Week 7 part 1
19-21
Lecture 19:
Aristotle; the good citizen
Teleological reasoning
Politics: how should political offices and honors/political rule be distributed?
Contemporary debate over golf. Whether the PGA professional golfers association should be required to allow Casey Martin, a golfer with a disability, to ride in a golf cart?
Debates about purpose and telos are often simultaneously debates about honor
In politics today distributive justice mainly concern the distribution of income, wealth, and opportunity
Aristotle did not talk about that rather he spoke of who should have the right to rule, to be a citizen, how political authority should be distributed
For aristotle politics is about forming a good character, it is about cultivating the virtues of citizens, it is about a good life
The end of the state, the end of political community (Book 3 of The Politics) is not mere life, not economic exchange only, not security only. It’s realizing the good life.
For Kant and Rawls, the point of politics is not to shape the moral character of citizens.
It’s not to make us good. It’s to respect our freedom to choose our goods, our values, our ends, and desire a similar liberty for others.
Any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, political association sinks into a mere alliance.
Law becomes a mere covenant, a guarantor of man’s rights against one another, instead of being, as it should be, a way of life such as will make the members of a polis good and just.
A polis is not an association for residents on a common site, or for the sake of preventing mutual injustice and easier exchange. The end and purpose of a polis is the good life, and the institution of social life are means to that end., Aristotle
We can derive from that the principles of distributive justice
The principles that tell us who should have the greatest measure of political authoring say that those who contribute the most to the association character namely an association that aims at the good, should have a greater share in political rule and in the honors of the polis
they are in a position to contribute most to what political community is essentially about
Why isn’t it possible for people to live perfectly good lives, moral lives without participating in politics?
The preliminary answer which is in book one of politics is that, only by living in a polis and participating in politics do we fully realize our nature as human beings
Human beings are by nature meant to live in a polis
It’s only in political life that we can actually exercise our distinctly human capacity for language, which Aristotle understands has this capacity to deliberate about right and wrong, the just and unjust
A man who is isolated, who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or who has no need to share, because he’s already self-sufficient, such as person must be either a beast or God, Aristotle
Why can we only exercise our capacity for language in political community?
Political deliberation, living the life of a citizen, ruling and being ruled in turn, sharing in rule, all of this is necessary to virtue
Aristotle defines happiness not as maximizing the balance of pleasure over pain but as an activity.
An activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Every student of politics must study the soul, because shaping the soul is one of the objects of legislation in a good city
The only way we can acquire the virtues that constitute the good life, is to exercise the virtues to have certain habits inculcated in us. And then, to engage in the practice of deliberating with citizens about the nature of the good. That’s what politics is ultimately about. The acquisition of civic virtue of this capacity to deliberate among equals.
Case of Casey Martin
It is the very nature of a game to have no object except amusement (that us what distinguishes games from productive activity).
Many, indeed, consider walking to be the central feature of the game of golf. Hence, Mark Twain’s classic criticism of the sport, ‘a good walk spoiled.’
Justice Antonin Scalia
This cause deliberated whether a man with a disability should be able to ride the gold cart instead of walk in a game of golf, to which may were upset about for whatever reason, though aristotle says it should just be about appreciation and joy
Lecture 20:
If justice is about fit, fitting persons to roles, matching virtues to the appropriate honors and recognition. Does it leave room for freedom?
If certain roles, social roles, are fitting or appropriate to me, where does that leave my right to choose my social roles, my life purpose, for myself?
Rawls rejects teleological accounts of justice because he says it threaten the equal, basic rights of citizens.
Artistotles defense of slavery… ew
In his opinion
it is necessary. If there are to be citizens who are freed from manual, and menial, and household chores to go to the assembly, to deliberate about politics, three have to be some who look after those menial tasks
Apparently the case must be that there are some people where being a slave is the just, fitting, appropriate condition of their life.. Which is never?
Deplorably aristotle says it is true that there are some people who are set by nature to be slaves. These people are in his opinion meant to be ruled and their nature is best realized if they’re slaves. They can recognize reason in others. For those who aren’t fit for the task, it's kind of coercion.
Objections to Aristotle
How can we base justice and rights on some preconceived notion that people have a predetermined role in life if there isn't any distinguishing way to determine that?
Many people say that Justice, rights, and Constitutions should not be based on any particular conception of what good means and serves in a political life, but instead those structures should provide a framework of rights that leave people free to choose their conception of what is good and the purpose of their life.
If as individuals we are assigned roles that are said to be fit for our nature, shouldn't it be up to us to decide what those roles are, shouldn't it be up to the individual to decide what roles are most suitable to them? Kant and Rawls say that because people disagree on pluralist society about the nature of Good life we shouldn't try to Justice on any particular answer to the question, this means we should reject teleology.
if you tie Justice to a particular conception of the good you put the concept of Freedom at stake. to be free is to be independent of any particular rules or Traditions or conventions that may be handed down by parents or Society.
Kant vs. aristotle
Kant It’s one thing to support a fair framework of rights within which people can pursue their conceptions of the good life and something else that runs the risk of coercion to base law or principles of justice on any particular conception of the good life.
Aristotle In order to investigate the ideal constitution, we have to first to figure out the best way to live.
Kant Constitutions and laws and rights should not embody, or affirm, or promote, any particular way of life. That’s at odds within freedom.
Aristotle The whole point of law, the purpose of polis is to shape character, cultivate the virtues if citizens, to inculcate civic excellence, to make possible a good way of life.
Kant Disagree. The whole point is to set up a fair framework of rights within which citizens may be free to pursue their own conception of the good for themselves.
Underlying these differences are two accounts of what it means to be a free person.
Aristotle We’re free insofar we have the capacity to realize our potential. And it leads to fit. Figuring out what I’m cut out for. Lead a free life means to live up to my potential.
Kant Freedom means acting according to a law I give myself, freedom as autonomy. The conception of the person as a free and independent self capable of choosing his or her own ends.
Lecture 21:
The communitarian critics say Kantian/Rawlsian can’t account for moral and political obligations that we commonly recognize and prize: membership, loyalty, solidarity, and other moral ties that may claim us for reasons that we can’t trace to an act of consent.
Man is… essentially a storytelling animal. That means I can only answer the question ‘what am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question of ‘what story or stories do I find myself at part?’, Alasdair MacIntyre (Narrative conception of the self)
Once you accept this narrative aspect of moral reflection, you will notice we can never seek for the good or exercise the virtues only as individuals.
I am never able to seek for the good or exercise the virtues only qua individual… we are approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity. I am someone’s son or daughter, a citizen of this or that city. I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation.Hence, what is good for me has to be the good for someone who inhabits these roles. I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation a variety of debts, inheritances, expectations, and obligations.
These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point. This is, in part, what gives my life its moral particularity.Alasdair MacIntyre
At odds with contemporary liberalism and individualism. This reflects a certain kind of moral shallowness, even blindness at odds with the full measure of responsibility, which sometimes involves collective responsibility or responsibilities that may flow from historic memories
Examples: contemporary Americans who deny any responsibility for the effects of slavery upon black Americans, saying I never owned any slaves; or the young Germans who believes that having born after 1945 means that what Nazi did to Jews has no moral relevance to his relationship to his Jewish contemporaries.
All of these attitudes of historical amnesia amount to a kind of moral abdication.
the self can’t be detached, shouldn’t be detached, from its particular ties of membership, story, history, narrative.
Objections to the idea that there are obligations of solidarity or membership.
If obligations flow from community membership and identity, we inhabit multiple communities. Doesn’t that mean that our obligations will sometimes conflict?
These examples may be intuitively evocative, but really they’re pointing to matters of emotion, matters of sentiment, not true moral obligations.
Argue that these obligations are actually based on consent. Liberalism can endorse patriotism as a voluntary moral obligation. Patriotism and familiar love both fall under this category, because after all the Kantian framework allows people free reign to choose to express virtues such as these if they want to. So you don’t need to idea of a non-voluntary particular moral obligation to capture the moral force of community values.
It’s perfectly possible to recognize particular obligations to one’s family or to one’s country provided honoring those obligations doesn’t require you to violate any of the natural duties or requirements of universal respect for persons qua persons. Consistent of with idea we can choose.
The view of those who say that obligations of membership really are kind of collective selfishness. Why should we honor them?
https://medium.com/the-protagonist/the-science-behind-storytelling-51169758b22c
The Science Behind Storytelling
Human beings have been telling stories as long as there’s been a language to tell them in, this ranges from words to images
We think in stories, remember in stories, and turn just about everything we experience into a story, sometimes adjusting or omitting facts to make it fit
our instinct for story is a survival skill.
Humans don’t have sharp fangs, thick hides or blinding speed; our evolutionary advantage has always been our problem-solving ability, and in particular, our ability to solve problems as a group.
This tendency to cooperate creatively at large scale (it’s true that ants and termites cooperate, but only on repetitive tasks) has featured prominently in every major advance we’ve made as a species, from the invention of agriculture and cities to the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age
In the days before written language — most of human history, in other words — the only way to create an idea that persisted from one day to the next and spread from one person to another was to somehow make it durable in our minds (or “sticky”, to use a popular bit of marketing jargon).
A story solves this problem by linking an idea to an ego
It can be a global story that lasts millennia, like the struggle of the Savior, the Buddha or the Prophet, that binds millions together in social, cultural or military action. Or it can be a more focused story, like the struggle against hunger that unites us to bring in the harvest, or the nobility of beauty that inspire us to create transcendent works of art, or write and perform symphonies
Humans, it turns out — both anecdotally and in numerous trials — respond most strongly to stories that follow a particular general structure. It looks like this:
A character, that we have been made interested in, has a goal, which is backed by a clear, understandable motive.
But the character has not yet reached the goal, and is blocked by obstacles that engender risk and consequences of failure.
The character must struggle to meet the goal. Allied characters and resources are encountered, which aid in overcoming the obstacles.
Once the obstacles are overcome and the goal is reached (or not, if the story is tragic) a new normal is established, which remains in stasis until a new incident prompts a new goal.
Neuroscience shows the brain is "wired for story"
https://www.wrvo.org/post/neuroscience-shows-brain-wired-story#stream/0
Opposable thumbs were a big step in human evolution, but Cron argues that stories were too. As she says, opposable thumbs help us hold on, but stories tell us what to hold on to. Stories are a way to teach and learn.
“When you’re lost in a good story, it’s not arbitrary, it’s not pleasure for pleasure’s sake. It’s biological, it’s chemical, it’s a survival mechanism,” she said.
Cron says that stories help humans survive by acting as cautionary tales. For instance, a Neanderthal in the Stone Age sees berries and wants to eat them, but then he remembers hearing about his neighbor who ate a handful of those same berries and died. The Neanderthal decides not to eat the berries and lives. Without the story, he might not have survived.
A good story can cause the brain to release dopamine, Cron says, a neurotransmitter that can increase a person’s blood pressure and heart rate.
A powerful narrative is able to help readers gain empathy by relating to the protagonist, Cron says. It allows readers to step into the place of the protagonist and feel what they feel as they go through the story. It allows people to be more sympathetic to the situation.
“Story or narrative takes those big ideas, abstract concepts, dry facts and translates them into something very specific that we can experience, and so feel, and that’s what tells us how we feel about it, what it means to us and that’s what moves us to action,” Cron says.
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