Thoughts about human nature at the end of the semester

Because a few students asked what I think about some of the issues we have discussed through the semester, I put together a few of my (not necessarily consistent) thoughts about what we can know philosophically. I am leaving out all the argument that I think establishes these points. I am leaving out what additionally we might be able to know via faith, because I take that to be a separate realm from what can be known by more or less pure reason.

To know anything completely, we have to be able to step back from it and get an objective view of it. Our own humanity precludes us from taking just such an objective view of humanity. At one and the same time, we all are intimately aware of what it is like to be a human, but we may never be able fully to articulate what it is to be human. So, every attempt is going to give us the shape of the human condition without ever quite filling in all the detail. At least, I am going to use that claim to explain the way that I will fail to give a full and fully clear picture of human nature.

We are, by our biological and psychological natures, social beings. We cannot survive well alone, either as children or as adults. Our identities are formed in relation to others and continue, to some degree, in relation to others. For this reason, our ethics have to be concerned with others, but this is not somehow in distinction or opposition to our interests to ourselves. We don’t exist without others and our interests cannot be separated in some clear way from the interests of those around us. We are neither good nor bad by nature, but rather torn between our narrow self-interest and a wider interest, sometimes opting for one rather than the other. And, this connection is not just a matter of our reason, but also of our emotions, which also must have a part in our conception of humanity and in our ethics.

Similarly, though we like to think of our selves as entirely individual, we are communal and our identities are relational. There’s no hard and fast delineation of my “self” from those around me. This is another reason why concern with others is not opposite to concern with myself.

For these reasons, there is very little more important to a well-lived human life than friendship and the virtues that underlie it: courage, justice, honesty. 

I think we are more determined than the existentialists would have us believe. Our choices are often severely constrained by our situations, our backgrounds, and—as current neuroscience suggests—the operations of our brains below the level of our consciousness. We are not absolutely free. But, I believe that we are free—we certainly cannot help but feel free—that our conscious decisions make a difference to our action. In our conscious decisions, we need to be more aware of the ways that we are constrained in our decisions and assert our control in spite of these constraints. Freedom is a burden, but partly because we have to struggle against our unfreedom and because we have to be careful not to constrain the choices of others.

In one sense, there is certainly more to us than just our physical being. We are not merely matter; we are also conscious, we have minds. But, we cannot know whether this mind is some substance over and above the physical body. And, we have no evidence to think that it is, while believing in substance dualism has largely intractable problems. We do know that somehow, out of a very complex physical mechanism, a very complex mental mechanism arises. That makes us special, though perhaps not unique. It also means that we are on a continuum with the other animals, who resemble us physically and, to a lesser degree, psychologically. But, we are pretty distant from the other animals on that continuum, whether that is for better or worse.

That being said, I don’t think we can have any evidence that there is more to our lives than what we experience on this earth. That means that we should make this life the best life we can. In no way does this mean that everything is permitted or that there is no morality. Given our social nature, given our physical nature, given our interconnectedness, there are better and worse lives for us and there is no account of a good life for me that doesn’t take into account its effects on you and others around me. Many of us—perhaps most of us—don’t achieve a happy or fulfilled life, but it is what we all aim at.

Our consciousness is what makes each of us what she or he is. This consciousness is both intensely private and personal—making us each alone in it—and formed in our interactions with one another and in our presentation of ourselves to others—making us profoundly partial and interrelated. We are each individual and alone but driven by a need to connect; back to that idea of the importance of friendship.

This consciousness, at least as self-consciousness, is also a creation and a constantly changing creation of some part of us. The best evidence we now have tells us that even our memories are constantly in flux and not “stored” in the static way that external memory can be. So, we are always creating ourselves, in every moment. In a sense, there is only the me that exists at this moment, but a me that is generated by the same brain, the same mind, arising out of the same body, and with a sense of being the same self. One sense in which we survive is through the continued re-creation of this consciousness in the consciousnesses and memories of others. One way, for instance, that my grandfather lives on is through my memories of him and through the sharing of stories about him. If we survive in any other way that can matter to us, this consciousness must be part of that survival.

Public Vice and Private Virtue

In the wake of Andrew Breitbart's recent and surprising death, there has been much discussion both of how we should speak of the dead and to what degree we should judge another—if at all—based on his public versus his private persona.

I have little to say on the first issue. Though, given Breitbart's (and Hitchens' before him) attitudes to the dead—one need only read his comparisons of the then-recently-deceased Edward Kennedy to human excrement—he surely cannot have expected to be eulogized in death by his opponents. And, personally, I cannot see why we should praise in death those whom we would gladly damn in life; here we would have been in agreement.

As to the second issue, there is of course the question whether we should judge one another at all. But, surely Breitbart had no problem with judging others. I believe he was wrong to do so on partial and heavily edited evidence, but there is no doubt that human interaction and moral maturity require that we judge one another both positively and negatively. So, I've no problem with informed judgment, only the prejudicial sort pushed by the pundit and polemical class, of which Breitbart was himself an exemplar. 

But, then, how should we judge a figure like Breitbart? Many, especially those who had private interactions with him, have claimed that he was a good husband, a good father, a good friend. This may all be true. But, they have made a further claim, that for all these reasons we should see him as a good man. The argument here seems to be that one's private character is the center of one's being, the real core, the real identity, and the only correct basis for judgment. One's public actions, it seems, even when those actions involve the destruction of another person's lives in order to further one's own agenda—with the justification that the agenda will ultimately be better for everyone—or the manufacturing of evidence or the unwillingness to admit obvious errors or self-aggrandizement or eternal bloviating, are not as important as one's private homelife. 

That this account is wrong-headed seems so clear to me as to need almost no explanation, but I must be nearly alone in this. So, a few words on this seem in order. My standard response to this line of thought in a student is to point out that by most reports Hitler was kind to animals and could not stand to see or hear of animal cruelty, but surely this one private virtue does nothing to ameliorate his public vice. Similarly, as Lifton makes clear in The Nazi Doctors, physicians who worked in the concentration camps often continued to be good fathers and husbands and, shockingly, were often quite nice to the children in the camps—Mengele was beloved of the children in the Gypsy camp and regularly brought them gifts—right up to the moment they would have them liquidated. Similarly, by his daughter's reports, Stalin never used his vast power for self-enrichment, showing some modicum of private virtue in this one area. 

Now, of course, these are extreme examples and it is suspect to put too much weight on extreme examples. But, my very small point is that public vice and private virtue can well live in the same being. This very fact does not justify disregarding one's public persona and vices in an evaluation of the person. 

So, I would argue that, in a case where someone has regularly dishonestly attacked others, leading in some instances to the loss of their livelihood and reputation, and been quite willing to use other human beings as means to an end, one has demonstrated vice, public vice. And, inasmuch as our actions both flow from and form our characters, there is no question that shows a bad character. In such cases, the claim that this person was—in his private life—virtuous, can be discarded as of little to no importance in an evaluation of the person as a human being. 

I say this first, because he has nonetheless demonstrated vice; second, because this very bifurcation shows a failing as a human being to approach anything like integration; and, third, because the combination of public vice and private virtue shows a lack of shame not shown in the opposite combination of public virtue and private vice and a capacity for shame is itself integral to the formation of virtue. 

I make no claim to virtue, but for those who make some claims for themselves or others, it had better extend beyond the private sphere.

Nietzsche, Jay-Z and the Humanities

Once in a while I hear or read a complaint from a student about the amount of time we spend talking about historical figures in class—the classic Dead White Males—with the implied contrast being a class in which we only talked about contemporary issues with, I suppose, no reference to the past or—though I doubt anyone would be interested in this either—lots of reading of today's thinkers. I have to admit that I don't always know what to do with this sort of worry, except to worry about it in an entirely different way. 

The students are bored or can't figure out how anyone who lived in an era before computers or cellphones (like me in my youth!) could possibly have anything of interest to say to people today; that's their worry. But mine is what it means to live a life in which everything is now. 

Of course, the world in which the figures of the past lived is a different one to the one we live in now; so is the world in which I grew up, to a lesser degree. But the inability to see ourselves in conversation with those figures surely makes human life and our experience of it a more shallow and colorless one. I don't have much truck with nostalgia or attempting to recreate some golden age, nor do I believe in a golden age, but I hope that we can still learn from the past as I hope that the future can learn from us. If not, I really can't see much point in the humanities or the humanist tradition I think of myself as part of. And, when my students can't see the difference between mere history and a conversation with the past, I get a little sad.

But, then something amazing happens. A few weeks ago, I was talking about Nietzsche's analysis of good and evil in a night-time ethics class at a community college and a student piped in to tell me that when she had read the assigned selection(!), it made her think of a line from a song of Jay-Z. And, I thought, there it is, she gets what we're trying to do. And, the sadness went away for a bit.

Teaching and self-revelation

Episodes yesterday and today have me thinking about how much of myself I reveal in the classroom and how much I should.

My teaching style is pretty conversational. I try to keep discussion going, I try to keep things mildly entertaining, I try to be energetic. Keep in mind that these are things I try to do; that doesn't mean that I always succeed. So, in my lectures and discussions, I reveal some things about my life, but about others I remain quiet or vague.

For instance, I am usually pretty reticent about my views on most issues, no matter what we happen to be talking about. When we discuss God, I do not tell them whether I am a theist, agnostic, atheist or what I probably actually am. When we discuss abortion, I do not tell them my position. And, when I talk about my personal life, I do so in vague terms. I talk about my dog and my spouse and my house and goings on in my neighborhood and, but I never go into more detail than that. Particularly, I rarely say that my spouse is a man rather than a woman. 

Not divulging my ethical and philosophical positions and leaving my personal life vague might seem like two very different issues, but they seem—or have seemed—of a piece to me. After all, I teach philosophy, and we are supposed to care only about reason(s) and argument, not about the person who makes the argument. If I am to aim at objectivity, I should hide my own views so students can judge for themselves and I should try to make my personality so that they can focus on the arguments and not on the person presenting them, even if not advocating for them.

Today, after my early introductory class, I had an exchange with a student about what moral view I think is correct. I started to outline why I thought that some sense can be made of objective morality, but I told him that we would have to wait until we discussed Aristotle for me to tell him just how I thought this could work. Ten minutes after I got back to my office, I had an email from the student—a very intelligent and very active student—telling me that he wasn't trying to falsify my beliefs, he just wanted to know what I thought and not just what some other philosophers thought and his other philosophy professors never gave him straight answers about what they believe themselves. 

I responded, but it got me thinking about whether it makes sense for me to hide my beliefs. The fact that I don't tell them what they are doesn't mean that they don't exist. And, knowing them might actually allow them to be a little more skeptical of my arguments when it comes to those views and competing ones. It might actually help them do philosophy better. I believe I am very even-handed, but if I am then it can hardly hurt for them to know where I stand on issues, assuming that I don't require that they agree with me. 

Orthogonally, I am supposed to be teaching them something and, biased though I might be, I have thought about many of the issues we discuss for longer than they have, indeed longer than most of them have been alive, so shouldn't I have something to profess about the issues that we discuss together?

On a closely related note, a funny thing happened in class last night. With no provocation and while I was talking about the virtues of virtue theory, a student in the front row said to me, "You said you're married but you wear your wedding ring on the right hand. Why's that?"

The man sitting next to her replied, "You can't tell?" And then he went on a bit, without cluing her into what it was that she couldn't tell.

Now, I don't wear my wedding ring on my right hand because I'm gay-married. I have other, less fascinating reasons. But after class, the male student told me that, of course, he had realized the first day and my mannerisms, references, jokes all made it perfectly clear.

This told me both that I'm not obviously gay—my partner disagrees: "You are obviously gay, but not effeminate"—and that I am obviously gay. But it also made me think about how this is the kind of thing about which there is no point worrying. I do sometimes worry that if students realize I'm gay, they might discount what I'm teaching them or think that I only hold the positions (in some areas) because of my sexuality. Of course, should they think this they would have missed pretty much all the point of philosophy.

Without proselytizing or going into detail about my personal life, fascinating though it may be, shouldn't I be revealing more of who I am philosophically and humanly in my teaching? I tell them that it is important to know the context and something of the biographies of the people we discuss while warning them off the genetic fallacy; is that not true of me, too?

Of course, I don't have the benefit of tenure and that bears on the matter to some degree, but thinking pedagogically and philosophically, I think I may have been aiming for the wrong targets.

An open and, probably, pointless letter to Target

Sir or Madam:

As a stockholder and a gay man, I continue to be surprised and upset by the way in which the leadership of Target Corporation continues to spend money—my money—on political campaigns to support anti-gay, anti-gay marriage and anti-canvassing legislation and litigation. Not only does this offend me because it is the money of stockholders—of which I am one—being used to harm gays and lesbians, many of whom own stock in Target and many more of whom have been faithful and continuous customers of Target, but is equally offensive as Target stock prices continue to fall.

The job of the executives of Target and its board is to make the company profitable and more valuable. It makes absolutely no sense to advertise and market the company as progressive and modern and spend money at the same time on retrograde political agendas, agendas which earn Target bad press. I realize that the board is tired of hearing about their spending of our money on these campaigns, but the right way to stop having to hear it is to stop spending the money.

Owning stock in Target has become not only an embarrassment, but also a losing financial decision. How about you stop worrying about gays and lesbians—who otherwise would spend more money at Target stores—and start worrying more about profits, dividends and stock prices? In other words, do your jobs and leave the counterproductive moral posturing to fringe politicians and evangelists, who can amply fund themselves.

Yours,

Tyler Hower

Self-ownership

I've been thinking about some issues in libertarian thought today and I'm finding myself particularly confused about the notion of self-ownership that underlies (most?) libertarianism. For more on that notion, see Libertarianism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

There seem to be at least two important issues with this notion: 

First, there's something decidedly odd in taking the ground of our morality from the relationship that we have to things we own, because whatever sense we might be able to make out of owning ourselves, our primary notion of ownership is our ownership of external objects. The idea that we own ourselves is taken by analogy from that epistemologically primary notion of ownership. 

Second, ownership looks like a two place relationship, one that must take two different things for its arguments. That is, ownership appears, at least in the normal case to be Oxy, where x≠y and Oxy>¬Oyx. This, at any rate, is the way the notion operates in the normal case; to allow self-ownership seems to be introducing a new notion that will be called "ownership" but that has little or nothing to do with ownership.

A thought on the Seven Deadly Sins

As another politician falls to the sin of Lust, but none seem ever to be shamed for their dedication to Greed, Envy, Pride, Wrath, Sloth and Gluttony, I cannot help but be taken by the religious and moral outlook that informs so much of our public discourse. 

Our moral scolds only care about certain of the sins, because their Jesus—and it generally is Jesus—is one who is seriously and always concerned about sexual morality, but no other sort, that is, He is clearly not the Jesus who appears anywhere in the Bible they so gladly and conveniently thump but never read or ponder.