Erik Hammar

The few of you who frequent this space may remember that I’ve written about some of my experiences at mass at the Swedish Church in London. Like most Swedes, I grew up with the cultural trappings of organised religion, including Sunday school and confirmation. But, again like for most Swedes, religion was ultimately peripheral and faith even more so. At 18 I left the Swedish Church after my standard dose of teenage-reading of Dawkins, Hitchens and the other ‘new atheists’. My basic skepticism remains, though my atheist fervour has gone. I now quite enjoy it (and rejoined the Church at 25, when my anti-clerical rebellion had run its course).

Lately I have been thinking more and more about religion. I think that part of my curiosity derives from an growing interest in the political theory of social cohesion, associative ties and particularistic virtues and duties. But there is also a more metaphysical aspect to it. It is to explore this aspect that I have just started reading Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007).

Taylor deals with one particular metaphysical aspect of religious experience. This is not the old chestnut – Does God exist? or anything like it. Rather, he seeks to explain how it comes that certain kinds of religious experience are not available to modern Westerners. The kind of experience he has in mind is the unquestioned, unquestionable, if you will naive, religious disposition that characterised believers in earlier epochs. Though there are clearly religious people in the West today, they are generally aware that there are other, non-religious options on the table. Options, that is, for trying to live a fulfilled life. This very optionality, Taylor argues, disposseses us of access to the kinds of experiences that were available prior to our contemporary, as Weber puts it, disenchanted world. The pre-secular age was enchanted. Taylor tries to answer how this happened (and if I persist, I might find out).

It is quite an exciting idea that our historical situation delimits the range of experience available to us. Of course, in a mundane sense this is trivially the case. Cavemen did not (luckily? regrettably?) have access to the experience of commercial television. But this means only that a certain experience was not available, not a certain kind of experience. The colour blind person who somehow regains sight or the child raised by wolves who is introduced into human society gains access to new kinds of experiences.

Though these are metaphysical questions, attending to them doesn’t require metaphysical extravagance. In other words, they are fascinating in their own right, independent of whether one is religious or not, a believer or not. They concern, it seems to me, two questions: How and by what are experiences formed and limited? and second, What does that imply for our ethical and political life? Perhaps Taylor can help give some pointers on where to start with these imposing questions.

London, 6 April 2018

Om man är genuint intresserad av att komma fram till korrekta svar på frågor inom den politiska filosofin måste man bemöda sig att tänka om att tänka. Man måste, med andra ord, kritiskt nagelfara de tankeprocesser som lett till att man intagit den ena eller den andra ståndpunkten. Delvis är sådan granskning ganska banal. Grundar jag min åskådning på tillförlitliga och rättvisande fakta? Drivs jag åt det ena eller andra hållet av lidelser eller fördomar snarare än argument och medvetna omdömen? Men att granska sitt eget tänkande innebär också något svårare, nämligen detta: Hur kan man förhålla sig till det faktum att ens intellektuella formning och utveckling ägt rum i ett specifikt historiskt, socialt, kulturellt och inte minst politiskt sammanhang?

Det kan vara nedslående att läsa idéhistoriska analyser av varför den eller den politiska filosofen kom att utvecklas åt det ena eller andra hållet. Skälet är att sådana analyser kan urholka ens förhoppning att träffa rätt i sitt politiska tänkande. Platon sägs ha skrivit Staten starkt påverkad av den atenska demokratins kollaps, vilken han hade i färskt minne. Hans idealstat genomsyras därför, hävdar man, av en strävan efter harmonisk varaktighet; den är ett veritabelt bålverk mot sådan politisk instabilitet och värderingsmässig förskjutning Platon såg runt omkring sig. Som idéhistoriskt resonemang är detta koherent och psykologiskt plausibelt. Men jag minns att jag slogs av modfälldhet när jag först stötte på det.

Den oro som idéhistoriska analyser av ovan nämnda typ kan ge upphov till kan förklaras som följer. Om innehållet i Platons politiska filosofi bestämdes av något så slumpartat och kontingent som den atenska politiska närtidshistorien, ter det sig osannolikt att hans teorier skulle fånga tidlösa och universella sanningar om politiska värden. Den idéhistoriska orsaksanalysen, på god grund, har som konsekvens att om de politiska omständigheterna varit andra, skulle Platons politiska filosofi varit en annan. Men om man kvarhåller en förhoppning om att finna universella sanningar om politiska värden, blir konsekvensen av detta resonemang därför att en politisk tänkare, för att formulera en sann politisk filosofi, måste verka under exakt rätt politiska omständigheter. Och vad har vi för skäl att tro att av alla möjliga politiska omständigheter, så var just Platons de exakt rätta?

Man kan tycka att själva idén om en sann politisk filosofi är suspekt. Det tycker jag på många sätt själv, men även om ovanstående resonemang är förenklat, är problemet verkligt. Om omständigheter leder politiska filosofer till deras teorier, och vi inte kan kontrollera omständigheterna, tycks slutsatsen bli att vi inte kan kontrollera vad våra teorier till slut säger. Och hur kan vi då hoppas säga något om politiska värden som går bortom det efemeriskt partikulära?

Som lösning på detta problem kan man hävda att olika politiska filosofer förvisso styrs av omständigheterna när det kommer till var de lägger tonvikten i sin teori, vilka värden eller principer som är överordnade, men att analysen i sig är värdefull och kan ge oss insikt i en del av det politiska. Platon må av sin samtids problem ha drivits att prioritera stabilitet och harmoni över andra politiska värden, men hans analys av dessa värden förblir universellt insiktsfull. Vi måste bara inse att den inte ger hela sanningen. På samma sätt kan man påstå att Thomas Paine förtjänstfullt beskrev människans längtan efter medborgerlig frihet och självstyre, men att han i sin historiskt determinerade iver att bejaka just dessa värden misstog dem för de enda av vikt.

Det finns ett citat av John Stuart Mill som man i sammanhanget inte kan undvika. Kloka människors problem, säger han vid en punkt i Om friheten, är oftast inte att de misstar det falska för det sanna, utan att de misstar en del av sanningen, som de funnit, för hela sanningen. David Hume resonerar på ett liknande sätt i inledningen till en av sina essäer. De som funnit någon ny insikt om människan eller samhället, skriver han, lockas ofta tro att alla förklaringar är reducerbara till just deras insikt. De har funnit en bit av sanningen, och i sin uppspelthet misstar de denna bit för helheten.

Mills formulering öppnar dörren för en optimistisk lösning på det problem jag beskrivit. Vi kan samla de analyser olika filosofer erbjudit av de olika politiska värdena, stabilitet, harmoni, frihet, rättvisa, jämlikhet, ordning, spontanitet, trygghet, lycka, för att sedan, som stode vi utanför historien, lägga ett pussel där all klokskap sammanförs och all ensidighet orsakad av de olika tänkarnas specifika omständigheter undviks.

Denna bild av den politiska teoretikerns arbete är lockande. På sätt och vis är jag beredd att acceptera den. Jag har svårt att se några goda alternativ. Men samtidigt är den problematisk. För det första måste man fråga sig vad vi har för skäl att tro att den typ av ahistoriska neutralitet är psykologiskt eller ens teoretiskt möjlig. För det andra tycks denna förståelse för den politiska filosofin redan från början göra ett starkt och icke självklart grundantagande, nämligen att alla de olika värden filosofer identifierat faktiskt är värden vi bör bry oss om och balansera mot varandra. Sådan värdepluralism hävdar de olika värdenas självständighet och oreducerbarhet, på ett sätt som säkert skulle fallit Isaiah Berlin i smaken men som inte är någon sanning skänkt från ovan.

Man kan också tänka sig att de politiska filosoferna faktiskt har en mer direkt politisk roll att spela. Kanske hör det till deras uppgift att ständigt aktualisera och accentuera de värden som fallit i samhällelig glömska. En Voltaire kanske är exakt vad filosoferna är skyldiga sina medmänniskor i tider av religiös och politisk despoti; en Edmund Burke i tider av febrig anarki. Denna uppgift vore kompatibel med den mer renartat akademiska orientering som beskrevs ovan.

Det finns dock en särskild svårighet vad gäller denna uppgift, som jag avslutningsvis vill reflektera litet kring. Fritt inspirerad av den svenska politiska debatten vill jag erbjuda följande exempel. Vi föreställer oss att vi befinner oss i ett samhällspolitiskt sammanhang där de värden som konservativa tänkare genom tiderna betonat – ordning, stabilitet, samhörighet och gemenskap, seder, traditioner och vissa typer av social kontroll – ignoreras och lämnas därhän som oviktiga. De politiska filosoferna (och här förstår jag den gruppen människor mycket brett och omfattande) borde då göra sitt för att påminna oss om den roll just dessa värden spelar för samhällets allmänna väl.

Till detta göromål är dock knuten en avsevärd risk av ren psykologisk art. Det brukar sägas att man blir som man umgås. Det är nog sant, men man blir också som man argumenterar. Om man förfäktar till exempel de konservativa värdenas roll och vikt, krävs stark psykologisk disciplin för att inte börja identifiera sig med just dessa värden på ett djupare sätt än man gjorde innan man började föra argumentationen. Jag menar inte att sådan djupare identifikation nödvändigtvis är ett misstag. Men processen genom vilken ens åsikter förändras ter sig godtycklig. För att återanknyta till mina inledande reflektioner, är det tvivelaktigt om processen – gradvis stegrad identifikation med vissa värden genom frekvent förfäktande av deras rättmätiga plats i samhällsdebatten –  skulle tåla kritisk granskning. Jag vill i varje fall inte byta åsikt genom vanemässig associering, utan efter genomtänkt och medveten omvärdering av ståndpunkternas underliggande premisser. Kanske är det för optimistiskt. Men jag tror mig här se ett visst ideal, en typ av integritet och intellektuell motståndskraft som vi bör sträva efter, och som underlättas av eller till och med kräver ständig kritisk granskning av vårt eget tänkande. Och den integriteten måste var och en säkra åt sig själv.

I am sitting at Heathrow, waiting for a flight to Stockholm. For the journey, I picked up Alasdair MacIntyre’s Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry from the library. Like MacIntyre’s other works, such as After Virtue, about which I have previously written, the book (originally a set of lectures) deals with the nature of philosophical and in particular ethical disagreement.

Modern philosophy, MacIntyre argues, is characterised by a set of intractable, seemingly irresolvable disagreements. This is most obviously so in ethics. Kantians, utilitarians and virtue theorists all advance different theses about the nature of morality, but the arguments are only compelling to those who shared their founding premises to begin with. At the metaethical level, similar conflict abounds over the very nature of ethical enquiry. It is this conflict which MacIntyre analyses as a rivalry between three different positions: The Enlightenment belief in universal progress, Nietzschean subversion of established traditions and assumptions, and the Aristotelian understanding of moral enquiry as participation in a particular intellectual tradition.

I approach MacIntyre’s text having just read an article about polygamy in Sweden. A report has shown that c.300 Swedish residents are in polygamous marriages, despite the fact that these are banned under Swedish law. The simple explanation is that Sweden has for some time nevertheless recognised polygamous marriages entered by individuals before they became Swedish residents. Recent years’ migration flows from African and Middle Eastern countries have consequently led to a relative prevalence of state recognised polygamous marriages. The Minister for Migration, Heléne Fritzon, now wants a complete halt to the official recognition of polygamous marriages.

Fritzon’s defence of her new intended policy was interesting. Asked on the radio ‘What is wrong with polygamy?’, she stumbled towards the answer that it does not align with Swedish values. When pressed, she clarified that the practice constitutes oppression of the women involved. I think we can discern two fundamentally different kinds of justification in these two answers. The first answer invokes Swedish values, using the word “värdegrund”, best translated as a set of guiding values. Companies and institutions typically have a värdegrund (akin to anti-discrimination policies, or “Our values” statements), and so, Fritzon suggests, does Sweden as a whole. The other answer invokes something seemingly more universal by calling the practice ‘oppressive’. The difference between these justifications can be gauged from the fact that a proponent of polygamy would likely agree that the institution does not form part of Swedish values, but disagree that it is oppressive.

This is because the first answer seems to be of the form “We don’t do that (around here)”, and so invokes a limited, particular identity and highlights certain demands placed on belonging to that identity. The second, on the other hand, is more like “That’s a bad thing (wherever it happens), and we don’t want bad things here”. The difference, in other words, is between grounding policy on values recognised as particularly ours, and on the other hand, on principles with supposedly universal force. And as may now be obvious, the first form of ethical argument would align with MacIntyre’s third ethical view, whilst the second would align with the first, universalistic view. Fritzon, then, reflected in her brevity a tension that goes to the very depth of the nature of moral enquiry and judgement.

Or at least, that is how I read it. Of course, it does not really matter if in this particular instance Fritzon in fact reflected this ambiguity. This is meant as a more general observation. As Sweden scrambles to accommodate the influx of people from cultures vastly differentiated from that of its majority population, questions of the appropriate justification of law and policy will force themselves upon us. For this reason, I think we better start thinking about the kinds of justification we want to guide our decisions.

25 January 2018

Nedanstående essä skrev jag som del av min ansökan till Stureakademin 2018. Den svarar mot den givna titeln “Därför är jag inte socialist”. En sådan skarp titel hade jag säkert undvikit om det varit upp till mig. Men att tvingas ta sig an den typen av prompt visade sig rätt intressant i sig, och eftersom jag lade ner en del tid på uppsatsen delar jag den nedan. Formatet är essä snarare än akademisk uppsats, så jag gör inga anspråk på att ha givit ett uttömmande svar. Syftet är blott att erbjuda en personlig reflektion grundad på flera års grubblande.

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Därför är jag inte socialist

”Ca qu’il y a de certain c’est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” skrev Karl Marx upprört till marxisterna Guesde och Lafargue år 1883. ”En sak är säker och det är att jag inte är marxist.” Den välkända anekdoten belyser ettiketternas gissel. Historiens uppsjö av politiska strider och grupperingar har lämnat oss en flora av -ismer som vi kan bruka i det ena eller andra syftet. ”Socialist”, ”liberal”, ”konservativ”, och så vidare, förmedlar var och en vitt skilda åskådningar beroende på sammanhang och samhälle. Den enes nyliberal är den andres socialist, en mans socialdemokrat en annans reaktionär. Den pragmatiskt sinnade kan förlåtas för tanken att vi borde lämna dem bakom oss och komma till saken. Men som en del av vår politiska arvsmassa manar dessa obehändiga kategorier oss till kritisk reflektion.

När vi därför oundvikligen överväger om vi är socialister eller inte, så kan vi närma oss frågan på flera nivåer. De mindre intressanta svaren tar avstamp i dagspolitiken. ”Vänsterpartiets ekonomiska politik vore förödande för svensk export.” ”Socialdemokraterna vill avskaffa individers valfrihet.” Sådana svar är mindre intressanta inte för att de är falska eller ogenomtänkta, utan för att anknytningen till socialismens idéhistoriska arv är ytlig och kontingent. I ett svenskt sammanhang är åsiktsskillnaderna begränsade och debatterna generellt empiriskt grundade. I närliggande möjliga världar, som filosoferna gärna uttrycker det, hade de flesta sakpolitiska positioner kunnat innehas av de flesta partier, med politisk ettikettering intakt.

Ett meningsfullt ställningstagande gentemot socialismen måste således grundas i en förståelse för dess filosofiska fundament, dess människo- och samhällssyn. Redan här finns förstås ett antagande, nämligen att vi alls kan tala om en socialism, snarare än många socialismer. Det är inte uppenbart vad som förenar revolterande bönder i 50-talets Kina och 19-åriga Bernie Sanders-supportrar på den amerikanska östkustens privatskolor. Likaså är det vanskligt att binärt kategorisera partier som socialistiska eller ej. Som är bekant från diskussionen om Sverigedemokraternas fascism, kan sådan kategorisering skymma mer än den belyser. Men det finns trots allt vissa grundläggande drag som idémässigt förenar det stora flertalet av de variationsrika socialismerna.

Främst är förstås socialismen (liksom dess broder liberalismen) ett barn av upplysningstiden. För att förstå den måste man beakta dess starka koppling till den rationalism som åtföljde sekularisering och utvecklingen av vetenskaplig metodik under 1600- och 1700-tal. Allteftersom gamla auktoriteter – kyrka, adel och monarki – förlorade sin epistemologiskt och politiskt priviligerade ställning, uppkom radikalt nya tankesätt kring samhällets politiska och ekonomiska ordning. Under upplysningstiden tog sig detta utryck i liberala utopier likt den förutspådd i markis de Condorcets Människosläktets andliga förkovran, som ser fram emot en framtid där ”solen kommer att skina på enbart fria män som inte känner någon annan herre än sitt eget förnuft.” De ekonomiska och sociologiska vetenskaperna gav snart verktyg för att uttrycka liknande förhoppningar om ett med vetenskapens hjälp rationellt ordnat samhällssystem. Denna metodologi för att närma sig samhället fick sedan sitt substantiva innehåll från de moraliska imperativ som extraherades den tidiga industralismens klassmotsättningar. Dessa  komplexa skeenden formade socialismen.

Idén om samhället som ett rationellt designprojekt är förförisk. Den bär på ett löfte om människans förmåga att medelst förnuftet vrida orättvisor och olycka ur ödets hand och ordna saker efter en rättfärdighetens mall. Historien vittnar om den hybris som underligger detta löfte. Sociala och ekonomiska systems inneboende komplexitet och oförutsägbarhet undergräver de utopiska ansatserna. Det är i detta som Karl Poppers indignerade kritik av socialismen är som mest pregnant. Han visar oss hur storskaligt socialt ingenjörskap inriktat mot ett samhälleligt slutstadium har orimliga kunskapsteoretiska konsekvenser.

Politiskt målstyrd samhällsutveckling kräver att vi kan förutspå den vetenskapliga utveckling som i framtiden kommer att definiera ramarna för vårt leverne. Men sådan förutsägelse vore identisk med att faktiskt föra vetenskapen framåt. Därför kan den aldrig i någon betydelsfull mån uppnås, eftersom vetenskapens frammarsch i sig är oförutsägbar. Den gradvisa, tentativa samhällsutveckling Popper istället förespråkar erkänner kontrasten mellan världens komplexitet och människans begränsade kognition. Socialismens ambitiösa vision av politikens roll och möjligheter gör inte denna insikt rättvisa.

Tilltron till sådan förnuftsmässigt ledd samhällsutveckling avslöjar också vilken människosyn socialismen avkräver oss. Harvardhistorikern Richard Pipes kärnfulla bok Communism: a history från 2002 identifierar hos socialismen en obotlig förhoppning om människans formbarhet. Det må så vara, sägs det oss, att socialismens egalitära löften inte skulle kunna infrias under de förhållanden av girighet, själviskhet och falskt medvetande som för tillfället råder. Men utvecklingen av samhällets nya institutioner och ekonomiska ordning kommer enligt historiematerialismens logik att ge upphov till en ny människa, inkännande, kultiverad och moraliskt förfinad. Detta är en förhoppning vi alla stundom kan dela. När vi läser Steven Pinker om våldets avtagande eller den tidiga Francis Fukuyama om historiens ändpunkt kan vi tänka: Nog blir det bättre.

Men den optimism som dessa tänkare försvarar är av annan karaktär. Pinker och Fukuyama beskriver båda resultaten av långsam institutionell utveckling – Poppers stegvisa sociala ingenjörskonst. Den som läser den senare, mer dämpade Fukuyama som framkommer i The origins of political order (2011), lämnas inte i någon som helst ovisshet. Från tid till annan lyckas vi med institutioner tygla och nyttja människans drifter och drivkrafter. Men en sådan ordning är aldrig slutligen säkrad, eftersom människans preferens för sina egna (familj, klan eller stam) ständigt riskerar att korrumpera och undergräva precis dessa institutioner. En noggrannare rannsakan av den mänskliga naturen leder med andra ord Fukuyama från en tro på människans slutliga tämjning i den liberala demokratin, till en syn på historien som cykliskt skiftande mellan politisk ordning och dysfunktion.

Detta predikament är människans, och tillåter bara en sansad och beskuren optimism. Socialismen blickar mot en framtid där inga sorger längre finns, blind för människans kunskapsmässiga och naturliga begränsningar. Denna utopiska hållning reflekterar en specifik människo- och utvecklingssyn. Kant uttryckte målande att ”av mänsklighetens krokiga virke har inget rakt någonsin gjorts.” Just sådan ödmjukhet bör genomsyra vårt politiska tänkande och handlande.

Grotesco är en fantastisk grupp som definierat mycket av min och mina närmsta vänners humor. Det var därför närmast religiöst att sätta sig och titta på deras nya avsnitt. De räds inte det kontroversiella (bra!) utan inleder sin nya säsong med ett musikalavsnitt om flyktingkrisen.

Det är roligt, som man kunde förvänta sig (“En humanitär stormakt, kolla in oss i all vår moralprakt”, “Det var ju inte det här jag tänkt precis, statsminister under en flyktingkris”). Bäst är odyssén genom svenska samhällets känsliga tår: näthatarna, den intersektionella Södermedelklassen, Östermalmsinstagrammarna, präster och imamer, får alla vara med och illustrera svensk lättkränkthet. Nästan lika briljant är scenen från Stefan Löfvéns (Henrik Dorsin) statsministerkontor. I ett svep förs vi från Sverige som “inte kurar bakom några murar” till migrationsministerns telefon “går varm när kommunerna slår larm” om systemkollaps. Det är roligt för att krocken mellan ogenomtänkt pekoral och en imposant verklighet blir för stor för att hantera. Politisk humor är bra när den avslöjar maktens löjlighet, genuina tillkortakommanden och hyckleri, och det gör de bästa scenerna.

Politisk humor är, å andra sidan, som sämst när den mässar och undervisar. Grotesco-gänget förstår förstås riskerna med att ta sig an flyktingkrisen, för inget ämne har det senaste decenniet genomsyrats lika starkt av moraliska brösttoner, från både politiker och media. Därför kräver sådan komik otroligt fin balans för att vara rolig. Lackmustestet är om det är lika roligt oavsett var man står i sakfrågorna. Det testet tror jag Grotesco i stort klarar. Jag kan se de mest politiskt olikartade av mina vänner skratta åt det här.

Men de klarar det inte helt. Avsnittet försämras av den underliggande politiska logik som för handlingen framåt. Här är den: Först gjorde Sverige gott och solade sig i sin egen moraliska prakt. Sen började det bli lite jobbigt med alla flyktingar, och eftersom Socialdemokraterna inte villa höja skatten med några ynka kronor (Åsa Romson (Emma Molin): “Varför kan vi inte lösa denna sak här, med höjd skatt på några kronor”) för sina medelklassväljare (Löfven: “vi vill inte ha debatter, där jag får säga till medelklassen, snåla in på Häägen-Dazsen) så gav de sig hän åt 30-tals-nationalism för att kunna sitta kvar vid makten. Och de goda svenskar som tidigare skramlat till flyktingar var nöjda och glada i sin själviskhet. Med andra ord: Egentligen är alla hycklande egoister och om det inte vore för det så skulle allt vara så enkelt. Avvara några chailatte och kanske en och annan skidresa till Alperna så ska vi se att allt kommer att gå bra.

Nöldvändigt instick med några bistra, torra politiska bedömningar: Den globala migrationens empiriska och moraliska aspekter är komplexa och ännu inte seriöst diskuterade av särskilt många i svensk debatt. Frågorna är till sin natur principiella och strukturella, långsiktiga och fulla av mot varandra stående intressen. Det är slående uppenbart att frågan inte kan reduceras till enskilda skattehöjningar eller individuell moral och välgörenhet.

Därför blir Grotescos skildring inte riktigt så rolig som den skulle kunna vara. Stefan Löfvéns hyckleri, som står i berättelsens centrum, framställs ha bestått i att han vänt kappan efter vinden. Men en bättre beskrivning hade förstås varit, för att fortsätta med vädermetaforerna, att han och alla andra låtsats som om det regnat. Visst har många kappor vänts sen 2015, men det är inte det tillkortakommande som förtjänas att drivas med. Svenska politiker och media har skämt ut sig därför att de i ett decennium suttit i solarium och undvikit att seriöst diskutera och analysera meterologiska rapporter, väderomsvängningar och den globala paraply- och kapptillverkningens trender. (Mer än så kan nog inte vädermetaforen bära.) Där finns mer både att skratta och att gråta åt, och det är när Grotesco fångar denna säreget svenska verklighetsflykt och självgodhet det är som roligast.

Man kan såklart tycka att Grotescos implicita beskrivning av de politiska skeendena 2015-17 är korrekt. Kul, då kan ni njuta av det nya avsnittet ännu mer än jag. Men att bara ha väldigt (snarare än enormt) roligt åt nya Grotesco är ett pris jag gärna betalar för att ha rätt i sak.

I can hardly read Swedish news any more without getting the terrible feeling that the government is gradually losing control. To illustrate what kinds of headlines Swedes have woken up to recently, let me list some of the reported incidents (articles in Swedish but Google Translate will quickly help you get the gist):

• Grenade attacks at Mexican levels and shootings in line with Southern Italy show newly compiled statistics (5 September)
• Kidnapping attempt against policeman’s wife (12 September)
• Police don’t have time to investigate rapes – forced to prioritise gang-related murders (13 September)
• Heavy explosion by the entrance of Helsingborg police station (17 October)
• Heavy automatic fire against policeman’s house in the middle of the night (28 October)

This follows on from a sharp rise in gang violence in Sweden in the last couple of years, centred around a few suburban areas mainly but not exclusively outside the larger cities. These are areas of high unemployment, relative poverty and an almost exclusively immigrant population. The events listed above add to an already atrocious surge in deadly, gang-related gun violence.

The attacks against the police are particularly worrying. As many have pointed out, the constitute an attack on the very foundations of our societal order. The orderly protection of its citizens is the state’s primary duty and concern. Without it, there is only brutality, disorder and chaos. Physical security and order provide the very basis of any other politics.

As with any social phenomenon, there are complex and diverse explanations of these developments, which without a doubt include immigration policy, integration policy and weapons legislation as well as broader socio-economic and cultural factors.

But regardless of one’s favoured explanation, attending to the problem directly and forcefully must not wait. A society with a long history of low levels of violence, high levels of trust and social cohesion, and 200 years of international peace is now completely at a loss, its leaders seemingly unable or unwilling to grasp the seriousness of the situation.

I en tid när världsledare utbyter hotelser (över Twitter och statsmedia) om förstörelse, slogs jag starkt av de rader jag möttes av när jag på måfå slog upp Harry Martinsons Aniara häromdagen.

[Sång 28]

/…/

Hon bad mig säga Ledningen att hon

sen någon tid var lika samvetsöm

som stenarna. Hon hade hört dem ropa

på stenars vis i Doris fjärran dal.

Hon hade sett granitens vita gråt

när sten och malm förgasas till ett dis.

Hon hade rörts av dessa stenars kval.

Förmörkad i sitt cellverk av den hårdhet

som människan visar i sin ondskas tid

kom hon som länge väntat var därhän

att hon på mimors sätt till slut bröts ner.

Indifferenta tredje vebens tacis

ser tusen ting som inget öga ser.

Nu ville hon i tingets namn ha frid.

Nu ville hon ej förevisa mer.

/…/

[Sång 29]

/…/

De sista ord hon sände var en hälsning

från en som nämnde sig Den söndersprängde.

Hon lät Den söndersprängde själv få vittna

och stammande och söndersprängt berätta

hur svårt det alltid är att söndersprängas,

hur tiden rusar till för att förlängas.

På livets anrop rusar tiden till,

förlängande sekunden då man sprängs.

Hur fasan blåser in,

hur skräcken blåser ut.

Hur svårt det alltid är att söndersprängas.

Over the last year or so, I have tended to attend mass at the Swedish Church in London on Sundays. Not so much because I have put my adolescent skepticism about some central tenets of Christianity behind, but because I enjoy the calm, the community and the coffee.

Last week’s service was followed by a lecture by Dr. Sara Wrige, priest of the Swedish Church as well as a doctor of physics. (I take her lecture as my starting point, but of course any mistakes or unintended mischaracterisations are mine alone.) She interestingly and aptly summarised some of the key aspects of the debate over the compatibility of religious faith and natural science (which I will refer to as just ‘science’ from here on). In other words, do we have to choose between faith and science?

Most people (at least in Sweden and the United States), when surveyed, submit that science and faith can coexist just fine. But quite a range of positions are available. Dr. Wrige suggested that there are four broad positions open to us on the science-faith relationship:

1. Independence
2. Conflict
3. Harmony
4. Dialogue

The independence view holds that there are no tensions between science and religious faith as they are simply in the business of fundamentally different things. Their insights make claim to different kinds of knowledge, to be evaluated according to different criteria and subject to different criticisms. The phrase “non-overlapping paradigms” is sometimes employed to describe this relationship, as the core idea is that science and faith inhabit qualitatively separate spheres.

The conflict view tells us that there is a fundamental opposition of some kind between religious faith and science. The upshot is that one could not coherently be both have a Christian faith, and be convinced that science is the best source of knowledge we have. This is all very simplified, and the exact nature of the conflict can be worked out in a wide range of ways. However, the most common form is probably the charge that science-loving people who also have religious faith are guilty of inconsistency in their standards for knowledge. They do not, the charge goes, attach the same level and kind of scrutiny to the religious propositions as they do to scientific propositions.

On the harmony view, all is a bit rosier. Science and religious faith, correctly applied and interpreted, agree in all important respects. The archetypal form of this view is embodied in the (not particularly flattering) “Christian science” of creationism and similar attempts to justify “scientifically” a verbatim, factitious reading of the Bible. Claims about the age of the earth (c.6000 years) or creation of man (forget evolution) consequently result.

The dialogue view, lastly, has it that religious faith and science support the advance and sophistication of each other, through a robust dialogue where perspectives are used to enrich both spheres. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dr. Wrige argued in favour of this position.

The first thing to note, as Dr. Wrige happily admitted, is that the four paradigms above mix apples and pears. ‘Dialogue’ summarises an activity, whilst the other three views summarise a position about the compatibility of the claims of faith and science (or, more technically, the consistency of beliefs entailed by religious faith and beliefs entailed by viewing science as epistemologically authoritative).

In light of this, it is difficult not to agree with Dr. Wrige’s call for dialogue in some shape or form. Indeed, one wonders if we could ever credibly arrive at any of the other three positions without dialogue, as that is surely how the relationship has to be investigated. However, I take the dialogue view to contain more substantive claims. In Dr. Wrige’s version (as I understood her), faith and science are engaged in a dialogue where the findings or insights of each is used to advance the other. The dialogue is not merely informative but constructive. It seems to me to follow that at least strong versions of the independence and conflict views go out the window. Fundamentally separated or fundamentally opposed paradigms could hardly contribute to much in terms of constructive, piecemeal exchange. The fate of the harmony view is less obvious, but if the dialogue is to be constructive, there would unlikely be a wide-ranging, straightforward overlap between the claims of faith and of science. There would of course have to be some fundamental harmony, i.e., lack of direct inconsistency, between the two, but not more than what is simply implied by rejecting the conflict view. Either way, I will not make explicit reference to the harmony view in what follows.

The notion of a constructive dialogue is a tempting solution to the conflict-ridden relationship between faith and science, but I am left skeptical about its viability. Let us first imagine how the dialogue is meant to work. The most easily imagined exchange is one where, for example, Bible texts are interpreted differently in light of our ever-changing and growing scientific knowledge. Fair enough. Taking the Bible as a source of non-literal moral inspiration, instruction and discussion, one can quite easily see how the resultant insights can change both in content and application as we discover new things about the origins of human beings, our place in the cosmos, etc.

It is less clear to me how constructive exchange in the opposite direction would work. Where would science be constructively informed by religious faith? It is of course true that if we care about our religious faith, that might have an impact on what we think science should study. If I believe God wants us to reduce suffering, that gives me a reason to give money to cancer research. But that kind of relationship does not constitute a constructive dialogue. The scientific method proceeds unchanged, with faith providing merely a motivation or reason for it to do so. If I give money to cancer research because I myself have cancer (and, let’s imagine, I don’t give a damn about other cancer patients), it does not follow that selfishness and science are somehow engaged in a constructive dialogue. I struggle to see an instance where the direction of scientific research, conclusions or conceptual innovation has been guided by religious faith.

If the above is correct and exhaustive, then the dialogue is in fact a rather one-way affair. Essentially, we seem to be saying that the beliefs making up religious faith, metaphorical and constantly reinterpreted as they are, should be re-visited, and may well change character, as we learn more about the world through science. And that might sound reasonable to unbelievers as well as some believers. Indeed, the same point could be made about science and literature, music, poetry and drama. However, it is may well leave many religiously minded people uneasy, with science pushing on independently and religion continually adjusting and reinterpreting itself in light of the findings of science. It makes the content of religious faith seem more parasitic and arbitrarily guided than would be suggested by the eternal, solemn and profound character believers often take their faith to have. There is much to say here, but I won’t dive into any further detail. However, the nature of the “dialogue” certainly raises questions, and mainly, I submit, for the believer.

So what do I think is really going on here, then? Well, I think that the kind of one-sided dialogue I described above is roughly how things go and should go; however, I think only a subset of believers have to worry about what this implies about their faith (taking it for granted that they would prefer not to reject the authority of science). I mentioned above that science can be seen to inform art in the same way as it informs religion. What makes religion different from art? If you think that the answer lies in the social and communal role that religion plays, the one-sided nature of the dialogue described above need not worry you. That special, social, feature of faith remains untouched. However, if you think that religious faith is special because it is a separate source of knowledge about the world, or because it contains beliefs about important things that actually happened (e.g., Jesus rose from the dead), then I think you have more to worry about. Because it follows from the kind of dialogue I have suggested is possible, that science retains its sole authority on matters of natural phenomena. Not so problematic if you think religious faith consists in insightful metaphors and valuable social community, but more of a problem if you think religious faith matters because of what it tells us about the world or about worldly events.

I think that the kind of view I am arguing for is not quite a dialogue view, but rather an independence view. Recall that the independence view holds that science and faith inhabit separate spheres. More specifically, the claim is that they make different kinds of knowledge-claims, ones that cannot be juxtaposed and compared on the same merits. The existence of the kind of dialogue I have described allows for this to be true. The fact that we reinterpret religious beliefs in light of what we know about the world, does not entail that our newly acquired science-based beliefs about the world are of the same kind as religious beliefs. To offer an analogy: The fact that new developments in cognitive science may offer new, interesting readings of Crime and Punishment does not mean that the kind of knowledge Dostoyevsky can offer us is the same kind of knowledge that cognitive science can offer us. So dialogue as I have presented it, or rather, as I think it possible, allows us to hold on to the independence view. It does so at a price, to be sure, namely that certain theological positions on the nature of religion and its claims are left, in my view, less viable.

As a standard philosopher’s post scriptum, the above discussion is of course enormously simplistic. It leaves out some very difficult questions and avenues of argument and counter argument. For example, one might want to argue that as religious faith shapes our basic thoughts about the world (informs the concepts we use), it informs science at a very basic level, as conceptual change inevitably changes the conceptual tools science has at its disposal in carrying out its task. Further, there are deep questions about how to more formally define different “kinds” of knowledge claims (a notion I have uncritically employed). The discussion is also framed with Christianity in mind, and experts would likely be able to inform the discussion in light of differences between various faiths.

Nevertheless, the above seems to me to be a fair take, which allows us to be epistemologically skeptical and hard-nosed whilst allowing for the insight and value of faith and religion more broadly.

After two years in the world of strategy consulting, I am leaving the industry to return to academia for a year.

Strategy consulting is interesting in various philosophical, political and economic ways. Philosophically, the consulting process has struck me as a near-pure embodiment of Humean reasoning. That is, it functions by way of wholeheartedly pragmatic, goal-oriented reasoning. It does not reason about its goals (e.g., “cut costs”, “expand profit margins”) as such, other than in very limited ways. This kind of reasoning is often called “Humean” as it resembles reason as characterised by the philosopher David Hume. We cannot, he argued (roughly), reason about ends or goals. Reason can help us know how to get somewhere, but not give reasons for why we should ultimately go there rather than anywhere else. Many disagree with this “thin” characterisation of human reason. However, regardless of how right Hume was about reason in general, the description seems pretty apt when it comes to the reasoning employed in strategy consulting. Consultants don’t question the goals or parameters of their reasoning. Rather, they adopt a goal, devise rationally defensible routes for how to get there, and present the conclusions to the client (and then, hopefully, they get paid).

One might read the above as a criticism of the industry, as a description of something inherently unjust or immoral about it. But that’s not what I have in mind. The moral debate comes higher up the chain. If one thinks ethics allows for some element of market forces within a decent society, one will consequently have to accept that people will act according to the incentives presented within a market system. I think it would be odd to argue that markets should be part of a society’s economic system, but that businesses should be blamed if they act in line with the market incentives thus created. With markets come market actors, acting in commercially rational ways.

Of course, if you think markets ought indeed to be replaced by some other economic system, you might also think that even if there are market incentives in existence today, we really shouldn’t act on them. By way of analogy: If you think it a bad thing that alcohol is available for purchase, you can also hold that no one should buy alcohol and that they would be morally blameworthy if they did. However, one struggles to see the internal logic of the view that alcohol should be sold, alright, but we are morally blameworthy if we buy it. Of course, we should here note one important distinction: One may still think it a good thing that alcohol should be allowed to be sold freely. One might be concerned about putting too much power into state regulatory hands, or about the slippery slope of prohibiting the sale of certain goods. Think of the free speech activist who certainly doesn’t want to legally prohibit rudeness towards pious religious people, but who still thinks it would be a bloody good idea for everyone to behave politely towards them. But that’s quite different from thinking it a good thing that alcohol is actually on offer.

As I think market forces do play an important role in a well-functioning economic system, I don’t think the pragmatism of consultants as such is blameworthy. Yet, like with all general principles, one can imagine outlier cases, where the principle comes under pressure. Sometimes business incentives collide with other duties we have, and individuals might face difficult choices. The real answer to such collisions, if genuine, has to be systemic. But that fact does not mean we won’t face dilemmas in our daily lives, as consultants or otherwise. I won’t dive into this question more deeply, but it is important to acknowledge it.

Over the coming year, I will be studying for an MSc in political theory. Political theory has a duty to contribute not only to theoretical, utopian philosophising, but also to practical political issues of order and stability, reform and radicalism, in a way that acknowledges actual political circumstances. Jeremy Waldron has talked of political political theory, noting that political theorists haven’t had enough to say about institutions and practical, real world politics. Indeed: we must seek to link up the currents of both abstract political theory and modern political science, arriving, hopefully, at something actionable yet normative, pragmatic yet ethical.

This is the second part to an exchange on the objectivity of morality between myself and my friend Paul.  You can read Paul’s initiating defense of moral realism here. Below is my reply, which defends a different view.

—

In initiating this exchange, Paul defends a view labelled non-natural moral realism. This is a theory about the nature of ethics. It says that there are certain things that are true in ethics, such as, that it is wrong to boil babies. Further, it says this is true not because of any physical fact, or more broadly, any natural facts about institutions, the beliefs people hold, or the emotions they feel, etc. Ethical truth is completely unaffected by such worldly things. Instead, it holds that it is wrong for us to boil babies, because doing so in some way violates rules which exist entirely independently of us. Admittedly, certain worries about ultimate justification in morality compel us towards this view. In his opening paragraph, Paul suggests we accept it if we wish to be able to really think boiling babies is wrong. But I believe this view to be implausible, even unintelligible, and the worries which propel us towards it, unjustified and confused.

Against this view, I shall argue that no abstract entities, or mysteriously pre-existing laws, have to exist for us to confidently judge and damn those who boil babies, and do other horrid things. In fact, it remains opaque what it would even mean for such facts to exist. This is a kind of constructivist view, in Paul’s original schematic (though I have some misgivings about that term, for various reasons.) Instead, I shall argue that far from being independent of us, they are our values, and it is in the light of this they can comprehensibly be important to us. Our values are sociobiological phenomena, yet that is not to denigrate them. Boiling babies is not wrong because it is an offence to some edict lingering in the depth of atoms or the demands of pure reason. It is wrong because – and centrally, this is in one sense all we can say about it – it is senselessly cruel. There is no “point of view of the universe” from which we can hope to justify our moral beliefs, however, we are not worse off for it.

It is worth noting, first, that in our normal daily lives, we go on without worrying about the nature of our ethical values. We have no problem arguing about ethical questions quite without regards for deep metaphysical issues. If you are contemplating boiling babies, I will have no problem giving reasons for why it is a bad idea. It is cruel, might be selfish, offend against the happiness, or rights, or freedom of the baby or its parents, and will likely bring no long term benefit, etc. We have a sense of these concepts and arguments, and whilst it is often difficult to know which stand to take, we are familiar with these kinds of considerations. A first important observation is that this ability, even among the less morally fine-tuned of our acquaintances, is in plain sight. At this level, we seem to be getting on fine without invoking deeper, metaphysical claims about the nature of ethical reality.

It is first of all important to make the point that accepting a constructivist view does not entail that all ethical concepts contain whatever content we want; we do not construct as we like. Paul seems at one point to suggest that non-natural moral realism (his view) offers the only sanctuary for the thought that “boiling a baby is wrong no matter how you feel about it”. However, the way he describes his position later does not necessitate this, so I will not assume he does not hold the stronger view that only non-natural moral realism can make sense of the sentence quoted above. Nevertheless, dispelling such worries is a good way to initiate my kind of constructivist argument. In some deeper sense, of course, it is true that the cruelty of boiling a baby would be a meaningless concept if there had never been anyone around for whom it could be wrong. But this does not lead to some hyperindividualist conceptual anarchy where, where “how you feel about it” determine the content of ethical concepts. It can easily be shown that facts can be fundamentally dependent on us, but at the same time are objective in the sense that they do not permit anyone to use them as they wish without being wrong.

To show this first point, it is easiest to consider social facts more generally: It is true that Barack Obama is the President of the U.S.A. no matter how I feel about it.  It does not follow that this would be so no matter what anyone thought about it, or had ever thought about it. The same is true, admittedly in a more complex sense, about the wrongness of boiling babies. And even less does it follow that there is an eternal fact about Obama’s presidency which exists fully independently of us. If there were no one around to sustain the institutions which make meaningful the notion of the American presidency, it would not be true that Obama were president. Yet, things being as they are, it is true no matter how I feel about it. In short, truth in ethics is not as simple. We are not simply stuck with a choice between eternal, independent laws on the one hand, and rampant relativism on the other, something we will understand more fully if we unravel the psychological impulses which tempt us towards the simplistic neatness of moral realism. And once this underlying fear has been left behind, we will be able to approach my constructivist view with less latent prejudice.

The psychological impulses towards moral realism lead us to ask: But what if things had not been as they are? Had it not been wrong to boil babies if things had been vastly different? We happily admit that if some things had been very different, Obama had not been president. We are more hesitant to agree that had things been different, boiling babies would not have been wrong. This die-hard worry is brought out best by considering moral sceptic. This is the (hopefully hypothetical) person who, when you urge them not to boil the baby because it is cruel, asks you for a reason why not to be cruel, why not to hurt others, etc. Aghast at this unruly maverick, we grapple for an ultimate justification to show that in the end, this bastard is not just of a different opinion, but wrong. But as powerful as this impulse for ultimate justification is, I believe it is in fact confused.

Non-natural moral realism embodies the hope that the moral sceptic is wrong in the same kind of way as a schoolchild who believes the square root of nine is two is wrong. Such proof, we feel, would give us refuge, the final word against evil, as the sword of reason subdues the wickedly irrational amongst us. But would such a proof, if it could be proffered, give us the reassurance we yearn for? For what difference would it make if we did manage to show that boiling babies is not only cruel, but contrary to some independent law of reason, God, or (even more opaquely) the universe?

As the philosopher Bernard Williams has asked, why would the moral sceptic care? If he is a good man engaged in facetious questioning, he will already be acting morally and won’t want to be cruel, really. If he, instead, revels in doing evil, why would he care about our neat proof that he is not abiding by some distant, objective moral facts? It is not but for lack of proof of the irrationality of his actions that the Bond villain plots his plans. Nothing would be gained if we were able to call Shakespeare’s Iago not only selfish and treacherous, but irrational as well. The longing for objective, independently existing moral facts is a longing for reassurance that we will have our way. Yet even if we had proof on par with mathematical proof, in favour of such facts, we would be no closer to having things our way. Would it justify us to stop the sceptic from boiling babies? We already thought we were justified. That was never the issue. The problem was that he wasn’t.

These arguments are difficult, and I am myself still struggling with them. I’ve briefly covered enormously complex issues around the nature of reasons and objectivity. However, time to move on. We may now return, hopefully with a slightly new perspective, to the subset of objections raised and rebutted by Paul in his text.

The first one he formulates as a worry about the origins of eternal moral truths. Bar appeal to divine authority, how can his side explain how these magical facts have come to exist? Responding to this, Paul invokes the Euthypro problem (are things good because they are favoured by the gods, or favoured by the gods because they are good?) – curiously, as this does nothing to address the underlying worry of the origins of his purported kind of ethical facts. Indeed, he aptly summarises a counter to a theological attempt to defend the kind of view he holds. However, I do not think he can be more deeply faulted for doing so, since his view is evidently a secular one which, as shown by his reference to mathematics, takes moral facts to be objective and eternal in the sense that the application of reason necessitates us to accept them. They are abstract truths of rationality, accessible in some way somehow similar to the truths of mathematics.

Now, much has been said about the analogy between mathematics and ethics, and I alluded to it in my discussion above. There are many questions about how insight similar to the realisation that 1+1=2, could give us the compelling kind of reason for action that ethical facts seem to provide. I won’t say more in depth about this complex question, other than that it cries out for clarification and justification in order to move beyond sheer, unfounded speculation. Instead, I will finish by turning the tables on Paul’s second positive argument, that “we should believe what appears to be the case unless we have reason to doubt it”. I believe this argument will also address the analogy with mathematics indirectly.

Like in quantum physics, much of everyday common sense is not really helpful in ethics unless some dogmatic thinking is first cleared away. But once the simplistic distinction between relativism and non-natural moral realism is left behind, Paul’s common sense dictum can indeed be helpfully applied. On the one hand, we are asked to believe

1. that there are, and always would be regardless of whether and how we had evolved biologically and developed culturally, some abstract moral facts; and
2. that these facts are available to us in reasoning, and influence our decision-making, through some sui generis intuition of ours (was it necessary that we would have this intuition? or did it come about by evolutionary chance?), about which we can say nothing more than that it might be partly analogous to mathematics.

This is, roughly, Paul’s view. Against this, I have suggested that ethics is rightly taken to be constructed, meaning ethical values are underpinned by the social, cultural, and biological facts about us. Ethics is part of what we do, a phenomenon in the world – one that is very important to us. I have tried to show that the fact that ethics is in some sense constructed, does not mean there is no truth in ethics, or that ethics is simply a matter of whim and opinion. Such worries dispelled, we can judge the fantastic claims of moral realism with cooler heads, without fear of being left defenceless against the moral sceptic. Such an approach, I have argued, will lead us somewhat closer to understanding the nature of morality.

by Erik Hammar

21 August 2016