Neo-Aristotilean (contemporary moral philosophy) centers on three things: 1. A rejection of traditional enlightenment moral theories like Kantianism and utilitarianism 2. A claim that another look at the ethical concerns and projects of ancient Greek thought might help us past the impasse into which enlightenment moral theories have left us 3. More particularly, an attempt to reinterpret Aristotle s ethical work for the late twentieth century so as to transcend this impasse. Lecture 21 - Justice, Community, and Membership Kant s reply to Aristotle It s one thing to support a fair-framework of rights, within which people can pursue their own conceptions of the good life. It s something else, that runs the risk of coercion, to base law or any particular conception of the good life. Aristotle: In order to investigate the ideal constitution, we have first to figure out the best way to live. Kant: Constitutions and laws and rights should not embody, or affirm, or promote any particular way of life. That s at odds with freedom. Aristotle: The whole purpose of the polis is to shape character, to cultivate the virtue of citizens, to inculcate civic excellence, to make possible a good way of life. Kant: The purpose of law, the purpose of a constitution, is not to inculcate or to promote virtue. It s to set up a fair framework of rights within which citizens may be free to pursue their own conceptions of the good for themselves. Underlying these differences are two different accounts of what it means to be a free person. For Aristotle: We re free as long as we have the capacity to realize our potential. That leads us to the question of fit (fit between persons and the roles that are appropriate to them.) For Kant: Freedom is the ability to act autonomously. As free person, we aren t responsible for any traditions or history that we haven t chosen for ourselves. We re unbound to any moral ties prior to our choosing them. We are the authors of the only obligations that constrain us.
The communitarian critics* of Kantian and Rawlsian liberalism acknowledge that there is something powerful and inspiring in that account of freedom, but they argue that it misses something. It misses a whole dimension of moral life and even political life. It can t account for certain moral and political obligations that we commonly recognize and even prize. These include obligations of: membership, loyalty, solidarity, and other moral reasons that we can t trace to an act of consent. * http://www.luc.edu/faculty/twren/phil389&elps423/lib-com-article.htm Alasdair MacIntyre gives an account, a narrative conception of the self. What has this to do with community and belonging? Alasdair MacIntyre: Once you accept this narrative concept of moral reflection, you will notice that we can never seek for the good or exercise the virtues only qua (as) individual... NARRATIVE CONCEPTION (picture of the encumbered self): we all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity. I am someone s son or daughter, a citizen of this or that city. I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation. Hence, what is good for me has to be the good for someone who inhabits these roles. I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation a variety of debts, inheritances, expectations and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point. This is, in part, what gives my life its moral particularity. It s a conception of the self that sees the self as claimed or encumbered, at least to some extent, by the history the tradition or communities of which it is a part. The Narrative Concept of Self is at odds with individualism - which says, I am what I myself choose to be. But this ignores collective responsibility. All of these attitudes, that amount to historical amnesia (e.g., 21 C. whites to slavery, young Germans to the Holocaust), amount to a kind of moral abdication. Once you see that who we are, and what it means to sort out our obligations, can t be separated and shouldn t be separated from the life histories that define us.
The two different accounts of moral and political obligation that arise depending on which accounting of the person one accepts. Liberal Conception (Rawls) - moral and political obligations arise in one of two ways: 1. There are natural duties that we owe human beings, as such, duties for respect to persons qua (as) persons. These obligations are universal. 2. There are voluntary obligations, obligations that we owe to particular others, in so far, as we have agreed (whether through a promise, or a deal, or a contract). Communitarian Conception (MacIntyre) - Says there is another category, in addition to the Liberal View. 1. 2. 3. Obligations of solidarity, or loyalty, or membership. Construing all obligations as either natural duties or voluntary obligations, fails to capture obligations of either membership or solidarity. Loyalties whose moral force consists partly in the fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are. a.examples of obligations of membership that are particular, but don t necessarily flow from consent, but rather from membership, narrative, one s situation.community. i. Family - parents and children - saving one s child or parent over a stranger s ii. Religious Connection - Airlift rescue of Ethiopean Jews from drought by the Israelis. iii.national Patriotism - Franklin, TX Franklin, Mexico - US citizens support only those in Franklin, TX What about competing obligations? Universal obligation first Particular obligation then up to universals. The narrative of citizenship is a constructed one and false. Lottery of birth put me into the USA Sentimental/emotional attachment vs. moral obligation
SELF-TEST QUESTION 1 Which of the following best captures Kant s critique of Aristotle? a) It is a mistake to support a fair framework of rights within which people can pursue their own conceptions of the good life.b) It is a mistake to try to figure out what justice comes to.c) It is a mistake to base law or principles of justice on any one particular conception of the good life. d) All of the above.e) None of the above. QUESTION 2 Based on the lecture presentation, which of the following best captures what Alasdair MacIntyre calls the narrative conception of the self? a) "I am what I myself choose to be."b) "I cannot be held responsible for what my father did, unless I choose to assume such responsibility."c) "I cannot be held responsible for what my country does or has done in the past, unless I choose to assume such responsibility."d) "The self is encumbered, at least to some extent, by the history, the tradition, the communities of which it is a part. We cannot make sense of our lives, as a moral matter, in thinking what we ought to do without attending to these features about us." e) All of the above. QUESTION 3 According to the communitarian, there are not only natural duties (owed to all human beings as human beings) and voluntary obligations (incurred by voluntary consent (e.g. a promise) and owed to a particular person or a particular group of persons) but also obligations of solidarity/loyalty/membership. Which of the following, according to the communitarian, are true of these obligations of solidarity/loyalty/ membership? a) Their moral force consists partly in the fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are.b) They cannot be traced to an act of consent.c) They are owed to a particular person or a particular group of persons (but not to all human beings as human beings).d) All of the above. e) None of the above. Lecture 22 - Dilemmas of Loyalty 1. Consider strong objections to whether there are obligations of membership or solidarity. 2. Then, can those objections be met? Student objections from last lecture: If obligations flow from community membership, and I belong to several communities, won t there be conflictions? The examples of parents and children or the French resistance fighter refusing to bomb his own village, are pointing to matters of emotion and sentiment not true moral obligation. Patriotism understood as an obligation of membership, or solidarity beyond consent. Rawls says, It s one thing if someone runs for office or enlists in the army. They re making a voluntary choice. There is no particular obligations, strictly speaking, for citizens generally. Because it s not clear what is the requisite binding action and who has performed it. A case where loyalty outweighs the universal principles of justice will prove patriotism as an obligation of membership is wrong.
I wouldn t turn in my room mate, if I caught him/her cheating. Billy Bulger, politician, has a brother Whitey Bulger. When Billy Bulger before the Grand Jury, he refused to give info on him. Robert E. Lee on the Union side, opposed cessation. Upon being offered the commanding Generalship of the Union army, he said: The Communitarian would say there is something admirable in that. We can t make sense of Lee s dilemma, as a moral dilemma, unless we acknowledge that his claim of loyalty, arising from his sense of narrative, is a moral and not just sentimental tug. It s perfectly possible to accept obligations to one s family or country, provided honoring those obligations doesn t require you to violate any of the natural duties (requirements of universal respect - i.e., for person qua (as) persons). No injustices, and acknowledging and within the framework of universal duties. Obligations of membership are really collective selfishness, why should we honor them. It s really a kind of prejudice. One of the worries underlying these multiple objections to the idea of loyalty or membership having independent moral weight, is that it seems to argue that there is no way to finding principles of justice that are detached from conceptions of the good life, as they may be lived in any particular community. Communitarian Argument Suppose the priority of the right over the good can t be sustained? Suppose, instead, that justice and rights, unavoidably, are bound up with conceptions of the good. Does that mean that justice is a creature of convention, of the values that happen to prevail in any community at any given time? Communitarian Critic - Michael Walzer believes that justice is a matter of faithfulness or fidelity to the shared understanding, or conventions that prevail in any society, at any given time.
SELF-TEST Eyes on the Prize - video clip of 1950s southern Americans. Situated American southerners who believe in the shared understanding of segregation. They make arguments tying justice to shared loyalty and tradition in any given society. QUESTION 1 According to Kantian/Rawlsian liberalism, one's loyalty to country... a)... is a vice to be overcome.b)... cannot trump natural duties owed to all human beings as human beings. c)... always trumps natural duties owed to all human beings as human beings.d)... cannot be conceived of in terms of liberal ideas of consent and reciprocity.e) All of the above. QUESTION 2 How would a communitarian, such as MacIntyre or Sandel, respond to the claim that our loyalties to family and country are contingent attachments that should carry no moral weight? a) They may be contingent, but people tend to care a lot about them, which indicates their moral worth.b) Although I inherit my family and country by chance, such loyalties are parts of a meaningful narrative and, in this sense, not contingent. c) We ought always to follow such loyalties, even if it means committing injustices.d) Although we should consider such loyalties when judging how to act in our private lives, such loyalties should not ground political obligation.e) Insofar as such attachments have desirable political effects, they carry moral weight. QUESTION 3 According to the communitarian, Robert E. Lee's loyalty to Virginia is best understood as... a)... a sentiment that has nothing to do with morality.b)... a moral obligation of membership/ loyalty/solidarity. c)... a natural universal duty to humanity.d) All of the above.e) None of the above. Lecture 23 - Debating Same-Sex Marriage The southern segregationists in the video Eyes on the Prize spoke of their traditions and the narrative of their lives needing protection (i.e., segregation). Is this a fatal idea to the notion to the narrative conception of the self? Defending the narrative conception of the person as opposed to the Kant and Rawls conception - to defend that there are obligations of solidarity and membership. Then, there being such obligations lends force to the idea that arguments about justice can t be detached, after all, from questions of the good. Two different ways in which justice might be tied to the good, and argue for one of them: 1.Montesquieu gives us the most honest account of where the relentless universalizing tendency (of duties we have to human beings, as such)
leads the moral imagination. If our encompassing loyalty should always take precedence over the particular, then the distinction between friends and strangers should ideally be overcome. Our concern for our friends over strangers would be a kind of prejudice, a measure of our distance from our concern for the universal. a. Such world would be difficult to recognize as a human world. b. It reflects the fact that we learn to love humanity, not in general,but through its particular expressions. What are its consequences for justice? How is justice tied to the good? Relativists - To think about rights, to think about justice, look to the values that happen to prevail in any given community at any given time. Don t judge them by some outside standard, but instead, conceive justice as being faithful to the shared understandings of a particular tradition. Problem - it makes justice wholly conventional, a product of circumstance. And this deprives justice of its critical character. Non-relativists - Principles of justice depend for their justification on, not on the values that happen to prevail at any given moment in a certain place, but instead on the moral worth or the intrinsic good of the ends rights serve. The case for recognizing a right depends on showing that it honors or advances some important human good. This is not strictly speaking Communitarian, if by Communitarian you mean just giving over to a particular community the definition of justice. The challenge here is, how can we reason about the good? People hold different opinions about the good. Is it necessary, when arguing about justice to argue about the good? Sandel says, Yes. To prove this he starts a discussion on same-sex marriage, because it draws on deeply contested ideals, morally and religiously. The question is: Is there a way for society as a whole to sort out this issue without passing judgment on these moral or religious questions (about the moral possibility of homosexuality, about the proper ends of marriage as a social institution), so that the state can recognize same-sex marriage.
SELF-TEST Christian argument - sex is for procreation and the union of man and woman. Response: Do you masterbate? Response: Should the state be involved in me marrying myself? The state shouldn t be in the business of recognizing, or honoring, or affirming any particular telos or purpose of marriage or of human sexuality. So maybe the state should get out of the business of recognizing marriage at all. Question: Unless you adopt the position of no state recognition of marriage, is it possible to decide the question of same-sex marriage without taking a stand on the moral and religious issues over the proper telos of marriage? QUESTION 1 Which of the following capture Professor Sandel's understanding of the link between justice and the good? a) Professor Sandel rejects the idea that there is a link between justice and the good.b) Reasoning about the good/ about purposes and ends is an unavoidable feature of arguing about justice. c) The conception of the good that happens to prevail in a given society at a given time should determine justice and people s rights.d) Principles of justice depend for their justification on the moral worth or the instrinsic good of the ends rights serve.e) b) and d). QUESTION 2 According to Professor Sandel, the same-sex marriage debate connects to Aristotle s theory of distributive justice in which of the following ways: a) The debate typically involves teleological reasoning.b) The debate highlights the honorific dimension of justice.c) To defend same-sex marriage is to take a stand on the good of marriage.d) All of the above. e) None of the above. QUESTION 3 Which of the following positions on same-sex marriage is consistent with the priority of the right over the good? a) Insofar as same-sex couples and traditional couples are equally capable of realizing loving and committed relationships, they should both be granted marriages.b) The state should leave the distribution of marriages to the private sphere so as not to incite controversial religious debates. c) The political community should grant marriages to all couples who plan to realize the virtue
of child rearing.d) So long as the state grants identical legal rights to same-sex couples and heterosexual couples, the state may promote the worth of heterosexual relationships by reserving for them alone the title of marriage.e) (b) and (d).