Rolling Political Philosophy Thread

I think generally it means like the Enlightenment project

ex-ilxor of the ancien regime josh k favorited this recently

http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2010/08/conversation-opening-salvo.html

good post!

This is an interesting and provocative argument (I think!) and one that I bet a lot of ilxors would disagree with me about. From Steve Poole:
http://unspeak.net/justice/

It is worth pausing to admire Obama’s masterful rhetorical conflation here of two different conceptions of justice. One sense of “justice”, of course, has to do with courts, legal process, fair trials, and the rest. This has to be the sense invoked in Obama’s reference to the desire to bring Bin Laden to justice. In this spatial metaphor, justice is a place: implicitly, a courtroom, or at least a cell with the promise of process. (Or even, in extremis, Guantánamo Bay, still not closed, where indefinite “detention” or imprisonment is Unspeakily palliated with the expectation of some kind of tribunal.) To bring someone to justice is to put them in a place where they will be answerable for their alleged crimes. To be answerable in this sense, it helps to be alive.

But it is quite another sense of “justice” — meaning a fair result, regardless of the means by which it was achieved — that is functioning in Obama’s next use of the word: the quasi-legal judgment that justice was done. On what sorts of occasion do we actually say that justice was done? Not, I suppose, at the conclusion of a trial (when it might be claimed, instead, that justice was served); rather, after some other event, away from any courtroom, that we perceive as rightful punishment (or reward) for the sins (or virtues) of the individual under consideration. (Compare poetic justice.) The claim that justice was done appeals, then, to a kind of Old Testament or Wild West notion of just deserts. What, after all, happened between the desire to bring Bin Laden to justice and the claim that justice was done? Well, Bin Laden was killed. He was not, after all, brought to justice. Instead, justice (in its familiar guise as American bombs and bullets) was brought to him.

I disagree! I think the point of "legal justice" is to create a civilizational context to perform actual justice. The problem with vigilantism isn't the vigilantism. The problem is that it undermines the civilizational context. We have established these institutions and agreed to live by their laws. So we set up these hierarchies by which to establish (legislate) and enforce (execute) said laws. But its roughly a facade that, when it does its job, keeps stuff running smoothly. But the truth is always that the context is itself invented and so easily undermined. (That is, side point, why limited government Republicans are idiots. It's no feat to have no governance, just look at all the countries that can't manage it. The feat is governance.) What's one way of undermining it? Attack a civilian populace. One of the primary (and maybe the most fundamental) reason to establish these governances is to help protect us. When you kill a bunch of civilians, you have undermined the very state of the facade. The only appropriate response is using the State's monopoly on power to stop the bleeding. You actually can't use the tools of civilization to plug that hole bc the hole challenges those very tools. That's why (I think) we inuit that we can't really try ppl like Bin Laden. He declares that the entire state enterprise is invalid. In that context, executed him in court or executed him in the battlefield mean exactly the same thing. Except the later reforms the context and the first one doesn't.

(Maybe.)

Anyway, the point being that there aren't two kinds of justice. There's just the one kind of primordial justice and the particular way we funnel it through society. I think I'm actually arguing two distinct things here and I believe one is more provocative than the other. So plz take issue with one, both, or neither.

...two different conceptions of justice. One sense of “justice”, of course, has to do with courts, legal process, fair trials, and the rest.

I agree with Mordy that Poole fails to establish his thesis that we carry around two "conceptions of justice". His invocation of courtrooms and legal process does not establish a fully-formed conception of justice, so much as a context within which we expect to find a just conclusion to a conflict. Justice itself is not legalistic, but an idealized state where conflict is resolved in favor of the superior right.

So, basically I think Mordy's critique gets right at the weakness in the argument and exposes it.

that kagan book discussed upthread is total dogshit, even if the excised quotes are reasonable enough

I want to get my friend a good 'intro to political philosophy' book for his birthday that isn't boring? Anyone know one?

it's not really an intro, but i highly recommend Robert Pippin's "Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy" which is very accessible to new philosophy readers and has the advantage of feeling very current.

http://themonkeycage.org/2011/05/internet-cynics-and-enthusiasts-both-have-it-right/

The experiment’s findings confirmed this prediction. Members of the Internet group were 15 percentage points less likely to believe that the election was conducted fairly and impartially. They were also 12 points more likely to believe that the recount was conducted unfairly when compared to the control group. However, relative to the control group, members of the Internet group were also 11 points less likely to vote.

This suggests that—although the Internet may have provided better information about the integrity of the election—this supposed democratic boon may carry a negative side effect. In this case, it appears that Internet users who became more aware of electoral abuses, seemingly also became less likely to believe that their vote mattered. After all, the belief that an election is not being conducted fairly can produce two very divergent responses: some people may respond by protesting and taking to the streets, while others may simply throw up their hands and stay home. Perhaps, then, both Internet cynics and enthusiasts have it partially right.

I don't know about this 'both have it partially right' piece but I do think the idea that awareness can have a deleterious effect on participation is really interesting, esp when it becomes a feedback loop where the fewer the # of people participate politically the greater the potential for corruption/abuse to occur (less eyes watching, less engaged dissent, etc) which in turn turns more people off to the process and ultimately you reach a stage where it is completely corrupt and ppl are completely apathetic (and only something radically revolutionary could break that particular stalemate). I also wonder if this is the process that the United States is currently engaged in.

Does anyone here have a recommendation for an article (etc.) making a secular case for the contemporary Western welfare state? I'm especially interested in such arguments that bear on the USA, as opposed to Europe, but really anything'll do.

Oh, & I should add that I'd prefer moral arguments, not economic or technocratic arguments.

I can't think of one off-hand, but if I do I'll post it. Your question does remind me, tho, that I'm looking for either an article or colorful chart that shows standard of living in the US over period of time ending fairly recently (closest I found was something ending in 1998).

can you really separate moral arguments from economic/technocratic arguments?

Sure you can, for example I'm pretty sure that Bismarck's early adventures into social care weren't based on a belief that it was the morally correct thing to do.

You can read a bunch of contemporary arguments defending the Poor Law in the 18th Century UK because it protected social stability, too.

Bismarck's welfare state might not have been 'social care because helping people is the right thing to do' but there was still a higher level reasoning of 'doing this will lead to what I believe is the best outcome for society'. same w/ the poor law defenders.

I mean someone supports economic philosophy XYZ because they believe it leads to the best outcome for society (or the best outcome for themselves, and there's some reasoning where society will ultimately benefit, or society doesn't matter. but you can't remove morality from this.)

there were people who made arguments for the Poor Law from morality but there were people who made solely "this will keep the rabble quiet" arguments, in the same way that I know of very few contemporary arguments in favour of Germany's early welfare programme that weren't "undermine the Bolsheviks/keep the State strong". I don't think those are the kind of moral arguments that Euler is talking about? or really that they are moral arguments at all in the usual sense of the word "moral"?

it's not really an intro, but i highly recommend Robert Pippin's "Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy" which is very accessible to new philosophy readers and has the advantage of feeling very current.

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 10, 2011 10:33 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark

the best means of preserving the State is a technocratic argument. it can easily be divorced from any reasoning about what is right or wrong in an ethical sense, which isn't the same as saying that technocrats and economists don't also have ethical sentiments beyond their work, hard as that is to imagine.

I'm saying that 'this will keep the rabble quiet' people still had some moral/economic system they believed in, and this logic apparently didn't break it.

I get that euler is probably talking about a different type of moral argument, I'm just saying that there's a moral system behind any economic system and I don't think you can isolate them.

likewise the technocratic 'but does it work irl?' side can't be ignored either - it doesn't matter if you can reason w/ pure philosophy that it's moral for the government to give everyone in the country 1 million dollars.

I mean someone supports economic philosophy XYZ because they believe it leads to the best outcome for society (or the best outcome for themselves, and there's some reasoning where society will ultimately benefit, or society doesn't matter. but you can't remove morality from this.)

― iatee, Sunday, July 31, 2011 7:00 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i basically agree with the last part, but not the first. i don't think policy is decided for purely economic *or* moral 'reasons'. rather: economic imperatives, political imperatives... morality is in there somewhere sometimes.

xp i'll def check out the Nietzsche book. he's such an excellent writer + fun to read which is so rare for philosophers at his level

i think what euler wants is an argument for the welfare state as an end goal & one that's good in itself, as opposed to an argument for the welfare state as a byproduct of a "successful" state, or the welfare state as "good for [stability/peace/the_market]" instead of just good

I think the moral vs. technocratic element basically comes down to, is this decision grounded in something "outside of" the positive existence of the state—which normative or moral commitments would (presumably) be, through the appeal to "human rights" or w/e

I don't think you can detach that from economic thinking when the welfare state is an economic concept xp

i don't think policy is decided for purely economic *or* moral 'reasons'.

Agreed, although I'd argue that some considerations tend to trump others when it comes down to getting politics done. But I was talking about arguments in general and there are plenty of pro-welfare arguments from political philosophers and others which don't foreground moral considerations, even if they're floating out there as some unspoken other.

xp

I don't think the Welfare State is a purely economic concept.

but what you or i think is immaterial to the question which was "have some people argued for it from morality without bringing in other reasons?"

this is like saying 'is the number 4 good'

the welfare state only exists in the context of an economic system. whether that system works irl (technocrat) and whether that is the 'best' system (economic philosophy) can't be removed from the discussion.

what does the 'welfare state' mean in the context of an amazon rainforest tribe? nothing.

xp yeah I agree, that's one of the things that keeps doing my head in whenever I try to post

still tho I think it should be possible in practice to separate "arguments in favor of expanding social welfare provisions on the basis of economic efficiency" (e.g. Keynes) from "arguments in favor of expanding social welfare provisions because failure to do so would leave citizens inadequately cared for" or w/e

(where "expanding social welfare provisions" could obviously also be "maintaining at a given level" or "not cutting back", etc, depending on context)

right, but keynes ultimately believed that economic efficiency would lead to greater good for society.

for the individual iirc

i agree you can't really have a moral argument for the welfare state without addressing the rest of the political-economic system

xxp "ultimately", sure, but along the way everything is framed in terms of an amoral analysis of the tendencies of a capitalist economy—business owners are asked to go along with it not out of some altruistic desire or obligation to help their fellow man, but because it will help avert (a certain type of) economic crisis!

(I mean I guess you can say that "the economy ought not collapse" is a moral stance, but hopefully it's an uncontroversial one...?)

I don't think the 'along the way everything is framed in terms of an amoral analysis of the tendencies of a capitalist economy' matters. there is a moral belief system behind the logic of capitalism and the 'along the way' is not objectively amoral. those businessmen would say they're creating wealth and jobs for society and it's morally wrong to prevent that.

if you remove political-economic considerations then how would a purely moral argument differ from that for almsgiving or any other 'social' altruism?

max is right, I would like arguments for having a welfare state that aren't just "it's stimulus!", that make a case that it's a morally good thing to collaborate under the aegis of a state to ensure the common welfare of fellow citizens via the redistribution of wealth.

Arguments that a welfare state protects the state sit in a middle ground, since "the state" is a moral structure inasmuch as it has the legitimacy to dispense justice & thus protecting it could be a moral end in itself...but also could be stand-ins for "we need to preserve the present economic status quo & this'll do the trick".

Yeah, a welfare state is an economic structure, since it involves transferring wealth. But it's a moral structure too, & I want to see what kind of secular case can be made for it as a moral structure. I get that the case is gonna depend on which society we're talking about; the "social imaginary" of the USA is different than France, etc.

again, I don't think you can isolate that moral structure.

I mean you can say

"if we are to agree that political-economic system X works irl and is the 'best', what's a moral argument for a welfare state?"

otherwise how can we argue about the moral structure of whether the gov't should give poor people $ if we don't agree on the real world effects of the gov't receiving/spending money and poor people receiving/spending money?

I think we can take for granted that some basic degree of wealth is necessary for the good life: enough for food & shelter at least. Let's add health care also. How much more do we need to know about the "real world effects" of having the wealth necessary for those transferred by the state?

Of course in taking for granted that such wealth is needed for the good life, I don't mean to assume that it's self-evident that everyone is entitled to the good life, if even only on other people's dime. That's exactly what I want to see argued for.

real world effects:

a. does gov't wealth transfer XYZ ultimately (after all short and long-term effects are factored in) lead to more economic growth for the country?
(are we assuming that more economic growth is an inherently good thing, if we already have reached the basic degree of wealth?)
b. does gov't wealth transfer XYZ ultimately (after all short and long-term effects are factored in) lead to a fairer share of wealth?
(are we assuming that a small gini coefficient is an inherently good thing? why?)
c. if we have to make a decision between a 'rising tide' vs. smaller gini coefficient, what's the point where we'll sacrifice one for the other?
d. does the economic context affect the morality of wealth transfer XYZ? (is it moral for greece to increase the size of its welfare state today?)

wrt a: no, we shouldn't assume economic growth is an inherently good thing.
wrt b: fairness is a moral concept.
wrt c: I'm interested in arguments that decide the "point" on moral grounds.
wrt d: I think morality doesn't apply to democratic nations as a whole, but only to individual agents.

It's not shocking that so many classical economists were utilitarians.

c. you can't decide that point on moral grounds without agreeing to an economic framework and working out the math. you can plot that trade-off on an graph, put your finger on it and say "there, that's the moral point" but the graph first requires an agreed-upon economic framework.
d. then how can you discuss the morality of an economic concept?

and b. yeah I prob shouldn't have used the word fair, that term already assumes something. I meant 'smaller disparity'.

I think that if you are asking 'why should...' anything, then you are asking a moral question. All of the arguments for the welfare state (or any other kind of state) are moral, because you have to decide on a goal, and why that goal is better than any other. For us in general? We all know why the welfare state is better - fewer people starve, die of unnecessary illnesses or exposure due to homelessness, Whether these are worthy ends is, of course, a moral argument.

fewer people also starve, die of unnecessary illness etc. thanks to the wealth gains from free markets

Fair enough! I'll read it later today.

Btw I meant to say less harm than good.

He has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Corbyn and the Labour Party or the UK, that much is plain.

Yeah this guy didn’t invent the idea of the international left, so I’m not going to disregard him entirely for talking about it. But treating concepts like “identity politics” and “the white working class” as interchangeable among the US, UK, Sweden, Hungary, and Poland puts your argument on pretty shaky ground imo. Tempted to leave “now do Québec” in the comments

Tempted to leave “now do Québec” in the comments

Please do. ;)

this kind of shit is catnip to certain types of leftist shithead since they keep sharing endless variations on the same fucking rant

the most annoying thing is how they seem to think materialist class analysis just means repeating that phrase over and over while defending social conservatism against the liberal elite

nationality has much less to do with it than what you could euphemistically call “europeanness”

Left, what is yr analysis for recent electoral failures by ostensibly unapologetic Leftist campaigns particularly vis-a-vis their failure to activate a working class polity on their behalf?

I don’t have an analysis, there are too many different things but a few reasons would be
- “ostensibly”- these campaigns were actually extremely apologetic on issues of race, police, prisons, nationalism etc. for fear of alienating their idea of the working class, which ended up being either too much or not enough for much of the actual working class, plenty of whom still supported the campaigns, not enough for them to win
- the managerial structure & nature of party politics: the attempt to create, or appropriate existing, social movements from the top down worked to some extent byt guaranteed this kind of relationship which stifled actual movement from the bottom
- these projects like all electoral projects were based on class collaboration which in this system means middle class domination
- this middle class loves adopting superficial signifiers of social justice which produces backlash in different directions
- white people are racist, the same campaign can be too or insufficiently racist for different working class people
- trying to revive post war social democracy without regard for changes in capitalism and class composition was doomed to failure
- white (and some other) working class in the UK and US has benefitted from colonialism and leftism here is largely concerned with preserving as much of this as possible, which precludes genuine international solidarity; to the extent that it’s not it’s not appealing to most citizens
- the media is very right wing, some people believe it
- there is still plenty of working class resistance everywhere, this is more important than parties and politicians or the opinions of leftist gatekeepers

I'd just like to briefly note that political analysis is not the same as political philosophy and that any analysis of current politics should first be considered as propaganda. This doesn't mean Mordy's linked article is not worth reading, but every assertion it makes should be read as critically as possible.

Thx Aimless from the response here it definitely seems like ppl are accepting it on face value and not criticizing it at all lol

Read it. I'm not sure why. Your summation "seems v hostile to ilx" doesn't fit any version of ilx I'm aware of. It appeared to be the usual pointless wrangling over the exact details of eliminating capitalism, when there is no evidence such wrangling has a single identifiable consequence. In fact, it is written from and about a Marxist point of view that is so marginal in US politics that it analyzes nothing germane here at all.

With respect, it's the kind of piece that seems convincing until you think about it. The first obvious question it raises is what Kyeyune - afaict himself a writer/blogger/activist, not a unionized welder - is FOR and how it would differ from the kind of leftist electoral campaigns that have failed. The Wiki on the municipal political party he belongs to doesn't make it sound very different from the Sanders/Corbyn version:

The party is heavily opposed to political corruption and high politician incomes – among some of the measures it supports are reducing the wages of politicians and senior officials,[12] making plebiscites easier to enact and more potent,[25] increased social housing and subsidies for youth recreation,[12] and free dental care.[26] The party opposes continued privatization of health care, elderly care, public housing and municipal education, among other things.

It's not like Sanders was fighting for fully automated luxury communism or massive investments in modern art museums - M4A, $15 min wage, a wealth tax, organizing Amazon workers: these are left-populist, pro-worker policies. (And I mean, if anything, at least here, it's Trudeau the winning centrist Liberal, who doubled arts funding. I doubt the more left-wing NDP would have made that a priority.)

I'm also not sure about where he is drawing his hard lines when it comes to class. If the educated children of the PMC are angry about their jobs stocking shelves at Walmart, does that really make them bad socialists or inauthentic workers? Why shouldn't they be angry - Marx didn't call for a worker revolution because he thought their lives as workers were good, surely. Even if they are grad students or adjunct teachers or freelance writers, should they be excluded from the working class? On what grounds? Many of these people face the very same material struggles.

In fact, it is written from and about a Marxist point of view that is so marginal in US politics that it analyzes nothing germane here at all.

It seemed much more about UK politics (and UK ILXors) tbh.

The point here is not a moral one.

Just read the whole piece. Not sure what the exact point was in the first place tbh, other than 'the contemporary left is failing', which is a debatable statement, depending on your perspective. I do agree that the so-called left should start by actually winning elections, which is probably not a very popular opinion on this here board, but I'm not convinced that the author's would-be analysis paves the way for such a victory.

At least in our country, I'm pretty much OK with the NDP doing a good job of representing its constituents (who mostly are in authentically working-class ridings) and winning concessions from minority governments. In general, though, yes, political movements should try to win.

I am too, and in many ways our current federal government is farther to the left than it's been in decades just by virtue of leaning on the NDP. If anything, this once again speaks to the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of a one-size-fits-all reading of the 'international' left, which is something we must aspire towards, but whose pragmatic existence is so flimsy as to be laughable. Hence the need, once again, for some measure of caution when writing such pieces, unless you explicitly identify with the Zaporozhian Cossacks, which the author clearly does.