Innocent times
Simon Blackburn makes an interesting point (several actually, but this one in particular got my attention) in discussing Alan Sokal’s Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture.
Relativism can certainly go along with complacency, and I think it is fair to say that even philosophers more serious than Rorty were tainted by that…[C]onsider in this connection also “political liberalism,” the heading under which John Rawls could imagine the peoples of the world willingly leaving their ideological and cultural differences at the door and coming into the political arena carrying only that which they hold in common. What they had in common turned out to be a birthright of reason sufficient all by itself to enchant them with a nice liberal democratic constitution, amazingly like that of the United States, or perhaps western Europe. Conflict could be talked through and violence abated. When the philosophers explained the right way to live, everyone would fall happily into line. Innocent times.
Precisely. This was my complaint about Martha Nussbaum last April when she said to Bill Moyers in an interview –
[W]hat our whole history has shown is…that people can get along together and respect one another, even though they have differences about religion, because they can recognize a common moral ground to stand on. They can recognize values like honesty, social justice, and so on.
And I said that’s too easy, and why I thought so, and Nussbaum replied (to Moyers, but I pretended she was replying to me) –
George Washington wrote a letter to the Quakers saying, “I assure you that the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with the greatest delicacy and tenderness.” And what he meant is you’re not going to have to serve in the military. And I respect that. And unless there’s a public emergency, we’re just not going to do that kind of violence to your conscience. So, I think we have understood that lesson.
And I said Not so fast; that’s still too easy, much too easy; that’s a cheat, because that example won’t do because it’s an easy one, and the problems come in not with the easy ones, but the hard ones.
The problem is, the Quaker scruple is much too easy to ‘respect.’ Most people do understand and respect and sympathize with conscientious scruples about killing people, even if they don’t agree with particular instantiations of them. But that is not the case with all religious ‘scruples’, to put it mildly.
I take that to be exactly what Simon Blackburn has in mind there. Innocent times, indeed.
Hmm, true. There’s a difference between a principle that I don’t share, but I can sympathize with and/or respect the basis for it, and a principle that I actively despise and oppose. I’m not a pacifist but I respect pacifists. I don’t disapprove of premarital sex or polyamorous relationships, but I have respect for people who as a matter of principle stick to monogamous relationships.
But when your principle involves doing violence of some kind to someone else…well, then, respect goes out the window. That’s why the controversies are over keeping women from school, for instance, or forced veiling, or female genital mutilation.
There are genuine conflicts of interests in this world. Employers wants to pay lower wages, and employees want higher wages. Those conflicts can be negotiated without violence, to be sure, at times, but at other moments elites (the employers) are willing to use violence to protect their interests, just as at times the poor are willing to use violence to get a larger share of the national income. There is no “reasonable” position that both sides can agree upon, although, as I said, a compromise position can be negotiated, which is very different than said reasonable position. I have a lot of respect for Rawls, but he assumes a good will on the part of most people that just doesn’t exist. Actually, Rawl’s original position is a thought experiment, not a political proposal, to be fair to Rawls. In any case, we need only to turn our attention to the current conflict in Georgia to see a situation in which there is no “reasonable” position, only a clash of interests, which, as always, the media moralizes, looking for the good guy and the bad guy. In any case, I doubt that reasonable men are going to join hands and sing Schiller’s Ode to Joy to the music of the last movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. As someone said to me in another blog this morning, always cut the cards before you play.
Actually, Blackburn accuses Rawls of complacency, not of relativism. Rawls was certainly not a relativist. He wasn’t exactly complacent either. Once again, Rawls isn’t doing political science, but a series of abstract thought experiments. However, I do agree with you, OB, about Nussbaum, who isn’t doing thought experiments.
I don’t have the liguistic skills(?) of OB or of Mr. Blackburn, but I DO have some scientific background, and what he says about science and technology is just batty. He really does not understand what the science teacher was trying to do with the kinetic/potential energy example, and his conflation of this with Galileo’s pendulum experiment is just silly.
And then the way that he uses the speed of light and GPS systems to somehow make some wort of point about “truth”, boggles the mind. It seems like he did just what the Sokal hoaxters tried to prove – cobbled together some superficial knowledge of science with some impressive-sounding words to create a lot of gobbledygook. I think he has just “proved” that the post-modernists are still quite alive and kicking.
I just read that part of the Stanford Encyclopedia article on Rawls which summarizes Rawls’ views on international relations, and Blackburn has not read Rawls carefully or is being unfair to Rawls.
rxc wrote:
>He really does not understand what the science teacher was trying to do with the kinetic/potential energy example, and his conflation of this with Galileo’s pendulum experiment is just silly.< I’m not sure from what he wrote whether it is the case that Blackburn did not understand what the teacher was trying to do with this example, but I certainly had trouble trying to sort out what point he was making later in regard to the pendulum. As I’ve attempted to explain in a l-o-n-g letter on B&W, I’m highly dubious about Blackburn’s appreciation of what one can and cannot feasibly attempt to do with a typical secondary school class when teaching physics.
@amos
Something to understand about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is that entries on philosophers are written by experts on that philosopher; that is, written by someone who has dedicated a significant portion of his or her academic career to elucidating and expanding on the work of the philosopher. Consequently, the entries tend to be rather light on criticism and pointing out potential problems with positions.
Also, Blackburn is at least partly being snarky. Of course Rawls didn’t actually believe that philosophers would explain things and people would fall into line. This is deliberate hyperbole. But the hyperbole is aimed at a real flaw in Rawls’ work. The arguments and analyses by Rawls (and his followers, like Nussbaum) of what he termed “the rational and the reasonable” are consistently and appallingly unrealistic about the extent to which people actually are or are likely to be reasonable/ tolerant/ cooperative towards each other. Even a sympathetic reader of Rawls, which I have been, can be struck by his often-stunning naivite about how ugly, petty, dogmatic and generally nasty human beings can be (and very, very often are). Like OB pointed out about Nussbaum in this post (and previous posts), Rawls consistently looked at the easy cases and glossed over or ignored the more difficult realities of the world.
G., bollocks! Abusing rhetoric isn’t a tad better if used for some cause that one happens to be sympathetic to.
Probably there are many flaws in Rawls but having a too optimistic view of us humans is not one of them. First, it’s not a flaw because you are pessimistic about humans based on your petty, ugly prejudice. Secondly because what he is presupposing is humans are rational, & not that they’re nice – whether or not humans are indeed rational is not what his project is about as his project is about what would hold if they are.
It is, by the by, a strange liberalism & a quaint secularism, that assumes we humans are by default not capable of a reasonable attitude if left to our own i.e. stripped of stupid doctrine.
“that assumes we humans are by default not capable of a reasonable attitude if left to our own i.e. stripped of stupid doctrine.”
Well that’s just true by definition. Naturally if we’re stripped of stupid doctrine then we’re capable of a reasonable attitude – but that’s a very big if. We’re not stripped of our stupid doctrine, are we, nor are we likely to be, and in the meantime, there is very little reason to think that we are all capable of a reasonable attitude, and lots of reason to think we’re not.
Also, JoB – don’t be so rude.
Rawls never claimed to do sociology or psychology so maybe you’re right – but in any case it’s beside the point.
Unless you want to open a tangent ;-)
The only thing of Rawls that I’ve read is The Theory of Justice. The Stanford Encyclopedia articles summarizes the Law of Peoples, Rawls’ book on a reasonable international order, the one that Blackburn refers to. According to that article, Rawls, far from hoping that all peoples would form a minimally decent international order, specifically refers to liberal peoples and decent peoples (not quite liberal, but still
respecting minimal human rights). Rawls excludes outlaw states and failed states. There is nothing innocent about Rawls. He does not imagine that Al Qaeda and the European Union are going to settle their differences through a dialogue of reasonable men.
Where does Blackburn refer to The Law of Peoples? The book he’s talking about is Political Liberalism; he uses that phrase. Could we have a little less dogmatism from people who haven’t read the book(s) in question? If the only thing you’ve read is ToJ how on earth do you know there is nothing innocent about Rawls? And in any case the point is not that Rawls is ‘innocent,’ the point is that part of his argument is.
The Law of Peoples is where Rawls talks about a just international order. Blackburn explicitly states that Rawls believes all the world’s peoples can iron out their differences through rational dialogue. Rawls never says that. He explicitly excludes outlaw states and failed states from his international original position, which, once again I will remind you, is a thought experiment, not a political proposal. While I’ve not read other books by Rawls than Theory of Justice, I have read a bit about him (secondary sources). I don’t think that I’m being dogmatic, as you accuse me of being. I simply think that Blackburn is mistaken about Rawls.
amos, you said ToJ was the only Rawls you had read, so you simply don’t get to say what Rawls never says – that’s absurd. (I wouldn’t say that even of someone whose every word I had read, because my memory is so bad.) Of course it’s dogmatic to say what Rawls never said when you haven’t read most of Rawls – what else would it be? Nuanced? Tentative?
And doesn’t it occur to you that you might be mistaken about Blackburn being mistaken, given that he has read Political Liberalism and you haven’t?
I could be mistaken, of course, but Blackburn also could be mistaken. I have looked up Political Liberalism in internet, and it’s about overlapping consensus in domestic politics, not about international politics. It is also true that at times people, maybe even Blackburn, claim to have read books that they only skimmed very rapidly. Perhaps my error was to confess to having consulted The Stanford Encyclopedia instead of having read the complete works of Rawls in English and in German. I understand Blackburn’s point that pre-9-11 was a time of innocence in the United States (remember Fukuyama, not to mention Thomas Friedmann), and I agree with him, just as I agree with you points about Nussbaum. Far from being dogmatic, I feel that I’m being skeptical about Blackburn’s claims about Rawls, that’s all. However, since innocence, not Rawls, is the main theme of your interesing post, I don’t see much point in continuing with this dialogue. Actually, I read the Blackburn article on the Sokal hoax with great pleasure (I had read it before it appeared in your blog) and in general, I agree with what he says. By the way, I recall an essay by Orwell on Dickens, in which he describes Dickens as “a change of heart man”. Nussbaum is “a change of heart woman”.
amos, ophelia,
Having read both ToJ, LoP & JaF, I can assure you amos is right – Rawls’ work is from the beginning to the end about political liberalism. Only LoP treats, specifically, about this international context apparently referred to by your Simon Blackburn. I am quite sure he’ll agree he uses political liberalism not as reference to the book but reference to the theory.
Apart from all that, Rawls wasn’t very well known for multiple ideas, most of his work elaborates the same ideas. It is beyond me how one turns an argument on what someone said into questions of authority under the guise of what some famous guy has undoubtedly read better than anyone else her could have done.
I do not know Blackburn – maybe he did it for effect. It is true that many of the politicians quoting Rawls are very guilty of what he condemns Rawls of.
But be that as it may, what he says is wrong. How the post latches on to that is mix between philosophical potpourri & amalgamatic innuendo.
But nobody is infallible, something on which Rawls would certainly agree.
Can someone weigh in this late in the discussion? I’m not going to speak about the relative merits of OB, JoB or Amos, and I’ve only read Theory of Justice myself, when it was first published. I was always a bit dissatisfied with Rawls’ idea of the original position, the Aristotelian Principle, and how he charactersises the values which would be retained behind the veil of ignorance.
But it did have that this advantage. It forced people to think about what values they had a right to carry forward into the process of seeking social consensus. Perhaps it was naive – no doubt it was – but the naivety, even though perhaps deeply characterised by the American constitution as a model, was not just innocence.
Blackburn says we lost this kind of innocence on 9/11 (or the British or Bali equivalents, although Blackburn doesn’t mention them). But it’s the same kind of innocence that, say, Austin Dacey still clings to, a conception of ‘secular conscience,’ if you like, that needs to meet in a sphere (call it secular, if you like) where some of our most deeply cherished beliefs do not belong, simply because they have no basis in any kind of publicly available evidence.
Is this Enlightenment reason writ large? I don’t know, but if we can’t find a place where we can talk together – and so far this seems unlikely, with the resurgence of tribal religiosity and blank assertions taking the place of argument – then the only thing left is to fight, isn’t it?
I would like to hear Blackburn continue his argument, and show us how it leads to anything other than violence. Somewhere along the way, I hope, he will find a place for dialogue and argument, and if he doesn’t, we really are in a nasty situation.
amos – I’m sorry but this is just nonsense. Perhaps you simply said more than you intended, but then you could say that. You can’t say you’re merely being skeptical when you have made such emphatic assertions – that’s ridiculous – it’s like saying HIV does not cause Aids and then saying you’re merely being skeptical. Making a strong unqualified assertion is just that – and it requires justification if you expect it to be credible. This is not some quirk of mine, it’s just ordinary epistemology. You’re very well-read, you must know this.
You said: “Blackburn explicitly states that Rawls believes all the world’s peoples can iron out their differences through rational dialogue. Rawls never says that.”
It’s very simple – you don’t know that, you can’t know that, so it’s a silly claim. Don’t get sarky about reading the complete works of Rawls in two languages – just don’t word things in such a sweeping way. Of course it’s possible that Blackburn hasn’t read a word of Rawls, but you don’t know that either (and I would point out that it’s highly unlikely, for many reasons), and you’re just not in a position to say Blackburn is wrong about Rawls after saying you’ve read only one Rawls book which is not the one Blackburn is talking about.
You’re right, there is no point in continuing this dialogue, but you began it after all. What can I tell you? It irritates me when people say things like ‘Blackburn is wrong about Rawls’ on the basis of almost nothing.
JoB, you’re just being rude, as you’ve been throughout – and you’re being as dogmatic as amos. Take this bit – “what some famous guy has undoubtedly read” – I never said undoubtedly – because I know perfectly well that I don’t know that.
Apparently both of you are incapable of detecting any difference between what one can know and what one can’t know – so you make wild claims that far exceed your possible knowledge. This is a very basic mistake. It’s also no fault of mine, so it’s no good shouting at me about it.
Eric,
Well, we really are in a nasty situation.
We don’t even have to go to Kabul or the Swat valley to figure that out. We can just go to Texas and try to have a conversation with the FLDS. Or we could mosey on up to Westboro Baptist Church and try for a meeting of minds with Fred Phelps.
That’s what I was afraid of.
Ophelia: I did not begin the discussion on Rawls. Blackburn began it. It was not a discussion about epistemology. You called me “dogmatic”, and I defended myself by saying that I was “skeptical”. I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that we were both using the words “dogmatic” and “skeptical” in the non-technical, street sense, not in the technical philosophical sense.
However, there is a larger issue involved. You are a brillant woman. Without false modesty, I will say that you are more intelligent than I am, besides the fact that you have read more widely. It is clear that you can, if you wish, turn almost any argument with me to your advantage, especially with your ability to notice the technical problems in most people’s arguments. I have never studied philosophy and I speak as a cultured layperson. However, in my way, I was trying to make a simple point about Rawls, and I think that I was correct: that Blackburn was distorting Rawls’ thought. Rawls’ career is like one long perfect chess game, in which he anticipates all possible moves by his rivals. As JoB says, his thought does not vary much during his whole career: he just refines and polishes his core ideas. That is why I felt that I was justified in claiming that Rawls had never said that all the world’s peoples could sit down together and reach a reasonable consensus. No, I was not justified in the philosophical sense of the word. You are right about that. I said it just as I said in another context (with Jean) that Hannah Arendt would never speak of “creating a better future”. I’ve read enough Arendt to feel that that phrase is just not Arendt-talk, so to speak. Likewise, what Blackburn says about Rawls is not Rawls-talk. I hope that this note clarifies some issues between us. I enjoy your blog, and I find you to be an original and creative thinker. Original and creative thinkers (Rawls was one) are not born every day. Peace. Amos
JoB. I shan’t get into the disagreement with you or OB. As to the Original Position, it’s not really static, since it’s a thought experiment, and has to go with the situation at the time it is made. What is difficult about the Original Position is the things that the people in the position are allowed to know.
In many ways this may be a good thing. Since you don’t know whether you are Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Atheist, or religious at all, discussion can prescind from all that. I’m not sure how Rawls can rule out certain things in the Original Position, and it’s this that makes him look, from Blackburn’s point of view, a bit innocent, and that’s what makes it look as though he has the American constitution in the back of his mind throughout.
But if we can’t do that – that is, if we can’t rule out certain things in the Original Position, and have good, solid, rational grounds for doing so – then it seems to me we end up in a nasty position, because we end up with people who can’t talk to each other. The next thing is to throw rocks, and our rocks are pretty big nowadays.
However, I still think Rawls was on to something. He was looking for a way to exclude certain things that people bring to the table. Austin Dacey does it too. He speaks of the Privacy Factor, meaning that everything is really up for grabs, and religious people and all the rest have got to bring their own beliefs and preferences into the discussion. But, he adds, we have to make sure that they are prepared for their beliefs to come under heavy fire, because anything brought into the public square has to defend itself. Evidence based claims are best at that, and religious claims probably worse, and so we end up with the contents of Rawls’ Original Position after all.
So far, however, I don’t see the pope or the mullahs getting ready to jetison some of their least supportable claims (and they don’t argue for them, they just try to find the loudest way to make their points) and that brings us right back to the nasty situation again. Don’t ask me what the answer is. This is about Rawls (and Blackburn). But I suspect I’d choose his innocence over a free-for-all of religions any day.
To be kind to Blackburn for me the key sentence in his review was this one: “Yet Sokal is certainly not the kind of warrior in the “science wars” who disdains each and every attempt to say something interesting about the historical, social, and cultural matrix within which science has taken place”. Anti-Sokal folk generally accuse him of having a simplistic “all French philosophers are wankers” attitude, which is completely untrue but makes him easier to patronise.
To be unkind to Blackburn he overestimates the level of scientific education needed to get the joke. Part of what made it funny was how bleedin’ obvious it was.
I thought Blackburn’s article was a riveting read. I don’t think he’s advocating nastiness: he mainly seems to be saying that there are things in Western culture worth defending, and that scientific empistemology is one of them. And I agree with that.
I have studied a little Rawls, and I do have to say that I think he was wrong about people being “rational deliberators” behind the “veil of ignorance”. Unfortunately, people are prone to irrationality . . . unfortunately, many, if not most, people just can’t seem to grasp the basic principles of reasoning, and I don’t think that is just because of their social conditioning. It’s part of the human condition. We will never all agree. We will always have to deal with stupidity and nastiness. Ce la vie.
Eric, good points. My objection to OP is that I think we needn’t base those claims on such a thought experiment – I think (but this is not the place to argue it) that rational discussion is a winner in actual reality (obviously it hasn’t won, maybe it will never be declared a winner, because the nature of rational discussion is it does not stop).
With OP gone (& therefore also rather artificial premises with it) we would not get into the debate here. I think what you say is close to what I think on this. When people need to defend a position (instead of forgetting it) I believe the end result will be (& not just in thought experiment) that some positions die out (a lot like some of the animal species have died out – by not being adapted to the environment, an environment of public discussion).
As to mullah’s I agree, but that does not invalidate Rawls’ ideas (clearly, doesn’t cast doubt on his intention), nor on the idea of evolving concensus without having to be nasty. If mullah A refuses public discussion, he isn’t playing according to the rules & he’s therefore to be suspended. Actually – much of Rawls’ later work has gone in the rational reasons for suspension & the measures to be taken. This is too valuable work to dismiss, if we’re to use force we’ll need rules based on a rational argument.
(obviously, he had the US constitution in mind amongst others — imperfect as it may be, it still is one of the best things to have in mind, although there were many things he wanted different.)
Amos,
I didn’t call you dogmatic, I asked for less dogmatism and I meant that for JoB at least as much as for you. I don’t think you are dogmatic – I merely thought you were making dogmatic claims in this particular case. Asking for less dogmatism implies (surely) ‘here – in this particular discussion.’ I don’t really know what the ‘non-technical, street sense’ of dogmatism and skepticism would be if it’s different from the sense that would mean ‘Rawls never said that’ is dogmatic rather than skeptical. Honestly: I don’t.
I’m not a bit sure I’ve read more widely than you have – you’ve read a great deal that I haven’t. And, honestly, I wouldn’t say that I’m good at noticing technical problems in most people’s arguments – I think I notice problems in some people’s arguments but I don’t think of them as technical problems, I think of them as lay problems – I think they’re noticeable without special training (which I don’t have). I’ve never studied philosophy either and I speak as not so much a cultured layperson as a very patchy autodidact. I’m not pulling rank on you – I don’t have any rank to pull.
Saying Arendt ‘would never’ say something is different from saying Rawls never said something. (Also the inclusion of an ‘I think’ or ‘I don’t believe’ or similar makes a difference.) I’m sorry if I was too fierce – but I just did think you were saying more than you could know, and doing it rather emphatically. Of course in the great scheme of things that doesn’t matter much…Anyway, just to clarify, if you’d said something like ‘That just doesn’t sound like Rawls to me, at all’ I would have understood what you meant and I wouldn’t have said a word about dogmatism.
Oh and p.s. thanks for the lavish and undeserved compliments! Coals of fire.
:- )
No, the Mullahs cannot bring their religious ideas to the negotiating table in Rawls. That is where the idea of overlapping consensus comes in: there is a public sphere (in which religion is excluded)of consensus where we agree about the rules, and the rules for Rawls are liberal. Liberalism is an axiom for Rawls. The mullahs, if they want to play, have to come to the negotiating table having accepted the principles of liberalism. That is why in the Law of Peoples Rawls talks of outlaw societies which do not participate in the law of peoples. The mullahs, since they don’t follow a minimum of human rights principles (specified by Rawls), don’t sit down at the table.
“The mullahs, if they want to play, have to come to the negotiating table having accepted the principles of liberalism.”
Isn’t this what Blackburn was pointing out? Lots and lots of people aren’t going to accept the principles of liberalism and so they won’t come to the table (or worse, they will come to the table and there demolish principles of liberalism, as in the UN HRC). This is a huge, massive, ever-widening problem, for all the people who live under mullahs and rulers who don’t accept principles of liberalism, and for peace in the world. It’s not some little parenthesis, it’s a global nightmare.
It’s probably worth pointing out that there are a lot of people, like the pope, for instance, who, with one part of himself, pretends to respect the principles of liberalism, but really doesn’t. And that goes for a lot of Christian voices that are trying to make themselves heard as well.
I’ve been trying to read Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. It’s a tough read, not because it’s difficult, but because it seems so terribly wrong headed. He wants to speak of secularism as a total way of looking at the world, with religious ways of looking at the world as totally different total ways of looking at the world – at least that’s what I’ve got so far. And I’m beginning to feel I’ve been through a time warp. Where did all the years between 1945 and 1990 go to? Because if these are the terms of the new ‘world discussion’, we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not going there fast, and we’re shipping through mined seas.
The pope respects principles that are the precise opposite of liberalism. I think everyone everywhere should be very clear about that. There’s this creeping respect-pull going on with the pope and catholicism as with other religions, and it’s a terrible mistake. No one should be under any illusions about how liberal a pope can be. The only liberal principles the pope respects are (of course) the ones that don’t interfere with ‘church teachings.’
Got to run, but while Blackburn does point that out, he is mistaken when he says that Rawls doesn’t point that out too. That`s all.
See, that works – because it’s perfectly possible to know that someone says something. It’s so difficult as to be in effect impossible to know that someone doesn’t say something. Unless of course you’re a search engine.
Hmm, but here’s a question: WHY is it so damn naive to expect people to put their religious/other stupid ideologies aside and come to the table, based on an agreement of “reasonable principles”?
How is that more naive than passing laws expecting people not to murder, or rape, or thieve?
Yes, SOME people will inevitably do those things, but we can certainly aim for and *achieve* a state of affairs where they are a rarity.
It’s naive because it’s so obvious that they won’t – at least for the time being. We can certainly aim for a state of affairs where they mostly will, but it’s certainly not certain that we can achieve that.
I think it’s naive because it underestimates the human potential for stupidity and irrationality. Even if the world were freed from religion and other bigotries it would never last. Something else would come along and sabotage previous good work . . . like post-modernism, for example, which is at least relatively benign. I don’t think the fight against stupidity will ever be won, it’s an ongoing cause.
Once again, Rawls’s work is one long thought experiment. He makes it clear that he is writing of ideal situations. However, in spite of the fact that people are not always reasonable, men and women have created functioning non-ideal liberal societies in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some countries in South America, in western Europe and perhaps in some countries in eastern Europe. That liberalism is fragile, far from perfect, but we, irrational and often stupid, human beings have created it.
amos, once again, since you say yourself that you’ve read only one of Rawls’s books, you’re not in a position to say that his work is one long thought experiment. I don’t even know why you’d want to – I for one wouldn’t dream of trying to make a general statement of that kind about anyone’s work unless I’d read every word of it with close attention – and probably not even then.
But in any case, we’re not talking about Rawls any more; the issue is why it’s naive to think X, not why it’s naive of Rawls or anyone in particular.
The issue between us isn’t so much Rawls as the use of secondary sources, since I’ve been reading up about Rawls online for the past few days. However, don’t you use secondary sources too? Are you sure that event X, reported by the Guardian, about women in Iran actually took place? Have you spent many years doing field research about Muslim cultures or do you depend on secondary sources for your knowledge about them and so many other things?
If so, why is my knowledge about Rawls gleaned from secondary sources taboo, and your knowledge of the condition of women in Iran, also gleaned from secondary sources, worthy of consideration?
Sure, of course I do (and I’m aware that journalists are far from infallible).
But the two things aren’t comparable. (And I didn’t say your knowledge about Rawls via secondary sources was taboo, either, and I don’t even think that. I just think it limits what you can [legitimately] claim.) They’re different genres, and different rules apply. I’d be much more impressed by your point if you could find a place where I’d made a sweeping claim about what a particular philosopher had said without having read the works in question. I make narrow claims about what I’ve read people say in articles x and y or books a and b. I wouldn’t even want to say more than that because I’d be so well aware that someone could and probably would come along and say ‘Nuh uh, she said something completely different in book q.’
Come on, this is silly. You know reading about Rawls or anyone else isn’t the same thing as reading Rawls or anyone else. It can be informative and interesting and useful, but that doesn’t make it the same thing. You know teachers don’t want the Cliff Notes version of Hamlet or Wuthering Heights; it’s the same if not more so with philosophers. You can get a general idea of what someone thought via secondary sources, but that’s of limited utility.
Of course it’s always possible to bullshit. You’re right that you could have just not said that you’d only read the one book – and I think it’s much more admirable that you did say that. I’d much rather not be bullshitted, and I’m glad you didn’t.
I don’t mean to be bossy about it. I certainly don’t mean to object to secondary reading. But I do think it’s a little futile to try to use it for this kind of argument.
Come to think of it, don’t you get that feeling yourself? As you’re reading along, don’t you think ‘I wish I knew more exactly what he said about that…’? If one is really interested in something, secondary stuff can be useful as an entry but it’s not a satisfactory stopping place.
The use of secondary sources really depends on the situation. Having read a plot summary of Proust tells you nothing about reading the work of Proust, which is a flavor or an experience. Now, a systematic philosopher, like Rawls or Kant, could be effectively summarized by a good secondary source, while someone like Nietzsche or Hannah Arendt, non-systematic philosophers, could not be. Ditto with journalism. An Amnesty International report on the number of honor killings in Pakistan is probably approximately correct. When the Times reports the words of your friend, Prince Charles, they most probably report them correctly. On the other hand, we could have a good laugh comparing different journalistic versions about whether Russia or George is to blame in South Ossetia or about whether Chávez is a social reformer or a demagogue. So, it’s more a question of tact than of genre, of sensing when secondary sources are appropriate and when they are not. You generally use secondary sources well. Finally, I’m not a Rawls person. A summary of Rawls is enough for me. I prefer reading the non-systematic thinkers.
Sigh.
I already said, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with reading secondary sources about Rawls (or anyone else) in general. I really don’t care whether you read Rawls or a digest of Rawls. But where this started was with you flatly asserting that Blackburn “has not read Rawls carefully or is being unfair to Rawls” – on the strength of having just read the SEP article on Rawls! I don’t know how to explain this any more clearly – that’s just absurd. Is it really likely that you understand Rawls better from having read the SEP article on him than Blackburn does? Not because Blackburn is a Name, but because of Blackburn’s job description, and his history (editor of Mind; author – not editor, author – of the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy; Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge). Is it really likely that Blackburn has read less Rawls than you have (has read less than ToJ) and understood it worse?
I don’t see why this is so hard to understand. I really don’t. I don’t see why it’s not completely obvious that it’s absurd to read an article on Rawls and use that to claim that Simon Blackburn hasn’t read Rawls carefully.
Can we drop this now? One of us is missing the point, so it’s futile.
Of course it’s possible, amos – I already said it’s possible. Lots of things are possible. But it doesn’t follow that it makes sense simply to announce that Blackburn has not read Rawls carefully on the basis of nothing in particular.
Also…the sad truth is that it’s a lot easier to get away with bullshit scholarship in lit crit and its various satellites than it is in more demanding disciplines. It’s a lot harder for historians and philosophers to fake it; their colleagues will nail them.
So, lots of things are possible, but for the reasons I mentioned, it’s not very likely. It’s just not very likely that you have a better understanding of Rawls, having read only one of his books, than Blackburn has.
Now, if you have a specific substantive disagreement with Blackburn, that’s different. I keep disagreeing with Nussbaum, and I know very well she’s far more learned and clever than I am. But I wouldn’t claim that she doesn’t understand Aristotle or Rawls or any other philosopher, because it just isn’t at all likely and it’s even less likely that I would know.
Don’t sell yourself short (if that is the expression). You’re as intelligent as Nussbaum is, bull-shit less than she does and unlike her, are not interested in career advancement or awards, hence, you’re freer to speak your mind. I’ll skip your defects, as I perceive them.
it’s so obvious that they won’t – at least for the time being.
How is this obvious?
It seems to be working quite well in many countries, from Sweden to New Zealand to Canada to *much* of the U.S., if not all.
Are there examples of the occasional person or group of people refusing to put aside religion and other such beliefs? Sure. But for the most part, they are willing to put these things aside. If they weren’t these societies wouldn’t function at all, on any level.
In every society, there are people who murder, but the idea of a murder-free society is one that can be approached asymptotically. So it is with this.
I’m not claiming we’ll ever get to a society where there are absolutely no FDLS or fundamentalist Muslims or whoever trying to drag their religions into the public sphere. But we have examples of societies where such people are not a significant political force at all. Even in the Bush-plagued U.S., there are several large populous states with diverse residents who habitually refrain from religion-based arguments.
It’s obvious in the sense that the bloc of countries you mention are very much in the minority; the vast majority of people in the world are stuck in places where dogma rules the roost. Some of those countries have nukes, and there are other lethal technologies as well.
amos – I’m not as intelligent as Nussbaum! I disagree with her on a lot of particulars, but despite the tendency to rhetorical overkill and sentimentality at times (only at times), she’s very intelligent indeed.
Mind you, Jenavir – I would love to be wrong. I would love to see the fundamentalist trend turn around. I really really hope I am wrong.
This is getting ridiculous, but you’re faster than she is and your mind sees much facets, more variables in a given situation. She’s in a mental rut.
It’s obvious in the sense that the bloc of countries you mention are very much in the minority
Absolutely true, but those countries have distinct identifiable systems and principles that reinforce the secular nature of their societies. So there is a roadmap to follow. Not saying it won’t be extremely difficult, mind you.
I have no opinion on whether or not the fundamentalist trend will grow or turn round in the near future. But hey, lots of equally destructive and pervasive trends have turned around, so I would never rule it out as a possibility. And in any case there’s no reason to believe the trend will grow indefinitely. If it grows it will most likely grow for a while and then turn around, like most trends do.
Well, that’s what I’m saying: it will be extremely difficult. Things that are extremely difficult sometimes don’t get done!
And I’m not ruling it out as a possibility – but I’m not at all optimistic, which is a different thing.
I completely disagree that there is no reason to believe the trend will grow indefinitely; I think there are lots of reasons to believe just that (along with reasons to believe it won’t).