A few postings ago, I addressed
what it means for nations to be modern. I used the views of
sociologist Philip Selznick1
to emphasize the overall effect of modernization focusing on how it
has encouraged a more self-centered individual – a citizen who
lacks sufficient concern for his/her fellow citizens. Of course,
this does not describe everyone who lives in a modern nation. I
believe it still doesn't describe most people. But it does describe
a tendency or trend in which more and more citizens seem to be
becoming that type of person and the tendency is becoming more
obvious and consequential. In different modern nations, this
tendency takes on varying avenues of development. I have mentioned
in this blog how the adoption of the natural rights construct to
guide our instruction of government and politics has enabled the
drift toward self-centered-ness. One can consider this adoption one
of the ways our nation is expressing its modernness.
Symbolically, the latest
illustration of this trend, I believe, is the recent expression of
thousands of citizens indicating that they wish their state, such as
Texas or Florida, be allowed to secede from the union. I know, I
know; it's just so many citizens blowing off steam after the results
of the last election. While I haven't seen any analysis of the
people signing this petition – ironically an opportunity provided
by the White House website meant to solicit citizen input – I'm
sure most of them are not only Romney voters but also advocates of
the extreme right agenda. How can I make a logical connection
between expressing a wish for secession and selfish dispositions? I
can because the extreme right agenda has been based on libertarian
thought and that thought has been one that champions an extreme
individualistic view of citizenship and economic participation.
Under the guise of promoting liberty, their concern can be easily
seen as looking out for number one. You might disagree. Fine, but
that's my take. If you don't agree with that example, this blog has
offered a multitude of other ones that illustrate a more
self-centered citizenry than what was once considered good
citizenship.
To counter this trend, the mental
construct that I have proposed in this blog, federation theory, calls
for a citizenship that is armed with a moral sense that is
outer-directed. That is, as citizens, individuals have obligations
and duties toward fellow citizens and those obligations and duties
take many forms. Federation theory unabashedly promotes a curriculum
in our schools, for example, that presents to students descriptions
and dilemmas that call on them to contend with moral questions based
on the obligations and duties citizens have for each other. But from
where do these moral tenets originate?
One of the trends associated with
the modern has been a move toward the secular and away from the
religious. Selznick addresses this. He mentions that one way this
trend becomes known is by the realization that morality in modern
culture is no longer discovered but created. Let me restate the
central ideal of the natural rights position, the prevalent view of
our politics: you have the right to do what you wish as long as you
do not hurt others or impede others from having the same right. But
the question remains: what constitutes “hurt” or hurting someone
else? In traditional society or a society that was traditional in
the not so distant past, religion tells people what constitutes a
trespass. But with the modern, this source loses its legitimacy. We
can't rely on discovering what a god determines the moral is and this
includes defining the “hurt.” And this doesn't even address
someone having to choose between options that promise to hurt someone
else no matter how one chooses. In such a case, one often faced by
governments, how do you choose? What serves in place of a holy book
for the source of what is moral in an ever more secular society?
Selznick points to the argument
offered by those who believe in naturalism as a source of ethics.
Citing John Dewey, he points out that following nature, which we are
definitely a part of, gives us hints or even provides explicit
lessons in ways morality can be defined. I believe federation theory
relies primarily on a naturalist view. It presents a moral basis for
two very important natural aspects of being human. We are both
social animals and we are individualists. Past postings have
described how this construct gives due respect to these two aspects
of our nature. On the other hand, the competing constructs among
academics who work to advance the thoughts of one of these views,
natural rights or critical theory, express a definite bias toward one
of these aspects by emphasizing one of them at the expense of the
other. Natural rights emphasizes our individualistic nature at the
expense of our social needs and critical theory does the opposite.
Let's put some context to this
vague notion:
We may readily agree that the
workings of the cosmos – including natural selection in biology –
are careless of moral outcomes; that morality is indeed an artifact
of mind and spirit, a world our “won ideals have fashioned.” But
this fashioning does not take place in a vacuum; it is by no means
wholly arbitrary or autonomous. Biological, psychological, and
social conditions affect the reach, realism, and relevance of moral
ideals. A morality that does not transcend nature may be unworthy of
the name; but one that is out of touch with nature invites
corruption, defeat, and opportunity forgone.2
Selznick, by so writing, shows us
how morality becomes again a subject to be discovered, not totally
constructed or imposed. At least we can believe this in terms of
morality's outer limits or boundaries. Nature, in all its forms
including the human, provides the consequences that outline what is
permissible and what is not in moral terms. Pollution generates
toxins injurious to our health and injustice generates behaviors
injurious to our long term aims. Literature fills its pages with our
innate understandings of these connections between what we perceive
our desires to be and our modes of behavior geared toward attaining
those desires. We must even judge the desires themselves. But it is
behavior that has natural consequences and we cannot escape that
reality – hence, a basis for defining the moral.
1Selznick,
P. (1992). The moral
commonwealth: Social theory and the promise of community.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2Ibid.
pp. 18-19.
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