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The ivory tower and the public square

by Robert Teitelman | Published September 21, 2011 at 12:14 PM

Will Wilkinson has a short essay up with a title that may scare people off: "The indeterminacy of political philosophy." But his idea is pretty straightforward and involves the gap between ideas and ideals, and what occurs in that rocky place we think of as the real world. Wilkinson links to a short post by Bill Glod, a philosopher at the libertarian Institute for Humane Studies, "on the limits of the common libertarian conception of liberty as non-interference." Wilkinson comments on Glod's attempt -- the exchange is fascinating if arcane -- to redefine liberty or freedom not as "non-interference" but as "self-rule."

But in wrestling with all this, Wilkinson arrives at the thought that any definition of liberty and freedom "when stated in broad outlines is relatively indeterminate." And he moves to a conclusion: "I don't mean to pick on libertarians. ... It seems to me that most of our high-level political concepts like 'freedom' or 'equality' are tailored and tweaked to justify the kind of political regime we already tend to favor. If you are offended by taxation, you'll settle on a conception of liberty according to which taxation is a violation. If you think a relatively high level of taxation is necessary to give people what you think they ought to get, you'll settle on a conception of liberty according to which taxation is not a violation, but not giving people what you think they ought to get is. That's why abstract political philosophy is so often futile."

Wilkinson notes that it's probably better to argue over what kind of regime we want -- democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, anarchist collective -- and then "reason backwards to liberty, equality and so forth to justify that pick."

Unusual in the blogosphere, the comments to Wilkinson's post are intelligent, insightful and worth checking out.

What's to say about this? Wilkinson is not arguing that engaging in highly abstract political philosophy is a waste of time, only that it's indeterminate and often futile if you desire One Answer. Philosophy simply can't offer all, or even some, of the answers. The Believers or the Platonists, the advocates of universal and absolute ideas among us will be upset. Indeterminacy is a cousin to relativism, which to some minds seems to be related to permissiveness, all of which are milestones on the winding path to hell -- however you define that. But the very fact that this discussion is taking place between philosophically minded folks at all suggests why such conversations are important: They clear the ground of cant and dogma; they establish the ground for more finely meshed judgments; they set limits. To me it's difficult to declare Wilkinson wrong: Abstract argumentation that never reaches the complexities of earthbound realities may often seem futile. But except for Plato, who wants philosophers determining tax policy, healthcare reform or war and peace?

But I would also turn this around. What we have seen of late in our noisy public square is extremely earthbound types, often politicians, occasionally men and women of one faith or the other, who pick up the ideas of various political philosophers (or for that matter dead economists, a weakness the certifiably deceased John Maynard Keynes recognized long ago in "practical men") and try to turn them into Platonic absolutes. This, I guess, is a kind of definition of ideology. This gang, which exists on left and right, rejects indeterminacy, ambiguity and complexity. (Throughout history, intellectuals have been prone to this tendency as well, particularly when they've been tempted by the delights of real-world power.) Liberty and freedom are not subject to question; they exist as blinding truths. Taxation is theft. Abortion is murder. Profits are theft. Capitalism (the state, the legal system, recycling) is oppression. Both extreme left and extreme right fetishize "freedom" in its purest form. The interesting question in this regard, which I don't have an answer for is: why now? Why, in this benighted age of ours, do politicians and some of their constituents feel the need to apply their black and white versions of, say, Hayek or Keynes, Friedman, Nietzsche, the original class warfare analyst Marx, or for that matter, the Bible or some silver-tongued Biblical interpreter to all matters, celestial and earthbound, social, legal and moral? Why does Michelle Bachman feel she has to read Hayek on the beach and tell us? Why Ayn Rand?

Well, all that's a subject for our ivory tower on another day. - Robert Teitelman

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