(This is the second of a 2 part post; it will make more sense to those who read the first part)
The philosophical objection to Walzer's theory of justice has not been, as might be thought, his list of social goods. (His notion of social goods was discussed in part 1, but briefly he believes that such goods as membership/citizenship, security, welfare, education and others, should be available to all contributing members of society whether rich or poor). The main criticism has been the theory's inherent cultural relativism. Walzer holds that the meaning of terms like justice, security, rights, welfare, and others, will vary depending on the society in which the terms are employed. Traditional philosophy seeks a universal account of such basic terms, and a one-size-fits all theory to go with the universal definitions.
By way of example, Utilitarians don't say, "utility means different things in different cultures." You get one of the existing definitions such as "the greatest good for the greatest number" figure out which indicators you will use in a calculation, and plug it in no matter which culture is the setting. The same goes for "Deontological" theories, which stress, as Immanuel Kant did, universal obligations or duties enjoined on individuals by the imperatives of Reason. If lying is not right according to Kant, it doesn't matter which culture you lie in. It's always wrong. It's always irrational. Walzer does not want to let such perfectionism (universal theories) get in the way of a workable framework for considering social justice policies. After all, when is the last time everyone in a real policy deliberation in, say, a congressional subcomittee was a deontologist, or else a utilitarian? Why set the bar so unrealistically high? Diverse allegedly universal theories come and go, and none of them get implemented wholesale. Why not take a more grounded and pragmatic approach? In his 1994 book, Thick and Thin, Walzer does his best to locate a middle ground between radical relativism (of the "anything goes" variety)on the one hand, and rigid (he thinks) unworkable universality on the other.
Whereas Spheres of Justice was written in the early 1980s, by 1994 the Soviet system had collapsed Eastern Europe was openly embracing democracy. Recall that Walzer's theory was designed to meet the needs of a democratic society. But *which one?* The US, for one, presumably. But what about the Czech Republic or Poland? This was a time when US advisors (notably the conservative economist Milton Friedman) were advising these newcomers to democracy. If Walzer's theory can't be applied to burgeoning democracies abroad, what kind of theory is it? By extension, if it is so sensitive to context then how do we know it will apply in the US in the 90s, a post Reagan-Bush era of relatively limited tolerance for welfare, a time of globalization, post-industrial economy at home etc.? The book from 1983 claimed that concepts of the good and the just must be couched in culturally specified ways. But political culture (both national and international) had changed immensely. What of that?
Thick and Thin begins with an image of Czech activists carrying banners that say "Justice" "Democracy" and "Equality." Such images from 1989 through the early 90s were a common sight. He asks, if you approached the marching citizens in Prague whether they were marching for "utilitarian" Justice or "deontological" rights-based justice, they would probably find the question to be irrelevant if they even had the philosophical background to discuss those theories. Walzer writes,"Undoubtedly, they would have argued, if pressed, for different distributive programs; they would have described a just society in different ways." (p. 4) i.e. they would not all agree on a particular philosophical theory of justice any more than do American politicians. He continues, "they would have urged different rationales for reward and punishment [and] they would have drawn on different accounts of history and culture." So, the more specific they get, the more they would draw on the cultures and norms with which they are familiar and to which they are congenial. There would be no a priori consensus at the outset. Compromises over the long haul would probably lead to distributive policies that express a loose and general consensus, not an absolute Kantianism, utilitarianism, etc. So, when you "press" people on all the fine details of a policy entailed by a term like justice, things get very nuanced and the nuances reflect cultural meanings and social differences in background, social position etc. These detailed meanings which are loaded with historical and cultural nuances are called Thick Concepts following philosopher Bernard Williams. Walzer says that each nation-state will have various competing thick concepts of justice, rights, truth and other concepts that are fundamental to democracies the world over.
However, do we need to drill down for all that detail in order to get started in deliberating about social justice along the lines Walzer suggests? He thinks not. For there are also Thin Concepts corresponding to the same terms (justice, democracy, rights etc.). Walzer clarifies, "What they [Prague marchers] meant by the "justice"inscribed on their signs, however, was simple enough: an end to arbitrary arrests, equal and impartial law enforcement, the abolition of the privileges and prerogatives of the party elite -common, garden variety justice." (p. 5) Even left unqualified by theoretical refinements it is at least clear that these "minimal conceptions of moral life," as Walzer calls them, operate across cultures, and are more or less unaffected by local variations. To the extent that someone calling for justice intends to create an autocracy with arbitrary arrests, to that extent they simply *fail to grasp* the concept justice in its *thin* sense, let alone its more highly specified sense.
Some critics of Walzer complain that terms like "Justice" are also used in contexts that we cannot reconcile with modern democracy. One example might be the "justice" of the Indian Caste system (which persists-- though with dubious legal grounding--to this day). Here Walzer admits that like any realistic theory, his has limits. It only applies in democratic contexts. The caste system is a holdover from a premodern, and non-democratic way of life in which social goods were distributed in extremely unequal ways based on accidents of birth. Why should we expect a theory of justice in modern democracies to work there? One might conclude that even though India is a multi-ethnic democracy, to the extent that the caste system continues to affect the distribution of social goods, to that extent it is not yet fully democratic. Walzer adds that Fascist and Totalitarian systems (among other highly undemocratic ones) are out of bounds. Whatever is meant by Justice in China today will not resemble European and North American democracies. (This becomes problematic when trying to deal with *global* justice and human rights as Walzer has attempted more recently.)
In sum, Walzer argued, in 1994,that there are two levels of moral argument: the thin and the thick. By thin he means the use of moral terms across multiple cultures, where the terms can be understood independent of all the intricacies of the cultures of the people who use them. He accepts the corollary that thin terms and arguments will be less richly informed than fully fleshed out policies require, but they enable us to get started in deliberating. They will also have the property of vagueness. It is not difficult to see, for example, how discussions of security and needs such as healthcare can be understood thinly across multiple democratic societies, even if some states are more inclined toward central planning as a solution and others prefer private markets-- there might be a fuzzy set of meanings ranging from highly centralized to highly decentralized models. At any rate, at least we can have a discussion about roughly equivalent goals, i.e. access to physicians and medicines for nearly all members of society, by whichever policies may win the day.
The thick concepts and arguments presume a much fuller cultural meaning for such terms. Within a given society, the *thick* meaning of a term like "justice" will depend on prevailing practices in that society and norms in that culture. If a US lawyer claims his client has not received proper justice then there are all sorts of particulars (precedents, legal definitions, even local norms implicitly at work in the context) that can only be unpacked in that culture. In that sense, justice is culturally and socially relative. To apply and create social changes, one must inevitably operate at the thick level, where there is cultural relativity, but thin standards can be used cross-culturally, and, by extension, between varying subcultures.
We can say and mean that democracy, rights, and equality are good cross-culturally, and we can be right. But we must recognize that as soon as we try to figure just what democracy, rights, and equality look like practically in a given society, we will have to adapt everything we say to a local culture/society in terms of thick concepts and arguments grounded in the institutions and norms of that local culture.
Most political philosophers in the history of western thought, and many today, seek to give a political theory which can justify political concepts and practices *independant of cultural and social differences.* They aim at Universality. If like Utilitarians and Deontolgists (the chief rivals for supremacy in the academic world) you expect a universal account, then Walzer will strike you as coming up short. However, if you think, as many in politics do, that politics can never be pure or independent of local variations in meaning and culture, then you will be forced to bite the bullet of at least some relativity, while holding on to as much common ground (thin concepts) as possible consistent with modern democracies.
It is my own view that the quest for categorical truths in political practice is futile, especially in an age of rapid social change characterized by increased intercultural exposure through migration, travel and media. In Medieval Europe, it may have been easier to believe and act as though certain political institutions were God-given, unalterable and thus absolute. But cultural contacts were limited, people were insulated, and the few rival cultures that were well known (mainly Islam) served--by way of opposition-- to reinforce the norms of Christiandom. But the reality of cultural relativism has always been an article of common sense for anybody with broad geographical horizons. For example, it is interesting to read the diaries of the first Jesuits in China, and then to read the Chinese Emperors reflections on these Westerners. The first Greek historian, Herodotus, catalogued the differences in and between cultures outside of Greece that he either visited or heard about. His discussions of the Persian, Egyptian, Thracian, Scythian and other cultures outside of the Greek City States all showed his awareness of radically diverse norms, values and ways of life. Some he praised and others he condemned, but like most people, his central point of reference was his own culture, and when expanding his horizons the relativity of culture became obvious.
Too often people discuss cultural relativism as though it were a *doctrine,* a position that social scientists and philosophers invented and can debate. At its most obvious level, however, cultural relativism (the idea that what is good, bad, right, wrong, true and false are determined differently in different cultures) is something that explorers, and later anthropologists simply discovered as a brute fact. What is taken to be good and valuable in one place may well be considered unimportant or even undesirable in another. The real problem has always been whether to judge that which is different as inferior almost automatically, or to develop a broader mind-set in which we can acknowledge that things are rarely that black and white, that our own behavior may seem as unnatural and alien to others as they to us. The first option when taken to extremes simply leads to the way of the Conquistador, the second to the loss of confidence in any standards sometimes found in skeptics and intemperate postmodernists. Walzer's approach strikes me as occupying a sane middle ground which is honest enough to admit its own limits, while asking the reasonable question, What good is a universal theory if politicians can't agree that it is universal?
References:
Michael Walzer: Thick and Thin, 1994
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2 Questions:
Is cultural relativism a fact about the world (i.e. norms, beliefs and values vary by culture) or a philosophical doctrine or both? Is cultural relativism a problem?
Can we have "Universal" theories of politics and justice and expect them to be agreed upon even by members of our own culture?
The philosophical objection to Walzer's theory of justice has not been, as might be thought, his list of social goods. (His notion of social goods was discussed in part 1, but briefly he believes that such goods as membership/citizenship, security, welfare, education and others, should be available to all contributing members of society whether rich or poor). The main criticism has been the theory's inherent cultural relativism. Walzer holds that the meaning of terms like justice, security, rights, welfare, and others, will vary depending on the society in which the terms are employed. Traditional philosophy seeks a universal account of such basic terms, and a one-size-fits all theory to go with the universal definitions.
By way of example, Utilitarians don't say, "utility means different things in different cultures." You get one of the existing definitions such as "the greatest good for the greatest number" figure out which indicators you will use in a calculation, and plug it in no matter which culture is the setting. The same goes for "Deontological" theories, which stress, as Immanuel Kant did, universal obligations or duties enjoined on individuals by the imperatives of Reason. If lying is not right according to Kant, it doesn't matter which culture you lie in. It's always wrong. It's always irrational. Walzer does not want to let such perfectionism (universal theories) get in the way of a workable framework for considering social justice policies. After all, when is the last time everyone in a real policy deliberation in, say, a congressional subcomittee was a deontologist, or else a utilitarian? Why set the bar so unrealistically high? Diverse allegedly universal theories come and go, and none of them get implemented wholesale. Why not take a more grounded and pragmatic approach? In his 1994 book, Thick and Thin, Walzer does his best to locate a middle ground between radical relativism (of the "anything goes" variety)on the one hand, and rigid (he thinks) unworkable universality on the other.
Whereas Spheres of Justice was written in the early 1980s, by 1994 the Soviet system had collapsed Eastern Europe was openly embracing democracy. Recall that Walzer's theory was designed to meet the needs of a democratic society. But *which one?* The US, for one, presumably. But what about the Czech Republic or Poland? This was a time when US advisors (notably the conservative economist Milton Friedman) were advising these newcomers to democracy. If Walzer's theory can't be applied to burgeoning democracies abroad, what kind of theory is it? By extension, if it is so sensitive to context then how do we know it will apply in the US in the 90s, a post Reagan-Bush era of relatively limited tolerance for welfare, a time of globalization, post-industrial economy at home etc.? The book from 1983 claimed that concepts of the good and the just must be couched in culturally specified ways. But political culture (both national and international) had changed immensely. What of that?
Thick and Thin begins with an image of Czech activists carrying banners that say "Justice" "Democracy" and "Equality." Such images from 1989 through the early 90s were a common sight. He asks, if you approached the marching citizens in Prague whether they were marching for "utilitarian" Justice or "deontological" rights-based justice, they would probably find the question to be irrelevant if they even had the philosophical background to discuss those theories. Walzer writes,"Undoubtedly, they would have argued, if pressed, for different distributive programs; they would have described a just society in different ways." (p. 4) i.e. they would not all agree on a particular philosophical theory of justice any more than do American politicians. He continues, "they would have urged different rationales for reward and punishment [and] they would have drawn on different accounts of history and culture." So, the more specific they get, the more they would draw on the cultures and norms with which they are familiar and to which they are congenial. There would be no a priori consensus at the outset. Compromises over the long haul would probably lead to distributive policies that express a loose and general consensus, not an absolute Kantianism, utilitarianism, etc. So, when you "press" people on all the fine details of a policy entailed by a term like justice, things get very nuanced and the nuances reflect cultural meanings and social differences in background, social position etc. These detailed meanings which are loaded with historical and cultural nuances are called Thick Concepts following philosopher Bernard Williams. Walzer says that each nation-state will have various competing thick concepts of justice, rights, truth and other concepts that are fundamental to democracies the world over.
However, do we need to drill down for all that detail in order to get started in deliberating about social justice along the lines Walzer suggests? He thinks not. For there are also Thin Concepts corresponding to the same terms (justice, democracy, rights etc.). Walzer clarifies, "What they [Prague marchers] meant by the "justice"inscribed on their signs, however, was simple enough: an end to arbitrary arrests, equal and impartial law enforcement, the abolition of the privileges and prerogatives of the party elite -common, garden variety justice." (p. 5) Even left unqualified by theoretical refinements it is at least clear that these "minimal conceptions of moral life," as Walzer calls them, operate across cultures, and are more or less unaffected by local variations. To the extent that someone calling for justice intends to create an autocracy with arbitrary arrests, to that extent they simply *fail to grasp* the concept justice in its *thin* sense, let alone its more highly specified sense.
Some critics of Walzer complain that terms like "Justice" are also used in contexts that we cannot reconcile with modern democracy. One example might be the "justice" of the Indian Caste system (which persists-- though with dubious legal grounding--to this day). Here Walzer admits that like any realistic theory, his has limits. It only applies in democratic contexts. The caste system is a holdover from a premodern, and non-democratic way of life in which social goods were distributed in extremely unequal ways based on accidents of birth. Why should we expect a theory of justice in modern democracies to work there? One might conclude that even though India is a multi-ethnic democracy, to the extent that the caste system continues to affect the distribution of social goods, to that extent it is not yet fully democratic. Walzer adds that Fascist and Totalitarian systems (among other highly undemocratic ones) are out of bounds. Whatever is meant by Justice in China today will not resemble European and North American democracies. (This becomes problematic when trying to deal with *global* justice and human rights as Walzer has attempted more recently.)
In sum, Walzer argued, in 1994,that there are two levels of moral argument: the thin and the thick. By thin he means the use of moral terms across multiple cultures, where the terms can be understood independent of all the intricacies of the cultures of the people who use them. He accepts the corollary that thin terms and arguments will be less richly informed than fully fleshed out policies require, but they enable us to get started in deliberating. They will also have the property of vagueness. It is not difficult to see, for example, how discussions of security and needs such as healthcare can be understood thinly across multiple democratic societies, even if some states are more inclined toward central planning as a solution and others prefer private markets-- there might be a fuzzy set of meanings ranging from highly centralized to highly decentralized models. At any rate, at least we can have a discussion about roughly equivalent goals, i.e. access to physicians and medicines for nearly all members of society, by whichever policies may win the day.
The thick concepts and arguments presume a much fuller cultural meaning for such terms. Within a given society, the *thick* meaning of a term like "justice" will depend on prevailing practices in that society and norms in that culture. If a US lawyer claims his client has not received proper justice then there are all sorts of particulars (precedents, legal definitions, even local norms implicitly at work in the context) that can only be unpacked in that culture. In that sense, justice is culturally and socially relative. To apply and create social changes, one must inevitably operate at the thick level, where there is cultural relativity, but thin standards can be used cross-culturally, and, by extension, between varying subcultures.
We can say and mean that democracy, rights, and equality are good cross-culturally, and we can be right. But we must recognize that as soon as we try to figure just what democracy, rights, and equality look like practically in a given society, we will have to adapt everything we say to a local culture/society in terms of thick concepts and arguments grounded in the institutions and norms of that local culture.
Most political philosophers in the history of western thought, and many today, seek to give a political theory which can justify political concepts and practices *independant of cultural and social differences.* They aim at Universality. If like Utilitarians and Deontolgists (the chief rivals for supremacy in the academic world) you expect a universal account, then Walzer will strike you as coming up short. However, if you think, as many in politics do, that politics can never be pure or independent of local variations in meaning and culture, then you will be forced to bite the bullet of at least some relativity, while holding on to as much common ground (thin concepts) as possible consistent with modern democracies.
It is my own view that the quest for categorical truths in political practice is futile, especially in an age of rapid social change characterized by increased intercultural exposure through migration, travel and media. In Medieval Europe, it may have been easier to believe and act as though certain political institutions were God-given, unalterable and thus absolute. But cultural contacts were limited, people were insulated, and the few rival cultures that were well known (mainly Islam) served--by way of opposition-- to reinforce the norms of Christiandom. But the reality of cultural relativism has always been an article of common sense for anybody with broad geographical horizons. For example, it is interesting to read the diaries of the first Jesuits in China, and then to read the Chinese Emperors reflections on these Westerners. The first Greek historian, Herodotus, catalogued the differences in and between cultures outside of Greece that he either visited or heard about. His discussions of the Persian, Egyptian, Thracian, Scythian and other cultures outside of the Greek City States all showed his awareness of radically diverse norms, values and ways of life. Some he praised and others he condemned, but like most people, his central point of reference was his own culture, and when expanding his horizons the relativity of culture became obvious.
Too often people discuss cultural relativism as though it were a *doctrine,* a position that social scientists and philosophers invented and can debate. At its most obvious level, however, cultural relativism (the idea that what is good, bad, right, wrong, true and false are determined differently in different cultures) is something that explorers, and later anthropologists simply discovered as a brute fact. What is taken to be good and valuable in one place may well be considered unimportant or even undesirable in another. The real problem has always been whether to judge that which is different as inferior almost automatically, or to develop a broader mind-set in which we can acknowledge that things are rarely that black and white, that our own behavior may seem as unnatural and alien to others as they to us. The first option when taken to extremes simply leads to the way of the Conquistador, the second to the loss of confidence in any standards sometimes found in skeptics and intemperate postmodernists. Walzer's approach strikes me as occupying a sane middle ground which is honest enough to admit its own limits, while asking the reasonable question, What good is a universal theory if politicians can't agree that it is universal?
References:
Michael Walzer: Thick and Thin, 1994
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Questions:
Is cultural relativism a fact about the world (i.e. norms, beliefs and values vary by culture) or a philosophical doctrine or both? Is cultural relativism a problem?
Can we have "Universal" theories of politics and justice and expect them to be agreed upon even by members of our own culture?
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