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Some Thoughts on Race: Part One As I mentioned in some other posts, I am interested in thinking out loud with some of you on the issue of racism and race relations. I would love to see a lively and honest discussion on the part of people of good will--even people of good will who disagree. I begin by laying out several principles that I take to be true and which will be at work, either explicitly or implicitly, in what I have to say. The issue is morally charged, and a profitable discussion is impossible apart from conscious attention to whatever moral principles are involved. So I lay bare those with which I am working. I originally intended to sit down and write a complete essay that began by laying out these principles, and then applying them to thoughts on race relations. But this first section proved to be long and time-consuming. I'll post these as a sort of set of "prolegomena." From these, you'll be able to predict much of what I will say when I post "Part Two." Some Principles for Thinking ABout Race Relations ·Moral Realism. Most basic is the conviction that there are such things as objective moral facts. Some actions are right and others wrong, and the rightness or wrongness of actions is not merely a matter of opinion or taste. Thus, moral relativism, in its varieties, is false though fashionable. For instance, rape (or slavery or child molestation, etc.) is wrong, and it is wrong regardless of the cultural context in which it may occur. And some character traits really are virtues (i.e., they ought to be cultivated), whereas others really are vices (they are morally undesirable). (If you disagree on this first point, then you might as well stop reading here. Reason: a discussion on race relations takes place in a moral context. If you don’t believe that there are objective moral facts, then you have nothing interesting to say about how people regard and treat each other.) ·Respect-for-Persons/Human Dignity. But if there is a difference between right and wrong, what constitutes that difference? What makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong? That is, what is the supreme moral principle that defines the essence of morality? I accept—and am prepared to defend—the Principle of Respect-for-Persons. A right action is one that treats others with respect, and a wrong action is one that fails to do so. Immanuel Kant put it this way: “Always treat humanity as an end-in-itself and never merely as a means to an end.” The idea is that persons have a special sort of value just in virtue of their being persons. Kant calls this value or worth “dignity.” Indeed, there are two kinds of value that something might have: dignity or price. To say that something has a price is to say that its worth is reducible to a kind of “market value.” My guitar, for instance, has a price. It makes sense to talk about its worth in dollars, or its comparable worth for trading or bartering. The value of a person, on the other hand, is not reducible to any sort of “price”—whether it is literally a “cash value,” or their “performance” or “contribution” to society. To treat someone “merely as a means to an end,” then, is to regard or treat them as though their worth is reducible to mere “price.” It is to treat a person merely as a means to one’s personal goals or ends. Indeed, it is to treat a person as though he or she is a mere thing, a stepping-stone. The wrongness of the most obviously wrong actions, such as rape, genocide or slavery are best explained on the basis of this principle: all are instances of treating a person as a mere thing. The notion of human dignity implies that, while there may be such a thing as a useless person, there is no such thing as a worthless person. And this is because worth is not a function of performance. Dignity is not reducible to price. Personhood, of course, transcends ethnicity, and so the Principle of Respect-for-Persons has direct and profound implications for the ways in which we regard and treat persons of different race or color. In a broader context, I argue that persons have this worth because they are created in the image of God. There is no room in an atheistic view of things for the idea of human dignity. Where, after all, would we get it on a view that begins with an inexplicable Big Bang, and explains the emergence of human consciousness as a by-product of a particular, ultimately accidental, arrangement of particles? Indeed, I find here the grounds for the plausibility of theism. If the concept of human dignity makes sense only in a universe that includes God, and if the wrongness of an act like rape requires appeal to the notion of human dignity, then it follows that we can coherently say that rape is (objectively) wrong only if God exists. Further, the idea of human dignity as created in God’s image is what lies behind the Christian command to love persons unconditionally. Unconditional love—which takes in even a love for one’s enemies—is not a feeling of affection for a scoundrel like Osama Bin Laden. It is a moral attitude of regard for the dignity of the person who has been created in God’s image. (Conditional “love” is more a matter of “liking” or being attracted to a person because you stand to gain something out of the relationship. Presumably, if they cease to perform in the desired way, all bets are off.) · The Principle of Equality. “Equals should be treated equally, and any differences in treatment must be based upon morally relevant differences between the people in question.” Women in the work place sometimes complain about a “glass ceiling” that keeps them from rising to the highest levels. It is “glass” because it is “transparent”—that is, there is no discernible reason why they should not be promoted just like their male colleagues. An employer who will only hire or promote members of his own race (or gender) is probably in violation of the Principle of Equality. There are exceptions, I think. The fact that the NFL does not include female players probably does not reflect an insidious male chauvinism. Women (typically and happily) do not display the size and strength of your typical linebacker, and simply could not compete. Or consider the casting director for a film, who is responsible for hiring actors. Suppose the movie is “Glory”—about the black Massachusetts regiment. If she hires Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, but turns down Kevin Costner “because he’s white,” Kevin has no legitimate complaint to lodge. Or suppose the owner of a Chinese restaurant aims to create a certain ambiance, and a part of that is to have all Asian staff. His refusal to hire blue-eyed Scandinavian types is probably not evidence of racism. “Morally relevant differences” are things like merit or need. If two employees put in for a promotion, and only one is promoted, it makes sense to explain that he has been with the company longer or that he has been faithful to the company or is always coming up with good ideas or has a more advanced college degree. It does not make sense to explain, “Well, he’s white and you’re not” (or vice versa). The Principle of Equality is, obviously, what immediately grounds the wrongness of racism. All instances of racism are violations of this principle, which, in turn, is a violation of the highest principle of Respect-for-Persons. The Principle of Equality also directly implies, I think, that hiring quotas and such that are based upon race are immoral. (This principle also has implications, I think, for our treatment of non-human animals. You see a guy torturing a cat. You attempt to intervene and tell him that what he is doing is wrong. He replies, “It is just a cat! It can’t think like us, nor can it talk!” The proper reply, I think, is that the ability to reason or speak is irrelevant here. The only relevant question to ask is, “Can it suffer?”) · Moral Responsibility. With some possible exceptions, people are responsible for their own characters and behaviors. We are not mere programmed by-products of our environments or our genes. When a family took a wrong turn down a Los Angeles street a few years ago, and they were surrounded by gang members who shot and killed their infant daughter, we cannot reasonably excuse the atrocity on the grounds that they grew up in bad circumstances. It is possible to know that “Killing babies is wrong,” regardless of the circumstances of your upbringing. This general conviction runs against the grain of current thought, which seeks either a gene or a set of extenuating circumstances—or some combination—that would explain and exonerate everything from infidelity (the “infidelity gene”) to pedophilia. There may well be exceptions, as in the case of mental illness. One is bewildered by the actions of a mother who systematically drowns her children, and it is tempting to think that only someone who is beyond the pale, mentally speaking, would do such a thing. But (and there are exceptions here as well, I suppose), holding someone responsible for their actions is consistent with acknowledging that, at the time of the behavior, they could not distinguish right from wrong. I follow Aristotle (and, I suppose, C.S. Lewis) here. It may be possible for me to make a series of incremental, consciously wrong actions, the cumulative effect of which is the creation of a vicious character and a muted conscience. I may be to blame for the fact that my conscience no longer speaks to me. · “Wickedness”. This is a corollary from the point above. Socrates said, “Knowledge is sufficient for virtue.” What he meant was that everyone always does whatever seems right to each. No one ever knowingly does what is wrong. The reason some people actually do the wrong thing is that they mistake the merely apparent right for the actual right. The “cure” for immorality proposed by Socrates was a “science of measurement,” that would allow people accurately to distinguish right from wrong. Accurate knowledge of that difference guarantees morally correct behavior—which is precisely the point of saying “knowledge is sufficient for virtue.” On Socrates’ theory, the difference between, say, Mother Theresa and Brian Nichols, is not ultimately moral in nature. Rather, it is a matter of what each knows, which is to say that the moral is reducible to the epistemological. Socrates’ theory is but one member of a large family of such theories of human behavior that would reduce the moral to the non-moral in one way or another. I believe that the moral differences between, say, Mother Theresa and say, Brian Nichols, are irreducibly moral in nature. It is not that Mother Theresa simply knows something that Nichols does not. Moral wrongdoing springs from a corrupt will, not a deficiency in one’s store of knowledge. Moral depravity is an irreducible category that resists analysis into something else. In short, there is such a thing as wickedness. Suppose that I see that doing something, like telling the truth in a certain situation, is what I ought morally to do, but it will not make me personally happy. A person of good moral character is willing to subordinate personal happiness to moral duty. A vicious person, on the other hand, places personal happiness over moral duty and will do the morally right thing only if it coincides with personal happiness. I believe the difference between two such characters is moral, and irreducibly so. And I am inclined to think that, far from what Socrates maintained, it is possible to be so depraved as to do the morally wrong thing simply because it is the morally wrong thing to do—even if there is nothing in particular to be gained from it. This is utter depravity of the sort that Milton ascribed to Satan, who is found saying, “Evil, be thou my good.” · “Do Not Judge.” Christ taught that we are not to “judge” others. This is popularly—and quite mistakenly—taken to mean that we are never to say of someone else that what they are doing is wrong or that they have a bad character. This interpretation is nonsense. If I am permitted to believe that some actions are right and that some character traits are virtues, then it follows from this that other actions are wrong and other character traits are vices. This interpretation turns Jesus into one of today’s shallow moral relativists. Rather, the command is not to play the role of God in, essentially, consigning the person to hell for their behavior. It is to refrain from the temptation to regard the person of bad behavior or character as worthless—a “waste of skin.” And this command follows from the Christian view of human dignity as created in God’s image, and the command to love unconditionally. C. S. Lewis offered a good insight on this in his BBC talks, which became the book Mere Christianity. He distinguished between a person’s “will” and the “raw material” that they have to work with. You may have been raised by loving parents, who administered just the right kind of discipline. Further, you might have been graced with a great set of genes. The result may be that being a basically decent person comes quite naturally and easily for you. I, on the other hand (quite contrary to fact) might have been raised in an abusive, alcoholic home where I was ill-treated in any number of ways. All of my role models may have been despicably dishonest cheats and scoundrels. Further, I might have physiologically-based tendencies toward anger and aggression. For me, just mustering that minimal level of moral behavior that amounts to “common decency” may require effort. In fact, what may be true is that if you, with your enviable “raw material” were to exert as much moral effort that it takes me just to be minimally decent, you would be a saint. (And it may well be that God will hold you accountable for not having exerted your will so as to employ your fortunate gifts in just such a way.) What none of us ever knows is the full truth about the relation between the will and the varying raw materials that each has to work with. And so no one is in a position to pass such judgment on others. muddle's blog | login to post comments
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