Chapter XI (pages 130-137), “Production and Distribution”
Russell opens Chapter XI by reiterating his preference-satisfying approach to the terms intrinsic value and right conduct. But ethics concerns the distribution of satisfaction, and not just the total amount. People are biased with respect to their views on desirable distributions of satisfactions – we care most about our own satisfaction and that of our intimates. “Morality is to a very large extent an attempt to combat this partiality and to lead people in action to attach as much importance to the good of others as to their own [p. 131].” While people tend to agree as to what things have intrinsic value – especially for basic goods like food, shelter, and health, as well as friendship, security, and belonging – they tend to disagree about the proper distributions of value.
Russell distinguishes between three types of desirable goods or features. One type would be called by modern economists non-rival, in that one person’s enjoyment of the good does not impede someone else’s enjoyment: friendship and love are two examples that Russell provides (eliding the possibility that love or friendship with a particular person may well come at the expense of someone else’s access to that same person). The other two types of goods display rivalry: if I have the good, then you cannot. Thus the apple that I eat cannot be eaten by you. Nevertheless, with enough apples, it might be the case that all can have apples. The other sort of rival good depends on aggregate scarcity to provide satisfaction. This type of good involves what economists now would call positional externalities. Only one person can finish first in a race, or be the most respected person in the room: if I am that person, you cannot be. For positional goods, abundance of supply cannot relieve the fundamental scarcity – at least without undermining the intrinsic value of the good.
What can be said about ethical distributions of the three types of goods? Starting with rivalrous goods like apples, Russell indicates that, holding total intrinsic value constant, he does not believe that a society in which that value is evenly distributed is necessarily better than one in which it is not. If inequality breeds resentment and fear, then equality surely is preferred, but some societies can have inequality without resentment, and possibly there are even desirable consequences arising from inequality. Russell endorses distributive justice in means, not necessarily in ends: equality of opportunity, not of result. Further, he thinks that justice in means will produce outcomes that are fairly equal, too. Many traditional moral teachings aim at inculcating just behavior, but these precepts alone have a hard time exerting influence in situations where there is a large gulf between individual and social interests. Better political and economic institutions would ensure that goods such as food would be distributed evenly enough that the allocation of these goods would be removed from the moral sphere.
Positional goods such as power cannot be so easily divorced from the realm of morality. Virtually everyone wants more power, at least within their (perhaps quite restricted) domain, and the love of power is at the root of most wars and revolutions. Unconstrained power is almost always misused, so there is much to be said for equalizing the distribution of power – and indeed, progress in this direction has been considerable. “Kings, slave-owners, husbands and fathers have been successively deposed…[p. 135].”
Moral suasion alone generally proves insufficient at curbing abuses of power. A complementary approach, one employed by democracies, is to cultivate resistance among the victims of power. Education can channel the passion for power into socially beneficial paths. “In regard to power, as in other directions, the best ethical maxims are not ascetic, but consist rather in encouraging and providing outlets which are not destructive [p. 135].”
Oddly, goods that can be available to everyone, such as basic health care and joy at creative works, are not all that equally distributed. Any pleasure that requires access to higher education or significant amounts of leisure time is accessible only by a minority, though again, improved political and economic institutions could alter this situation.
We owe to posterity a protected environment and an improved civilization, though we are far too cavalier in guaranteeing these bequests. We are reckless in putting the future survival of humanity at risk through warfare. Our evaluation of a society must go beyond the happiness of its members, to include its additions to civilizational capital.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter X
Chapter X (pages 119-129), “Authority in Ethics”
Quotidian morality overdetermines proper behavior: an act is praiseworthy because God, Truth, the Community, and Conscience all support it. “In face of this ethical broadside, it is hoped that your carnal desires will shrink abashed [p. 119].” But actual behavior doesn’t seem to be improved when people accept the whole pantheon of ethical authority – monks in 13th century Italy seem to have been all but addicted to rape, for instance, despite the universal condemnation of rape, and the widespread belief that it would be punished with eternal damnation.
Why should I act in the way that you recommend? One possible answer is that to act in that manner is in keeping with God’s will. But why should I act to serve God’s will? The traditional Christian argument appeals to long-term self-interest: you will be damned if you don’t, and receive heavenly rewards if you do. The suggestion to obey God’s will, then, has the same ethical loading as other prudential advice, such as to “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy”.
How is God’s will to be known? How can I convince you of what God’s will consists, if you do not already share my opinion? For centuries Jews and Protestants have disagreed about what day, Saturday or Sunday, God desires that we abstain from work. This disagreement cannot be settled through any legitimate, objective means. Hundreds of thousands of people have been massacred in the recent past thanks to irreconcilable differences over what types of animals God commands us not to eat. “It can hardly be said, therefore, that the Will of God gives a basis for an objective ethic [p. 121].” Nevertheless, shared beliefs about the divine will can inspire your side in a conflict. British military honchos believe that an acceptance of Christianity heartens “those who have to drop hydrogen bombs [p. 121]” – perhaps not much of an endorsement for Christian ethics.
A secular equivalent to a reliance upon God’s will is an appeal to conscience (or Truth), where it is believed that acts that your conscience approves are as objectively obvious as the notion that grass is green -- but they aren't that obvious. “There are just the same sort of disagreements as to what conscience prescribes as there are about the Will of God, and there is not, as in science, a recognized technique for resolving disagreements [p. 122].” Communities and governments might be able to establish a local uniformity about what acts conscience dictates, but these views will be far from universal.
As in previous chapters, Russell argues that our notion of what one “ought” to do must be connected with sentience and human preferences – appeals to divine will or conscience are not enough. He appends to this starting point a sort of anonymity axiom, the notion that when person A tells person B what B “ought” to do, the truth of that assertion should not depend on the identity of person A. Injunctions arising from specific religious or nationalistic predilections, then, can have no objective ethical force (at least absent other justifications). Nevertheless, the proper role of ethics, like that of law and custom, is to induce (as if by an invisible hand, as it were) individual behavior that helps to promote the social good. But for the anonymity axiom to be met, the society whose good is at issue has to include everyone, and perhaps include non-human sentient beings, too.
Some disagreements that appear to be ethical actually are factual disagreements over the best means to achieve a shared end. More information can settle these disagreements, and reveal that they were not ethical controversies at all. For an actual ethical disagreement, Russell again invokes (as he did in Chapters VII and IX) the example of vindictive punishment. Proponents of Hellfire support vindictive punishment, as there is no redemption in Hell. (Russell implicitly is ignoring the deterrence aspect of punishment, though he did discuss it in Chapter VII and immediately brings it up here in the case of post-World War I Germany.) Russell cannot prove that it is wrong to embrace vindictive punishment, but he offers two arguments in this direction. The first is that of Chapter VII, that the whole notion of sin is misguided. The second is that vindictive punishment doesn’t work (even with respect to satisfying the desires of the punishers) – witness the Nazi rise after Versailles.
Practical disputes often are about not what things possess inherent value, but about who will get to enjoy the value: disputes about shares of the pie, not the overall size. Power tends to be the decider. Of course, this suggests a meta-analysis, as to the type of system that best can regulate these power struggles.
Consider cruelty. To serve overall preferences, cruelty should not be countenanced – the disapproval of cruelty is desirable, as it diminishes the amount of cruelty. But the laudable disapproval of cruelty does not extend to the use of cruelty towards those who employ cruelty. The best policy to adopt against cruel people is that which is most effective at reducing the overall amount of cruelty – and this might require kindness towards cruel people. (A variation on Hamlet: one must be kind, only to minimize cruelty?) “Such considerations, I maintain, show that our ethic justifies a proper horror of cruelty without justifying the excesses to which this horror often leads [p. 129].”
While ethics might primarily concern meshing individual interest with social interests, individuality must be protected. The great contributions of the past often came from people who were working in the face of popular disapproval. Like his godfather J.S. Mill, Russell suggests that to protect the interests of the individual, and to continue to secure currently unpopular advances, society should only constrain individual activity when that activity is a clear source of harm to others.
Quotidian morality overdetermines proper behavior: an act is praiseworthy because God, Truth, the Community, and Conscience all support it. “In face of this ethical broadside, it is hoped that your carnal desires will shrink abashed [p. 119].” But actual behavior doesn’t seem to be improved when people accept the whole pantheon of ethical authority – monks in 13th century Italy seem to have been all but addicted to rape, for instance, despite the universal condemnation of rape, and the widespread belief that it would be punished with eternal damnation.
Why should I act in the way that you recommend? One possible answer is that to act in that manner is in keeping with God’s will. But why should I act to serve God’s will? The traditional Christian argument appeals to long-term self-interest: you will be damned if you don’t, and receive heavenly rewards if you do. The suggestion to obey God’s will, then, has the same ethical loading as other prudential advice, such as to “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy”.
How is God’s will to be known? How can I convince you of what God’s will consists, if you do not already share my opinion? For centuries Jews and Protestants have disagreed about what day, Saturday or Sunday, God desires that we abstain from work. This disagreement cannot be settled through any legitimate, objective means. Hundreds of thousands of people have been massacred in the recent past thanks to irreconcilable differences over what types of animals God commands us not to eat. “It can hardly be said, therefore, that the Will of God gives a basis for an objective ethic [p. 121].” Nevertheless, shared beliefs about the divine will can inspire your side in a conflict. British military honchos believe that an acceptance of Christianity heartens “those who have to drop hydrogen bombs [p. 121]” – perhaps not much of an endorsement for Christian ethics.
A secular equivalent to a reliance upon God’s will is an appeal to conscience (or Truth), where it is believed that acts that your conscience approves are as objectively obvious as the notion that grass is green -- but they aren't that obvious. “There are just the same sort of disagreements as to what conscience prescribes as there are about the Will of God, and there is not, as in science, a recognized technique for resolving disagreements [p. 122].” Communities and governments might be able to establish a local uniformity about what acts conscience dictates, but these views will be far from universal.
As in previous chapters, Russell argues that our notion of what one “ought” to do must be connected with sentience and human preferences – appeals to divine will or conscience are not enough. He appends to this starting point a sort of anonymity axiom, the notion that when person A tells person B what B “ought” to do, the truth of that assertion should not depend on the identity of person A. Injunctions arising from specific religious or nationalistic predilections, then, can have no objective ethical force (at least absent other justifications). Nevertheless, the proper role of ethics, like that of law and custom, is to induce (as if by an invisible hand, as it were) individual behavior that helps to promote the social good. But for the anonymity axiom to be met, the society whose good is at issue has to include everyone, and perhaps include non-human sentient beings, too.
Some disagreements that appear to be ethical actually are factual disagreements over the best means to achieve a shared end. More information can settle these disagreements, and reveal that they were not ethical controversies at all. For an actual ethical disagreement, Russell again invokes (as he did in Chapters VII and IX) the example of vindictive punishment. Proponents of Hellfire support vindictive punishment, as there is no redemption in Hell. (Russell implicitly is ignoring the deterrence aspect of punishment, though he did discuss it in Chapter VII and immediately brings it up here in the case of post-World War I Germany.) Russell cannot prove that it is wrong to embrace vindictive punishment, but he offers two arguments in this direction. The first is that of Chapter VII, that the whole notion of sin is misguided. The second is that vindictive punishment doesn’t work (even with respect to satisfying the desires of the punishers) – witness the Nazi rise after Versailles.
Practical disputes often are about not what things possess inherent value, but about who will get to enjoy the value: disputes about shares of the pie, not the overall size. Power tends to be the decider. Of course, this suggests a meta-analysis, as to the type of system that best can regulate these power struggles.
Consider cruelty. To serve overall preferences, cruelty should not be countenanced – the disapproval of cruelty is desirable, as it diminishes the amount of cruelty. But the laudable disapproval of cruelty does not extend to the use of cruelty towards those who employ cruelty. The best policy to adopt against cruel people is that which is most effective at reducing the overall amount of cruelty – and this might require kindness towards cruel people. (A variation on Hamlet: one must be kind, only to minimize cruelty?) “Such considerations, I maintain, show that our ethic justifies a proper horror of cruelty without justifying the excesses to which this horror often leads [p. 129].”
While ethics might primarily concern meshing individual interest with social interests, individuality must be protected. The great contributions of the past often came from people who were working in the face of popular disapproval. Like his godfather J.S. Mill, Russell suggests that to protect the interests of the individual, and to continue to secure currently unpopular advances, society should only constrain individual activity when that activity is a clear source of harm to others.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter IX
Chapter IX (pages 110-118), “Is there Ethical Knowledge?”
Is the notion that cruelty is bad (or that the world is better if people are happy) just an opinion, no more ethically valid then the opposite assertion? Is what we call ethics simply our preferences, or is there some objective sense in which cruelty is ethically worse than kindness? Do ethical terms such as “ought” and “good” apply to people in general, or are they inextricably tied up with one person’s inclinations – in which case ethical disputes cannot be resolved through logical reasoning?
Russell defines a “good” act to be one that possesses “intrinsic value,” independently of its consequences. Further, for this approach to work, we have to be able to assess intrinsic value, to have an ethical intuition of what acts have (or don’t have) intrinsic values, as well as the magnitude of those values. Then, one “ought” to choose that act which, among the feasible alternatives, possesses the highest net intrinsic value – where we subtract the intrinsic disvalues from the intrinsic values of an act. Intrinsic value and intrinsic disvalue are measured in comparable units for Russell, so that an act has zero (net) intrinsic value if its intrinsic value equals its intrinsic disvalue. [More precisely, Russell states this proposition the other way around, where an intrinsic value equals an intrinsic disvalue if the act that brings both of these quantities into being has zero (net) value.]
Russell claims that “intrinsic value” assessments are subject to fewer disagreements than occur when starting with assertions about what ought to be done. Disagreements over what should be done usually can be traced to differentiated views of the likely consequences of actions – even when guides to behavior are stated in absolute terms, as with taboos. Any judgment of the ethical quality of an act based on its consequences will be akin to the net valuation approach Russell has outlined. Nevertheless, difficulties remain in assessing value, such as whether there is a positive value in vindictive punishment (as believers in hell must believe – and as Russell discussed and rejected in Chapter VII).
Intrinsic value seems to be attached to pleasure and to the understanding of that pleasure – what could be said to have intrinsic value in a world without sentience? [Russell here is reprising some of his thoughts from Chapter I.] So pleasure naturally presents itself as a gauge to intrinsic value. The claim that pleasure is good and pain bad – is that just another way of saying that “‘we like pleasure and dislike pain [p. 113]’”? Russell suggests that our notion that pleasure is good goes deeper. Desires of different people – to win a prize, for instance – can be at odds, so we can’t just say that things desired are inherently valuable. We can sidestep this problem by de-personalizing the situation. In that case, something (such as winning a prize) has intrinsic value if it is desired by the person who experiences it.
Russell explicitly rejects the idea that pleasure is good, but adopts it as a working hypothesis, on the grounds that a more exact rendering of the good does not add much in the way of understanding ethics. For civilized societies, Russell largely endorses Henry Sidgwick’s approach in Methods of Ethics, that the ethical rules (such as “don’t lie”) are consistent with the pleasure principle, as are the exceptions that we admit to those rules.
Blame and praise carry with them emotions and judgments. To find an act blameworthy is to disapprove of it, and to believe that the disapproval is proper. Or perhaps both elements are emotional, the disapproval as well as the approval of the disapproval. A person with different ethics might not agree that the act is blameworthy – but his view is just voicing an alternative emotion. When can a judgment be objectively “right”? Surely a “right” act should be one that typically meets with approval. Russell asserts (page 115) that most acts which garner approval share a common feature; further, approved acts that lack this feature eventually fall into disfavor. We ought to choose acts that are the most right.
Why did people in the Middle Ages approve of burning witches, while we do not? Because views towards the effects of actions have changed. We would still condemn witches if we thought their acts had the same ill effects previously attributed to them. “We are thus led to the conclusion that there is more agreement among mankind as to the effects at which we should aim than as to the kind of acts that are approved [p. 117].” Perhaps the broadest commonly desired effect – though not the exclusive one – is the promotion of pleasure. But Russell appends “intelligence and aesthetic sensibility [p. 117]” to other commonly-approved-of features: “If we were really persuaded that pigs are happier than human beings, we should not on that account welcome the ministrations of Circe [p. 117].” [Russell’s godfather, John Stuart Mill, in Chapter II of Utilitarianism, famously voiced a similar sentiment: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”] Nor is it the case that the value we put on activities directly reflects the pleasures that they bring.
So by this type of approach, we can say that a judgment of approval of an act that does not promote pleasure is a wrong judgment. Ethical statements can have an objective basis. Nevertheless, these objective truths are grounded in emotions and feelings: emotions are our basis for differentiating right from wrong, and feelings (of satisfaction) underpin our conceptions of the inherent values of acts.
Is the notion that cruelty is bad (or that the world is better if people are happy) just an opinion, no more ethically valid then the opposite assertion? Is what we call ethics simply our preferences, or is there some objective sense in which cruelty is ethically worse than kindness? Do ethical terms such as “ought” and “good” apply to people in general, or are they inextricably tied up with one person’s inclinations – in which case ethical disputes cannot be resolved through logical reasoning?
Russell defines a “good” act to be one that possesses “intrinsic value,” independently of its consequences. Further, for this approach to work, we have to be able to assess intrinsic value, to have an ethical intuition of what acts have (or don’t have) intrinsic values, as well as the magnitude of those values. Then, one “ought” to choose that act which, among the feasible alternatives, possesses the highest net intrinsic value – where we subtract the intrinsic disvalues from the intrinsic values of an act. Intrinsic value and intrinsic disvalue are measured in comparable units for Russell, so that an act has zero (net) intrinsic value if its intrinsic value equals its intrinsic disvalue. [More precisely, Russell states this proposition the other way around, where an intrinsic value equals an intrinsic disvalue if the act that brings both of these quantities into being has zero (net) value.]
Russell claims that “intrinsic value” assessments are subject to fewer disagreements than occur when starting with assertions about what ought to be done. Disagreements over what should be done usually can be traced to differentiated views of the likely consequences of actions – even when guides to behavior are stated in absolute terms, as with taboos. Any judgment of the ethical quality of an act based on its consequences will be akin to the net valuation approach Russell has outlined. Nevertheless, difficulties remain in assessing value, such as whether there is a positive value in vindictive punishment (as believers in hell must believe – and as Russell discussed and rejected in Chapter VII).
Intrinsic value seems to be attached to pleasure and to the understanding of that pleasure – what could be said to have intrinsic value in a world without sentience? [Russell here is reprising some of his thoughts from Chapter I.] So pleasure naturally presents itself as a gauge to intrinsic value. The claim that pleasure is good and pain bad – is that just another way of saying that “‘we like pleasure and dislike pain [p. 113]’”? Russell suggests that our notion that pleasure is good goes deeper. Desires of different people – to win a prize, for instance – can be at odds, so we can’t just say that things desired are inherently valuable. We can sidestep this problem by de-personalizing the situation. In that case, something (such as winning a prize) has intrinsic value if it is desired by the person who experiences it.
Russell explicitly rejects the idea that pleasure is good, but adopts it as a working hypothesis, on the grounds that a more exact rendering of the good does not add much in the way of understanding ethics. For civilized societies, Russell largely endorses Henry Sidgwick’s approach in Methods of Ethics, that the ethical rules (such as “don’t lie”) are consistent with the pleasure principle, as are the exceptions that we admit to those rules.
Blame and praise carry with them emotions and judgments. To find an act blameworthy is to disapprove of it, and to believe that the disapproval is proper. Or perhaps both elements are emotional, the disapproval as well as the approval of the disapproval. A person with different ethics might not agree that the act is blameworthy – but his view is just voicing an alternative emotion. When can a judgment be objectively “right”? Surely a “right” act should be one that typically meets with approval. Russell asserts (page 115) that most acts which garner approval share a common feature; further, approved acts that lack this feature eventually fall into disfavor. We ought to choose acts that are the most right.
Why did people in the Middle Ages approve of burning witches, while we do not? Because views towards the effects of actions have changed. We would still condemn witches if we thought their acts had the same ill effects previously attributed to them. “We are thus led to the conclusion that there is more agreement among mankind as to the effects at which we should aim than as to the kind of acts that are approved [p. 117].” Perhaps the broadest commonly desired effect – though not the exclusive one – is the promotion of pleasure. But Russell appends “intelligence and aesthetic sensibility [p. 117]” to other commonly-approved-of features: “If we were really persuaded that pigs are happier than human beings, we should not on that account welcome the ministrations of Circe [p. 117].” [Russell’s godfather, John Stuart Mill, in Chapter II of Utilitarianism, famously voiced a similar sentiment: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”] Nor is it the case that the value we put on activities directly reflects the pleasures that they bring.
So by this type of approach, we can say that a judgment of approval of an act that does not promote pleasure is a wrong judgment. Ethical statements can have an objective basis. Nevertheless, these objective truths are grounded in emotions and feelings: emotions are our basis for differentiating right from wrong, and feelings (of satisfaction) underpin our conceptions of the inherent values of acts.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter VIII
Chapter VIII (pages 100-109), “Ethical Controversy”
Does ethics have anything to offer in helping to decide which of two situations is desirable, when both sides have their champions?
Why might people (or groups) hold different opinions? First, they might have shared goals, but differ on the preferred means to achieve those goals. Second, one side, but not the other, might think that a course of action is evil, irrespective of consequences. Third, people might disagree about what ends to pursue. Many political issues are about ends – labor unions favor shorter work weeks, capital owners longer work weeks – but the public discussion will be undertaken under the pretense that the difference is about the means to achieve the highest productivity. When disputes really are about the best means to a shared goal, there is no ethical loading: the right answer is an empirical matter.
Disagreements about whether a course of action is evil cannot be settled via a logical proof. Nevertheless, Russell suggests that evidence of harmful consequences, or lack thereof, from a course of action should have some bearing upon opinion. The Amish think of buttons as evil, but careful historical evidence that no harm has been associated with button-wearing might, and ought to, shake that belief. Likewise, if an Amish person can demonstrate the harm of button-wearing, the rest of us should adopt the opinion that button-wearing is evil.
Nonetheless, Russell makes concessions to irrational beliefs or repugnance. If a person is repulsed by an objectively innocent act, then he would be distressed to witness the act. “If you had a guest who thought it wicked to play cards on Sunday, while the rest of the company had no such scruple, you would be guilty of unkindness if you ignored his feelings [p. 103].” So the belief that an act is wrong might render it wrong – if the rightness of acts is associated with satisfying desires, as Russell has stipulated.
Supporters of slavery in the US and of serfdom in Russia were incapable of seeing how the interests of slaves and serfs should matter. “In both countries, when men could no longer deny that the oppressed had the same capacity for joy and sorrow as their oppressors, the oppressive institution was abolished [p. 103].” The controversy over slavery and serfdom resulted from an empirical matter – the emotional lives of slaves and serfs – and that controversy ended when the empirical matter was resolved.
Other arguments for slavery are that it is essential, or that slaves are means not ends, unworthy of standing in the social cost-benefit calculus. Perhaps in the past slavery really was essential for civilization, but Russell explicitly rejects further pursuit of this topic. Slaveholders who treat slaves as means live in fear and adopt cruel tactics – they cannot achieve contentment or inner peace. The same fear, the same sacrifice of tranquility (and embrace, perhaps, of war and annihilation) is the lot of those who do not grant social standing to people of other nations, or ethnicities, or religions. You needn’t invoke ethics to make a case for treating others as ends in themselves – “enlightened self-interest [p. 106]” often will point you in the right direction. Paradoxically, in these matters of contempt and rivalry people are more persuaded to take socially useful acts by appealing to their altruistic side than to their self-interest: their judgment is so clouded that they will not be able to understand their own interest. [Russell here is very close to Adam Smith’s view in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Nationalism and faction, according to Smith (see Part VI, Chapter II, "Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our Beneficence"), generally corrupt our impartial spectator, the being we develop inside our breast whose lack of partiality to our own interests is our guide to proper behavior.]
The interests of different people, however, might generally conflict. I might be better off (and you worse off) if I can steal from you, though the opposite might be true if you can steal from me. (Russell is positing a sort of prisoners’ dilemma situation, where the general interest would be well-served by constraints against stealing that bind both of us.) “Law and government are institutions by which it is sought to bring the general interest to bear on the individual; so is public opinion in the form of praise and blame [p. 107].” As a result, in places with effective policing, most individuals see no gain from engaging in crime. But the international arena lacks police officers, so many people have difficulty seeing how restraining their behavior to avoid imposing on the rest of the world is beneficial.
“What a man will consider to constitute his happiness depends upon his passions, and these in turn depend upon his education and social circumstances as well as upon his congenital endowment [p. 107].” Young people can be led to develop interests that harmonize with social utility, and to behave as global citizens; the current practice is to indoctrinate the young to act in their nation’s interests. A world government could be established, with tremendous benefits to humanity, but it requires the solution to the prisoners’ dilemma played out among the powerful nations.
Russell concludes this chapter by returning to the difficulties of a Nietzschean scheme that openly promotes the interests of only a subset of humanity, the supermen. (See Chapter V.) This philosophy will be opposed by all who do not belong to the chosen group, though the oppressed might adopt the philosophy, with themselves as supermen, were they to become sufficiently powerful. “It is obvious that this doctrine of the supremacy of a section of mankind can only breed endless strife, with periodic changes as to which group is to be dominant [p. 108].” The current rulers will be cruel and fearful, like slaveholders. They will be miserable and eventually forcibly usurped – why would anyone choose to live in such a way?
Does ethics have anything to offer in helping to decide which of two situations is desirable, when both sides have their champions?
Why might people (or groups) hold different opinions? First, they might have shared goals, but differ on the preferred means to achieve those goals. Second, one side, but not the other, might think that a course of action is evil, irrespective of consequences. Third, people might disagree about what ends to pursue. Many political issues are about ends – labor unions favor shorter work weeks, capital owners longer work weeks – but the public discussion will be undertaken under the pretense that the difference is about the means to achieve the highest productivity. When disputes really are about the best means to a shared goal, there is no ethical loading: the right answer is an empirical matter.
Disagreements about whether a course of action is evil cannot be settled via a logical proof. Nevertheless, Russell suggests that evidence of harmful consequences, or lack thereof, from a course of action should have some bearing upon opinion. The Amish think of buttons as evil, but careful historical evidence that no harm has been associated with button-wearing might, and ought to, shake that belief. Likewise, if an Amish person can demonstrate the harm of button-wearing, the rest of us should adopt the opinion that button-wearing is evil.
Nonetheless, Russell makes concessions to irrational beliefs or repugnance. If a person is repulsed by an objectively innocent act, then he would be distressed to witness the act. “If you had a guest who thought it wicked to play cards on Sunday, while the rest of the company had no such scruple, you would be guilty of unkindness if you ignored his feelings [p. 103].” So the belief that an act is wrong might render it wrong – if the rightness of acts is associated with satisfying desires, as Russell has stipulated.
Supporters of slavery in the US and of serfdom in Russia were incapable of seeing how the interests of slaves and serfs should matter. “In both countries, when men could no longer deny that the oppressed had the same capacity for joy and sorrow as their oppressors, the oppressive institution was abolished [p. 103].” The controversy over slavery and serfdom resulted from an empirical matter – the emotional lives of slaves and serfs – and that controversy ended when the empirical matter was resolved.
Other arguments for slavery are that it is essential, or that slaves are means not ends, unworthy of standing in the social cost-benefit calculus. Perhaps in the past slavery really was essential for civilization, but Russell explicitly rejects further pursuit of this topic. Slaveholders who treat slaves as means live in fear and adopt cruel tactics – they cannot achieve contentment or inner peace. The same fear, the same sacrifice of tranquility (and embrace, perhaps, of war and annihilation) is the lot of those who do not grant social standing to people of other nations, or ethnicities, or religions. You needn’t invoke ethics to make a case for treating others as ends in themselves – “enlightened self-interest [p. 106]” often will point you in the right direction. Paradoxically, in these matters of contempt and rivalry people are more persuaded to take socially useful acts by appealing to their altruistic side than to their self-interest: their judgment is so clouded that they will not be able to understand their own interest. [Russell here is very close to Adam Smith’s view in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Nationalism and faction, according to Smith (see Part VI, Chapter II, "Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our Beneficence"), generally corrupt our impartial spectator, the being we develop inside our breast whose lack of partiality to our own interests is our guide to proper behavior.]
The interests of different people, however, might generally conflict. I might be better off (and you worse off) if I can steal from you, though the opposite might be true if you can steal from me. (Russell is positing a sort of prisoners’ dilemma situation, where the general interest would be well-served by constraints against stealing that bind both of us.) “Law and government are institutions by which it is sought to bring the general interest to bear on the individual; so is public opinion in the form of praise and blame [p. 107].” As a result, in places with effective policing, most individuals see no gain from engaging in crime. But the international arena lacks police officers, so many people have difficulty seeing how restraining their behavior to avoid imposing on the rest of the world is beneficial.
“What a man will consider to constitute his happiness depends upon his passions, and these in turn depend upon his education and social circumstances as well as upon his congenital endowment [p. 107].” Young people can be led to develop interests that harmonize with social utility, and to behave as global citizens; the current practice is to indoctrinate the young to act in their nation’s interests. A world government could be established, with tremendous benefits to humanity, but it requires the solution to the prisoners’ dilemma played out among the powerful nations.
Russell concludes this chapter by returning to the difficulties of a Nietzschean scheme that openly promotes the interests of only a subset of humanity, the supermen. (See Chapter V.) This philosophy will be opposed by all who do not belong to the chosen group, though the oppressed might adopt the philosophy, with themselves as supermen, were they to become sufficiently powerful. “It is obvious that this doctrine of the supremacy of a section of mankind can only breed endless strife, with periodic changes as to which group is to be dominant [p. 108].” The current rulers will be cruel and fearful, like slaveholders. They will be miserable and eventually forcibly usurped – why would anyone choose to live in such a way?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter VII
Chapter VII (pages 89-99), “Sin”
Even people who proclaim that they are liberated from all traditional sources of shame nevertheless probably do view some behaviors as sinful. The sense of shame is so universal that many people think it is innate, but Russell believes that it is instilled in youth by the threat of punishment or disapproval from respected authority figures. (Disobedience only feels shameful when it is directed against those who really are respected.) This early childhood experience of disapproval leaves a lasting legacy, a vague (or not so vague) sense of sin for acts committed in adulthood. Adults can even feel shame when the only person (or deity) who disapproves of an action is the actor himself. Historically, and today, sin is associated not with acts that harm others, but with acts that are perceived as taboo – and of course sin is a central element in Christian theology.
Even if sin is divorced from a religious context, and is viewed as an act against conscience as opposed to an act against the will of God, it generally is felt to merit punishment. Sometimes the punishment – including everlasting perdition – is seen as justifiable solely on grounds of retribution. Another view, however, is that punishment should be inflicted only to deter socially harmful acts. Further, retribution cannot be sensible if it is inflicted upon people whose choices are not the result of free will. But Russell’s approach to "free will" seems to equate it with a lack of any systematic tendencies in choice, so that standard incentives and disincentives would have unpredictable effects. “If free will were common, all social organization would be impossible, since there would be no way of influencing men’s actions [p. 97].”
The usual incentives and disincentives, including praise and blame, do make sense, however, if we reject the Russellian version of free will: then society can reliably direct behavior towards desirable ends. But the notion of sin does not add anything useful. Punishing sane people who murder has a deterrent effect. Criminally insane people cannot be deterred by the threat of execution, however, and hence it is useless to execute them. “Murder is punished, not because it is a sin and it is good that sinners should suffer, but because the community wishes to prevent it, and fear of punishment causes most people to abstain from it [p. 97].”
So the concept of sin is unnecessary or worse than unnecessary: it leads to cruelty towards others, “and a morbid self-abasement when it is ourselves whom we condemn [p. 98].” Punishment as retribution alone is an evil; punishment can be tolerated only on the grounds that it helps to reform or deter malefactors. If the public could be led permanently to believe that criminals were being imprisoned, when in fact they were being sent to live far away in idyllic circumstances, that would be better than actually inflicting punishment. A similar notion applies to the application of blame. That people strive to be praiseworthy and to avoid blame is useful to society. But once a person has done something blameworthy, the actual bestowal of blame has little to be said for it.
Even people who proclaim that they are liberated from all traditional sources of shame nevertheless probably do view some behaviors as sinful. The sense of shame is so universal that many people think it is innate, but Russell believes that it is instilled in youth by the threat of punishment or disapproval from respected authority figures. (Disobedience only feels shameful when it is directed against those who really are respected.) This early childhood experience of disapproval leaves a lasting legacy, a vague (or not so vague) sense of sin for acts committed in adulthood. Adults can even feel shame when the only person (or deity) who disapproves of an action is the actor himself. Historically, and today, sin is associated not with acts that harm others, but with acts that are perceived as taboo – and of course sin is a central element in Christian theology.
Even if sin is divorced from a religious context, and is viewed as an act against conscience as opposed to an act against the will of God, it generally is felt to merit punishment. Sometimes the punishment – including everlasting perdition – is seen as justifiable solely on grounds of retribution. Another view, however, is that punishment should be inflicted only to deter socially harmful acts. Further, retribution cannot be sensible if it is inflicted upon people whose choices are not the result of free will. But Russell’s approach to "free will" seems to equate it with a lack of any systematic tendencies in choice, so that standard incentives and disincentives would have unpredictable effects. “If free will were common, all social organization would be impossible, since there would be no way of influencing men’s actions [p. 97].”
The usual incentives and disincentives, including praise and blame, do make sense, however, if we reject the Russellian version of free will: then society can reliably direct behavior towards desirable ends. But the notion of sin does not add anything useful. Punishing sane people who murder has a deterrent effect. Criminally insane people cannot be deterred by the threat of execution, however, and hence it is useless to execute them. “Murder is punished, not because it is a sin and it is good that sinners should suffer, but because the community wishes to prevent it, and fear of punishment causes most people to abstain from it [p. 97].”
So the concept of sin is unnecessary or worse than unnecessary: it leads to cruelty towards others, “and a morbid self-abasement when it is ourselves whom we condemn [p. 98].” Punishment as retribution alone is an evil; punishment can be tolerated only on the grounds that it helps to reform or deter malefactors. If the public could be led permanently to believe that criminals were being imprisoned, when in fact they were being sent to live far away in idyllic circumstances, that would be better than actually inflicting punishment. A similar notion applies to the application of blame. That people strive to be praiseworthy and to avoid blame is useful to society. But once a person has done something blameworthy, the actual bestowal of blame has little to be said for it.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter VI
Chapter VI (pages 72-88), “Moral Obligation”
So far Russell has promulgated the debatable notion that people should choose in ways to promote the public good. But this principle provides little guidance to someone seeking knowledge of what acts to undertake. Of what, more precisely, does moral obligation consist?
It does not consist of obedience, to God’s will or to some mortal’s will. Even if God’s will is always right, our notion of right takes precedence: if God’s will required murder, it would not be right. That is, we cannot start by defining “right” as “God’s will” – nor can what we “ought” to do be defined by obedience to any divine or mortal will. A similar argument indicates that the approval of others or the approval of a specific person cannot be the rule for moral behavior.
But what about our individual consciences? Should a person “ought” to do what his or her own conscience recommends? The idea that this is a proper moral rule is not contradicted by the fact that different people have consciences that approve vastly different behaviors. Further, though I might prefer that someone’s conscience were different, I can’t convince him of the superiority of my view – conformity of his actions with his conscience is his only (and arguably proper) moral guide. Even if that guide leads to terrible consequences, what of it? Logic cannot overrule the moral appropriateness of obeying one’s own conscience, “for every man who follows his conscience is morally perfect [p. 76].” In fact, as habit tends to dull the pangs of conscience, this approach suggests that the longer you persist in doing sin, the more virtuous your behavior becomes.
In practice, how do people come to believe that certain behaviors are proper? The typical source is the approval or disapproval that various actions meet with in childhood, from parents and others. In adulthood, even if the sense of blame is dissipated, it leaves an impression. Young people also adjust their moral views to their environment. “The boy who has been taught at home that it is wicked to swear, easily loses this belief when he finds that the schoolfellows whom he most admires are addicted to blasphemy [p. 76].”
Nevertheless, moral views are not entirely dependent on praise and blame. People adopt moral views that go against the grain, and those views have some source. What is praised and what is blamed is not random, either. “It would seem that the moral qualities which are most actively admired are courage and self-sacrifice on behalf of one’s own group [p.78].” While the desire for praise and the avoidance of blame motivate much useful behavior, so do other emotions. Conscience is a sort of praise/blame calculus, but directed inward at contemplated actions – and the internal assessment might run afoul of the generally prevailing accounting. Someone who follows the dictates of his own conscience might be said to take subjectively proper actions, though those actions might not be objectively proper.
The problem of defining objectively correct behavior remains. Russell posits that objectively correct behavior is “that which best serves the interest of the group that is regarded as ethically dominant [p. 80].” But what group? (We might even want to take account of the interests of non-human animals.) There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason to prefer one group to another.
Russell returns to the reason for wanting to understand objectively correct behavior in the first place: to serve as a guide to such behavior. So the approach, to be helpful, should be capable of distinguishing correct from incorrect behavior, and provide some motive to take the preferred action.
A reflective person, seeking to find a rule for determining ethically proper actions, will realize that the rule cannot give himself or some group he belongs to a privileged position – unless the group is strong enough to dominate all others. But two different rules still suggest themselves: (1) Every person should pursue his own good; or (2) every person should pursue the general good. (Recall that Russell has defined “good” as satisfying a desire.) If my most intense selfish preference is to promote the general good, then the two rules produce identical results -- likewise, if my selfish preference doesn’t refer directly to the general good, but nevertheless leads to acts that simultaneously serve the public interest.
Can we differentiate good from bad desires, without asking what the likely consequences are of acting upon those desires? Russell suggests that the reason we think more highly of love than of hate as a motivation is because of the consequences that tend to stem from actions motivated from those two emotions. Any rule of behavior that we support through ethical intuition is one that also leads to desirable consequences. We do not need ethical intuition: we can generate guidance for actions simply by following the principle that it is objectively right to act to promote the general good.
People will pursue their own good. How can it be that telling them to pursue the general good will actually provide them with motivation to do so? Of course, the carrots and sticks of law and society can be used to align individual and social incentives. But of the many possible desires that I might hold, some of them intrinsically are more in line with the social good than are others. These desires might be considered “good” or “right,” and are worthy of “more moral respect than those [desires] that run counter to the general interests of the community [p. 85].”
A possible rule that indicates moral correctness cannot involve a specific individual. Even if that person is all wise, the rule needn’t name him: the rule could be to follow the all-wise individual, who might be someone else tomorrow. Alternatively, perhaps we ought to like one type of person and hate another type. Then, satisfaction of the desires of those whom we hate would not be good. One reason to reject this approach is consequential: hate will breed hate. In addition, we might possess an emotional commitment to neutrality or universal benevolence. Still, in searching for a rule of moral obligation, the dividing up of mankind into a good group and a bad group cannot be ruled out on logical grounds.
Russell concludes the chapter with a summary (pages 87-88), and I for one am glad, because I found the chapter itself to be nonlinear and hard to follow. What to make of the notion, “’A right act is one which aims at the greatest possible satisfaction of the desires of sentient beings [p. 88]’”? By this statement, Russell intends to imply that (1) he experiences a feeling of emotional approval of such acts; (2) he has an emotional commitment to equality such that the desires of every person count the same; (3) his approach could be universally adopted, which non-egalitarian alternatives would have a hard time with; and (4) he would like his view to be adopted by everyone. Russell postpones discussing whether ethical argument admits an impersonal standard of truth.
So far Russell has promulgated the debatable notion that people should choose in ways to promote the public good. But this principle provides little guidance to someone seeking knowledge of what acts to undertake. Of what, more precisely, does moral obligation consist?
It does not consist of obedience, to God’s will or to some mortal’s will. Even if God’s will is always right, our notion of right takes precedence: if God’s will required murder, it would not be right. That is, we cannot start by defining “right” as “God’s will” – nor can what we “ought” to do be defined by obedience to any divine or mortal will. A similar argument indicates that the approval of others or the approval of a specific person cannot be the rule for moral behavior.
But what about our individual consciences? Should a person “ought” to do what his or her own conscience recommends? The idea that this is a proper moral rule is not contradicted by the fact that different people have consciences that approve vastly different behaviors. Further, though I might prefer that someone’s conscience were different, I can’t convince him of the superiority of my view – conformity of his actions with his conscience is his only (and arguably proper) moral guide. Even if that guide leads to terrible consequences, what of it? Logic cannot overrule the moral appropriateness of obeying one’s own conscience, “for every man who follows his conscience is morally perfect [p. 76].” In fact, as habit tends to dull the pangs of conscience, this approach suggests that the longer you persist in doing sin, the more virtuous your behavior becomes.
In practice, how do people come to believe that certain behaviors are proper? The typical source is the approval or disapproval that various actions meet with in childhood, from parents and others. In adulthood, even if the sense of blame is dissipated, it leaves an impression. Young people also adjust their moral views to their environment. “The boy who has been taught at home that it is wicked to swear, easily loses this belief when he finds that the schoolfellows whom he most admires are addicted to blasphemy [p. 76].”
Nevertheless, moral views are not entirely dependent on praise and blame. People adopt moral views that go against the grain, and those views have some source. What is praised and what is blamed is not random, either. “It would seem that the moral qualities which are most actively admired are courage and self-sacrifice on behalf of one’s own group [p.78].” While the desire for praise and the avoidance of blame motivate much useful behavior, so do other emotions. Conscience is a sort of praise/blame calculus, but directed inward at contemplated actions – and the internal assessment might run afoul of the generally prevailing accounting. Someone who follows the dictates of his own conscience might be said to take subjectively proper actions, though those actions might not be objectively proper.
The problem of defining objectively correct behavior remains. Russell posits that objectively correct behavior is “that which best serves the interest of the group that is regarded as ethically dominant [p. 80].” But what group? (We might even want to take account of the interests of non-human animals.) There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason to prefer one group to another.
Russell returns to the reason for wanting to understand objectively correct behavior in the first place: to serve as a guide to such behavior. So the approach, to be helpful, should be capable of distinguishing correct from incorrect behavior, and provide some motive to take the preferred action.
A reflective person, seeking to find a rule for determining ethically proper actions, will realize that the rule cannot give himself or some group he belongs to a privileged position – unless the group is strong enough to dominate all others. But two different rules still suggest themselves: (1) Every person should pursue his own good; or (2) every person should pursue the general good. (Recall that Russell has defined “good” as satisfying a desire.) If my most intense selfish preference is to promote the general good, then the two rules produce identical results -- likewise, if my selfish preference doesn’t refer directly to the general good, but nevertheless leads to acts that simultaneously serve the public interest.
Can we differentiate good from bad desires, without asking what the likely consequences are of acting upon those desires? Russell suggests that the reason we think more highly of love than of hate as a motivation is because of the consequences that tend to stem from actions motivated from those two emotions. Any rule of behavior that we support through ethical intuition is one that also leads to desirable consequences. We do not need ethical intuition: we can generate guidance for actions simply by following the principle that it is objectively right to act to promote the general good.
People will pursue their own good. How can it be that telling them to pursue the general good will actually provide them with motivation to do so? Of course, the carrots and sticks of law and society can be used to align individual and social incentives. But of the many possible desires that I might hold, some of them intrinsically are more in line with the social good than are others. These desires might be considered “good” or “right,” and are worthy of “more moral respect than those [desires] that run counter to the general interests of the community [p. 85].”
A possible rule that indicates moral correctness cannot involve a specific individual. Even if that person is all wise, the rule needn’t name him: the rule could be to follow the all-wise individual, who might be someone else tomorrow. Alternatively, perhaps we ought to like one type of person and hate another type. Then, satisfaction of the desires of those whom we hate would not be good. One reason to reject this approach is consequential: hate will breed hate. In addition, we might possess an emotional commitment to neutrality or universal benevolence. Still, in searching for a rule of moral obligation, the dividing up of mankind into a good group and a bad group cannot be ruled out on logical grounds.
Russell concludes the chapter with a summary (pages 87-88), and I for one am glad, because I found the chapter itself to be nonlinear and hard to follow. What to make of the notion, “’A right act is one which aims at the greatest possible satisfaction of the desires of sentient beings [p. 88]’”? By this statement, Russell intends to imply that (1) he experiences a feeling of emotional approval of such acts; (2) he has an emotional commitment to equality such that the desires of every person count the same; (3) his approach could be universally adopted, which non-egalitarian alternatives would have a hard time with; and (4) he would like his view to be adopted by everyone. Russell postpones discussing whether ethical argument admits an impersonal standard of truth.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, Chapter V
Chapter V (pages 60-71), “Partial and General Goods”
The general good is the overall satisfaction of desires in a society. In a competition for a political post, only one candidate will win, so his satisfaction (and his supporters’) comes at the expense of the satisfaction of the opposed party. This is inevitable – laws and ethics can mitigate such conflicts, but not eliminate them.
Love your neighbor-type precepts aim to make individuals care about the general good; nationalism tends to restrict the society whose interests you want to promote to be that of your country, and racism to those who share your race. Class connections, whether aristocratic or proletarian, also can serve as the border for whose preferences are deemed worthy of regard. Some philosophers limit the in-group still further, to family, perhaps, or even, in the case of psychological hedonists, oneself. This latter group (the psychological hedonists), which includes the early utilitarians, believes that people necessarily choose to promote their own interests or pleasure, so that it is society’s duty to make those interests coincide as closely as possible to the public good – perhaps even invoking divine rewards and punishments for the purpose.
People do not desire only their own pleasure, however, though it is easy to think they do, since people enjoy meeting their desires and the pleasure they take from preference satisfaction can be mistaken for the object of their behavior. The desire for food, which all humans and animals have, can be distinguished from the desire for the pleasure of food that gourmands display.
The pleasure of satisfying a desire comes in two forms; one form arises simply from meeting your goal, while the second is the pleasure that inheres in the goal itself. “If you chase round the town in search of oranges, and at last obtain some, you have not only the pleasure that the oranges would have given you if you had obtained them without difficulty, but also the pleasure of success [p. 63].”
People desire things beyond their own pleasure; further, they often desire things beyond their own lifetime, beyond their own capacity for pleasure, such as the future prosperity of their family or friends. (Russell echoes (page 64) his thoughts in The Conquest of Happiness by noting how a zest for life can be maintained into old age through broad interests.) To some extent this is the common condition: most people on the brink of death would be rendered still more unhappy if they learned that mankind would shortly annihilate itself in a nuclear catastrophe. Interests beyond one’s own pleasure can lack compossibility just as much as hedonistic interests can. People who desire that the whole world share their religion will find little fellow-feeling on that score with people who actually do feel similarly, but are of a different religion.
What positions can be adopted by people who have a limited view of what group’s interests are to be served, whether that group be religious or national or class-based or whatever? How can they justify ignoring the preferences of the rest of humanity? One possibility is to believe that the interests of all of mankind are indeed equivalent to the interests of the chosen group, even though those outside the group do not understand this. (Russell subsequently (p. 65) terms this position “enlightened imperialism.”) Second, a person might believe that the preferred group possesses a special quality that gives them standing, while people outside the group can be used as means to serving the ends of the special ones. Third, a person might believe that all groups have standing, but that it is admissible for a member of a group to advocate only for his group’s interests, that is, to be openly biased, and to contend with the advocates of other groups.
The ancient Greeks and Romans were enlightened imperialists, believing that their way of life was better than those of the barbarians they conquered. Christians and Muslims feel similarly, as did many proponents of the British Empire. Hegel and Marx both provide theoretical underpinnings for related views, where selected nations or classes are vehicles of global progress.
The second belief, that the interests of those outside the chosen group do not have any ethical standing, is the way most people feel about animals, which serve either as means to human ends or as obstacles to be overcome. With respect to humans, the theory of Christianity argues for good treatment of all people, though Christianity in practice generally falls short of this ideal. White men in North America have not regarded the interests of blacks or Native Americans as worthy of much respect -- a view now in decline. Nietzsche is a spokesperson for the idea that the mass of humanity is unimportant, and should be enlisted to serve the purposes of the handful of enlightened people. Who is enlightened? Here, Nietzsche’s approach is less obvious than that of those who use race or nationality or class to distinguish the chosen few; it seems to come down to people “whom Nietzsche admires [p. 68].” One could imagine, however, a more precise Nietzschean standard, based, for instance, on an IQ threshold.
The third view, that one should advocate for one's own group even while recognizing that the interests of others have more or less equal ethical weight, is quite commonly held. In matters of foreign relations and war, for instance, it is thought right that people should serve their own government’s policy – even if it is a bad policy when the interests of the world at large are considered. People often do not respect traitors from enemy countries, though those traitors might be betraying an evil government, one that has earned betrayal. Similarly, people can be sympathetic towards those who serve their family’s interest at society’s expense. This third view separates the general good from a view of “right” conduct: behavior can be considered “right” even when it is not “good,” that is, when the behavior does not promote the interests of people overall. There is a certain fragility to this approach, since once it is accepted that all groups have ethical standing, there isn’t a strong argument for choosing to ignore the interests of other groups in evaluating the propriety of your own conduct, or for selecting one partition of people into groups over another.
The three views outlined above, in which only the interests of a specific sub-group of humanity are directly attended to, are not very compelling. There is no theoretical reason to believe that enlightened imperialism really does serve the long-term interests of the unenlightened: it is an empirical matter. The Nietzschean approach presents the prickly problem of identifying the supermen. “In practice, vanity and conceit furnish the definition: I am, of course, a superman, and I must admit enough people of approximately equal merit to give the group a chance of surviving the indignation and ridicule of the rest [p. 70].” The idea that one should work exclusively for one’s own group has practical utility, as I am better informed about, and more able to promote, the interests of my group than the interests of distant others. Nevertheless, ignoring foreign countries, as the world becomes more interconnected, can lead to acts that impose much suffering elsewhere. The principle of promoting the general good seems to survive the challenge posed by alternatives that focus on the interests of specific subgroups of humanity.
The general good is the overall satisfaction of desires in a society. In a competition for a political post, only one candidate will win, so his satisfaction (and his supporters’) comes at the expense of the satisfaction of the opposed party. This is inevitable – laws and ethics can mitigate such conflicts, but not eliminate them.
Love your neighbor-type precepts aim to make individuals care about the general good; nationalism tends to restrict the society whose interests you want to promote to be that of your country, and racism to those who share your race. Class connections, whether aristocratic or proletarian, also can serve as the border for whose preferences are deemed worthy of regard. Some philosophers limit the in-group still further, to family, perhaps, or even, in the case of psychological hedonists, oneself. This latter group (the psychological hedonists), which includes the early utilitarians, believes that people necessarily choose to promote their own interests or pleasure, so that it is society’s duty to make those interests coincide as closely as possible to the public good – perhaps even invoking divine rewards and punishments for the purpose.
People do not desire only their own pleasure, however, though it is easy to think they do, since people enjoy meeting their desires and the pleasure they take from preference satisfaction can be mistaken for the object of their behavior. The desire for food, which all humans and animals have, can be distinguished from the desire for the pleasure of food that gourmands display.
The pleasure of satisfying a desire comes in two forms; one form arises simply from meeting your goal, while the second is the pleasure that inheres in the goal itself. “If you chase round the town in search of oranges, and at last obtain some, you have not only the pleasure that the oranges would have given you if you had obtained them without difficulty, but also the pleasure of success [p. 63].”
People desire things beyond their own pleasure; further, they often desire things beyond their own lifetime, beyond their own capacity for pleasure, such as the future prosperity of their family or friends. (Russell echoes (page 64) his thoughts in The Conquest of Happiness by noting how a zest for life can be maintained into old age through broad interests.) To some extent this is the common condition: most people on the brink of death would be rendered still more unhappy if they learned that mankind would shortly annihilate itself in a nuclear catastrophe. Interests beyond one’s own pleasure can lack compossibility just as much as hedonistic interests can. People who desire that the whole world share their religion will find little fellow-feeling on that score with people who actually do feel similarly, but are of a different religion.
What positions can be adopted by people who have a limited view of what group’s interests are to be served, whether that group be religious or national or class-based or whatever? How can they justify ignoring the preferences of the rest of humanity? One possibility is to believe that the interests of all of mankind are indeed equivalent to the interests of the chosen group, even though those outside the group do not understand this. (Russell subsequently (p. 65) terms this position “enlightened imperialism.”) Second, a person might believe that the preferred group possesses a special quality that gives them standing, while people outside the group can be used as means to serving the ends of the special ones. Third, a person might believe that all groups have standing, but that it is admissible for a member of a group to advocate only for his group’s interests, that is, to be openly biased, and to contend with the advocates of other groups.
The ancient Greeks and Romans were enlightened imperialists, believing that their way of life was better than those of the barbarians they conquered. Christians and Muslims feel similarly, as did many proponents of the British Empire. Hegel and Marx both provide theoretical underpinnings for related views, where selected nations or classes are vehicles of global progress.
The second belief, that the interests of those outside the chosen group do not have any ethical standing, is the way most people feel about animals, which serve either as means to human ends or as obstacles to be overcome. With respect to humans, the theory of Christianity argues for good treatment of all people, though Christianity in practice generally falls short of this ideal. White men in North America have not regarded the interests of blacks or Native Americans as worthy of much respect -- a view now in decline. Nietzsche is a spokesperson for the idea that the mass of humanity is unimportant, and should be enlisted to serve the purposes of the handful of enlightened people. Who is enlightened? Here, Nietzsche’s approach is less obvious than that of those who use race or nationality or class to distinguish the chosen few; it seems to come down to people “whom Nietzsche admires [p. 68].” One could imagine, however, a more precise Nietzschean standard, based, for instance, on an IQ threshold.
The third view, that one should advocate for one's own group even while recognizing that the interests of others have more or less equal ethical weight, is quite commonly held. In matters of foreign relations and war, for instance, it is thought right that people should serve their own government’s policy – even if it is a bad policy when the interests of the world at large are considered. People often do not respect traitors from enemy countries, though those traitors might be betraying an evil government, one that has earned betrayal. Similarly, people can be sympathetic towards those who serve their family’s interest at society’s expense. This third view separates the general good from a view of “right” conduct: behavior can be considered “right” even when it is not “good,” that is, when the behavior does not promote the interests of people overall. There is a certain fragility to this approach, since once it is accepted that all groups have ethical standing, there isn’t a strong argument for choosing to ignore the interests of other groups in evaluating the propriety of your own conduct, or for selecting one partition of people into groups over another.
The three views outlined above, in which only the interests of a specific sub-group of humanity are directly attended to, are not very compelling. There is no theoretical reason to believe that enlightened imperialism really does serve the long-term interests of the unenlightened: it is an empirical matter. The Nietzschean approach presents the prickly problem of identifying the supermen. “In practice, vanity and conceit furnish the definition: I am, of course, a superman, and I must admit enough people of approximately equal merit to give the group a chance of surviving the indignation and ridicule of the rest [p. 70].” The idea that one should work exclusively for one’s own group has practical utility, as I am better informed about, and more able to promote, the interests of my group than the interests of distant others. Nevertheless, ignoring foreign countries, as the world becomes more interconnected, can lead to acts that impose much suffering elsewhere. The principle of promoting the general good seems to survive the challenge posed by alternatives that focus on the interests of specific subgroups of humanity.
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