Philosophy Makes Path-Dependent Progress

One of the most peculiar features of philosophy, much remarked upon, is that philosophy doesn’t seem to make progress. Not only that, we seem to return to the same views again and again. What explains this?

Philosophers disagree (as usual!), but I’d like to offer a hypothesis with two parts.

(1) Theory Space is Large. The space of plausible philosophical theories is very, very large perhaps because the space of reasons to believe as such is very, very large. As a result, progress in philosophy can go in so many different directions in principle.

(2) Arbitrary, but Real Progress. Consequently, non-rational factors like the social status of leading philosophers play a major role in determining the direction of philosophical progress, but these factors do not imply that there is no progress.

Regarding (1), it is plausible that philosophical theory space is very large, much like the class of mathematical theorems. Concept space is big, and theories that string them together to explain things is also going to be big. Further, philosophers have not only generated a huge range of views, the range of views advocated continues to grow. We’ve never run out of things to say, or found issues where we can’t find any interesting theories. People are always proposing some new, interesting thesis. If concept and argument space is very, very large, that makes sense.

Regarding (2), Why do we land in the particular spaces that we do? Why were so many of us logical positivists fifty years ago, and now we seem to be moving away from even basic philosophical naturalism?

Social Status. My sense is that philosophical discussion is driven in large part by the interests of the highest social status philosophers. I don’t know how to explain their interests, which are perhaps too personal to systematically theorize, but high status philosophers are able to drive discussion because they’re usually quite careful in developing frameworks for asking questions (rather than offering persuasive arguments). And they’re usually good at preparing graduate students to devote their lives, or much of their lives, to those questions. Given the rewards associated with publishing, and the ease with which graduate students can publish on questions where their high status advisors blaze a trail, as well as the benefits of being associated with high status persons, means that high status philosophers play an outsized role in what we discussion.

Historical Cues. Philosophers are also driven by social issues as they arise in history and culture, and those issues are in many respects random, and generally impossible to predict. Current events doesn’t change physics or biology much at all, but it does change philosophy a lot.

Science Envy. It has been quite common in the history of philosophy for philosophers to take their cues from scientists in how to formulate and address philosophical problems. This means that much of philosophical discussion is affected by scientific progress, and which sciences seem the most sturdy and progressive. But scientific progress is itself hard to predict and often occurs in unexpected paradigm shifts. That means philosophical theories are likely to be blown about by the progress of the sciences.

Popular Disgust. It has also been quite common in the history of philosophy for philosophers to approach the opinions of the masses with disgust (probably also because philosophers want to be high status, and so want to distinguish themselves from the masses, but also because the masses have easily refutable views). So philosophy is often reactive, generating discussions about views common in popular culture in order to distinguish themselves from popular culture.

Follow the Money. Philosophers have, for a very long time, depended on the patronage of non-philosophers, and this, I think, has shaped what philosophers talk about up to today (in many ways, these days our patrons are the general public and our students’ parents).

Unseriousness. For reasons I don’t quite understand, philosophers spend a lot of time dismissing some positions as unserious. This is often due to the fact that philosophers sense that their views are pretty bizarre and so are sensitive to the fact that they need to show that they’re sensible and not sophistical. And this is also in part due to science envy and popular disgust. Views held by scientists and rejected by the people will tend to influence philosophy more than other views. That’s one reason theism is low status in philosophy today. Atheism is common among leading scientists, and theism is common among the masses.

Counterfactual Philosophers. A huge amount of philosophical progress is determined by the personal idiosyncracies of the people who decide to become philosophers. Our field could be quite different if different philosophers, counterfactual philosophers, were part of the field. Have we any doubt philosophy would be different if the leading physicists had become philosophers instead?

Given all these factors, why think philosophy makes progress of any kind? Well, because people put forward inventive theories and other philosophers refute them, so we learn which views are erroneous. And periodically, there’s a new system of thought that organizes information in new and illuminating ways. So we come to know more than we knew before.

So we make philosophical progress, but because the space of concepts and arguments is so big, there is invariably path-dependence and speciation in the direction philosophy takes. But if I’m right, any progressive path is going to be determined by arbitrary factors, so we perhaps can’t be too upset about the particular arbitrary factors that drive us forward unless we think those factors are slowing progress down.

Are Liberal Regimes as Coercive as Integralist Regimes?

A week or so ago, Dave Atenasio published a nice reply to my post arguing that integralist regimes will have a hard time generating requisite levels of stability without lots of coercion. The piece is well-done, so check it out, but I’d like to jump right to the heart of the matter. I concede freely what integralists often say, which is that liberal regimes are coercive. My claim is that liberal regimes are less coercive in allowing a wider range of opinion to flourish. And if there is a natural tendency in the free use of practical reason for people to disagree, integralist regimes will therefore have to employ more coercion to achieve coordination around their comprehensive doctrine than liberal regimes, which are at least somewhat neutral on these matters, and much more than integralist regimes.

Atenasio argues that it’s just not clear whether integralist regimes are more coercive than liberal regimes, and then he proceeds to outline various ways in which liberal regimes are coercive and points out that the coerciveness of both liberal and integralist regimes, even construed as ideal types, come in degrees, and are based on a range of factors, the variety and magnitude of which will make it difficult to show definitively that liberal regimes are less coercive.

I’m pretty sympathetic to the idea that it is hard to determine which regimes and policies are more coercive than others. That’s a big point in my forthcoming book, A Liberal Democratic Peace: Creating Trust in Polarized Times, in Chapter 5. However, I don’t think we’re should be as skeptical as Atenasio believes. My argument begins with a ceteris paribus comparison between the two regime types following three restrictions on how the comparison should proceed.

First condition: I’m going to assume that liberal regimes and integralist regimes can have the same foreign policy and economic policy, within broad limits. So in comparing the two regimes, we can hold these policy classes constant. I know that integralist regimes will, on average, have a narrower band of economic policies, since liberal regimes can vary a lot in this regard, but let’s set that aside for the sake of argument.

So this means that the main comparison between the two regimes will be on social policy.

Second condition: we can hold lots of social policy constant because the degree of coerciveness of these policies are somewhat independent to what is essentially different between integralist and liberal regimes. First,  and most controversially, I think we can hold abortion policy constant because, while liberal regimes tend to permit abortion, and while integralist regimes would seek to end it, nothing about a liberal regime forbids it from adopting pro-life legislation (here I disagree with Rawls that reasonable people have to be at least somewhat pro-choice). There is no inherent instability in a pro-life liberal constitutional order, as long as it is not suffused with a pro-choice ethos. But I admit that if you’re pro-life, there’s a way in which integralist regimes will tend to be less coercive, because they almost always will forbid people from coercing the unborn into an early grave. So if liberal regimes must be pro-choice, then that is a point in the integralist’s favor.

But there are other forms of coercion that go in the other direction, since integralist regimes will embrace far more legal moralism and paternalism, and liberal orders will tend to eschew those practices, so that’s a clear way in which liberalism will be less coercive.

Third restriction: I’m going to hold the degree of pluralism in the populace constant as well. Perhaps integralist regimes will create more Catholics (though they may generate a backlash (which is how integralist regimes created the Reformation, imo: they were too violent and repressed too much disagreement). If so, then integralist regimes will become less coercive because the populace will agree with the policies of the integralist state. But liberal regimes will also not be very coercive if everyone is Catholic. But if everyone is not Catholic, then integralism will be much more coercive than liberalism, and that seems to me pretty clear.

That’s because of the big essential constitutional difference between an integralist regime and a liberal regime: the integralist regime basically has no first amendment. There is no robust right to freedom of speech, press, or religion in an integralist regime. Speech that promulgates heresy and apostasy must be restricted. Publications that promulgate heresy and apostasy must be restricted. And, obviously, the state will use coercion to promote adherence to Catholic belief and practice, even against Protestants and, maybe, Orthodox Christians, not to mention Jews, Muslims, and atheists. There are limits on such coercion, as people cannot be forced to become Catholics against their will. But, if you have been validly baptized, even as an infant, and you decide to speak what you know to be heresy or you apostasize, you’re to be held criminal liable in accord with your level of guilt. So an integralist state can imprison and perhaps even execute recalcitrant heretics.

I recognize that some will want to reject one or more of the three restrictions. But they all seem fair to me. And if they are, it seems clear that integralist regimes will be much more coercive than a regime with first amendment-like protections. Perhaps with enough time and force, the transition to integralism will produce such resolute Catholics that most people won’t even want first amendment rights. But that claim seems in tension with what we see even in heavily Catholic countries. You see lots of disagreement about all kinds of things.

Are Some People Angry and Bitter by Nature?

One thing I’ve learned in observing failed attempts at reconciliation is that some people just don’t want to be reconciled with others. They would rather remain angry with them, or worse, to be bitter and contemptuous towards them.

I find it easy to be angry and bitter with others; and I experience contempt regularly. But I am exhausted by these feelings. I’ve rather not have them; they drag down my soul.

But I’ve realized that not everyone is this way. And I wonder whether it is just a feature of the psychology of some people that they naturally experience negative emotions towards others. They just default to being angry, bitter, or contemptuous, and they have to work hard to get out of those states. I think many people find setting angry, bitterness, and contempt aside as a greater burden than letting those feelings continue.

Typically I think that people feel these negative emotions because of some kind of pain they have experienced, and that healing is too much to bear or perhaps it is impossible to address the original cause because the people who caused those feelings is out of the person’s life. And perhaps in the meanwhile these emotional states start to feel natural. People internalize anger, bitterness, and contempt so much that it becomes part of their identity, perhaps even a central part of their careers.

So the negative emotions aren’t natural; they have environmental causes, such that very few people experience those emotions unprovoked.

But I think my worldview has been too rosy on the matter. I’m now tempted by the view that some people are by nature extremely receptive to these negative attitudes.

One of the big five personality traits is neuroticism, and neuroticism tends to give rise to lots of negative emotions. Most people don’t feel these emotions by default, but people high in neuroticism are easily pushed into those negative emotional states. So while they are always angry, bitter, and contemptuous, there really are environmental causes, and without those causes, they wouldn’t have those emotional states. That means when you meet someone high in neuroticism whose environmental contains routine provocations, they will just seem angry, bitter, and contemptuous all the time.

So maybe habitually angry and bitter people are high in neuroticism and their social environment constantly provokes them into negative emotional states.

But what’s your experience? Do you know people who are just angry and bitter and hateful people? Or do you generally suppose that they have been hurt, such that almost no one is naturally in an angry or bitter state?

Is Integralism Unreasonable? Yes. Should Integralists Care? Well …

Micah Schwartzman and Jocelyn Wilson’s recent article on the unreasonableness of integralism led to much integralist criticism on Twitter, and even criticism from non-integralist Catholic conservatives. It’s important to recognize that Schwartzman and Wilson expressly state that they’re not trying to engage integralists on their own terms, but to use integralism as the paradigmatic case of an unreasonable doctrine in the Rawlsian sense.

In this post, I want to address whether integralists should care if they’re reasonable. I think there are some ways in which they should care, but it takes some effort to demonstrate. Let’s begin by quickly reviewing the Rawlsian account of reasonableness and asking whether integralists satisfy it.

I. Reasonableness

Very roughly, a person is reasonable in Rawls’s sense when they meet two conditions: (1) They are prepared to propose reciprocal terms of social cooperation, ones that can be endorsed by different worldviews and perspectives, and (2) they recognize the fact of reasonable pluralism, meaning they believe that the free exercise of practical reason leads naturally to disagreement about many important matters. In traditional political liberalism, disagreement primarily concerns the good rather than justice (though I argue in Must Politics Be War? that dissensus about justice runs just as deep).

II. Integralists are Unreasonable

Integralists deny both conditions. They are not prepared to offer mutually endorseable legal and political proposals because their first goal is to prose true, authentically good forms of social cooperation. Second, integralists seem to deny that the free use practical reason leads to dissensus, but rather that sin leads to disagreement and that it can be limited if practical reason is exposed to God’s grace in an integralist regime. So, Schwartzman and Wilson are correct. The paper succeeds on its own term.

III. But They Probably Shouldn’t Care

Now, should integralists care whether they are reasonable in the Rawlsian sense? The most straightforward answer is no, they shouldn’t. Why? Because integralists have a different conception of the person than Rawlsians do. Rawlsians draw their conception of the person from liberal democratic practice, and expressly refuse to go outside of it for the purposes of political philosophy, but integralists are trying to determine whether liberal democracy is a good idea in the most ultimate sense, and they think not. So in one way, the Rawlsian approach to personhood is a total non-starter for integralists. The two conceptions of the persons we not developed to serve they same purpose. It’s not even obvious that their conceptions of the persons are conceptions of the same concept.

Moreover, Rawls’s conception of the person (really, his conception of the citizen) holds that we have two moral powers – to form and pursue a conception of the good, and to develop and act upon our sense of justice. But integralists arguably think that persons have one ultimate moral power – to pursue the good and spurn evil (as Aquinas says in ST IaIIae 94, 2). There’s no separate faculty for motivating just action. Just action is wholly subsumed under our pursuit of our good. Rawlsians, in contrast, have a complex story about how we reach congruence between our two fundamental moral drives (actually, they have two, maybe three stories).

In this way, Rawlsians have a kind of “two wills” or “two affections” theory of practical reason, which is actually not exclusively modern, but has antecedents in Anselm (for two wills) and Scotus (for two affections).

For Rawlsians, then, our sense of justice is a fundamental part of practical reasoning. We can take the perspective of justice, understood in terms of fairness or reciprocity, and reason and act from it, and then we can ask a separate question about whether the perspective of justice can be reconciled with the perspective of the good. That’s not going to make much sense for the integralist.

IV. Or Should They?

But let’s do something Rawlsians don’t want to do. Let’s ask whether a two wills theory is true. If one can defend a two wills theory on metaphysical grounds, that would engage integralists on their own terms. And then they’d need to care about reasonableness, especially if the arguments are made from within the framework of Catholic Christianity.

I’m working on two papers right now that do just that, but it’s hard work.

My Review of Bob Talisse’s Overdoing Democracy

I recently reviewed Bob Talisse’s important new book, Overdoing Democracy, in an online journal, Erraticus, which is open access. Do take a look. The book is good, and it is both inexpensive and well-written. So if you’re interested in the subject, I recommend the book strongly.

Bob’s basic thesis is that American democracy is hurt by the fact that many people are extending democratic debates into too many parts of social life, creating unhealthy and destructive “political saturation.” I agree with his diagnosis, which is well-defended, but Bob tries to avoid giving concrete solutions to avoid taking a side in our democratic disputes, as well as foregoing explaining some of the mechanisms that have led to political saturation, both of which have some benefits, but also some costs.

An excerpt from my review:

I also thought the prescriptive part of the book would have profited from a discussion of why we’re seeing so much political saturation. I see two reasons Talisse doesn’t discuss: (1) that governments have power over a huge range of activities that they did not always have, and (2) that secularization is destroying the main source of cross-cutting identities—religious faith. It might be that societies will be tempted to overdo democracy when they want government to engage in a wide range of activities. Government is force, and so some will invariably wield it against others. Expanded states may mean expanded conflicts, even if one of our conflicts is over how extensive the state ought to be. And it might be that, with the decline of religious faith, we simply have fewer things that we place ultimate value on.

You don’t have to be a religious conservative to think these two phenomena will lead us to overdo democracy. It is not an especially partisan thought that the temptation to overdo democracy will continue unless we limit government’s power over our lives more than we do at present, since that will lower the stakes of politics. Nor is it expressly factional to think that we’re going to be tempted to overdo democracy if we lack compelling comprehensive doctrines that prioritize non-political values. This is true in particular because a relatively less religious society will tend to have more people with ideological commitments because—I think, plausibly—political ideology is the religion of modernity.

I recognize my recommendations will invite people to see the red tribe. Religion and limited government are unfortunately seen as red rather than blue values. But this is a mistake. Decentralizing and limiting the federal government will enable some parts of the country to better pursue a social democratic agenda. And allowing for more religious activity doesn’t necessarily mean more conservative Christians. There are liberal Christians, especially in marginalized communities.

So I think when we try to explore what it would take to stop overdoing democracy, we must look at solutions that may risk tempting our interlocutors to think that we’re in the red tribe or the blue tribe. But such an inquiry is necessary anyway. And without this inquiry, Overdoing Democracy struck me as incomplete. But that does not detract from the overall value of this excellent book, and is something that Talisse can explore in other work.

In Defense of the History of Philosophy: A Reply to Huemer

Mike Huemer has just written a provocative broadside against the history of philosophy, following a broadside against analytic philosophy and another against continental philosophy. I had some sympathy with the first two posts, but much less with this one. I want to outline some reasons to value the history of philosophy and historians of philosophy.

  1. Intrinsic Value. Studying the great works of philosophy is a lot like studying the great works of literature. Many of these works are beautiful and it is worth having people around who understand those works and that can teach others about them. We don’t need a good reason beyond the intrinsic value of art or great literature to justify having at least some academics who study these works full time. Same with the great works of philosophy. Yes, Mike is right that we have historians of philosophy around to teach undergraduate courses, but that’s because we think those works have intrinsic value for students. So the same reasons that justify teaching the history of philosophy to undergraduates can also help justify having people around who study the history of philosophy full time.
  2. Philosophers Forget Stuff. Philosophy changes a lot from generation to generation. We often focus on a narrow band of views and then forget the insights of the past. Philosophy is vast field of complex conceptual systems. Focusing on some of those systems takes so much time and effort that we just plain forget about other systems or at least their most important features.
  3. Philosophers Learn New Stuff. We can learn new views from studying old texts. Many of the great works of the history of philosophy are quite complex, in that their parts can be combined in many ways. Huemer’s vision of a history-less philosophy profession seems to assume that we’ll good ways to get all the interesting views on the table without history of philosophy, but he doesn’t consider that studying the history of philosophy might help us gain new insight by struggling with complicated, frustrating texts. Maybe the great works of philosophy are the grain of sand in the oyster – beauty-generating irritants. Another way we learn new stuff is when a single philosopher knows multiple important historical texts and can contrast them to form new views. My graduate course with Jerry Gaus on the Social Contract, where we read Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, helped me to see the way in which public reason views arise rather naturally from studying their views as a coherent whole. And indeed, the texts of that class, with some others, were turned into this lovely little volume. I don’t know where my work would be without engaging them all.
  4. Social Benefits from Diverse Historians. Huemer claims that studying great historical works of philosophy can be bad for you as an individual since you may become ideologically wedded to the position. Sure, that’s a risk. But we have lots of historical texts that are radically distinct from one another, which often generates a bunch of diverse ideologues. And that means diverse minds can bring disputes between those systems of thought to life and carry out useful debates. I absolutely love seeing great historians of different philosophers interact, like Hume and Hobbes scholars, or Aristotle and Aquinas scholars, or Kant and Hegel scholars. Sure, each one is wedded to their view, but their interactions have serious positive externalities.

Of course, we should be focused on figuring out true views. But history of philosophy helps that process in a number of ways Huemer doesn’t consider.

So history of philosophy is philosophically valuable history and a source of philosophical progress in some cases.

In sum, contra Mike, let there be Aristotelians! They’re good to have around because they can convey the intrinsic value of Aristotle, keep Aristotelian systems of thought alive for people to engage and to revisit for new views (like neo-Aristotelian virtues ethics), and it is great to have Aristotelians be part of a diverse group of philosophical historians. So, let there be Platonists, Thomists, Hobbesians, Lockeans, Humeans, Kantians, and Hegelians, and let them all interact forever!

 

My Next Book – A Liberal Democratic Peace: Creating Trust in Polarized Times

I am pleased to announce that my next book, A Liberal Democratic Peace: Creating Trust in Polarized Times, will be published late this year with Oxford University Press. It is the data-driven sequel to Must Politics Be War? I argue in this book that specific liberal rights practices can not only be morally justified, but create social and political trust in the real world with real people. I focus primarily on freedom of associations, markets, social insurance, quality of governance, and democratic elections.
 
I wrote MPBW primarily for philosophers and political theorists, but this book is aimed more broadly at political scientists, economists, and policy people. It has philosophical argumentation, but I mark out where it begins and ends so that non-philosophical readers can profit from my overall argument. This book will also be much cheaper, under $30, so if you’re not a philosopher or political theorist who wants to learn about how we can build trust in diverse societies, then this book is for you.
 
Here’s another part of my pitch. I think that mistrust and polarization are in a causal feedback loop, and so those of you who are interested in addressing polarization may find the book of interest as well. If there are laws and policies that can increase trust, then perhaps we can contain the more destructive aspects of political polarization.