AN EMOTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

“Let’s be reasonable” is a common refrain.  Yet, are people reasonable?  They can be; there’s evidence from time to time that show people being so.  But overall – in everyday interactions – the evidence is that humans are mostly irrational or emotional.  This blog has shared the work of various cognitive experts that provide arguments and evidence to that effect.  They include Jonathan Haidt,[1] George Lakoff,[2] and Drew Westen.[3]

          This posting picks up on the work of Westen.  A former posting pointed out his argument that politicians, to be effective, need to address issues from an emotional basis.  Logical arguments backed by relevant data are all fine and good, but if it is not encased within emotional messaging, the points will not hit home.  He goes on to point out, according to his observations, that Republicans are significantly better at affect messaging than Democrats are.

          To support this last claim, he offers the example of how the candidate Al Gore, in the first presidential election debate of the 2004 election cycle, critiqued candidate George Bush’s medical care proposal.  While citing a real-life example of a person in the audience, Gore does not emphasize the plight of the man – an emotional story – but his presentation gets muddled by statistics – including percentage numbers. 

Bush, on the other hand, does not logically rebuke the numbers, but reminds everyone of the claim that Gore took credit for inventing the internet and then says his opponent is probably going to take credit for inventing the calculator.  Bush lost logically but won emotionally.  He also won the election.  Emotional appeals, for regular people, win the day and stories are a viable vehicle in appealing to emotions.

But the reader can justifiably point out that this blog often cites the federalist origins of the nation’s polity.  In the late 18^th century, educated thinkers, which the founding fathers were, emphasized humans’ ability to be reasonable.  They particularly ascribed to the arguments offered by the social contract thinkers – Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 

There were other writers who wrote in this vein – Thomas Reid and Francis Hutcheson, among others.  In each case, the assumed process for an ideal polity is for its founders coming together and formulating a government for the purposes of mutual protection and the fulfillment of other identified goals and aims.  This is reasonable and not based on emotional appeals of religion, nationality, ethnicity, or other emotionally based foundations.  One can readily see where this turn in political thinking debased any justification for monarchial rule, for example.

After all, that time or era has been given the title, “the Age of Reason.”  During that time, emotions were taken to be a negative force.  They were seen as having distorting influences on the decision-making processes that policy makers practice in a democracy.  This is still the case today.

[O]nly through reason can people set aside their self-interested and parochial desires to make decisions in the common interests.  Passions can lead to rapid, poorly thought-out, self-interested acts, or to the psychology of the mob, inflamed by the emotions of the moment and capable of turning on anyone in its path.[4]

While all this might be true, it doesn’t change how people think and feel.  And it is the real person with whom a political actor must deal.

And political actors are not just limited to pols; it also includes the whole political industry which encompasses interest groups, lobbyists, and the press.  And beyond those groups, it also includes other entities such as well-endowed corporations and other well-financed organizations. 

There is evidence, according to Westen’s review of the literature, that even coverage by the press reflects how polling indicates popular opinion is flowing.  After all, they are also interested in their viewership, in the number of people who read their papers or view their programming.  In turn, it affects how much they can charge their sponsors.

They, in turn, massage their messaging to appeal to the emotions of their listeners.  In addition, their ability to do so, as the years go by, improves.  Some would say, it improves in scary ways.  This blogger argues that by relying on natural rights views – a person has the right to do what he/she wants to do without any sense of obligation or duty – strategies develop in which the only standard to guide such messaging is success in meeting self-interested goals and aims.

And as such, the press, pols, and other players in the political arena of this and other nations has undermined the more institutionalized entities and processes upon which responsible democratic rule needs to function.  The solution must include better civic instruction by schools, parents, and other socializing agents.  They need to encourage and teach their charges about the value of reason and the skills to practice it.

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[1] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind:  Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York, NY:  Pantheon Books, 2012).

[2] George Lakoff, Moral Politics:  How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Chicago, IL:  The University of Chicago Press, 2002) AND George Lakoff, The Political Mind:  Why You Can’t Understand 21^st-Century American Politics with an 18^th-Century Brain (New York, NY:  Viking, 2008).

[3] Drew Westen, The Political Brain:  The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (New York, NY:  PublicAffairs, 2007).

[4] Ibid., 26.

GLOBAL NECESSITIES?

Knowledge has been the subject of various conceptualizations over what it is and how it is structured.  There are a number of graphic representations of how experts have visualized that structure; for example, H. Lynn Erickson provides such a representation.[1]  In sharing this writer’s understanding, the elements of that structure are presented; they reflect one visualization of that structure.  People, at the most abstract level of thinking, harbor in their minds theories and models.  These represent knowledge at its most abstract level.

When people learn or develop a reliable explanation of some aspect of reality that is known as a theory.  A theory is not accepted as truth – it is subject to being disproved – but to justify the title of theory, there is ample evidence to support its viability in explaining its corresponding reality. 

Short of that level of reliability, there can be a good account of an aspect of reality that logically provides, given what is known or what other theories indicate is true, a reasonable explanation for some phenomena but there is not enough evidence to call it a theory.  That is known as a model.

A good pair of examples, one of a theory and one of a model, can be cited by meteorologists in reporting hurricanes and presented on TV weather reports.  While weather reporters can boast having developed theories as to what causes hurricanes and why they appear during certain times – June through November – they can’t assuredly predict where they will go.

Instead they show off those “spaghetti” lines that “predict” various possible routes.  Which one is correct, if any are, only time will tell.  Why do they lack in predictive power?  Because they are based on models, not theories.  Through research, meteorologists aim to perfect those models so that only one or a few predictive lines emerge from the known data.  When the number gets to one or two, then one can say a theory for hurricane paths has been developed or discovered. 

That theory will be a theory because it will provide a reliable prediction of what a hurricane will do given the concurrent factors at work.  But until that day, meteorologists and, in turn, the public must rely on models.  In the natural sciences, the general public is used to the benefit of having theories explaining much of the observed reality modern humans observe.  Examples range from how and why things fall to surface of the earth to why injuries, untreated, can lead to degradation of organic material.

The social sciences have not been so successful.  Human behavior has proven to be eluding reliable explanations or theories.  Therefore, social scientists are used to dealing with models.  For example, one model is why and where revolutions will erupt.  Davies’ J-Curve provides a model in which the factor of rising expectations emanating from improvements among a people followed by a sudden downturn engenders intolerable anger among a population.  That, according to this model, leads a people to be disposed to take part in revolutionary activities.[2]

With that short review of theories and models, one area of interest in the social sciences is the study of urban societies.  One near theory in that field has to do with either the allure or unattractiveness of cities as places for people to live.  What attracts people and what repels people to cities?  Those are questions demographers and urbanists have been studying. 

They are interested in them since a great many socially determined events and movements rely on whether cities are growing or not; on whether their growth or decline reflects other social/economic developments.  For example, a question related to this overall concern is:  How do employment opportunities affect not only whether cities become popular places to move to, but whether urban living encourages a more global, as opposed to nationalistic, bias among certain populations?

Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler share the urbanist Richard Florida’s view on these questions.  They write:

Do people really follow jobs?  Not anymore, [Florida] claimed.  Today, jobs follow people.  Because of the close link between growth and creativity, there is a battle for creative talent.  The winners of this battle will not be nations but cities and regions that can offer a combination of the “3 Ts” [Technology, Talent, and Tolerance] … We want to add another “T” to these three factors: Time Perspective.[3]

          Some of these factors, upon reflection, are obvious but to present this model, one should provide, at least, a general sense of what each of these qualities include.  So, technology functions to make the development of newer products possible.  Growth depends on that sort of development and, in turn, provides the new and attractive employment opportunities.

          Technology, as it becomes evermore sophisticated and reliant on workers to understand complex realities – mechanical, chemical, and/or organic – relies on workforces with highly developed talents.  These talents can be of various varieties such as those that are entrepreneurial, artistic and creative, and/or those that rely on programming skills.  They also depend on the ability to work within teams of such talented people.

          And to secure these pools of talent, localities need people who are open to working with people who come from various backgrounds and geographic localities.  Despite the claims of neoconservatives or nationalists, openness to alternative life views is essential for the newer technologies.  In turn, they emanate from different cultural backgrounds. 

Therefore, businesses appreciate localities that provide the kinds of skills and outlooks necessary to fill corresponding jobs.  They need to secure the sorts of talent from a variety of places – both domestic and foreign places.  In turn, to pull such diversity to the workplace, tolerance is mandatory.

          Finally, according to Jost and Mentovich, a productive time perspective needs to be applied in which all this accumulation of talent and the other qualities can come together in real, as opposed to virtual, places.  Skype conferences cannot substitute for real communities inhabiting real places.  Success depends on worksites where real relationships emerge and that development takes time, time to build the trust, creativity, and tolerance the other qualities either represent or upon which they depend.

          Is this true?  It makes intuitive sense.  It is presented in a logical order.  But is there enough evidence to say it is a dependable view of modern economic realities?  Given the rise of more nationalistic policies and politics both in the US and Europe, one will probably be able to observe a great deal of real time evidence as various nations today are looking inward and are shunning a global perspective and bias.  Will such moves negatively affect economic growth?  According to the model described here, it should.

For example, Great Britain is attempting to drop out of the European Union and the US, in its foreign policy, seems to be similarly looking inward.  Will Britishers and Americans pay an economic price if they go and turn away from more global policies?  That will depend on the degree to which they abandon internationally organized economic activities and developments.  Stay tuned.

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[1] See “What You Need to Know about the Structure of Process,” Corwin Connect, October 15, 2016, accessed October 14, 2019, https://corwin-connect.com/2016/11/need-know-structure-process/ .

[2] John T. Jost and Avital Mentovich, “J-Curve Hypothesis,” Sociology and Political Science, n. d., accessed October 14, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/J-curve-hypothesis .

[3] Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler, The Change Book:  How Things Happen (New York, NY:  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015).

A MIDDLE SCHOOL CHALLENGE

This posting revisits a topic that while pertaining to teaching and instruction in general does have a meaningful impact on civics education.  It is a topic previously addressed in this blog:[1]  how people tend to view intelligence.  Within this realm, a basic distinction people make is to determine whether intelligence is an entity by ascribing to entity theory or is it seen as an attainable quality by ascribing to incremental theory?  Carol S. Dweck and her work[2] has given the professional educational community a lot to think about through her research on this question.

          To explain, here is an extended quote that summarizes the two views from the citied, previous posting:

Among students, there seems to be two overarching held theories as to learning and intelligence.  One theory sees intelligence as an entity.  Students who see intelligence in this way consider it as a given amount; one is born with that amount and the more one has, the easier it is to learn new material.  This view can be described as mostly a fixed, concrete, and an essential quality of a person’s makeup.    One has what he/she has in terms of intelligence and that’s it. 

The other theory explains intelligence as incremental.  This incremental theory describes intelligence as malleable, willfully changeable, and dynamic.  In other words, a person can, through effort, become more intelligent. 

… One cannot logically hold these two views of intelligence simultaneously.  Intelligence is either fixed or changeable; it can’t be both.  One can hold one view at one time and later be convinced of the other.  But it seems that this is one of those basic beliefs one holds, either consciously or subconsciously and as such, the belief can affect what learning activities one is likely to pursue. 

It also affects how one judges others.  If a person sees intelligence as unchangeable, he or she is apt to hold those who exhibit low levels of intelligence as being highly limited in any efforts they might expend on improving their positions in life. 

Can one change one’s view of intelligence?  To the degree a person’s view of intelligence is an unconscious belief, an un-reflected assumption, it would probably take either many indirect experiences to convince one of changing his/her bias or view or direct instruction that skillfully aims at changing that view.[3]

          In the cited, previous posting, this writer points out that federation theory would be partial to the incremental theory.  After all, by this summary view, one can readily see that seeing intelligence as a changeable quality it would be a more democratic bias.  It also holds out a more likely probability that a person can be encouraged to lead a more interactive life with his/her fellow, federated citizens. 

With this incremental view, he/she sees knowledge – including knowledge about one’s community – as being able to be understood and worked upon if one only, albeit with fortitude and tenacity, learns what are the active factors are that affect the welfare of that community.  Therefore, incremental theory has a more republican sense about it.

But is there evidence to support how students perform in school given the view of intelligence they bring to school?  Of interest to the concerns of this blog is research Dweck did with students entering and performing in middle school.  In terms of the related issue, middle school provides a singular opportunity to test some of the implications of this two-theory distinction.  And it adds an added advantage when it comes to civics.

Dweck points out that upon leaving elementary school, an environment in which students generally accept what is expected of them as defined by the adult world and enter middle school, students begin to question those mandates.  They also leave the comfort of progressing through the school day with basically the same teacher.  At the new school, they begin going from class to class in which the content of their study becomes significantly more targeted.  Math is definitely math; language arts is definitely language arts, etc.

Of course, this latter change introduces a higher level of sophistication and any views one might have about intelligence and the possibility of attaining it will be influential as to how well one is likely to do.  Dweck points out that entity theory steers the students to seek performances – to demonstrate one’s innate ability – but at the same time avoid what is perceived as overly difficult challenges; they, the challenges, might demonstrate that their given intelligence can’t measure up.

On the other hand, students who view intelligence in an incremental way, are not so interested in performance; they want to confront the challenges and if they do not succeed at first, there are other ways to attain that knowledge.  The trick is in discovery those ways until the learning objectives are met.

The last point to be made about middle school is that it presents students with their first formal exposure to civics content.  To that point, schools might give students general messages about good citizenship and be told stories of how honesty and other good citizenship values are favorable and are expected modes about how people should act.  This is particularly so when it comes to the demands of being participants in their common social environment of the school.

Through questioning techniques, Dweck and her team of researchers asked students of middle schools telling questions that inquired into these students basic biases.  An obvious one:  Choose between “‘I usually think I’m intelligent’ versus ‘I wonder if I’m intelligent.’”[4]  This question seemly targets the factor of self-confidence, an often-cited emotional attribute that many associate with doing well at school and other challenging events.  This question is chosen because it leads to findings one would not intuitively predict.

To quote Dweck:

Students who came to junior high school believing in fixed intelligence were at a disadvantage.

          [Looking at grades] … The students with an entity theory showed a marked decline in their class standing.  [This deficit was not easily overcome.] … What surprised us most was that many students who showed this decline from high to low academic standing were entity theorists who had high confidence in their intelligence … [I]n our research we have seen that within an entity theory, confidence in intelligence does not always prevent helpless responses to difficulty …

          In contrast, the students with an incremental theory were significantly more likely to think that maybe their strategies should be revised[,] or their effort should be stepped up.[5]

          This leads to other counterproductive aspects.  Those with entity theory view tend to be more anxious about school; they hold an all or nothing approach.  They either have it or they don’t so when confronted with the new challenges, an anxious time ensues.  Incremental theory, in effect, affords those students a grace period to fail or not do as well.  They just need to learn the ropes, apply what they learn, try again, and repeat that process until success is achieved.

          It seems to this blogger, that civics – while often an eighth or ninth grade subject – can make the concerted effort to instruct students on this distinction.  It can do this directly as a factor affecting students or as an explanatory factor that helps them understand some politically related deficiencies political actors demonstrate.  Either way, civics can play a crucial role in helping students accommodate to the rigors of middle school.

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[1] See for example Robert Gutierrez, “Intelligence Is Changeable,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 8, 2016, accessed October 10, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2016/07/intelligence-is-changeable.html .

[2] Carol S. Dweck, Self-Theories:  Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Philadelphia, PA:  Psychology Press, 2000).

[3] Ibid, edited for this posting.

[4]  Ibid., 30.

[5] Ibid., 31.

WITHIN THE ROPES

The last posting of this blog presented an argument:  open societies depend on sufficient numbers of their entities (individuals and groups) to meet needed societal obligations and be willing to accept injunctions in the pursuit of that polity’s health and survival.  This is a federalist argument; an argument applicable to polities that are arranged by a people getting together to formulate them.  The process includes the promises these parties make through instruments of a covenants or compacts.  The US is an example.

          Currently, a supportive, matching mental construct, one that supports a federated populous, is not prominent in America.  Instead, the natural rights construct – probably with little reflection among the population in general – has been dominant since the years after World War II.  This blog has presented various arguments and has described various bits of evidence to back up this claim.  To add another bit of information, the electorate in the last presidential election elected a self-admitted nationalist. 

One can see such a choice as logically flowing from an increasing alignment with a natural rights view.  As such, a dysfunctional number of people in the US today tends to deny it has any obligations beyond those people choose to recognize.  Of course, for many, that’s no obligations at all.

          Such a view actively seeks to prevent governmental policies that are based on obligations – for example, be willing to pay higher taxes to fund such programs as public health care or public schooling – from being enacted and implemented.  The Tea Party, in its public messaging, seems to exemplify such a position. 

But a question arises.  Are federated or federalist arguments, by their nature, progressive or liberal ones or are they, by definition, anti-conservative?  If one ascribes to federation theory, does one necessarily hold a political allegiance to a left of center ideology?  Not necessarily so.  This posting presents how both liberals and conservatives can ascribe to federation theory. 

If anything, this federated theory precludes adherents from the more extreme positions on the political spectrum – socialism and communism as well as nationalism and fascism.  As a populous, its people among themselves, moves to the more extreme positions on the spectrum, that makes the ability to give and take and, eventually, arrive at compromise seriously more difficult if not impossible. 

This factor, among others, makes such allegiance to natural rights – a position that makes liberty a trump value – incompatible with federalist beliefs which depend on citizens interacting in viable communal “squares” and “arenas.”  It is not that being federated depends on everyone agreeing, but to be able to discuss, argue, and debate as to what should be done and pursued.  And that, in turn, counts on citizens holding societal survival or health as a trump or, if not trump, a higher value than liberty.

That is so because very important norms and assumptions are dismissed as unacceptable compromises when liberty is the trump value.  While this shift to natural rights makes the give-and-take of political discussion and compromise more and more impossible, a previously federated populous, as the US, becomes unfederated.

And this can have repercussions in other aspects of social life.  As seems to be happening among Americans, this is characterized by severed friendships and bifurcated family relationships.  Does this sound familiar within America’s current social political landscape?  The media outlets – of both sides of the current political divide – seem to describe today’s politics in those terms.

To illustrate a healthier federalist national arena the following is offered.  One can probably readily see how a liberal or progressive can form an attachment to a federalist sense of obligations and injunctions, yet probably having much less tolerance for injunctions.  For example, a liberal supports national programs such as the Affordable Health Care program – with its accompanying increases in taxes – that was initiated during the Obama administration.  But they are probably more likely to strive to eliminate injunctions against marijuana smoking. 

Each position can be held not necessarily from a personal interest perspective – they may neither need a public health program nor smoke marijuana.  They hold such positions because they believe each – public health and legalization of marijuana – serve the society best.  They see government having limitations in what authority they should have, but that does not preclude that government does have legitimate interests in what can be regulated or otherwise criminalized.  Natural rights proponents disagree.

On the other side of center, what one calls a moderate conservative, those advocates have a heightened suspicion over governmental authority but are willing to hear the arguments and even willing to be convinced that such authority is necessary if certain needs can be demonstrated.  Conservatives generally for example, support public schooling.  They might also question whether prison systems should be administered by private companies.  In other words, the difference between moderate conservatives and moderate liberals is not that wide.

Therefore, moderate conservatives do not, a priori, find as illegitimate injunctions governments might enact – as a matter of fact, they tend to favor drug laws or blue laws, like prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday.  They are more likely to be sensitive to traditional beliefs or practices such as those associated with religion.  They also favor lower levels of business regulations – especially those affecting small businesses.  And they favor lower taxes; they tend to believe taxation functions to discourage business investment. 

But the important thing is, they agree enough with liberals on basic assumptions making the disagreements discuss-able and subject to compromise.  It’s just that they more readily see the common good ill-served by governmental efforts to solve the various social/economic/political problems of the day and better-served by the efforts of people, on their own, to meet, ameliorate, and/or solve those woes. 

Oh, they are more readily wary of government being able to solve or even help a problem area.  Even if they think government can help, they worry about unforeseen consequences that government action can initiate – a complaint, by the way, that can also be levied against the efforts of the private sector.

So, in summary, one cannot accuse conservatives or liberals of being anti-federalist as defined by federation theory and described and explained by the late political scientist, Daniel J. Elazar – a scholar this blog writer has often cited in this blog.[1]  An assumption this blog holds is that this nation can regain a federalist perspective to be, if not dominant, more influential in defining what is acceptable political thinking and action.

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[1] For example, Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) and Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

A DERIVATION FOR THE SAKE OF JUSTICE

On various occasions this blog has made the claim that rights, as defined by the natural rights construct, are derived from federalist rights and values.[1]  The natural rights construct does not define them that way.  It holds individual rights or liberty – generally the rights associated with determining life goals and the right to pursue them – as a trump value.  Also, the last posting pointed out the claim that people innately have liberty and that that condition is based on human capacities.  This posting further questions these claims.

In part, natural rights advocates rely on an approach to equality one can call equal condition – everyone is equal before the law.  This link takes on importance with what follows.  What will be drawn out here is to further question the implications of the natural rights or liberty argument.  Much of that consideration has to do with the requirements one faces by living in an open society.

Contextually, this critique reflects federalist concerns that counter natural rights’ assertions.  Within a federalist rationale, there is a definite commitment to ascribe obligations and injunctions upon the entities making up a federalist arrangement.  But, as presented in this blog, there is one setting – an arena – in which the natural rights’ perspective should be adhered to; that is in legal courtrooms and other locations where legal matters are considered and/or decided. 

Natural rights are derived from a necessity associated with the legal requirements posed by a social/political arrangement emanating from a federated relationship.  So, to start, this posting begins with the federalist political landscape; that is where a people has formed a federated arrangement by coming together and forming the governmental structures of a polity through the provisions of a mutually agreed upon covenant or compact. 

This formulates the conditions by which governmental and other political intercourse transpire.  In the more specific case, when the inevitable legitimate claims arise – and they do arise even in the most congenial of social settings – between or among entities of that arrangement, those engaged can honestly – or in some cases dishonestly – seek either retribution or protection of assets.  This is because of some claim a party makes in a negotiation that entails legal provisions or in a tort action case, or when a criminal charge is made. 

Consider a court action.  Courts exist to hear and adjudicate which side of a legal dispute is correct and what, if any, remedies should be imposed to make the aggrieved party(ies) whole or as whole as possible.  These events are usually not undertaken with joy.  They are antagonistic in nature.  In order for such a system to work, the assumed disposition between – or sometimes among – the parties is adversarial. 

While courts usually seek for the parties to negotiate a resolution and avoid the expenses of administrating a court case, the participants are looking at a win-lose scenario to transpire.  Therefore, parties go into such a competition with justifiably guarded stances and they do not approach it by asking: “what’s best for society?” 

None of the parties are likely to think – nor should they think – that way.  Even in a federated society, one should in court cases look after one’s self-centered interests assuming one is not consciously pursuing an illegitimate end.  What one should aim for is to secure justice as one can best determine what justice is within the parameters of the case. 

With that, then each party to a legal challenge has the derived right to seek a self-centered end(s).  Why?  To advance what history has taught societies best helps secure justice (a key procedural value in a federalist moral code[2]).  That is an adversarial system.  So, the view that upholds a natural liberty option, as a derivative right, is the belief that by doing so it furthers the aims of justice.

This posting attempts at further solidifying this claim that the natural rights view of liberty is a derivative right emanating from a federalist view of rights in limited circumstances, namely judicial or legal challenges.  A natural rights argument follows to point out how such a view can be interpreted to account for its utilization and, as such, be a derived set of rights from a federalist perspective.

The natural rights view is associated with capacities; i.e., the right to do things one wants and can do.  Chief among those things is the ability to choose:  what one will do next, what one will do this coming year, what one will seek as a lifestyle including employment, marital status, family arrangements, etc.  In terms of such choices, the natural rights position is that they should be made unencumbered and free of obligations if one chooses.

Therefore, no choices, a priori, are better than any others and this right to choose is a given not a potential to be sought or needing to be defended – so say the advocates of natural rights.  But there are those who do not agree.  They claim that this line of reasoning is simplistic and lacks a responsible consideration for what is at stake. 

Naturally, it is attacked by those who would favor autocratic rule – especially of the totalitarian variety – but it is also at least questioned, if not attacked, by those who hold republican values as is the case with federalists.  Advocates of republican polities favor rights or liberty, but not as a trump value.[3]  They see natural liberty as a derived or supportive of those constructs’ higher values, such as societal welfare.

One critic is Charles Taylor.  This writer considers Taylor to be a communitarian.  Taylor points out an obvious precondition for any consideration of liberty when he writes:

… [T]hese capacities can only develop in society or in a society of a certain kind is a proof that we ought to belong to or sustain society or this kind of society.  But then, provided a social (i.e., an anti-atomist) thesis of the right kind can be true, an assertion of the primacy of rights is impossible; for to assert the rights in question is to affirm the capacities, and, granted the social thesis is true concerning these capacities, this commits us to an obligation to belong.  This will be as a fundamental as the assertion of rights, because it will be inseparable from it.  So it would be incoherent to try to assert the rights, while denying the obligation or giving it the status of optional extra which we may or may not contract …[4]

Or in short, no belonging – with its obligations – no rights.  Given the realities of human existence, one cannot count on rights being recognized or respected without ample numbers within a given polity taking on the obligations that a rights-sensitive society needs to satisfy.

          Specifically, individuals are relied upon to satisfy a set of obligations.  Which ones?  Well, obligations reflect values such as in the case when one values a healthy life, one needs to fulfill certain obligations such as securing food and shelter.  In terms of maintaining a suitable society, one that respects rights, what values can they be?  This blog has addressed this question by identifying a set of federalist values.[5]

          In terms of when it is legitimate to exercise natural rights in pursuing self-centered interests, that would be in securing justice.  Why?  A total answer would probably constitute a whole other argument and another posting.  Suffice it to write, justice is advanced by an adversarial system where the parties are free to pursue their interests.  Advocacy for those interests should be allowed to be pursued unfettered as long as the procedural rules of the proceedings are respected.

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[1] For example, see Robert Gutierrez, “Regulated Condition,”  Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 18, 2017, accessed October 2, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/07/regulated-condition.html .

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “A Federalist Moral View,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, June 20, 2017, accessed October 2, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-federalist-moral-view.html .

[3] The critics might also define liberty differently.

[4] Charles Taylor, “Atomism,” in Communitarianism and Individualism, eds. Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1992), 29-50, 35-36.

[5] See Robert Gutierrez, “A Federalist Moral View,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, June 20, 2017, accessed October 3, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-federalist-moral-view.html .

HAVE REASON, HAVE RIGHTS

From time to time, this writer feels it is useful to review and perhaps further develop the basic ideas and claims of this blog.  It holds, as its major argument, that civics education should shift from a natural rights-based curriculum to one based on federation theory.  This posting reexamines one of its foundational concepts, that of the natural rights mental construct.

          For those new to the blog, a natural rights view holds that each individual has rights and that that includes the right to make the life choices he/she wishes to make and the right to pursue those choices.  Some writers use the term social-contract theory to designate this construct, but this writer finds that term problematic in that social-contracts can also include various compacts and covenants of a more communal sort such as federation theory.[1] 

The difference between it and federation theory lies in how natural rights promotes a sense of individualism that Charles Taylor calls “atomism.”[2]  What follows is admittedly an extreme version of natural rights.  It provides a slant that promotes the idea, individual sovereignty or a description purely based on the idea that those who believe in this view do so as a trump value.  But if one falls short of this seemingly extreme position, as will be evident from what follows, the whole conceptualization of the construct seems to collapse; this perception takes on an all or nothing rationale.

          The first point to make is:  the natural rights view, philosophically, relies on a utilitarian moral position.  That is, what is moral is what meets the valued ends of most.  Social policy, therefore, should reflect what most people want and that want is defined by self-centered calculations.  This does not predetermine that one cannot hold socially desired ends – such as less poverty in one’s community or nation – but it also does not promote such ends.  That’s up to each person to decide.

Common observations reveal that most seek self-serving ends that relegate concerns, such as for poverty, to be limited to those who are poor.  But one can ask:  can this level of individualism be sustained?  When one says that each is free to determine life choices without any principle or sense of obligation to the society in which one lives, can that work? 

Yes, believers in natural rights do see that each can be called upon to fill roles necessary for societal survival, but that call is conditional.  That is, the call must be within the parameter of it being advantageous to the person being called or emanating from his/her consent.  The sustainability question can be addressed from the demands associated with being human and the basic need of individuals that the social arrangements they inhabit survive.

          Using philosophic thought, to say someone, say A, has the moral (not merely legal) right to do something, say X, commands that A be respected by others.  That is to say, others are bound not to place obstacles on A doing or otherwise enjoying doing X.  But that also means A cannot impose any injunction on others.

          Why?  Because of E, that is, A’s essential property(ies), his/her capacities.  One has the natural right to exercise (do or enjoy) E, therefore, he/sh has a right, X, to do so.  So, for example, individuals have the right to follow a rational life-form; i.e., a right to life and unobstructed pursuit of rationality.  With that, he/she has a right to attain and maintain those objects or other assets – property – to exercise X in seeking E.  This would include beyond a right to life or freedom, a living wage.

          This view of people, rights, and capacities are so central to the natural rights view that society, under such a view, proactively seeks to secure rights and capacities and not be satisfied with merely not placing injunctions in their pursuits.  For example:

It is because men and women are the beings who exhibit certain capacities which are worthy of respect.  The fact that we ascribe rights to idiots, people in a coma, bad men who have irretrievably turned their back on the proper development of these capacities, and so on, does not show that the capacities are irrelevant.  It shows only that we have a powerful sense that the status of being a creature defined by its potential for these capacities cannot be lost.[3]

What warrants this exalted status for all humans; even in cases when E is not fully available as is the case with mentally handicapped people?  Various people have various reasons.

          One claim is the reliance on a belief; that would be the belief in an immortal soul which, in turn, relies on the belief in a deity.  The soul is somehow seen as an extension, on some basis, of that being.  A second claim or fear is that of a slippery slope concern.  That would be if one makes exceptions here and there, who or what determines the limitation of such exceptions?  One can readily see where immoral entities disposed to trample the rights of others by claiming some exception can arise.

Or, there is a vision that sees rationality – or its capacity – as being the crown achievement of existence.  That being able to think rationally culminates the development of this physical realm and deserves a vaulted ranking among those that have it or potentially can get it; that is, those who are human.

          Lastly, there is a self-described realization that humans – by and large – can give consent in forming a social contract.  This among fellow contractors leads to mutual respect and, from that respect, the claim of rights resides. 

Each of these is, of course, questioned and critiqued by those who support federated rationales.  For example, rational thought does not guarantee reasoned conclusions in the formulation and implementation of public policy.  Therefore, there is no guarantee that that, in turn, does not demand obligations and injunctions against X – the unfettered rights – since faulty reason can threaten any social arrangement.  History readily provide evidence to that effect. 

This blog will pick up this argument soon.  Perhaps as soon as the next posting.  This blogger needs to give that some more thought.

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[1] Truth be told, he also finds problems with the term natural rights.  If one is to refer to what is natural, that is limiting what a human sense and behavior are to self-centered desires as is the case with animals (outside instinctual behavior).  He further feels that one can make the claim it is natural for humans to desire social arrangements even with their entailed obligations.  For example, a sense of caring or benevolence toward others seem natural enough.  See Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, or a summary article (a review) of that book:  William Saletan, “Why Won’t They Listen?”, The New York Times, March 23, 2012, accessed September 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html .

[2] Charles Taylor, “Atomism,” in Communitarianism and Individualism, eds. Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit (New York, NY:  Oxford University Press, 1992), 29-50.  The use of A, X, and E to designate a person, a right, and a capacity in this posting originates with Taylor.

[3] Ibid., 33.