Monday, August 19, 2024

Rawls’s liberal integralism

John Rawls’s political liberalism is no more neutral and no less religiously particular than a comprehensively Catholic society.  I elaborate in “Political Liberalism and Rawlsian Religion,” my latest article at Postliberal Order.

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78 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 19, 2024 at 11:14 AM

    Is postliberalism integralism of any sort (including Confusianism and Rawlsism, that explicitly asserted its integralist nature)? Is it specifically Christian integralism but you can have states which are integralist but different denominations? Is it just Catholic states? Is it only the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire? What is it?

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    1. MPAugust 28, 2024 at 12:06 PM

      I guess https://thejosias.com/2024/08/19/against-christian-nationalism-a-catholic-response-to-stephen-wolfe/ gives some of those definitions.
      However, here "liberal integralism" is pretty certain to be an analogy.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousAugust 19, 2024 at 11:41 AM

    Thank you for that topic, Dr.Feser.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 19, 2024 at 1:52 PM

    Does Rawls give an account for why the veil of ignorance should apply to some things and not others?

    Shouldn't I also be ignorant about basic economics and then conclude I want to live on a society that completely indiscriminately prints money? Shouldn't I also be ignorant of whether or not I am even a human and possibly conclude I should prefer to live in a society in which it is a religious doctrine that animals have places of honor?

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    1. AnonymousAugust 22, 2024 at 8:36 PM

      Yes. That’s part of his four-stage sequence

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  4. DNWAugust 19, 2024 at 2:15 PM

    "Rawls holds that the just society must ensure, as perhaps the most important primary good, the self-esteem of its members. This it must do regardless of the ends they set for themselves ..."

    It has become obvious that the demand of the demented trans freaks that one acquiesce to their delusions, shout their pronouns, and participate as patron, audience and cast member in their delusional and even nihilistic performances, gives full expression to this principle.

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  5. CosmicCatAugust 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM

    South Africa is John Rawls's theory of justice applied in real life. And like Karl Marx's vision of temporal existence without private property, it doesn't work.

    "A system that doesn't allow ownership... has—to put it mildly—a fatal design flaw." - Frank Zappa

    Cosmic Debris - Frank Zappa

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  6. TalmidAugust 19, 2024 at 7:34 PM

    Rawls view seems close to "you can believe anything as long as your view advances my view of the goal of society", which is a suprisingly popular view between what he saw as non-neutral societies.

    If a group of friends want to buy ice cream but each wants to eat a diferent flavor, saying "No one gets anything!" is unlikely to leave all happy.

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  7. TonyAugust 19, 2024 at 7:48 PM

    Rawls, however, begins by imagining human beings in an essentially denatured state. He asks us to consider what sort of society people would together choose to live in if they entertained this question behind a “veil of ignorance” – that is to say, if they did not know such things about themselves as whether they were male or female, their race or ethnicity, their personal talents, what religion if any they adhered to, or what their overall conception of a good life is. The residue of a self that remains when all such characteristics are subtracted out is the self that, in Rawls’s view, we should look to for guidance about what sort of society we should construct in the actual world.

    So, he simply assumes away the fact that when you eliminate sex, race, size, strength (of various sorts), and preferences, that you wouldn't be left with the rational nature and the ends necessarily entailed with that nature: the desire to know, especially to know causes, especially to know ultimate causes? And assumes that the intellect wouldn't recognize an inherent duty to honor the God that answers to "who is the ultimate cause?"? Out of, apparently, a fiat assumption that we are "supposed to ignore specific "information" that not all would agree with".

    Just one question: on what basis would he argue for this methodology against someone who said "but I don't agree that this is the right starting point, nor the right way to understand how to approach the basic social question"? That is, which way to understand the foundational social question is itself a matter of dispute, so it too MUST be behind the veil of ignorance. NOW what argument must all automatically recognize as the right justification for the right beginning point, so that there is a universally shared acceptance of this society of "radically egalitarian principles of justice"? For, without the beginning being agreed upon, the rest won't be either.

    Rawls seems to have just assumed a denatured kind of "natural law" about humans that obtains such that in principle they would naturally want the kind of society he prefers. He just slips it in as an unstated assumption, I guess.

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  8. Michael CopasAugust 20, 2024 at 8:01 AM

    This was helpful. Hopefully we will eventually see a book from Dr. Feser on political philosophy in the future!

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  9. AnonymousAugust 21, 2024 at 6:05 AM

    This is similar to the argument made in After Virtue. Also, what would an otherwise aborted baby say about abortion laws under the veil of ignorance?

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  10. Michael CopasAugust 21, 2024 at 9:16 AM

    MacIntyre on Rawls:

    "Aquinas' readers have to reckon with his singleness of purpose. 'Purity of heart is to will one thing,' said Kierkegaard. Very differently John Rawls has written that 'Although to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice..., it still strikes us as irrational, or mor likely as mad' (Theory of justice, 1971, 554). The examples which Rawls has just given of those who have in this way given their allegiance to one dominant end are those of St. Ignatius of Loyola and of Aquinas. What Rawls says is an instructive measure of the cultural distance separating the protagonists of modernity from Aquinas. Interestingly, however, those protagonists often enough do not take Aristotle to be similarly alien or mad." (Macintyre, Whose Justice, 1988, 165)

    The subordination of all acts to a final end cannot on any principled basis be called irrational as Rawls himself recognizes. Consequently, he lets the ignorant biases of modernity against final causality do all the work for him. Since he can't oppose such causality in rational terms ("strictly speaking"), he must do so in the loose terms of an appeal to unprincipled bias.

    Macintyre's project made room for the classical, principled account of justice at a time when that account was little understood and much maligned. 35 years later the situation is different and it is becoming more apparent each day that justice as "equity of consequences/results" is entirely unjust with horrible societal consequences. Thankfully there are folks who are doing the intellectual spade work to ask and answer: what might a new order arising from the ashes look like?

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  11. NLRAugust 21, 2024 at 12:23 PM

    The linked post makes a good point about Rawls's system, that it is not neutral. And we can go even further and say that, in general, there cannot be a truly impartial social system. Everyone has ideas of what is good and what is bad. And a system that is so impartial as to not support what it regards as good and not to prevent or sanction what it regards as bad will after a period of time cease to exist.

    In order to preserve itself, a system like Rawls's would have to have people whose job it is to pass down its beliefs and perpetuate the culture. And also it would need people to sanction behaviors that would work to erode or destroy it. But that's not actually what happened with liberalism. (And this is true regardless of whether one supports Rawls's liberalism or not; it's just a basic requirement of any culture).

    Not only that, but people who aren't acting in good faith can subvert a system. Even if we assume the veil of ignorance, it's certainly possible for someone to choose Rawls's society but secretly plan to subvert it for his own benefit once the veil is lifted.

    Such people will often justify themselves according to the values of the wider culture, but they don't actually believe in those values. For example, the elites of our society often talk about egalitarianism, but they don't actually believe in it because they always look out for themselves and never truly sacrifice anything. They may pretend to give something up, but if you look closer, it's never a genuine sacrifice.

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  12. AnonymousAugust 21, 2024 at 4:45 PM

    Who says Rawls is value-neutral? His theory has obvious values: equality, individual freedom, fairness. That these are specific values is all the more obvious today when there are so many who hold values that conflict with these.

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    1. CosmicCatAugust 22, 2024 at 11:11 PM

      How do you detect values in a system?

      This is a philosophy blog, so this is a fine place from which to solicit such answers.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 23, 2024 at 10:08 AM

      I think the owner of this philosophy blog is only letting very few comments get posted.

      Delete
    3. Edward FeserAugust 24, 2024 at 10:51 AM

      Not true. I let about 95% of comments through. The main exceptions are comments that are completely off-topic or that are nothing more than drive-by insults or obscenities or the like.

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    4. AnonymousAugust 24, 2024 at 2:47 PM

      Well, I made a comment the other day on the August 21, 4:45pm post in which I commented that some here prefer virtue to freedom. It was a short post, not off-topic, pointed, maybe, but not an insult and not obscene, but it didn't get posted.

      Some people post like Cosmic Cat because they really want to "solicit answers." Others come here to vent. Others to display their erudition. Others come here to argue and intellectually arm-wrestle. Others come to inject some levity in some long-winded discussions. Others come to deflate some egos. In the 10 or so years I have posted here, I think I have done all that . Mostly, though, people just want to have their say. In the end, it really doesn't matter. It all gets lost in the blogosphere.

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    5. TonyAugust 24, 2024 at 3:17 PM

      His theory has obvious values: equality, individual freedom, fairness.

      Which is it you want: equality, or fairness?

      Take 2 men: both at age 18 are given $100,000 to do with as they will: go to college, start a business, invest it, buy a house, throw a party, etc. Everyone is to get that at 18. That's equality.

      Sam spends it on a fast car, loose women, and drink. Bob goes to college and then starts a business with the remaining portion as his down payment. At age 25, Bob has a wife and 2 kids, a successful business, and a small home with a mortgage. Sam has spent everything, he is an alcoholic with 2 kids and a divorce, his car wrapped around a tree, and he is flat broke. Sam pleads with us to provide housing, food, medicine, and education "for his kids" because "they shouldn't have to suffer for my choices". He urges that "they shouldn't have to wait for age 18 to get 'equal' opportunity, without help now they won't get there."

      If people have freedom, they have freedom to eff up their choices. If equality means equality of outcome, that means forever bailing them out of their stupid, wasteful, anti-social choices. If fairness as a value trumps equality of outcome, then fairness means letting people wallow in the damaged life their (free) damaging choices lead to. It is inevitable that those damaging choices would also impact their families and friends - that's as unavoidable as the law of gravity.

      You rest a political order on values like "equality, freedom, and fairness" without intending some particular versions of those ideas, versions that can be distinguished from what other people might mean by them; the same applies to the relations between them. But since people differ in what those ideas mean and how they relate, no one version is "the" neutral stance that applies across all persons or societies.

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    6. Edward FeserAugust 25, 2024 at 1:26 AM

      Anon at 2:47,

      I have no memory of the comment, but if it is as you say, there's no reason I would not have let it through. It could have gotten caught in the spam filter (which occasionally happens with legit comments) or there was some glitch that kept in from making it into moderation (which happens now and again too).

      Delete
    7. AnonymousAugust 25, 2024 at 1:19 PM

      Thank you, Dr. Feser. I appreciate that.

      Delete
    8. AnonymousAugust 26, 2024 at 11:46 AM

      On certain devices, I frequently get the "there was an error when making your comment" message instead of the "your comment will become visible after it is approved" comment, but I can't really figure out why I can't reliably make comments when I'm on my desktop but can from my phone. If I had to guess, the above comment probably never made it to Prof. Feser for approval.

      Also, it seems to me that a lot of the blog regulars are tired out fighting over the thread down below and don't really have much meaningful to say on this topic (hence the relative sparsity of comments on this compared to the below post).

      Delete
    9. AnonymousAugust 26, 2024 at 1:46 PM

      I also sometimes get that message one of my cellphones but never on my other cellphone. And never on my computer.

      Yes about the thread below. It just depends on the topic and who the posters are. I do think this blog was livelier years ago.

      Delete
    10. DNWAugust 26, 2024 at 4:39 PM

      " it seems to me that a lot of the blog regulars are tired out fighting over the thread down below and don't really have much meaningful to say on this topic (hence the relative sparsity of comments on this compared to the below post)."

      1. It does not appear that many aside from Feser have actually read Rawls enough to have a first hand opinion of the social implications of the assumed premises of his system.

      2. Even though anonymous commenters sometimes make significant observations, trying to sort out who is who among them grows tiresome, and ultimately unrewarding. Whether their personal motivations are timidity, laziness, or just an expression of attitude is irrelevant.

      Someone who refuses to take 3 seconds to type in an arbitrary identifier, is just looking to discharge, not to seriously engage.


      Delete
    11. AnonymousAugust 27, 2024 at 8:32 AM

      If our esteemed host switches to a blog format that enforces the use of monikers or makes it known that he would prefer us to do so, I’ll put on a nickname. Until then, since Prof Feser does not seem to care, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

      I don’t really get why this bothers you so much, DNW. It’s a philosophy blog, the primary concern are the content of the ideas, not the people making them. If I make a comment, I want the focus to be on the actual thing I have to say or the question I am asking, not on any preconceived notions you may have about me as a person. This isn’t social media and I don’t get any value out of the parasocial relationship with anyone here. And were I a troll, the fact that I got under your skin enough for your to make this reply means that I would have won by diluting the quality of the conversation with the off topic comments.

      Delete
    12. AnonymousAugust 27, 2024 at 2:43 PM

      That was well said, my fellow Anonymous. I have made similar comments to and about DNW, which have also gotten under his skin. But you see, for him, the focus is often about people, including even the deceased. He actually once opined about the flames of hell enveloping atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett, whom Dr Feser had eulogized.
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2024/04/daniel-dennett-1942-2024.html
      April 23, 2024, 11:20pm

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    13. DNWAugust 27, 2024 at 8:37 PM

      @ Anonymous August 27, 2024

      You seem to have a reading comprehension issue.

      No one cares who you really are and no one wants to be your pal. It's just a matter of keeping "voices straight".

      And all that someone who makes up and sticks to a consistent posting ID risks, is having to own and accept responsibility for his posted comments

      As for the quality or content of your ideas? There is simply no way for anyone to know which ideas are yours - if indeed you have ever actually expressed a philosophically significant idea - and which are not.

      And Daniel Dennett's frying in hell? If that bothers either you or Frack ... just don't think about it. Easy.

      Delete
    14. bmillerAugust 27, 2024 at 8:58 PM

      It seems to me the 2 recent anonymous commenters are more bugged by DNW than he is by them. His #2 explains why he thinks not choosing a name detracts from useful discussion. I agree with him.

      If I make a comment, I want the focus to be on the actual thing I have to say or the question I am asking, not on any preconceived notions you may have about me as a person.

      But if a dozen other anonymous commentators pile on after your statement or question then yours is just a voice in a mob. Do you think that helps philosophical discourse?

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    15. KevinAugust 28, 2024 at 4:17 AM

      A key component of philosophical discourse is revealing and correcting flaws in one's thinking. So for example, if on Monday I post that life begins at conception, and on Wednesday I post that killing the innocent is wrong, and on Friday I post that abortion should be legal in all cases, then it is apparent to anyone that I am either trolling or I've got a severe gap in my critical thinking skills. Others would be correct in pointing out the inconsistency in my statements, and if I reject the correction and continue contradicting myself, others would be correct in dismissing me.

      The Anonymous moniker removes the ability for others to analyze what a person says in the context of other things they say. We can't look for inconsistency, we can't look for trolling. For all we know, every single Anonymous is the same person having a conversation with himself for his own amusement. If I anonymously made the same mistakes in my example, no one would know. I could successfully make all three posts to amuse myself, and no one would know. I could bounce around multiple threads contradicting myself with impunity and no one would know.

      Now multiply that possibility by however many Anonymous posters there actually are, and the mess becomes even worse.
      That reason alone devalues all Anonymous posts, particularly since I have yet to hear a good reason why a moniker is to be avoided in a good-faith conversation. If it doesn't help you in any way, but it does help everyone else keep track of conversations, why not do it unless there's something to hide?

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    16. DNWAugust 28, 2024 at 8:15 AM

      Bmiller, hath said,

      " ... if a dozen other anonymous commentators pile on after your statement or question then yours is just a voice in a mob.

      Yeah, precisely.

      Now, there might be plenty of reasons [in addition to laziness, attitude, and fear] for the various anonymous to hope to plausibly dissociate themselves from their previous comments; or to in fact and in-effect, be that voice shouting up from the shelter of the crowd. But preserving the purity of philosophical presentation is certainly not one of them. The very notion is comical.

      Those with any historical knowledge, or even any memory, will recall the debates on the Constitution both Federalist and Anti-Federalist: Publius, Brutus, Federal Farmer, etc.

      Even Michael Anton's famous and more recent 'Flight 93 Election' essay which was a one-off employed the pen name "Publius Decius Mus" for convenient reference.

      And, as anyone else who had bothered to actually read what I wrote will have noticed, my two point response specifically addressed the speculation as to why the response to the Rawls posting might be so thin.

      The first was the probable lack of an actual textual familiarity on the part of potential respondents.

      Anon ignored that.

      Only my second point on the lack of response issue, dealt with the unrewarding tedium of sorting through a cluster of anonymous postings, and the effect that that has on calculating an intellectual return on investment.

      It was that that Anon fastened firmly and exclusively onto, like a needy drama queen.

      Finally, as Mini-Anonyme's whining about the Dennett-in-hell theme reveals, it is pretty clear who has, if inadvertantly, gotten whose goat, unwanted as it is, staked out in his yard.

      Delete
    17. ficino4mlAugust 28, 2024 at 9:29 AM

      I too find it enhances discussion to take a moniker and detracts from developed discussion to post as Anonymous. I have had discussions with posters here that have lasted for a considerable number of posts back and forth. When the other person is one of several Anonymi, it becomes difficult to identify replies to and fro. Another advantage of a moniker is that people can search for one's posts.

      I too don't see good reason to resist use of a moniker if one is going to post more than once or twice.

      Delete
    18. AnonymousAugust 28, 2024 at 11:13 AM

      "Revealing and correcting flaws" says Prof. Kevin. This ain't a classroom. Anonymous is just quick and easy to use. If it makes it harder for to "keep track of conversations," well, I guess you will just have to work harder.

      Delete
    19. KevinAugust 28, 2024 at 1:54 PM

      "Revealing and correcting flaws" says Prof. Kevin.

      So you're here to troll? Because if you aren't here to exchange ideas and possibly learn things, why are you here? Unless you're one of those who thinks he is imparting wisdom, in which case your professor comment circles back around.

      Anonymous is just quick and easy to use. If it makes it harder for to "keep track of conversations," well, I guess you will just have to work harder.

      So you don't care if your laziness makes it more difficult for a bunch of others to accurately track conversations. Everyone should work harder to compensate. That definitely tracks. The trolling hypothesis seems much more likely with that comment.

      Hence, why we ask for monikers. It helps weed out trolls.

      Delete
    20. AnonymousAugust 28, 2024 at 2:44 PM

      There was a time long ago when DNW's posts were sometimes interesting and stylistic. But something happened and he seems deeply troubled now. Why else would he fantasize about Prof. Dennett being in hell? Dr. Feser wrote rather well about the atheist Dennett. Feser is a brilliant Christian philosopher but he doesn't harbor personal animus. DNW would do well to emulate him. That is what is "staked out" if only he could see that.

      Delete
    21. Edward FeserAugust 29, 2024 at 8:47 AM

      Guys, enough with the personal stuff and meta-level comments about comments etc. Stick to the topic.

      Delete
    22. DNWAugust 29, 2024 at 1:58 PM

      "Edward Feser
      August 29, 2024 at 8:47 AM
      Guys, enough with the personal stuff and meta-level comments about comments etc. Stick to the topic      "

      Adverting to my first point regarding readers' probable generalized lack of an intimate familiarity with this landmark but now mostly ignored text.

      I just did something I generally don't do. I went to my shelves and pulled my physical copy of A Theory of Justice off and thumbed through it.

      Two things struck me.
      1. At age 18 or 19 it was probably too complex for me to fully grasp even through it had been out for years. This is revealed by my marginalia which now seem otiose. And I have to remind myself that at that point I had hardly worked my way through the classic Utilitarian canon, much less been fully exposed to the other theories of ethics in a comprehensive way and using primary texts.

      What now reads "like a newspaper", back then had layers of references I had hardly digested and which "required" my underlining and comments on page edges and bottoms.

      Funny.

      2nd, I see that aside from the "outrages" which I noticed at the time, such as the principle of a committment to a shared fate, or the admitted inevitability of eugenics practices, there are so many other objectionable assumptions that one can hardly get through a page unless you simply concede the points for the sake of argument.

      But to do so you have to bracket it as a mid 20th century exercise in the formation of a secular religious faith constructed out of the liberal commonplaces of the time, organized into a "rational" system based on a fairytale which only appeals to certain types of people already morally labile and predisposed to institutional life.

      It is definitely not a work containing much if anything that I could recognize as a critical analysis, or bearing any relationship to a realistic anthropology of human motivations.

      The habit of conflating society with the polity, seems particularly Marxist or progressive Christian. All are welcome, all are included, beause, because, how would YOU like it if yada yada ... which is as good an argument for initially excluding and never tolerating the uncongenial in the first place, as it is for the inclusion of the free rider or subverter ... who might cost you the freedoms and options you already enjoy.

      It does not recognize facts on the ground, but spins a let's pretend world in which one is expected to value the choices of others - whoever and whatever they might be, as one's own: A kind of amoral and masochist version of the golden rule.

      Of course this amoral nonjudgmentalism in the name of species fraternity is nothing new.

      Amoral solidarity pimping is a common activity nowadays ... much of it emanating from the precincts of the Vatican itself.

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    23. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 2:26 PM

      Thanks for that, Dr. Feser

      Delete
    24. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 8:36 PM

      https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/06/rawls-being-a-person-these-days-and-the-new-eugenics

      Delete
  13. CosmicCatAugust 24, 2024 at 10:41 PM

    Also liberal integralism is simply called togetherness. It's based on sincerity, groundedness, and art.

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  14. AnonymousAugust 26, 2024 at 4:24 PM

    WCB

    @Cosmic Cat
    "How do you detect values in a system?"

    The study of values is called axiology. It is a field of study all of its own in philosophy. Ethics and morals is closely dependent on values. The term was invented in the late 1800's. Though the concept of values is ancient. For example the questions posed by Socrates are still relevant today. What is good, what is bad? How do we decide? Aristotle's Eudaimonia is another early example of axiology, what is good for a happy and meaningful life? See also meta-ethics. Axiology can be quite a rabbit hole to fall into.

    WCB

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    1. CosmicCatAugust 27, 2024 at 12:45 AM

      Thank you. Axiology constitutes an important branch of philosophy, much like ontology, which studies the typologies of inanimate objects.

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    2. ficino4mlAugust 27, 2024 at 5:57 AM

      Some years ago in a comment on this blog, Brandon said that the ancients had no concept of "value" as you're using it. If he's around, perhaps Brandon can explain further. His statement didn't seem accurate to me.

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    3. ficino4mlAugust 27, 2024 at 12:11 PM

      adding: I think Brandon may have meant that for the ancients (P and Ari, at least), "good" is measured by how closely a thing actualizes its form (mostly Ari here), not by how much agents want the thing. Brandon, if you are around, perhaps you can clarify. Surely you didn't mean that "axios" in Greek just means "actualizes essential form," did you?

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    4. AnonymousAugust 27, 2024 at 3:24 PM

      WCB

      Socrates was very interested in values and their sources. For example, his Euthyphro question. are things good because God defines the good, the pious,, or is good something that is objective and outside of opinions of even Gods? What is friendship, justice, good, bad and why? Plato's dialogues with Socrates are about values, their nature, their sources. And are still relevant today. Even for theology. For that matter, Catholic theology.
      Is there and objective morality, objective even for God, or is there only divine command, God's opinion? Socrates directly confronts such issues in Plato's Gorgias, in the debate between Socrates and amoralist sophist Callicles. and in The Republic, Thrasymachus. Does might make right? As far as I can see, anybody claiming no ancient Greek addressed the problems of value does not know what they are talking about. That is primarily what Socrates was all about. And these questions are still important.

      WCB

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    5. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 2:41 PM

      Dr. Feser devoted an entire blog to the Euthyphro Dilemma
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-obligation-and-euthyphro-dilemma.html

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    6. BrandonSeptember 1, 2024 at 7:21 PM

      I've been busy with the start of the term and only recently saw this.

      Surely you didn't mean that "axios" in Greek just means "actualizes essential form," did you?

      'Axios' in ancient Greek just means measuring up according to standard weights on a scale, and its only relation to what we would call 'value' is that it is used literally of prices and figuratively of someone's worthiness to fill an office. The use of it in the name of 'axiology' to mean 'value' as a general concept is an entirely figurative usage that does not pre-exist the late nineteenth century; it's a German invention from the age in which German philosophers were constantly trying to pretend that they were the primary natural heirs of the Greeks, and so named a lot of philosophical fields using Greek.

      I don't think any of this is relevant to WCB's points, since I don't think he was making a historical point but a point about the kinds of things one studies in axiology, one which is basically correct. One can certainly re-interpret everything the Greeks said that was relevant to beauty in terms of values or the objects of 'valuational consciousness', or, as Nicolai Hartmann also calls them, the experiential conditions of the possibility of goodness, and study them in those terms; that's what German axiologists did, in fact. It's not what the ancient philosophers themselves were doing, for the very simple but obvious reason that the ancient philosophers had not read philosophers like Kant and Hegel, who set up the kinds of problems axiology was developed to address. But German philosophers who founded axiology did indeed read the ancient Greeks.

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    7. ficino4mlSeptember 2, 2024 at 9:29 AM

      @Brandon, thank you for expanding. Best wishes for the new term, F

      Delete
  15. NormAugust 27, 2024 at 12:05 AM

    I am still reflecting on this issue, so my thoughts and arguments are not refined. I share the critic of Integralism that may learned writers like, Dr Jennifer Frey, which have to do with religious freedom. To quote a summary that Michael Pakaluk approvingly just shared on twitter,

    "Put simply, postliberalism is three things. First, it is an authoritarian ideology adapted from Catholic reactionary movements responding to the French Revolution and, later, World War I. Second, it is a loose international coalition of illiberal, right- wing parties and political actors. Third, it is a set of policy proposals for creating a welfare state for family formation, the government establishment of the Christian religion, and the movement from republican government to administrative despotism."

    My main issue with the ideology is that it is "practically" authoritarian. I might not necessarily agree with everything else in the above critique. Notice that I say practically. I agree with Dr Feser when he says that it is licit atleast in principle. Catholic rulers suppressed the practice and spread of other faiths for years. In principle there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with suppressing what one takes to be falsehoods, but it can get incredibly messy in practice. It would be akin to indentured servitude.

    As I understand it , On Dr Feser's account , if for example, eastern spirituality associated with hinduism is beginning to take hold of the catholic citizens of a Integralist state on YouTube, that content should be censored, if it's spreading because of on the ground practitioners who may just be an immigrant innocent family or person of sharing their faith traditions, they should be restricted and banned or to use the modern term, "cancelled". Only this time it's actively pursued by the Government which makes it even more scary. I wouldn't be able to sit back and watch that. I think it would eventually lead to the collapse of social order. Dr Feser hardly addresses these kinds of points.

    From personal experience, I can say that in many eastern countries of Asia, the people don't have a problem with people practicing Christianity per se, rather they only have a problem with active conversion and missionary activity. Now I don't think that their issue has any justification at all, if a person finds arguments for a faith to be superior, they should have the freedom to convert. To my mind though, Integralism entails becoming the very monsters that our missionary brothers are facing.

    Dr Feser might retort but there's a difference, we are the one true faith. My answer to that would be, while it's true that we are the one true faith. The way in which we make this point is by arguing about the true and the good and the beautiful, a point Dr Feser made himself, not to long ago in regards to protests. If many people are being convinced of eastern spirituality, it's because we as Christians must have failed in the nurturing of young ones, our response can't be to brutally suppress the source of the falsehoods.

    If an Integralist were to say though, but we don't want to suppress the spread of other faiths, we agree with everything you just said. In my mind, if all faiths are free to compete with each other and convince on an equal footing, the catholic confession of the state seems very superficial (in name only) and susceptible to being altered at any given point. It wouldn't really be "Integralism" whatever it might be.

    In summary to quote Dr Jennifer Frey,
    "We live in a pluralistic democracy founded on religious liberty. I celebrate that. "

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    Replies
    1. ficino4mlAugust 27, 2024 at 12:14 PM

      @Norm: a friend of mine just wants to bring back the Hapsburg monarchy. lol

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    2. TonyAugust 27, 2024 at 12:33 PM

      if it's spreading because of on the ground practitioners who may just be an immigrant innocent family or person of sharing their faith traditions,

      There is nothing remotely inappropriate, or excessively despotic, about making as a condition of immigration that the immigrant explicitly agree to conditions that the government specifies are essential conditions of the polity. That's valid whether it's a (relatively) liberal democracy, a monarchy, or an integralist republic. If the integralist republic specifies that the nation's constitutive nature is as a nation holding X religion, it seems not only plausible but more like normal that it impose as a condition on immigrants that they agree to abide by rules meant to preserve X religion - including limits on expressing theories opposed to X.

      Nothing about the principle above relies on X being "the true religion" as such.

      can say that in many eastern countries of Asia, the people don't have a problem with people practicing Christianity per se, rather they only have a problem with active conversion and missionary activity. Now I don't think that their issue has any justification at all, if a person finds arguments for a faith to be superior, they should have the freedom to convert. To my mind though, Integralism entails becoming the very monsters that our missionary brothers are facing.

      Historically, one of the actual differences one encounters is that some missionaries use methods of persuasion that are unjust methods: i.e. methods designed to grab onto emotions rather than reason, methods that use exaggeration or outright false "data" to make arguments, etc. It is fine for a foreign government to forbid such methods - including if it's Catholic missionaries doing it.

      However, the Catholic Church asserted for centuries (and repeated the arguments in Dignitatis Humanae), that God has deigned to provide evidences for Catholic claims for the faith that are validly used, are rightly employed by missionaries, without unjustly imposing on the hearers: e.g. (a) an often manifest holiness of saintly preachers of the faith; and (b) miracles. Even if a foreign non-Catholic power (say, a pagan king) were to legitimately initially constrain a Catholic missionary's presentation only to be heard first by the king's appointed ministers of religion, once the missionary has established by reasonable evidence his claims, it becomes then unreasonable for the government to persist in treating him as if his claims were unreasonable and may be dismissed out of hand. And in fact the Church did sometimes send out missionaries expressly to the court of a distant power, to preach first to the king and to get the king's express agreement that the missionary could present to the people.

      That is to say: A government licitly having rules that limit incoming proselytizing to protect people from unreasonable imposition is not supposed to be an unending and absolute barrier to truth well attested and reasonably demonstrated to the authorities.

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    3. AnonymousAugust 27, 2024 at 9:16 PM

      Dr. Frey is brilliant philosopher and very beautiful woman.
      ttps://jenniferannfrey.com/about/
      She talks about her conversion to Catholicism on EWTN's "The Journey Home
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qozjv6G4cg

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    4. NormAugust 27, 2024 at 11:46 PM

      Tony

      You make interesting points.

      But I don't think that the real world is as clear cut.

      For one thing, foreign kingdoms may just not be looking to be "reasonable", they may just be looking to preserve their faith tradition and practices. This tendency may even be exacerbated if they have already had particularly bad experiences of Christianity in the past.

      At the same time,I doubt that a catholic king would go into a presentation of another faith tradition with any expectation of being convinced or persuaded in anyway.

      There's also the fact of the world being more interconnected then ever before. Suppose the missionaries were to be questioned about why we are banning the spread of eastern faith traditions by the rulers of the Eastern Countries and our response was that we didn't find it reasonable enough, it's very likely that those rulers would ban the spread of Christianity for the same reasons irrespective of whether they have reasonable claims or not.

      Ultimately our position would amount to, "We have more reasonable claims so you should allow us to spread our faith in your country but we don't think you have reasonable claims so we will ban the spread of your faith in our country ".

      It more or less amounts to what I said before that we would ultimately fall back on our claim of being the one true faith. I don't find it wrong in principle.
      But I just don't find it viable in practice at all, it seems like a recipe for chaos.

      A world where every citizen is is free to convince each of their faiths seems much more viable to me.

      A country is free to restrict immigration ofcourse to protect their culture and demography, but once people are already citizens, they should have the right to promote their ideas.

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    5. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 3:29 PM

      Well said, Norm. Religion has flourished in this country because our Constitution protects the free exercise of religion and we don't have an established. Catholicism has practically died in Europe even thought it once was recognized as the official religion in many European countries. Ireland was once the most Catholic nation on earth. It sent missionary priests all around the world, particularly to the USA. Abortion, birth control and divorce were once forbidden in its constitution. Now Ireland is just another secular country.

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    6. TonyAugust 29, 2024 at 6:47 PM

      For one thing, foreign kingdoms may just not be looking to be "reasonable", they may just be looking to preserve their faith tradition and practices. ...it's very likely that those rulers would ban the spread of Christianity for the same reasons irrespective of whether they have reasonable claims or not.

      It could happen. Indeed, that sort of thing did happen. But Christian missionaries' success is not dependent on their own work, it is God's work. The Romans were extremely good at stamping out beliefs they didn't like by stamping out people. Until God used their very methods against them, e.g. causing Roman soldiers to convert because of watching Christians go to their death singing and forgiving their persecutors.

      The free transmission of ideas is a great good, but it is not the ultimate good. Shouting "fire" in a crowded basketball stadium because you think maybe there might be a fire, but you haven't checked to be sure, is a violation of OTHER people's good due to your failure to use appropriate standards toward truth: fact-checking before you spout stuff is a duty of communication. And it could well be a punishable crime to commit such a thing. (There are other punishable offenses against speech used too freely, e.g fighting words, and revealing official secrets.)

      Well, one could make similar arguments about claims made by some Protestants regarding what the Catholic Church "teaches", claims that were wrong and if they had done appropriate checking, they could have known better. It is often not a prudent course for the state to interfere when someone is spouting stupid stuff that is demonstrably wrong, because the freedom to pursue the truth is a great good. But it's a matter of prudence, which implies that there are probably some limiting cases for which it is prudent to say "whoa, that's a step too far, we shouldn't let something that egregious go unchecked."

      Arguably, the very situation of America nearly wrecked by wokism and other mental disorders of academia is itself strong evidence that the structures of (so-called) absolute freedom of thought in academia is too harmful to the common good to accept. Sure, maybe in 20 or 30 years wokism will burn itself out in some sense, but the damage it does in the meantime could be irreparable - at least for millions of individuals whose minds it wrecks, they won't be repaired by the country as a whole recovering some semblance of common sense.

      Because we already accept laws limiting speech (as mentioned above), it is clear that the goods served by free speech reside in the middle of a hierarchy of goods, which means limitations needed for other goods. It is a matter of argument where those limitations best fit, not whether we should have limitations.

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    7. CosmicCatAugust 29, 2024 at 11:02 PM

      My main issue with the ideology is that it is "practically" authoritarian.

      We could all use a little more practicality in our lives.

      [MARY POPPINS]
      By the time the wind has blown the weather vane around
      I'll show you if I can
      No matter what the circumstance for one thing I'm renowned
      My character is spit-spot-spic and span
      I'm practically perfect in every way

      [JANE]
      Practically Perfect?

      [MARY POPPINS]
      So people say
      Each virtue virtually knows no bound
      Each trait is great and patently sound
      I'm practically perfect from head to toe
      If I had a fault it would never dare to show
      I'm so practically perfect in every way

      <a href="https://youtu.be/6eDsRWubPV4?si=kJW_KysCc28QpQy8>^thisContext.</a>

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    8. NLRAugust 30, 2024 at 1:29 PM

      Norm, you make a good point that if a state decides to suppress other religions, it can get out of hand.

      I would say that the fundamental issue is about a government being for something rather than against something. If a society has values, then the government should support them. For instance, Rawls's generation, the generation that fought in WWII, wasn't able to preserve even their own liberal values from then to now. And forget 1945 liberalism, we don't even have 1992 liberalism (when Fukuyama's End of History came out and liberal democracy had supposedly won out over its rivals). If you look at the details of how people live and behave, what has been called liberalism is actually a variety of belief systems that seem to last about a generation or even less than that now.

      If it was purely laws that disfavor other religions that would be one thing, but the main issue is a society that is for something, that is able to preserve its values or a society that can't. Of course, having deep-rooted values is something can't be legislated into being.

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    9. NormAugust 31, 2024 at 2:49 AM

      Tony,

      I am not completely opposed to blocking out certain sorts of ideas, excessive skepticism of morality, attitudes of promiscuity towards sex.

      Ideas that are overtly against natural law prescriptions, the kinds of attitudes that bequeathed us with IVF, Abortion etc. If Faith, prescriptions mandate those sorts of things, I'd be happy to ban those aspects.

      It just seems to me that none of what I said right now involves adherence to the catholic church. As Prof Feser himself has said recently on twitter, none of the opposition to IVF, abortion relies on Church teaching and can be known independent of religious reasons.

      One can be a militant atheist and still agree with all the kinds of restrictions I mentioned above.

      Of course respect for God, also forms a part of the natural law, the first and second commandment, but there's also a subjective element of faith having to do with assent, that the Church has always recognised, that faith can't be coerced. I'd say that laws that purport to regulate people's conception of the Divine even when that conception doesn't impinge on those aspects of morality that can be known apart from belief in God, risks collapsing into religious coercion.

      As respected Natural Law theory Dr J Budziszewski mentions,

      "If turning away from God is worse than murder, why doesn’t human law treat it as worse than murder? Mainly because human law is in charge of the temporal common good, not the spiritual common good of union with God. A secondary reason is that unbelief is an invisible movement of the heart, which human beings cannot see; human law can address itself only to outward acts, which it can see. Still another is that faith cannot be coerced; if unbelief were made illegal, the consequence would not be a nation of unbelievers, but a nation of hypocrites. The state is not is neither commissioned to look into hearts, nor capable of doing so."

      https://www.undergroundthomist.org/is-pride-really-graver-than-murder



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    10. TonySeptember 2, 2024 at 10:37 AM

      Of course respect for God, also forms a part of the natural law, the first and second commandment, but there's also a subjective element of faith having to do with assent, that the Church has always recognised, that faith can't be coerced.

      There are two points I would make: first, it is not essential to a confessional state to coerce thought; one can instead promote right thought without coercion. One can, for example, make the Christian act of worship one promoted by the state (e.g. state-promoted processions on Corpus Christi), without mandating that everyone attend. The first commandment attaches to the natural law in this way: it is proper to each created being to honor the Creator, insofar as in it lies. For all beings below man, they naturally do this without volition, just by doing what their natures provide. For rational beings, we do it by actual voluntary worship. The state is a semi-natural being, in that our natures require us to form states, and it is a rational being, in that it acts with intention and will in the person of its people and their authorities. It belongs to the state, as to humans, to worship God insofar as in it lies: this is standard Catholic teaching. A Christian state should, if possible to it, worship in the Christian manner.

      Mainly because human law is in charge of the temporal common good, not the spiritual common good of union with God.

      It is precisely toward the temporal good that the state ought to be ordered; however, the temporal good itself must be rightly understood in relation to man's final (eternal) end in order for the state to be most fully successful, for the temporal good is perfected only when the people order themselves to the due eternal end and on that basis are rightly ordered to each other temporally. The state doesn't per se govern us toward the eternal good, but the temporal good will be rightly grasped in coordination with our final end. The social and political virtues needed for temporal excellence are partners with the virtues of charity, hope, and faith. Thus a state that operates with knowledge of the Christian virtues as the summit of excellence, and cooperates with the Church, is more likely to achieve the temporal good properly understood, than a state that denies (or studiously ignores) any condition of men being ordered beyond a temporal good. In effect: it is impossible for a state to be neutral about whether man has an end beyond the temporal good, and it is impossible for the temporal end to be neutral as to the character of our beyond-temporal end.

      A secondary reason is that unbelief is an invisible movement of the heart, which human beings cannot see; human law can address itself only to outward acts, which it can see.

      In a sense. But in a sense, not: the state rightly punishes fraud, and this has, written into its definition, an intention, which the state proves through indirect means (i.e. through actions which manifest intention). Indeed, broadly in common law states, (including the US), a conviction of guilt may require mens rea in addition to the outward physical act: the mens rea is the interior mental aspect of a guilty action - the mind in its guilty condition of responsibility. "The act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty."

      I am not saying that the state generally should convict citizens for, say, apostasy or heresy. But it could well take other steps, including non-coercive ones, so as to demote persons who impede the temporal good by outward actions of apostasy or heresy ("demote" being the opposite of "promote": e.g. retracting honors). And it could banish those who obstinately insist on public sins of that sort.

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    11. TonySeptember 3, 2024 at 10:37 PM

      Hi Tony

      As I said before, I think whatever you are saying makes sense in principle, I just don't think it's viable in practice, especially the steps you mention as non coercive steps.

      It feels akin to naming and shaming people with social ostracism as the ultimate goal, that just never ends well.

      Delete
  16. Prime Minister Pete NiceAugust 28, 2024 at 2:19 PM

    The reason why the US is more Christian today is possibly because of its religious pluralism allowing for "great awakenings" and other organic religious revivals to take hold.

    Some of the most atheistic countries are the Northern liberal protestant countries, which had state churches run by the government for centuries, where the church is a government agency like the DMV and the clergy is just a cushy job. Or look at France, which had the Gallican church, where they were still Catholic but the King had authority over the church similar to a Protestant monarch, and you got rich, politically-connected atheists like Talleyrand becoming bishops at age 25. Modern Spain is hugely secular partly because the faith is connected to the memory of the Franco regime. I've seen it argued that modern Japan is highly secular because the Tokugawa Shoguns "confessionalized" Japanese Buddhism in a similar manner, suppressing popular forms of piety and religious practice.

    If one were to install Catholic integralism in the US (or even a semi-ecumenical version where, say, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Evangelicalism, Mormonism, and Orthodox Judaism get parallel state-backing and other forms of religion are suppressed along with cultural liberalism), the likely result would be an atheistic society where the bulk of the population have a cynical attitude towards religion. Its a massive own goal. And that's if the integralist succeed. If they fail, all they've done is associate the Catholic faith with fringe political ideas and make other Catholics look like kooks by association.

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    1. CosmicCatAugust 30, 2024 at 8:35 PM

      The revival of Christianity in the U.S.A. is a strange & unusual development. I thought the U.S. was well on its way to resulting in a secular republic like S[weed]en or France 🇫🇷.

      Delete
  17. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 2:42 AM

    It seems to me that all grand theories and indeed much/most of human culture whether secular or so called religious are now being smithereened by Social Media.
    Check out this introduction to the book Superbloom by Nicholas Carr
    www.roughtype.com/?p=9258

    Many years ago Neil Postman described the then situation too in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death

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    1. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 7:56 PM

      Agreed. Social Media can be good and helpful, but it cannot replace human interaction. I will admit social media can become habit-forming.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousAugust 29, 2024 at 8:47 PM

      Actually, in 1964, Marshall McLuhan predicted much of what Postman and Carr said in his classic book, "The Medium is the Message."
      https://www.postcontrolmarketing.com/if-the-medium-is-the-message-what-message-is-social-media-sending/

      Delete
  18. AnonymousAugust 30, 2024 at 1:44 PM

    Ed, You reigned in your errant children and this blog is at peace. At least for now.

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousAugust 30, 2024 at 2:29 PM

    Ed, I misspelled. I meant to say "reining" in your errant children.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 31, 2024 at 1:51 PM

      Dr. Feser,
      I wish you, your family and everyone of this blog a happy Labor Day.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2024 at 1:28 AM

      Off topic!

      Delete
    3. Edward FeserSeptember 1, 2024 at 10:18 AM

      "Off topic!"

      Oh no, I made an exception for a kind word!

      Delete
    4. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2024 at 1:16 PM

      Thank you, Dr. Feser.

      Delete
  20. AnonymousAugust 31, 2024 at 12:38 PM

    How does an integralist account for bad/sinful Catholics? I can accept the hand wave that any actual problems with an integralist society can be resolved by that society actually faithfully living according to the Church teaching and that God, through grace, can put His thumb on the scales so to speak when we are actually following His will.

    But as a matter of fact, we don't always follow His will. And it's not like an integral oat state has any sort of analogous divine assurance in governing well that the Church has to teaching truth.

    So when a nominally and formally Catholic state begins to be run badly by men who are not actually faithful, what does an integralist think ought to happen? Beyond the obvious "be more faithful" which certainly seems necessary (although it's always necessary), I
    mean.

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  21. NormSeptember 1, 2024 at 7:00 AM

    I'd also add that, many of the so called Integralist Catholics unfortunately are the same ones who are now defending Trump like sycophants. Just look at the stupid response Timothy Gordon gave to Dr Feser, defending Trump on a false application of the principle of subsidiarity and stipulating that Dr Feser's position entails trying to outlaw abortion abroad. The way in which he is attacking Trent Horn is equally shameful and the way in which he reduces the relationship of the way in which a husband relates to his wife to some slavish form of domination.

    Clowns like Timothy Gordon are dragging Catholicism down and its sad when he uses Dr Feser's work to defend his positions.

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  22. DNWSeptember 2, 2024 at 8:25 AM

    I have no sympathy for integralism of any stripe. Though a pack of like-minded persons who can go off and find some uninhabited ground to claim and start a colony on, are perfectly free to do so as far as I am concerned. [Finding such a place, and then keeping hold of it is another matter probably requiring violence of at least a defensive kind]

    But anyway, I see little prospect of such a system surviving. If the already Catholic [or Lutheran] states of Europe could not maintain more than a temporary semblance of such a system, how realistic is it? Maybe like "Socialism" the real, pure, true, variety has never been tried ...?

    And too there is the idea behind the project be it secular or religious, which is defective in two regards:

    -It eliminates the clear distinction between the contractual political structure, and the "society", much in the way your emotion driven liberal sister in law or the campus marxist does.

    - In doing so it presumes, be it Georgist, Marxist, Muslim, Fascist, or Christian, some "family of man" idea, which is just not true except in the most formal taxonomic conventions. There is in fact no moral, or psychic unity to mankind, and therefore no secular basis for preexisting moral bonds or duties or real mutuality between all humans: A fact which comically, seems to have escaped the notice of the most ardent nominalists and relativists and deconstructionists. [That some men may share psychic sympathies, congenial dispositions, and mutual interests, is undoubted, and what makes formal agreements and contract possible in the first place]

    Or maybe they have noticed and merely hope that you won't if they keep jabbering incessantly on about, "Empathy, fraternity, authoritative inclusion, and a 'comittment to a shared fate' " as if it demonstrates there is one moral humanity.

    So, for $400.00 Alex, the answer is:
    "What meta ideology do Frankie, Karl, and John all have in common?"

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    1. TonySeptember 2, 2024 at 11:26 AM

      There is in fact no moral, or psychic unity to mankind, and therefore no secular basis for preexisting moral bonds or duties or real mutuality between all humans:

      Sed Contra: there are preexisting moral bonds and duties between humans, at least between parents and children. The principle extends beyond that familial order. I can understand your proposing otherwise, and on that basis I see it as an issue needing an argument. I believe that argument can be made, (but that doesn't mean it will always convince every person.)

      In general, it belongs to man's nature that he is social: that his complete fulfillment includes (at least as part) action with and for a community. Man cannot flourish fully without that. The family is one community, but it is not the only one. At a minimum, adult children need a larger group from which to find mates, and this implies social interaction with a larger sphere than just the family.

      Due to the limits of human individuals, some will be good at one thing while others will be good at other things. Thus social flourishing necessarily be greater where there is at least SOME distribution of roles for the gazillion tasks that can make a community better.

      Where there are many humans, each having free will, and each having only limited knowledge of the needs and constraints impinging on others and on the many, the interests of all together necessarily will be better served if they are (at least with respect to goals desired in common) guided by a unified vision of how to achieve a common goal, than if each pursues that common goal according to his own individual best estimate. (If the town decides they need a town wall for protection from marauding beasts and barbarians, but each man decides on his own to build a bit of wall wherever thinks best, with whatever material, to whatever specs he imagines ideal, no useful wall will result.) That unifying vision of pursuit of the common goals takes a unifying person or small enough group to effectively and successfully communicate the particulars and agree upon them. Thus, in a society of hundreds or thousands, human flourishing cannot happen without some authority over them.

      This utilitarian benefit of an authority (which utilitarian benefit does not cause "duty" as such) is itself a pointer toward a more-than-utilitarian reality: the fact that part of human joy comes from rightly ordering oneself with respect to the mutual good of others in community, and its obverse that human unhappiness (including regret and shame) come when one willfully rejects doing so. This level of reality also points toward the conscience, which is universal and grounds our understanding of the moral structure of humans within the world. And it is from this level of reality, beyond the sheer material utility of a civil authority, comes the fact of moral duties to others. (A simple aspect of this is seen in friendship, where each has a moral (not civic) duty of loyalty, and from which each is subject to the detriment of shame and loss of friendship if he acts against loyalty.) And again, one can see the truth of a real obligation of parents toward children, and children toward parents, that is real without arising from a voluntary contract between them, to look favorably toward an account that includes such realities by reflecting a moral structure to human society. Man's nature entails moral relations to those around him.

      Delete
    2. TonySeptember 2, 2024 at 11:26 AM

      It is on this basis that human nature is designed from its inception to include within it a duty to obey a civil authority, and the natural child's obedience to his parents is a harbinger of his natural obedience to the civil authority.

      It is NOT a necessary result, even if one accepts the above, that mankind ought form one single political state. Even without bad will between them, the differences between different societies produced by differences in language, custom, geography, and other causes are not easily dispensed by some sort of meta-polity. This is doubly true so long as different groups hold fast to differing visions of our ultimate (beyond this life) goals.

      Delete
  23. DNWSeptember 3, 2024 at 10:54 AM

    " 'There is in fact no moral, or psychic unity to mankind, and therefore no secular basis for preexisting moral bonds or duties or real mutuality between all humans':

    Sed Contra: there are preexisting moral bonds and duties between humans, at least between parents and children. The principle extends beyond that familial order. I can understand your proposing otherwise, and on that basis I see it as an issue needing an argument. I believe that argument can be made, (but that doesn't mean it will always convince every person.)

    In general, it belongs to man's nature that he is social ..."

    Yeah a reasonable response. The problem is of course, that an argument needs to be made; and that depending on whether the argument is purely secular or religious, or a hybrid, will make a tremendous difference in ones ability to extrapolate or expand the circle of application ... and presumably recognition of a duty to a like kind, if not a fungible kind.

    Off course, in the case of rad nominaIsts and postmoderns it is plain to all they don't have a non-emotive leg to stand on when it comes imputing rights or value to all persons, or even in defining persons.

    And although it is pretty clear that realists, both secular and religious contrarily can make arguments based on natural kinds and teleology, the extension those nominal classes may vary considerably depending on the canons of analysis or rule of recgnition.

    All men, might just mean athletic build, highly intelligent Greek philosophers. Or it might mean "all God's children". Or it might mean all hominids with whom mating might produce fertile offring, regardless of their cognitive or other limitations which make them seem for all the world like philosophical zombies, or unself-aware, irremediably short horizon, ferally opportunistic cannibals inhabiting human-like skin suits.



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    1. DNWSeptember 4, 2024 at 4:00 PM

      Lotta misstrikes above.

      Glad the thread is dead.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 21, 2024 at 5:48 AM

      What I was most curious about regarding Rawls's veil of ignorance was how it would apply to abortion.

      If I were to think simply, I would think that people would prefer a society where abortion is not allowed to exist rather than one where it is allowed, because they would have a chance to live there.

      However, liberals might argue that this could be different depending on how the society is doing and whether the quality of life is better or worse when the person is alive than when they die from an abortion.

      What if the child grows up in a single-parent family or lives an unhappy life? This seems to fall into the Schopenhauerian question of whether it is better to live an unhappy life or not.

      And what if the child is born a woman and dies because she was unable to have an abortion or lives an unhappy life because she gave birth to a child? Should we also consider such a possibility?

      I have not yet found a satisfactory answer to this question.

      Delete

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