond both instinct and imag- BRACHTENBACH, LUXEMBOURG
ination to something more. Might this be what the Scholastic
philosophers termed ‘Perfect Knowledge’? Such knowledge The answer is deceptively simple at face value. I am a person.
would go beyond instinct and imagination in the way we appre- You are a person. Every relative, friend, colleague, and
hend them, ignorant as we are. In a certain sense, then, person- acquaintance in your life is a person. Perhaps then you are tempted
hood is constrained only by Plato’s cave of illusion, and by our to say that a person is a human being. However, ‘human being’
bodily limitations. This might not be a bad thing. It is our cave evokes the human animal, whilst ‘person’ is something more eso-
after all, our world, and our social playground. teric, linked with one’s personality or intelligence, for example.

ANTHONY MACISAAC Boethius agreed. In his Theological Tractates he defined ‘per-
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE PARIS son’ as ‘an individual substance of a rational nature’. Boethius
used the etymology of the word to help him to form his defini-
The question of what a person is, isn’t exclusive to philosophy. tion. I find this interesting because ‘persona’ in Greek was a the-
Consequently, there are many answers. In a physiological atrical mask. So is personhood a mere façade? Are we all just ani-
and biological context, a person is a human with certain essential mals masquerading as something more? And if we are all lowly
physiological and biological characteristics. Legally, the answer beasts with overblown egos, is it possible that other species fit
is broader. According to the law, a person is anyone or anything the criteria for personhood better than we do?
that can initiate and be subject to legal proceedings. By this con-
ception, any adult, corporation, or institution is a person, but a John Locke argued that a person is something that ‘can con-
ceive itself as itself’. By that definition, it isn’t just human beings
who qualify for personhood – great apes, elephants, and dolphins

42 Philosophy Now April/May 2022 What is a Person?

?? ?
would qualify too. Philippa Brakes published an article titled ‘Are descriptive, more evaluative. We continue to care for him and con-
Orcas non-human persons?’ Orcas are self-aware, intelligent, and tinue to feel compassion and love for him. Could not one there-
emotional beings. Their paralimbic (brain’s emotional) system is fore argue that a person is a being that is capable of being an object for
highly developed, even when compared to those of humans, and care, compassion and love?
their insula cortex (which is linked to compassion, empathy, self-
awareness, and sociability) is the most elaborate in the world. It may be thought that this is irrational and sentimental. After
all, we might care for our goldfish but be unconvinced that the
No doubt some will reject this. Orcas can’t be people. They goldfish is a person. We might love our teddy bear, which is clearly
are infamously brutal killers: they’re even colloquially known as not a person. But the relationship we have to Uncle Rob is dif-
‘killer whales’. A recent paper by John Totterdell described a ferent to those we have to a goldfish or teddy bear. How we treat
coordinated, gruesome orca attack against a blue whale, in which Uncle Rob is related to our wider vision of human life, including
the orcas stripped the creature of its blubber and fed off it whilst such fundamental factors as the powerful human intimacies that
the whale was still alive. Surely this can’t be the behaviour of a bind us to him, and the suffering and death that comes to all fam-
person? Yet this response ignores the innumerable atrocities ilies. Curiously, in this marvellous yet horrendous nexus, Uncle
committed by human hands. Rob’s lack of cognitive capacity, far from disqualifying him from
personhood, becomes one of the facts that reminds us that he is
It scares us to think that other creatures could match, or per- a person. While diminished cognitively, he yet remains an undi-
haps exceed, our own intellectual and emotional understanding. minished person. He remains fully the object of the kind of concern
But perhaps it is time to broaden our minds beyond the anthro- we can only direct at persons.
pocentric definition of personhood.
Such a view of persons partly explains our discomfort at regard-
REBECCA MCHUGH ing computers as persons, despite their cognitive capacities. Even
ELLESMERE PORT, CHESHIRE a figure as complex as the Terminator does not strike us as fully a
person. We feel that we are dealing rather with a cognitively sophis-
In the first place, to be a person is to be human. Humans are ticated other. This also reflects the fact that the term person, because
animals, but they are animals who know. All animals can be said it is partly evaluative, does not pick out a metaphysical category,
to ‘know’ in limited ways, largely defined by their bodies and their but expresses a relationship of concern we have for certain beings.
physical needs: they recognize what is good for them and they
pursue it. This is not to say that we humans are not limited or ROBERT GRIFFITHS
defined by our physical bodies and needs: indeed we are! Every ENTON, GODALMING
human person has a body, lives and grows in and as that body.
But we can know in a way that extends far beyond the physical. In a rush to bring order to the perceptual chaos that is our envi-
We can abstract and define realities: we do not just see a rabbit ronment, the human brain tends to use rules of thumb, which,
and chase it; we know it as a rabbit. I can know myself as myself. by their very nature, promote generalization based on information
We grow in self-knowledge and in knowledge of the world from prior experiences. In a way, the brain is constantly playing
around us. Why? and What? are favourite questions. We become connect-the-dots by making predictions about how the dots are
aware of the self-evident principles of life. I remember an occasion supposed to be connected. Personhood, in essence, is a cognitive
when I was looking after some small nieces and their even smaller construct – a mental picture of an individual drawn by connecting
brother. I bought them ice-creams; and because the boy was so the dots, which are the perceptual features or physical characteris-
small, I offered him half an ice-cream. But no! He was already tics of the individual. Unlike ‘human’ – a concept grounded in the
aware that ‘whole’ is more – and more desireable – than half! biological reality of neurons, tissues, and bones – a ‘person’ exists
purely within the mind, and thereby is influenced by cognitive
We are aware of and conscious of ‘myself’, but we are also schemas of one’s own or with whom one interacts.
know others as ‘not me’, and in our relationships with others our
self-identity, our personality, develops. It is of course possible for This view implies that you can play host to multiple persons,
the development of personality in a child to be, as it were, smoth- where you are at least partially in control of the kind of person you
ered by too much attention from already-formed personalities. are, constantly changing and modifying it in response to feedback
Ideally, and normally, a child develops as a person as their knowl- from your surroundings. That, in turn, affects others’ perception
edge of the world grows, relationships flourish, and choices are of you, and elicits a similar feedback loop within them, which then
made and lived. For with knowledge we have free will, just changes your surroundings again. You connect the dots of your
because, unlike the rest of the animal world, our choice is not personhood in a particular way based on your beliefs, while others
determined beforehand by the physical – by our bodies. do it per their own beliefs. The resulting pictures are quite differ-
Although the physical necessarily plays a large part in our devel- ent. Making things even more chaotic, the constant back-and-
opment, nevertheless, the human, the person, is equipped freely forth between individuals and their surroundings means the dots
to choose what he or she knows to be good. keep moving while the lines are being drawn.

SR. M. VALERY WALKER OP We can see evidence for this view of personhood in colloqui-
STONE, STAFFORDSHIRE alisms like ‘He became a completely different person’ or ‘You’re
not the same person I fell in love with’. Interestingly, such senti-
Perhaps being a person requires some kind of psychological ments are usually not observed when an individual changes their
continuity involving memory and self-awareness. Yet, even gender or radically alters their features through surgical means.
if Uncle Rob has serious dementia we will continue to treat him That again suggests that a person is not a physical object but a
as if he is a person. It is as though the term ‘person’ is not really mental concept, an effort by our brains to construct coherent nar-

What is a Person? April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 43

?? ?

ratives from the multiplicity of sensory experiences. An individ- commonly describing a person are consciousness, self-awareness
ual is a lot like a complex number. The equivalent of the real part and personal identity, individuality, rationality, feelings (pain and
is the physical, mechanical structure of a body, while anchored pleasure, love and hatred, fear of death, etc), ability to choose
to it is a mental part that contributes to the behaviour and nature (free will), set long term goals, and experience humor and beauty.
of the whole. That mental part is the person. I am inclined to think all of these attributes are necessary to the
concept of personhood. Unfortunately, each of these attributes
RUDRADEEP GUHA seems to allow gradation. Also, the marginal cases, such as new-
VADODARA, INDIA born babies and comatose individuals on life support systems,
lack one or more of the ‘required’ attributes. These considera-
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin’, thought Alice; ’but a grin without tions imply a scale of personhood. This is disturbing, for in the
past such thinking has justified oppression and slavery. Most of
a cat! It is the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” us demand that a newborn baby and the comatose patient be con-
sidered persons, because we care for them as persons. Our pets
– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have feelings and we have feelings for them, and so in some
respects they deserve that we treat them as persons. And we do,
The inner world of the human being is surprisingly similar to but not fully so. As for aliens and robots, I think they can wait
the grin of the Cheshire Cat: the ‘psyche’ (consciousness, until we have a better grasp of the issue here and now.
perception, needs and motives) seem to be there, but the ‘owner’
is not visible. To see the owner behind the grin is to answer the JOHN TALLEY
question ‘What is a person?’ RUTHERFORDTON, NC

We are each ultimately unknowable to other people, but we also Who am I?
need other people to come to know ourselves. We are dependent on The crying child asked the father.
the perceptions of people outside ourselves. According to the Rus- When am I?
sian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), another person can The heart beseeched the absent lover.
be revealed only in a dialogue, in the process of mutual understand- Why am I?
ing in which “the activity of the knower is combined with the activity Existence sighed under the sullen sky.
of the discoverer.” A person then is the mutual co-existence of ‘I’ Where am I?
and the ‘other’ and as such cannot be an ‘object of study’: it can only The mind questioned the tired body.
become a subject in a dialogue, for whom the other is not ‘he’, ‘she’, What am I?
or ‘I’, but a completely developed ‘you’. Therefore, the self is not an The man whispered unto himself.
individual psychological phenomenon, but a decentred, dynamic
and permeable social entity in which consciousness is not the prop- “You are stars stirred with consciousness”
erty of the individual but a shared social phenomenon. Conscious- The mirror whispered to the man.
ness is always a product of responsive interactions, and cannot exist “You dwell in purpose, promise, dream and future plan”
in isolation. Even hermits are still in dialogue, with their ecological The body told the broken mind.
surroundings, or with multiple inner voices. “You are nothing beyond the will to be”
As the spinning heavens rained its light on me.
Bakhtin noted that a person has no internal sovereign terri- “You bleed when nothing else matters”
tory, but is wholly and always on the boundary; looking inside The lover nursed her broken heart.
himself, he looks into the eyes of another with the eyes of another. “For you are a window, a forest, a reason, a door,
So the ‘owner’ behind the grin is a being for another and through Life’s memory of what came before,
the other, for oneself. Because you are a person”
The father held the crying child.
NELLA LEONTIEVA “Man unbeknownst to himself
SYDNEY, N.S.W. Being unreconciled
Nothing less, my love,
‘Person’ is an important word. Since a 1973 U.S. Supreme And nothing forevermore.”
Court ruling on abortion, Americans have bitterly argued
whether a baby in the womb is a person. If it is, it has moral and BIANCA LALEH
legal rights, such as the right to life, and thus it shouldn’t be killed. TOTNES, DEVON
Note that I said ‘baby in the womb’ and ‘killed’. Those favoring
unrestricted abortions would replace ‘baby’ with ‘fetus’, which is The next question is: How Do You Change Someone’s Mind?
a mass of cells that can be aborted instead of ‘killed’. Words mat- Please give and justify your answer in less than 400 words. The
ter. However, whatever terms you use, the issue is the same: ‘Is prize is a semi-random book from our book mountain. Subject
the baby/fetus growing in the womb a person?’ lines should be marked ‘Question of the Month’, and must be
received by 13th June 2022. If you want a chance of getting a
Is the issue a metaphysical one or a moral one? One of being, book, please include your physical address.
or one of status in the moral order? At first it seems to be the for-
mer, but I believe it is the latter. The biology is comparatively
straightforward; everyone can agree on the biological situation,
but not whether it is a person. The real issue is, ‘What rights
(moral and legal) shall we say that the baby/fetus has?’

It would be wonderful if we could definitely say what a person
is so that all the world would agree. But we cannot. Attributes

44 Philosophy Now April/May 2022 What is a Person?

Interview

Why don’t you like the TV hospital drama ing in relation to postmodernism is that PHOTO BY JULIA RESHE
Grey’s Anatomy? these lessons never seem consistent with
each other: each one stands on its own, Duane
Something strange is happening in separate from the life lessons offered in Rousselle
Western culture. For a few decades other episodes. It’s conceivable that
we’ve talked a lot about postmodernism. they even sometimes contradict one is a Canadian professor
Jean-François Lyotard first developed another. The point is never consistency; of sociological theory,
his theory of postmodernism in 1979 in it is rather to express a make-shift solu- author, and a practicing
his book The Postmodern Condition: A tion to trauma. And when one life lesson psychoanalyst. He
Report on the Status of Knowledge. At no longer does the trick, there’s always reports to Julie Reshe
precisely the same time a profound another one waiting for us in the future. on recent mutations in
change was happening in political postmodern ideology.
economics, namely the onset of neolib- My work charts such ‘postmodern
eralism. In noting this, Fredric Jameson epistemology’ – the postmodern ‘way of
made an interesting claim: that post- knowing’ – within various avenues of
modernism is the ideological doctrine of culture; for instance, in the rising sales of
neoliberalism. Well, it seems to me that ‘word art’: Instagram poetry, the poetry
Grey’s Anatomy exemplifies the most of Rupi Kaur, words of affirmation on
recent developments of postmodern social media, inscriptions on bubble-gum
ideology, concerning such things as wrappers... If this were only a simple
identity politics. philosophical investigation into the
status of claims to knowledge, then we
In that light, the first thing we should would have no reason to be concerned.
ask ourselves is: what is Grey’s anatomy? But these cultural artifacts also indicate
I emphasise the noun to highlight that it something at the level of policy.
is something the show’s central character
Dr Meredith Grey believes she Let’s take an admittedly naive example.
possesses. In other words, the show deals If fascism operated according to a logic of
with enigmatic questions about the ‘universal prohibitions’ – for example, the
body, gender, and sexuality. Every week universal exclusion of particular identities
the show stages a confrontation with the – then the new postmodern logic operates
fundamental questions facing humanity. through ‘particular affirmations’ – for
To answer these questions, the protago- example, incontrovertibly affirming
nist develops a technique of repetition, particular rights based upon religious
which occurs in two registers simultane- identity. The most obvious example of
ously: first, through the practice of that shift is the recent Citizenship
medicine; second, through particular (Amendment) Act in India, whereby citi-
self-affirmations or ‘life lessons’. These zenship is offered to illegal migrants but
lessons retroactively provide a justifica- only to those with particular religious
tion for the traumatic mystery that identities, implicitly excluding Muslims.
compels the original questions of We can see the way in which even
gender, sexuality, even death. progressive causes that we might other-
wise support can open up dangerous
These fundamental questions precedents. For example, the infamous
inevitably reach a climactic moment in Bill C-16 in Canada is controversial
each episode. There’s always a moment because according to some interpretations
when they reveal themselves as impossi- it classifies failure to use a person’s
ble to answer. If you want to locate this preferred pronouns as hate speech, and so
moment, pay attention to the back- compels people to talk in a particular way.
ground music as it intensifies, as the
medical pretense withers away, and the What could be the alternative or remedy for
irresolvable psychological trauma the traumatic impossibility of answering our
increasingly confronts us. At some point, fundamental questions? Do we even need
the music stops suddenly and a silence remedies to survive in a postmodern world?
follows. This is the moment of truth. It is
betrayed by the soliloquy which follows, I try to avoid the words ‘alternative’
often from Dr Grey herself, in the form and ‘remedy’ in my clinical, political, and
of a life lesson that retroactively soothes philosophical work. Postmodernism is
the trauma. already a remedy to an underlying
trauma. The problem is that it cannot
It is clear that these life lessons are sustain itself for long. It burns out. The
pragmatic, frequently beginning with remedies offered to us by Grey’s Anatomy
declarations such as “Sometimes it’s are grounded in what I call ‘capitalist-
okay that…” But what is most interest-

Interview April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 45

science’ in its ‘medical-biological’ wing, Lyotard smiling and serious by Bracha Ettinger 1995 (Creative Commons)
and are typically offered in haste to solve
the most pressing problems. On the one lishment is the only possible alternative phers should investigate: they are places
hand, it presents regressive attempts to to the Trump administration, and so on. where socialization can happen around
reestablish patriarchal authority, and, on This strategy aims to monopolize the the rim of trauma. The psychoanalytic
the other hand, there are progressive field of alternatives and exceptions, to philosopher Jacques Lacan played on the
attempts to manufacture temporary solu- present itself as the only game in town. French word trou or hole to coin the
tions for our gaping psychic wounds. We Or, as Giorgio Agamben and Marie- term troumatisme. By doing so he high-
should refuse to accept that these are the Helene Brousse have put it, we are now lighted what is truly at stake: the trauma
only options on the table. witnessing the exception as universal. So of a hole in our personal and social lives.
we must stop endlessly articulating and Nevertheless, the clinic shows us that
A ‘remedy’ has only one purpose – a defending alternatives to capitalism, and the loneliness and trauma of our time
fact that can be confirmed by etymology instead focus again on the big philo- doesn’t prevent us from forming rela-
dictionaries: to offer a provisional solu- sophical questions. Back to the drawing tionships with one another.
tion to chaos. Despite himself, the board. This is why philosophy and
controversial Jordan Peterson has been theory are needed now more than ever. This is perhaps even a nice entry
popular around the world for many point to discuss love. Psychoanalysis,
reasons, one of which is because he As a negative psychoanalyst, I approve of which is often dubbed ‘a cure through
claims to offer an ‘antidote to chaos’. this answer! However, as a philosopher, how love’, and philo-sophy, as a ‘love of
Alas, even his own antidote couldn’t do you envision the role of psychoanalysis in wisdom’, could form a bond with one
save him from the mess of our times. In the contemporary world? We usually another based on their mutual interests
2020 he found himself waking from an perceive psychoanalysis as if it were an alter- in matters of love.
induced coma in Russia after passing native treatment. Is it a real alternative:
through the trauma of a physical depen- does it offer us a cure? Could you elaborate how it is that we can bond
dency on anti-depression medication. around the edge of a trauma? The conven-
It is nice that we have discovered a tional understanding seems to contradict that.
Well, Grey’s Anatomy is no less an manner of bonding around the edge of a It is typically presumed that traumas and
addiction. You binge watch it, you trauma. This interests me, not only as a lacks are points of disconnection or dissolu-
quickly move from one episode – I nearly psychoanalyst but also as a philosopher tion from the social bond.
said ‘capsule!’ – to another; then one situated somewhere alongside the clini-
season to another. Hence, it is now in its cal context. It is true that ‘lack’ – a technical word
eighteenth season, with numerous spin- in Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory – and
offs and adaptations. Capitalism develops It is well-known that Sigmund Freud trauma seem initially to be quite close to
these little mechanisms to protect us accused philosophers of being ‘system one another conceptually. However, I
from burnout. But the trauma of our builders’ intent on ‘patching up holes in would propose that they exist in different
time has no antidote. It is a nightmare the universe’. Freud seemed to have registers. Lack is linked with social bonds:
from which we cannot seem to awaken. viewed them as cowards running away it indexes something missing socially.
from an unacknowledged primordial ‘Hole’ is an altogether different beast.
As I see it, the problem with anxiety. But this did not stop him from
discussing alternatives is that such engaging with some of the most impor- Consider a child whose parent has
discussions are too much situated within tant philosophical positions of his day. prohibited the playing of video games
the prevailing ideology. The ‘light during the weekend. The child’s desire
phone’ is an alternative to the ‘smart The situation is a bit different today. to place video games is sustained in spite
phone’. You know, in the good old days Psychoanalytic clinics and schools exem- of the prohibition. But the prohibition
of revolutionary theory, the Marxists plify a manner of bonding that philoso- opens up a gap, something lacking for
used to endlessly provoke anarchists by
asking them to spell out an alternative to
state socialism, even as they themselves
forever busied themselves with provid-
ing an answer to that same question.
The problem today is that neoliberal
capitalism and its latest postmodern
form no longer presents itself as one
possible universal system, but rather as
the only alternative. Capitalism is the
alternative to totalitarianism, fascism,
and so on. This is its obscene epistemo-
logical justification. In the final instance,
it is always a justification based on being
the only alternative to something that
would be far worse: for example, Ameri-
can capitalism is the only alternative to
Chinese capitalism; or the Biden estab-

46 Philosophy Now April/May 2022 Interview

Interview

the child vis-a-vis his or her enjoyment. must be treated. If one falls in love – ization of what was
Put differently, the child feels as though that is, if one is willing to risk one’s
something has gone missing, and so career, one’s happiness, one’s every- already embedded within
attempts, impossibly or unsatisfactorily, thing– then one may be thought ‘sick’
to reintroduce it. The loss can never be or ‘pathological.’ Here, sickness seems the modern social bond.
recovered, and so seeking to recover it is to be a cure for trauma.
only endlessly redoubled. This is how As I mentioned, the Nazis
desire functions in psychoanalytic If I said the bonding happens ‘around
theory: always against the backdrop of a the edge of a trauma’ it was because it is exemplified the logic of ‘universal prohi-
prohibition, which in turn, installs the clear that trauma radically resists the
desire to regain what one believes very possibility of social bonds. Trauma bitions’. Any perceived inconsistencies
oneself to be lacking. says ‘the social bond doesn’t exist.’ The
traumatic world is quite simply a world were brutally, murderously, excluded
Trauma is different from a simple without others. The rim, however,
‘lack’. It poses a much more fundamental delimits the contours of the trauma. It is from within the consistency of ‘their’
problem, at the level of a ‘hole’. With a zone of possibility, a place where the
trauma we are not dealing with a loss that miracle is still possible. The hole of group, in a way that is difficult for the
the child hopes to recover, but rather trauma could be like the hole around
with a loss that has some sort of ‘agency’: which a beautiful vase is crafted. rest of us even to conceive. No wonder
the hole threatens to devour the child’s
entire world. It is like quicksand, sucking It is important to return to the topic the philosopher of postmodernism Jean-
away everything, including at times our of love, our preoccupation as lovers of
very sense of self and all our desires. In wisdom. We must invent love out of Francois Lyotard also talked about the
any case, where there is a hole, there is whatever ingredients are at hand. This
no desire. The prohibition is non-func- creates a love that is never without impossibility of there being a judicial
tional. Trauma is a life unanchored by idiosyncrasy. When it happens, love is a
universal prohibitions. I have read testi- sign of triumph, a miracle around the language capable of speaking about the
monies about teenagers who found their trauma of destitution. We cannot know
attention so captured by their screens in advance what will hook people horrors of the Holocaust. Nonetheless,
while playing video games, that they together, but if we are patient we might
went hungry, or defecated or urinated stumble upon opportunities to share the he wrote a whole book about it. In any
themselves rather than take a break. inexpressible, the nonsensical, and the
painful. We must do it, we must fall in case, as I said earlier, today’s traumas are
It is true that both trauma and lack love. Especially today, when some believe
pose challenges to the social order, but that it is too aggressive, or too impossi- putatively silenced through particular
they do so in quite different ways. Lack ble. The contemporary aggressivity and
implies that one already feels oneself impossibility of love is related to the rise affirmations, or if you prefer, through the
within a social order, within which of social movements such as #MeToo
something is missing; and that, precisely, and the Incels. They exist in a world universalization of exceptions. In this
is the problem. Perhaps we desired a where the very possibility of love has
promotion, or harmony in our marriage. been relinquished. But as philo-sophers, context, I am forced into a very unsettling
The problem is even more worrisome we must rescue the category of love.
because in the modern world we are conclusion: modern activism, even its
each alone in our little worlds, working How can we rescue love in a world of all-
from home, sleeping in separate beds, pervasive loneliness or solitude? apparently revolutionary forms, doesn’t
going on ‘solo-moons’ [honeymoons for
individuals], having sex with dolls, and so The evidence suggests that we are break with the universe of exception.
on. We cannot seem to escape the echo- increasingly closing in upon ourselves,
chambers of our solitary worlds. We all alone. This contrasts to a time when Quite the opposite. So, what, then, is to
really do seem to each have ‘a room of exceptional people – activists, anarchists,
our own’, and we’re in lockdown inside communists, feminists, and so on – be done? There are no easy answers. We
it! Where is ‘lack’ here? Quite often, the seemed perfectly justified in rising up
social dimension of what we’re missing against social prohibitions. And that’s must go back to the drawing board.
must be invented. what we did. We knew the game was
rigged, unfair, and we saw the suffering The philosophical difficulties we now
If I mention love here, it’s not it produced. Yet, for all that suffering,
because it is an antidote to chaos, and exploitation, and destruction, nobody face are perhaps grasped through a politi-
not because it seems to offer itself as a thought yet to call it ‘traumatic’. This is
‘way out’, but rather because it offers a not to suggest that trauma wasn’t cal example which, I think, provides a
‘way into’ the social bond. It wasn’t all already on the social radar: the sociolo-
that long ago that infidelity was consid- gist Zygmunt Bauman once claimed, small glimmer of hope in these dark
ered a major problem to be solved. quite provocatively, that the Holocaust
Conversely, today it seems that fidelity wasn’t an aberration, but rather the real- times. Slavoj Zizek noted the exemplary

character of former American presidential

candidate Bernie Sanders during the inau-

guration ceremony of President Joe

Biden. Although all of the other politi-

cians were wearing their best suits, stand-

ing tall, smiling for the cameras, and so

on, Sanders sat, slouched in his chair with

his legs crossed, holding a large brown

envelope, wearing a dull grey winter coat

and mittens. Did he not appear to be in

total disregard of the situation? I believe

that this image went viral because it

offered a paradoxical point of identifica-

tion for those who are fed up with neolib-

eralism. In that moment, Sander did not

reject the ceremony itself, but rather

embodied ‘rejection’ as such. He refused

the vain display of virtue, and simply

remained indifferent. PN

• Julie Reshe is an APPA-certified philosophical
counselor who maintains a private practice in nega-
tive psychoanalysis (necropsychoanalysis).

• Duane Rousselle’s most recent book, Real Love:
Essays on Psychoanalysis, Religion, Society,
was published in 2021 by Atropos.

Interview April/May 2022 Philosophy Now 47

Letters

When inspiration strikes, don’t bottle it up.
Email me at [email protected]
Keep them short and keep them coming!

Relatively Different just by white philanthropists, but because taking away someone’s happiness. We
slaves fought for their own liberation. experience evil as individuals, not as
DEAR EDITOR: I read with great interest groups. Even when we suffer because we
Professor Mark Couch’s essay, ‘Should Austin is right to recall that James was are members of a group, we feel the dis-
Kant Be Canceled’ in Issue 148. As some- a Trotskyist. I heard James speak on the tress ourselves. When we feel the suffer-
one who finds the Cancel Movement dis- fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revo- ing of another person, we still feel the
tressing and self-defeating, I am in sympa- lution on a platform alongside three distress personally. Entities without feel-
thy with the general thrust of his opposi- Trotskyists. He agreed with them that ings cannot suffer, but what happens to
tion to ‘canceling the past’. However, I the Russian Revolution had, albeit them affects sentient beings. It is natu-
don’t think Prof. Couch did his mission briefly, offered a real alternative to the ral, even desirable that we should feel
justice by arguing that just as we would system that existed East and West. But more the distress of those close to us and
not cancel Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Austin’s stress on James’ opposition to sacrifice more to save them from it. We
because Einstein made some inappropri- Stalinist totalitarianism tends to obscure naturally care more for our own children
ate statements we also should not discard the significance of James’ argument that than for those of others, and more for
Kant’s enormously influential ethical the- Russia was a ‘state capitalist’ society. The humans than for other animals.
ory just because he wrote an essay arguing main point about this idea, as developed
for the superiority of the white Europeans by James and some of his contempo- Sometimes it is necessary and justi-
over other races. The difference between raries (Raya Dunayevskaya, Tony Cliff), fied to cause distress. We cause lesser
Einstein’s and Kant’s cases is neither triv- was that the society in Russia was essen- distress to many to confer great benefit
ial nor incidental. While the former’s tially the same system that exploited and on a few. We may be taxed to support
objectionable statements concerned mat- oppressed workers in the West. cancer care, for example. Or we allow a
ters that did not touch on explaining the few to make great sacrifices to benefit
physical world, the latter’s writings not It is true that James rejected the idea the many. Soldiers are injured saving a
only touch directly on morality, their of the ‘vanguard party’, but he contin- nation from invasion. It is also right to
articulation illustrates a violation of the ued to greatly admire Lenin (see his punish those guilty of evil actions to
very laws Kant was himself advocating. article ‘Lenin and the Vanguard Party’ deter them and protect others. Unfortu-
To be sure, hypocrisy does not an argu- at marxists.org/archive/james- nately, precise definitions do not help us
ment invalidate; but it does place in jeop- clr/works/1963/lenin-vanguard.htm). Cer- to make specific decisions. What will be
ardy the moral integrity of the person tainly James had nothing whatever in the effect of a proposed action? When is
putting the argument forward, and since common with Western ‘anti-Commu- distress unnecessary or undeserved?
the argument is about morality, it seems nists’. His close comrade John La Rose Whose distress should be more impor-
to me that we may want to do more dig- (after whom a road in London has just tant to us? And how much should we
ging into the integrity of Kant’s argument been named) was a founder of the Viet- suffer ourselves to save others?
than simply dismiss his unpleasant stand nam Solidarity Campaign, which wel-
with a wobbly similitude. Does this mean comed the defeat of US imperialism. ALLEN SHAW
that we should cancel Kant? No. Does it James’ followers in 1960s London were LEEDS
mean we should scrutinize whether Kant’s deeply involved in campaigns to support
ethics is a fantasy which doesn’t work in council tenants resisting crippling rent Virtually Descartes
the real world, given that its own creator rises. To his dying day, James opposed
was not able to abide by it? Perhaps. all capitalisms, East or West. DEAR EDITOR: In his interview in Issue
148, David Chalmers claims that what’s
AHMED BOUZID IAN BIRCHALL experienced within virtual reality is as
U.S.A. NORTH LONDON real as ordinary physical reality. He also
claims that this undermines Cartesian
Brief Struggles Evil Ideas scepticism. I disagree.

DEAR EDITOR: David Austin’s Brief Life DEAR EDITOR: May I add some ideas to I would say that Descartes’ sceptical
of C.L.R. James (PN Issue 148) was very Tristen Taylor’s stimulating discussion approach was right: I can’t correctly
welcome. James is an important thinker, of the nature of evil in Issue 148? deny the existence of my own conscious-
and his book Black Jacobins is a master- ness, but neither can I absolutely know
piece. At a time when the legacy of slav- Actions are evil when they intention- whether any of the things that appear in
ery is being discussed, it is important to ally cause unnecessary, undeserved dis- that consciousness have any physical
be reminded that slavery was ended not tress to others. Deliberate inaction has existence outside it. If what I perceive is
the same moral significance when it has virtual reality, or a simulation, then that
the same effect; so does intentionally

48 Philosophy Now l April/May 2022

Letters

means firstly that what I perceive, Improvement of the Intellect as regards beyond just ascertaining the facts of a
although it may appear to be physically knowledge. One is oneself the Other with proposition or applying logic to it, to
real, is by definition not physically real; prejudices in need of sifting-through in examining its context, concepts, ethics,
secondly, that there is a real physical order that knowledge should be panned and assumptions – especially where these
mechanism generating the VR. But even out. Relatively undeveloped in my article may call into question one’s orthodoxy.
if I perceived such a mechanism, I could- is that Spinoza contradicts himself in this In a world beset by divided narratives,
n’t know whether it existed outside my as regards morality, as he cannot consis- intellectual intolerance, and distorted
consciousness any more than I can know tently reject the Jews as Other and also information, this approach has never
that about any other physical object. So feel that morality will take care of itself. been more important. If a purposeful life
VR doesn’t change the basic situation in is a happy life, then we could do a whole
terms of what I can really know exists. The penultimate two lines of my arti- lot worse than a life invested in a process
The only things I can really know to cle observe that Spinoza had negative of pursuing and promoting truth.
exist are my own consciousness and its things to say about the Jews, and endeav-
contents. ored to cease considering himself one. MARY JANE STREETON
But if we would not be condemned as a TARINGA, QUEENSLAND
That doesn’t mean that the quest for caricature of ourselves, neither should we
understanding ends here. Like Descartes, condemn him as an irredeemable apos- DEAR EDITOR: I found Farah
I believe that from the knowledge that tate, since charity is of the nature of Abdessamad’s, ‘What is Guilt?’ in Issue
consciousness exists we can work out piety, and Spinoza shows himself able, 147 to be a fascinating read. I believe
some other remarkable things. on occasion, to appreciate the latter. I am most of us are guilty of inaction. I mean,
glad Mr Jonas spares me as ignorant, we could do more. Of course, some of us
PETER SPURRIER rather than vicious. achieve greatness and do great things.
HALSTEAD Some of us are very generous and altruis-
BRAD RAPPAPORT tic. But many of us are guilty of emo-
Irish Murdoch NEW YORK tional laziness. We could be more kind.
DEAR EDITOR: While I really enjoyed We could ring to see how our neighbours
Stephen Leach’s essay about Iris Mur- DEAR READER: Last issue we printed a are on a regular basis. If a neighbour is in
doch in Issue 148, Murdoch was not an letter pointing out that in Issue 147 Brad Covid isolation, we should call to see how
English philosopher and novelist as stated Rappaport was wrong to cite Orthodox they are. We often think about connecting
[added by me, not Dr Leach – Ed]. Judaism as condemning Spinoza, espe- with people, but are guilty of inaction
Although Murdoch did spend most of cially since Orthodox Judaism is a nine- when it comes down to it.
her life in England, she was born in teenth-century development. The phrase
Dublin. Her Irishness may have been ‘Orthodox Judaism’ was added by our LINDA NATHANIEL
very much of the Anglo- variety, but she editors and not by Mr Rappaport him- SYDNEY, N.S.W.
never forgot her roots. As she said, “Peo- self. We apologise to him.
ple sometimes say to me rudely, ‘Oh! DEAR EDITOR: I very much looked for-
You’re not Irish at all! But of course I’m RICK LEWIS ward to reading Issue 147, ‘The Happi-
Irish. I’m profoundly Irish and I’ve been EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ness & Meaning Issue’, to see if there
conscious of this all my life, and in a were any insights from our philosophers
mode of being Irish which has produced More Meaningful Messages at large. Sadly, I was dismayed, but not
a lot of very distinguished thinkers and DEAR EDITOR: Congratulations on Issue surprised, to read that a well-known
writers” (From a Tiny Corner in the House 147, the ‘Happiness and Meaning Issue’, philosopher (Bertrand Russell), who
of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch, which gave much food for thought at the spent his life studying philosophy, could
Gillian Dooley, ed, 2003). start of a new year. The editorial com- not give a concise and cogent answer
ments struck a particular chord, suggest- when asked about the purpose and mean-
NEIL FORSYTH ing philosophers should be able to pro- ing of life. Rick Lewis’s point in his Edi-
CO. DUBLIN vide anybody who asks with something torial that “if the philosophers can’t pro-
about life and its meaning. But reading vide at least some clue as to what life... is
‘We’ and ‘They’ Are One the brilliant visions of the likes of Hera- all about, then what is the point?” is a
DEAR EDITOR: Thank you for this clitus and Hegel can distract from the very telling comment on philosophy.
opportunity to reply to Mr Daniel Jonas importance of the prosaic. I would pro- Philosophical thoughts are supposed to
about his criticism of my Brief Life of pose a humbler philosophers’ purpose: provide plausible answers to ease the exis-
Spinoza in Issue 147, in particular his seeking and calling out the myriad micro- tential angst we may experience when we
complaint that Jews are used as symbols truths of our daily lives. Whether this try to answer such questions – which,
of good and evil in the arguments of oth- relates to a newspaper headline, a flippant philosophers generally agree, unfortu-
ers, to our detriment. comment in a conversation, questionable nately cannot be definitively answered.
logic in a work report, or navigating chil-
I categorically reject the practice, when dren’s schoolyard quarrels, there is a role Many philosophers including René
it comes to theological or political ortho- for the philosopher. This role is first to Descartes (1596-1650) and George
doxy of any kind, of painting those who seek out the truth underlying such day- Berkeley (1685-1753) have also ques-
profess it in colors black, imagining our- to-day tribulations, and then to bring a tioned our perception of reality. No won-
selves by contrast knowledgeable and more thoughtful approach to bear on the der philosophical concepts and thoughts
good, instead of being so. I believe this is situation. The philosopher’s skill-set goes are so complex and confusing to the
the thrust of Spinoza’s Treatise on the

April/May 2022 l Philosophy Now 49

Letters

masses, when we don’t even know law of thermodynamics, which claims ‘choice’ is routinely used as a mask to
whether own perceptions of our realities that everything tends towards less order. hide what the powerful are up to. Why
are really true or not! It is difficult to should a rich man feel responsible for the
arrive at any lasting philosophical truths Despite this being the case in most of poor when the poor man has ‘chosen’ his
if they’re built from a house of cards. the physical world, when it comes to lot? If you ask me why I subscribe or not,
Welcome to the thought-provoking organic matter, things seem to become there’s a chance of learning something. If
world of philosophy! more and more ordered. Mistakes/muta- it’s just my ‘choice’, thinking stops there.
tions in replications lead to increasingly
TONY YEP, P.ENG ordered organisms. Single celled organ- In the current issue you reference
CALGARY, ALBERTA isms have developed into incredibly com- your printers saying they had no choice
plex multicellular beings. And when we but to increase their charges. They were
No Choice But Philosophy Now get to higher animals, something extra right. What they had was alternatives, all
DEAR EDITOR: I think the ‘Happiness & happens: multicellular beings achieve sub- but one of which would have unaccept-
Meaning’ issue of Philosophy Now comes jective experience, and new possibilities able consequences. The price rise was
closest to philosophically addressing the arrive. These new beings have become inevitable if the business was to survive.
issues that most people find relevant in able to alter things in the world according
their everyday lives. People generally seek to what they want to do. A causal world, I suggest to readers that if they cut out
purpose through their jobs, their relation- based on what went before, has become a the concept of choice from their vocabu-
ships, their families, even if they don’t world of future possibilities – a world we lary they won’t miss it, and their thinking
articulate it. Inherent in this endeavour is ourselves create, partially at any rate. will be cleaner and more effective. Talk
the unspoken belief that they are largely about reasons, preferences, alternatives,
in control of their own destiny. This is “Eventually, however, disorder tri- votes, actions. Drop ‘choice’ in the bin.
why I found Dylan Skurka’s review of the umphs”, says Tallis. Dust to dust. There
movie Minding the Gap in the same issue is however a sense in which even the dust TOM CHAMBERLAIN
the most pertinent and possibly the most doesn’t completely go to dust. In a bio- NEWARK
relevant to my own experience (which also logical sense we aren’t isolated individu-
benefits from more than half a century of als. The engine of biology doesn’t ‘care’ No Time Except the Present
hindsight). My personal circumstances about the individual, as long as the species
weren’t as dire as the real-life protagonists (or higher levels) keeps going, and order DEAR EDITOR: I am responding in 2021
of that documentary film, but I could continues. Our dust is part of a greater to an article on time ostensibly published
identify with their circumstances all the dust, just as our social selves are part of a in 2022! But I was surprised that in her
same: I remember when I left school I larger social entity. We are born and die article about time in Issue 147, Nurana
also had a fatalistic attitude towards life – as social beings, leaving behind us the Rajabova made no mention of Einstein’s
that things just happened. I’m not sure continuing social entity of which we have Special Theory of Relativity, which indi-
when it occurred, but I had an epiphany, been part. That’s an optimistic thought. cates that space and time are not the dis-
and took ownership of my personal prob- Perhaps the future isn’t so bleak. crete entities she discusses but are inex-
lems and my general negativity. At some tricably linked as spacetime, and, thus,
point I realised that while I could blame So there are at least three ‘wonders’: cannot be considered discretely. There
childhood circumstances for my situation, that there emerged out of the dead phys- are also interpretations of quantum the-
I was the only one who could change it. ical world self-replicating cells which ory from which time vanishes, suggesting
gradually became more complicated; that that time is something that we create to
This is critically dependent on an in the more complicated of these organ- try to comprehend the universe. Finally,
belief in free will. I like something that isms there emerged experiencing sub- and perhaps flippantly – in his novel
Raymond Tallis once wrote: “Free jects; and that some of these subjects Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut created
agents, then, are free because they select developed ways of life and language, the planet Tralfamadore, and to the
between imagined possibilities, and use enabling visions of the future that can Tralfamadorians time was laid out ‘like
actualities to bring about one rather than change the physical world – adapt it to the Rocky Mountains’, such that all of
another.” For me, the key word here is their own designs. Despite the second time could be viewed in totality.
‘imagined’. Free will is when we can law of thermodynamics.
imagine a future that we attempt to bring Having for many years taught physics
about. What we imagine is certainly RICHARD CHALLIS BOUSFIELD, to young people aged 11 to 18, the con-
affected by our past, our emotions, and COPENHAGEN cept of ‘time’ engages their imaginations
our intellectual considerations; but that and allows them to speculate creatively
doesn’t make our choices predetermined. DEAR EDITOR: Thank you for your letter and usually with enjoyment and enthusi-
about renewing my subscription. However asm. The kinds of arguments based on
PAUL P. MEALING, I am struck by your phrase ‘if you choose ‘presentism’ and ‘eternalism’, which Ms
MELBOURNE to renew’. The question is surely whether Rajabova sets out are arguments with
I renew or not, not whether I ‘choose’ to. which young people can engage, and
DEAR EDITOR: Raymond Tallis delves That is, I am aware of my reasons and would enable them to get some kind of
into serious matters in his article on feelings gradually forming about the mag- ‘meaning’ and ‘happiness’. Thus, in my
‘From Dust to Dust’ in PN Issue 147. azine and its contents, but not of some opinion, the article succeeded in the aim
First, there is the matter of the second mysterious switch which has the last word. of Issue 147 to explore those themes.

This is a serious matter because ALASDAIR MACDONALD,
GLASGOW

50 Philosophy Now l April/May 2022