Not a criticism of you - although it absolutely is one of Fukuyama, who you are reviewing - but the liberal tradition has far more ability to resolve these contradictions than is evidenced here. Shklar's liberalism of fear avoids these absurd knots over 'neutrality' with a clear commitment to the avoidance of cruelty coupled to one simple empirical observation: power makes people cruel.
Not a criticism of you - although it absolutely is one of Fukuyama, who you are reviewing - but the liberal tradition has far more ability to resolve these contradictions than is evidenced here. Shklar's liberalism of fear avoids these absurd knots over 'neutrality' with a clear commitment to the avoidance of cruelty coupled to one simple empirical observation: power makes people cruel.
But that's not enough to be emotionally sustaining. "Don't be cruel" just doesn't have the resonance of (for example) "Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".
After a lifetime (well, from age 15 or so to my current age of 66) as an atheist, I have reluctantly concluded that religious ritual, sustained by genuine religious belief in most but not necessarily all congregants, is essential to a functioning human society that can continue the ideals of liberalism in a way that most of us would find acceptable.
But I suspect that a serious crisis ("there are no atheists in foxholes") may need to arrive before we can find our way back to meaningful religious practice.
"But that's not enough to be emotionally sustaining. "Don't be cruel" just doesn't have the resonance of (for example) 'Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'".
Perhaps another, more robust way of articulating the idea of "don't be cruel":
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: тАЬTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?тАЭ
Jesus replied: тАЬтАШLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.тАЩ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: тАШLove your neighbor as yourself.тАЩ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.тАЭ
How does a non-religious person follow this counsel? In my opinion, a possible distillation of what's stated here is: "The most important thing you can do is to not put yourself first" or something along those lines. A large-scale cultural emphasis on selflessness, which is at the heart of and is perhaps the unifying theme of virtually all religion, is the ticket to better society. Of course it's vital that all of us start with the person in the mirror, but it doesn't hurt to have a strong leader or leaders that personify this ethic.
In evolutionary terms, intense social cooperation by primeval humans required "biological morals" (altruism) for improved survival.
Darwin agrees with those statements of Jesus:
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
(Darwin quoted by Peter Richerson, PhD biology, UC Davis)
This is a very good point, and one I think is still applicable even at today's very large scale societies. The problem is that overall societal good, per se, does not seem to be a sufficient motivation for individual humans, if not backed up with a belief that the society is supernaturally ordained.
My point is that I think there is substantial evidence for the proposition that human psychology is such that this only works on a large scale when buttressed by belief (by a large fraction of the people) in the supernatural provenance of the principle.
I am also an atheist who believes in religion but not God.
But it might be simpler, human freedom goes to hell without human obligation. Lyons captures it so very well in his explication of conservatism herein.
It does not have to be the source of all of person's emotional sustainment (although I would argue that if you very seriously took the injunction to avoid being cruel while reducing the sum of cruelty in the world, then it would give you enough work for many lifetimes). The thought that the political order should be the sole source of a person's emotional sustenance is itself totalitarian; and, I would add, both likely to lead to cruelty and in itself idolatrous.
Shklar put it these terms: the liberalism of fear is not seeking a summum bonum, an ultimate good, it is seeking to avoid a summum malum, a very worst evil; and that evil is cruelty. It does not say do not seek your summum bolum. It merely says that you cannot be cruel as you do so.
She was not religious, and she was sceptical about whether or not this was ultimately compatible with religious faith on the grounds that the religious believer, if devout, must put the commands of God above the injunction to avoid cruelty. I am more sanguine. I see little in Christianity that requires a Christian to be cruel, and much that challenges and undermines cruelty.
TY. Had never heard-a her. I see she's written a lot. I just bought "Ordinary Vices. If I may ask: is "Judith Shklar and the liberalism of fear" another good place to look into? Or one-a her other works? TIA (Thank You in Advance).
The essay, 'The Liberalism of Fear' is a later condensation of her argument - it's here: https://philarchive.org/archive/SHKTLOv1 It's very dense, though, and I think Ordinary Vices is more important. Her style is different enough to most political philosophy to benefit from being at book length. I haven't read "Judith Shklar and the liberalism of fear", which isn't to say its bad. Her writing is so clear, though, that I see little benefit in starting with a secondary source. Of her other works, the collection of essays 'Political Thought and Political Thinking' contains a lot of gems, and 'Faces of Injustice' is particularly exceptional; but I would start with 'Ordinary Vices'.
Since I'm always interested to anyone who claims to ground moral standards in something other than the transcendental, I just started reading the essay you recommended. Right there on page 1 is the exact conflict we're talking about here:
"Liberalism refers to a political doctrine, not a philosophy of life such as has traditionally been provided by various forms of revealed religion. Liberalism has only one overriding aim to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom."
Her own definition is self contradictory (just as Lyons says above). She says liberalism refers to only political forms and makes no normative claims. But the very next sentence makes a normative claim: that the exercise of personal freedom is the proper aim of society. She's fallen into the "liberal democracy" dichotomy I outlined elsewhere.
I'll update this comment as I read more, since she isn't someone I've heard of before. But so far she doesn't appear to have a solution, or even to recognize the problem.
Perhaps one could defend Shklar's consistency by saying that, because no one has definitive knowledge of the ultimate ends of life, the best political order is a liberalism that leaves everyone free to choose their own ends without interference from the state or others. I suppose you could call this a "normative" claim, but only in a negative sense: it is based on our ignorance of ultimate ends. By the way, I don't agree with the liberal position, but I think we need to recognize and meet the strongest arguments in its favor.
To be contrarian: maybe it is simple, maybe we know the ultimate end - we die and our consciousness ends - we just donтАЩt like that answer, lotsa obfuscation on that one.
I think the point is that liberalism is running a bad show: greed on the right and absurd philistinism of wokeness on the left. I think it, liberalism, is mostly a practical failure and we should beware, the pitiless crowbar of events is our history. Liberalism is a primrose path.
The 95% of the human species that believe in some kind of a supreme being would argue with your "ultimate end".
Liberalism was birthed in an attempt to pacify disputes about ultimate ends. Maybe that was the problem? Is a society without an "ultimate end" of some kind (some sense of the common good) destined to eat itself in an orgy of hedonistic futility? Never thought I would quote Nietzsche, but he's correct that "he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Maybe what's true for a man is true for a mass of men as well. I don't really know; it's late and I'm just kind of thinking out load.
Hi Sir Brian, TYTY. I'm joining this conversation late. And I really hate to "say" something You're not likely to like, but here goes:
I can assure You that people can have a very *strong* sense of the common good without reference to a Supreme Being. Dunno, but might be a purer form of it, because it's not based on a really bad, eternal, punishment coming if You don't love Your neighbor as Yourself. Good just based on goodness. Dunno. A goodness that doesn't *depend* on pain/reward as the motivation?
Ultimate ends? *Real* contrarian view. Don't know much philosophy. But how, on Earth, *can* ultimate ends be knowable? Yeah, I get it. On Faith. And I agree that even Atheistic Scientists rely on Faith.
I guess "Faith" isn't the kind of *knowing* I"m looking for. Or, rather, gave up looking for. That's just me, just thinkin' out loud.
JT, I didn't mean to suggest that an atheist can't have an understanding of the common good. I see how you read it that way, but it wasn't my intention. Here's another attempt at same:
An atheist's ultimate ends will always be in this world. If this world is all there is (fade to black), it falls on man (each man) to define and create his own purpose, as Justice Kennedy put it in Casey, "to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
In such a society (which we have today), each person defines his own concept of existence and ultimate purpose of life. If yours and mine are incompatible, one of us must surrender our liberty to our own concept of existence in order to have a shared sense of "what is good." We often do this, so there may be a broad agreement about most issues, but over time, as more and more people "define their own concept of existence", we would expect agreement to become less common, and hence "the common good" more elusive.
There is a mirror of this in what happened after the Protestant Reformation: early broad agreement about doctrine, then division into a few major camps, and gradual divergence of views until we have thousands of denominations today. Luther made every man responsible for interpreting Scripture ("defining his own concept of existence") and there's been a gradually increasing divergence of views ever since. I would expect something similar among atheists engaged in the same process, and I think the rise of atheism since the 16th century demonstrates a similar pattern of gradual divergence.
I'm not saying that theists have it any easier. History is not kind to anyone who claims the world's religions don't create conflict. Only that since essentially all major religions assert a cosmic moral order of some kind, such societies are more likely to have agreement about the question "what is good?" (They will likely conflict with each other, but I'm talking about internal cohesion here.) That's why I quoted Neitzsche's point that in terms of importance, the question "how well do I live?" pales next do "what do I live for?".
My point was that the same may be true for a society: agreement on what to live for (the common good) is more important than how well you live. Modern America has among the highest standards of living in the world, but we are lonelier and more spiritually adrift than ever. Our rising disagreement about "why to live" has paralleled rising prosperity in "how we live", but at some point, we will realize that the old bumper sticker, "he who dies with the most toys wins" isn't actually true. In fact, he who dies with the most toys, still dies. We've been so focused on the toys (the how) that we forgot about the why.
I hope that clarifies a little. This topic is near to my heart, since I have had quite a long spiritual (and political and philosophical) journey thus far and it is by no means at its end: Marxist atheist, to libertarian Buddhist, to Christian, to conservative Evangelical, and now find myself drawn to Eastern Orthodox mysticism. The question of ends has occupied my entire 50 years of life, but that by no means implies I understand the answers any better than you or anyone else. Personally, I think this sort of quest is universal to the human experience, and gets derailed mostly by the shiny baubles that modern industrial capitalism is so good at producing.
Don't sell yourself short. By even engaging with those questions like "what is the common good and how can we know it?", you're ahead of 90% of all Americans. You ARE focused on the "why" instead of the "how".
I always enjoy "talking" with You, Sir Brian. You suffer me kindly, as what I lack in education I make up with a combination of occasionally thinking and having a big "mouth." I put ">>>" in front of Your quotes:
>>> JT, I didn't mean to suggest that an atheist can't have an understanding of the common good. I see how you read it that way, but it wasn't my intention. Here's another attempt at same:
Ah. I misread it then.
>>> An atheist's ultimate ends will always be in this world.
That's true of Agnostics, as well. Not because there's no possibility of life after death, but because the only thing anyone can actually *do* anything about and change is the present moment of time, right? Religio-Spiritual people think what we do will effect what comes after death. Agnostics say, yeah, it might. (So best to play it safe. ;-)
>>> In such a society (which we have today), each person defines his own concept of existence and ultimate purpose of life. If yours and mine are incompatible, one of us must surrender our liberty to our own concept of existence in order to have a shared sense of "what is good." We often do this, so there may be a broad agreement about most issues, but over time, as more and more people "define their own concept of existence", we would expect agreement to become less common, and hence "the common good" more elusive.
I'm not sure if I'd disagree with this or not. Not sure. My own view is that no matter what structure You pin Your hopes on, still each person's ultimate definitions are unique to that person. Right? Or not? I understand having Religions largely determine their people's worldviews are helpful to tons of people. But still seems like each has to find their own Way. So that's where I'm having trouble with even the concept that some might be incompatible. Oh... I'm guessing You might mean that people's lifestyles and judgements will be so deeply effected by their world-concepts that they can't get along. Yeah, that could happen. (And is happening.)
Still I wonder if there's so much trouble about finding a common good. Truth. Honesty. Kindness (to kin, countrymen, and strangers as well). That's pretty feeble but a place to start. And, thusly, we have hypocrites, liars, and cruel people. Some-a that mixed up in all of us in different measures. Some, especially these days, valuing their selves above all other people. Some devaluing themselves needlessly. The rest doing the best they can.
>>> Only that since essentially all major religions assert a cosmic moral order of some kind, such societies are more likely to have agreement about the question "what is good?"
I haven't studied much, but if You added in the Ancient Greek/Roman philosophers (some-a whom were Atheists, right?).. Well, You'd have a pretty good mix. Yeah, there might be discrepancies around the edges. But I think enough overlap to get along with.
>>> My point was that the same may be true for a society: agreement on what to live for (the common good) is more important than how well you live.
I think that was true, in the "before-times." Wasn't it You and me who had some dialogue about Dr. McGilchrist over at Paul North's place? No matter. It seems that more and more, *especially* lately, everything is *quantified.* Quantity over quality. Like You say, "how much" over "how good." Look at who the modern-day heroes are. Or, from what I "hear," the stars of the social media and politics and just about everything in between are the rich and the famous. The powerful. It used-ta be that "beauty is only skin deep." Now, "beauty is the only thing that matters" has become ascendent. Seems in the back (or front) of just about everybody's mind is "how can I become a BILLIONAIRE." Gotta admit that *I* played the lottery for a few months, even knowing the odds. Ah well...
>>> Modern America has among the highest standards of living in the world, but we are lonelier and more spiritually adrift than ever.
This is a crude way of putting Dr. McGilchrist's views, but it seems people are becoming more and more like computers and less and less like human beings. The kids who grew up with the internet? Those who grew up tethered to their iPhone? Those born on top of social media? I'm having a hard time, myself, seeing that they've gained more than they've surely lost by those "advances." The Alphas are said to be more comfortable "dealing" with people through their computers than *being* with people face-to-face. I'm afraid these generations will be further removed from reality through the Metaverse. And likely to be the first to say, "Transhumanism? Great! What could be better!?!"
That's getting a little off-topic, I guess.
I was interested in Your progress to Eastern Orthodox Mysticism. I dunno You ever heard me тАЬsay:тАЭ IтАЩm exactly 50% Fundamentalist Atheist. I was raised that Way, and You donтАЩt lose that. Which means IтАЩm 50% Religio-Spiritual. I тАЬgot ReligionтАЭ from Ram Dass when I was 22. (AKA тАЬRum DumтАЭ and Richard Alpert.) IтАЩve never asked G-d for anything, but IтАЩve meditated some which is similar to prayer. I practiced Zen, but never had any Teachers so canтАЩt claim any fame. (That was before I found out that Zen was totally corrupted Religion. From their actions during WWII.)
IтАЩd go through phases of Spirituality. When I was 22 I thought itтАЩd be nice to be a mystic, in a romantic sort-a idea of it. But mostly struggled a lot just to making a living. Really, until I get to pontificating on the mysteries IтАЩm too lazy to think on the тАЬwhyтАЭs. IтАЩm pretty-much retired, which has helped a lot. Since I was never set on making the most money and having the most toys, so I can get by on Social Security. So I agree with Ya.
(IтАЩve been really lucky through some great times and some bad ones.)
ThatтАЩs more тАШn enough about me. Sorry. ThatтАЩs a long-winded way of saying that in the past year IтАЩve gone through some pretty *drastic* changes. Becoming more Conservative in a way. But, really, more coming to see what Liberalism is about from Sowell and others, and realizing it really didnтАЩt represent the policies and values that I believe would do much good. Individually or for the country either one. Liberalism as a *political* philosophy, itself, is something I havenтАЩt delved into much.
I think You and I would agree on a lot. Well, weтАЩve commented different places saying we do. My understanding is that The Greatest Generation let Boomers (like me) get away with murder. Murder of morals, to a large extent, for one thing. And itтАЩs been a long downhill slide since. We probably agree that changes are in order, but that going back to the past is infeasible. ThatтАЩs a long discussion and a lotta thinkinтАЩ.
Only problem is I got a thousand books IтАЩd like to read, and bought another one this morning. Only read a few pages of The Federalist Papers, so didnтАЩt ponder much. (Spend too much time writing comments to educate myself properly. ;-) My day actually ends in about an hour, so another one down the drain. Ah wellтАж ;-)
TY for writing, Sir! And if You or anybody read this, thank You for Your time. I was just in a fey mood, I guess.
"people are becoming more and more like computers and less and less like human beings"
I think this is a great summary not only of McGilchrist, but of the modern Western mind. This is part of the reason I am exploring Eastern Orthodox theology. The other is my rising certainty that Protestantism provides no facility for delineating heresy, and as such, effectively has no meaning. That is actually the subject I write on myself occasionally, mostly just to solidify my own thoughts.
Since you have a Protestant background, there are 2 books I would recommend if you want to dip into Eastern Christian thinking:
The Mountain of Silence - A westerner writing about his experience with monastic mystics of Mount Athos.
Becoming Orthodox - Peter Gilquist's autobiographical account of his journey from Protestant pastor to Orthodox priest.
Of the two, I think you would like the first one better. Just to add to your thousand books to read. :-)
And yes, you and I have discussed similar things with Paul Kingsnorth. He would likely be a better source than I for Eastern mysticism.
I misspoke. I don't have a Protestant background. I don't even have any Christian background, other than I've read the Gospels and Genesis a few times. Nevertheless, I got the basic Judeo-Christian ethics just growing up in America. But knowledge?
Still.. Will put books on list. TYTY. Granted, I'll never get to all-a them in my lifetime.
The crux for Shklar, as it was for Montesquieu and Locke in certain moods (see the Letter Concerning Toleration) is less about pacifying disputes in any absolute sense and more about merely ensuring that such disputes do not result in coercion and cruelty. Oh the other hand, she would, I think, be relatively happy for a society with complete agreement about ultimate ends to be called 'liberal', if it could reach that point without coercion and cruelty.
She does not say that liberalism makes no normative claims: indeed she she expressly and repeatedly points out that the injunction to avoid cruelty is normative. Saying liberalism is not a 'philosophy of life' is not to claim it is non-normative: it is to claim that it is not a complete normative order. Nor does she say that the proper aim of society is personal freedom, she says that the proper aim of liberalism is such freedom (as is compatible with the freedom of others). It is completely fundamental to her position that the political order is not the entirety of either the social order nor the normative order. Some of these distinctions might appear fine; but they are important, especially when so few liberals appear to be making them, as this book review shows.
I did actually finish the entire essay, and I like it enough to get the book you recommended from my library. While I don't disagree with her "don't be cruel" theory, I also do not believe she's demonstrated that either the definition of cruelty or the injunction not to engage in it isn't grounded in the divine. God sneaks into her argument in several noticeable places. However, she's interesting, and for me to find a new political theorist interesting is rare. I'll likely have my civics students read this essay; whether I agree with it or not, it's a perspective that is worthy of their consideration. Thanks a lot for the recommendation.
This side of heaven, we will never find a society that agrees on ultimate ends without coercion. The combination of free will and sinfulness pretty much guarantees that. Utopia is a mirage, and always will be. (Well, unless we drug ourselves into compliance -- https://unherd.com/thepost/love-drugs-are-more-dangerous-than-you-think/ Of course, that would be coercive too.)
I think I'm in a middle ground between yourself and Shklar. At one place in Ordinary Vices, she is notably sceptical about whether religion is even compatible with with making cruelty the primary vices to be avoided (it is possible that she later revised this opinion). I think that definitely goes too far. In fact, I think it is a place where she falls into the nasty secular habit of engaging with a lazy caricature of religion rather than with the real thing.
At the same time, I would prioritise the agreement on avoiding cruelty (even if there was no underlying agreement about why we prioritise it) above shared ultimate ends. To some extent, this is a minimalist, interim position: if we can't even agree not to be cruel to one another, what hope is there of agreement on shared ends? If we can, maybe that is how we start to build the trust required to agree about ends?
Personally, I would agree that grounding the injunction in what Taylor calls 'exclusive humanism' is utterly unsatisfying, even if Shklar herself does. That said, I'd be very happy if the dominant branch of secular liberal humanism took Shklar's route while still disagreeing with me about the metaphysics. It would become, perhaps, actually humane and tolerant that way.
I also find her definition of cruelty too narrow, although I think it is intended in a indicative rather than legalistic manner: I discuss this here, although it is (oddly enough) mixed up with quite a lot of talk about the history of British cheeses: https://flatcapsandfatalism.substack.com/p/lost-cheeses-and-impersonal-cruelty?s=w
I'm really happy to hear you will be introducing her to your civics students: surely a better use of their time than Fukuyama et al!
I put a few sections of "The End of History" on the reading list just to illustrate to them how wrong much of what we think about today's world might be.
BTW: Maybe I should be worried that a guy named Fatalist seems to be more optimistic about society than I am. :-) Great conversation. Thanks.
Darwin explained that morals originated in the biology of social cooperation and altruism, as a survival strategy in "primeval" times. Awareness and spirituality were "pagan" and embodied.
From the viewpoint of cultural evolution, transcendent spirituality (Axial, contemplative culture and religion, "anti-paganism") is very recent, going back 3,000 years or so.
Before the Axial age (Bronze Age collapse), transcendence, renunciation, and salvation were not necessary to human survival as an intensely socially cooperative species.
Not a criticism of you - although it absolutely is one of Fukuyama, who you are reviewing - but the liberal tradition has far more ability to resolve these contradictions than is evidenced here. Shklar's liberalism of fear avoids these absurd knots over 'neutrality' with a clear commitment to the avoidance of cruelty coupled to one simple empirical observation: power makes people cruel.
But that's not enough to be emotionally sustaining. "Don't be cruel" just doesn't have the resonance of (for example) "Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".
After a lifetime (well, from age 15 or so to my current age of 66) as an atheist, I have reluctantly concluded that religious ritual, sustained by genuine religious belief in most but not necessarily all congregants, is essential to a functioning human society that can continue the ideals of liberalism in a way that most of us would find acceptable.
But I suspect that a serious crisis ("there are no atheists in foxholes") may need to arrive before we can find our way back to meaningful religious practice.
"But that's not enough to be emotionally sustaining. "Don't be cruel" just doesn't have the resonance of (for example) 'Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit'".
Perhaps another, more robust way of articulating the idea of "don't be cruel":
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: тАЬTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?тАЭ
Jesus replied: тАЬтАШLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.тАЩ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: тАШLove your neighbor as yourself.тАЩ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.тАЭ
How does a non-religious person follow this counsel? In my opinion, a possible distillation of what's stated here is: "The most important thing you can do is to not put yourself first" or something along those lines. A large-scale cultural emphasis on selflessness, which is at the heart of and is perhaps the unifying theme of virtually all religion, is the ticket to better society. Of course it's vital that all of us start with the person in the mirror, but it doesn't hurt to have a strong leader or leaders that personify this ethic.
In evolutionary terms, intense social cooperation by primeval humans required "biological morals" (altruism) for improved survival.
Darwin agrees with those statements of Jesus:
"It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children over other men of the same tribe, yet that an increase in the number of well-endowed men and an advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes, and this would be natural selection (178-179)."
(Darwin quoted by Peter Richerson, PhD biology, UC Davis)
This is a very good point, and one I think is still applicable even at today's very large scale societies. The problem is that overall societal good, per se, does not seem to be a sufficient motivation for individual humans, if not backed up with a belief that the society is supernaturally ordained.
"Supernaturally ordained" meaning fear of punishment?
I think most people act based on what they feel is right. I see it all the time in the actions of everyday people.
My point is that I think there is substantial evidence for the proposition that human psychology is such that this only works on a large scale when buttressed by belief (by a large fraction of the people) in the supernatural provenance of the principle.
Gotcha. Do we have examples of this ethic existing more or less organically in a secular society and not working?
It never arisen organically, AFAIK. The German Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes tried to impose it. I think we agree that those were not so great.
I am also an atheist who believes in religion but not God.
But it might be simpler, human freedom goes to hell without human obligation. Lyons captures it so very well in his explication of conservatism herein.
It does not have to be the source of all of person's emotional sustainment (although I would argue that if you very seriously took the injunction to avoid being cruel while reducing the sum of cruelty in the world, then it would give you enough work for many lifetimes). The thought that the political order should be the sole source of a person's emotional sustenance is itself totalitarian; and, I would add, both likely to lead to cruelty and in itself idolatrous.
Shklar put it these terms: the liberalism of fear is not seeking a summum bonum, an ultimate good, it is seeking to avoid a summum malum, a very worst evil; and that evil is cruelty. It does not say do not seek your summum bolum. It merely says that you cannot be cruel as you do so.
She was not religious, and she was sceptical about whether or not this was ultimately compatible with religious faith on the grounds that the religious believer, if devout, must put the commands of God above the injunction to avoid cruelty. I am more sanguine. I see little in Christianity that requires a Christian to be cruel, and much that challenges and undermines cruelty.
TY. Had never heard-a her. I see she's written a lot. I just bought "Ordinary Vices. If I may ask: is "Judith Shklar and the liberalism of fear" another good place to look into? Or one-a her other works? TIA (Thank You in Advance).
The essay, 'The Liberalism of Fear' is a later condensation of her argument - it's here: https://philarchive.org/archive/SHKTLOv1 It's very dense, though, and I think Ordinary Vices is more important. Her style is different enough to most political philosophy to benefit from being at book length. I haven't read "Judith Shklar and the liberalism of fear", which isn't to say its bad. Her writing is so clear, though, that I see little benefit in starting with a secondary source. Of her other works, the collection of essays 'Political Thought and Political Thinking' contains a lot of gems, and 'Faces of Injustice' is particularly exceptional; but I would start with 'Ordinary Vices'.
TYTY Ma'am/Sir!
Since I'm always interested to anyone who claims to ground moral standards in something other than the transcendental, I just started reading the essay you recommended. Right there on page 1 is the exact conflict we're talking about here:
"Liberalism refers to a political doctrine, not a philosophy of life such as has traditionally been provided by various forms of revealed religion. Liberalism has only one overriding aim to secure the political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom."
Her own definition is self contradictory (just as Lyons says above). She says liberalism refers to only political forms and makes no normative claims. But the very next sentence makes a normative claim: that the exercise of personal freedom is the proper aim of society. She's fallen into the "liberal democracy" dichotomy I outlined elsewhere.
I'll update this comment as I read more, since she isn't someone I've heard of before. But so far she doesn't appear to have a solution, or even to recognize the problem.
Perhaps one could defend Shklar's consistency by saying that, because no one has definitive knowledge of the ultimate ends of life, the best political order is a liberalism that leaves everyone free to choose their own ends without interference from the state or others. I suppose you could call this a "normative" claim, but only in a negative sense: it is based on our ignorance of ultimate ends. By the way, I don't agree with the liberal position, but I think we need to recognize and meet the strongest arguments in its favor.
To be contrarian: maybe it is simple, maybe we know the ultimate end - we die and our consciousness ends - we just donтАЩt like that answer, lotsa obfuscation on that one.
I think the point is that liberalism is running a bad show: greed on the right and absurd philistinism of wokeness on the left. I think it, liberalism, is mostly a practical failure and we should beware, the pitiless crowbar of events is our history. Liberalism is a primrose path.
The 95% of the human species that believe in some kind of a supreme being would argue with your "ultimate end".
Liberalism was birthed in an attempt to pacify disputes about ultimate ends. Maybe that was the problem? Is a society without an "ultimate end" of some kind (some sense of the common good) destined to eat itself in an orgy of hedonistic futility? Never thought I would quote Nietzsche, but he's correct that "he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Maybe what's true for a man is true for a mass of men as well. I don't really know; it's late and I'm just kind of thinking out load.
Hi Sir Brian, TYTY. I'm joining this conversation late. And I really hate to "say" something You're not likely to like, but here goes:
I can assure You that people can have a very *strong* sense of the common good without reference to a Supreme Being. Dunno, but might be a purer form of it, because it's not based on a really bad, eternal, punishment coming if You don't love Your neighbor as Yourself. Good just based on goodness. Dunno. A goodness that doesn't *depend* on pain/reward as the motivation?
Ultimate ends? *Real* contrarian view. Don't know much philosophy. But how, on Earth, *can* ultimate ends be knowable? Yeah, I get it. On Faith. And I agree that even Atheistic Scientists rely on Faith.
I guess "Faith" isn't the kind of *knowing* I"m looking for. Or, rather, gave up looking for. That's just me, just thinkin' out loud.
TY again, and Sir RJF as well!
JT, I didn't mean to suggest that an atheist can't have an understanding of the common good. I see how you read it that way, but it wasn't my intention. Here's another attempt at same:
An atheist's ultimate ends will always be in this world. If this world is all there is (fade to black), it falls on man (each man) to define and create his own purpose, as Justice Kennedy put it in Casey, "to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
In such a society (which we have today), each person defines his own concept of existence and ultimate purpose of life. If yours and mine are incompatible, one of us must surrender our liberty to our own concept of existence in order to have a shared sense of "what is good." We often do this, so there may be a broad agreement about most issues, but over time, as more and more people "define their own concept of existence", we would expect agreement to become less common, and hence "the common good" more elusive.
There is a mirror of this in what happened after the Protestant Reformation: early broad agreement about doctrine, then division into a few major camps, and gradual divergence of views until we have thousands of denominations today. Luther made every man responsible for interpreting Scripture ("defining his own concept of existence") and there's been a gradually increasing divergence of views ever since. I would expect something similar among atheists engaged in the same process, and I think the rise of atheism since the 16th century demonstrates a similar pattern of gradual divergence.
I'm not saying that theists have it any easier. History is not kind to anyone who claims the world's religions don't create conflict. Only that since essentially all major religions assert a cosmic moral order of some kind, such societies are more likely to have agreement about the question "what is good?" (They will likely conflict with each other, but I'm talking about internal cohesion here.) That's why I quoted Neitzsche's point that in terms of importance, the question "how well do I live?" pales next do "what do I live for?".
My point was that the same may be true for a society: agreement on what to live for (the common good) is more important than how well you live. Modern America has among the highest standards of living in the world, but we are lonelier and more spiritually adrift than ever. Our rising disagreement about "why to live" has paralleled rising prosperity in "how we live", but at some point, we will realize that the old bumper sticker, "he who dies with the most toys wins" isn't actually true. In fact, he who dies with the most toys, still dies. We've been so focused on the toys (the how) that we forgot about the why.
I hope that clarifies a little. This topic is near to my heart, since I have had quite a long spiritual (and political and philosophical) journey thus far and it is by no means at its end: Marxist atheist, to libertarian Buddhist, to Christian, to conservative Evangelical, and now find myself drawn to Eastern Orthodox mysticism. The question of ends has occupied my entire 50 years of life, but that by no means implies I understand the answers any better than you or anyone else. Personally, I think this sort of quest is universal to the human experience, and gets derailed mostly by the shiny baubles that modern industrial capitalism is so good at producing.
Don't sell yourself short. By even engaging with those questions like "what is the common good and how can we know it?", you're ahead of 90% of all Americans. You ARE focused on the "why" instead of the "how".
I always enjoy "talking" with You, Sir Brian. You suffer me kindly, as what I lack in education I make up with a combination of occasionally thinking and having a big "mouth." I put ">>>" in front of Your quotes:
>>> JT, I didn't mean to suggest that an atheist can't have an understanding of the common good. I see how you read it that way, but it wasn't my intention. Here's another attempt at same:
Ah. I misread it then.
>>> An atheist's ultimate ends will always be in this world.
That's true of Agnostics, as well. Not because there's no possibility of life after death, but because the only thing anyone can actually *do* anything about and change is the present moment of time, right? Religio-Spiritual people think what we do will effect what comes after death. Agnostics say, yeah, it might. (So best to play it safe. ;-)
>>> In such a society (which we have today), each person defines his own concept of existence and ultimate purpose of life. If yours and mine are incompatible, one of us must surrender our liberty to our own concept of existence in order to have a shared sense of "what is good." We often do this, so there may be a broad agreement about most issues, but over time, as more and more people "define their own concept of existence", we would expect agreement to become less common, and hence "the common good" more elusive.
I'm not sure if I'd disagree with this or not. Not sure. My own view is that no matter what structure You pin Your hopes on, still each person's ultimate definitions are unique to that person. Right? Or not? I understand having Religions largely determine their people's worldviews are helpful to tons of people. But still seems like each has to find their own Way. So that's where I'm having trouble with even the concept that some might be incompatible. Oh... I'm guessing You might mean that people's lifestyles and judgements will be so deeply effected by their world-concepts that they can't get along. Yeah, that could happen. (And is happening.)
Still I wonder if there's so much trouble about finding a common good. Truth. Honesty. Kindness (to kin, countrymen, and strangers as well). That's pretty feeble but a place to start. And, thusly, we have hypocrites, liars, and cruel people. Some-a that mixed up in all of us in different measures. Some, especially these days, valuing their selves above all other people. Some devaluing themselves needlessly. The rest doing the best they can.
>>> Only that since essentially all major religions assert a cosmic moral order of some kind, such societies are more likely to have agreement about the question "what is good?"
I haven't studied much, but if You added in the Ancient Greek/Roman philosophers (some-a whom were Atheists, right?).. Well, You'd have a pretty good mix. Yeah, there might be discrepancies around the edges. But I think enough overlap to get along with.
>>> My point was that the same may be true for a society: agreement on what to live for (the common good) is more important than how well you live.
I think that was true, in the "before-times." Wasn't it You and me who had some dialogue about Dr. McGilchrist over at Paul North's place? No matter. It seems that more and more, *especially* lately, everything is *quantified.* Quantity over quality. Like You say, "how much" over "how good." Look at who the modern-day heroes are. Or, from what I "hear," the stars of the social media and politics and just about everything in between are the rich and the famous. The powerful. It used-ta be that "beauty is only skin deep." Now, "beauty is the only thing that matters" has become ascendent. Seems in the back (or front) of just about everybody's mind is "how can I become a BILLIONAIRE." Gotta admit that *I* played the lottery for a few months, even knowing the odds. Ah well...
>>> Modern America has among the highest standards of living in the world, but we are lonelier and more spiritually adrift than ever.
This is a crude way of putting Dr. McGilchrist's views, but it seems people are becoming more and more like computers and less and less like human beings. The kids who grew up with the internet? Those who grew up tethered to their iPhone? Those born on top of social media? I'm having a hard time, myself, seeing that they've gained more than they've surely lost by those "advances." The Alphas are said to be more comfortable "dealing" with people through their computers than *being* with people face-to-face. I'm afraid these generations will be further removed from reality through the Metaverse. And likely to be the first to say, "Transhumanism? Great! What could be better!?!"
That's getting a little off-topic, I guess.
I was interested in Your progress to Eastern Orthodox Mysticism. I dunno You ever heard me тАЬsay:тАЭ IтАЩm exactly 50% Fundamentalist Atheist. I was raised that Way, and You donтАЩt lose that. Which means IтАЩm 50% Religio-Spiritual. I тАЬgot ReligionтАЭ from Ram Dass when I was 22. (AKA тАЬRum DumтАЭ and Richard Alpert.) IтАЩve never asked G-d for anything, but IтАЩve meditated some which is similar to prayer. I practiced Zen, but never had any Teachers so canтАЩt claim any fame. (That was before I found out that Zen was totally corrupted Religion. From their actions during WWII.)
IтАЩd go through phases of Spirituality. When I was 22 I thought itтАЩd be nice to be a mystic, in a romantic sort-a idea of it. But mostly struggled a lot just to making a living. Really, until I get to pontificating on the mysteries IтАЩm too lazy to think on the тАЬwhyтАЭs. IтАЩm pretty-much retired, which has helped a lot. Since I was never set on making the most money and having the most toys, so I can get by on Social Security. So I agree with Ya.
(IтАЩve been really lucky through some great times and some bad ones.)
ThatтАЩs more тАШn enough about me. Sorry. ThatтАЩs a long-winded way of saying that in the past year IтАЩve gone through some pretty *drastic* changes. Becoming more Conservative in a way. But, really, more coming to see what Liberalism is about from Sowell and others, and realizing it really didnтАЩt represent the policies and values that I believe would do much good. Individually or for the country either one. Liberalism as a *political* philosophy, itself, is something I havenтАЩt delved into much.
I think You and I would agree on a lot. Well, weтАЩve commented different places saying we do. My understanding is that The Greatest Generation let Boomers (like me) get away with murder. Murder of morals, to a large extent, for one thing. And itтАЩs been a long downhill slide since. We probably agree that changes are in order, but that going back to the past is infeasible. ThatтАЩs a long discussion and a lotta thinkinтАЩ.
Only problem is I got a thousand books IтАЩd like to read, and bought another one this morning. Only read a few pages of The Federalist Papers, so didnтАЩt ponder much. (Spend too much time writing comments to educate myself properly. ;-) My day actually ends in about an hour, so another one down the drain. Ah wellтАж ;-)
TY for writing, Sir! And if You or anybody read this, thank You for Your time. I was just in a fey mood, I guess.
"people are becoming more and more like computers and less and less like human beings"
I think this is a great summary not only of McGilchrist, but of the modern Western mind. This is part of the reason I am exploring Eastern Orthodox theology. The other is my rising certainty that Protestantism provides no facility for delineating heresy, and as such, effectively has no meaning. That is actually the subject I write on myself occasionally, mostly just to solidify my own thoughts.
Since you have a Protestant background, there are 2 books I would recommend if you want to dip into Eastern Christian thinking:
The Mountain of Silence - A westerner writing about his experience with monastic mystics of Mount Athos.
Becoming Orthodox - Peter Gilquist's autobiographical account of his journey from Protestant pastor to Orthodox priest.
Of the two, I think you would like the first one better. Just to add to your thousand books to read. :-)
And yes, you and I have discussed similar things with Paul Kingsnorth. He would likely be a better source than I for Eastern mysticism.
Actually, it's even worst than I stated below. Other than weddings and funerals, I've only been to Church twice since I was about 10 or 11.
But things change, so there is that. I was a Dem from McGovern in '72 up through Biden. (Won't make *that* mistake again.)
I misspoke. I don't have a Protestant background. I don't even have any Christian background, other than I've read the Gospels and Genesis a few times. Nevertheless, I got the basic Judeo-Christian ethics just growing up in America. But knowledge?
Still.. Will put books on list. TYTY. Granted, I'll never get to all-a them in my lifetime.
BV, well done, yes devoid of meaning it seems society is Babylon, so we need a supernatural saviour. What does that say about us?
The crux for Shklar, as it was for Montesquieu and Locke in certain moods (see the Letter Concerning Toleration) is less about pacifying disputes in any absolute sense and more about merely ensuring that such disputes do not result in coercion and cruelty. Oh the other hand, she would, I think, be relatively happy for a society with complete agreement about ultimate ends to be called 'liberal', if it could reach that point without coercion and cruelty.
She does not say that liberalism makes no normative claims: indeed she she expressly and repeatedly points out that the injunction to avoid cruelty is normative. Saying liberalism is not a 'philosophy of life' is not to claim it is non-normative: it is to claim that it is not a complete normative order. Nor does she say that the proper aim of society is personal freedom, she says that the proper aim of liberalism is such freedom (as is compatible with the freedom of others). It is completely fundamental to her position that the political order is not the entirety of either the social order nor the normative order. Some of these distinctions might appear fine; but they are important, especially when so few liberals appear to be making them, as this book review shows.
I did actually finish the entire essay, and I like it enough to get the book you recommended from my library. While I don't disagree with her "don't be cruel" theory, I also do not believe she's demonstrated that either the definition of cruelty or the injunction not to engage in it isn't grounded in the divine. God sneaks into her argument in several noticeable places. However, she's interesting, and for me to find a new political theorist interesting is rare. I'll likely have my civics students read this essay; whether I agree with it or not, it's a perspective that is worthy of their consideration. Thanks a lot for the recommendation.
This side of heaven, we will never find a society that agrees on ultimate ends without coercion. The combination of free will and sinfulness pretty much guarantees that. Utopia is a mirage, and always will be. (Well, unless we drug ourselves into compliance -- https://unherd.com/thepost/love-drugs-are-more-dangerous-than-you-think/ Of course, that would be coercive too.)
I think I'm in a middle ground between yourself and Shklar. At one place in Ordinary Vices, she is notably sceptical about whether religion is even compatible with with making cruelty the primary vices to be avoided (it is possible that she later revised this opinion). I think that definitely goes too far. In fact, I think it is a place where she falls into the nasty secular habit of engaging with a lazy caricature of religion rather than with the real thing.
At the same time, I would prioritise the agreement on avoiding cruelty (even if there was no underlying agreement about why we prioritise it) above shared ultimate ends. To some extent, this is a minimalist, interim position: if we can't even agree not to be cruel to one another, what hope is there of agreement on shared ends? If we can, maybe that is how we start to build the trust required to agree about ends?
Personally, I would agree that grounding the injunction in what Taylor calls 'exclusive humanism' is utterly unsatisfying, even if Shklar herself does. That said, I'd be very happy if the dominant branch of secular liberal humanism took Shklar's route while still disagreeing with me about the metaphysics. It would become, perhaps, actually humane and tolerant that way.
I also find her definition of cruelty too narrow, although I think it is intended in a indicative rather than legalistic manner: I discuss this here, although it is (oddly enough) mixed up with quite a lot of talk about the history of British cheeses: https://flatcapsandfatalism.substack.com/p/lost-cheeses-and-impersonal-cruelty?s=w
I'm really happy to hear you will be introducing her to your civics students: surely a better use of their time than Fukuyama et al!
I put a few sections of "The End of History" on the reading list just to illustrate to them how wrong much of what we think about today's world might be.
BTW: Maybe I should be worried that a guy named Fatalist seems to be more optimistic about society than I am. :-) Great conversation. Thanks.
Likewise!
(again, sorry!)
Darwin explained that morals originated in the biology of social cooperation and altruism, as a survival strategy in "primeval" times. Awareness and spirituality were "pagan" and embodied.
From the viewpoint of cultural evolution, transcendent spirituality (Axial, contemplative culture and religion, "anti-paganism") is very recent, going back 3,000 years or so.
Before the Axial age (Bronze Age collapse), transcendence, renunciation, and salvation were not necessary to human survival as an intensely socially cooperative species.
The liberal tradition does not have anti-fragility to disruption under postmodern social conditions.
Thus, ILLIBERALISM has exploited such disruption to gain power: the merger of postmodern neomarxism (PMC, etc.) with the corporate-state.