Some thoughts about the Queen and her piano

We live in a time when people get upset about a lot of things. People always got upset (or, outraged) but we share it more often, so maybe we're just more aware of others' grievances and griping. Sometimes the increase in anger may be a good thing; there were many intolerable things that people were made to tolerate for too long. Sometimes we may just be addicted to the outrage itself; some sorts of upset are really silly at best or nefarious at worst.

At the moment, some corners of the world are upset at the appearances of the Queen's Christmas address. The problem is supposed to be the opulence of the setting and the golden piano in the background in a time of inequality and unease in Britain and the world in general and, of course, in a speech in honor of the poor Babe of Bethlehem. On the other side, people are saying that, of course the Queen is wealthy, and that without such display tourism would fall and the point of the monarchy would, in some important senses, be lost.

One such defense the other night got me thinking about the broader implications. The comparison was to the "stripping of the altars" that occurred during the Reformation. My initial response was to say that it mattered that in this case we have a secular rather than religious stripping, and that matters.

That response might have been to quick, though I think something almost like it is correct. There's a common kind of argument made, usually by atheists or agnostics or certain types of utilitarians, that concludes that it is manifestly unjust, for instance, that there are great treasures in the Vatican while there are people who are starving. The claim is that all these goods (the Pietà, Bernini's baldacchino, St. Peter's itself, ...) ought to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. If taken to its logical conclusion—and uncolored just by anti-religious feeling—this argument should also mean that all museums should be emptied. The Louvre also should sell the Mona Lisa and give that money to the poor.

In that latter case, we tend not to draw that conclusion. I think we're right not to. We don't for two related reasons: 1)We think that there is a common good that is served by keeping great artworks available for the public; and, 2) We think that art has a value beyond just the economic or what the economic value could do to help even the worst off. There's a little bit of "you will always have the poor with you" about it.

But those two reasons apply also in the case of the Vatican's treasures or those of any beautiful church or synagogue or mosque or temple. The beauty is shared among many more people than could ever appreciate it were in private hands and—at least for the believer—there is a transcendent value; it points to something beyond. For what it's worth, I think it can be seen to point to something beyond even for the non- or other-believer, if only the Kantian sublime.

All art, of whatever sort, is extravagant and profligate.

So, what about the Queen and her art and golden pianos and all the rest? It depends entirely on what we think the Queen is. If she is just a person, then there can be little question that her wealth is obscene. If, instead, she is the Crown or the embodiment of the same, something that not only transcends the particular individual but also transcends the citizens over whom she reigns and something whose beauty or wealth or existence or style-of-life can be enjoyed either vicariously or as spectacle by many, then there's nothing out of sorts about her pianos or pictures or palaces.

I'm not saying that the Queen does play this role, nor am I defending her lifestyle—or that of popes or cardinals or presidents or anyone else—but I do think we can oversimplify these cases in ways that ignore the complexities of our relation to institutions and values beyond the utilitarian or, even, beyond the merely moral.

One quick thought about atomistic moral minimalism

Americans at least tend to elide the distinction between the law and ethics. Students, I find, often have a hard time maintaining the distinction and, when questioned about the morality of some action or practice, will respond by asking what the law says about it. Of course, there are important connections between the law and morality. Murder and theft and battery are all illegal and they are immoral.

But, this elision leads to a common problem in our moral thinking. Quite rightly, our laws are premised on negative rights. That is, I have a (legal) right to life and this means that ceteris paribus you may not kill me. I have a legal right to property and this means that ceteris paribus you may not take my property away from me. These rights give me no legal claim for your assistance in my living nor in the acquisition or maintenance of my property. I have relatively few positive (legal) rights.

If you take that as the basis of your moral thinking—if you can't distinguish between legal and moral thinking—you end up with an extremely atomistic account of morality. You end up with a moral minimalism that is indistinguishable from ethical egoism. You end up thinking that my only obligation to another person is to keep out of their way and that there is no deeper connection between us except that requirement.

I fear that's where we've gotten as a society. I think this prevents any real kind of human flourishing. I think it vastly underestimates our intrinsic sociality and the obligations we have to the society through which we have come to be. To put it in the word of a now-prominent figure, I think it is: "Sad!"

Beauty and supervenience

On Monday, I will be lecturing on Plato, as I do near the beginning of each semester. There's something a little like the liturgical year about teaching: the same material comes up again and again, in the same order. And, that can be immensely boring or it can bear me along in a reassuring rhythm, especially when I see something new—with my own eyes or, usually, through the eyes of my undergraduates.

My standard way to introduce students to the theory of Forms is to have them think about beautiful things and what such things have in common that could make them beautiful. This raises a few issues, since most of my students claim to believe that beauty is subjective—they have to be pushed to see that they don't actually judge it this way—and I always have a student or two who wishes to reduce beauty to symmetry or an evolutionary compulsion. 

But, I was also thinking about beauty with regard to one of my other courses this semester. In some ways, no matter how all analogies may limp, beauty seems a near perfect example of a supervenient property, thus an apt case for explaining that notion, as well as multiple realizability, to my philosophy of mind students. 

There's little question (to me) that the beauty of a piece of music or a face or a painting is determined by its physical properties. I know that this is not accepted by all in aesthetics, but it's near enough to true for me. And, any change in the beauty qua beauty of an object would have to mean a change in that object's physical properties. But, a full catalog of the physical properties of Mozart's Requiem or Michelangelo's David would not capture its beauty. There's just no reducing beauty to the physical, for all the determination by the physical. And, it should be obvious that there are many different ways to achieve beauty. So, this looks to me like an easier entree into the concepts of supervenience and multiple realizability than just hitting them with the mental supervening on the physical.

I'm sure introducing these notions through this example will lead to undreamt of nightmares of explication, but in this I have hope.