This blog, at its core, argues for a moral approach toward
civics education. In that respect, it
has identified two social qualities that facilitate the moral sense the blog
favors; that is, social capital and civic humanism. In summary, these qualities are related to
citizens engaging with their fellow citizens to design and implement public
policies aimed at achieving the common good.
They call for a commitment from citizens to place their personal
interests in line with the common good or, at least, not to be aligned against it.
As such, these
are qualities focus on how good citizens should conduct their individual
affairs or their individual behaviors, at least as they pertain to civic related
interactions with others. But how about
what is moral at the societal level?
This writer has been in search of an overarching answer to this question. Surely there are numerous views on this and
they, in turn, reflect philosophic/religious constructs. Also, they can be aligned according to political
ideologies.
From the
middle ages through the 1600s, the Western world chose religion to define moral
questions – including those societal concerns such as a people’s governance,
their economics, and their social institutions such as marriage. This proved unsustainable. With the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation, religion proved too divisive for a nation to maintain essential
domestic and international harmony and peace.
Spain, for example, went bankrupt fighting religious battles against
Protestant forces.
One sees the
eventual acceptance of a secular moral approach with various developments, not
the least being the US Constitution. That document only mentions religion in the first
amendment prohibiting the establishment of a religion by the public authorities
or public policy prohibiting religious practices. As with other rights in the document, these
are not unlimited rights, but subject to reasonable restrictions.[1] Ultimately, what is considered reasonable
will be based on secular arguments, not religious ones.
In this
writer’s search, he has hit upon the arguments of a conservative writer, Jonah Goldberg.[2] While this blog has avoided taking sides on
domestic politics, Goldberg’s arguments do have various angles to them. He offers positions that can be both
acceptable to liberals and conservatives.
In so far as this is true, this blog
will begin a review Goldberg’s foundational argument. It will first present a portion of his take
on human nature and follow that up with a critique as to what this conservative
proposes. This short posting offers his
first observational comments – the beginning of his datum statements or “where
as …” statements.
He begins by
reporting, as demonstrated above with the religious reference, that history
indicates there are no metaphysical basis for the good that, in turn, can be
used to form and maintain a moral sense of the good. Instead, a notion of the good, to be
proficient, is the product of practical choices. They are practical in that people or
societies derive them by their experiences – pretty much as the decision to
drop religion as the source of such decisions.
In so
deciding, then, logic calls for a people to first determine a standard for
determining the good. In this, Goldberg
is forced to take a minimal philosophic position. That is, he imposes the following criteria: a practical, public construct allows for more
people to live happy, prosperous, meaningful lives without harming others in
their pursuits of these aims; and that the construct should call on the members
of the community or collective to fulfill a duty, to be engaged in this pursuit
(similar to the aims of social capital and civic humanism).
So, this is a
view that does not seek to satisfy or placate a deity, fulfill a historical
projection, or any other metaphysical mandate.
It merely aims at defining the good as those societal policies, actions,
goals that advance this – what one might call – the common good.
And the chief source for the needed
information to pursue these aims is history.
Historical experiences become the main body of information a people use
to determine what is prudent. Yes, other
sources – such as scientific information or philosophic analyses – can
supplement significantly, but history gives one the overall sense of what
works.
And to round
off this initial report, Goldberg points out that some societies have been
better at these pursuits than others.
And that ends this first segment of what Goldberg is arguing. The next posting will not only argue in
agreement with him but also offer some other ideas to this basic view.
[1] For
example, there have been attempts in South Florida to restrict or eliminate
animal sacrifices – rites associated with Santeria. Overall, they are allowed, but the legal
question made it to the Supreme Court. Obviously
or perhaps surely, if the rite of a religion called on human sacrifice, that
would not be allowed and, therefore, such a prohibition restricts this right.
[2] Jonah Goldberg, Suicide
of the West: How the Rebirth of
Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American
Democracy (New York, NY: Crown
Forum, 2018).
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