Does Philosophy Matter? (Part 2)

A belief in moralabsolutes, as anabstract position,affirms noparticular moralabsolute.

AUGUST 8, 2011, 8:45 PM

Does Philosophy Matter? (Part Two)

By STANLEY FISH

Stanley Fish on education, law and society.

Tags:

moral relativism, Philosopher’s Brief, Philosophy, religion, Supreme Court, Tea Party

Some of the readers who were not persuaded by my argument that abstract moralpropositions do not travel into practical contexts (see, “Does Philosophy Matter?”) offerwhat they take to be obvious counterexamples. Joe (187) cites “the ‘Philosophers’ Brief’on assisted suicide that was submitted to the Supreme Court.” The example, however,counts for my side.

The brief was written by Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel,Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon and JudithJarvis Thomson (an all-star roster if there ever was one). Itargues against a Washington state law prohibiting assistedsuicide. The philosophers hope to persuade the Court tostrike down the law by invoking a “liberty interest” all menand women have in making their own “personal decisions”about the “most intimate … choices a person may make in a lifetime” including thechoice to die. “Death is, for each of us, among the most significant events of life.”

The Court alludes to this argument in passing when it acknowledges that the “decision tocommit suicide with the assistance of another” may be “personal and profound.” Thepoint, however, is summarily dismissed in the same sentence: “but it has never enjoyed …legal protection” (Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997). That is to say, while “abstractconcepts of personal autonomy” (the Court’s phrase) may be interesting, they are notcurrency here in the world of legal deliberation. What is currency is the line of decisionspreceding this one: “The history of the law’s treatment of assisted suicide in this countryhas been and continues to be the rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it.” Case closed.The editors of a leading jurisprudence casebook observe that “The Philosophers’ Briefarguments about autonomy seem not to have influenced the Supreme Court at all”(Jurisprudence Classic and Contemporary, 2002). Why should it have? The Court isn’t

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doing philosophy, it is doing law. Grand philosophical statements may turn up in aSupreme Court opinion, but they are not doing the real work.

But what if a lawyer or a judge was a devout Christian or a Hasidic Jew or a follower ofthe Koran? Would that change things? It well might, for it is a feature of religious tenets(at least with respect to some religions) that they demand fidelity to their commands notmerely on holidays or in houses of worship, but at all times and in all places. Believers,Marie Burns (1) observes, do rely on their religion “to determine their views on a varietyof subjects.” Many people, An Ordinary American (140) reminds us, when asked why doyou do this, would reply, “This is what my religion teaches me to do.”

The question is whether religion should be considered philosophy. For a long time, ofcourse, philosophy was included under religion’s umbrella, not in the modern sense thatleads to courses like “The Philosophy of Religion,” but in the deeper sense in whichreligious doctrines are accepted as foundational and philosophy proceeds within them.But for contemporary philosophers religious doctrines are not part of the enterprise but athreat to it. The spirit is as Andrew Tyler (38) describes it: “to be skeptical, critical andindependent so that you’re not so easily duped and frightened into submission byreligious dogma.” Courses in the philosophy of religion tacitly subordinate religion tophilosophy by subjecting religion to philosophy’s questions and standards. Strongreligious believers will resist any such subordination because, for them, religious, notphilosophical, imperatives trump. The reason religion can and does serve as a normativeguide to behavior is that it is not a form of philosophy, but a system of belief that bindsthe believer. (Philosophy is something you can do occasionally, religion is not.)

But aren’t beliefs and philosophies the same things? No they’re not. Beliefs such as “Ibelieve that life should not be taken” or “I believe in giving the other fellow the benefit of the doubt” or “I believe in the equality of men and women” or “I believe in turning theother cheek” are at least the partial springs of our actions and are often regarded by thosewho hold them as moral absolutes; no exceptions recognized. These, however, areparticular beliefs which can be arrived at for any number of reasons, including thingsyour mother told you, the reading of a powerful book, the authority of a respected teacher, an affecting experience that you have generalized into a maxim (“From now onI’ll speak ill of no one.”).

A belief in moral absolutes, as an abstract position, is quite another thing. It affirms noparticular moral absolute (although it might lead down the road to naming some); rather,it asserts that the category of moral absolutes is full; and it does so against the argumentsof those who assert that the category is empty, not with respect to any particular moralabsolute, but generally. Wherever one stands at the end of a such a philosophicalargument one will be committed not to any specific moral stance (like turning the othercheek) but either to the thesis, again abstract, that moral stances are anchored in and


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Your mindoperatesindependently ofwhether or notyou have aphilosophy of it.

justified by an underlying truth about the nature of moral behavior or to the thesis thatthey are not.

“I believe in moral absolutes” and “I hold absolutely to the idea that men and women areequal” are propositions of quite different orders. It is only the first proposition that doesn’t travel; it doesn’t tell you anything or direct you to do anything, necessarily. Thesecond proposition, if you affirm it sincerely, has already committed you to particularchoices and decisions. So when Id (19) imagines a Joe Schmoe who might say “But mymoral beliefs do matter to my decision making,” my reply is of course, they do, but that inno way undermines my argument, which is not about moral beliefs but about a belief inmoral beliefs. Moral beliefs are not the kinds of thing you believe in; they are the kinds ofthings you have, or, rather, they have you.

Several posters complain that I can mount my argumentonly by rigging it, by excluding from the category ofphilosophy a whole lot of things most people would put intoit — religion, moral commitments and a great deal else.Lindsey S (176) asks, “Am I to understand that epistemologydoesn’t matter. That philosophy of mind doesn’t matter?That political philosophy doesn’t matter?” Well, theycertainly matter to those who do them, those who engage in the debates andcontroversies that impel an academic discipline. But I don’t see how they matter topeople who are just living their everyday lives. Thinking is not directed or improved byyour having an account of thinking, that is, an epistemology; your mind operatesindependently of whether or not you have a philosophy of it; politicians don’t havephilosophical frameworks; they have strategies attached to some idea of what they wantto get done. But, Tom (143) objects, “the entire field of applied ethics … rests on thepremise that a moral philosophical framework can guide moral decision making.” Thenthe entire field should shut down.

But what about the Tea Party? That question was raised by a large number of readers whomade two points : (1) the debt ceiling controversy would have come to a better end if theparticipants had read and studied the right philosophical tracts, and (2) the trouble withthe Tea Party is that it is guided by a bad philosophy, one that dictates its members’behavior. The first point is clearly silly; it employs the same reasoning that leads somepeople to believe that if only terrorists, tyrants, and jihadists would read our constitution,the Federalist papers, and a few pages of John Rawls, they would come to their sensesand become followers of democracy. As for the second point, according to its Web sitesthe Tea Party believes in limited government and free enterprise and opposes politicalschemes that assume the perfectibility of man and fail to recognize that we are motivatedlargely by self interest. (The view is a variant of Mandeville’s in “The Fable of the Bees,”


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that private vices make for public benefits.) These are certainly ideas and they are citedas support for the positions Tea Party members take; but “big government is bad” and“free enterprise is good” are slogans that speak to the discontent of those who feeldisenfranchised; they amount to philosophy after the fact; they didn’t produce the TeaParty disaffection; they dress it up for public viewing.

Finally, let me reply to the charge that I am contradicting myself by doing philosophywhile trashing philosophy. “Interesting that Dr. Fish would use such a ‘finely’ tunedphilosophical argument to debunk philosophy” ( 43). But I’m not debunking philosophyor saying that people shouldn’t do it. Philosophy is fun; it can be a good mental workout;its formulations sometimes display an aesthetically pleasing elegance. I’m just denying tophilosophy one of the claims made for it —that its conclusions dictate or generatenon-philosophical behavior — and there is no reason that my denial of philosophy’spractical utility should not take a philosophical form.

Hugh McDonald (112) thinks he has me when he says that if philosophy doesn’t matter,“Then your philosophy doesn’t matter.” That’s right; it doesn’t, if by “matter” is meantthat reading me will make a difference in the way you live. The only benefit one mightderive from following my argument is the removal of a confusion; you might no longerthink that getting your philosophical ducks in a row will lead to better and more moraldecisions. But your new clarity will do you no more positive good — it will not translateinto superior forms of action — than your former confusion did you positive harm.

If you have a problem to solve or a decision to make reading me won’t help you any morethan chanting “I believe in moral absolutes” or “I don’t.” What will help are the usualingredients of what Aristotle calls “practical reasoning”— an understanding of your goal,a survey of alternative ways of reaching it, a calculation of likely consequences, an effortto identify the relevant considerations, a recollection of what happened last time, and soon. Sabrina Jamil (83) has me saying that because there is no universal agreement onmoral absolutes, we should “just drop it because it makes no difference … whichinterpretation one holds anyway.” On the contrary, it makes a great deal of difference andit is our obligation to work through to the interpretation (or judgment or decision) thatseems right in the circumstances. In the course of our efforts many things (and notalways the same things) will be of use, but moral philosophy won’t be one of them.


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Does Philosophy Matter? (Part 2)