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\title {Central Themes in Philosophy \\ Lecture 08}

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Lecture 08:

Central Themes

[email protected]

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‘To count people as moral equals is to treat nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender as ‘morally irrelevant’---as irrelevant to that equal standing.

Of course, these factors properly enter into our deliberations in many contexts.

But the accident of being born a Sri Lankan, or a Jew, or a female, of an African-American, or a poor person, is just that---an accident of birth.

It is not ... a determinant of moral worth.

We should view the equal worth of all human beings as a regulative constraint on our political actions and aspirations’

\citep[p.~133]{nussbaum:1996_love}.

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 133

Nationality is a ‘morally irrelevant characteristic’,

\citep[p.~5]{nussbaum:1996_love}

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 5

giving

- money

If nationality is ethically irrelevant, I should give money where it will do most good, regardless of nationality.

This is a hard docrtine: in practice, it means as British resident, that I cannot give money to alleviate homelessness in my home town.

- time

Makes more sense to give it locally.

Why is this relevant?

our question was about moral relevance of nationality

conclusion

Recognising that nationality is morally irrelevant does not mean treating it as practically irrelevant.

loving

children, and fellow citizens

Nussbaum emphasises that things are typically best if we each devote our care to our own children rather than trying to love all children equally;

we may have similar views about fellow-citizens ...

does not justify harming others

But this is not to say that there is any justification for putting the lives of your own children over the lives of others.

In the English Patient (film), one character betrays the lives of many for the chance to save his lover. Some people think of this as a demonstration that loving can redeem even great wrong, that it is somehow ok to put thousands of lives at risk to save someone you love. But of course it is not.

I may love (and connect with) fellow citizens more than others, but this has no direct moral (as opposed to practical) relevance.

Why is this relevant?

conclusion

Recognising that nationality is morally irrelevant does not mean treating it as emotionally or practically irrelevant.

Nationality is a ‘morally irrelevant characteristic’,

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 5

Scarry’s Two Perspectives

\section{Scarry’s Two Perspectives}

Here are three arguments.

After I have presented them, I will ask you what the three arguments were.

‘The Difficulty of Imagining Other People’

It is difficult. Why is this relevant?

You want to say that nationality is morally irrelevant,

but ‘the work accomplished by a structure of laws

cannot be accomplished by

a structure of sentiment.

Constitutions are needed to uphold cosmopolitan values’

\citep[p.~110]{scarry:1996_difficulty}.

Scarry, 1996 p. 110

You want to say that nationality is morally irrelevant,

but people, individually and collectively,

are typically in a position of choosing between

national identities (e.g. Indian vs Hindu nationalism).

They are not chosing whether or not to adopt a national identity.

And some identities leave people more open to including others in the domain of concern than others.

Taylor, 1996

You want to say that nationality is morally irrelevant,

but activists who have transformed societies

have done so by working through national traditions (Burke, King).

‘solutions are not to be found in abstractions like cosmopolitan, but in renewal of our various intact moral communities’

McConnel, 1996 p. 84

‘To count people as moral equals is to treat nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender as ‘morally irrelevant’---as irrelevant to that equal standing.

Of course, these factors properly enter into our deliberations in many contexts.

But the accident of being born a Sri Lankan, or a Jew, or a female, of an African-American, or a poor person, is just that---an accident of birth.

It is not ... a determinant of moral worth.

We should view the equal worth of all human beings as a regulative constraint on our political actions and aspirations’

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 133

1. What are the three arguments just considered?

2. Do any of the three arguments show that your nationality is morally relevant?

two perspectives

Q1 : If nationality is morally irrelevant to how people of different nationalities should be treated or valued, what follows?

Q2 : Given how people actually are, given their moral psychology, given ‘the limits on imagining other people’, given the mechanisms through which change can be effected, how could we provide an ‘authorizing base for the ethical principle one wants to see enforced’?

Note that the caveats are not relevant to Q1.

These must be sharply distinguished. Q1 doesn't say I want to enforce my view on anyone else ... On the contrary, I recognise that others have different moral principles.

As long as we focus on the first question, the others are not relevant for us.

‘To count people as moral equals is to treat nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender as ‘morally irrelevant’---as irrelevant to that equal standing.

Of course, these factors properly enter into our deliberations in many contexts.

But the accident of being born a Sri Lankan, or a Jew, or a female, of an African-American, or a poor person, is just that---an accident of birth.

It is not ... a determinant of moral worth.

We should view the equal worth of all human beings as a regulative constraint on our political actions and aspirations’

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 133

So now we see that the issue as Nussbaum frames it is closer to Q1. My crude framing in terms of Is nationality morally irrelevant? is a distortion. We are better asking a different question.

Old Question (Bad)

Is nationality a ‘morally irrelevant characteristic’?

New Question (Better)

Is nationality morally irrelevant to how people of different nationalities should be treated or valued?

Against the Moral Irrelevance of Nationality

\section{Against the Moral Irrelevance of Nationality}

‘To count people as moral equals is to treat nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender as ‘morally irrelevant’---as irrelevant to that equal standing.

Of course, these factors properly enter into our deliberations in many contexts.

But the accident of being born a Sri Lankan, or a Jew, or a female, of an African-American, or a poor person, is just that---an accident of birth.

It is not ... a determinant of moral worth.

We should view the equal worth of all human beings as a regulative constraint on our political actions and aspirations’

Nussbaum, 1996 p. 133

In attempting to see what might be said for moral relevance, I think it is helpful to follow Appiah in distinguishing nation from state ...

Appiah : state vs nation

nation : ‘an imagined community of culture or ancestry running beyond the scale of the face-to-face and seeking political expression’

\citep[p.~27]{appiah:1996_love}

states : ‘regulate our lives through forms of coercion that will always require moral justification. State institutions ... are ... necessary to so many modern human purposes ... [T]o do its job the state has to have a monopoly on certain forms of authorized coercion’

\citep[p.~28]{appiah:1996_love}

Appiah, 1996 pp. 27--8

Some thing that although nations are ethically irrelevant, states are not ... you can see why one might ...

If this is their job, surely states cannot be ethically irrelevant.

Are states morally relevant?

Consider two kinds of justification for the claim that states are morally relevant ...

‘our obligations as democratic citizens go beyond our duties as politically unorganized individuals, because our capacity to act effectively to further justice increases when we are empowered as citizens, and so therefore does our responsibility to act to further justice’

\citep[p.~69]{gutman:1996_love}

Gutman, 1996 p. 69

Is either argument convincing?

Bok and Sen on Sidgwick’s Dilemma

\section{Bok and Sen on Sidgwick’s Dilemma}

Old Question (Bad)

Is nationality a ‘morally irrelevant characteristic’?

New Question (Better)

Is nationality morally irrelevant to how people of different nationalities should be treated or valued?

‘Henry Sidgwick took the contrast between [...] two perspectives to be so serious as to threaten any coherent view of ethics.

On one hand, he held as the fundamental principle of ethics “that another’s greater good is to be preferred to one’s own lesser good.” According to this principle, any sacrifice on one’s own part would be called for, so long as it could achieve a greater good for others, no matter where they lived.

On the other hand, Sidgwick also accepted what he called the common-sense view that our obligations to help others differ depending on the relationships in which we stand to them---relationships of family member, friend, neighbor, and fellow citizen.’

\citep[p.~40]{bok:1996_love}

Bok 1996, p. 40

Should we therefore reject the claim that nationality is ethically irrelevant after all?

For our purposes it doesn’t matter very much thanks to Sen.

The primary thing is to ‘bring everyone into the domain of concern, without eliminating anyone’. After doing that, we may find reason to give ‘additional weight to the interests of those who are linked to us in some significant way’ \citep[p.~114]{sen:1996_love}.

The primary thing is to ‘bring everyone into the domain of concern, without eliminating anyone’

After that, we may find reason to give ‘additional weight to the interests of those who are linked to us in some significant way’

Sen, 1996 p. 114

I’m not sure Sen’s reasoning for this

But the reasoning is less important than the conclusion.

recall the dilemma from Bok-Sidgwick ...

Can you see how Sen helps with the dilemma?

I think: there’s no real tension here at all. Obligations to help others do differ depending on citizenship; but the primary thing is obligations to people as people.

So the key here is that there is a ranking of things.

‘Henry Sidgwick took the contrast between [...] two perspectives to be so serious as to threaten any coherent view of ethics.

Bok 1996, p. 40

I started with this quote from Nussbaum. What I’m suggesting is that there’s something distracting about it: the question about whether or not nationality is morally irrelevant isn’t transformative or even that important (although it’s not without interest).

The transformative thought is Amartya Sen’s: we should ‘bring everyone into the domain of concern, without eliminating anyone’.

This is much less controversial

‘To count people as moral equals is to treat nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, race and gender and ‘morally irrelevant’---as irrelevant to that equal standing.

The transformative thought is Amartya Sen’s: we should ‘bring everyone into the domain of concern, without eliminating anyone’.

This is less controversial, but hardly less demanding (it requires us to act differently ...)

In fact, if Pogge is right (previous lecture), then this is something which citizens of affluent countries are failing to do.

We should ‘bring everyone into the domain of concern, without eliminating anyone’

Sen, 1996 p. 114

Keyboard Shortcuts?

Lecture 08:

Central Themes

[email protected]

Scarry’s Two Perspectives

Against the Moral Irrelevance of Nationality

Bok and Sen on Sidgwick’s Dilemma

Keyboard Shortcuts`?`