Owen Flanagan’s The Geography of Morals

I am a big Owen Flanagan fan and have just finished reading his most recent book, The Geography of Morals (Oxford UP, 2017). Because I am an academic, with all the pathologies of my tribe, I will have a bone to pick with Flanagan in my next post. But praise should always precede criticism–and there is so much to praise in this book.

Flanagan has worked for years to broaden the scope and interests of moral philosophy beyond the sterile deontologist/consequentialist debates into which so much moral philosophy has cornered itself. Of course, he has plenty of company in that quest, with Alisdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, and Charles Taylor the most notable writers to walk away from “technical” philosophical ethics.

I think it is fair to say that the five philosophers just mentioned all, to some extent, pay attention to the emotional bases of ethical judgments in order to downplay the idea of a rational deliberating self, whose actions follow from a weighing up of reasons (whether those reasons be Kantian or Millian). Flanagan’s persistent interest (over the past 25 years at least) has been in “moral psychology.” He wants to identify the psychological processes–both emotional and rational–that generate moral conviction.

He has two persistent reasons for wanting to pursue questions of moral psychology.

1.) He wants a realistic, empirically based sense of the constraints underlying human behavior. His version of “ought implies can” is to identify deep-seated tendencies in human reasoning and human responses to environment that will, at least, suggest (I use this weaker word advisedly) limits to human capabilities and things that will prove difficult for humans to accomplish. His favorite example here is in-group prejudice. He takes it as universally true that humans care more for their family members and for a limited range of others. Thus, it is difficult, although not impossible, to extend the set of others to whom humans will offer sympathy and care.

2.) Flanagan insists that any individual’s morality is developed within a “form of life.” He adapts the word “ecology” to describe the environment in which moral intuitions, convictions, reasons, and emotions emerge in individual humans. We are born into “a preexisting but ever-changing cultural ecology. The ecology is the normative force field in which we grow and develop, and it is authorized, regulated, and maintained outside the head, in the common, but possibly fractious, social ecology” (93). Following Wittgenstein’s thoughts on private language, Flanagan’s position is that worries about subjectivist moralities are entirely misplaced. No one invents–or could possibly live by–a private morality.

Several important consequences follow from Flanagan’s approach. The first is that morality is about persons-in-relation (to other persons, to the environment, to animals, to the traditions and cultures into which they are “thrown”—to use Heidegger’s term.) Morality is social, inter-subjective, inter-species, inter-relational through and through. Flanagan mentions Williams’ famous distinction between morality as applying to norms of social interaction as contrasted to ethics as pertaining to the individualistic question “What is the good life for me”? But Flanagan, correctly in my view, finds that distinction only moderately useful (in certain contexts) because it is almost impossible to conceive of a good life that doesn’t have establishing good relations with others, the environment, animals etc. at its core.

A second consequence of focusing on relations is to knock morality off a pedestal—either one that imagines us all doing some kind of Kantian deduction to reach the categorical imperative or worrying about which switch to pull on runaway trolleys. Morality is mundane, implicated in the minute-by-minute monitoring and adjustment of our relations to all in which we are immersed. “The moral problems of life vary with age and circumstance, but they are mostly . . . matters of tender mercies, love, attention, honesty, conscientiousness, guarding against projection, taming reactive emotions, deflating ego, and self-cultivation” (10). Morality is ordinary.

A third consequence is the breakdown of barriers between philosophy and the human sciences. Flanagan quotes Dewey (from Human Nature and Human Conduct) approvingly: “Moral science is not something with a separate province. It is physical, biological, and historic knowledge placed in a humane context where it will illuminate and guide the activities of men” (44 in Flanagan). Whatever the human sciences can tell us about human beings is relevant to thinking about how humans construct and structure “forms of life” that include “normative orders.” Here’s Flanagan’s description of the latter. “The normative order uses both the capacities of individuals to acquire reliable dispositions inside themselves—typically conceived as virtues–to do what is judged to be good, right, and expected, as well as public institutions and structures, such as law and tax codes, to accomplish, regulate, and enforce regiments of order and justice that individuals might not find easy to abide from reliable inner resources” 25-26).

As the appeal to “dispositions” indicates, Flanagan is firmly in the neo-Aristotelian camp. Forming the right dispositions, cultivating virtues, is the primary moral work in his view—and his appeals to psychology are in service of that cultivation. What are effective methods of creating dispositions—and what are the limits on what those methods can achieve?

But you will have noticed that the definition of “normative order” is content-light in terms of designating what the good or the right is. That’s because Flanagan accepts that there is more than one “form of life” on the planet. The good and the right is not a constant, nor is it the same in all contexts. As the title of his book indicates, he wants to explore the possible variations in normative orders that history and geography offers us. What might Western moral philosophy, in particular, learn from an encounter with Eastern sources, especially Confucianism and Buddhism?

Much of the book is devoted to this comparative work. Specifically, three chapters are devoted to thinking about anger. To what extent is anger an “inevitable” human emotion; to what extent is anger (in fact) part and parcel of morality insofar as moral indignation can seem to be the baseline moment of moral judgment; and, if there are alternatives to anger’s role in moral judgment, would we be better off adopting those alternatives? Those chapters justify both Flanagan’s focus on moral psychology and his exploration of moral traditions that take fairly different approaches to similar problems.

Flanagan is, however, not simply an Aristotelian. He is also a Darwinian. And it is that aspect of his thought that I will examine in my next post.

Two Housekeeping Notes

I very much appreciate comments–and regret that the comments only appear if you click on a specific post and do not appear if you just read the posts on the main blog page. If any one knows how to fix that, please do let me know.
I am also trying to figure out how to index the posts so readers can find ones from the past. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Electoral Politics in an Increasingly Non-Democratic US

In lieu of a movement—or, much better if possible, in conjunction with a movement—the left needs to win elections. One big problem of the Obama years was the down-ballot devastation of the Democrats, in Congress, in state legislatures, and in governorships.

Elections, of course, are the heart and soul of democratic politics, the privileged means by which democracies avoid violence by allowing for the non-violent transfer of power. But it has become increasingly difficult to call the US democratic. So it seems naïve to place one’s faith in elections. And that’s even before we consider all the inadequacies of the Democratic Party as the left’s representative in the electoral sweepstakes.

There is no reason for me to do more here than list the features that make the US non-democratic: voter suppression, gerrymandering, the role of money in politics, the Electoral College and the Senate (both of which give minorities from small states disproportionate power.) The work of Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels has made it clear we live in a plutocracy. The health care bill (more like a health destruction bill) the Republicans are about to pass demonstrates quite clearly just how plutocratic our system is.

I just want to mention my three deepest fears about non-democracy.

Senate nullification. When the Senate refused to even consider Merrick Garland for a Supreme Court seat, it assumed its right to simply block presidential prerogatives. The right has stacked the judiciary by refusing to ratify Democratic nominations for the federal bench.
Supreme Court nullification. Hope for any Supreme Court action to curb voter suppression and gerrymandering is most likely misplaced. Andrew Kennedy is a slim reed on which to place such high hopes. Democracy, unfortunately, is not a constitutional value. Nothing in that document makes a law or practice invalid by virtue of its being undemocratic.
The Electoral College. The Democrats have now won the popular vote twice in 20 years and still lost the presidency. If this pattern holds, we are going to have both a president and a Senate elected by the minority time and again. How long can that be sustained? How long do California and New York have to tolerate being governed by Wyoming and Idaho and Kansas and Texas?

The process of amending the Constitution (as was done in the progressive era) is now so far beyond the reach of possibility as to be off the table. Yet several Constitutional amendments are desperately needed: a right to vote (those showing up to vote should be presumed innocent until proven guilty; multiple days to vote; Election Day a national holiday; equal distribution of polling places—i.e. one for every 75,000 citizens—to avoid the long lines in urban areas compared to voting taking 10 minutes in rural areas and the suburbs; same day registration etc. etc.); popular election of the president; ten year terms for Supreme Court justices, with one possible renewal (i.e. 20 years on the court at most); the filibuster abolished, but also the various ways in which the Senate can block presidential nominations through inaction and other inanities; some kind of system like the Brits have for “first” and “second” reading of legislative bills to avoid the skullduggery of the current legislative process; creation of independent districting commissions for legislative and Congressional districts; some solution—either strict spending limits or public financing or limiting contributions to in-district contributors—to the money in politics swamp, including strict disclosure rules about who is giving money, with a ban on all corporate contributions another possibility; the prohibition of outside groups from writing legislation, i.e. laws are to be written by legislators not lobbyists.

I am sure there are more reforms needed. But that list is daunting enough.

The system is currently so corrupt and so dysfunctional and so blatantly gives power to a small minority that a) it makes counting on elections seem absurd, suggesting that more direct and disruptive tactics are required and b) making me (at least) wonder how long it can stagger along. A system so broken and so unresponsive must (it would seem) generate massive unrest. Yet, yet, yet . . . Its stability is both astounding and rock solid.

That solidity is, in part, the unthinkability of violence coupled with the despairing realization that anything short of violence won’t do the trick. But, also in part, people’s lives are not intolerable enough. They have just enough to not want to risk what they have. There is plenty of fear (insecurity about employment and the costs of medical care, education, and old age is rampant) and outrage (although that outrage spills off into two very different directions, either against the shameless privileged or against the maligned poor and immigrants) out there, but not enough (apparently) to spur a mass movement—and certainly well short of creating sustained violence.

Those are my dark thoughts. We live in a deeply undemocratic society in which the plutocrats have consolidated their power over the past forty years—and yet their abuses have not stirred anything like a sustained counter-movement while they have rendered electoral politics almost completely irrelevant, no serious threat to their agenda.

Non-Violence (Continued)

I am reading Todd May’s Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction (Polity, 2015) to push my thinking along. May’s definition of nonviolence is somewhat odd: “political, economic, or social activity, that challenges or resists a current political, economic, or social arrangement while respecting the dignity (in the sense defined above) of its participants, adversaries, and others” (59).

The oddity is the emphasis on dignity, which is the result of May’s understanding violence as actions that do not grant to the subject of that violence the ability to live an unimpeded life. He recognizes that his definition of dignity is essentially Kantian—except that it does not ground the right to be treated with dignity in one’s status as a “rational being” and does not ground the recognition of that right in some kind of rational deduction toward a categorical imperative. Rather, it would seem, treating others with dignity is an ethical choice, not particularly grounded in anything beyond the choice. He does differentiate between “pragmatic” and “principled” nonviolence, where the pragmatists adopts the stance of treating all with dignity because actions guided by that rule are more likely to prove effective in resisting current arrangements. The principled position is not guided by questions about tactics and effectiveness, but takes an absolute stance. Dignity means recognizing that every person has the right to live the life s/he chooses (Kantian autonomy, which entails never being a means to another person’s ends). The principled position is very close to pacifism, although not absolutely identical because it could still be situational (admitting some situations in which violence in necessary or justified—such as self-defense) in ways that pacifism is not.

I guess I am still a moralist (in the ways that Bernard Williams uses that term) because I am not terribly concerned with the dignity of certain opponents. (Williams thinks politics is poisoned once it gets “moralized” because then I do not accept the legitimacy of my opponents’ position. Democracy requires the notion of a “loyal opposition.” Otherwise, I will not cede power to my opponents when they win an election. We are semi-close to that position in the US today. We don’t keep the winners from taking office, but we do–in the Senate during Obama’s tenure and in my home state of North Carolina right now–work to prevent those office holders from exercising power.)

I am a moralist insofar as I believe that people who use privilege to their own advantage and to the hurt of the less privileged do not earn my respect or deep worry about not interfering with the ways they choose to live their lives. But I don’t think I am just, in May’s terms, a pragmatic believer in nonviolence. I think the taking of life—or the use of physical violence to coerce, intimidate, or threaten—is impermissible because causing suffering is to be avoided and arrogating to oneself the right to inflict suffering is never justified. This raises the very tough question of punishment. Something very deep in me revolts against all forms of punishment. In that sense I share Williams’ deep suspicion of moralism, of the self-righteous condemnation of others. Yet I don’t have any compunction about depriving others of their ability to inflict suffering. I do judge them morally—and think various ways (short of punishment?) of halting their immoral actions are justified. Is there a way to divide punishment from such deprivation of means? Not sure there is, but it seems to me a different thing to take away the money and power that allows senators to take away health care from millions than it is to send them to prison, to cause them direct harm.

That’s the trouble with philosophy. It sends you off into these kinds of debates that slice thinner and thinner the conceptual loaf. Over-scrupulosity seems to me endemic on the left—that’s what generated political correctness in the first place. It also generates the sometimes justified charges of hypocrisy against leftists. Their stated principles, because so exacting, don’t jive with how they actually live their lives.

So back to the rough ground. May takes from sociologists Erica Chenowith and Maria Stephan a definition of “campaign” that pushes toward my thoughts (in the last post) about a “Movement.” A campaign is “a series of observable, continual acts in pursuit of a political objective” (60). One-offs, May concludes, barely count as non-violent resistance. Sending a letter to your senator is certainly a non-violent act, but not one of very much significance, and not clearly an act of resistance. It seems as if non-violence only gets its point, only rises to a true challenge, when it actually places itself in a place of risk. The non-violent actors have to be doing something that (at least) tempts the powers that be to shut down their actions. In short, it has to be disruptive in some fairly dramatic way—and it has to contain the potential to continue this disruption in the name of an articulated objective. Otherwise, I am arguing, it will change nothing.

In short, the left is going to have to decide on what basis (what outrage) it is going to resist the current administration and is going to have to devise a set of sustainable and disruptive non-violent actions for its resistance to be effective. Shutting down various government functions will not, I think, do the trick. The Republicans don’t like government so are hardly going to be stirred by disrupting its activities.

The obvious alternative is to disrupt economic functioning. Either widespread boycotts or something like a general strike are the best bets here. Specific actions against specific companies are very hard to sustain these days. It is a measure of how much power has been accumulated by corporations that tactics that worked forty years ago (most notably strikes, but also work to rule and sit-downs) are pretty much non-starters now. And the upping of security measures that make both business places and government offices fortresses in our day also precludes the kind of guerilla theater tactics used by 60s radicals like the Berrigans. Massive organization on the scale of the civil rights movement is needed if there is to be any chance of success. And the nonviolent actions will have to be conducted on public streets. Marches (that have dutifully gotten their permits) will not cut it.

So I am back to the hard work, the grunt work, of building a movement (that can then launch a campaign). Anything less grand is simply way too easy to ignore.

The other alternative, of course, is to go the constitutional route—to depend on elections and the courts. My next post will consider that possibility.