Problems for Democracy (Value Inquiry Book)

PROBLEMS FOR DEMOCRACY

VIBS Volume 181 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Peter A. Redpath Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno Mary-Rose Barral Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Harvey Cormier Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon William Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling

Matti Häyry Steven V. Hicks Richard T. Hull Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Adrianne McEvoy Alan Milchman Alan Rosenberg Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Anne Waters John R. Welch Thomas Woods

a volume in Philosophy of Peace POP William Gay, Editor

PROBLEMS FOR DEMOCRACY

Edited by

John Kultgen and

Mary Lenzi

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN-10: 90-420-2060-1 ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2060-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in the Netherlands

Philosophy of Peace (POP) William C. Gay Editor

Other Titles in POP Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan, eds. From the Eye of the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace. 1995. VIBS 29 Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove, eds. Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination: Theories and Practices. 1997. VIBS 49 HPP (Hennie) Lötter. Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa. 1997. VIBS 56 Deane Curtin and Robert Litke, eds. Institutional Violence. 1999. VIBS 88 Judith Presler and Sally J. Scholz, eds. Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future. 2000. VIBS 105 Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, eds. Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace. 2002. VIBS 127 Nancy Nyquist Potter, ed. Putting Peace into Practice: Evaluating Policy on Local and Global Levels. 2004. VIBS 164

Assistant Editors of POP Joseph C. Kunkel Judith Presler

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In loving memory of our fathers, John Kultgen, veteran of the First World War, 23 February 1897–7 March 1986, and Armand Lenzi, veteran of the Second World War, 12 September 1914–15 January 1999.

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CONTENTS Editorial Foreword Judith Presler

xiii

Preface John Kultgen

xvii

Acknowledgments John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi

xxiii

Introduction

PART ONE

Is There a Connection between Democracy and Peace? Discussion with Donald A. Wells, Ronald J. Glossop, Beth J. Singer, and Mary Lenzi 1. Donald A. Wells 2. Ronald J. Glossop 3. Beth J. Singer 4. Mary Lenzi Divisions in Society and Obstacles to Democratic Discourse

Introduction

1 1 3 5 8 19 21

One

Semiotics of Meaninglessness: Cornel West’s Explication of Inner-City Nihilism Ron Hirschbein and Jason Suppus 23 1. Struggle to Understand Inner-City Gangs 23 2. Varieties of Nihilistic Experience 25

Two

Moral Pessimism and the Ideals of Democracy Howard Harriott 1. Moral Pessimists’ Viewpoint 2. Moral Pessimism and the Legacy of Slavery 3. Governmental Action and Moral Pessimism 4. Hope Amidst Moral Pessimism 5. Overcoming the Societal Problem 6. Overcoming the Legacy of Slavery

33 33 35 37 38 39 40

x Three

Four

Five

PART TWO

CONTENTS South African Democracy, Multi-Culturalism, Rights, and Community Edward Sankowski 1. Liberalism and Communitarianism 2. South African Politics 3. Multi-Culturalism in South Africa 4. Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Multi-Culturalism

45 46 47 50 56

Exploring Problems of Democracy with Perspectives of Jürgen Habermas and Zen Buddhism Gilburt Goffstein 1. Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action 2. Psychoanalytic, Feminist, and Post-Modern Concerns 3. Exploring the Zen-Habermas Interplay

61 61 67 73

Hiroshima, Morality, and Democracy Jerald Richards 1. Two Narratives 2. The Bombing and Its Consequences 3. Early Criticism—Moral Issues 4. Official Hiroshima Narrative 5. Challenging the Official Hiroshima Narrative: Enola Gay Script and Its Fate 6. Moral Issues Revisited 7. Hiroshima, Democratic Processes, and Democratic Values 8. Grounds for Hope Public Participation in Political and Economic Processes

Introduction Six

83 83 84 86 87 89 90 95 96 101 103

Democracy in Market Economies William C. Gay 1. Separation of Democratic Principles from the Economic Sphere 2. Extending Democracy to the Economic Sphere 3. Actual Models and Practices of Economic Democracy 4. Economic Democracy and Justice

105 106 108 110 114

Contents Seven

Eight

Nine Ten

xi

Political Equality and the Independent Power of Private Property Thomas Christiano 1. Illustration 2. Main Issue 3. Equalities 4. General Analysis 5. Undermining Democratic Aims 6. Exercise of Property Rights Can Violate Political Equality 7. Political Equality, Power, and Deference 8. Actions of Capitalists as a Natural Force 9. Democratic Creation of the Market 10. Imposition of Unreasonable Demands 11. Natural Right to Property 12. Puzzle About Liberalism

126 127 130 131 133 134 136

Rights and Affirmative Action Beth J. Singer 1. The Problem 2. Bakke and Equal Protection 3. Equal Protection and Rights 4. Reverse Discrimination 5. Implementation

139 139 140 142 144 145

The Procedural Republic Judith Presler

149

Living Democracy Despite the Rule of Law: Civil Disobedience as Political Narrative Matthew Silliman 1. Conscience and Revolution 2. Law

159 159 162

119 120 122 122 124 126

PART THREE Democracy and Routes to Peace

169

Introduction

171

Eleven Twelve

Unnecessary Suffering and Superfluous Injury Donald A. Wells

173

Exclusion of Soldiers from War-Making Decisions Brian Luke 1. Subjection of the Conscientious Objector 2. Rejecting Claims of Selective Objectors 3. Advocating Exemptions for Selective Objectors

189 190 194 195

CONTENTS

xii

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Epilogue

Recursive Metaphysics Is Bad for Democracy Ali Errishi 1. Recursive Metaphysics 2. Distinction Between Secularism and Theocracy 3. Whence Comes Recursive Naturalism? 4. Al-Ghazali’s and Kant’s Critiques of Recursive Metaphysics 5. Recursivist Challenge to Democracy

212 214

Toward a Reformulation of the Doctrine of Pacifism Andrew Kelley 1. Peace, Politics, and Morality 2. Pacifism and Act-Based Moral Theories 3. Virtue-Based Ethics as the Foundation for Pacifism 4. Pacifism and Democracy

219 219 220 223 226

Gandhi and Dewey: Education for Peace Gregory P. Fields 1. Philosophies of Education 2. Education and Peace 3. Peace Education Initiatives Derivable from Gandhi and Dewey 4. Education for Peace at Elementary and Secondary Levels 5. Education for Peace in Colleges and Universities 6. Education, Peace, and Social Health Philosophy, Peace, and Problems for Democracy Mary Lenzi 1. Philosophy a nd Politics 2. Personalizing Politics 3. Punditocracy and Pop Culture

201 201 205 209

229 231 236 237 238 239 239 245 245 246 247

Bibliography

249

About the Contributors

261

Index

267

EDITORIAL FOREWORD Problems for democracy abound. In the United States, we notice these problems in our daily lives, when lascivious spam bombards our email in-boxes; in our weekly lives, when our newspapers report the abductions of children by convicted sex offenders; and, upon occasion, when terrorists attack our citizenry. The freedom guaranteed by our democracy seems to open the gates to attacks upon our sanctity and our security. On the other hand, proposed governmental regulations to prevent further attacks seem to threaten our freedom. Our freedom is in tension with our safety. Our Constitution specifically affirms our ideal of freedom through guaranteeing us equality and rights. The liberal foundations of our political system entail not only freedom, equality and rights, but also inherent limits upon our freedom, insistence that equality extends to all, and obligations conjoined to our rights. If we are all free, then we must respect the freedom each other. If we are truly equal, no one is better than anyone else. If we all have rights, then we must respect the rights of each other. The ultimate foundation of this freedom, this equality, and these rights is a shared conception of morality. The criteria of the extent of our freedom, as well as the morally justified limitations upon our freedom required to protect the freedom of each, come from this morality. Our conception of human nature that necessitates the ideal that we are all equal to one another comes from this morality. The conception of the rights to which we are entitled and the obligations to which we are bound comes from this morality. As our Constitution represents ideals of freedom, equality, and rights for all, the foundational morality represents ideal of human character and action. The authors in this volume, members of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace, present alternate viewpoints about the interpretation and application of that foundational moral conception. They write in response to the problems that have arisen recently in the life of democratic polities (especially, but not exclusively, the United States) and the institutions within these polities. The authors in this volume are political philosophers. Thus, many of their reflections address foundational questions concerning political order. The authors in this volume are ethical philosophers. Thus, many of their reflections address the moral foundations of democracy and peace. Writers in this volume advance alternate interpretations of the moral foundation of our liberal democracy, they advance differing accounts of the implications of that foundation for social, political, and economic order. These implications concern education, affirmative action, multi-culturalism, private property, civil disobedience, community, and military service among others. They advance differing accounts of the implications of that foundation for international relations, particularly as concerns war and peace. The concerned philosophers for peace, in their writings and in their discussions and arguments with one another, in their teaching and their civic discourse, participate in what John Stuart Mill regards as the most essential

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guardian of our liberty—the free and active exercise of thought and discussion. He says in Chapter Two of On Liberty that the preponderance among humankind of rational opinions and rational conduct is “owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of everything respectable” in us, either as intellectual or as moral beings, to rectify our mistakes by discussion and experience.1 These discussions—entailing disagreement about the interpretation and application of our principles; varying understandings of democracy; argument and counter-argument concerning freedom, equality, and rights—these are the most efficacious ways to keep us free and equal, and progressing toward the as yet incompletely realized ideals of our Constitution and its moral foundation. Mill tells us why we must be open to discussion, examination, and disputation concerning our ideals, even if they are completely true, even if anyone completely understands them, when he says: First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collisions of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction from reason or personal experience.2 While freedom, equality, and rights entail problems, particularly threats to our safety and security, the moral superiority of a political system that supports freedom, equality, and rights is unquestionable, particularly one such as ours that permits free thought and discussion, though our political system, perhaps, does not encourage it as much as it should. The Concerned Philosophers for Peace are among those in this democratic republic who—by their example, teaching, and writing—exercise and promote the rights of freedom of thought and freedom of discussion. Tyrannies prohibit rights, equality, and freedom—particularly the freedom of expression—but provide even less safety to their citizens than liberal democracies. So, whatever its dangers may be, a democratic republic most successfully guarantees our freedom to pursue truth and human flourishing and even our sanctity and safety.

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John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi have labored to provide an excellent representation of the free and thoughtful discussion of the problems of democracy, in order not to threaten our republic but to strengthen it. It is a discussion in which they participated fully both at conferences of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace and in their editing of this volume. Judith Presler Assistant Editor, Philosophy of Peace NOTES 1. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, The Library of Liberal Arts (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956), pp. 24–25. 2. Ibid., p. 64.

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PREFACE John Kultgen The chapters in this volume were developed from papers presented at an annual conference of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace (CCP), held in Columbia, Missouri. After lively and extensive discussion and criticism, the papers were reworked so as to fit into a coherent treatment of the conference theme, Problems for Democracy. CPP is an organization of professional philosophers banded together to seek avenues to lasting peace. The members share a number of convictions. Two of the most basic are that the peaceful resolution of conflict is almost always better than violence, and peace with justice is not only immeasurably better, but more stable and lasting, than peace bought by injustice. The two convictions do not rest easily with one another. At times it seems that the only way to achieve peace is to tolerate or inflict injustice. At times we seemed forced to choose between peaceful or just resolutions of conflicts, between acting nonviolently or acting fairly. In view of this unhappy fact about human social interaction, much of the effort of CPP is devoted to a search for nonviolent ways to achieve justice and, through justice, to lay the foundations for (to use Immanuel Kant’s famous term) perpetual peace. The present condition of the world is one of uneasy peace among the major powers repeatedly disturbed by vicious regional conflicts. Ours is a world in which peoples and groups are not accustomed to treat each other routinely with respect and decency, a world in which injustice seems the norm in both international and intranational affairs. In such a world the absence of armed conflict is only armistice, not genuine peace. In view of the horrors of modern warfare, now magnified to almost fatal dimensions, the need to lay foundations for a stable and permanent peace is urgent. We must use every acceptable means at our disposal to do so. But what means are acceptable? Some members of CPP are pacifists. They believe that any resort to violence or the threat of violence is morally wrong. The struggle for justice must take an entirely nonviolent form. Other members of CPP believe that violence is justified on rare occasions as a last resort to prevent or rectify grave injustices. They recognize nevertheless that violence is intrinsically bad and almost always the least desirable among the ways available to pursue legitimate objectives. Whether pacifists or reluctant just warriors, therefore, all of the members of CPP are committed to the search for nonviolent ways to protect and extend justice and promote other humane values. The Concerned Philosophers for Peace are united in the search for foundations for peace in the world. The paths that the search has followed have been determined by the fact that practices at every level of society affect those at every other. The nonviolent and just resolution of conflicts among nations both presupposes and fosters nonviolent and just resolution of conflicts among

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groups within nations, between persons in their private lives, and even within the psyches of individual persons. In light of this, the conferences of CPP and the volumes of the Philosophy of Peace Special Series (POP) of the Value Inquiry Books Series have dealt not only with issues of war and peace among nations, but with conflict, nonviolence, and justice in their multifarious forms at all levels of life. This volume of POP deals with problems for democracy. What specifically do the problems for democracy have to do with peace and justice? Many people assume that there is an intimate connection between democracy and peace. They believe that democracies are peace-loving and that democratic processes are nonviolent by nature. They are wont to say: “Democracies do not start wars. Democracies settle disputes by debate and vote, not by force and intimidation. Of course strengthening democracy promotes peace.” Unfortunately it is not possible to prove that democratic institutions are either a necessary or a sufficient condition for peace. Or perhaps we should say, “fortunately,” because the future would be bleak if very much rode on the proposition. If democracy is necessary for peace, peace is unlikely, since it is improbable that real democracy will take hold throughout the world any time in the foreseeable future. In recent years notable examples of democratization of political forms have taken place, but their number has been limited and their long-term survival remains in doubt. Elsewhere there have been lapses into dictatorship and oligarchy; and even in democracies, the economic, religious, educational, and other institutions remain profoundly undemocratic, and limit the effectiveness of political democracy. The few institutions that have flirted with democracy have been exceptions that show the way, but have not led other institutions along the same path. Let us hope, then, that worldwide democracy and thoroughly democratic institutions are not necessary for peace. If they are, genuine and lasting peace will remain a remote dream, and catastrophe will probably befall us long before it comes true. On the other hand, the notion that universal democracy would be sufficient to guarantee peace is clearly false. The mere fact that all members of a group participate in group decisions does not insure that the decisions will be wise. The majority is quite capable of acting from ignorance, misinformation, prejudice, self-deception, self-interest, greed, envy, resentment, and the other forms of human irrationality and venality that lead persons to resort to violence. As for justice, minority rights are a chronic problem under any form of majority rule. Uninformed and intemperate majorities act as unfairly and bellicosely as conspiratorial minorities. Democracies as well as autocracies rush into unjust wars and succumb to the temptation to use unjust means even when their cause is just, as shown by the dreary stories of imperialism and exploitation in the nineteenth century and mass slaughter and massive carnage in the twentieth. However, it is not necessary to show world democracy is either a necessary or sufficient condition for peace to justify efforts to extend democracy and find ways for democracies to solve pressing social problems. The chapters in

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this volume are based on the weaker premise that democracy promotes peace and justice and that democratic institutions offer the best hope for moving the nations of the world toward genuine peace. If effective mechanisms are to be developed for the nonviolent resolution of conflicts, they are likely to be democratic in character and they most certainly will have to be reached by democratic processes. While democracies have had their share of squalid moments in the twentieth century, they do seem to have been less prone to military aggression than their totalitarian adversaries. They do have a better record than dictatorships. Unfortunately, this does not say a great deal. The better has not been good enough to insure lasting peace or widespread justice. Moreover, we must realize that the intuitions behind the tepid claim that democracies are less aggressive than dictatorships are shaped by the ideologies of an imperfect society. Our national agents conceal their more shady acts behind a façade of moralistic hypocrisy and self-righteousness, and have often had ulterior motives for entering what they passed off as wars against injustice and oppression. If we are to defend democracy, we had better not try to justify everything that the United States and other Western democracies have done in the name of peace, justice, or democracy. We had better think in terms of the kind of democracy that our country might become through the kinds of effort advocated by the chapters in this volume and of how a perfected democracy would promote these noble aims. Despite two world wars and numerous lesser ones, the actors on the world scene remain prone to resort to arms under slight provocation. Even in a violence-free world it would not be easy to resist the temptation to use violence to get our way. In the actual world rife with violence, it is extremely hard or––the realist would say––impossible. Whether the temptation to violence is hard or impossible to resist, democracies have failed to do so with distressing frequency. Non-democratic societies have no monopoly on the use of violence in unjust causes and in unjust ways. However, people who associate democracy with peace may have in mind the practices of ideal democracy rather than the historical behavior of actual imperfect democracies. The chapters in this volume are not devoted to the easy task of showing that a world of ideal democracies would be more peaceful than a world of aristocracies or meritocracies or other forms of minority governance. They are rather concerned with the way actual societies run and the harder task of determining what must be done to make them run better. Notions of ideal democracy are at work in identifying problems, and the directions in which actual democracies must move to solve them. To put the concrete proposals in place and determine their rationales, we must call to mind some of the features of ideal democracy. In a true and full democracy, all mature citizens would participate in major decisions that commit the whole group to courses of action. They would be well informed and rational: they would have the relevant facts at their disposal and they would draw logical inferences from them. Furthermore, they would adhere to a common morality, an articulated schedule of values, and a realistic set of priorities for community

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action, and thus have a normative basis for concerted action. Their passions would be sufficiently under control for them to make rational decisions about how to pursue common goals and stick to those decisions in the arduous process of putting them into action. They would operate under a set of institutions that, on the one hand, would provide them the information and opportunity to deliberate and make rational decisions and, on the other, would insure that the will of the majority would be put into effect through the laws, policies, and directives formulated by their leaders and representatives. It does not take a leap of faith to think that decisions made in the ideal, truly democratic society would be more geared to the common good than decisions reached by other forms of society. At the least, the prospect of wise policy decisions in a perfected democracy is sufficiently favorable to justify efforts to improve the democracy we have, including direct efforts to remove obstacles to democratic processes and indirect efforts to strengthen them by facilitating democratic solutions to problems of peace, justice, and welfare. The chapters in this volume address two sorts of problem, those connected with the development of truly democratic institutions and those connected with the realization of peace, welfare, and justice through democratic processes. That is, the chapters address problems for achieving democracy and problems that a democracy must solve to justify its existence once it is achieved. Problems of the first sort face not only societies that aspire to become democracies, but those that have adopted democratic forms of government but have not democratized their institutions all the way through. In every society powerful forces stand to lose from the involvement of the community in group decisions. These forces do not go away when democratic forms are adopted. Even democracies face the permanent challenge to make their political institutions work and extend democratic processes throughout society. Effort is required not only to bring democracy to life, but to keep it alive and make its processes function effectively. Problems of the second sort, the substantive problems that democracies must solve, include provision for their citizens of useful employment, personal liberties, protection against misfortune, just treatment, and reliable peace and order. The challenge to meet these needs is not peculiar to democracy; it must be met at some minimal level by any form of society if it is to endure. The raison d’être of social institutions is the benefits they bring to those who are subject to their constraints. If the institutions of a democracy do not benefit its members as well as some alternative set, it is only rational to jettison democracy. Time and again since Greek times, democracy has been tried, found wanting, and replaced by more autocratic forms. Thus democratic institutions are permanently on trial. To defend democracy, it is not enough to argue the superiority of democratic institutions in abstract terms. We must show how it can solve social problems that confront real democracies here and now. The two kinds of problem for democracy are intimately related. We value democratic practices because they provide the best mechanism for solving so-

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cial problems of peace, justice, and welfare; and obstacles to democracy are obstacles to solving the problems. In turn, failure to solve such problems throws democratic practices into question, and obstacles to the solution of the problems are obstacles to democracy. Hence we who believe in democracy must address both sorts of problems. We must do our best to make our democracy more democratic and we must do our best to see that it solves major social problems through democratic procedures. While each of the present chapters focuses on one sort of problem or the other, all have something to say about both. The ideals of Concerned Philosophers for Peace may be summed in the slogan, “Peace, peace with justice, peace through justice.” The authors of the chapters in this volume assume that democracy promotes justice and, through it, peace, and that peace and justice provide conditions hospitable to democracy. The authors believe that democracy is valuable not only instrumentally, as the most rational way to address the problems of society, but intrinsically, in giving people a say in their own destiny. Promoting democracy is justified in its own right as well as in providing the best prospect for the solution of social problems. The emphasis in the chapters, however, is instrumental. It is on how to achieve justice and lasting peace through democratic processes. Following an introductory transcription of remarks about the relation between democracy and peace that were presented by a panel of speakers at the Columbia conference, the chapters are presented in three groups. The first is devoted to problems in achieving the kind of open and rational discourse necessary to reach truly democratic decisions in a society divided by race, ethnicity, religion, economic standing, and other factors. The second group of chapters is devoted to ways to make economic and political institutions function more democratically. The last group of chapters is devoted to the connection, or lack of connection, between democracy and peace. The volume ends with an epilogue.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi We wish to thank Joseph C. Kunkel, former Editor of the Philosophy of Peace series, who brought us together to edit this volume and provided us guidance. We wish to thank, as well, William C. Gay, present Editor of the series, and Judith Presler, Assistant Editor, for their editorial advice. They all have been a pleasure to work with and an indispensable source of expertise. We also would like to thank the College of Arts and Science and the Friends of Peace Studies at University of Missouri-Columbia for funds for the conference at which the papers were first presented, and the Research Board of the University of Missouri and the Graduate Research Council of the University of Missouri-Columbia for grants for the preparation of the volume. Finally, we wish to thank the members of Concerned Philosophers for Peace who reviewed the final essays for the volume. According to protocol they must remain anonymous. Mary Lenzi wishes to thank her colleagues at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Betsy Postow and Kathleen Bohstedt, for their support: Postow for agreeing on little notice to review and improve Lenzi’s commentary on democracy and peace; Bohstedt, for her ongoing support and interest in Lenzi’s career. As former head of Lenzi’s department, Bohstedt not only provided Lenzi a private office and computer, but a continuing part-time position in philosophy. On a personal note, Lenzi also wishes to say that she owes her sense of justice and love to her mother, father, and five siblings. Her home was filled with political talk at the dinner table, which turned her and her siblings into life-long political activists and writers. She also expresses her love for her boys, John Lenzi Thompson and Armand Lenzi Thompson, for being themselves, and for the joy they bring to her life of juggling career with home life. John Kultgen would like to thank his colleagues in the Philosophy Department of the University of Missouri-Columbia for their help in arranging the Concerned Philosophers for Peace conference and screening the papers that were presented at it. On a personal note, he would say much of the same about his family that Lenzi says about hers. A loving family has provided both the emotional support to carry through an exacting project and, in this case, a special reason for doing so, since the project concerns matters critical for human survival. The Dedication we have made of the volume reflects our family feelings. Both our fathers loyally served their country in the armed services, one in the First World War and the other in the Second World War. Veterans they were, but the experience, rather than making them militaristic, helped them to see war for the scourge that it is and to desire fervently that it be eliminated from the human world once for all. We owe to them our own dedication to the most important of all missions.

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INTRODUCTION IS THERE A CONNECTION BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND PEACE? Discussion with Donald A. Wells, Ronald J. Glossop, Beth J. Singer, and Mary Lenzi The Concerned Philosophers for Peace conference on Problems for Democracy included a panel discussion of whether and in what ways democratization of government and other institutions promotes peace. What follows are the introductory remarks of the panelists, with a separate commentary at the end. Donald A. Wells raised the question whether forms of government or political ideologies have played a role in making nations warlike. The burden of proof is on those who think there is a causal connection between, on the one hand, the absence of democracy and bellicosity and, on the other hand, the presence of democracy and a preference for nonviolent resolutions of conflicts. He shows that there is no tight connection, for many democracies have had a predilection for war and many less warlike nations have been non-democratic. Neither Ronald J. Glossop nor Beth J. Singer maintained that democratic institutions are sufficient to make a nation peacemaking, but they were convinced that democratic processes are our only hope for bringing bellicose nations into a social and political framework that has a chance of putting an end to war. They argued that democratic processes must not be confined to the political sphere. Democratic processes must predominate in all of the major institutions of society and permeate the attitudes and way of life of its members, if democratic institutions are to have a positive, peacemaking impact upon nations. 1. Donald A. Wells The question before us is whether, given the plethora of wars in human history, political, economic, religious, or cultural commitments have predisposed some nations to go to war more readily than others. It is part of the popular mythology that some nations are warlike. Both Germany and Japan were accused at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials of crimes against the peace, based on the size of their military budgets and their commitment to pursue primarily military solutions to their problems. The Allies, on the other hand, insisted that they were not like that. Part of the presumption was that democracy did not dispose nations to war. The Allies claimed in addition that the wars they did fight were defensive rather than aggressive. This bit of sophistry was without empirical support. Scholars have investigated the thesis that warlikeness is peculiar to some kinds of political system, and their results do not support the claim. Hoffman

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Nickerson concludes that democracies have fought both more wars, and more deadly ones, than so-called dictatorships.1 He attributes this to two democratic tendencies: universal conscription and the penchant to fanaticize national patriotism. On the other hand, Lewis F. Richardson claims to have found no relationship between the politics and the tendency to warlikeness of nations, although he does conclude that politically strong nations have fought more wars than politically weak ones.2 Gaston Bodart is convinced that France has been the most warlike nation of modern times.3 While his conclusion is not based simply on war deaths, he did note that between 1792 and 1914 France had lost three million soldiers to war. On a somewhat trivial note, Richardson observes that countries where Chinese was the major language have fought the fewest wars, while those nations where Spanish was the primary language have fought the most. Frederick Adams Woods and Alexander Baltzly find evidence that between 1450 and 1900 the European nations spent about 48 percent of their time at war and 52 percent at peace.4 Between 1500 and 1700 Spain was at war 78 percent of the time and between 1700 and 1900 about 51 percent of the time. The nearest competitor for this dubious record was Turkey, which was at war 85 percent of the time between 1500 and 1700 and about 30 percent of the time between 1700 and 1900. But does any of this suggest that some nations are predisposed to be warlike, especially since the number of wars has increased? Richardson concludes that there is no evidence to suggest that the incidence of wars is either increasing or decreasing, although he does estimate that since 1820 the number of large wars had increased while the number of small wars had decreased.5 On the other hand, Bodart claims that the number of wars has markedly increased while the number of years at war has decreased.6 Prior to the Second World War, most wars in modern times were fought in Europe. Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Neuman observe that since that time most have been fought in third world countries.7 Of the 150 conflicts since the end of the Second World War, 95 percent have been in the Third World. Most of these have been low-intensity conflicts because they did not use massive war weapons. Commonly they were fought without aerial or naval support and the weapons were the so-called small arms. The recent wars in Central and South America and in Africa may be considered to be lowintensity wars. Similarly, the forty-five or so United States forays against neighbors to its south probably qualify in this category. When we assess current United States conflicts, it is difficult to determine what aspect of our political, economic, religious, or social systems played a causal role. At a very minimum, we might suggest that since nations go to war for a variety of reasons, a variety of antecedents have probably been influential. In addition to the more than forty-five times the United States has invaded another nation since the end of the Second World War, the conservative Brookings Institute listed 217 additional armed forays instigated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and over a dozen CIA inspired attempts to assassinate a foreign leader.

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Does our political system bring these about? Do we blame these acts on greedy capitalism, the way we might in explaining why United States leaders promoted NAFTA and GATT? What should we conclude about the reasons for the Soviet and United States invasions of Afghanistan, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, the French role in Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the United States invasions of Iraq? How do we explain the United States’ desire to police the world? Some of current United States policing roles may be a result of a search for power, as may well be the primary factor in the United States led push to expand NATO. In the case of promoting NATO, economic factors may have been less influential than the desire for political power, a power denied the United States in the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations. Some may be motivated by economic greed. But what political, social, or religious ideologies have been factors? One of the areas where we might expect democratic nations to behave a notch above those more dictatorial nations is in the manufacture and sale of the weapons of war. The data are not helpful. How can we account for the fact that the United States leads the world in arms manufacture and sales as well as in general preparation for future wars? Indeed the major arms nations are the big five in the Security Council. Long before Columbus, European nations conquered less sophisticated countries by armed force. A vast colonial system was in place by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Many of these European nations were relatively benign monarchies, and democratic processes were well established. It does not appear that the political systems of these nations had much influence in motivating them to colonial conquest, compared with the economic incentives to possess rich natural resources. Nations have always given themselves less tawdry motives for colonial expansion, and the British assumption of the white man’s burden has a contemporary relevance in the current United States role as the democratic policeman of a world otherwise at the mercy of evil nations and terrorists. Even in so obvious a case of economic greed as the Gulf War, a war for control of oil, the United States attributed its armed aggression to more elevated motives, including saving beleaguered Kuwait from blatant Iraqi invasion. The motives for United States armed involvement in Vietnam, Korea, Panama, Nicaragua, or Bosnia were probably not the same as those leading to involvement in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the 2003 War in Iraq. Furthermore, it is not obvious that our political system had as much to do with our involvement as our economic system did. As a nation on whose far-flung military the sun never sets, we are in a vulnerable position to cast pacifist stones. 2. Ronald J. Glossop A democratic political system is the alternative to war, that is, to determining by force what group or party will determine policies for the larger group or community. The essence of the democratic system is having the ruled choose

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their rulers by voting rather than by a violent contest between contenders using physical force. By implementing the political system of democracy, we humans are seeking to impose a rational order on the non-rational way of nature, which typically promotes a hierarchical order based on a violent struggle for dominance. Although elections are the necessary condition for a democratic political system, there are many other requirements. For example, the voters must be informed about the policies potential leaders will follow, and they must be educated about history and politics and economics so that they have the requisite background information to vote intelligently. It is important to have an appropriate system for determining who can be a candidate in the election. Also, as John Dewey often indicated, it is not only the political system that allows more or less participation in decision making by those who are ruled, but also other institutions such as schools, families, business organizations, and religious institutions. We should realize that a society is not either completely democratic or completely nondemocratic, but that there are degrees of being democratic. In the United States, the main challenge to our democratic political system is how to prevent the voting system from being influenced too much by economic power, power that is used to control the flow of information to voters as well as to control who can become candidates for political office. On the issue of the relation between democracy and justice, we need to recognize that there are different fundamental views about justice. One view, the leftist view usually emphasized by the poor and oppressed, is that justice means equality. The basic argument to support this leftist view is to note how much our lives are determined by factors over which we have no control––factors such as when and where we are born, what sex or race we are, what talents or disabilities we have, and what lucky events or disasters befall us. But there are other views about justice. A second view, the rightist view, is that some people deserve more than others because they contribute more. The basic argument to support this rightist view is that people are naturally lazy and that if there are no rewards for hard work and excellence, there will soon be no hard work and excellence, and the whole society will be worse off. A third view, the procedural view of justice, is that there are rules to be followed as people compete with each other for limited goods and status, and that people should be able to keep whatever they gain while following the rules. In our own society, our leftist democratic political system (everyone has one vote) is in tension with our rightist capitalistic economic system (get as much as you can). Our society thrives when these opposing tensions are kept in the right balance with each other, but at this moment in history it seems that economic power is being too readily converted into political power, thus undermining the balance that we need both within our country and within the world. The key to understanding how democracy promotes peace is to realize how the voting system permits nonviolent change to take place. If enough

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people do not like what their present rulers are doing, they can vote them out of office in the next election. They do not need to resort to assassination or violent revolution. They can rely on rational argumentation and the votes of the majority. If candidates do not win a given election, they can try to win the next election. When nonviolent change has been made possible, violent change is made unnecessary and will be universally condemned. Finally, I want to note why we need to have political democracy at the global level, that is, why we need a democratic federal world government. First we need to put an end to war and militarism, both between countries and within countries. When peaceful change in policies is possible at the global level, assassination and terrorism and violent revolution and war between countries and within countries will become unnecessary. Second, we need a democratic global political system to serve as a check on economic power within the world system. The gap between the rich and the poor is too great, and that global gap is having a negative impact even on the distribution of wealth within our own country. Third, we need a democratic global political system to address global problems such as the depletion of the ozone layer. We need to control the exploitation of new resources in the oceans, in Antarctica, and in outer space. We need to be able to deal with potential natural disasters, such as a collision with a large meteorite. Fourth, we need a democratic global political system to define and protect the human rights of all persons, especially those of minorities (and at the global level, every group is a minority). We certainly cannot claim that we have a completely successful democracy in this country or in the world. We cannot say that we have achieved a totally just and peaceful society in our country or in the world. But I think we can say that we are closer than we were 500 years ago or 200 years ago or 100 years ago. Consequently, despite current difficulties I am optimistic about the long-term future of democracy and justice and peace in our country and in our world. 3. Beth J. Singer Genuine peace is peace not only among governments, but among peoples. I take the essence of peaceful relations to be the same at both levels. It is what I have called “dialogic reciprocity,” which I take to be the heart of the democratic process and essential to social justice.8 Democracy is a political system. Glossop asserts that politics is just like war except that it is nonviolent. I agree that politics, including democratic politics, can be like war; we have only to follow the news from Washington to verify this. But politics of this sort, the struggle for power, is not democracy in the sense that I intend, a sense close to that which Dewey distinguishes from the formal political system and calls “democracy as a way of life.” Dewey writes,

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WELLS, GLOSSOP, SINGER, and LENZI The keynote of democracy as a way of life may be expressed, it seems to me, as the necessity for the participation of every mature human being in formation of the values that regulate the living of men together, which is necessary from the standpoint of both the general social welfare and the full development of human beings as individuals.

He goes on to say: Democratic political forms are simply the best means that human wit has devised up to a special time in history. But they rest back upon the idea that no man or limited set of men is wise enough or good enough to rule others without their consent; the positive meaning of this statement is that all those who are affected by social institutions must have a share in producing and managing them. 9 The “moral criterion” by which Dewey would evaluate social institutions and political measures is whether they “set free individual capacities in such a way as to make them available for the development of the general happiness or the common good.”10 The kind of party politics to which most of us are accustomed is a system in which, as David Miller says, rather than being dedicated to the formation of common values, the general happiness, or the common good, “individuals are expected to act instrumentally in pursuit of their [own] interests rather than to search for common ends.”11 Like Dewey, George Herbert Mead sees democracy as a form of social life rather than only a form of government, but he interprets this in terms of his own theory of community and communication. Linking the concept to that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “general will” and his own “attitude of the generalized other,” Mead says that “democracy, in the sense here relevant, is an attitude,” one “which goes with the universal relations of brotherhood” and in terms of which every individual would “stand on the same level with every other,” an attitude that he believes to be shared by what he terms “the universal religions.” In the sphere of politics, this attitude “can get its expression only in such a form as that of democracy.” The kind of politics to which most of us who live in formally democratic states are accustomed is the “hostile” sort that Mead associates with party politics. 12 It is participation in much the same sense that Dewey intends and in which, as Mead would have it, everyone stands at the same level that I refer to as dialogic reciprocity and associate with democracy. Miller develops a concept of politics as dialogue that is in some ways comparable to this.13 I define dialogic reciprocity as the expression in communication and interaction of mutual respect for the autonomy and authority of all participants. That is, each of the parties involved must be given a voice and granted a respectful hearing (authority) and each must be entitled to express independent (autonomous) judgments. Beyond this, all the judgments offered are open to joint, critical consideration by all the participants. Coordinate with this view, I maintain

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that not only personal autonomy and authority but also those of groups and communities ought to be respected as rights. As a way of resolving conflicts, the goal of this democratic dialogue is agreement on the conditions of continuing relations among those involved. But if they are to serve to establish and perpetuate peace, those conditions must not only be the result of dialogue; they must themselves be the subject matter of ongoing dialogue and understood to be subject to revision. Thus, strictly speaking, dialogic reciprocity is both the method and the goal of the peace process. The operation of this principle in international peacemaking entails political democracy, in the sense that the leaders or governments involved represent and have the support of their citizens. To ensure that this is the case, the governments must not only be elected in a free and fair process, they must also secure the assent of their citizens to the proposed peace terms. That is, peacemaking and peacekeeping, to be successful, must be rooted in citizen participation, that is, in participatory democracy. The opposite is usually the case, as in the Dayton Accords of 1996. The conflict in Bosnia has never really ceased and the elections, in which the nationalists were kept in power, were not truly democratic. There is no dialogic reciprocity among the nationalist leaders––nationalism and genuine reciprocity are antithetical. Yet, at least at the time of this discussion, there is still hope for a democratic peace process. Despite the manipulations of the nationalist leaders, there has continued to be support at the grass roots for restoration of a multi-ethnic society. Meeting in Tuzla in 1995, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA) heard testimony to this effect, as the members of HCA-USA had been hearing for several years from Bosnians of all three ethnic identities who came to New York to plead for help. More recently, the Advisory Board of a United States organization, Conflict Resolution Catalysts, met on 19 April 1997. John Crownover, the organization’s Project Coordinator in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, reported on weekly discussions and seminars concerning reconciliation and conflict resolution, instituted at the request of local citizens. While, as a result of the war and the displacement of minorities, the desire for peaceful coexistence and the rebuilding of multi-ethnic communities is not universal, it is still prevalent as is borne out by statements of residents of Bosnia and Herzegovia in newspaper interviews and reported in the New York Times during that period. For example, Esad Avdic of Vogosca said on 25 February 1996, “We shouldn’t have had this war at all. It was a big mistake. It was forced on us. We didn’t hate, but politicians made us hate.”14 Sabahudin Huskic of Mrkotic said on 30 May 1996, “It is only a few of the police and a few nationalist thugs who are doing it all . . . . Most of the other Serbs want peace to work, and they want the Muslims to stay.”15 Rade Pavlovic, the General Manager of Hemijska Industrial and twice mayor of Teslic before the war, said on 30 May 1996:

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WELLS, GLOSSOP, SINGER, and LENZI It is time, once and for all, to make things clear . . . . We cannot suffer any more under these nationalists. The people have had enough, but they are afraid, they are very afraid . . . . They [the nationalist Bosnian Serb authorities] have the police, the press, the courts . . . . They have all the power, the rest have only the rights they allow.16

Even concerning the present local authorities, an unidentified moderate Serb is quoted as saying in Teslic on 30 July 1996: “Most of the people in the party just went along with a power too big to resist. They are not extremists. They did not steal; they did not expel people. Now they are staying safely quiet, but they want change.”17 Others as well speak against nationalism. For example, an unidentified man in Teslic is reported as having said on 30 July 1996: “Below the surface, under the repression, we believe we can reject this nationalism . . . . We hope we can survive the peace and create democracy.”18 And perhaps most poignantly and tellingly of all, Sejo Beslic, a Muslim interviewed in Jezero where he was visiting Croat and Serb friends, said on 21 July 1996: “You have to write it down that we want to live together, like we did before.”19 4. Mary Lenzi All democracies presume as unarguable the compatibility of peacemaking with political and social democracy at home and in the world. At the same time, democracies rationalize and justify military and cultural domination of others as necessary to advance just and democratic political rule. As brief background to our topic of democracy and peace, general meanings and problems of democracy can be broken down into at least two categories: issues relating to process and procedure, and issues relating to form and substance.20 Issues concerning the democratic process include, but are not limited to, hierarchy and equality, voting and elections, citizen participation and representation, government bureaucracy, institutions, and procedures. Issues of substantive democracy include definitions of, and discrepancies among, the ideal or empirical meanings and ways of knowing and implementing goods, rights, interests, and goals of democracy, including the means and ends of war and peace. Now to update and comment on our panelists’ pragmatic proposals to promote or establish an historical, global, and solid connection between democracy and peace, we may take a look at existing ways, the course of history, and present military conflicts. The first objective of the United Nations Charter is “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The second goal is “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”21 Also the United Nations General Assembly adopted “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in 1948, and the “International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights” and the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” in 1966. Glossop strongly advises us

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to move these sorts of international agreement forward and further toward the globalization of democracy in order to realize worldwide peace. The theory and actual design for a democratic world federation, and, more pertinent, its prospects for ending future wars, can be tested against Well’s empirical review of and philosophical insights into the dubious connection between democracy and peace. The implications of Well’s comments on the connection between democracy and war highlight the modern history of democratic capitalistic ideology and actual governments in promoting and sustaining war instead of peace. First, in evaluating this history, note that there is an opposing thesis to Well’s thesis, namely that a strong connection exists between liberal, capitalistic democracy, and peace. This view, espoused by Joseph A. Schumpeter, dates back to Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man.22 Also R. J. Rummel’s case analysis maintains statistically “the more democratic a political system, the less likely it is that such a state will engage in foreign and domestic collective violence.”23 However, we might rightly ask what about civil wars within countries and among certain groupings of nations in every region of the world? Recently others such as Francis Fukuyama and Paul Kennedy have pointed out these same sorts of ambiguity.24 They have based their conclusions on dissimilar analyses of history and avenues for lasting peace. A plausible pacifist reply to such conflicting historical claims and connections may be enriched by Aldous Huxley’s modern analysis of history on behalf of peace. Between the two world wars of this century, Huxley, political pacifist and novelist, edited An Encyclopedia of Pacifism for the Peace Pledge Union. As he explains: Pacifism is often opposed on the ground that “civilization is based on force,” “there cannot be justice unless it is imposed by force,” and so on. What exactly does this word “force” stand for? Merely in order to be effective, “force” must be used in moderation. Experience shows that the forces which accomplish most are psychological forces––the force of persuasion, the force of loyalty, the force of social tradition, the force of good example . . . .25 Kennedy’s conclusions in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers of 1987 unwittingly revive some of Huxley’s pacifist rationale of 1937.26 Huxley says, Pacifism is incompatible with any form of tyranny. Conversely war and preparation for war on the modern scale are incompatible with personal liberty and democratic institutions . . . . An enslaved country under a tyrant is an efficient war-machine; a democratically organized country is not. We are faced with the choice between preparation for war, accompanied by slavery, on the one hand, and pacifism, accompanied by personal liberty and democratic institutions, on the other.27

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The wisdom and foresight of our leaders and the virtues and common sense of the large masses of people they govern remain vital to making lasting peace in the course of history. Further, questions and determinations of immediate and long-term economic and military advantage and basic security persist in matters of making war or promoting peace at home and abroad, since 11 September 2001, the military objectives include war against terrorism. Again we may interject that pacifism is ineffective if it exists randomly or piecemeal throughout a world in which the opposite state of warism and preparation for war are par for the course. Pacifism remains vulnerable to the charge that the incompatibility Huxley and Kennedy find is a question of degree and of trust. If we had not sacrificed some liberty to fight noxious forces such as Nazism, we would have lost significant liberty. We end with the choice, in Kennedy’s terms, between pacifism followed by slavery and war for personal liberty and democratic institutions. As pacifists in a world of ongoing conflicts and warring, we have much left to do to secure the conditions for worldwide peace. In his book on world federation, Glossop directly addresses existing and newly emerging global efforts, organizations, and political proposals in terms of a more coherent and detailed plan for democratic world federation.28 He uses our own United States government, having lasted over two hundred years, as a paradigm for constitutional, representative democracy. He argues further that the United States is the most viable, time-tested form of federalism to be modeled in establishing a federation of nation-states. As Glossop observes, times of relative calm are especially ripe for such global work to begin or resume. Along with Glossop we may ask why we are waiting for another crisis, terrorist attack, or world war to respond directly to the call for world government. Are we unwilling because we just do not see the necessity or desirability of global coordination on universal human concerns for peace, justice, and prosperity? Glossop writes: People will ask why the transformation to a new kind of world political situation among nation-states was not developed in the 1990’s when it was possible. The answer will be that it didn’t seem necessary. Thus we have the paradoxical situation that when tensions are low and the creation of a world federation would be possible, it doesn’t seem necessary; but when tensions are high and the desirability of a world federation to resolve differences politically and judicially becomes obvious to everyone, it will be impossible to create one. The world community must act now to develop a new kind of governance system so that it doesn’t again lose the opportunity as it did immediately after the Second World War.29 Instead of doggedly continuing in the wrong direction as the world’s policeman, the United States would better serve itself and the world community by developing secure global connections. This network could grow by means of an open dialogue and worldwide initiative to set up a world federation of governments, perhaps starting out with several regional multinational

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state organizations. According to Glossop, only world federation will halt the increasing suspicion and fear of the United States’ hegemony, particularly among newly formed and developing countries. Such fragile states possess a drive for autonomy, necessary for their very survival, that would be independent of the dictates of the few designated world superpowers. As designated by the United Nations Security Panel, the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China are the powers who decide questions of war and peace. For reasons such as this, among others that Glossop details in his book, world federationists do not think the United Nations can serve as a workable paradigm for a world federation. As Concerned Philosophers for Peace we may or may not be convinced that world democratic federation is the best way to ensure a connection between democracy and peace. Glossop urges those who lean toward the cause of democratic world government to commit themselves to determining and securing certain desirable “features it should have.”30 In developing a worldwide democratic process of dialogue and definition, we must beware of purists, unreachable dictators, and fatal oppressors of their own citizens; traditionally these have shown themselves to be warists. War is used to create or to consolidate a people or community, and it is perceived to be the solution to a state’s problems of autonomy or sovereignty. Noxious are those leaders and groups that execute genocide, torture, and ethnic cleansing to attain or maintain their autonomy. Federationists view people as individuals first, world citizens next, and subjects to local governments third. In other words, Glossop holds, human interest needs to replace national interest, for often civilians are caught between their own warmonger national and group leaders and those of the supermilitary powers trying likewise to pursue national interests by forcefully correcting any military or economic imbalance of power. In turn, individuals and civilians suffer doubly in the world’s military response, and the typical, wrongheaded military solutions to their perceived and very real problems and victimization. Glossop advises us to continue in the directions outlined by world federations and aspiring federationists since the Second World War. This analysis shows that reprioritizing the world and its citizens requires much rethinking on our part as philosophers or world leaders before work proceeds any further. Nobly worldwide philosophical and politically motivated federationists take the lead in promoting global tolerance, respect, and condemnation of national or cultural violations of persons, but should they do so as individuals, as a consolidated group or set of groups, or as individual citizens of the world? On questions of identity, role, and purpose, federation poses problems for pluralists, because pluralism and world federationism are not necessarily connected in theory or practice. Also, one may be a pluralist at home in America but not in regard to other countries. We may question the feasibility and desirability of espousing a form of methodological individualism in assuming the identity of world citizen and federationist. We may wonder whether individuals need also to define themselves partially in terms of national or group interests. In the growing global

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democratization, we need also to include Singer’s concern that we do not, philosophically or politically, abandon the cause of group autonomy and rights. To understand Singer’s views, we may turn to the outbreaks of war in the former Yugoslavia. In March 1999 the United States and NATO instituted a policy of massive air bombardment to resolve longstanding and increasing conflicts in this area. Singer’s insights into the 1996 conflicts throw light on our thesis that peace is more strongly connected to democracy than to alternative forms of political process and government. Singer’s piece, presented in the midst of the then tumultuous times in Bosnia, prophetically made the panel’s remarks relevant to the Serbia-Kosovo war. This crisis came to a head over ethnic cleansing in the forceful expulsion and displacement of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Again, the issues that emerge are the clashing of opposing views and experiences of history according to each separate ethnic group’s awareness and understanding of its interests, survival, and rights, and also such processes as proportional representation and voting, minority veto, and participation. Taken together these issues highlight the ambiguities that arise in our panel’s discussion and this commentary when we use or assume conflicting or different meanings and contexts for democracy, whether displayed in democratic forms, processes, or practices. Wells employs democratic forms and definitions in analyzing the philosophic underpinning in the history of wars and their rationale. Glossop uses a United States definition of a democracy in proposing a new global democratic federation. Whereas Glossop finds the meaning of democracy clearly indicated in its United States form of representative republicanism, Singer calls into question traditional definitions of democracy, and brings out ambiguities in democratic forms and practice. Singer revises and adjusts the definition of democracy in two ways: by restricting its scope to democratic processes and dialogic reciprocity, and by making group, or operative, rights vital to democratic forms and processes. By doing this she imagines a new form, or perhaps a new forum, for democratic institutions and processes in our changing world order. We may view her lifelong work and dedicated activism to resolve such conflicts as a strong, plausible alternative to Glossop’s vision of world federation. Glossop writes: The loyalty to one’s nation, which we call patriotism, could be maintained but subordinated to a higher loyalty to humankind, which we could call “humatriotism.” The world parliament could make laws . . . [that] refer to what actions individual persons are forbidden to do. There could be global federal marshals to apprehend individual violators of world law and global federal courts in which the violators could be tried. There could also be global federal prisons. National armies would eventually become as unimportant to national governments as the state militia have become to the state governments of the United States.”31

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Both Glossop’s and Singer’s definitions of democracy pose problems in understanding and dealing with war and peace in our emerging new world alliances and configurations. Glossop maintains that world government and world law apply essentially to individuals, to world citizens as such, instead of to their leaders and representatives. Singer would object to the desirability of global democratization of people as individual world citizens. She would rather view them as groups of all kinds and functions––as nation-states and cultural or special interest aggregates and co-associations of different groups, large and small. In deciding to implement either option, we might magnify the actual and well-noted problems systemic to the United States’ federalism (one over many) and United States diversity and pluralism (many over one).32 Through Singer’s lenses, we see diverse individuals, groups, and associations of multiple origins of ethnicity, race, class, and religion better unified by ongoing, open-ended democratic dialogue and processes. Through Glossop’s lenses, unity gained from global federal democratic principles, law, and practice would be more desirable than what exists at present in our United States democracy and in the world at large. From Wells’s focus, the ambiguous and tenuous historical connection between democracy and peace continues to give pacifist philosophers pause, and at times with due cause. In implementing either option, we may give birth to a new sort of Leviathan––one created in a global melting pot envisioned as unified by democratic world federation or pluralized by democratic dialogue and processes among all kinds of peoples and groups. Would either a free-floating social, political world of motley groups and peoples or a unified federation with single heart, soul, and brain be a monstrous or beauteous beast? As a commentator, I am unable to judge which course would make the most progress toward just peace for all peoples of the world. Well’s analysis of the tenuous world-historical connection between democracy and peace leads me to suspend judgment. As Concerned Philosophers for Peace we may debate whether or not it would be easier to entrust global government and peacemaking efforts to a group of nonpolitical world leaders, guardians of culture, religion, and practitioners of the arts and sciences, as trustworthy path-finders in this new and emerging world order.33 Could we reach out and respond better to this motley breed than we do at present to our world leaders? Or would we need this select group to be coordinated with a new age Assembly of the People in the United Nations or another such global governmental coordinating body of peoples? A coordination or assembly of elected and appointed delegates seems minimally required to decide issues openly on the world stage, unlike its historical precedent of the closed-door (United States) Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, about which Patrick Henry exclaimed that he smelled a rat. Despite our continuing philosophical and political project, and the hard work, visions, and wishes of pacifists throughout history, both the theoretic and the actual desirability and proven value of decentralization press hard upon

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global centralization. Though we may continue to argue the point that democratic principles cannot be effectively put into practice except in a communi where authority has been as far as possible decentralized, another important point remains. As Huxley said, “In a decentralized state . . . [no one individual] can easily impose his [or her] will on the whole community.”34 This point has clear eighteenth-century Madisonian reverberations, and still commands strong support in democratic federations of diverse states and peoples, as in India and South Africa.35 Regarding the virtues and vices of local and professional selfgovernment, decentralization would also require democratic self-government, not only in civic affairs but also in business and the professions. As Huxley rightly observes: “Industrial [and we may add academic and other professional] organizations are too often miniature dictatorships.”36 Add to this mix the authoritarian operation of any economic corporation or business in its politically economic distribution of power. Well-known critics such as Noam Chomsky supply a long litany of grievances perpetrated at home and throughout the world. For instance, in the time-honored name of democracy, critics charge our democracy with globalizing a capitalist corporate democracy––precisely not the sort of globalization we deem desirable, nor in line with the ideas of any other liberalist democratic theorist and founding father.37 Analyzing democratic forms, process, procedures, and institutions serves two objectives: democratically just peace as an end in itself, and democratically just peace as the best means to promote other common goods as well as human rights to liberty and equality. We are faced with unitary or pluralist solutions in which familiar modern and traditional problems reappear in different clothing and in new forms, in decentralized, co-associational mergers in ever-changing political groupings.38 A split over similar questions and answers recurs predictably in these post-modernist global reconfigurations. Am I an individual first or primarily a member of one or more groups, which may be either thrown together for special interests, or permanently entrenched? Is it right that my own group or one of my many groupings defines my range and spheres of justice, my actions and daily practices in terms of the my/thine interplay of self and groups on diverse meanings and matters of justice?39 Both our panel and this commentary point to the hard and fast conflicts embedded in theory and principles. As free agents, we may decide, or have decided for us, whether we will continue to diverge or to converge as one common global human race in determining our future directions. At the same time, we need to decide whether it is more desirable to converge or to diverge over the questions and the answers we make and must also live with in our common world. Given Singer’s view in the historical context of differing positions, we find that co-associations among groups and decentralization are integral for dialogic reciprocity in both the process and goal of democracy in promoting peace in the world. According to Singer’s insights into the crisis in Bosnia in 1996, which she experienced first-hand as a peace negotiator, democratic world federation was not a viable option. If it was not viable then, can it be a viable

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option for dealing with a changing global world in the 2000s? The World Court at the Hague waited two months after sustained NATO military air attacks in Yugoslavia before indicting Slobodan Molosevic, and was idle and ineffective in the similar cases of Saddam Hussein and other brutal dictators. Yet given our commitment to infuse democratic forms with pacifism and our plea for democratically instituted world-wide peace promotion, we Concerned Philosophers for Peace pledge to continue our attempts to expose warlike democratic forms and replace them with better ones in pursuit of feasible peace in a new world order. Having in mind NATO’s 1999 (as yet unauthorized) intervention in Yugoslavia with the United States leading the way with money and high-tech weaponry, we end this commentary with some reflections upon the questions, why war now, what kind of war is it, and what are we fighting for? British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in 1999 in Newsweek, “In this conflict we are fighting not for territory but for values.” In a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Bill Clinton said, “We face a great battle between the forces of integration and the forces of disintegration; the forces of globalism versus tribalism; of oppression against empowerment.” Nice words, but as a guide to the deployment of national will, this is hopeless. It is hard to imagine a society that by United States standards more systematically oppresses half its people––all its women––than Saudi Arabia. Are we now to be engaged in a “great battle” with the Saudis . . . . If a majority of Quebecois decided to secede from Canada, would that be “tribalism”? Would we then be obliged to take up arms in defense of “globalism”?40 The U.N Security Council is unfairly composed of superpowers like the United States, Russia, France, China, and Britain. Until this day, Japan and Germany are called “enemy states” in the U.N. Charter (Article 53) even though, as Glossop points out, Germany contributes much more (economically and population-wise) than the other European countries, and the same applies to present-day Japan. What kind of new NATO then are we forming, one without legitimate authority and powers conferred upon it by United Nations? How much global, as distinguished from regional, consensus is morally, as distinguished from practically, required to start and wage a war as the millennium turns? We must credit the lifelong work, writings, and worldly accomplishments of Wells, Glossop, and Singer for their prescient focus on a future in which we will no longer fool ourselves into thinking the politics for peace can go on piecemeal, in secret, unquestioned, and manipulated by former superpowers of the Second World War. We inhabit an emerging new world order in which everyone’s peace, justice, and freedom counts.

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1. Hoffman Nickerson, Can We Limit War? (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1934), p. 111. 2. Lewis F. Richardson, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1960), pp. 248–249. 3. Gaston Bodart, Losses of Life in Modern Wars (London: Humphrey Milford, 1916), p. 156. 4. Frederick Adams Woods and Alexander Baltzly, Is War Diminishing? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), p. 43. 5. Richardson, Statistics, pp. 248–249. 6. Bodart, Losses of Life in Modern Wars, p. 3. 7. Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Neuman, The Lessons of Recent Wars in the Third World (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath Co., 1985), vol. 1, p. 39. 8. See Beth J. Singer, Operative Rights (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 96–98, 142–144, and 151. 9. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration” (1927), The Later Works, 1925-1953, ed. Jo Ann Boydson (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981), vol. 11, pp. 217–218. 10. John Dewey and James H. Tufts, Ethics (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1908), p. 482. 11. David Miller, Market, State, and Community (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 255. 12. George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, ed. Charles W. Morris (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 286. 13. See Miller, “Politics as Dialogue,” Market, State, and Community. 14. Kinzer, Stephen, “Refusing to Panic, Some Serbs Accept Bosnian Rule,” The New York Times (26 February 1996), p. A3. 15. O’Connor, Mike, “Along Ethnic Fault Line, Bosnians Fear Hardliners,” The New York Times (1 June 1996), p. A4. 16. Ibid. 17. O’Connor, Mike, “Moderate Bosnian Serbs Plot in Secrecy for Unity,” The New York Times (31 July 1996), p. A3. 18. Ibid. 19. Bonner, Raymond, “Multi-Ethnic Bosnians Share Lunch and Scorn for Politics,” The New York Times (22 July 1996), p. A3. 20. See Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989). 21. Burns Weston, Richard Falk, and Anthony D'Amato, eds., Basic Documents in International Law and World Order (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co. 1980), pp. 16–32. 22. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1947, 2nd ed.); and Joseph A. Schumpter, Imperialism and Social Classes (New York: Meridian Press, 1955). Cf. Mortimer Adler, Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991). 23. Cited by Ronald J. Glossop, World Federation?: A Critical analysis o f Federal World Government (Jefferson, N. C.: MacFarland Press, 1993), pp. 132–133.

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24. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992); and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, Inc., 1987). 25. Aldous Huxley, ed., An Encyclopedia of Pacifism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1937), pp. 51-52. 26. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of Great Powers, pp. 537–540 27. Huxley, Encyclopedia of Pacifism, p. 100. 28. Glossop, World Federation?, pp. 86–87. 29. Ibid., p. 225. 30. Ibid., p. 226. 31. Ibid., p. 6. 32. See Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in TwentiethCentury America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). 33. See Glossop, World Federation?, p. 217. 34. Huxley, Encyclopedia of Pacifism, pp. 100–101 35. See “James Madison, Federalist Paper #10,” The Federalist Papers, by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, ed. Gary Wills (New York: Bantam Classics, 1982). 36. Huxley, Encyclopedia of Pacifism, p. 101. 37. See Noam Chomsky, “Democracy in a Neoliberal Order: Doctrines and Reality,” Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999). 38. See Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics, chs. 20 and 21, and pp. 338–40. 39. See Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983). 40. Michael Elliott, “Nothing Much to Celebrate,” Newsweek (26 April 1999).

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PART ONE Divisions in Society and Obstacles to Democratic Discourse

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INTRODUCTION The first group of chapters is devoted to problems in achieving the kind of free and open discourse necessary to reach rational decisions democratically in a society divided by race, ethnicity, religion, economic standing, and other factors. Ron Hirschbein and Jason Suppus, in “Semiotics of Meaninglessness: Cornel West’s Explication of Inner-City Nihilism,” deal with a concrete problem of communication and participation, that posed by the almost total disengagement of inner-city gangs from the social, political, and cultural life of mainstream America. The members of these gangs are excluded by their circumstances and life experience from dialogue with the remainder of society. The essay is devoted to a study of one member, “Monster,” a former member of the ‘Crip’ gang, whose case is representative except for the fact that he is unusually articulate. The first step toward integrating such people into society is for the dominant majority to understand gang members’ experiences and attitudes on their own terms. The authors employ hermeneutic methods to explicate Monster’s sense of alienation, absurdity, and entrapment––what they call his “experiential nihilism.” In the process they model how this might be done with other alienated individuals. In “Moral Pessimism and the Ideals of Democracy,” Howard Harriott addresses a larger problem that overlaps that of Monster and inner-city gangs. He reviews the thought of a number of African-American social commentators who are pessimistic that the black community will ever be fully integrated into the United States political and social process. The grounds for this pessimism turn on the damage inflicted by slavery and its aftermath on the black population, which was not inflicted on other minority groups that immigrated voluntarily to this country. The damage explains the inability of the rest of the population to overcome stereotypes of blacks and its refusal to support the full use of society’s resources to eliminate blacks’ historic disadvantages. It also explains incapacitating self-images among blacks themselves. Harriott finds these grounds for pessimism to be solid, but proposes some steps that might help to repair the damage and create some grounds for optimism. South Africa provides a case study of an entire nation attempting to democratize itself almost overnight and involve all its members in public affairs after a long history of the most extreme ethnic divisions and racial discrimination. Edward Sankowski, in “South African Democracy, Multi-Culturalism, Rights, and Community,” examines South Africa’s new constitution and public discussions of it to see how this is being accomplished. The South Africans are trying to create a cohesive democracy by eliminating the prejudices and unfair practices that are so deeply ingrained in the nation, but without destroying the cultural traditions of major groups. A tension is created because some of those traditions sanction discriminatory treatment of other groups. Sankowski seeks a philosophical underpinning for the attempt to build a new society in both the liberalism that focuses on individual rights and the com-

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munitarianism that focuses tolerance and respect on character traits that cut across ethnic groups. He finds elements of liberalism and communitarianism at work in the South African experiment and these provide reasons to think that it will succeed. Cultural differences and obdurate prejudices are obstacles to the integration of African-Americans, Latinos, and other minorities into the mainstream of American life, and so stand in the way of democracy in many ways. Not the least, they pose a barrier to communication, open exchange of ideas, and adequate representation of the interests of excluded groups. To devise ways to eliminate the barrier, we need a conception of the communication required for true democracy. Gilburt Goffstein, in “Exploring Problems of Democracy with Jürgen Habermas and Zen Buddhism,” finds this in Habermas’ notion of discursive communication. He points out how such attitudes as racism, sexism, hetero-sexism, and forms of consciousness fostered by capitalism place constraints on communication and frustrate democracy. To explore these distortions of discourse more deeply, Goffstein criticizes Habermas on the basis of psycho-analytic, feminist, and post-modernist theories. He appeals to insights provided by Zen Buddhism to lay the ground for a remedy. He argues that Zen cultivates the ability to empathize with the many ways that the members of society experience the world. The last chapter in this section, Jerald Richards’ “Hiroshima, Morality, and Democracy,” is devoted to an instance in which communication through the channels provided by our society has failed to provide open and selfcritical debate of a fundamental issue of public morality. Richards argues that a nation must come to terms with its history, and especially its transgressions against humanity, to make moral decisions for the future. In a democracy, this requires free and open debate across the whole population. Among the more morally dubious actions of the United States republic were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Richards examines two narratives or widely accepted accounts, that, when taken together, promote deep-seated illusions about the way our democracy works. One is the Democratic Narrative, which depicts democracies as peace loving, eager to compromise, and, by nature, reluctant to use military force. The other is the Hiroshima Narrative, which attributes the decision to use the A-bomb exclusively to a desire to save American lives and expeditiously end the Second World War. The hold of this narrative on the public mind was protected by the censorship of the Smithsonian exhibit on the bombing, which dared to raise questions about it. The way our democracy worked in this critical episode not only exposes the flaws in the Hiroshima Narrative but the hypocrisy and selfdeception of the Democratic Narrative. A first step toward eliminating these flaws in our democracy is to expose such narratives to critical historical and moral scrutiny.

One SEMIOTICS OF MEANINGLESSNESS: CORNEL WEST’S EXPLICATION OF INNER-CITY NIHILISM Ron Hirschbein and Jason Suppus 1. Struggle to Understand Inner-City Gangs The proper starting point for the crucial debate about the prospects for black America is an examination of the nihilism that increasingly pervades black communities. Nihilism is to be understood here not as philosophic doctrine . . . . It is, far, more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. Cornel West1 Life meant very little to me. I felt that my purpose on earth was to [gang]bang. My mind-set was narrowed by the conditions and circumstances prevailing around me. Certainly I had little respect for life when practically all my life I had seen people assaulted, maimed, and blown away at very young ages, and no one seemed to care . . . . Monster Kody Scott, former Crip2 This chapter represents our struggle to understand a subculture remote from our personal and professional experience––inner-city, African-American gangs. Gangbangers such as Monster are not merely alienated from United States representative democracy, they represent themselves soldiers of a separate nation. If, as John Dewey suggested, democracy is an ongoing conversation regarding public concerns, we must learn to converse with men such as Monster: somehow, we must come to understand their story.3 This is, to understate the case, a daunting task: understanding the way of life (or more aptly, the way of death) of these gang members confronts us with an other: something alien from our everyday experience. Yet, such understanding is a necessary condition for making sense of the seemingly senseless violence that plagues the lives of gangbangers and their victims. Most philosophers, regardless of stripe, recognize the paradoxical nature of such an endeavor: we seek meaningful concepts to understand the horrifying meaninglessness of inner-city life. Ludwig Wittgenstein was right: One human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and

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RON HIRSCHBEIN and JASON SUPPUS what is more, even given a mastery of the country’s language, we do not understand the people.4

Duly chastened, we begin by invoking West’s perspective: the experiential nihilism of inner-city youth is our starting point. Our search continues with a critique of concepts that enhance West’s explication of nihilism: notions such as alienation, absurdity, and entrapment. We conclude that entrapment captures the lived experience of inner-city youth with painful clarity. Several caveats are in order before we explicate the meaning of inner-city entrapment. (1) We do not mean to sensationalize inner-city violence by blowing it out of proportion. The “senseless killing” of the innocent by gangbangers pales in comparison to the “sensible killing” of innocents by nation-states. For every innocent killed by a gang, a million have been killed by sovereign states. (When a “Sixty-Minutes” interviewer asked Monster how many he had killed, he retorted by asking how many Asians United States forces killed in Vietnam.) Nevertheless, the violence endemic to the urban United States should not be ignored. Monster may not be exaggerating when he claims that “gangs in South Central [Los Angeles] recruit more people than the four branches of the United States Armed Forces do.”5 In our view the nature and extent of inner-city mayhem are symptomatic of the entrapment of a significant segment of the population, and the Balkanization––the deconstruction––of the United States polity. (2) We are not experts who have devoted our careers to the study of gangs. On the contrary, we are concerned philosophers struggling to somehow conceptualize the experience of inner-city youth that makes them susceptible to gangbanging. Our explication relies heavily on Monster’s autobiographical account of gangbanging, an account we regard as telling but inconclusive. He overstates his case when he asserts that “there are no other gang experts except participants.”6 Nevertheless, in order to gain access to a gangbanger’s inner experience, we begin with an autobiographical narrative rather than the usual social science techniques of creating graphs from questionnaires. Since investigators create questionnaires, they determine the issues they deem important. Social actors reveal themselves through the narratives they author and improvise. Through his depiction of characters and plots, Monster is not merely answering our questions; he’s telling his story. Like any storyteller he may prevaricate, but his dissembling may reveal his ideals.7 In any case, we do not merely entertain questions about Monster. We ask, “What’s the story?” What saga does he author and improvise in order to explain and justify his behavior? In struggling to understand Monster’s lifeworld, we are not attempting to vicariously experience his consciousness and sensibility. We cannot read the minds of those in the ghetto––or of those in the halls of power for that matter––but hermeneutic inquiry may facilitate a tremulous reading of their cultures. Such inquiry presupposes that culture (or the gangbanging subculture) is inter-subjective: a shared narrative objectified and inscribed in texts such as Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member. As Clifford Geertz

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explains “the whole point to a semiotic approach to culture . . . is to aid us in gaining access to the conceptual world in which our subjects live so that we can, in some extended sense of the term, converse with them.”8 As Hans-Georg Gadamer stresses, in struggling to converse with those foreign to us, we are entrapped in our own cultural/biographical horizon. Nevertheless, to press the metaphor, we can expand our horizon to penetrate the horizon of those with whom we struggle to converse. The understanding gleaned is fragile, incomplete, and metaphorical. In effect, we are playing a language game by likening Monster’s definitions of reality to our familiar phil-osophic lexicon. As Gadamer explains: [Language] is the game in which we are all participants. None less so than any other. Each of us is “it,” and it is always our turn . . . . When at last we have got to the bottom of something which seemed to us strange and unintelligible, when we have managed to accommodate it with our linguistically ordered world, then everything falls into place.9 Not everything falls into place. We do not fully understand Monster; evidently he does not fully understand himself. Nevertheless we are “it,” and it is our move in the language game. Accordingly, we begin with West’s explication of nihilism, and attempt to illuminate the concept with other terms drawn from the philosophic concepts within our horizon. In so doing we are condemned to a metaphorical grasp of Monster’s reality. We liken his unfamiliar world to experiences familiar to existentialists with white-skin privilege. We labor under the ever-present danger of exaggerating similarities while concealing differences. 2. Varieties of Nihilistic Experience A. Experiential Nihilism Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others. Cornel West10 West aptly distances himself from traditional philosophic nihilism. He distinguishes between what we call “doctrinal” and “experiential” nihilism. Doctrinal nihilism brings to mind romantics such as Friedrich Nietzsche. Comparing Nietzsche’s nihilism with Monster’s experiential nihilism contextualizes the concept: Nietzsche was beyond good and evil in word; Monster went beyond in deed. (1) Nietzsche was a privileged academic in nineteenth-century Germany. Despite his occasional aphoristic barbs about German culture, he was not regarded as an other. Responding to the Balkanized world rapidly disintegrating around him, Monster differentiates between himself and what he calls “Amerikans,” “civilians,” “Bloods,” and warring Crips factions.

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(2) Given his privileged position, Nietzsche likely enjoyed a strong sense of self (although his selfhood may have undergone syphilitic, late-life dissolution). Monster enjoyed no such luxury. While economic deprivation undermined his selfhood, the relentless humiliation of racism corroded his identity. Israeli Avishai Margalit’s comments regarding Israeli Arabs apply to secondclass citizens like Monster: Israeli Arabs do not perceive Israel as an encompassing group that they need for their self-definition, and for some . . . belonging to it is even quite embarrassing. Nevertheless, their insistence on equal civil rights is not merely a demand for just distribution of . . . goods and services . . ., the fact that they are denied these goods, even by a society they do not identify with, is perceived not only as injustice but also as humiliation.11 Overcoming humiliation is Monster’s idée fixe: the discourse of respect is his lingua franca. As he stresses, “The principle is respect, a linchpin critical to relations between all people, but magnified by thirty times in the ghettos and slums across America . . . .”12 Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Underground Man ruminates obsessively about humiliations real and imagined.13 Monster compulsively acts out his rage at slights real or imagined. Respect is something to die for. (3) Perhaps most significantly, Nietzsche’s doctrinal nihilism springs from his exegesis of the Western canon: he rejected Christendom and penned an obituary, not a eulogy, for God. As West stresses, the nihilism of youths such as Monster is less cerebral. He relentlessly faces the immediate possibility of extinction. A variety of recent thinkers borrow from the existential lexicon to suggest other conceptual strategies that may be useful in further explicating the experiential nihilism that plagues underprivileged youth in the over-developed world. Within the confines of this chapter we merely offer a gloss on concepts such as “alienation,” “absurdity,” and “entrapment.” B. Alienation Many of the prime symptoms of alienation, distrust, anger, a bleakly existential view of the world . . . are undoubtedly most prevalent among those of lowest status and most deprived position in our society . . . . As a result they can find little value . . . except in their own delinquent gangs. Kenneth Keniston14 Social psychologist Kenneth Keniston stresses that the alienation of the overprivileged and that of the underprivileged are markedly different. It is revealing to contrast the two. The overprivileged youth studied by Keniston rejected their affluent heritage, and abandoned the struggle to devise something to take

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its place. Benjamin, the antihero of the 1967 film The Graduate, evokes the archetypal image. But Monster is no Benjamin, or even a more cynical Holden Caufield, for that matter. As Monster remarks, he is not rebelling against his culture––he is bereft of culture. His roots were cruelly twisted and destroyed by institutions such as slavery and more subtle forms of latter-day racism. Robert Jay Lifton speaks to another variant of alienation when he writes of the futurelessness endemic to the youth culture.15 What Lifton has is mind is the unprecedented threat of species extinction posed by nuclear weaponry. We share Lifton’s anguish about the threat of homicide. Unlike the ideologues who promote “Star Wars” and other “winning weapons” we do not anticipate a nuclear springtime. Even if the provisions of the Start II Treaty are implemented in the next century, the planet will still be plagued by 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads. Nuclear angst, however, must be contextualized. While the threat is real, ruminations about it are abstract, academic concerns. Monster’s preoccupation with absurd death is palpable and immediate, and less academic. His predicament is ongoing and visceral. Unlike Nietzsche and the others who had barriers to buffer their angst (money, position, and power), Monster and his comrades can be killed or hideously maimed at home or walking out the door. C. Absurdity I see others paradoxically getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). Albert Camus16 Camus expresses his sense of absurdity with eschatological references; in memorable prose he reminds of us our destiny, everlasting nothingness. Monster’s references are scatological. With the demise of God, immortality vanishes for the species, let alone the individual. Camus concluded that the putatively eternal values that infuse life with meaning, direction, and hope are fictions devised to make life bearable. Death is the only certainty: the inevitable extinction of ourselves and all that we cherish makes life absurd. Even a more healthy minded thinker such as Bertrand Russell offers a less filigreed rendition of our predicament: “When I die, I shall rot.”17 (Death, perhaps, should not get such bad press. It’s our truly democratic institution: an equal opportunity offender that affords the same fate to all.) Monster is preoccupied with making sense of his fate in the here and now. In order to do so, he likens his predicament to the immediate and profane absurdity that bedeviled American combatants in Vietnam. Invoking their in-country cant he “talks the talk.” He finds himself thrown into “a world of shit” that “don’t mean nothin’.”18 Monster would find more resonance in the film Apocalypse Now than in My Dinner With Andre. However, unlike the Vietnam combatant, Monster cannot fantasize about returning home to a safety

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and sanity. As he laments, his neighborhood is the battlefield; his room is the command center. Unlike too many of his comrades, Monster comes to recognize the absurdity of living and dying for ideas and illusions. Monster’s killing for colors is no more absurd than United States combatants killing Asian soldiers and civilians with whom they had no grievance. Prison was an epiphany that revealed the absurdity of killing for colors and seeking solace in an ersatz family––a gang that degenerated into a narcissistic killing machine. He explains: After having spent thirteen years of my young life inside what had initially seemed like an extended family but had turned into a war machine, I was tired and disgusted with its insatiable appetite for destruction. Destruction no longer fed my narcissism.19 Monster struggled to forge a new and meaningful identity for himself; he changed his name to Sanyika Shakur, rejected gangbanging, and embraced resurgent African separatism. As he explains: “Islam is a way of life, just like banging. We could relate to what Muhammad was saying, especially when he spoke about jihad––struggle.”20 Unfortunately, outside of prison, he was thrown into an environment he could not understand, let alone control. D. Entrapment The real world. How ever could I have expected anything else . . . . The new, highly explosive atmosphere was frightening . . . . It was shocking. Homeboys who were once without money like the rest of us now had expensive cars, homes, cellular phones, and what seemed to be an endless cash flow. Monster Kody Scott21 Ironically, the outside world was bereft of the intelligibility Monster forged for his life in prison. In prison he was entrapped by what Sigmund Freud called the “Reality Principle.”22 To invoke Sartrean images, being became intractably nauseating––no exit. Reality, it may be recalled, is the main culprit in Freud’s joyless account of the sources of human misery. To paraphrase, we are entrapped in a Reality Principle that is, to play with words, objective in that it “objects” to our wishful thinking. Specifically, objective physical laws and inter-subjective social practices exist despite our aspirations, virtues, and achievements.23 Like Malcolm X, Monster underwent dramatic changes in prison. He educated himself, renounced gangbanging, and became a benefactor to his community. The good news is that he achieved much. The bad news, at the risk of conflating Sartrean concepts, is that he left prison only to be thrown into a nauseating reality with no exit. By nausea we understand the sickening realization that routine consciousness and social practices are hypocritical, if not absurd, social con-

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structs. Again, given his social location, Jean-Paul Sartre is responding to the Western canon and its ersatz certitudes. Monster’s nausea, of course, is immediate and experiential. He is aware of the hypocrisy and the bad faith that engulf him. The same society that condemns his small-scale retail violence celebrates its massive wholesale violence. And in school he was taught to venerate founding fathers who owned slaves and counted blacks as three-fifths of a human being in their constitution. However, there is more immediacy and poignancy to Monster’s existential malaise; the world he constructed for himself to make life meaningful––or at least sane––is falling apart around him. To be unoriginal, the center no longer holds. As West implies, men like Monster were born at the wrong time and place. According to West, long ago the black subculture in the United States courageously constructed familial, civic, and religious institutions that infused life with meaning, direction, and hope: “If cultures are, in part, what human beings create . . . in order to convince themselves not to commit suicide, then black foremothers and forefathers are to be applauded.”24 Monster’s saga narrates his rejection of these traditional values, and the brutally tragic failure of gangbanging to furnish new values. He is thrown into a world that he can understand but not control. The dedication that begins his book is telling: “To my dearest mother, Birdie M. Scott, who had the courage to push me out in a world of which we control so little.”25 One of his earliest prison experiences seems like a metaphor for his existential entrapment: But when I awoke the next morning I felt the strain of being captured. Now I’m quite used to being trapped behind a heavy metal door or a barrage of bars. Even behind Pelican Bay’s 8,200 holes . . ., I can function quite normally. But back in those days . . . I had a hard time coping with cell living.26 One is reminded of the lamentation of Camus’ Stranger as he awaits execution entrapped in a dank cell: “I remember it had been one of Mother’s pet ideas––she was always voicing it––that in the long run one gets used to anything.”27 Monster’s embrace of Separatism may prove equally tragic. It is an understandable response to generations of oppression. Separatists, by definition, demand exclusion from the United States nation-state itself. However, given political reality, Separatism is not a real historical possibility; it is, to say the least, unlikely the Islamic nationalists will attain sovereignty. Ironically, gangbanging may influence mainstream American politics in ways seldom recognized. Gangbangers do not influence the political process through bloc voting––pulling a lever every four years is not a rite of passage into adulthood. The initiation of the “gang way” is preferable to civic rituals promulgated inside the Beltway. Voting is not the most significant form of political influence. Could it be that those who buy politicians and shape popular culture wield more influence than the feckless solitary voter? In response to

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this tendentious question we cannot rule out the possibility that just as the gangs of yesteryear bought police and politicians, latter-day gangs make the same purchases with their considerable drug money. The influence of the “gangsta” ethos is less speculative. Significant elements of the youth culture affect the dress and mannerisms of Monster, not Robert Dole. Somehow “gangsta rap” is more popular than Lawrence Welk. The entertainment industry prospers from inner-city entrapment; Monster is less fortunate. His struggle to transcend his past is futile. No longer a killer, he sires a child. He finds God and strives to better himself and those around him. He is incarcerated for attacking a crack pusher, and eventually paroled. But there is no triumphant coda, no happy ending. Monster’s autobiography and televised interviews reveal an articulate man of formidable intelligence, an individual who should succeed in any project that captivates his imagination. He wrote his autobiography while in captivity at California’s most hellish prison, Pelican Bay. It is rumored that upon his release he was indicted for a parole violation, and that he is now in hiding. Unhappily, for Monster there is no exit. NOTES 1. Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), p. 118. 2. Sanyika Shakur, aka Monster Kody Scott, Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 102. 3. John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927). 4. Cited by Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 13. 5. Shakur, Monster, pp. 69–70. 6. Ibid., p. xiii. 7. See. e.g., Lewis P. and Sandra K. Hinchman, Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997). 8. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, p. 24 9. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and the Critique of Ideology: Metacritical Comments on Truth and Method,” The Hermeneutics Reader, ed. Kurt Mueller-Volimer (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1989), p. 284. 10. West, Race Matters, p. 120. 11. Cited by Alan Ryan in “The Politics of Dignity” The New York Review o f Books, 11 July 1996, p. 17. 12. Shakur, Monster, pp. 102–103. 13. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground. Translated by Jar Malcom Jones (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 14. Kenneth Keniston, The Uncommitted (New York: Delta Press, 1965), p. 386. 15. See author’s Introduction” in Robert Jay Lifton, The Broken Connection (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1979).

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16. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), p. 4. 17. Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1977), p. 7. 18. Shakur, Monster, p. 112. 19. Ibid., p. 355 20. Ibid., p. 220. 21. Ibid., p. 367. 22. See Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents. Translated by James Stachey (New York: W.W. Norton, Inc., 1961), chap. III. 23. Ibid. 24. West, Race Matters, p. 120. 25. Shakur, Monster, Frontispiece. 26. Ibid., p. 68. 27. Albert Camus, The Stranger (New York: Vintage Books, 1946), p. 96.

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Two MORAL PESSIMISM AND THE IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY Howard Harriott My focus is on an analysis of moral pessimism in the writings of some contemporary black social thinkers concerning the prospect that United States democracy will deliver full social and economic justice to blacks and other minorities, given the countervailing forces of exclusion. Political and economic conservatism has enjoyed tremendous support in recent times and often attacks liberal ideals for the provision of social welfare and assistance to the disadvantaged in society. The question I raise is whether the gloomy views of the moral pessimists are right or the hope that the ideal of an integrated social life with a commitment to economic justice for all is possible without racial and ethnic strife. 1. Moral Pessimists’ Viewpoint It is difficult to encompass the full philosophical grounds that underpin the burgeoning moral pessimism in contemporary black thought. I do, however, isolate a type of argument found with some regularity; it is, generically, the moral pessimists’ standpoint. The argument does not represent the view of any one thinker. It is my formulation of the moral pessimists’ case, cast in its strongest philosophical form.1 The claims are as follows: (1) Liberal democracy champions such values as equality, freedom, and tolerance as universally desirable, and features of any worthy democratic society. (2) Society is unable to move toward the goal of social harmony and greater social and economic equality in matters of race, even though these goals are highly desired. (3) Government has the capacity to make significant interventions in the social and economic spheres that would alleviate some of the circumstances of many disadvantaged blacks and other disadvantaged minorities. Nonetheless, it is often unwilling to risk the wrath of its larger constituencies by appearing to act partially. Government thus often acts reluctantly or fails to act at all. (4) Blacks, owing to their past experience of slavery and discrimination, are not able to engage in the kind of cooperation that can generate substantial social benefits. This is particularly troubling since we live in an economic world where social competition and individualistic norms are not just tacitly endorsed.

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The combination of these claims provides a strong ground for moral pessimism. That is to say, we have very little reason to suppose that society, government, or even the collective will of contemporary blacks and nonblacks, can cause us to move towards a democratic society tolerably free of racial strife, prejudice, and gross economic inequality. The moral pessimists find this state of affairs troubling precisely because most people fully accept the ideals advanced in the philosophical defense of liberal democracy. Before arguing that it is possible to move beyond moral pessimism, I show that the moral pessimists’ perspective is neither un-grounded nor irrational. Perfectly plausible arguments exist for the moral pessimists’ viewpoint. Since the substance of their viewpoint rests on unpacking the points contained in claims (2), (3), and (4), the strongest objections of potential critics are bound to focus on the plausibility of these claims. In regard to claim (2), is it true that society is unwilling to move towards a full acceptance of black persons? Pessimists would answer in the affirmative. More cautious observers would say that it is a matter of perspective, and that if the long view is considered, we can see that progress has been made and grounds for social optimism exist. The baseline for such comparisons clearly allows room for divergent thought. It makes a considerable difference whether that baseline is the end of the Second World War, the Civil Rights era, or the end of the 1970s. Pessimists will not disagree that the choice of the baseline does give altered perspectives. They suggest that though there has been a positive change in the size of the black middle class, those left in poverty, especially in the inner cities, experience today a high degree of hopelessness and alienation. They claim also that neither middle-class blacks nor those who experience great poverty are able to avoid the experience of incomplete acceptance in society. This is a social fact, despite the wish of many to see us move towards a genuine colorblind society. If there are different ways of looking at this issue, we must consider why moral pessimists consider that, on deeper reflection, we should not focus our concerns solely on the growth of the black middle class. In what a representative pessimist, Derrick Bell, calls his thesis of racial realism, we are invited to put to one side our idealized hopes––these are heightened by the social and economic success of some prominent blacks who appeared to have transcended the problem of race––and focus instead on some of the often overlooked evidence that indicates that full acceptance is some way off. 2 Racial realism is a deeply pessimistic stance, for it does not see racism as a merely transitional phase in the development of liberal democracy, as does Gunnar Myrdal in his study of racism.3 Instead, racial realism implies that the problem of racial inequality is a permanent feature of social reality to which blacks must accustom themselves. The evidence cited by Bell includes an extrapolation from reflections on recent history of the black experience in economic and political life. He sees a pattern in the evolution of the issues surrounding racial inequality and racial rights. The periodic and episodic nature of concerns by society about these matters lead him to draw the following

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picture: periods of concern are fleeting and they quickly give way to periods of unconcern and felt resentment on the part of the majority that blacks are attempting to extract more than they deserve. Periods of concern are often precipitated by worsening conditions of social disorder. The fleetingness of the concern of society in general is seen by pessimists as evidence of a lack of firm commitment toward tackling the issues of the shared responsibility for the present relative deprivation of substantial numbers of blacks within society. There is a second important consideration that supports the moral pessimists’ view concerning the social standing of blacks in contemporary democratic society. Blacks as a social group are frequently perceived and represented as a problem. Given the mistrust resulting from the experience of blacks under slavery and in the emancipation era, there is an obvious symmetry of mistrust in black-white relations. The problem of trust is an important one. Some burden does rest on those who have the greater social acceptance and who often hold the greater power to affect the lives of others through their decisions, to demonstrate to blacks that commitments and promises are credible. Moral pessimists are of the view that the kind of deep commitment required to heal racial differences and build social and political trust is not possible. Some pessimists see this lack of concern in the unenthusiastic way in which small opportunities for building bridges by way of symbolic gestures have been reluctantly, and often halfheartedly, embraced. They point to the case of the Martin Luther King holiday. Designation of the holiday was a gesture of some significance to the African-American community, and a worthy one since King stands as a powerful moral exemplar of the ideal of democratic tolerance and is a universally revered figure. This important confidencebuilding gesture, however, has been endorsed fully by only some states and sometimes only partially and under pressure. Actions motivated primarily by moral and economic pressure, and taken with some reluctance, do not engender confidence. Thus pessimists say, if such small gestures are accepted with difficulty in today’s world, how much harder it must be to win social cooperation in the more important attempts to generate social cohesion and mutual respect. Pessimists are thus drawn to the view that, in contemporary society, gestures geared towards securing a greater social acceptance of blacks are made only when the economic costs are minimal. 2. Moral Pessimism and the Legacy of Slavery Another key ingredient of moral pessimism is claim (4), the legacy of the experience of slavery. The tragedy of slavery has long been seen as an embarrassment to modern democracy and an historical episode to be deeply regretted. Yet, while slavery is long since ended, its moral and social legacy remains. What fuels much pessimism is the lingering effect of the experience on both blacks and whites and the belief of some black thinkers that the experience of slavery and its aftermath irreparably harmed black social and cultural

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life. This harm is reflected in the way in which several important writers characterize the experience. Some describe the experience of blacks under slavery as that of “natal alienation,” “social death” or a “mort vivant.” Others see the effect of this as resonating as well in the lives of contemporary blacks. The result of this of experience is seen as a variety of disabling circumstances, not easily overcome.4 Orlando Patterson suggests that slavery left blacks with an insecure self-identity, an inability to identify with their past (blacks under slavery having lost much in the way of cultural links and language), and an inability to gain self-esteem from their dishonored status in the new society. 5 Others see the traumatizing effect of the slavery experience to be comparable to that experienced by Holocaust survivors.6 It is felt that that experience contributed the moderate success of black cultural life to adapt to market society and to the kind of nihilistic despair so often associated with the black underclass. According to such views, the grounds for moral pessimism generated by the slavery experience seem to be the following: (1) The diaspora experience of dislocation and oppression left its mark in ways that undermine black self-confidence in how blacks perceive themselves and in how others perceive them. Many other groups came to the New World voluntarily and, after several generations of adjustment, found themselves gradually absorbed into the mainstream of American life. This has not occurred to a substantial degree for blacks, and it stands as a barrier to an integrated social life. (2) It is also held by some that the slavery experience has removed permanently the possibility of a social identity with which blacks can comfortably identify. If one holds that the problem of identity is crucial to an individual’s sense of self and purpose, then we can readily see why pessimists take the problem to be unsolvable. Conceptual as well as practical difficulties exist for blacks who attempt to find the self in recreating an African identity. The attempt to reconstruct past traditions is fraught with difficulties: premodern ways of thought cannot be accommodated easily in a modern technological society, and they create additional difficulties. Modern democracy is forward looking and historically unreflective, and seeks universal commonalties as well as the solidarity of all within the democratic state. If part of one’s selfidentity crucially depends upon the recognition of a social self validated by all of society, then self-identity is dependent upon, in the long run, acceptance by the majority, which is, according to the pessimists, resistant to such acceptance. Pessimists see no solution in either case, since they consider the first solution quixotic and the latter unlikely to occur, given the past history of separation of the races. (3) Cultural separation of blacks from their roots has also latent economic and moral consequences: the potential benefits of collective action, which might alleviate the general neglect of poorer blacks by well-off blacks, continues to be less than might be expected. Pessimists fault the experience of slavery with contributing to blocking these avenues of potential solidarity. They see it as a psychological fact that profound deprivation often leads to a

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lack of regard for those who are similarly situated; they suggest that the difficulties of contemporary black economic life are tied to the past cultural patterns of domination and dependence, which have an dulled an entrepreneurial spirit that might otherwise have emerged within the black community. (4) Pessimists are also concerned that the slavery experience is concealed by some social thinkers who are promoting an unsympathetic view of the black experience in society. Thus while democracy must accommodate healthy difference and dissent among citizens, some commentators represent difference in a negative, alarmist, and nightmarish fashion. For instance, some arguments found in Dinesh D’Souza’s End of Racism, encourage us to view the problems faced by blacks in contemporary democracy as problems whose causal ancestry lies solely with the irregularities and cultural deficiencies in life in the black community.7 Divisive difference is promoted by his suggestion that it is only rational that non-blacks should act in ways of social avoidance, which he interprets as a form of self-protection. It is evident that such a stance cannot serve the end of an inclusive democracy. 3. Governmental Action and Moral Pessimism In regard finally to claim (3) in the case for moral pessimism, in United States democracy an extensive role for government in the lives of citizens has always been viewed with a healthy skepticism by the populace; but we harbor a schizophrenic view of the government’s function. We want government both to interfere and yet leave us alone to pursue the good life. Liberal democracy tolerates plural ideas of the good. The moral and philosophical status of government in the mind of the electorate is too complex and too varied to admit of any easy analysis. But as in all democracies the electorate often needs an outlet for blame when things go awry. Democratic electorates look to government to act, but sometimes they do not wish to bear the cost of remedial social policies. On my view, the public choice theory of government and electorate is an accurate model of the workings of real democratic government today. 8 Under this view the democratic state acts in ways that maximize the interests of its constituents: politicians seek to maximize the length of their stay in office; electoral competition is the means for offering political choice to citizens; citizens by their voting behavior punish political parties that do not fulfill their expectations, and reward those who do. To say this is not to suggest that important ideals are absent from contemporary politics, but it is to suggest that ideals have to compete with strong conflicting interests. If the public choice theory is correct, we can explain the emergence of another form of black moral pessimism, which is based on what happens in the sphere of government action. Government in the past has acted in ways to bridge the differences between black and white through legislation. The results have not always been fully successful in changing social attitudes, though it has altered in some very positive and highly significant ways the social sphere in employment, housing, and education. Fundamentally the practice of pluralist democracy makes it difficult to achieve deep changes quickly. The ideal of

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democracy, as we often view it, is Madisonian in character. Politicians are to respond to the desires of shifting majorities so that concentration of power does not reside permanently in any privileged group of citizens. The shifting interests of an electorate may preclude the solution of long-standing and deeply rooted social problems that affect particular minorities. It is this consideration that causes moral pessimists to doubt that government action can be sustained to tackle the deeper roots of blacks’ discontent with their economic and social status in society. 4. Hope amidst Moral Pessimism Having laid out the foundations for contemporary moral pessimism, I raise the following questions: Can the problems of racial conflict, divisive difference, and economic injustice be substantially alleviated? Must we abandon the idea of an integrationist view of democracy implicit in the ideas of philosophical optimists like Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois, or the vision of an “overlapping consensus” implicit in the vision of John Rawls’ Political Liberalism?9 Evidence points to a growing polarization between blacks and whites, with pessimism about substantial shifts in the social and political conditions. I suggest a line of rebuttal to the pessimists’ stance that I have characterized. My purpose is not to challenge the integrity or the cogency of their arguments. The pessimists’ analysis is strongly presented. Yet there may be ways in which some of the conditions to which they draw attention can be ameliorated. We may be right in not accepting a thoroughgoing pessimism. My rebuttal of the pessimists’ stance is critical but constructive, and it is not based upon a quixotic idealism. Idealism is double edged. It is essential if we are to have standards by which to judge our actions and goals, but untempered idealism may lead us astray by causing us to dismiss the social reality experienced by many people. The moral pessimists have focused on the failure of society to move beyond the issue of race. We may call this the societal problem. The voiding of damaging stereotypes does not seem to have been accomplished in the case of blacks. Other immigrant groups have arguably been luckier in this regard in finding themselves integrated fully into the mainstream after several generations. The damaging negative stereotypes of blacks are holdovers from the experience of slavery and the discrimination that followed. The problem of slavery’s aftermath is unresolved and divides the whole society. It is held to be contributory to some of the dysfunctionalities in black life and the inability of some blacks to feel that they fit into society in the right sort of way. It is also thought that inadequate black social cooperation is linked to the slavery experience. I attempt to restore hope in the face of rational pessimism by addressing the two problems outlined above. They are linked, and I shall not pretend that they can be resolved in any easy way; but I contend that there are necessary preliminary steps that must be taken to generate racial harmony within our

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democracy. These steps are possible notwithstanding the inevitable clash of values that is a typical feature of healthy democracy. 5. Overcoming the Societal Problem Blacks suffer from the inheritance of damaging social and cultural stereotypes and from forms of unflattering cultural representations, so often the subject even of black literary works. The stereotypes appear to be reinforced in contemporary society by media practice, which is to select images and frame them in ways that reflect conscious and unconscious biases of various kinds. The fact that these negative images are able to gain credibility raises the question of how we as reasonable human beings make moral judgments and, more importantly, how we come to make systematically faulty judgments on evidence presented to us. Recent work by Daniel Khanemann and Amos Tversky speaks to the known psychological tendencies of rational individuals to make biased judgments.10 We are all guilty of using inference strategies that focus on evidence that reinforces our prior beliefs, and we often fail to look for counter evidence to claims presented to us. We tend to accept beliefs that fit comfortably with our other beliefs. These all-too-human modes of judgment in everyday life explain in part how damaging stereotypes of blacks are often erroneous. Recent studies of social attitudes toward the economic progress of blacks are instructive here. It is widely thought that the main obstacle to blacks succeeding in the economic sphere is their lack of ability in a competitive environment.11 This viewpoint discounts the effects of discrimination in the workplace and the effect of social disadvantage. Pessimists vary in the degree to which they view such social perceptions of blacks as truly depressing. Some think that such views represent a deep social antipathy towards blacks, which generates a kind of “ moral blindness” (to borrow William James’s phrase). This explanation, if cogent, supports the view that our antipathies concerning other persons are often aroused by what we perceive as differences in tastes and habits, even though these variations might be quite harmless. If skin color is one of those differences that cannot be viewed as an irrelevant contingent feature of persons, then it may seem that whatever antipathy exists between black and white must be permanent. This sort of speculation explains why many pessimists cannot foresee any substantial change in racial attitudes as possible. Such a view clearly implies that effective action for a less polarized kind of democratic society is impossible. The explanation of stereotyping by way of deep and discriminate antipathy may be wrong. Visceral hatreds between social groups in mature democracy may be a thing of the past. Today in a complex world of greater social interdependence, moral engagement is more complex and nuanced. This does not mean, of course, that interpersonal relationships are any less trying. In a much more interdependent world we have had a greater necessity to engage in social trust and to limit our social ambiva-

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lence about others. Paradoxically, it is this situation that may permit the gradual solution of the societal problem. We observe that community relations are strained and societal reactions to blacks have become more complex. Some blacks are well regarded in various social roles, some are genuinely admired, some are folk heroes. The cultural contributions of Diaspora blacks are widely shared in music, sport, dance, literature, and theater. Their contributions to national defense and civic life are equally recognized. Yet all this coexists with a general antipathetic feeling for blacks. The problem is both more complex and nuanced than the views advanced by some pessimists. In recognizing the complexity of feelings on race matters, we are less inclined to find its explanation in a unique source. It allows us to open up avenues of engagement that might allow for greater understanding. We too easily underestimate the opportunities for changing hearts and minds. We should acknowledge that overcoming the complex antipathies that do exist requires tremendous efforts by both blacks and whites. Non-blacks must come to see blacks as persons with a full repertoire of hopes, aspirations, and desires; and they must also acknowledge that the relation between black and non-black in our democracy must in the end be one of a shared fate and a shared stake in the working of a successful democracy. It cannot be fully achieved, for instance, if blacks are perceived as not having a right to be fully included in the burdens and opportunities that liberal democracy offers. Even during slavery some ambivalence existed among non-blacks who were firmly committed to the abolition of slavery. The change of perspective to which I allude, if it can obtain, will have the beneficial effect of bringing into being what cannot be accomplished by compulsion and only to a limited extent by law. 6. Overcoming the Legacy of Slavery The legacy of slavery forms a second deep source of pessimism. It is widely acknowledged as having left behind a painful burden for blacks––a sense of anomie and a loss of assurance about self-identity. One of the consequences of all this is that it has brought into being resentment and accumulated harms. Cornel West puts the matter succinctly when he writes of two such conditions, invisibility and namelessness, which have been consequences of slavery for Diaspora blacks. He writes: The modern Black Diaspora problematic of invisibility and namelessness can be understood as the condition of a relative lack of Black power to represent themselves to themselves and others as complex beings, and thereby to contest the bombardment of negative degrading stereotypes.12 In the view of moral pessimists, the twin effects of anomie and loss of self-identity cannot be overcome. Hence they draw the conclusion that blacks are faced with an unresolvable problem. The problem can be put this way. The

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slavery experience has removed the cultural affinity of Diaspora blacks with Africa and its traditions. Blacks who visit Africa are able to see more fully the extent to which this severance has given them a mature Western democratic outlook despite the difficult historical experiences. The links with the African past cannot be severed but the imagined way of life of particular African communities cannot be replicated. Strong versions of Afrocentrism sometimes seem to endorse such a reconstruction of black life. I believe that pessimists are probably right in the observation that it is not a viable route, no matter how attractive the option appears in theory. But they are wrong if they consider the problem of identity to be insoluble. The problem of identity for blacks is exacerbated because of exclusion within society that forces them to need to find a greater part of the solution in the African heritage. The proper solution lies in negotiating one’s identity. There are philosophical views of the self that suggest that the idea of a true self is a fiction and that selves are in part social constructions that we can modify and shape. There is much to commend this account. It means that blacks may well be free to develop and sustain their African identity to a greater or lesser degree as they choose, without disengaging from the many roles that are demanded of citizens in a democracy. For each individual the particular trade-offs will be unique. Once again the difficulties should not be underestimated, for they involve the thorny issues of the role of multi-cultural thinking in a mature democracy and the very character of democracy in a growing interdependent and cosmopolitan world. The second important legacy of slavery is the resentment it has caused, which stands in the way of any reconciliationist ideal. Yet because the effects of slavery gnaw at the heart of black and white relations, it must be dealt with as part of a collective experience that all must share and acknowledge. This difficult task can be accomplished in part through some form of national memorial by which all can come to acknowledge the pain, suffering, and impact of slavery, in place of non-solutions in which silence, guilt, resentment, embarrassment, and frustration remain close to the surface; and the past sources of the emotional attitudes remain unacknowledged. Pessimists will no doubt remind us of the potential futility of symbolic gestures. I take my optimism about this kind of practical step from the recent attempts to heal other historical group wrongs between communities where closure has been difficult to achieve and the positive potential role that symbols of continuity with the past can play. The public memorials that a society constructs are acknowledgments of truly significant events that are thought to be worthy of remembrance. The symbolic representations allow us to demonstrate our collective concerns. Interesting examples that come to mind are the Vietnam memorial and the Holocaust museums in Washington, Paris, and Jerusalem. These have been sources for the healing of resentments of various kinds and they promote democratic ideals of tolerance. They also help us to reinforce moral ideals that repudiate cruelty and promote the narrowing of longstanding divisive differences. Symbolic gestures representing an understanding of the magnitude of the slave

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experience can have equally significant prospects for securing trust, understanding, and social healing. In suggesting this positive step towards overcoming the effects of the slavery experience, I would be naive to suppose that such a project would be easy to execute even if costs––and the question of who should bear them––were not a factor. In conceiving a slavery memorial we shall surely run into the potentially divisive problem of the representation of the past. Any kind of representation will be a representation from some point of view. In such a venture some may try from the outset to find scapegoats, victims, sinners, and saints, and read moral and political implications into what is said or not said, represented or not represented. From my understanding of the establishment of other significant national memorials, such conflicts inevitably pose considerable challenges. For example, such a memorial to the experience of slavery would have to command reverence from all, irrespective of race, social class, and gender to speak truthfully of the pain and suffering, and yet not to produce further bitterness. It therefore would require great creativity and commitment on the part of society. These are essential prerequisites for projects that bring greater social harmony. Where such projects have succeeded, they have allowed the past to be fully acknowledged, and have encouraged individuals to focus on the future. We have no reason to suppose that the same success cannot be achieved by a slavery memorial. We might also add the potential benefit for all, for it is unlikely that government would not be involved, and there is every reason to suppose that a dialogue about the slavery experience would gain momentum and render it less a taboo subject than it currently is. Liberal democratic thinking is by nature optimistic about the power of human beings to make the conditions of social and political life better. It is this dimension of liberal democracy, which some might call meliorism, that gives it its global appeal. Moral pessimists suggest that on the matter of race we should not hope for or expect much. While acknowledging the strength of their arguments, I have provided a constructive challenge to them. Some of their predictions may ultimately be proven. Their analysis cannot be faulted on grounds of a failure to look at the hard social facts. But social facts, unlike the facts of natural science, can be unmade; and therein lies grounds for optimism. By individual and collective action we are able to change the shape of our democracy, if we all so choose. Thus, if there is anything to the vision of inheriting a more racially harmonious democratic society, we must take the steps that will make the picture of the moral pessimists a less likely reality. NOTES 1. See Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1992); and Patricia Williams, The Rooster’s Egg: On the Persistence of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). 2. Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well, p. 98.

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3. See Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy (New York: Harper Row Publishers, 1964). 4. Pierre Dockè, Medieval Slavery and Liberation. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 4–5; and Laurence M. Thomas, Vessels of Evil, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), p. 150. 5. Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 340. 6. Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, Publishers, 1963), pp. 81–133. 7. Dinesh D’Souza, The End of Racism (New York: Free Press, 1995). 8. Robert Alt and Kenneth Shelpse, Perspectives on Positive Political Theory (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 9. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 133–172. 10. Daniel Khanemann, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds., Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 3–20. 11. Paul A. Snidermann and Michael G. Hagen, Race and Inequality: A Study in American Values (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1985), p. 30. 12. Cornel West, “The New Cultural Politics of Difference,” Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, ed. Russell Ferguson, et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990), p. 27.

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Three SOUTH AFRICAN DEMOCRACY, MULTI-CULTURALISM, RIGHTS, AND COMMUNITY Edward Sankowski The concept of democracy must be reevaluated in changing historical and societal circumstances. This chapter considers issues pertaining to democracy and multi-culturalism in South Africa, issues related to the contrast between liberal (individual rights centered) and communitarian democratic political philosophy and practice. No country at present more exemplifies the challenge and opportunity of multi-culturalism for democratic theory and practice than South Africa. This chapter argues that a combination of liberal and communitarian thought is necessary to understand events in South Africa, and to produce a normative political theory to guide democratization in that very multi-cultural context. The communitarian component of the liberal-communitarian combination is perhaps not as well recognized, and so is emphasized here. A great transformation is underway in South Africa, from apartheid society to what we hope will be (after much more effort) a thoroughly non-racist constitutional democracy. The transformation generates important questions about the applicability of political categories familiar in other settings, for example, in the more stable, economically developed Western democracies, including the United States. Whether in South Africa, the United States, or elsewhere, the multicultural nature of many societies aiming at democracy poses problems about sustaining such democracies as exist and inventing new expressions of the democratic impulse. Especially compelling is the mutual cross-societal interest in issues about democracy and multi-culturalism in South Africa and the United States. That is, each country (including its politicians, academics, novelists, and ordinary citizens) watches and judges the way the other deals with democracy and multi-culturalism, particularly conflicts between black and white people. This interest will not be discussed in this chapter, although the chapter occasionally alludes to it, as well as itself illustrating it. Though it is beyond the scope of the chapter to demonstrate it, racerelated problems in multi-cultural democracy provide some of the main motivation for the mutual political interest between South Africa and the United States. To the extent that the liberal-communitarian contrast is useful for understanding South African race-related problems, study of South African democracy will assist us in further democratization in the Unites States. It is a task for another paper to argue for this rather than merely suggesting it. None-

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theless, inquiry into further democratization in the United States is part of the motivation behind the present chapter. Let us now briefly consider the nature of the contrast between liberal and communitarian modes of political thought. 1. Liberalism and Communitarianism Some political philosophers in the “first world” (a significantly lingering phrase) distinguish between liberalism and communitarianism.1 Liberal and communitarian positions are not clearly defined or sharply distinct, and these words are not always used to describe the contrasting positions. In some influential and extreme forms, the liberal approach typically stresses equal basic individual rights (which package of individual rights is controversial) and seeks governmental neutrality about good character and the good life. Thus such positions can be called “neutral liberalism” or “neutralist liberalism,” phrases notably used in Charles Taylor’s formulations of the issues. Other liberalisms do not aspire to governmental neutrality about good character and the good life. There are also differences among liberalisms that take the neutral approach. For example, seeking governmental neutrality, aiming to avoid directly and coercively imposing a conception of good character and the good life, might be distinguished from the far more demanding and questionable ideal of neutrality that seeks to avoid using government indirectly (even, for example, by non-coercive education) to foster any conception of good character (and related ideals). The communitarian approach, while it may or may not downplay individual rights, also typically uses other value-laden notions, variously described. These include notions of good character, the good life, ethically and politically desirable identity, and the self, all to be indirectly or directly fostered by government. Such notions are typically embedded in an ethical outlook that emphasizes values of culture and community. Sometimes this means that positive values of differing types are ascribed by communitarians to cultures and communities as such. Sometimes it means more specifically that the values that are maintained in certain cultures and communities are given noteworthy weight. Sometimes group rights are held to be important and insufficiently appreciated in regimes where individual rights are paramount. Thus, a variety of aspects of the value and influence of culture and community is stressed by communitarians. Authors with neutral liberal views include John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. Authors with communitarian views include Alasdair MacIntyre, Taylor, and Michael Sandel (though MacIntyre would probably reject the label). Taylor would consider himself a liberal as well as a communitarian. Joseph Raz, on the other hand, would consider himself a liberal whose view has both communitarian and multi-cultural aspects.2 In their ethically or socially most plausible versions, both neutralist liberalism and communitarianism articulate a framework for democracy, and affirm some basic individual rights in doing so. Does consideration of the

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choice between a liberal and a communitarian approach to democracy or possibly a combination of the two raise fruitful philosophical questions in application to South Africa? In this chapter I argue in the affirmative. Although there are tensions between the two orientations, they must be uneasily combined in theory and practice in that country. The combination is feasible since some types of liberalism embrace both elements of multi-culturalism and communitarianism, for example, those of Taylor and Raz. Also, communitarianism can and should include some ideals of liberalism and can be more adequate than many liberalisms in its capacity to cope with the demands of culture. In fact I am sympathetic to the idea that multi-culturalism tends to ally itself with a democratic approach with communitarian features, though this may be and should be liberal (in some respects) as well. Both multi-culturalism and communitarianism are revealingly displayed as alternatives to neutralist liberalism in educational theory and practice. This includes the government’s policy and practice about public schooling, the legal framework permitted for private schooling, and many state-sponsored or state-permitted public educational measures not confined to schooling. Such measures include all sorts of social device aimed to teach and educate. The law itself, including the constitution, can be thought of in an educative dimension, whether educating for good or ill. In South Africa, as elsewhere, political campaigns have an educational dimension. The controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission, designed to hold hearings on abuses under apartheid, is an educational project. Governmental educational efforts, then, are very diverse. When they specifically take account of and seek to set relations ethically right among and within cultures and in community in its many forms, multiculturalism and communitarianism in alliance are coming to the fore. In the remainder of this paper, educational examples will be used rather often to illustrate the alliance between multi-culturalism and communitarianism in South African democracy. 2. South African Politics We shall consider some features of South African politics and the South African Constitution. Again, we are studying South Africa for what can be learned about building a multi-cultural democracy that may overcome racial divisions. The South African Constitutional Assembly, on 8 May 1996, adopted a constitution that includes an extensive Bill of Rights.3 Indeed, the Bill of Rights from section 7 to section 39 is one of the strongest rights documents in use today. The Constitution was amended on 11 October 1996, and the final version did not come into force until 4 February 1997, but that does not affect my argument. To what extent does this amended document and the politics surrounding it reveal a communitarian commitment to ideas of good character and the value of community and culture, as well as a liberal commitment to a schedule of individual rights? What does this imply for the political theory of democracy?

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In Chapter 1, “Founding Provisions,” the new Constitution asserts that “The Republic of South Africa is one sovereign democratic state” founded on certain values, and includes among these values, “Human dignity, the advancement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms,” as well as “non-racialism and non-sexism.”4 It is difficult to imagine that these animating values have no implications about what are considered the politically and ethically desirable character or identity of South African citizens, now and in the future. I will focus on non-racialism as one trait held to be politically valuable to encourage in the new South Africa. (Non-sexism is a momentous issue, but I am discussing primarily the aftermath of apartheid in this chapter.) The idea of one sovereign democratic state also carries suggestions about the value of democratic national political community, which are difficult to ignore. With conflicting cultures and regions within, and pressures from without, the country’s achievement of one sovereign democratic state cannot be taken for granted, but must be achieved through hard effort. It seems that national political community includes shared awareness of individual rights, but goes beyond that to include other features of community. The Constitution was adopted under a government of national unity, which included more than the newly politically dominant African National Congress (ANC). Most notably, it included the former ruling National Party (NP), which had supported apartheid. Other major political forces will not be much discussed here. The ANC position on these matters must be weighed especially heavily in interpreting the meaning of the Constitution. That position was elaborated over some time. In one statement, from April 1991, “Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa,” the ANC view was expressed as follows: A non-racial South Africa means a South Africa in which all the artificial barriers and assumptions which kept people apart and maintained domination, are removed. In its negative sense, non-racial means the elimination of all color bars. In positive terms it means the affirmation of equal rights for all. 5 This might make one think that the ANC position could be understood as reducible to a neutralist liberalism of rights, but that would be a strained interpretation. Realistically, non-racial must refer in part to character traits to be encouraged (though not necessarily directly legally required) in the new South Africa. This is also suggested by another passage in that statement, which asserts that “the flag, names, public holidays and symbols of our country should encourage a sense of shared Africanness.”6 The statement, then, taken as a whole and in its broader social context, says that governmental policy should encourage certain character traits and certain group attitudes and customs. These include (but are not limited to) non-racism, a sense of personal identification with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and a sense of

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shared citizenship with members of all the different cultural groups in South Africa. It might be asked why “non-racial” must refer in part to character traits to be encouraged by governmental policy in the new South Africa. In beginning (at least) to answer this question, we should understand that, whether in ANC discourse or not, recent political changes have helped promote some advances in forms of discourse and psychological dispositions that take for granted the legitimacy of equal individual rights under the law. It is recognized by thoughtful South Africans, however, that much more needs to be done to overcome racism. For example, in a recent paper, Courtney Jung and Jeremy Seekings discuss racism in post-apartheid South Africa. They study discussions of race in Ruyterwacht, a suburb not far from central Capetown, where efforts at busing and school integration in 1995 led to tension and protests by white residents. Jung and Seekings note shifting attitudes about racism. Public discourse in the new South Africa is infused with references to democracy, human rights, and negotiations. And it exists alongside a public discourse of black criminality and barbarity. The issues at the heart of debates about race no longer concern basic political and civil rights . . . . The controversial issues in 1995 concern social and economic transformation. What transformation and redistribution will there be, and how will this be effected?7 Jung and Seekings are not targeting the problems of this chapter. However, their discussion helps make clear that for adequate governmental administration of schools in the interests of a non-racist South Africa, something must be done to modify new forms of racism in post-apartheid South Africa, new forms of racism that are themselves problems of character, racism that exists after equal basic legal rights have been conceded by the racists themselves. Racists in the new South Africa often contribute to a politics of character that promotes fear and disapproval of the character traits of non-white citizens. Such racism cannot be effectively fought by confining oneself to arguing for the protection of basic individual rights in the usual sense. Rather, an alternative, non-racist politics of character going beyond the politics of rights is necessary. Another example is to be found in the philosopher H. P. P. Loetter’s Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa.8 Loetter cares very much about individual rights and democracy. As part of this, he stresses that every citizen must change. By this he means changes that come from the individual, from non-governmental institutions, and from government. Loetter particularly envisages a role for Christianity, though he recognizes the importance of other religions and of non-religious groups. What matters most for this discussion is Loetter’s mixture of liberal individual rights talk and his communitarian emphasis on the politics of character, as well as on cultural diversity. Loetter writes:

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People all over the world, especially Africans and African-Americans, are watching the abilities of South Africans to create a humane and peaceful society, which can accommodate all the diverse people in South Africa. The significance of peacefully shared lives in South Africa goes far beyond the concerns of South Africa.9 While the ANC policy statement alluded to above is different from the article by academic social scientists and the book by a philosophy professor, all three reflect the realization that racism in the new South Africa must be understood not solely in terms of the denial of basic individual legal rights, but also in terms of psychological and ethical character dispositions, which are matters for political concern and reeducation; moreover, such reeducation must take account of cultures and community. This tends to favor, emphatically, not the abandonment of liberal individual rights discourse, but its supplementation by a communitarian discourse of a non-racist character, to be promoted by governmental and other institutions. 3. Multi-Culturalism in South Africa The multi-cultural nature of the South African population, as well as the varied and often conflicting multi-cultural ideals that are part of contemporary South African politics, strengthen but also complicate the need for more communitarian modes of political theory and practice. Multi-culturalism (including liberal multi-culturalism, discussed by Raz) regards individual membership in a flourishing culture as necessary for individual flourishing. We may hope that the many ideals of character and the good life, the variety of conceptions of the self that necessarily exist in a highly multi-cultural society such as South Africa, will coexist and gain from each other. Some oppressed cultures will need help to recover themselves. Oppressive cultures will have to be prevented from dominating other cultures and individuals outside of them (and sometimes the culture’s own members) in the process keeping the value of thriving cultures at the forefront of attention. These will all be factors in strengthening an appropriate combination of liberal and communitarian sensibilities. At the same time, the tendency in a multi-cultural society is for ideals of character to become many and more complicated, for subnational cultures and their concomitant ideals of the self to conflict with one another, and for some subnational cultures of various sorts to resist a shared national culture or community (for example, the very different but sometimes collaborating Afrikaners and Zulus in South Africa). The ANC policy statement explicitly rejects overly simple ideas about what form good character, the good life, identity, or shared attitudes and customs should take. Thus it says, When we speak of a united South Africa we do not envisage the elimination of cultural, linguistic, religious and political differences. On the

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contrary, we regard the multiplicity of opinions, beliefs, faiths, tastes, cultures and preferences as contributing towards the richness and texture of South African life.10 I might add that some political commentators with sympathy for the Afrikaners and (distinctly) for the former ruling NP, stress the political desirability of respect for cultural differences, even as they express anxiety about, along with hope for the cultural survival of the Afrikaners under the new constitution and its complex politics. Hermann Giliomee, Professor of Political Studies at the University of Capetown, provides an interesting discussion of the South African miracle of recent fundamental political change (not as violent as it might have been) including the negotiations concerning the new political system and the 1994 election: Economically the NP got its way when the ANC accepted the market system and property rights, but in cultural affairs it has little reason for satisfaction. The recognition of eleven languages looks like a barely concealed formula for English to become the sole official language, and the ANC refused to grant either mother-tongue education or singlemedium schools as rights. The cultural autonomy of Afrikaans schools and universities is heavily qualified by the insistence that English streams be introduced in these institutions to provide greater access to blacks . . . . [After the election] Afrikaners with cultural concerns now had to fend for themselves under a new dominant party that did not have much patience for subnational identities or anything but an increasingly English-based, individualistic culture.11 Giliomee exaggerates the individualistic tendency of ANC policy. Although rights talk with an individualistic, neutralist liberal tone has a very prominent role in the Constitution. In Chapter 2, “Bill of Rights,” 36, the Constitution says: (1) The rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited only in terms of law of general application to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, taking into account all relevant factors including a. the nature of the right; b. the importance of the purpose of the limitation; c. the nature and extent of the limitation; d. the relation between the limitation and its purpose; and e. less restrictive means to achieve the purpose. (2) Except as provided in subsection (1) or in any other provision of the Constitution, no law may limit any right entrenched in the Bill of Rights.12

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Even in this normative passage on rights, however, there is no claim that the rights in the Bill of Rights, along with auxiliary notions, can stand alone without articulated values of democratic community. There are many reasons why the Constitution must acknowledge limitations on its rights. It is, for example, somewhat ominous but understandable that it discusses the conditions for a possible state of emergency in Chapter 2, “Bill of Rights,” 37. In light of some of the violent and repressive history of the country, the fears and contingency planning that motivated this discussion are understandable. Violent racial and ethnic conflict indeed could put an end to the inspiring South African democratic experiment. Persons of good will hope that this does not happen. There are many reasons to take heart, despite the perpetuation of structures of inequality in many spheres relevant to South Africa, including the domestic and international economy. South Africa needs investment to improve its economy, but the conditions on loans also make it difficult to accomplish what would in any case be a challenging political task, the redistribution of opportunity and property (including land) to achieve the equality necessary for a genuine multi-cultural democracy. Wrenching domestic inequality, much of it among racially and culturally defined groups, persists in South Africa, so much so that it is not entirely clear that there is really a new South Africa emerging in the formally post-apartheid era.13 We need not think of a possible state of emergency to recognize that more routine features of social life require limits on any individual right. As in any constitution of such ambitious scope and complexity, the rights in the new South African Constitution are bound to conflict to some extent with one another. This chapter asserts that communitarian considerations about character, the good life, identity, culture, and community will need to be invoked to adjudicate some of the conflicts. What is most relevant here is not just that there must be limits on any right, although this is so. Instead, to justify some of the limits, we need to go outside the range of neutralist liberal rightscentered political thinking, though we need not and should not abandon individual rights and liberalism. We need to enter into communitarian reasoning. Consider, for example, Giliomee’s description of the worries of some Afrikaners about cultural survival. They worry about preserving their language as a medium of instruction and as a defining element of their identity as Afrikaners. To some extent this can be used as a rationalization for continued racial separatism in many settings. It might also be plausibly argued that some Afrikaners promoted Afrikaans as a language among so-called colored persons as a political device. Some perceive it as to their advantage to encourage a group of non-white South Africans to serve as a buffer between the Afrikaners and the majority of the South African population, the so-called Africans. The NP succeeded to some extent in playing on colored fears of indigenous Africans in the 1994 election, to take one illustration. It is very important to distinguish conceptually and ethically between the objectionable politics of some Afrikaners and membership in the group as such. Those whose politics are objectionable nonetheless should be treated in an ethical manner. Also, there

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are Afrikaners who have rejected apartheid and who support democracy, equal basic human rights, and other humane values. The constitution seeks to protect freedom of expression. But what of speech that plays up racial animosities and would, if successful, lead to policies that would deny many non-white citizens their rights to education, to political influence, to economic opportunities? There is a political interest, to be pursued without trampling on free speech rights, in promoting nonracialism and a sense of shared South African democratic identity as character traits in the typical South African citizen, as difficult as this is to do. This is one example among many in which a communitarian as well as multi-cultural conception of important aspects of good character and desirable political identity (non-racism and a sense of shared democratic citizenship) could properly function in practical political reasoning with the goal not only of protecting rights, but of promoting good character through civic education. The difficulty of achieving such goals is no argument against the main claim: it is a partially communitarian mode of reasoning that explains what is missing in appeals to rights. The need to combine liberal individual rights-centered theory with communitarian modes of thought (and the need to elaborate on the role of multiculturalism within the communitarian approach) is not to be regretted. It is to be accepted as necessary and desirable, given the history and contemporary situation that make the new constitution and contemporary South African politics meaningful. Next, let us amplify the earlier suggestion that governmental educational policy is an especially important area for combining liberal and communitarian modes of democratic thought. One should study carefully section 29, on education, of the Bill of Rights. It is also useful to read this section in conjunction with the very next two sections, on language and culture (30) on cultural, linguistic, and religious communities (31). Some of the issues can be further illustrated by Notice 130 of 1996 Education White Paper 2, “The Organization, Governance and Funding of Schools,” Department of Education, Pretoria, February 1996.14 This paper was obviously composed before the permanent constitution was adopted, but provides some of the context surrounding the adoption. Professor S. M. E. Bengu, the Prime Minister of Education (MP), writes (in a section “Language and Culture”): While this document has been in preparation, the Ministry and Department of Education have received visits from a number of delegations representing organs of the Afrikaans-speaking population. Without exception they have expressed their commitment to our democratic and non-racial Constitution . . . . At the same time, they have warned of a rising tide of grassroots disenchantment and anxiety among their communities, based on the perception that the government is not protecting linguistic and cultural diversity in the education system, contrary to the

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EDWARD SANKOWSKI guarantees afforded by the Constitution and the Ministry’s policy commitments in Education White Paper 1 . . . . It is because of our nation’s bitter experience of political oppression and cultural domination by successive minority regimes, that this government is committed to creating sufficient legal, political, linguistic and cultural space for all our varied people to live in peace together. Nonracialism, democracy, the protection of fundamental rights, and redress, do not mean that the idea of cultural identity is denied, or that all cultural distinctiveness is to be obliterated, or that the cultural and linguistic heritage of any of our communities can be disparaged. Our Constitution forbids cultural exploitation and provides for the protection and advancement of all our cultures, and the development of all our languages.15

Bengu also objects to the misuse of the appeal to cultural distinctiveness as a device to continue racial privilege in public school education. Issues about neutral liberalism and communitarianism, as well as the multi-cultural aspects of communitarianism, can be found readily in debates about public educational policy. Inevitably, the role of the state in producing certain types of citizens through its educational system must come up as a topic for both theoretical and urgently practical reasons. The normative theory of public education is one manifest area in which tensions are expressed between neutralist liberal and communitarian as well as multi-cultural approaches to democracy. Bengu, in particular, reaffirms statements from White Paper 116, including these: It should be the goal of Education and training policy to enable a democratic, free, equal, just and peaceful society to take root and prosper in our land, on the basis that all South Africans without exception share the same inalienable rights, equal citizenship, and common national destiny and that all forms of bias (especially racial, ethnic, and gender) are dehumanizing. This requires the active encouragement of mutual respect for our people’s diverse religions, cultural and language traditions, their right to enjoy and practice these in peace and without hindrance, and the recognition that these are a source of strength for their own communities and the unity of the nation.17 Bengu uses ethical language that is both rights-centered and communitarian in a multi-cultural sense. There is no fatal conflict in that, but it may signal that neutralist liberalism seems insufficient both to describe what is going on in those political circumstances and to prescribe what ought to be done. Here it is assumed that a normative approach such as neutralist liberalism also typically presupposes a descriptive and explanatory account of how

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society works. Note that neutralist liberalism by definition excludes communitarian considerations from political reasoning about what a democratic government should do. Neutralist liberalism also cannot take adequate account of the importance of multi-culturalism. This is not to say that all modes of liberalism exclude communitarian and multi-cultural considerations from democratic politics. As discussed above, some liberals and some communitarians (those with the most plausible normative positions) include individual rights in their normative political reasoning, but also use more communitarian value notions such as good character, politically and socially desirable identity, and respect for various cultures in a multi-cultural society. What Bengu is struggling with is not only the practical difficulties of the particular situation, but some fundamental philosophical difficulties. I delineate some of these problems and draw some tentative conclusions in the remainder of this chapter. Some people, in their explicit language, focus more on rights talk than on character trait talk, but these people sometimes would acknowledge the moral force not only of rights but of other considerations understood to be distinct from rights, for example, character traits such as non-racialism. Some people focus on dispositions to respect rights, rather than on rights as such. Such dispositions typically amount to character traits. It is unlikely, however, that non-racialism is entirely reducible to a disposition to respect any set of rights; more is involved in non-racialism than that. Some people may succumb to confusion, mistakenly conceiving of non-racialism, for example, as though it were not a character trait at all, but as somehow identical with not violating rights on grounds of race. It would be very implausible to conceive of non-racialism in this narrow way. At times, Bengu may give the impression that he thinks that non-racialism could be understood as equivalent to refraining from violating rights on grounds of race. At points the South African Constitution, with its very strong individual rights emphasis, can seem like that. But, both Bengu and the Constitution acknowledge other moral considerations than individual rights. Many South Africans with varying political commitments in that multi-cultural society seem committed in theory and practice to normatively communitarian and multi-cultural political and ethical ideas about character, the good life, shared identity, community, and culture in the new South Africa. This more communitarian as well as multi-cultural approach, which does not exclude all types of rights-centered liberalisms, has also had its effects on the constitution as well as on other features of South African political life. So Jung and Seekings, academics writing about the new South Africa, recognize that racism in South Africa requires a detailed account with nuances. Surely they know that opposing racism will require a logic and rhetoric not entirely reducible to rights talk, and they know that racism should be very much a matter of political and governmental concern in the new South Africa. How, for example, is the government to take an active role in its pursuit of equal educational opportunity for all South Africans irrespective of race? Part

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of the task will require reeducating those who still have not really accepted the end of apartheid, among them those who resist when black students are brought into school facilities in their neighborhoods. The ANC appreciates this situation. In the section on education and training in its Reconstruction and Development Program, we find statements such as the following. We must develop an integrated system of education and training that provides equal opportunities to all regardless of race, color, sex, class, language, age, religion, geographical location, political, or other opinion . . . . Education must be directed to the full development of the individual and community, and to strengthening respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It must promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all South Africans and must advance the principles contained in the Bill of Rights.18 This appears to be a mixture of liberal rights and communitarian and multicultural features. As depicted here, multi-culturalism and increased communitarian sensibilities are allied in the South African situation (and might tend to be allied elsewhere, though making this more general claim plausible is beyond our scope). For both ethical reasons and political advantage in negotiating among parties with conflicting interests, some people in South Africa, including Bengu, affirm positive value in all cultures in the society. Nonetheless, ethical distinctions need to be drawn, especially distinctions between racist or other forms of culture that posit domination within and among cultural groups and cultures that do not. Some persons of good will are committed to equality of cultures in some form as part of their commitment to democracy and democratic education, but this is consistent with their making ethical and other distinctions among cultures and groups. This is of interest here because a plausible democratic multiculturalism requires some commitment to a principle of equality of cultures. Some commitment or openness to the possibility of discovery of value in a culture or group, as well as respect for basic individual and group rights, seem necessary in order for the principle of equality of cultures to be satisfied. But the principle of equality of cultures is compatible with a recognition of that some cultures and groups are less ethically desirable than others. Taylor’s work on multi-culturalism suggests this view.19 4. Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Multi-Culturalism The liberal-communitarian contrast may well need reformulation when applied in new contexts such as South Africa. Some aspects of the contrast in straightforwardly Western societies, however, seem definitely to be important in South Africa as well.

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We cannot confine ourselves to showing how an “advanced” Western context for political theory, with suitable adjustments, sheds light on the situation in South Africa. It is also the case, and significantly so, that South African conditions and theoretical developments (for example, its multiculturalism) shed light on problems in Western societies such as the United States. For example, it is a source of pride (justified or not) to some Americans that many United States democratic ideas have been adopted, even though sometimes in a radically modified form, for the South African situation. Voting rights, rejection of “separate but equal,” affirmative action, and so on are part not only of the United States but also the South African landscape, though these practices are indeed changed by migration across borders. During the world historical 1994 elections, there were representatives from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center of Atlanta in South Africa to assist with the transition. Constructive ideas about adjusting democracy to multiculturalism can also flow from the South African context to the United States and other “advanced” Western countries as well. The strength of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, for example, helps keep the question of economic equality at the forefront in South Africa, as it is not in the United States. However, the multi-cultural reality of many contemporary societies, and the various multi-cultural ideals in the process of formulation and competition for realization, vastly complicate the debate between neutralist liberals and communitarians regarding democracy. Multi-cultural constitutional democratic societies such as the United States and South Africa rely heavily on rights as a moral conceptual device. Yet without invoking ideals about politically and ethically valuable traits in character, non-racialism, and tolerance, as well as ideas about culture itself, we cannot satisfactorily answer questions about which rights are basic and matter most, whether protected rights should be few or many, and what relationships exist between individual and group rights. This is so in both the United States and South Africa. The idea of equality of cultures, which expresses something valuable and is crucial in multi-cultural democracy, needs further delineation in both theory and practice if it is to contribute constructively. This difficult notion cannot become an institutional reality without extensive input into social policy from both social scientific inquiry into culture and philosophical argumentation about values. Combining ideas from social science and political philosophy and implementing them, however, are not enough. The efforts of many active citizens are necessary if a defensible ideal of equality of cultures is to be made a reality in practice. Even from a communitarian point of view multi-culturalism generates hard questions, though in South Africa it is allied with increasingly communitarian sensibilities and practices. It conflicts in particular with the idea (or ideal) of a homogeneous national community that haunts some communitarian thought. A more plausible, culturally pluralistic democratic communitarianism, which incorporates individual rights, must face hard facts about conflicts between the individual rights it may affirm and cultures it purports to respect.

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Such a communitarianism would have to reject some attitudes and practices within cultures, as in the quite appropriate rejection of white European supremacism and denial of women’s rights in some of the cultures in the South African mix. Moreover, conflicts among cultures are to be expected in any multi-cultural society. Contemporary liberal-communitarian debates about democracy are an evanescent phase of changes in social reality and political philosophy. Elements of neutralist liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights and its reluctance to articulate and foster a political ethos of character and to confront the ramifications of cultural diversity, are likely to have to be forcibly and awkwardly combined with elements of communitarianism, with its greater emphasis on groups, the value of different cultures, and politically and ethically charged ideas about good character, the good life, and desirable political identity. A viable theory and practice of democracy, in South Africa or anywhere else, is likely to demand this. An adequate philosophy of democracy will, therefore, need to transcend both neutralist liberalism and communitarianism in most of their current forms. If we were to ask a group of contemporary South Africans to assess neutralist liberalism versus communitarianism, the result would likely be little consensus across persons or cultures and sometimes ambivalence and conflict within the same person. Some (black, white, and other) would express mistrust or fear of governments, past or present, and would retreat, if pressed, into a neutralist liberalism of rights. Others would venture views about character traits or identity deemed important for politics. This situation does not speak well for either neutralist liberalism or some types of communitarianism as mutually exclusive alternatives adequate for formulating a philosophy for contemporary democracy. Both views presuppose a realistic possibility of considerable consensus, for example, on rights and good character, the good life, desirable identity, and cultural values. Whether in South Africa or the United States, elements of liberalism and communitarianism are necessary parts of the uneasy combination of theory and practice at the basis of contemporary constitutional democracy. Problems of multi-cultural democracy, it should be repeated, are more readily dealt with if some communitarian modes of democratic politics are brought into play. Multi-culturalism can be combined with communitarianism without abandoning what is best in those liberalisms that take individual rights seriously. NOTES 1. See Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift, Liberals and Communitarians (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1992). 2. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971); John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Ronald Dworkin, “Liberalism,” A Matter of Principle (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1985); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2nd ed., 1984); Charles Taylor, “CrossPurposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” Liberalism and the Moral

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Life, ed. Nancy Rosenblum (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition,” ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992); Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1986); Joseph Raz, “Multi-culturalism: A Liberal Perspective,” Ethics in the Public Domain, ed. Joseph Raz (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1994). 3. See http://www.polity.org.za/gpvdpcs/constitution/saconst.html. Retrieved 11 October 2001. See “The Bill of Rights” in “Appendix” in H.P.P. Loetter, Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997). 4. See http://www.polity.org.za/govdpcs/cpmstotitopm/sacpmst01.html. Retrieved 11 October 2001. 5. See http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy, esp. “Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa” 1991 at gopher://gopher.anc.org.za: 7070/00/anc/policy/ constprn.txt. Retrieved 11 October 2001. 6. Ibid. 7. Courtney Jung and Jeremy Seekings, “‘That Time Was Apartheid, Now It’s the New South Africa’: Discourses of Race in Ruyterwacht, 1995,” Ethnicity and Group Rights, eds. Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka, NOMOS XXXIX, Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (New York: New York University Press, 1997), pp. 504–39, esp. p. 535. 8. Loetter, Injustice, Violence, and Peace. 9. Ibid., p. 182. 10. See “Constitutional Principles for a Democratic South Africa.” 11. Hermann Giliomee, “Surrender Without Defeat: Afrikaners and the South African ‘Miracle’,” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 126 (Spring 1997), pp. 113–146, esp. pp. 137 and 141. 12. See http://www.polity.org.za/govdocs/constitution/saconst02.html#36. Retrieved 11 October 2001. 13. See Ernest Maganya and Rachel Houghton, eds., Transformation in South Africa? Policy Debates in the 1990’s, (Johannesburg: Institute for African Alternatives Publications, 1996). 14. See http://www.polity.org.za/govdocs/white_papers/eduwp2feb.html. Retrieved 11 October 2001. 15. Ibid. 16. White Paper 1, pp. 19 and 22. 17. Ibid. 18. African National Congress, The Reconstruction and Development Program: A Policy Framework (Johannesburg: Umanyano Publications, 1994), p. 60. 19. See Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” pp. 25–73, esp. p. 66 ff.

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Four EXPLORING PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY WITH JÜRGEN HABERMAS AND ZEN BUDDHISM Gilburt Goffstein What raises us out of nature is the only thing whose nature we can know: language. Through its structure, autonomy and responsibility are posited for us. Our first sentence expresses unequivocally the intention of universal and unconstrained consensus. Taken together, autonomy and responsibility constitute the only Idea that we possess a priori in the sense of the philosophical tradition. Jürgen Habermas1 A special transmission outside the teachings; Not standing on written words or letters; Direct pointing to the human heart; Seeing into its nature and becoming Buddha. Bodhidharma2 I will explore what is fundamentally problematic about our racist, sexist, heterosexist, welfare-state-capitalist democracy through the mutual complementarity of Jürgen Habermas, and Zen, as tempered by feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-modern sensibilities. 1. Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action Habermas develops the notion of unconstrained and uncoerced discourse as a general structural requirement for the possibility of the use of language to communicate. Such discourse is a formal pragmatic precondition for communicative action. Communicative action is linguistically mediated action oriented toward reaching mutual understanding. In the Habermasian lexicon, communicative action is contrasted with linguistically mediated strategic action oriented toward success. The only success aimed at in communicative action is that of reaching mutual understanding. In communicative action linguistically mediated interactions achieve illocutionary aims by raising validity claims that have a force that is rationally motivated. The rationally motivated force of validity claims consists in the possibility of redeeming contested validity claims through discourse in which mutual understanding is to be reached only through the force of the better argument. A validity claim may be a claim to truth, or rightness, or sincerity. In making

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such a claim a speaker is making an offer to a hearer that may be accepted or rejected. Built into the speaker’s offer, at least in the cases of truth and rightness, is the commitment to engage in discourse if the claim is contested. The speaker redeems a claim insofar as the speaker brings about an insight on the part of the hearer such that it could be said that the hearer came to see the truth or rightness of the claim. While threats and bribes might get a hearer to pay lip service to the acceptance of a validity claim, only discourse aimed at mutual understanding can produce the insight in the hearer that the contested claim is, after all, true or right. Based only on the uncoerced force of the better argument such acceptance of truth or rightness would be rationally motivated. The rationally motivated force of validity claims that characterizes communicative action contrasts with the power claims that characterize strategic action. Consider the following example. In light of the exaggerated stinginess of the stage persona of Jack Benny, the utterance “Your money or your life”––followed by the now famous pause indicating that Benny is thinking about it––elicits our laughter because the generally held readiness to respond to “Your money or your life” as a strategic action is mistaken by Benny for a communicative act. The communicative act does, while the strategic act does not, raise a validity claim that is open to contestation and redemption through discourse. As competent members of a communication community we each have an intuitive awareness (a know-how) of the difference between convincing someone of something through rational argumentation and talking someone into believing something through various strategic means. However, both deceiving and talking into can be effective only if such strategic actions invoke sentences whose meaning can be understood. And the meaning of such sentences requires the possibility of redeeming contested validity claims through discourse. Strategic action is thus parasitic upon communicative action oriented toward mutual understanding. Unconstrained and uncoerced discourse also provides social conditions for the emergence of democracy. The process of societal evolution involves a movement from ritually coordinated archaic tribal forms of organization, through politically and religiously coordinated traditional civilizational forms of organization, over economically coordinated capitalist forms of organization, to today’s advanced industrialized welfare-state-capitalist form of organization. As a social-evolutionary precondition for our actually existing democracy, unconstrained and uncoerced discourse provides a space in which coordination of action can be unleashed from the predetermined and prejudged ways specified by archaic ritual and by religious-metaphysical worldviews. In this way the rationality potential inherent in communicative action is unleashed and societal evolution can be understood as a process of rationalization. Habermas’s notion of unconstrained and uncoerced discourse provides a critical standard by which we can judge racism, sexism, heterosexism, and welfare-state capitalism as impediments to the realization of true, discursive democracy. The participation of citizens in the political processes of a fully realized discursive democracy would be guided by an interest in reaching mu-

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tual understanding through the uncoerced force of the better argument. Discourse is the communicative procedure followed in the attempt to reach universal and unconstrained consensus. Democracy is discursive because it relies upon such consensus. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and welfare-state capitalism are impediments because of the systematic distortion they impose on communicative action through constraints on discourse. Habermas’s analysis of communicative competence reveals the following conditions of discourse: (1) (2)

(3)

Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in discourse. a. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever. b. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse. c. Everyone is allowed to express her/his attitudes, desires, and needs. No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising her/his rights as laid down in (1) and (2).3

Habermas explains that these are regulative rules and that they are not constitutive of discourse. For discourse to take place, the participants must assume that at least some approximation to these rules is in effect. While speakers in any actually existing discourse will never be absolutely free of internal and external coercion, certain kinds of coercion can readily be recognized as defeating the occurrence of discourse. Thus the claim, “We arrived at a mutual understanding of the correctness of policy A by holding a secret meeting that excluded the opposition members,” is self-contradictory. Insofar as the secret meeting excluded the opposition members, no mutual understanding was reached. Mutual understanding requires the participation of all members of the community. To hold a secret meeting that excludes the opposition is to transgress both rules (1) and (2) by means of external coercion. The claim, “I arrived at a mutual understanding with S about the correctness of policy A by fabricating very persuasive lies about the circumstances that policy A would govern,” is also self-contradictory. Here coercion internal to the linguistically mediated interaction, namely lying, defeats the claim to have arrived at mutual understanding. Lying about the circumstances governed by policy A prevents persons from exercising their rights as stated in rule (2). It is somewhere between the discourse defeated through internal and external coercion, on the one hand, and the absolutely uncoerced discourse of Immanuel Kant’s intelligible characters, on the other, that actually existing discourse is to be found. A central concern of the present chapter is to explore the fundamental problem of our actually existing democracy through an investigation of the structural and spiritual dimensions of the coercion employed in political discourse. From the conditions of discourse, Habermas derives D, the principle of discourse, which states, “Just those action norms are valid to which all possi-

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bly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourse.”4 Two other principles of discourse follow from D. First, U, the fundamental principle of moral argumentation, which states that a moral norm is valid only if “all affected can accept the consequences and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation)”.5 Second, as a result of interpenetration of D with the legal form, there is the principle of democracy, the fundamental principle of political discourse, which states, “Only those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that in turn has been legally constituted.”6 D articulates the condition for validity of all action norms in terms of rational discourse. The legal form brings enforceability through sanctions to action norms. Through interpenetration the discourse principle imparts validity to the legal form and the legal form imparts facticity to the discourse principle. As D interpenetrates with the legal form, validity is brought to statutes in the form of legitimacy, and facticity in the form of sanctions. Thus Habermas derives the mutually reciprocal and complementary principles of moral argumentation and of political discourse. Both normative validity and political legitimacy have their basis in the bonding/binding illocutionary force inherent in communicative reason and action. The illocutionary force of speech acts bond and bind through implicit promises to back up the validity of a contested claim with good reasons. “Good reasons” are those arguments that can be put forth in accordance with the rules of discourse that enable a hearer and speaker to reach mutual understanding and agreement about the validity of the speaker’s claim. The illocutionary component specifies the mode in which the propositional content of an illocutionary act is being presented. It specifies the kind of validity claim we are emphasizing with our speech act. Social coordination is brought about through the transaction in which the hearer H accepts the offer raised by the illocutionary meaning of the speaker S’s utterance.7 When H accepts the truth of S’s assertion, the legitimacy of S’s request, or the authenticity of S’s confession, then understanding is secured, the illocutionary act is successful, and communicative action has coordinated a social situation. In Habermas’s analysis we find three types of validity claims correlated to attitudes that can be taken to three different worlds. We summarize these results in the following way:8 (1) In order to establish and renew interpersonal relations a speaker raises a rightness claim with imperative sentences whereby the speaker takes a norm conformative attitude to the social world. By “social world” Habermas understands “the totality of all legitimately regulated interpersonal relations.”9 In order to illustrate a norm conformative attitude to the social world Habermas provides an analysis of the “normatively authorized imperative,” (i) I am (hereby) ordering you to stop smoking.10 The background for the utterance of (i) involves a flight attendant directing this request to a passenger on an airliner. The sentence is being used to bring about action (putting out the ciga-

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rette) by drawing upon the force of rules governing air flight. The authority is based not simply on sanctions but, importantly for the case, on a claim to normative validity. If the validity of the claim is contested, the flight attendant is prepared to provide good reasons. Normative validity claims are redeemable through practical discourse. (2) In order to represent oneself a speaker raises truthfulness (or sincerity) claims with first-person-present experiential sentences, thereby taking an expressive attitude toward a privileged subjective world. The explicit statement of an expressive claim is illustrated by the sentence, (ii) I am (hereby) confessing to you that I am in pain. Here the speaker has access to pain that is not available to anyone else. The speaker’s subjective world is privileged in regard to the special access the speaker has to this world. (3) In order to represent states of affairs and events a speaker raises truth claims with assertoric sentences, thereby taking an objectivating attitude to the objective world. The explicit statement of an assertoric claim is illustrated by the sentence, (iii) I (hereby) assert that the passenger has put out his cigarette. Such validity claims are redeemable through theoretical discourse. These correlations represent pure types. Each validity claim can be raised for every sentence and each attitude can be taken to each of the three worlds. Through Habermas’s reconstruction of social evolution we can understand our democracy, along with its problems, as the end result to date of a process of rationalization in which the three pure types of world-attitude correlations become differentiated. The separating out of culture, society, and personality as distinct lifeworld structures constitutes that part of the process of societal rationalization that enables the differentiation of world-attitude correlations. Complementing this aspect of societal rationalization is the emergence and uncoupling of administrative and economic subsystems from the lifeworld. These subsystems serve as the relief mechanisms required by the increasingly strained discursive processes that become the predominant mode of social coordination in a rationalized lifeworld. With his reconstruction of the dynamics of social evolution, Habermas explores the vicissitudes of the path by which the inherent rationality potential of communicative action, revealed through his universal pragmatics, is unleashed in the course of societal development. The rationality potential will be said to be released to the extent that rational discourse is enabled––to the extent that agreement based only on the force of the better argument can be secured in regard to the validity claims of truth and rightness. In the horizon of the highly rationalized lifeworld of advanced capitalism, the tasks of avoiding economic crises and of securing legitimization for the unequal distribution of socially produced wealth are confronted with the demands of a universalistic ethics of discourse. Such tasks are handled through government interventionism, mass democracy, and the welfare state. Government interventionism averts economic crises through the use of military force to secure access to global markets and resources; the use of regulatory agencies––such as the Federal Reserve Board, domestically, and the International

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Monetary Fund, globally––to influence the business cycle; and the use of tax money to develop and maintain the material infrastructure. The state’s use of such channels to protect corporate profits that will continue to be unequally distributed presents a problem for the political system. In a lifeworld that supports an ethics of discourse, state power can claim legitimacy only through democratic procedures. In order to avoid a legitimization crisis the political system must generate mass loyalty, while at the same time maintaining an unequal distribution of the wealth that it helps to produce. The political system averts legitimization crises through an electoral process that promotes the appearance of a free and open discussion of the issues while at the same time allowing the agenda to be set by ruling class interests and the promise to provide social welfare programs. Social welfare policy, including collective bargaining rights and entitlement to social security benefits, addresses individual concerns by compensating workers for their subordinate position in the capitalist economic system. Social welfare policy addresses collective concerns with legislation that limits the ecological damage committed by corporate enterprises in their unending quest for ever-increasing profits. Thus government interventionism, mass democracy, and social welfare programs are interconnected in the following way: government interventionism must keep productivity and profits at a high enough rate to provide funds through taxation adequate for supporting social welfare programs at a level that will maintain the mass loyalty required to head off crises of legitimacy. In these ways “the structures of alienated labor and alienated political participation,” which characterize advanced capitalist societies, are prevented from developing “explosive power.”11 However, the averting of economic crises by administrative interference, the neutralizing of the burdens of alienating labor through social welfare policy, and the institutionalizing of formal democracy in which citizens participate less and less in actual decision making processes––these various ways of preventing systemic crises “call forth pathologies in the lifeworld.”12 Habermas thus provides us with a framework in which we can articulate how and why racism, sexism, heterosexism, and welfare-state capitalism are impediments to the process of democracy through the coercion and constraint they impose on discourse. The articulation entails both predictive and normative moments. The predictive moments point to legitimization crises. The normative moments point to moral condemnation. Both the principle of democracy and the principle of moral argumentation are anchored in the rules of discourse. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and welfare-state capitalism, in transgressing the rules of discourse, are not only impediments to democracy but are also morally wrong. This highlights the honorific status of our concept of democracy. Very few social critics take democracy itself to be problematic. They rather pick out some combination of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and welfare-state capitalism for criticism. We can understand this criticism in terms of the constraint and coercion such elements impose on democracy. One might

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object to an actually existing democracy, that it is a formal rather than substantive democracy, or it is a truncated or distorted democracy. It is unlikely that today anyone would object to democracy itself––understood as discursive democracy. To do so would be to engage in the sort of performative contradiction that Habermas attributes to the moral skeptic. That is, to engage in argument is already to endorse the conditions of discourse from which the principles of morality and democracy are derived. 2. Psychoanalytic, Feminist, and Post-modern Concerns The notion of undistorted communication is central to Habermas’s critical theory. It is the standard against which systematically distorted communication, resulting from internal or external constraint on discourse, may be viewed as oppressive. Social critics from psychoanalytic, feminist, and postmodern quarters have expressed concerns that what they view as Habermas’s privileging of the rational and universal over the non-rational and particular fails to elucidate the sources of oppression adequately. We can lump these concerns together as long as we maintain a minimally interpreted notion of privileging as paying more attention to. The concern is that Habermas gives too much attention to the rational and universal and too little attention to the non-rational and particular. It is in how such unbalanced attention is understood as obfuscating awareness of the sources of oppression that these concerns are differentiated. If we take the rational and universal as including conscious factors, the generalized other, justice, and cognitive elements; and the nonrational and particular as including unconscious factors, the concrete other, the good life, and affective elements; then we may begin to sort out various concerns in the following way. The psychoanalytic concern is that the privileging of conscious factors underestimates or overlooks unconscious factors as impediments to uncoerced discourse, and thus as sources of oppression. The feminist concern is that the privileging of the generalized other, justice, and cognitive elements as standards of uncoerced discourse underestimates or overlooks the equally valuable factors of the perspective of concrete others, interests in the good life, and affective elements. Here the concern is that Habermas’s standard of uncoerced discourse does not detect the absence of the particular differences in gender that shows up in the perspectives of concrete others, interests in the good life, and in affective expression. In not detecting the absence of the expression of gender differences in discourse, Habermas’s critical standard fails to recognize suppression of gender interests as oppressive. The post-modern concern is that a totalizing account that draws upon universality and rationality in developing a critical standard for privileging one viewpoint over another is itself a source of oppression. Let us now take a closer look at the specific challenges that grow out of the general concern. The psychoanalytic challenge brings our attention to Habermas’s relative lack of concern with instinctual sources of coercion and constraint. We have learned from Herbert Marcuse that, in a world like ours, which is governed by

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the performance principle, the surplus repressive requirements for the sublimation and desublimation of instinctual energy provide a depth dimension to the sources of coercion and constraint of discourse. According to psychoanalytic theory, the self emerges in response to the repression of sexual and aggressive motivational energy. Infantile drives seeking total and immediate gratification must be tamed––neutralized and displaced onto derivative motives with substitute pleasures. Unformed instinctual energy is in this way molded to meet the requirements of the reality principle. According to Freud, if the organism successfully adapts to the requirements of the reality principle, then repression is successful and goes through as sublimation. Highly charged infantile impulses are neutralized and redirected into socially acceptable paths of discharge. On the other hand, the story of the development of neurosis, which indicates unsuccessful adaptation to the requirements of the reality principle, begins with unsuccessful repression. Instead of being neutralized and appropriately redirected, some infantile drives become fixated––they remain highly charged but are defended against. Neurotic development follows the course of fixation, defense, stress and frustration, regression to fixation point, and the emergence of neurotic symptoms to ward off the highly charged fixated impulses that have been uncovered through regression. For Sigmund Freud, the reality principle and its requirements for repression are treated ahistorically. This leaves Freud without the psychoanalytic theoretical categories needed to judge a reality principle as sick and the successful adaptation to the requirements of a sick reality principle as itself dysfunctional. Marcuse provides just such categories with his distinction between basic and surplus repressive requirements for sublimation and with his introduction of the notion of repressive desublimation. For Marcuse, the performance principle is the shape of the reality principle under advanced capitalist conditions of production. While some sort of basic repression of infantile drive energy will always be required for the emergence of a self, contemporary selves that emerge under advanced capitalist conditions of production are subjected to the surplus repressive requirements of the performance principle. Surplus repressive sublimation not only requires that directly sexual activity be organized by genital primacy, but also proscribes any sexual activity that is not limited to exclusively heterosexual, genital, penis-in-vagina intercourse between a dominant aggressive man and a submissive passive woman. Moreover, with surplus repressive sublimation, we find work not only as the displacement of neutralized pregenital desire onto derivative (life-sustaining) and pleasure-seeking motivation, but as sublimated non-pleasure-seeking derivative motivation––that is, work as alienated labor. Capitalism not only requires and generates increasing alienation, but also requires and generates increasing surplus repression. In today’s affluent advanced industrial societies surplus repressive desublimation flattens out the experience of alienation––it holds in check the explosive force of the contradiction between the productive forces and the production relations. Today the self is situated in one dimension. According to Marcuse, a merely conscious rationalization of domination would not be able to restrain the aggression un-

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leashed through surplus repressive sublimation of the sexual instincts. Even in the totally administered, one-dimensional society in which the delivery of the goods fulfills the false needs of its members, work remains a derivative nonpleasure-seeking motivation. Repressive desublimation directs the release of sexual and aggressive energies toward servicing the requirements of the performance principle. While extending permissible sexuality beyond the confines of the procreative function, repressive desublimation administers sexuality within the confines of commercial functions. In the totally administered society, aggression is directed toward the internal and external foes of the prevailing bureaucratic authorities. Aggression, as administered, is directed toward the welfare cheats, the criminals, and the communist sympathizers. The external foe for much of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union, has been characterized by the American establishment as the evil empire. Our aggression is unleashed in El Salvador, in Nicaragua, in Grenada, and in Iraq. Collective guilt, a defense mechanism against the threatening foes, has its material manifestation in our prison system and police departments, as well as in our arsenal of nuclear weapons, the ultimate defense mechanism, which, if ever confronted by the necessary stress, would unleash aggression on a scale that would threaten the continuation of civilized life on this planet. While Habermas is correct to criticize Marcuse for abandoning the prospects for rationality too quickly, Habermas himself abandons the insights of psychoanalytic instinct theory too quickly. To address the impediments to democracy adequately, we must confront the sources of constraint and coercion in the surplus repressive requirements of the performance principle. The problems run deeper than Habermas’s notions of colonization, one-sided rationalization, legitimization crisis tendencies, and systematic distortion might suggest. They go as deep as the distortion of our basic instinctual structure. Some feminist social critics have combined their own critique of Habermas, in which they point out Habermas’s relative lack of attention to difference in gender, with acknowledgment that there is also an instinctual source of coercion and constraint, while maintaining that the traditional Freudian analysis brings its own baggage of patriarchal coercion and constraint into its articulation of the instinctual problematic. Such a position is developed in Jessica Benjamin’s The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination.13 A consideration of Benjamin’s argument in light of Johanna Meehan’s commentary brings the feminist challenge to Habermas’s project into focus.14 Benjamin and Meehan join forces with the psychoanalytic quarter in recognizing a lack of emphasis in Habermas’s analysis on the unconscious sources of coercion, constraint, and thus of distortion of discourse. On this view, in which coercion and distortion have their roots in the initial shaping of infantile energies, the force of Habermas’s critical standard of non-coerced discourse would seem to be diminished, if not made entirely irrelevant. On such a view it would be too late to diagnose distorted discourse. Domination and submission would have already been established at prelinguistic levels of psychosexual development. The feminist turn taken by

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Benjamin explains how the deep structure of instinctual distortion supports the psychodynamics by which domination and submission are played out in gendered roles. Benjamin argues that the Freudian trajectory model, in which the developing child is viewed as moving from initial symbiotic union with mother toward separation and autonomy, does not provide the explanatory categories needed to recognize the deep structure of the gendering of domination and submission. Meehan supports Benjamin’s critique this far and agrees that a model of mutual recognition should replace the trajectory model of development. While in agreement with the initial thrust of Benjamin’s critique, Meehan does not follow to its ultimate conclusion Benjamin’s analysis of ego formation as a directly affective process. Meehan steers a course that attempts to incorporate what she recognizes as the strengths, and attempts to avoid what she recognizes as the weaknesses, of Habermas’s and Benjamin’s positions. Thus, not only does the ideal of emancipation require, as Habermas has claimed, the normative reconstruction of our notions of justice and the good life, but of the very constitution of psychic identity as well. While Benjamin fails to acknowledge the extent to which relationships marked by recognition are structured by abstract moral norms of reciprocity and symmetry, Habermas fails to explore the extent to which social norms depend on a relationally and affectively constituted ego.15 Finally, we have post-modern concerns with totalizing metanarratives that invoke the binary logic of rationality in an attempt to secure an absolute conception of reality grounded in the metaphysics of presence. René Descartes’ project of pure inquiry exemplifies what an appropriate target for such postmodern concerns would look like writ large.16 It is the presence of a nondeceiving God that enables Descartes to move with certainty to an absolute conception of reality. For Descartes, an absolute conception of reality is required if knowledge is at all possible. That is, some story must be available that can reconcile all possible conflicting perspectives. This must not just be a likely story, but an all-inclusive one that is beyond all possible doubt. It must be an absolute conception of reality grounded in certainty. The certainty derives from the presence of a non-deceiving God. Descartes arrives at this absolute conception of reality by employing the method of doubt. He is guided by the light of reason––which shines upon that which is clearly and distinctly perceived. Based in the logic of binary oppositions, the light of reason privileges the clear and distinct propositions as true and certain over the obscure and confused propositions, which will be rejected because they are fallible. Guided by the law of non-contradiction, Descartes tries to prove the presence of a nondeceiving God that can guarantee the certainty of a holistic story, which in turn can reconcile all other possible partial stories of the way things, in the most general way, hang together. In this way, Descartes’ project of pure in-

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quiry may be understood as a totalizing meta-narrative secured through the binary logic of rationality and guaranteed by a metaphysics of presence. Habermas’s project to establish a critical theory that validates its own standards, runs the risk of raising concerns in the minds of post-modern critics, to the extent that it employs any of these strategies. Such concerns may directly attack Habermas’s project as problematic; they may be joined with psychoanalytic concerns so that a wariness of oppressive meta-narratives is brought to both communications theory and psychoanalytic theory, while at the same time allowing for the lapse in a communications theoretic orientation insofar as it neglects the instinctual dimension. An analogous move is available along feminist lines. While post-modern sensibilities are invoked to ward off feminist essentializing, such post-modern techniques as archaeology, genealogy, and deconstruction are used to reveal and undermine the patriarchal privileging that transpires in the project of modernity insofar as it rests upon the binary oppositions: rational-irrational, conscious-unconscious, malefemale, cognitive-affective. These challenges to Habermas form a loose constellation insofar as they open our awareness to and sensitize us to the other of reason––as the oppressed and dominated in some of its manifestations, and as the source of oppression and domination in other of its guises. Insofar as the particularized bodies, emotions, identities, needs, and goods of concrete others fail to be recognized by the universal and intellectualized orientation to justice that characterizes our rationalized society, members of marginalized groups run the risk of being oppressed and dominated by a universal reason that excludes concrete differences as its other. On the other hand, in the guise of non-linguistic subterranean sources of constraint and coercion, the other of reason threatens to oppress and dominate. It threatens to undermine the universal discourse of justice as well as the more particularized discourse that addresses concerns of concrete others. It is important that we not overlook the various ways in which reductionism may lead us astray. A purely economic perspective that sees freedom from coercion only in terms of liberation from economic exploitation might well be blind to coercion and constraint that has its source in differences of gender and race. Linda Nicholson points out in her “Introduction” to Feminism/Postmodernism: Twentieth-century Marxism has used the generalizing categories of production and class to delegitimize demands of women, black people, gays, lesbians, and others whose oppression cannot be reduced to economics.17 Analogously, perspectives that are sensitized to gender and race might well be blind to capitalist exploitation. A feminist or Afro-American capitalism would exploit the direct producers of the wealth just as much as our white patriarchal capitalism. A psychoanalytic orientation whose only goal is to help people to adapt to the repressive, racist, sexist, heterosexist, welfare-state capi-

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talist requirements of the performance principle offers an illusory happiness while actually promoting further coercion and constraint. Joel Whitebook presents Theodor Adorno’s view on this in the following way: Adorno’s general distrust of “false reconciliation” in a world where “the whole is the untrue,” a distrust that permeates his entire philosophy––indeed, his suspicion of anything that smacks of a “beautiful whole”––applies to “false reconciliation” in the case of the individual psyche. He argues that “the well-integrated personality” of the Hartmann era, itself the psychoanalytic counterpart to the “go-getter” of the Eisenhower (and Adenauer) years, constitutes “a false reconciliation with an unreconciled world, and would presumably amount in the last analysis to an ‘identification with the aggressor’, a mere character-mask of subordination.”18 A post-modern deconstructionism, while warding off the constraints and coercion of the binary oppositions that constitute the rationality of grand metanarratives in which a metaphysics of presence is expressed, lacks the explanatory categories to develop a theoretical critique of capitalism, racism, or sexism. In reference to Jean-Francois Lyotard’s notion of “Justice of Multiplicities,” Nancy Fraser and Nicholsonclaim that “there is no place in Lyotard’s universe for critique of pervasive axes of stratification, for critique of broad-based relations of dominance and subordination along lines like gender, race, and class.”19 Also consider James Marsh’s reflections on post-modernism and post-structuralism: Here the tendency is to give a de-differentiated account, to reduce the pathology expressed in loss of meaning, anomie, and alienation to the rationalization of the lifeworld. The tendency, in other words, is to reduce in a way that is phenomenologically and hermeneutically problematic cultural rationalization to social rationalization, uncoupling and mediatization to colonization, the rationalization of the lifeworld in modernity to the pathology of modernity. Such reductionism is ex-pressed in postmodern talk about modern reason equaling a repressive, dark Gestell, discipline, logocentrism, or instrumental reason.20 These considerations bring me to an exploration of the thesis that the spiritually inspired insights of Zen can begin to address feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-modern concerns in the context of a rationally informed theory of communicative action, while, at the same time, the responsibility to act promoted by a neomarxist analysis of communication can mobilize the free flowing, unencumbered energy released through Zen awareness into transfigured social-political-economic revolutionary activity. My interest in pursuing the possibility of this Zen-Habermas interplay gains further support from the results of an immanent critique of Habermas’s account of ontogenesis of the self. Briefly, this critique focuses on the inadequacy of positing a mechanism

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of “taking the attitude of the other toward one’s own behavior” as an explanation of the process by which the human organism becomes object to itself, becomes a self, and thus becomes a language user. Neither Habermas, nor George Herbert Mead, whose analysis Habermas is drawing upon here, push far enough back to what makes “taking the attitude of the other” possible. My suggestion, which draws upon Zen Buddhism, is that it is pure experience that makes taking the attitude of the other possible. 3. Exploring the Zen-Habermas Interplay Introducing the spiritual dimension introduces a fourth attitude but not a fourth world. The three worlds that Habermas discusses––the objective world, the inter-subjective world, and the subjective world––are all always already there as the cultural, social, and personality components of the lifeworld. These structural components of the lifeworld are the given, the taken for granted background for the objectivating, norm-conformative, and expressive attitudes. “Communicative actors are always moving within the horizon of their lifeworld; they cannot step outside of it.”21 However, none of these attitudes reveals the world that is there. It remains as background against which aspects of the objective, inter-subjective, and subjective worlds appear. The spiritual attitude is distinctive insofar as it reveals that the objective world exists, that the inter-subjective world exists, and that the subjective world exists. Only the non-attached spiritual attitude reveals the world that is there in awe and wonder as emptiness (sunyata). Sunyata may be understood as an emptiness that is, empty of inherent, substantial self-nature, or as the interdependent co-arising of all beings. By employing such a spiritual attitude, Zen Buddhism offers a way of addressing psychoanalytic, feminist, and postmodern concerns. At the same time, Zen Buddhism offers a way for a Habermasian orientation to draw upon this spiritual attitude without compromising its commitment to critical standards based on communicative rationality. The challenge that a communications theoretical approach faces from the psychoanalytic quarter is “that a degree of distortion and contamination are uneliminable from rationality.”22 Whitebook objects that a crucial “moment of non-linguistic otherness . . . has dropped out of recent critical theory.”23 Habermas does not recognize the affective, bodily, drive energic, pre-linguistic forces that shape the individual and the communicative situation. These nonlinguistic influences do not abide by the conditions of communicative rationality. They transgress reason and they threaten the authority of critical standards based upon the rationality of discourse conditions. However, as Whitebook points out, while Habermas isolates himself from the forces that transgress reason, the post-structrualists tend to idealize them. Whitebook himself argues for a position in which “sublimation represents a third alternative to the romantic idealization of the irrational and the rationalist isolation from it.”24 Whitebook’s thesis is that an adequate theory of sublimation would be able to steer a course between a self-defeating radical relativism that finds support in the romantic idealization of the irrational, and

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a claim to absolute knowledge that would have to ignore the irrational. Whitebook begins his quest for such a theory of sublimation with a consideration of the thought of Cornelius Castoriadis who rejects both radical relativism and absolute knowledge. He continues this quest with a consideration of the thought of Hans Loewald who “speaks of sublimation as resulting in ‘the nonrepressive organization of the ego.’”25 Rather than taking a stance somewhere between radical relativism and absolute knowledge, the Zen approach to sublimation embraces both. Lacking inherent self-nature, empty, and co-arising interdependently, the manifest world––the world of the cycle of birth and death (samsara)––is radically relative. At the same time, the thatness or suchness of this manifest world is absolute. Awareness of this suchness of the world is absolute knowledge. This does not constitute an absolute conception of reality, for this awareness is not conceptual. Nor is it grounded in a metaphysics of presence, for there is no presence behind or underneath the suchness. From the spiritual attitude of Zen, the manifest world is suchness, and suchness is the manifest world. There is always already there the absolute thatness of the manifest world. Suchness is also empty. It has no inherent self-nature. It co-arises interdependently with the manifest world. Rather than taking a stance between radical relativism and absolute knowledge, the Zen approach to sublimation choreographs a dance in which radical relativism and absolute knowledge embrace each other. As a psychiatrist commenting on the notion of the observer of the spectacle from a Zen perspective, Hubert Benoit explains: Often this notion of Spectator of the Spectacle is imperfectly understood; some believe that the spectacle in question is at the level of our formal inner phenomena, that it is the imaginative film of our ideas and sentiments. This is a serious mistake . . . . [W]e cannot be the active spectators of our imaginative film; we only see it when we are not actively looking at it; every active look stops it. The spectacle of which we have to become Spectator is situated at a level above the imaginative film; it is at the level of our first, profound, in-formal movement, from which derive thereafter all our formal inner movements.26 The imaginary film includes both the reactive imaginary film, which registers our mental representations of the external world based on sensations, and the active imaginary film, which registers our mental representations of our own internal world based on imagery. The awareness is in both cases formal, that is, the content of the imaginary film has some definite structure. Both reactive and active imaginary films are at the level of what Benoit refers to as objectal consciousness and treats as surface consciousness. Beneath this surface Benoit locates the latent or subjectal consciousness. Subjectal consciousness is the awareness of how I am, in every respect, at this moment. It is not awareness of my active imaginary film, which corresponds to my inner world of fears and hopes, nor is it awareness of my reactive imaginary film, which corresponds to my sensations of the external world. Subjectal consciousness is

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my global perception of existing. It is an awareness of the struggle between my need-to-be-a-distinct-entity and the not-self (which is how I interpret everything that threatens my need-to-be-a-distinct-entity). The movement in this struggle between my to be and my not-to-be is in-formal. The to-be registers as agitation on my imaginary film; the not-to-be registers as immobility. My to-be can form my imaginary film as “light” or as “dark.” The term “light” refers to my response to things I consider happy; “dark” refers to my response to unhappy things; “agitation” refers to recognition of me-as-distinct; and “immobile” refers to my being ignored. Benoit maintains that “My fear of immobility is greater than my fear of darkness.”27 Thus, while a child would rather be praised than scolded, she would rather be scolded than ignored. I, as the unenlightened person, prefer darkness (unhappiness) to immobility (not-tobe). Light, agitation, darkness, and immobility are themselves in-formal, but they determine the formal movements of my imaginary film. The spectacle of which we must become aware is at the in-formal level of subjectal consciousness. It is at the level in which the basic drama of to-be and not-to-be is played out. We first become aware of this spectacle as an instantaneous perception. However, “to obtain Satori, it is a question of obtaining the transformation of these instantaneous perceptions of existing-more-or-less-than-amoment-ago into a continuous perception which will then be just perceptions of existing.”28 Satori is the Zen enlightenment experience. In the natural (that is, unenlightened, presatori) person the “primordial preference for agitation . . . is the cause of all (her/his) miseries.”29 This agitation, this self-seeking need to be affirmed as a distinct entity fills our minds with constant chatter that blocks awareness of the world that is there. Through the self-emptying process of Zen practice we can free ourselves of the coercive and constraining need-to-be-adistinct-entity. Through Zen practice, self-seeking is trans-formed into selfemptying, and the need-to-be-a-distinct-entity is transformed into an openness to interdependent co-arising. Rita Gross tells us the insight of interdependent co-arising is that nothing exists independent of its matrix, but only in interdependence with it. Thus, there can be no self, as anything more than a convenient and useful label for a particular momentary configuration of events in this vast web of interdependence and relationality.30 In her clarification of misconceptions that have arisen about the Buddhist notion of egolessness, Gross points out that interdependent co-arising should not be confused with codependence. From the Buddhist point of view, someone who is intensely codependent and someone who is intensely macho or self-aggrandizing suffer equally from ego. Ego, as we have seen, is any style of habitual patterns and responses that clouds over the clarity and openness of basic human nature. Self-effacement is just a style of ego different from self-

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GILBURT GOFFSTEIN aggrandizement, but both equally cause suffering to self and others. “Ego” names the defense mechanisms, projections, and other tactics habitually used to cope with and ward off direct experience. All ordinary people have some ego-style, some style of grasping and fixation. The amount of ego really isn’t quantifiable; someone who is forceful doesn’t have “more ego” than someone who is shy and retiring . . . . Buddhists have never meant by egolessness to deny that we have some identity and sense of self. They have simply meant that identity involves no reified Self. They have also meant that, unless we have worked through considerable psychological material by means of appropriate meditation and contemplation, our sense of self will be unhealthy and cause great problems.31

Along these lines we can understand the social self of Habermas as empty. Moreover, the self-identity of the enlightened person is not caught up in defense mechanisms that ward off direct realization of interdependent coarising and inhibit the process of reaching unconstrained mutual understanding. In this way the scope of a distorted communication situation is extended to include distortions that arise from attachment to ego with its defense mechanisms. With her consideration of the distinction between and interdependence of the generalized and concrete other, and with her further consideration of the interplay between the apparently antithetical poles of the dichotomies that are associated with this initial pair, Seyla Benhabib investigates a central concern brought by feminist theorists to Habermas’s communications theoretical approach. After her consideration of the generalized and the concrete other, Benhabib concludes that we “need to reconsider, revise, and perhaps reject the dichotomies between justice versus the good life, interest versus needs, norms versus values upon which the discourse model, upon Habermas’s interpretation of it, rests.”32 Habermas himself has now gone some way toward such reconsideration and revision. In Between Facts and Norms, he explores the internal connection between private autonomy (understood as securing individual human rights) and public autonomy (understood as securing popular sovereignty). He develops this internal connection by bringing the results of his theory of communicative action to bear upon issues of jurisprudential origins, legitimacy, and efficacy. He introduces the principle of democracy as the jurisprudential correlate of U. This principle of democracy, which is derived from the interpenetration of the discourse principle with the legal form, states that “Only those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that in turn has been legally constituted.”33 Although the modern constitutional notion of juridical statutes presupposes subjective rights or private autonomy, the grounding or legitimacy of any specific right requires public autonomy as it is realized in a discursive law-making process. Thus the system of rights emerges equiprimordially with

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the principle of democracy; and private autonomy is co-original with public autonomy. While the efficacy of political decisions requires the legal form, the legitimacy of the legal form requires a principle of discourse. The notion of right gains coercive authorization only through the legal form. In analyzing the internal connection between private and public autonomy, Habermas reveals the mutual and reciprocal interdependence between the modern constitutional state and democracy. In the essay “Individuation through Socialization: George Herbert Mead’s Theory of Subjectivity,” he continues his exploration of this theme by considering what “makes it possible for individuated beings to exist within a community––individualism as the flipside of universalism.”34 Universalism has its correlate in private autonomy; individualism has its correlate in public autonomy. In this way, Habermas begins to address the feminist concern that the particularized, gendered, bodies, emotions, identities, needs, and goods that constitute the concrete other not be overlooked by the universalized non-differentiating gaze that is the attitude of the generalized other. The Zen notion of non-duality complements both what Benhabib treats as the inner connection between generalized and concrete other and what Habermas now treats as the inner connection between private autonomy and public autonomy. Buddhist non-duality takes us along the middle path that keeps to the razor’s edge between the monism of a politics of dignity and the dualism of a politics of difference. This is the edge between a monism that only recognizes a common humanity seeking universal human rights, and a duality that only recognizes diversity in the struggles of various others for collective goals in which they hope to secure their unique identities. On this non-dual razor’s edge, phenomena do not disappear into an underlying unity simply because their dualistic existence as reified entities is denied and transcended. Phenomena remain as they are––sharp, clear, vivid, specific, detailed. The vivid and specific phenomena dance in basic primordial space; both vivid phenomena and the entire environment are perceived simultaneously.35 The view from this non-dual razor’s edge reveals more fully what Habermas claims “makes it possible for individuated beings to exist within a community––individualism as the flipside of universalism.”36 As the Buddhist insight reveals: “In non-duality, specificity does not entail dualistic reified independent existence, nor is it lost beneath the alleged real monistic unifying principle.”37 Zen accommodates post-modern concerns while complementing the Habermasian project of developing a critical theory that validates its own standards. While rejecting an absolute conception of reality, Zen enables an uncoerced and unconstrained attitude toward the world that is there, which in turn grounds the critical standards that have their source in pure experience. The Zen notion of pure experience provides a pre-linguistic source for communica-

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tive action that complements Habermas’s reconstruction of the beginnings of societal evolution. As Masao Abe tells us: “Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source.”38 Unmediated and undistorted, pure experience is compassion––the capacity for “experiencing with.” This capacity, which enables us to become object to ourselves by taking the attitudes of others toward our own behavior, is lost by most of us in the very process. In our racist, sexist, heterosexist, welfare-state capitalist democracy the differentiated, rationalized lifeworld has colonized the pure experience in which it is anchored. With its orientation toward sunyata, or emptiness, Zen does not partake in a metaphysics of presence––rather it awakens us to the self-emptying process of interdependent co-arising as the background against which the presence of being emerges. Finally, Zen’s direct experience, nonduality, and interdependent co-arising cut through the coercive and constraining limitations of the bipolar logic of binary oppositions. A consideration of Abe’s treatment of Seijen Ishin’s discourse may provide us with a glimpse of the working of Zen logic. [Ishin’s] discourse reads as follows: Thirty years ago, before I began the study of Zen, I said, “Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.” After I got an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, I said, “Mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters.” But now, having attained the abode of final rest [that is, Awakening], I say, “Mountains are really mountains, waters are really waters.” And then he asks, “Do you think these three understandings are the same or different?”39 Abe’s comments are as follows: At the first stage of understanding, Ishin is differentiating mountains from waters, and waters from mountains. “Mountains are not waters, but mountains, waters are not mountains, but waters.” Thus he discriminates the one from the other. And in so doing, he affirms mountains as mountains and waters as waters. Here, then, we have differentiation as well as affirmation. However, when he comes to the second stage, “Mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters”; there is neither differentiation nor affirmation, but only negation. Finally, when he reaches the third and final stage, “Mountains are really mountains, waters are really waters”, we again have differentiation as well as affirmation.40 He adds,

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When we come to the third stage, there is an entirely new form of differentiation. It is a “differentiation” that is realized through the negation of “no differentiation.” Here we may say, “Mountains are really mountains, no more no less; waters are really waters, no more no less.” Mountains and waters disclose themselves in their totality and particularity, and no longer as objects from our subjective vantage point.41 Ishin asked a crucial question: “Do you think these three understandings are the same or different?” According to Zen logic: If you say they are the same you will receive 30 blows; if you say they are different you will receive 30 blows––quick, answer! The point of this Zen logic is to shake us loose from our attachment to the constraints of binary logic. It is an invitation to empty ourselves of attachment to ego and participate in the non-dual dance in which radical relativism and absolute knowledge are both embraced. Zen logic is an attempt to facilitate a shift not unlike Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “‘dawning’ of an aspect.”42 We could further analyze the point of Zen logic in terms of Habermasian speech act theory. Here we might consider the request for an answer as doing something with language that is neither objectivating, norm-conformative, nor expressive (although parasitic upon these other modes), but rather as doing something therapeutic. It could be considered liberatory discourse insofar as it invokes an illocutionary (or, perhaps, perlocutionary) force directed toward freeing the interlocutor from a culture-encapsulated ego. However, these sorts of analysis run the risk of mistaking the finger for the moon at which it is pointing. But then the author of the present chapter is not a Zen master. Perhaps it is enough for my present purposes to simply recognize the limits of my analysis. There is a mutual reciprocity between Zen and Habermas’s communications theory. Just as Zen complements Habermas, so also does Habermas complement Zen. Zen insight does not decide the rightness or wrongness of a moral issue. Rather it simply removes coercive and constraining factors from our awareness. No longer clutching to constraints of ego-attachment, we are free to engage in liberatory discourse. But only through discourse will a moral or democratic decision be reached. While the source of this liberating awareness of non-duality is pure experience unleashed through Zen practice reaching beyond the rational, the justification of the claims for critical communicative spirituality and for the expression of revolutionary praxis that freely flows out of such critical spirituality would rely on moral-practical and political-practical discourse. To be truly and deeply liberating, the revolutionary transformation of society must simultaneously unleash the possibilities for realization of indwelling spirituality and unleash the possibilities for realization of our inherent potential for communicative rationality. I am not proposing that Zen Buddhism is the only appropriate spiritual path consistent with, and conducive to, liberatory democracy. However, those traits that Ken Wilber uses to identify the non-oppressive spiritual group do

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recommend the type of spirituality one finds manifested in the practice of Zen. Wilber suggests that such a group will (1) Be transrational, not prerational. Specifically, it will utilize teachings and disciplines that engage higher, subtle, and/or causal levels of structural adaptation, not prerational or irrational engagements . . . (2) Anchor legitimacy in a tradition. Legitimacy offered by a tradition––say, Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism––tends to be less problematic than legitimacy offered by a single person (leader), simply because it is less open to permanent, isolated, single-authority-figure domination and distortion . . . (3) Have a phase-specific authority. It is common knowledge that virtually all authentic Eastern or mystical traditions maintain that the guru is representative of one’s own highest nature, and once that nature is realized, the guru’s formal authority and function is ended. The guru is guide, teacher, or physician, not king, president, or totem master . . . Wilber also claims that an authentic, positive group, with nonproblematic authority (4)

Is not headed by a perfect master. Perfection exists only in transcendental essence, not in manifest existence, and yet many devotees consider their master “perfect” in all ways, the ultimate guru. This is almost always a problematic sign, because the devotee, in confusing essence with existence, is invited to project his or her own archaic, narcissistic, omnipotent fantasies onto the “perfect” guru . . .

and, (5)

Is not out to save the world . . . any group “out to save the world” is potentially problematic, because it rests on an archaically narcissistic base that looks “altruistic” or “idealistic” but in fact is very egocentric, very primitive, and very capable of coming to primitive ends by primitive ends.43

Each of these points is supportive of the notion of discursive democracy we have been considering. The impediments to discursive democracy are those factors that constrain and coerce discourse. The impediments, the sources of constraint and coercion, are multi-dimensional. We find structural and systemic dimensions as well as the individual and idiosyncratic ones; we find consciously willed dimensions as well as unconsciously and instinctually accepted dimensions. Some dimensions of coercion and constraint are readily available to awareness in the form of the daily barrage of distorted messages spewed forth by the mass media, the silence of the oppressed, and the overt violence of the oppressors. Still other dimensions of coercion and constraint, those subtler sources,

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are hidden from awareness beneath the threshold of sensitivity of our atrophied instinctual and spiritual apparatus. The sources of constraint and coercion interconnect and reinforce each other to form an iron cage the liberation from which will require that we draw upon all of our resources: social, political, institutional, and individual––conscious, instinctual, and spiritual. NOTES 1. Jürgen Habermas, Appendix to Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 314. 2. Myokyo-ni, The Zen Way (Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1995), p. 61. 3. Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1990), p. 89. 4. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1996), p. 107. 5. Habermas, Moral Consciousness, p. 65. 6. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, p. 110. 7. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume One: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984) p. 296. 8. Ibid., pp. 307–309. 9. Ibid., p. 100. 10. Ibid., p. 300. 11. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 351. 12. Ibid., p. 385. 13. Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). 14. Johanna Meehan, “Autonomy, Recognition, and Respect: Habermas, Benjamin, and Honneth,” in Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse, ed. Johanna Meehan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1995). 15. Ibid., p. 245. 16. See Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (New York: Penguin Books, 1978). 17. Linda Nicholson, “Introduction,” Feminism/Post-modernism, ed. Linda Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 9. 18. Joel Whitebook, Perversion and Utopia: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1995), p. 258. 19. Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson, “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Post-modernism,” Feminism/Postmodernism, p. 23. 20. James L. Marsh, Critique, Action, and Liberation (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 252. 21. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, vol. 2, p. 126. 22. Whitebook, Perversion and Utopia, p. 12. 23. Ibid., p. 164. 24. Ibid.

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25. Ibid., p. 252. 26. Hubert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine (New York: Pantheon Books, 1955), p. 88. 27. Ibid., p. 76. 28. Ibid., p. 88. 29. Ibid., p. 77. 30. Rita Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 159. 31. Ibid., p. 162. 32. Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 170. 33. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, p. 110. 34. Jürgen Habermas, “Individuation through Socialization: George Herbert Mead’s Theory of Subjectivity,” Jürgen Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays, trans. William Mark Hohengarten (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1992), p. 186. 35. Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy, p. 196. 36. Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking, p. 186. 37. Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy, p. 197. 38. Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), p. 23. 39. Ibid, p. 4. 40. Ibid., p. 5. 41. Ibid., p. 10. 42. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1958), p. 194. 43. Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm (Boston: Shambala, 1990), pp. 277–280.

Five HIROSHIMA, MORALITY, AND DEMOCRACY Jerald Richards In this chapter I examine two narratives that have become part of United States folklore, one about democracy and the other about Hiroshima, and I identify aspects of the latter that challenge the credibility of the former. In the early sections I briefly describe the bombing itself and its immediate and long-term consequences, identify and expound the moral issues raised at the time of the bombings, and give an account of the creation of the official Hiroshima narrative. Next, I summarize how the official narrative was challenged, focusing my attention upon the 1995 Smithsonian Enola Gay script and its fate. Then, I revisit the moral issues in the light of new historical understanding and the long-range consequences of the bombing. Finally, I look at the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the creation of the Hiroshima narrative, and current United States understanding of the bombing as they relate to democratic processes and values. I conclude with some observations on the possible positive and constructive consequences of a reassessment by a substantial number of United States citizens of the moral justifiability of the bombing. 1. Two Narratives One of the recurring narratives perpetrated by democratic nations, and one that has become a part of United States folklore, is the story that democracies are more peace loving, less belligerent, more conciliatory and open to compromise, and more reticent to use armed force in conflicts with other nations than are non-democracies. Although reticent to use armed force against other nations, they are depicted as doing so against non-democratic nations and for just reasons, and always within the strictures of legal and moral restraints. Democratic peoples, so the narrative goes, are more willing to admit past mistakes and to engage in those kinds of action––diplomatic, cultural, and social, governmental and nongovernmental––that will bring about, if not reconciliation, at least mutual understanding among hostile and belligerent nations. Democratic countries, the narrative continues, are characterized in these ways because they have come to value the worth of human beings, human equality, freedom of expression and action, universal human rights, and citizen participation in the selection of political leaders and in policy formation. These values are perceived to be crucial for human well being. Democratic nations always take the moral high ground. They desire that all peoples and nations enjoy the same blessings they enjoy. This is why they relate to other nations in peace loving and non-belligerent ways.

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A special narrative that has become part of United States folklore is the Hiroshima narrative that developed and was perpetrated shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. Stripped of local and idiosyncratic accoutrements, the skeleton of this story is that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to bring the war with Japan to a quick end and to save up to one million American lives. As necessary, it was morally justifiable. After fifty years, this narrative is as strong and pervasive as ever. The decision making process leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima, the bombing itself, the creation of the Hiroshima narrative, the subsequent dominance of this narrative in the United States psyche, and the discounting, dismissal, or denial of the political, military, social, and cultural consequences of the bombing, challenge the credibility of the democratic narrative. At the very least, these factors tend to force the democratic narrative into the category of, if not wishful thinking, at least ideal or utopian thinking, and perhaps even ideological deception. What is most troubling about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the subsequent defense of this action is the almost total lack of critical reflection about whether the action was morally justified. After the fact and even into the mid-1990s, it has been maintained by a substantial majority of United States citizens that the bombing was morally justified, although very little reasoning is offered either by government officials, the press, or the larger public to support this claim. 2. The Bombing and Its Consequences On 6 August l945, an atomic bomb carrying the explosive power of about twenty kilotons was dropped on Hiroshima. On 9 August l945, an atomic bomb carrying the explosive power of about twelve kilotons was dropped on Nagasaki. As the result of the combined effect of heat, blast, and radiation, great numbers of persons were killed. Death counts of the bombings vary. The curators of the Smithsonian preparing the Enola Gay exhibit for its opening in l995 wrote the following about the number of immediate deaths: Several studies based solely on the disposal of bodies set the initial toll for Hiroshima at between 42,000 and 93,000 individuals. Those counts are, however, undoubtedly low and incomplete. A more accurate survey combining body counts, unresolved missing person reports and interviews conducted by neighborhood associations during the year following the bombing suggests that as many as 130,000 individuals lost their lives as a direct result of the bomb up to the beginning of November 1945. A similar survey by the Nagasaki officials set the final death toll for that city at 60,000 to 70,000.1

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Deaths brought about from radiation poisoning and other factors subsequent to November l945 would raise these totals considerably. In addition to the massive number of deaths, large areas of both cities were totally devastated. The scenes in both cities were of horrible proportions. Even detailed descriptions of the destruction fail to portray the scenes in their stark reality. Eyewitness accounts come closest to giving us some sense, albeit inadequate, of the reality. The following eyewitness account of the destruction of Nagasaki will have to suffice for our purposes here: For some 1,000 yards, or three-fifths of a mile, in all directions from the epicenter . . . it was as if a malevolent god had suddenly focused a gigantic blowtorch on a small section of our planet. Within that perimeter, nearly all unprotected living organisms––birds, insects, horses, cats, chickens––perished instantly. Flowers, trees, grass, plants, all shriveled and died. Wood burst into flames. Metal beams and galvanized iron roofs began to bubble, and the soft gooey masses twisted into grotesque shapes. Stones were pulverized, and for a second every last bit of air was burned away. The people exposed within that doomed section neither knew nor felt anything, and their blackened, unrecognizable forms dropped silently where they stood.2 Among the most significant of the long-term consequences are the radiation and other physical and psychological effects upon the bombing victims and survivors; radiation effects upon United States military personnel visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after the bombing; research on and the development and deployment of atomic and thermonuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union; the vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons (the nuclear arms race); the development and adoption as official policy of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence; the development of atomic diplomacy as part, perhaps the most important part, of United States foreign policy; government secrecy and duplicity about the true nature of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons policy (including the possible fabrication of windows of vulnerability); the exploitation of United States citizens (military and nonmilitary) in nuclear experiments (including the use of radiation in medical research, and the deployment of troops at bomb test sites); exposure of United States citizens to radiation at nuclear processing and bomb-making plants; the creation of massive nuclear waste disposal problems; and a host of psychological, political, and ethical harms. These latter effects have accumulated in the United States mind, psyche, and society over the past fifty years. Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell talk about this Hiroshima heritage under the headings of nuclear entrapment, moral inversion, desecration, national self-betrayal, apocalyptic concealment, psychical numbing, futurelessness, and cultural disarray.3

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The conditions for the possible moral justification of killing human beings are so stringent that almost all acts of killing and almost all wars have been and will continue to be immoral and unjust. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, I am supposing that it may be possible to provide a moral justification for the killing of human beings under carefully prescribed conditions, including even killing in organized warfare. Given this supposition and before examining the facts, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may seem to have been morally justified. But as soon as we begin to look at the facts, this possibility becomes highly implausible. I focus on the following central issue: whether it is morally justifiable to deliberately, intentionally, and of set purpose kill civilians or non-combatants. In my view, the bombing stands condemned as immoral whether we base our judgment on the international laws of war that were in force and accepted as part of the law of nations in l945, or on the requirement of non-combatant immunity that is a fundamental principle of just war morality, or on broader humanitarian considerations. Examples of relevant laws of war are found in The Annex to The Hague IV Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The most pertinent of the articles of this convention are the following: Article XXII. “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”4 Article XXIII. “ . . . it is especially forbidden . . . [t]o employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering [that is, ‘to cause superfluous injury,’ the language contained in the comparable article (XXIII) in the Annex to the Hague II Convention (29 July 1899)].”5 Article XXV. “The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.”6 Article XXVI. “The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.”7 Article XXVII. “In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.”8 Both the United States and Japan signed “The Hague IV Convention,” and the United States Senate ratified it on 10 March l908. Although in a very small minority, there were voices of criticism of the obliteration bombing of German cities prior to the obliteration bombing of Japanese cities and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Representative of these lonely voices were Vera Brittain and John C. Ford.9 The case of Brittain makes it quite clear that United States political and military leaders were aware of these criticisms. Brittain’s criticism appeared in March l944. A supportive forward to her article was signed by twenty-eight prominent United States Protestant religious leaders including George But-

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trick, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Georgia Harkness, E. Stanley Jones, Kenneth Scott Latourette, and Ralph Sockman. The essence of Brittain’s criticism was that the obliteration bombing of German cities was nothing less than the deliberate brutal killing of civilians in clear violation of the laws of war and fundamental humane values and sentiments. Brittain’s article was sent to Franklin D. Roosevelt, then President of the United States, and he responded through his secretary, Stephen Early, by a letter to the editor of Fellowship,10 which subsequently was picked up and republished by the press.11 Roosevelt questioned the accuracy of the facts presented in, and the conclusion of, the article. Early denied that the bombing was a matter of revenge, claimed that it was shortening the war in the opinion of most military authorities, asserted the President’s right and obligation to do all in his power to defeat Germany (and Japan), and placed responsibility for ending the bombing upon the Germans (and Japanese). Early also rejected any resolution of the war that involved conciliation, and implied that the total destruction of the enemy or their unconditional surrender were the only viable options. He implied that those who criticize obliteration bombing were siding with Germany (and Japan).12 Brittain replied to Roosevelt.13 She quoted Winston S. Churchill and Arthur Harris as spokespersons for revenge. She also pointed out, however, that her main argument against obliteration bombing was not that it was in part motivated by revenge. She wrote: “Our intention was to protest against the use of these inhuman expedients as a means to any end whatsoever, and not least to point to the process of moral deterioration in which those who use them become involved.”14 Further, she argued that two and one-half years of obliteration bombing showed that it was not shortening the war, military authorities, who focus on strictly military consequences and not human reactions, notwithstanding. Brittain is especially troubled by Roosevelt’s implication that those who opposed obliteration bombing were opposing efforts to establish peace and preserve civilization. This, to her, was a challenge to democratic civilization and values, especially the values of freedom of expression, a society based upon the opinions of civilians, and a respect for minority opinions. United States political and military leaders were aware of the criticisms of Brittain, Ford, and others, but they did not give them the serious attention they deserved prior to the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Subsequent to the bombing, a number of public statements in its defense were made. The main elements of these public statements eventually became incorporated into the official Hiroshima narrative. 4. Official Hiroshima Narrative Although voices raised in criticism of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were few and far between, they were loud and clear enough to cause concern on the part of official policy and decision makers. In order to rebut and silence this minority criticism, Washington leaders and some of their ad-

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visors began work on a response. The result of this work, after much criticism and revision, with significant input from James B. Conant and McGeorge Bundy, was an article written and published by Henry L. Stimson (1867–1950), Secretary of War under Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. At the time of the writing, Stimson was in retirement. The article appeared in Harper’s in February of l947.15 Its main points are as follows: (1) The development of atomic weapons for the purpose of using them against the Axis was part of United States official policy from the beginning of the war and neither Roosevelt nor other top government officials were opposed to this use.16 (2) Official policy makers considered the atomic weapon they hoped to produce “as legitimate as any other of the deadly explosive weapons of modern war.”17 (3) When Truman became president, an Interim Committee was established to recommend action to the President regarding the use of atomic weapons. On 12 June l945 this committee recommended: 1. The bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible. 2. It should be used on a dual target––that is, a military installation or war plant surrounded by or adjacent to houses and other buildings more susceptible to damage, and 3. It should be used without prior warning [of the nature of the weapon].18 (4) The Interim Committee considered but rejected as impractical such alternatives to the unannounced use of the atomic bomb as a detailed advance warning or a demonstration in some uninhabited area.19 (5) The only possible alternative to an attack by Allied forces upon the main Japanese islands, which would result in the loss of over a million American lives plus large losses to U. S. allies and even larger losses to the Japanese, would be a general warning that Japan would be destroyed should it not immediately surrender unconditionally and submit to occupation and complete demilitarization.20 (6) The warning was presented to the Japanese in the form of the Potsdam ultimatum (of July 26). The ultimatum stated, should the Japanese reject it, that “the full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.”21 Stimson wrote, “For such a purpose the atomic bomb was an eminently suitable weapon.”22 The Japanese rejected the ultimatum. Thus, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. (7) Both Hiroshimaand Nagasakiwere crucial to the Japanese war effort.23 (8) The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, plus the threat of more atomic bombing, caused the Japanese surrender. “[A]ll the evidence I have seen indicates that the controlling factor in the final Japanese decision to accept our terms was the atomic bomb.”24

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(9) Stimson’s main purpose in recommending the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to end the war in victory in the shortest possible time with the least possible loss of American lives.25 The bombing resulted in the death of over 100,000 Japanese. But, writes Stimson, this deliberate, premeditated destruction was our least abhorrent choice. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki put an end to the Japanese war. It stopped the fire raids, and the strangling blockade; it ended the ghastly specter of a clash of great land armies.26 There were a number of significant omissions in Stimson’s essay. There was no mention of the contribution to the decision to drop the bombs resulting from the Soviet Union’s entry into the war. There was no mention of Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew’s efforts to end the war, before dropping the bombs, by changing the terms of the Japanese surrender from unconditional to conditional surrender, accepting the place of the Emperor in post-war Japan. Nor did Stimson mention his own uneasiness about the firebombing of Japanese cities. He did not mention another reason for dropping the bombs that was supported by all his top advisors, which was that of bringing to world attention the horrendous nature of atomic weapons and the necessity of the international control of nuclear weapons, the abolition of nuclear war, and even the abolition of war itself. Nor did Stimson indicate the source of his estimate that 1,000,000 American casualties would result from an attack on the Japanese main islands.27 Yet the Stimson article became the official Hiroshima narrative in the United States.28 5. Challenging the Official Hiroshima Narrative: Enola Gay Script and Its Fate The official Hiroshima narrative was challenged by a small minority of persons from the very beginning, but this criticism was for all practical purposes squashed by the publication of Stimson’s article in Harper’s in l947. This criticism and the omissions in Stimson’s article received little if any attention for decades. As part of the fiftieth-anniversary commemoration of the end of the Second World War, curators of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) were preparing an exhibit, “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War,” which was to have opened in the summer of l995. The original script of the Smithsonian exhibit, in the words of historian Barton J. Bernstein, “sought to distill the current scholarship into a narrative, with some causal analysis, to explain the use of the bomb, to discuss the actual delivery, to focus also on the human tragedy of the bombings, and to treat briefly the legacy.”29 The script contained about 50,000 words of text plus a considerable number of pictures and short captions. Bernstein understood the aims of the curators were

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JERALD RICHARDS to do what a good textbook does: Build upon the established scholarship, often rely heavily upon narrative and evocation, indicate and briefly discuss the major interpretative issues, inform the reader (in this case also the exhibit viewer) how most historians have treated these questions, sometimes hedge when the questions are not resolved and where there are complicated disputes over documents, and place the issues in an informative context.30

According to Bernstein, the advisory board for the exhibit, meeting in the winter of l994, presented the curators with three pages of comments that contained minor and gentle criticisms as well as accolades for a basically sound script. But during the winter of l993–94, the Air Force Association (AFA) had begun a campaign against the script and the exhibit. The main charges of the AFA were that the project was anti-American, pro-Japanese, politically biased, expressed a false atomic bomb history, and showed a lack of appreciation for the Air Force.31 In the late spring and early summer of l994, the American Legion joined the attack upon the project.32 In the summer and fall of l994, the curators of the exhibit were compelled by their superiors to edit their script to meet American Legion demands.33 The United States press, for the most part, supported the demands of the Air Force Association and the American Legion. What the American Legion and its supporters wanted was, to quote Bernstein, “Stimson’s l947 history, minus the anguish, as the Smithsonian’s text in l995.”34 The American Legion, after picking up substantial congressional support, eventually demanded the cancellation of the script and the creation of a display featuring only the Enola Gay.35 The American Legion, the Air Force Association, Congress, war veterans, and the press won out and in January l995 the Secretary of the Smithsonian, I. Michael Heyman, ordered the cancellation of the script and the creation of a display featuring only the Enola Gay (in actuality, only a portion of the front of the fuselage of the Enola Gay).36 Most of the text of the final display is devoted to a description of the airplane itself. A brief film focuses on the bombing of Hiroshima through the eyes of some of the United States Air Force crew who operated the Enola Gay. The only explicit reference in the film to the destruction wrought by the bombing is a two-second clip of one of the victims. 6. Moral Issues Revisited The curators of the Smithsonian exhibit, in their original script, discussed a number of controversies related to the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki). One of the controversies was identified by the question: Was the decision to drop the bomb justified? The text under this question sums up the central issues raised by critics of the official Hiroshima narrative:

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After fifty years, the controversy over this question remains heated. Many analysts continue to argue that the bomb ended the war quickly and saved lives––even if the American deaths in an invasion of Japan would have been significantly lower than the post-war estimates. On the other hand, other scholars have argued that the atomic bombings were unnecessary; a number of options were available to President Truman, but he decided to go ahead anyway because he wished to intimidate the Soviets. The current consensus of most scholars is that the Soviets did play a role in the thinking of Truman and his advisers, but saving American lives and shortening the war were more important. Most historians also agree that there was scarcely any “decision to drop the bomb.” Truman merely approved the preparations already underway; the Manhattan Project had a great deal of momentum and the strategic bombing of German and Japanese cities made atomic bombing easier to accept. It is also clear that there were alternatives to both an invasion and dropping atomic bombs without warning––for example, guaranteeing the Emperor’s position, staging a demonstration of the bomb’s power, or waiting for blockade, firebombing and a Soviet declaration of war to take their toll on Japan. Since these alternatives are clearer in hindsight and it is speculative whether they would have induced the Japanese government to surrender quickly, the debate over “the decision to drop the bomb” will remain forever controversial.37 This was the closest the curators came to dealing with the moral issues of the bombing. Obliquely and with equivocation, the text implies that the bombing was justified if it ended the war quickly and saved American lives, but that if other options were available to bring about those ends, then it was not morally justified. The curators of the Smithsonian exhibit called this question of the moral justification of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a “historical controversy.” It seems odd to call it this unless what is meant is only that people continue to disagree about the answer to the question. Perhaps instead what is meant is that people continue to disagree on the availability of alternatives to the bombing to end the war quickly and save American lives. But even if there were no alternatives and the bombing did end the war quickly and save American lives, the moral question is not answered because, among other things, the matters of the violation of the international laws of war and of the principle of non-combatant immunity are not addressed. The international laws of war and the principle of non-combatant immunity are not even mentioned or alluded to in the Smithsonian text. The Smithsonian text can be understood in still a different way when it calls the question of the moral justifiability of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a historical controversy. It may mean that there is a controversy about whether there is a plausible understanding of the historical facts (an understanding possible for historians today but not at the time of the bombing) that would lead to the conclusion that the bombing was morally justified even

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if both the international laws of war and the principle of non-combatant immunity are taken into account. Given this interpretation of the Smithsonian text, we can ask what kind of new historical evidence might lead us to change our assessment that the bombing was immoral? If we operate within the framework of the laws of war and just war morality, only evidence that supports all of the following conditions could lead us to reassess the judgment that the bombing was morally wrong. These conditions are: (1) The attack was directed solely at military or military support installations. (2) The killing of non-combatants was not intended, although perhaps foreseen (that is, the killing was collateral damage). (3) The foreseen collateral damage (the evil) was far outweighed by the good achieved by the bombing, that a much greater catastrophe involving a greater loss of life and greater suffering was averted, that is, the loss of hundreds of thousands (upward to a million) American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. (4) There were no plausible alternative ways to bring about a swift end to the war. The historical evidence that has emerged since l945 supports the judgment of the few critics at the time that the bombing was not directed solely at military or military support installations, that the killing of non-combatants was intended, and that alternatives to the bombing that would have brought the war to a quick end were available. The evidence that has been uncovered in more recent years, evidence that was available to the decision makers, strengthens the claim that the bombing was immoral and unjust. Another possible justifying condition might be that, even if the killing of non-combatants was intended, the situation in the Pacific for the United States at the time was one of an extraordinary extreme emergency or imminent catastrophe in which national identity and values were at stake and one in which there were no plausible alternatives to keep the United States from losing this identity and these values. Michael Walzer develops this concept of extreme emergency in Just and Unjust Wars and discusses it in relation to the Allied area bombing of German cities as well as to the bombing of Hiroshima.38 In developing the concept of extreme emergency, Walzer is stretching the concept of legitimate military necessity well beyond the bounds set for it even in United States military manuals. The U.S. Air Force manual (AFP 110-31),39 for example, claims, in the event of military necessity, justification only for the use of force that is not forbidden by international law, that does not cause unnecessary suffering, and that protects the immunity of civilian populations from attack.40 In stretching the concept of legitimate military necessity, Walzer defends the justifiable application of the appellation “supreme emergency” to the Allied area bombing of German cities from the summer of l940 to the summer of l942. However, he rejects its application in Europe after the summer of l942. In addition, he rejects the application of supreme emergency reasoning to the bombing of Hiroshima.41 Recently obtained historical evidence does not over-

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throw but supports the judgment that the United States situation in the Pacific in the summer and fall of l945 was not one of extreme emergency. It also should be added that supreme emergency reasoning is fraught with difficulties, the most important being (1) the difficulty of determining that a supreme emergency exists in terms that do not involve the kinds of questionbegging and subjective rationalizations associated with the use of such vague and unstructured concepts like national integrity, national values, national security, national interest, and military necessity; (2) the adoption of the questionable principle that the end justifies any means that do not entail the destruction of the end itself; (3) the questionableness of disregarding claims and principles grounded in our experiences of the worth and value of human life and human rights (killing is wrong, the innocent should not be deliberately killed, and so forth); and (4) the failure to consider the actual and possible negative consequences of immoral action under conditions of supreme emergency upon the actors themselves as well as upon subsequent international relations. The one line of reasoning supporters of the bombing have tended to consider foundational has suffered the most in terms of credibility due to more recent historical research. This is the argument that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved approximately 1,000,000 American lives that would have been lost if the planned invasion of the Japanese main islands had been necessary. Recently uncovered evidence suggests that the loss of American lives projected by the planners would have been 63,000, at the most.42 That maintaining an extremely high number of American lives that would be lost in an invasion of the Japanese main islands was and is considered to be crucial to the justification of the bombing is evidenced by the fact that it was probably the attempt of the Smithsonian’s Secretary, Heyman, to adjust the figures down to 63,000 in the text of the Enola Gay exhibit that precipitated the cancellation of the exhibit and the call for Heyman’s resignation. Apparently, there is some sense in the minds and hearts of the supporters of the bombing of the horrendous nature of that bombing and this sense makes them uncomfortable with figures lower than at least several hundred thousand lives saved. Focus upon the debate over the projected number of American lives saved tends to sidetrack participants in the larger debate over the justification of the bombing. Unless one is engaged in a crassly simplistic consequentialist calculation, the number of American lives saved by the bombing is not decisive for settling the ethical issue. Consequentialist calculation was and continues to be at the heart of the reasoning in defense of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sadly lacking from this consequentialist reasoning is the consideration of other consequences of the bombing in addition to the claimed saving of large numbers of American lives and the bringing of the war to a swift end. These other consequences of crossing the atomic/thermonuclear threshold would include such things as the setting of a precedent for the future use of atomic and thermonuclear weapons; setting in motion a nuclear arms race; justifying research on, and the development, production, and deployment of other “extraordinary”

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types of weaponry like chemical and biological weapons; justifying the development of more and more lethal non-nuclear weapons like napalm and cluster bombs as only “conventional weapons”; and becoming the first nation to use nuclear weapons and, thus, staining the moral image of the United States in the international community. Many of these consequences could have been considered in 1945 prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some few persons related to the decision making process did raise some of these considerations. However, their warnings were not given serious attention. If these matters had been thoroughly and seriously considered, it is possible that alternatives to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been pursued. Some negative consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mentioned above probably could not have been considered by decision makers in 1945. However, reflection upon these negative consequences should lead persons thinking and writing in the 1990s at least to have second thoughts about the wisdom and justification of that action. At the very least, such reflection should lead to carefully qualified and muted judgments about its moral justification, and these judgments should be accompanied by remorse and regret that the bombing occurred. Those open to these reflections would be inclined to be open to an examination of new historical data that questions the official Hiroshima narrative. In the middle to late 1990s such reflection and openness are not evident in the thinking, speaking, and writing of most people who address the Hiroshima question. The press in the United States has been overwhelmingly supportive of the bombing. The fate of the Enola Gay exhibit is evidence of this kind of support, not only by the press, but by Congress, some veterans’ organizations, and William J. Clinton, then President of the United States. Although the main support for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to be the claim that it brought a swift end to the war and saved hundreds of thousands of American lives, other subsidiary and related claims, as well as purported justified motives, often have been and continue to be appealed to in the speeches and writings of defenders. The themes of vengeance and retaliation emerge quite often. This subscenario runs something like this: the Japanese started the war; they were the aggressors. They bombed Pearl Harbor without warning, killing at least 2,000 American military personnel. They deserved to pay for their crimes. The bombing of Hiroshima was a just punishment for their treachery. Some supporters of this subscenario, who seem to be somewhat sensitive to dropping the atomic bomb on civilian populations, also point out that the Japanese attacked and killed civilians before the United States did and that their actions were much worse than the actions of the United States. Witness the rape of Nanking, the Bataan death march, the kamikaze attacks, and the exploitation of “comfort women” from Korea.

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7. Hiroshima, Democratic Processes, and Democratic Values The processes by which the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was reached were conducted in secrecy, and few if any dissenters were part of the process. Although some participants in the process expressed reservations of one kind or another about the bombing, the development and further articulation of this minority opinion was not encouraged and never occurred. In addition, the United States Congress never engaged in a public debate over the feasibility and justification of the use of atomic weapons, should such weapons be developed. Given that it was wartime, it might seem to be incredibly naive to think that any kind of open consultation with representatives of Congress, let alone a public debate involving all members of Congress, could have been conducted. Perhaps so. But there are two comments I should like to make about this. (1) If the debate even among key decision makers had been genuinely open, there is no reason why the minority opinion could not have been given much more serious attention. (2) The purported necessity of the secrecy of government during wartime (some of which may be justified) is itself a serious obstacle to any genuine democratic decision making process during wartime in general, let alone to this process about the use of atomic weapons after years of violent and vicious world-wide military conflict. People who are serious about democratic rule and processes must confront this problem and offer viable and persuasive alternatives to the thinking and policies dominant in purportedly democratic nations throughout the world. The best chance for constructive change regarding government secrecy during wartime probably lies in the further democratization of the political process that precedes the kinds of conflicts among nations and peoples that break out into organized warfare. This broadening and deepening of the political process will open up the possibility of resolving these conflicts in ways that fall short of warfare. It is important to do so, since once wars are initiated the chances of substantial opposition to government policy and government secrecy are reduced almost to nothing. The Gulf War of l991 is a prime example. Rather extensive Congressional debate about the justifiability and feasibility of a war with Iraq preceded the war. Once the war began, opposition to it vanished almost completely. A caveat is in order at this point. Even if a reasonably open debate, although limited for legitimate security reasons, had been conducted to consider the feasibility and justifiability of dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities, there was no guarantee that the American public (or at least its Congressional representatives) would have opposed this bombing. Polls taken shortly after the end of the Second World War indicate that the American public overwhelmingly supported the bombing and probably they would have done so when it was being planned. Democratic processes are no guarantee that decisions will be sensitive to the international laws of war, the principles of just war morality, universal human rights, human equality, and the inestimable worth of persons.

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Dissenters against, and critics of, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were not part of the original decisionmaking process, fared no better and perhaps even worse than the dissenters who were part of the original process. Efforts were made, at least by government officials, to control the access of the press to the facts of the bombing, to suppress the publication of criticisms of the bombing, and thereby to control the thinking of Americans about it. These efforts at control culminated in the eventual creation of the official Hiroshima narrative in l947. This official narrative has dominated the thinking of most Americans from its inception in 1947 up to and including the present day. Thus, again, free and open discussion, dialogue, debate, and democratic decisionmaking were discouraged and stifled. The available evidence suggests that the official Hiroshima narrative is very much alive in the 1990s and 2000s. The Smithsonian fiasco, the dominance of the official narrative in the press, and the majority support of this narrative by the American public support this conclusion. During the fiftiethanniversary celebrations, very little attention was given to the moral issues raised by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to the question whether new historical evidence might lead to a revision of the moral assessment of the bombing and/or of the moral assessment of the heritage of Hiroshima. The majority of Americans continue to accept the official party line, accepting the Hiroshima narrative and denying the heritage of Hiroshima. 8. Grounds for Hope Even the Smithsonian fiasco may offer some grounds for hope. Bernstein writes: The very clash over the canceled NASM exhibit may, ironically, spark a heightened interest in the issues of A-bomb history. Perhaps more Americans will become curious about the A-bomb events, how historians have treated them, why a near-consensus emerged by the early 1990s, why it is being challenged in the mid-1990s, and how the A-bomb decision should be understood. That may lead more Americans to wonder, and to question, whether the 1945 use of the A-bomb was necessary and just, and why the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities.43 Recent polls indicate that many Americans may be ready to reassess the moral justification of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This increasing willingness on the part of a minority of citizens to engage in this reassessment needs to be encouraged. Also to be encouraged is taking a more objective critical look at the heritage of Hiroshima. If this reassessment by a substantial number of people takes place and leads them to conclude that the bombing was immoral, what of a positive and constructive nature can be expected from this process on the part of the United States, its government, and its people? Perhaps the dynamics of personal moral reassessment of past action

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that involved harm to others offers a helpful analogy. I have in mind the dynamics of remorse, regret, confession of guilt, repentance, apology, restitution, and reconciliation followed by both the determination not to repeat the mistake again and actions designed to ensure that the mistake will not be repeated. Of course, some individual citizens and non-governmental groups of citizens have gone through this process in relation to individual Japanese citizens and groups of Japanese citizens and even in relation to the Japanese people taken collectively. The United States government has not come close to doing so. Government representatives, including Presidents (that is, George H. W. Bush and Clinton), have refused to engage in a reassessment of the Hiroshima narrative. However, assuming that the reassessment does come about, something analogous to what can happen on the personal level may also occur on the political scene.44 Government repentance, apology, and restitution in the matter of Hiroshima may be foreshadowed by a similar kind of action taken in the matter of the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. Such action by the United States government was close to being too little, too late, but imperfect action in these matters is better than no action at all.45 We realistically cannot expect governments to take these kinds of radical action apart from the will of a substantial number of their citizens. This is not to discount the possibility that some enlightened political leaders could influence the populace to accept these benign and nonviolent types of action. But we plausibly may hold that such actions (apology, restitution, and forgiveness) by individuals and groups must precede or at least accompany analogous public pronouncements and actions. What is more likely is that these kinds of action by individuals and groups of individuals will persuade political leaders to act accordingly on the public and national level. If these kinds of action can be taken by individuals, non-government groups, and political leaders with regard to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then it is possible they can be taken with regard to other past unjust actions related to other peoples and nations. If so, then the democratic narrative I sketched in the beginning of this chapter eventually might be moved from the categories of wishful and utopian thinking to the category of descriptive narrative. NOTES 1. Curators of the National Air and Space Museum, “The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb, and the Origins of the Cold War,” Judgment at the Smithsonian, ed. Philip Nobile (New York: Marlowe and Company, 1995), pp. 107–108. 2. Frank Chinnock, Nagasaki: The Forgotten Bomb (New York: World, 1969), quoted in David P. Barash, Introduction to Peace Studies (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1991), p. 107. 3. See Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 301–350.

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4. Quoted in Leon Friedman, ed., The Law of War: A Documentary History (New York: Random House, Inc., 1972), p. 318. 5. Ibid.; see also ibid., p. 229. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., p. 319. 8. Ibid. 9. See Vera Brittain, “Massacre by Bombing,” Fellowship, 10 (March 1944), pp. 49–64; and John C. Ford, “The Morality of Obliteration Bombing,” Theological Studies, 5 (1944), pp. 261–309. 10. Stephen Early Letter, Fellowship, 10 (April 1944), p. 79. 11. See The New York Herald Tribune, 26 April 1944, p. 2. 12. See ibid. 13. Vera Brittain, “Not Made in Germany,” Fellowship, 10 (June 1944), pp. 106–108. 14. Ibid., p. 108. 15. Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harper’s (February 1947), pp. 97–107. 16. See ibid., p. 98. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., p. 100. Brackets are Stimson’s. 19. See ibid. 20. See ibid., p. 103. 21. Ibid., p. 105. 22. Ibid. 23. See ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 106. 26. Ibid. ,p. 107. 27. See Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, pp. 108–109. 28. See ibid., p. 108. 29. Barton J. Bernstein, “The Struggle over History,” in Nobile, Judgment, p. 216. 30. Ibid. 31. See ibid., p. 232. 32. See ibid., p. 233. 33. See ibid., pp. 233–234. 34. Ibid., p. 236. 35. See ibid., pp. 237–238. 36. See ibid., p. 238. 37. Curators, “The Crossroads”, p. 56. 38. See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 251– 268, 323–327. 39. See U.S. Department of the Air Force, International Law–The Conduct o f Armed Conflict and Air Operations, 19 November 1976, AFP 110-31 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1976). 40. See ibid., pp. 1–6; and William V. O’Brien, The Conduct of Just and Limited War (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), pp. 64–67. 41. See Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars. 42. See Nobile, Judgment, xxxvii-xxxix. 43. See ibid., p. 240.

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44. See Donald W. Shriver, An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955). 45. See ibid., pp. 166–167.

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PART TWO Public Participation in Political and Economic Processes

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INTRODUCTION The authors in this section inquire into ways economic and political institutions can be made to function more democratically. In “Democracy in Market Economies,” William C. Gay observes that the spread of political democracy in the world has not been accompanied by democratic processes in economic institutions. Capitalist institutions are hierarchical. And because neither the public nor the underlings in such institutions participate in decision making, it is unlikely that the distribution of benefits will be fair. In addition concentration of economic power reduces the effectiveness of democratic political processes through which disadvantaged groups might obtain redress. Hence, to realize democracy fully, it is imperative to devise ways in which workers and the public can participate more extensively in economic decisions that affect their welfare. Gay explores some of the experiments and proposals in this direction and argues that there are empirical grounds for believing that efforts toward greater economic democracy would be met with success. Thomas Christiano, in “Political Equality and the Independent Power of Private Property,” explores ways in which economic firms influence social policy even when they do not interfere with formal democratic processes. For example, by moving facilities from a community, threatening to do so, or just predicting that they will have to, economic firms can dissuade local political bodies from imposing such costs for the public welfare as distributing economic benefits more equitably or the environment. Christiano ends his analysis with a recommendation of ways to persuade those with economic power to defer to the popular will, even when this involves costs for their enterprises. Beth J. Singer, in “Rights and Affirmative Action,” addresses a concrete problem of economic and cultural injustice. By reviewing a number of major court decisions and philosophical arguments, she constructs a justification for affirmative action programs to promote equality of opportunity in admission to educational institutions and fair employment. She argues that such programs need not constitute reverse discrimination or be incompatible with principles of equality. To justify this position, she develops concepts of action groups and identity groups that show how membership in certain groups, notably women and blacks, is central to the identity of individuals and the way they are treated by society. Discriminatory treatment of the groups thus entails unequal treatment of individuals. Singer concludes that properly designed affirmative action programs can help redress historic injustices without treating members of privileged groups (men, whites) unfairly. In “The Procedural Republic,” Judith Presler examines political structures and political theories for a key to the difficulty that democracies have in dealing with questions of value regarding welfare, crime, fiscal policy, abortion, and the personal conduct of politicians. She finds a key in what she calls the “procedural republic,” a concept of government presupposed in philosophies of justice as contrary as those of John Rawls and Robert Nozick. This concept is accepted by liberals and conservatives alike. It maintains that the

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essential role of government is to empower individuals to pursue the good life in their own way. The concept restricts political debate to procedural issues such as the level of government best equipped to address particular problems. Presler argues that the restriction prevents society from debating and reaching a consensus on values. Yet a consensus is precisely what politicians need in order to set goals and determine measures necessary to solve the social problems of the day. Presler points to other ways of structuring democracy that would help to remedy this defect. The first chapters of this section and those of the prior one take for granted the existence of a system of law within which attempts to extend democratic processes and solve social problems must work. In “Living Democracy Despite the Rule of Law: Civil Disobedience as Political Narrative,” Matthew Silliman raises the question whether the system of law itself, even where it has been developed through democratic processes, imposes constraints on democracy that might be loosened. He criticizes the liberal notion of civil disobedience that sanctions violations only of laws that are deemed unjust or illegitimate. Such violations, when the intention is only to change the specific laws, do not challenge the notion that respect is owed to law as such, and the protester is willing to accept the penalty for disobedience in order to publicize the cause. Silliman would sanction conscience-driven disregard of the system of law itself where this is necessary for the popular will to form itself in a free and unconstrained manner. He argues that such civil disobedience need not be uncivil or unethical.

Six DEMOCRACY IN MARKET ECONOMIES William C. Gay It is hard to be against participation. It is socially acceptable governance. It is moral, it fits the prevailing democratic mood of the times, and research shows that it can work. It just makes sense. Yet few organizations operate participatively.1 The Cold War has ended and the post-Cold War world is often presented as one in which democracy and market economies are victorious. Francis Fukuyama goes so far as to claim that democratic politics has triumphed on a global scale.2 At least from a statistical point of view, most nations now declare themselves to be democracies, and a majority of the global population lives in these countries.3 However, the claim that the West won the Cold War too easily occludes recognition that the victory of democracy is restricted to the political sphere. While the dissolution of the Soviet Union has made the world “safe for democracy” in the political sphere, it has also made the world “safe for capitalism” in the economic sphere. In other words, the victory of democracy is partial since market economies remain largely undemocratic. The coupling of democracy and market economies needs critical examination; otherwise, we may fail to see prospects for creating economic democracy. Just as many people take for granted the coupling of national sovereignty and the capacity to wage war, many people also take for granted that democracy and market economies go hand in hand.4 As little as a decade ago, the term “economic democracy” was still in use, at least in such philosophical treatments as those covered in the general survey conducted for Ethics in 1984 by Drew Cristie.5 Now, the term is no longer in vogue. (Instead, the related terms in use are “employee ownership” and, under management, “employee participation.”) In this chapter, I give some attention to how, historically and theoretically, democracy came to be restricted to the political sphere. Next, I present briefly my own support for economic democracy and provide a response to some representative philosophical and economic objections to the extension of democratic principles to the economic sphere. Then, shifting away from theoretical debates, I highlight a variety of recent models for the expansion of democratic principles and practices to the economic sphere. Increasing support for democratizing the economy can be found within the fields of economics and management––though their reasons center on economic pursuit of efficiency and profit, and their proposals are pragmatic responses to political pressure from discontented and alienated workers.

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I present this material along a continuum of models ranging from limited to extensive democratization of the economic sphere. While democratization of the economy may be a long way off in the United States, developments in several parts of the world and even in some sectors of the United States economy demonstrate that the obstacles to democratization of the global economy are not insurmountable. I conclude with some reflections on why philosophers concerned for peace and justice should make theoretical and practical use of these models; I suggest that we should work to make democratic changes in the economy. 1. Separation of Democratic Principles from the Economic Sphere Within philosophical discussions of justice, the distinction is often made between the principle of merit and the principle of equality. Merit correlates with political and economic privilege (generally, hierarchical control) for those who possess the traits deemed meritorious, while equality correlates with at least opportunity for (if not holding of) power and wealth for all persons. When these principles are applied to the political and economic spheres of society a fourfold classification results. If equality is pursued in both the political and economic sphere, a political-economic democracy results and aims for pure egalitarianism with democratic participation in both the political and economic spheres of society. At the other extreme, if in both spheres privilege is affirmed and democracy is rejected, a pure meritocracy results and rejects equal participation in decision making within political and economic spheres of society. The United States and the former Soviet Union had mixed forms. In theory, while the United States affirms democratic principles only in the political sphere, the Soviet Union affirmed them only in the economic sphere. (Needless to say, neither fully achieved in practice what was affirmed in theory.) Throughout the Cold War, it was common to divide Soviet and United States political philosophy sharply. We were told that while the Soviet system pursued social justice as a prerequisite for global peace, the United States system pursued global peace as a prerequisite for social justice. In other terms, one could say that the Soviet system aimed for its conception of positive peace (the presence of justice), while the United States system sought negative peace (the mere absence of war). When the difference between the two systems is framed in either of these ways, the point of disagreement concerns whether social justice is a prerequisite for or a consequence of global peace. Such a disagreement, however, is older than either the Soviet Union or the United States. Traditional political philosophy also makes this contrast, most often on the basis of the distinction between liberal and democratic theory.6 I simply want to observe that all modern societies are politically and economically non-egalitarian. If one is concerned about this fact, one can respond with the liberal value of political liberty or the democratic value of economic equality. Many in the United States and the Soviet Union simply assumed that political liberty and economic equality could not be obtained

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simultaneously. If this assumption is made, one can choose to give primacy to either liberty or equality in moving toward a more ideal social organization. John Locke and liberal theory see political liberty as primary, and they legitimate the continuing economic inequality.7 Jean-Jacques Rousseau and democratic theory view economic equality as primary, and they justify the requisite political inequality.8 As already noted, while the United States advocates political liberty, particularly in its practice within the political sphere, it accepts economic inequality, especially in its resistance to democratization of the economic sphere. From a logical perspective, the Enlightenment assumption that primacy has to be given to political liberty or economic equality can foster inappropriately dichotomous approaches, as occurred throughout the Cold War. Once one realizes that it is unlikely, if not impossible, that either political liberty or economic equality will ever be fully achieved in any society, one can consistently work on both at the same time even if more needs to be done relative to one than the other. From this perspective, the difference in such social systems is more in degree than in kind. I return to this point in my conclusion where I recommend that philosophers concerned with peace and justice support democratization of both the political and economic spheres of society. The fact remains that, historically the, “free” market economic models of Adam Smith and Locke were followed in Western political democracies. Even on their own terms, the positions of both Smith and Locke have problems. Smith, on the one hand, assumed some “invisible hand” (actually, competition in the market) guaranteed that enhanced public welfare would result from the actions of private individuals in free markets.9 This position amounts to a utilitarian claim that unregulated markets and private property produce greater benefits than can be achieved by regulation. Beyond the suspect assumptions about human nature on which this view rests, the emergence of monopolies and multinational corporations significantly undercuts the laissez-faire model. In addition, Smith’s assumption that competition leads to reduced costs through efficient use of resources neglects such factors as damage to the environment. Locke, on the other hand, took it to be self-evident that both freedom and property are natural rights,10 and his economic followers argue that only free markets preserve both of these rights. Various writers have challenged the assumption of natural rights, the preeminence of these rights even if they are granted, and the unjust inequalities that result from free markets.11 Karl Marx showed limits of the market system when he exposed the ideological bias of the market ideal in which the initial distribution of claims on resources goes unquestioned.12 Issues of class domination and private profit also must be considered. However, capitalism continues to exist, albeit in modified form. Radicals may agree with Marx that capitalism will eventually self-destruct, but, given the long-standing successful adaptations of capitalism, they have to offer concrete analyses of present-day conditions. In the United States, Paul Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, in particular, have advanced a contemporary radical economic analysis.13 More recently, within post-Keynesian

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economic liberalism, the work of Robert Eisner and Thomas Palley is especially significant.14 2. Extending Democracy to the Economic Sphere Although the purpose of this chapter is to advance the argument for economic democracy, I want to make it very clear that political democracy by itself represents a considerable advance beyond the political absolutism of the early modern age. Philosophically, that earlier and more authoritarian tradition is associated with Thomas Hobbes. According to Hobbes, people originally lived in a state of nature, which was unregulated and which became a war of all against all. To escape this plight, people entered into civil society but did so at the price of subjecting themselves to the dictates of the state.15 The consequence of this view is that, domestically, the ruler has absolute power over the citizens. In modern political philosophy, the tradition that replaces absolute political authority with limited political authority can be traced back to Locke. His political philosophy arose as a critical response to the claim of a divine right of kings and called for several limitations on sovereignty.16 So, while I question his economic philosophy, I applaud his political philosophy. In Capitalism with a Human Face, T. A. Alekseeva and William Gay advance the thesis that governments should regulate the economic sphere at least to the point of establishing a system of social guarantees that provide minimum protections for citizens.17 To support this view, it is necessary to rebut the arguments of neoclassical economists and defend a post-Keynesian economic liberalism. Government regulation disrupts a laissez-faire system of privilege that operates hierarchically. Even if not based on an actual democratic vote, such governmental regulation operates to enhance principles of equality, at least of equal opportunity. In this regard, the key principle of postKeynesian economic liberalism is that the majority would not or should not vote for significant political or economic disenfranchisement of any social group. When voting restrictions or fiscal austerity reach the point that groups are excluded en bloc from the electoral process or significant numbers of people face starvation, a situation has been reached that is difficult to square with the notion of a democratic government charged to serve the interests of the people and to provide them with basic rights and protections. The position I am advocating goes beyond the liberalism of the minimal welfare state that Robert E. Goodin defends in Reasons for Welfare.18 While I agree with Goodin’s critique of the attacks on the welfare state by the New Right, I believe that the state has an obligation to protect more than the needy. The state should not only protect the interests of those not in a position to protect themselves; it should also assure the right of all citizens to participate in governance within the economic sphere and not just the political sphere. Put simply, any society that seeks to couple democracy with market economies needs to address the lack of symmetry in how democracy is valued in the political and economic spheres. The position I am advocating maintains that if political justice requires democracy, economic justice requires it as well.

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I contend that the argument that Gay and Alekseeva make regarding Russia, is applicable to any society. While authoritarian systems can ignore such suggestions, democratic governments should at least give them some consideration. In fact, most democratic governments do intervene in the economic sphere in part in order to assure a minimum level of basic protection. In a democracy, such intervention needs to have some connection with the will of the people. For this reason, a degree of democratization of the economy is difficult to avoid under democratic governance of society. Consequently, from a practical point of view, the issue is not really of one kind but rather one of degree. One philosopher who questions whether economic justice requires democracy is Jan Narveson. In “Democracy and Economic Rights,” Narveson’s defense of economic rights (such as to buy and sell) includes a critique of the view that, if democracy is proper for governing the state, it is also proper for governing economic enterprises.19 In opposition to this view, Narveson argues that in principle voters could vote in favor of a form of capitalism that excludes democracy. Presumably, he has in mind a type of capitalism largely devoid of worker participation in economic governance. While such a choice is possible, its possibility does not clinch his argument. Voters could instead choose economic democracy. Moreover, what they would vote for does not settle the issue of which is better. Consequently, Narveson needs to argue that some economic rights (such as rights to capital and ownership) are more basic than some political rights, and he does make this argument. He holds to a view of liberalism in which rights to private property and free association are more fundamental than the right to vote. In opposing economic democracy, Narveson primarily criticizes Robert A. Dahl. However, I find myself in agreement with Dahl. In A Preface to Economic Democracy, Dahl makes a rather compelling case for extending democratic procedures to the economic sphere. Dahl also presents a critique of the economic rights model to which Narveson subscribes. At one point, Dahl states, None of the well-known reasoned arguments for private property as a fundamental right, comparable to the fundamental right to selfgovernment, is satisfactory, either because the grounds are unsatisfactory, or the scope of the right is unsatisfactorily defined, or both.20 Dahl rejects arguments for the right to unlimited acquisition of private property as well as arguments for the right to private ownership of corporate enterprises. In his words, “The demos and its representatives are entitled to decide by means of the democratic process how economic enterprises should be owned and controlled in order to achieve, so far as may be possible, such values as democracy.”21 Dahl also thinks that economic democracy will foster moral responsibility by reducing adversarial relations between employers and employees. Further, he suggests employees will be better representatives of consumers than traditional managers or owners, who are much fewer in number and function-

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ally more removed from consumers.22 Philosophically, I find this line of reasoning to be convincing. Moving from philosophers to economists opposed to economic democracy, I need to acknowledge that contemporary conservatives like Milton Friedman argue that modern government has changed from a mechanism of order to one of oppression.23 Nevertheless, even within the framework of free market models, John Maynard Keynes argued, well before the resurgence of the neoconservative and neoclassical economics of Friedman, that some government regulation is needed. Keynes argued that an unregulated market can lead to economic stagnation. In order to prevent this, he proposed government regulation of the money supply, taxes, and government spending.24 Contemporary liberal economists accept, in varying degrees, the policies of Keynes. Robert L. Heilbroner, for example, makes explicit the need for a political dimension within economics, while John Kenneth Galbraith argues specifically for an expanded role for liberal government throughout the economy and society.25 The philosophical and economic arguments for and against democratizing the economy continue to go round and round. These theoretical debates may not have a definitive resolution, so, even though I have noted the view with which I side, I will leave these debates. Instead, in order to examine what can be done, I turn to works that address actual efforts to advance democratic principles within the economy. I note the broad scope of such efforts and then give specific attention to Western Europe and Japan. 3. Actual Models and Practices of Economic Democracy Contrary to what mainstream sources suggest, many economists see an important role for democracy within the economic sphere. By noting various models and practices of economic democracy, I document that democratizing the economy is possible since it is actual, in varying degrees, in a wide range of societies. So, the issue is not whether it can be done; rather, the issue is whether it will be done. If an economy can be successfully democratized, then why not do so? If it can be profitable, while also advancing participation, then what reason stands in its way? Some economic analysts, such as Keith Bradley and Alan Gelb, advocate employee participation and ownership primarily as a temporary or stopgap measure. Although Bradley and Gelb call for worker or employee ownership, their support is restricted to ailing industries, and is presented as an alternative to subsidies and reindustrializing.26 Going further, John R. Danley makes a pitch for international safety nets for individuals, given the role of transnational corporations in the global economy.27 Otherwise, as he notes, “transnational corporations can shop the globe for the lowest costs for the factors of production.”28 Once this level of analysis is reached, the issues are no longer merely economic. Capitalism itself, at least in its present form, represents an obstacle to peace and justice, domestically and internationally. Stanley A. Deetz, for

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example, suggests obstacles to democracy go far beyond its exclusion from the economic sphere.29 Drawing from continental analyses and specifically from the work of Jürgen Habermas, he suggests that the public sphere generally has been colonized or restructured in its own image by the corporate form with a systematically distorted communication that displaces the worker as a subject in the discourse of managerialism. The corporation becomes the subject, and its profits are the guiding interest. Deetz’s response, which he terms “workplace democracy,” is one of the mechanisms for advancing economic democracy that I endorse. Many economic analysts simply assume democracy is a good in all spheres of society. Consequently, they focus on means to democratize the workplace. One recent and rather interesting model is provided by Patricia McLagan and Christo Nel. McLagan is an American consultant and trainer now working out of South Africa. Nel is an Afrikaner who is an indigenous white African and who, in rejecting apartheid, has long worked toward having business and other organizations become participative systems that can serve as vehicles for the transformation of society. They contend that not only do participative systems outperform authoritarian systems, but that they will eventually replace them.30 They present ten key values as the emerging guiding principles for participative institutions, namely, consumer focus; commitment to participation; shared power, rights, and responsibilities; access; internalized control; respect for the balance of rational and nonrational; thinking close to doing; broad legitimacy; diversity; and learning.31 Jaroslav Vanek is another writer who sees democratization as fundamental. In his work, he presents control as primary and ownership as secondary. For Vanek, issues of control are basic in any economic system, while differences in styles of ownership allow for the differentiation of capitalism and socialism. He states: The first-order distinction hinges on who controls and manages the firm. Is it capital––that is, the owners of capital––or is it the working community? In the case of both conventional capitalism and Soviet-type socialism it is the former; in the case of the participatory economies it is the latter . . . . In the capitalist alternative ownership is private; in the Soviet-type alternative ownership is by the state. Similarly, participatory economic systems can be based on private or social ownership, even if at present there are no real examples of the former alternative.32 Regarding control, he cites several key areas, including participation in management, income sharing, and freedom of employment, which allow for a labor-managed economy.33 Freedom of employment is especially important because it includes not only the need for jobs to be available but also for workers to have some choice over the jobs they perform.

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In addition to numerous models for a democratized economy, various practices also exist. European and Asian experiences may be distinct, but they are also instructive. Hence, I will cite a few such examples. Western Europe has taken the lead in economic democratization. Sherri DeWitt does a good job of presenting this case. She provides detailed case studies of industrial democracy in Sweden and of the German system of codetermination. In the case of co-determination, worker participation is mandated through legislation that is binding on employers and employees, and takes precedence over any agreements reached through private negotiation. As DeWitt observes: There is a distinction, however, between the experiments in participative management conducted in the United States and the model of industrial democracy employed by European nations such as Great Britain, Sweden, West Germany and the Netherlands. Participative management, an informal style of interpersonal management, generally is not mandated by legislation but is initiated by individual firms in response to specific problems. Industrial democracy, on the other hand, is a formal system of worker representation at various levels of policy making.34 For DeWitt, such approaches provide a means for regaining legitimacy for liberal democratic political systems. A similar treatment can be found in Peter Bachrach and Aryeh Botwinick’s Power and Empowerment. They state: Worker participation in the decision making processes of the workplace is firmly established in most capitalist and socialist industrial societies. Support for worker-participation programs––ranging from codetermination, collective bargaining, shop steward committees, workers’ councils to a combination of these––has covered the political spectrum, from the political right to the militant left, from corporate to union leaders, and from intellectuals to heads of state. And, as one might expect, the concept of worker participation has hovered between two poles: from work democratization, conceived as a means to democratically reconstruct the economic order, to work humanization, designed to increase job satisfaction and productivity without disturbing the distribution of power between management and workers.35 Like DeWitt, they see the weakness of the trade-union movement in the United States as one of the primary reasons why worker participation is less developed and widespread in the United States than in Europe. Bachrach and Botwinick do not stress class struggle in an orthodox Marxist manner. They state: In sharp contrast to Marxist theory, we do not envisage over the long run any one class performing in a historically redemptive role. Heightening

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of class consciousness among a continuing succession of suppressed groups, leading to class or interclass struggles, is required to preserve the democratic character of society.36 They continue: Democratic pluralism has the best chance to survive and grow if it is grounded in class struggle––a struggle that activates subordinate groups to organize and participate politically along class lines. Their source of power is class self-identification.37 I share their view that democratic pluralism needs to include a continuing sensitivity to a succession of social classes that experience subordination. The situation in Japan may be what is more likely for the United States, though it falls short of full-scale economic democracy. In his 1991 book, Human Capitalism: The Japanese Enterprise System as World Model, Robert S. Ozaki argues for the global adoption of the Japanese model. He claims that after the Second World War, Japan developed an economy that is neither capitalist nor socialist. Ozaki uses the terms “human capitalism” and “humanistic enterprise system” to designate Japan’s people-oriented system that is “based on the premise that human––not pecuniary or material––resources are the most vital capital with which to create and increase the wealth of nations.”38 Regarding Japanese enterprises, Ozaki observes: First, management and workers of the humanistic firm constitute an integrated group, assume primary sovereignty, and behave as if they jointly own the firm . . . . Second, the humanistic firm both competes and completes with other firms in the context of an organized market . . . . Third, . . . management and workers substantially share decision making, the fruits of their work efforts, and information.39 Ozaki goes on to argue that capitalism in the United States is actually more like the Soviet-style command economy, except that the command is vertical within the company instead of concentrated in the hands of state planners; hence, for him, there are many ways in which the American economy is a “collection of numerous mini-command economies.”40 As a result, neither the United States nor the Soviet system really gives workers an active role in decision making. As Ozaki puts it, Without occupational freedom workers in the planned economy are stuck at the same unfree workplace most of their productive lives, whereas workers under capitalism, with plenty of occupational freedom, may hop around a lot but, wherever they go, end up in an unfree work environment.41

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WILLIAM C. GAY 4. Economic Democracy and Justice Authoritarian governance is not a viable option for the future. Powerful forces are propelling us toward the alternative: As information technology, global economic and ecological interdependence, stockholder demands, and other forces converge, participation is really the only viable governance option. Continued autocracy has very high costs. On the macro level, we risk war, nuclear proliferation, ethnic conflict, revolt by the many poor against the affluent few, and ecological disaster. On the micro level, we are threatened by noncompetitiveness, bankruptcy, and the waste of human and other resources.42

Practices in both Western Europe and Japan, as well as elsewhere, show that a degree of economic democratization is actual. There are calls for far more democratization of the economy than has occurred and perhaps ever will occur. I have noted many of these calls, and I believe that to some degree they should be heeded. I clearly have not made the argument that the most extreme versions of economic democracy are the best, even though personally I am drawn in that direction. One of the most radical and outright socialist calls can be found in Robin Archer’s Economic Democracy: The Politics of Feasible Socialism.43 However, instead of trying to argue at the extreme, I will turn to some recent works by American economists. As a philosopher concerned with peace and justice, I commend these sources to others who also wish to tackle the problem of advancing democracy within the economy. These studies can be of real benefit in developing a response to the myopic view that the American economy cannot or should not be democratized. One good source is Ronald M. Manson’s Participatory and Workplace Democracy. He actually makes the reverse of the usual argument on the relation of democracy to the political and economic spheres. Many people who support expansion of democracy focus on furthering it even more in the political sphere. Manson contends that participation in the workplace is a more effective way to promote greater participation in government.44 Using five measures of the degree of democracy in any community and viewing the workplace as a community, he states: When gauging the degree of democracy in a workplace it is most useful to survey first the range of issues available for worker participation (scope), and then, in reference to those issues, inquire as to which workers participate (extensity), in what manner they participate (mode), to what degree of involvement (intensity), and with what impact upon the decisions (quality). The most democratic of all imaginable workplaces would be one in which all of the workers participate in the most direct fashion, with full intensity, in all of the workplace decisions, having a full impact upon those decisions.45

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Manson regards his model, which he sometimes terms “participationism,” as superior to liberalism. He claims that liberalism does little to promote participation beyond the act of voting. As he puts it, “Liberalism does not have a theory of individual development; thus liberal democracy cannot recognize that individual development and self-realization are dependent upon participation.”46 In an important sense, Manson advances not so much the theory as the practice of democracy. His five measures can provide criteria by which to measure progress toward economic democratization. Even more comprehensive and from within the field of economics is the work of Samuel Bowles, David M. Gordon, and Thomas E. Weisskopf. One of their more helpful studies is their 1990 book After the Waste Land. They state: By a democratic economy we mean an economy that guarantees to all citizens basic rights to an economic livelihood; that offers to all citizens opportunities for participation in making the economic decisions that affect their lives, either directly or through elected representatives; that puts an end to the economic dependency of working people on the whims of their employers; and that eliminates the economic dependency of women on men and removes racial, sexual, and other forms of discrimination in the access to jobs, housing, and throughout the economy.47 Obviously, the United States and most other countries do not guarantee for all their citizens a right to an economic livelihood. According to Bowles, Gordon, and Weisskopf, a democratic economics would: (1) seek sustainable improvements in living standards, (2) enhance domestic democracy and community and international cooperation, and 3) seek greater fairness. However, to do so, three changing economic realities must be faced, namely, the end of “Pax Americana,” the end of “Pax Patriarchy,” and the closing of the environmental frontier.48 In other words, they want to: (1) terminate the United States functioning as the enforcer of global stability in a manner that favors United States interest, (2) eliminate the hierarchical, male chauvinist dominance in geo-politics, and (3) discontinue treating the planet as if peripheral areas exist in which dumping of pollutants does not pose ecological problems. Such views of economic democracy are very much in line with the goals of advocates for peace and justice. I concur with the view that workers, as individuals, should have rights that include some control over their economic lives. I also maintain that, properly, the economy is a public arena that should no more be separated from democratic governance than the public arena of politics. My argument in this conclusion is that the post-Cold-War world would be ill-advised to separate democracy and market economies. Their separation may be compatible with negative peace, but not with positive peace. Market economies as presently constituted may promote the stability of negative peace, but they do not advance the principles of justice associated with positive peace. Market economies, if transformed in participative, democratic directions, could serve more

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than the interests of profit and stability. The practice of democracy in market economies can promote equality and justice. NOTES 1. Patricia McLagan and Christo Nel, The Age of Participation: New Governance for the Workplace and the World (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1995), p. 229. 2. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992), pp. xi–xvi. 3. Freedom House, The Comparative Survey of Freedom, 1995–96. http://www. freedomhouse.org/Political/Summary.htm. 4. See William C. Gay, “Militarism in the Modern State and World Government: The Limits of Peace through Strength in the Nuclear Age,” From the Eye o f the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace, eds. Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B. V., 1995), esp. pp. 5–7 5. See Drew Christie, “Recent Calls for Economic Democracy,” Ethics, 9 (October 1984), pp. 112–128. 6. See Franklin L. Baumer, Modern European Thought: Continuity and Change in Ideas, 1600–1950 (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, l977), esp. pp. 218–236. 7. See Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Cultures, 6th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, Inc., l963), pp. 600–60l. 8. See ibid., pp. 603–605. 9. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), p. 225. 10. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980), pp. 8 and 19. 11. See Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944); Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, (New York: Collier Books, 1978); Gottfried Dietz, In Defense of Property (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971); John Hospers, Libertarianism (Los Angeles: Nash, 1971); and T. R. Machan, Human Rights and Human Liberties (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1975). 12. Karl Marx, Capital, (New York: International Publishers, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 713–716. 13. See Paul Baran, The Political Economy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957); Paul Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966); and Paul M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1942). 14. Robert Eisner, “Keynes Is Not Dead, Just Drugged and Dormant,” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 17 (Winter 1994–95), pp. 211–229; and Thomas I. Palley, “The Free Trade Debate: A Left Keynesian Gaze,” Social Review, 61 (Summer 1994), pp. 379–394. 15. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 121–129. 16. Locke, Second Treatise, esp. chs. 1 and 12. 17. William Gay and T. A. Alekseeva, Capitalism with a Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), pp. 199–211.

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18. Robert E. Goodin, Reasons for Welfare: The Political Theory of the Welfare State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 19. Jan Narveson, “Democracy and Economic Rights,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 9 (Winter 1992), pp. 29–61. 20. Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985), p. 82. 21. Ibid., p. 83. 22. Ibid., pp. 98–100. 23. See Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 7–36. 24. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1936), pp. 372–384. 25. See Robert L. Heilbroner, Between Capitalism and Socialism: Essays i n Political Economics (New York: Random House, Inc., 1970), pp. 225–285; and John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), pp. 22–47. 26. Keith Bradley and Alan Gelb, Worker Capitalism: The New Industrial Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1983), pp. 1–5. 27. John R. Danley, The Role of the Modern Corporation in a Free Society (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), pp. 197–126. 28. Ibid., p. 286. 29. Stanley A. Deetz, Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 13–43. 30. McLagan and Nel, The Age of Participation, p. 4. 31. Ibid., p. 61. 32. Jaroslav Vanek, The Participatory Economy: An Evolutionary Hypothesis and a Strategy for Development (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971), p. 15. 33. Ibid., pp. 8–12. 34. Sherri DeWitt, Worker Participation and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 63–64. 35. Peter Bachrach and Aryeh Botwinick, Power and Empowerment: A Radical Theory of Participatory Democracy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), p. 75. 36. Ibid., p. 154. 37. Ibid., p. 157. 38. Robert S. Ozaki, Human Capitalism: The Japanese Enterprise System a s World Model (New York: Kodansha International, 1991), p. 1. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., p. 127. 41. Ibid., p. 128. 42. McLagan and Nel, The Age of Participation, p. 4. 43. Robin Archer, Economic Democracy: The Politics of Feasible Socialism, (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1995). See also John E. Roemer, “The Possibility of Market Socialism,” in The Idea of Democracy, eds. David Copp, Jean Hampton, and John E. Roemer (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 347–367.

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44. Ronald M. Manson, Participatory and Workplace Democracy: A Theoretical Development in Critique of Liberalism, (Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), p. 136. 45. Ibid., p. 156. 46. Ibid., p. 197. 47. Samuel Bowles, David M. Gordon, Thomas E. Weisskopf, After the Waste Land: A Democratic Economics for the Year 2000, (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1990), p. 187. 48. Ibid., pp. 188–191.

Seven POLITICAL EQUALITY AND THE INDEPENDENT POWER OF PRIVATE PROPERTY Thomas Christiano In liberal societies the free actions and exchanges of citizens, acting within their liberal rights, play a substantial role in determining some of the contours of social life. Liberal rights guarantee that each citizen has a kind of independent authority to act as he or she pleases within constraints. For instance, citizens can choose what to buy or sell among various products, employers can choose whether or not to hire people without leave from the government, and capitalists may make choices among the various investment alternatives they face. These actions have impacts (albeit of quite different magnitude) on the overall features of the society we live in. If consumers generally stop buying some particular product, the industry that produces them may go out of business, thereby increasing unemployment and undermining the tax base of a community. If employers lay off workers or diminish the extent to which they hire the workers, unemployment and poverty may increase. If capitalists decide to invest or stop investing in a particular industry, the distribution of income may be altered. In my view, part of the proper function of government in modern societies is to lower unemployment, redistribute income, lessen pollution, and finance public goods. Yet, in light of facts described above, whether a government policy can achieve these aims depends crucially on the behavior of other agents. Unemployment can be lowered, investment increased, and the position of the worse off can be improved only by policies that rely on capitalists and other citizens responding in certain ways. Policies cannot achieve their aims if citizens fail to obey the laws generally, but they may also be undermined by legal forms of non-cooperation of citizens. That is, one aim of minimum wage laws is to improve the economic well being of the worst off workers by getting employers to raise the lowest wages they pay. But if employers respond by laying off workers, the aim of the minimum wage policy will be undermined. This problem arises for many government policies. Most recently, many have argued that the increasing mobility and flexibility of capital in the arena of international trade has hampered governments’ abilities to achieve their aims via social and environmental policy.1 These general claims about the independent power of capitalists are commonly acknowledged facts.2 These facts about government action in a liberal society have an important bearing on how we should think about the justification and the structure

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of democratic ideals, in particular the ideal of political equality. Roughly speaking, in an ideally democratic society, citizens have an equal say in how their collective lives together are supposed to go. In addition, that equality is supposed to be manifest to each and every citizen. In a genuinely democratic society, the government is the agent of the people; its purpose is to achieve democratically chosen aims by means of law and policy. The above observations suggest however that some citizens can and do undermine the pursuit of aims that the citizens have chosen collectively. The question I pursue here concerns the implications of this phenomenon for our conception of political equality. In particular, does the fact that some citizens disable the government from pursuing democratically chosen aims constitute a violation of the norm of political equality? At first blush it appears that the answer must be, yes, since a minority of citizens are effectively blocking the realization of an aim that has been democratically chosen. It seems to be an obvious violation of majority rule. Answering this question will require us to explore the ideal of political equality. It will require us to say in more detail what it amounts to and why it is important. My aim in this chapter is to argue that the exercise of liberal property rights, even when this exercise is not in any way intended to influence the political system, can, in circumstances to be defined, constitute a violation of the ideal of political equality. I argue that there is a partial incompatibility between political equality and some important kinds of legal exercises of liberal property rights. I call this “partial incompatibility thesis.” In order to do this, I set up a paradigm example of the kind of power I wish to discuss. Then I clarify the issue at hand by distinguishing different ways in which political equality might be threatened in a liberal society, providing a general analysis of the problem and distinguishing some different kinds of cases of exercise of liberal property right that may be relevant to the defense of the main thesis. I then proceed to describe the main argument for the partial incompatibility thesis that I wish to defend: the thesis that the ordinary exercise of liberal property rights can in some contexts constitute an exercise of political power that abridges political equality. After explaining this argument, I consider a number of arguments against the thesis. These arguments defend the full compatibility of the exercise of liberal property rights with political equality. I call this thesis, which I reject, the “full compatibility thesis.” Each of these arguments, I claim, fails. My tentative conclusion is in favor of the partial incompatibility thesis. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of some important implications of this thesis. 1. Illustration Take an extreme example. Suppose that a small community depends heavily on the presence of a large, privately owned industrial complex. Many of its citizens are employed in it, it is the source of much of the community’s revenue from which public activities are financed, and so on. Furthermore, suppose that the community is democratic. Now the citizens of the community

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wish to regulate the industry. They believe that it is causing too much pollution, its standards of safety are too low, and they think that the industrial complex ought to pay higher corporate taxes so that more redistribution can take place. Consider three possible ways in which the issue might be resolved. I do not mean to imply that these are ways in which these issues are actually resolved in our society. They are three relevant possibilities for the purposes of the analysis. In the first possible resolution, after much debate where all the points of view in the community have been heard and reasonably well discussed, a large majority of the community votes into office legislators who are committed to achieving the aims of pollution control, work-place safety, and an equitable distribution of wealth. The legislators enact the reforms necessary for the achievement of these aims. The reforms are enacted. In the first case, the industrial firm decides to stay in the community and go along with the decisions. Here, the aims of the citizens are realized. The second possible resolution is similar to the first, except that after the passage of the reforms, the private industrial firm decides that its profits would increase if it moved its operations to another community. When it does so, the remaining installations lose their value considerably and unemployment goes up, the tax base declines, and as a consequence, the community no longer has the funds to regulate pollution or the occupational safety standards of the remaining firms or to redistribute any money to the poor. The aims of the citizens have been undermined. The third possible resolution is that the industrial firm tells the community that if the regulations are imposed, it will leave in order to forestall a decline in its profits. The community elects the same legislators committed to the same aims. But the legislators and administrators decide against the reforms on the ground that the aims that can be achieved without the industry are less worthwhile than the ones they can achieve with the industry. There are at least two different ways in which the industry can present its intention to leave. First, it can threaten to leave if the reforms are instituted. Second it can merely predict that it will leave as a consequence of the proposed reforms. In this possible resolution the firm simply states what will happen if the reforms are instituted. Suppose that the firm does not use more resources in the political process than others. It does not spend more money to get its message out. It does not spend more money in trying to get its favorite candidates elected. It has no more air time on television or radio. All sides of the debate receive a fair hearing for their points of view and no one is advantaged or disadvantaged in this respect. We might suppose that the fairness is the result of campaign finance laws that require public financing of electoral campaigns and forbid all private financing. Special interest lobbying is forbidden, and all television and radio stations are required to give equal time to different points of view. This case is meant to be hypothetical and not a description of any actual political society.

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The question is, does the industry’s threat or prediction constitute an abridgment of political equality or is equality in the process of campaign finance, and political discussion, as I have described it above, sufficient to make the society politically egalitarian? It appears that more power over how the community is organized is being wielded by the industry than by others and yet, at the same time, everyone has an equal voice in the decision making in a very robust sense. We must explore the ideal of political equality to answer this question. We may take it for granted that political equality requires one person one vote and some kind of majority rule. It may even require equality in the processes of elections and debate. The cases above force us to ask the question, is there a morally relevant difference between the kind of power involved in voting or funding campaigns and the kind that seems to be involved in the second and third resolutions of our illustration? Are the kinds of disparity of power wielded in the second and third cases relevantly like the disparity of power involved when some are given more votes than others or some have a lot more money to influence the outcomes of elections than others? Unequal distributions of votes are clearly abridgments of political equality and violations of democratic rights. But the movements of capitalists and other citizens are ordinary exercises of liberal property rights, they are not per se understood as efforts to influence the political process. Investing capital, employing labor, and buying and selling commodities are among the kinds of action about which liberal citizens have the right to make their own choices independent of the choices others make. Are the ordinary exercises of liberal property rights embodied in the second and third cases also abridgments of political equality and violations of democratic rights? Let us call the claim that many of these exercises of ordinary liberal property rights are exercises of political power the “liberal political power principle.” I have called the claim that some such exercises constitute abridgments of political equality on a par with unequal distributions of votes the partial incompatibility thesis. My aim in the rest of this chapter is to defend both of these principles and to suggest some qualifications on them, as well as say something about their implications. The main implications are that there is a deeper tension between liberalism and democracy than is normally acknowledged, and that our conception of political equality becomes deeply amorphous when we accept the liberal political power principle and the partial incompatibility thesis. 3. Equalities One important distinction to be made before we proceed is the distinction between equality in the legislative process and wide political equality. Suppose that a society is politically egalitarian in some straightforward ways: it ensures that everyone has the vote; it gives equal funding to campaigns of different parties in elections; it ensures that all points of view and interests in the soci-

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ety are given a fair hearing in social deliberation; it ensures that everyone has the education and the means by which to participate in this inclusive process; and it insulates the legislative branch from lobbying by special interests. In short we might say that the legislative process is egalitarian.3 In democratic societies one main way in which individuals attempt to avoid government intrusion is to punish politicians for passing laws and promoting policies that they do not favor. They may do this by withholding campaign funds for reelection. They may help initiate and fund campaigns for opponents who are more favorable to their interests. They can also engage in massive campaigns of persuasion, fund think tanks, fund secondary associations, and employ other forms of persuasion to convince the population that what they oppose is a bad idea. The citizens might then vote directly against the candidate in office for this opposed activity. These are standard forms of legislative opposition. These and other tactics are used regularly by groups to block possible policies and laws. These tactics are successful frequently enough to make it worthwhile for some citizens to use them. They are successful often enough to stop government officials from even contemplating action that might anger certain groups of citizens. These tactics clearly abridge political equality in the society when some in the society have far more money and power with which to make them successful than others. Hence, it is often said that great disparities in capacities to make campaign contributions abridge political equality as much as differences in voting power. The fact that capitalists have disproportionate influence in the formulation of the aims of government policy is a paradigm case of the uneasy relationship between democracy and capitalism. This is, by now, a truism, albeit an important one. The remedy for this kind of influence is available. Some action can be taken to restore democratic equality. Institutions regulating campaign finance and providing money to secondary associations that represent other interests in the society can help to moderate the inequality that arises from these actions. Changes in the structure of enforcement can help as well. In the example above we suppose that capitalists do not have any special influence on the legislative process. We suppose that all the measures designed to implement equality in the legislative process have been effectively implemented. The trouble in the above examples is that the capitalist can respond to the community decision merely by transferring capital to some other area. If there is a loophole in the government order that exempts certain kinds of business, the owners can transfer capital to that exempted area. Or the owners can transfer capital to outside the jurisdiction of the government whether it be local or national government. They can send their capital to another country or to another state in the case of federal political arrangements such as the United States. In the United States, capitalists shift capital from regulated to unregulated markets; they escape tough environmental or occupational safety laws or laws protecting unions by taking their capital to states that have few such regulations. They move their businesses to places that have lower wages or lower taxes or that may provide subsidies for the development of their capital.

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This has occurred more and more frequently in recent times owing to the internationalization of capital and the development of free trade and greater flexibility in capital markets. These activities have the effect of imposing great costs on governments’ attempts to achieve various democratically mandated aims. In the case of environmental, safety, and health laws, the government often risks part of the tax base on which its operations depend when it imposes regulation or taxes that have been democratically chosen. Governments’ attempts to raise money through taxes or diminish unemployment or even to raise the wages of the worst off through minimum wage laws become self-defeating. Some claim that raising taxes diminishes the tax base because people take their capital elsewhere or simply stop investing it, thus diminishing government revenue. Others claim that minimum wage laws actually create unemployment and diminish income particularly among the worst off, since employers are not willing to hire as many workers at the higher wage. I am not interested here in whether these particular claims are true. My intention is to begin to understand the implications of this kind of claim and the fact that people take them seriously, for the ideal of political equality. The full compatibility thesis asserts that equality in the legislative process is sufficient for the complete satisfaction of the ideal of political equality, and the exercises of liberal property rights discussed above are not opposed to democracy. Wide political equality, on this view, is not necessary for the ideal of political equality to be satisfied. The partial incompatibility thesis asserts that equality in the legislative process is not sufficient for the complete satisfaction of the ideal of political equality. The exercises of liberal property rights do, in some cases, violate the ideal of political equality. Only a principle that reaches beyond equality in the legislative process can provide a full account of the ideal of political equality. 4. General Analysis The issue can be clarified by placing it in the larger context of democratic theory. Democracy is best justified by reference to a principle of political equality. The ideal of political equality is that individual citizens ought to have an equal say in how the society is to be organized. Having an equal say implies that individuals have equal votes, that there is equality in the process of deliberation as well as equality in the resources that go into making coalitions and bargaining over political aims and policies.4 Such equality is hard to achieve in a large society that requires a division of labor in the process of making decisions. A theory of democracy must say how a division of labor can be structured to maintain political equality. It must say how the kind of expertise that is necessary in political policy making can be reconciled with equality in political decision making. I have argued in detail elsewhere that these can be reconciled by assigning citizens the task of choosing the aims of the society while politicians, interest groups and administrators are assigned the tasks of selecting the means

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by which these aims are achieved. They have the kinds of expertise that enable them to bring about the means as well as possible. These people are essentially agents of the citizens as whole, charged with the task of realizing aims over which they have no discretion. This relation between the citizens in their capacities as choosers of aims and the subset of citizens who are charged with the task of determining the means to the aims is called the democratic division of labor.5 I have tried to show that one can design institutions that ensure that the principal-agent relationship required for this democratic division of labor is compatible with political equality.6 When citizens collectively choose the aims, their task is to choose all the goals they wish to achieve and rank the tradeoffs between those goals. They choose a preference ranking over bundles of values.7 The task of the political system is to achieve as much as possible of this preference ranking. How much it can achieve of what is preferred will depend on what we might call the conditions of feasibility. The conditions of feasibility are those conditions under which it is possible to realize some ends and not others and that constrain how one is to achieve those ends. This picture of democratic decision making involves three components: first, the citizens collectively choose the aims; second, there are independent conditions that determine how much of these aims can be achieved; third, the government, on the basis of an assessment of what can be achieved of the aims and how they can be achieved, enacts laws and policies as means to the achievement of the feasible aims. How does the main issue that I have described come into this picture? The problem seems to be that the capitalists influence the conditions of feasibility; they do not influence the choice of aims or even of policies directly in the examples above. They do make it more or less difficult, or more or less likely to achieve designated aims. They effect the achievement of aims by their policies. In the examples above they have not exercised greater influence in the process of choosing the aims. They did not have more votes or more money with which to do this. The main effect of their actions is to determine the conditions of feasibility and thus to determine how much of the aims can be achieved. I conceive of the actions of capitalists as constraints, in the first instance, on the government. Capitalists can affect the achievement or realization of the chosen aims by undermining the government’s ability to achieve them, as when they lay off workers or move their investments. Or, capitalists can argue that since the aim will not be achieved anyway, there is no use trying the policy. Thus they can stop the policy by making the government anticipate its failure. This may be part of the explanation for why the minimum wage rises so slowly. Notice that the influence capitalists have on the policy choice need not be due at all to any greater than equal resources for influencing the legislative process (that is, greater numbers of votes, greater resources for funding campaigns, more time to express their point of view); it is only necessary that the government be persuaded of the reliability of their predictions. If there is any problem with political equality it must have to do with the facts they are referring to and not their ability to persuade others of these facts. Hence, the

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capitalists limit the achievement of the chosen aims of the citizens, and they do this simply by virtue of being able to exercise their ordinary liberal property rights. 5. Undermining Democratic Aims Note the difference between intentional and unintentional efforts to undermine democratically chosen aims. Capital strikes provide illustrations of intentionally undermining aims. In capital strikes, capitalists, fearing the long-run decrease in profit that would be caused by some policy, terminate or cancel some kinds of investment or transfer investments outside the country in order to defeat the policy they fear. They do not transfer the capital merely because the new investment is more profitable, indeed it may be less profitable. They do it to decrease economic activity in the society and depress wages and tax revenues in order to pressure the government to change its policy. These actions will cost them in the short run, but if they succeed, the capitalists will be gainers in the long run by defeating the policy and the aims. They can threaten an investment strike to head off government action as well. This is to be contrasted with capitalists merely responding to a policy as they would to any changing environment. They look to the costs, price, and demand that the new government policy might bring about, and they look around to see if there are better opportunities for profit. They are indifferent to what policy is in place or what aims are to be achieved by the policy (they may not even know what it is); they simply respond to costs, prices, and demand. Intentional efforts to change government policy are like threats or the sanctions imposed after unsuccessful threats; they threaten to, and sometimes do, impose costs on the government and, at least in the short term, costs on the capitalists themselves. The hope is that the government will back down and that it will be deterred from similar action in the future. Unintentional actions, by contrast, are not threats or sanctions and do not impose costs on the capitalists themselves except by mistake. The capitalist merely seeks to maximize profits in the new environment that has been created by the government policy. The capitalist does not seek any change in policy nor to deter the government from undertaking any similar policy in the future. 6. Exercise of Property Rights Can Violate Political Equality The main argument for the claims that the exercise of liberal property rights can constitute an exercise of political power (that is, the liberal political power principle) and abridge the principle of political equality (that is, the partial incompatibility thesis) is that the principle of political equality requires that citizens be able to choose as equals what aims the society is to realize. If we suppose that the legislative process is egalitarian, then the realization of the aim, as long as it is feasible, is required by the principle of an equal say over the outcome. If, subsequent to the decision, a person or group of persons in

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the society knowingly acts so as to undermine the achievement of the aim then, by the above principle, that person or group has appropriated a special exercise of political power for themselves. That is, the person or group has had an extra say in what aims are to be brought about. The same argument works also for the case in which the capitalist manages to head off democratic legislation by persuasively announcing that the democratically chosen aim will be defeated by his actions when the policy is in place. It is crucial that while the capitalist says that the aim cannot be realized, it is because of his or her own actions that the aims cannot be realized. If the capitalist appropriates an excess of power by defeating the realization of the aim after it has been chosen, then surely the ability to prevent the realization of the aim in advance is an exercise of the same kind of power. 7. Political Equality, Power, and Deference The principle that is violated here is not a principle of equality of power simpliciter. Equality of power simpliciter is impossible and would not be desirable, nor is it necessary for political equality. In a society that has a division of labor, there are many individuals who are in a position to get what they want, contrary to democratic decisions, if they try. Those who are charged with implementing policies are able to defeat some policies if they desire (in some cases without others knowing that they have done so). They can bring about outcomes contrary to the democratic choice if they want to. In democracy such persons must defer to the democratic decision when they are in that situation. If they forego the opportunity to undermine the aim and respect the democratic decision then, even if they could have undermined the aim had they wanted to do so, there is no violation of political equality. Here is an intuitive example. Suppose a group of persons is in possession of an easily detonated bomb and they decide democratically to defuse the bomb and destroy it. Suppose, further, that only one of the members knows how to defuse or detonate the bomb. It would be quite easy for that person, if desiring to do so, to detonate the bomb. In other words, that person has the power to undermine the decision and the others do not have that power. It is intuitively clear here that this inequality of power by itself does not undermine the democratic character of the group. Only if the person capable of detonating the bomb actually does so, is the democratic character of the group undermined. If the person defers to the decision and defuses the bomb and destroys it, then she is acting consistently in a democratic fashion and the group is acting democratically as well. This shows that democracy consists essentially in equality of artificially defined types of power such as votes, and artificial distributions of opportunities to participate in discussion.8 The whole point of democracy is to make the organization and actions of society depend on decisions made in the context of this artificially defined distribution of power. It does not require that power overall be equally distributed. What violates democratic norms is not the existence of power outside the artificial context of voting and debating, but its

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exercise. The artificially defined distribution of power of democracy is meant to replace the distribution of overall power in the process of collective decision making. We have reason to require equality in overall power for the sake of political equality only in case individuals can never or rarely restrain themselves. But in these circumstances, it is pointless to try to achieve a democratic society anyway. Therefore, it is not that capitalists have the power to undermine democratic aims that constitutes an abridgment of political equality, it is the actual undermining of the aims through the exercise of that power that constitutes the violation. To the extent that capitalists ought to adhere to the norm of political equality, it requires self-restraint on their part, much as political equality in a democratic society requires restraint on the part of officials with special powers. Consider some examples. To intentionally undermine democratic aims, the capitalist disrupts or forestalls the democratically chosen outcome by means of the power the capitalist possesses. Hence, investment strikes, capital flight, and so on are obvious cases of antidemocratic behavior.9 These actions are legal actions; both are consistent with an egalitarian legislative process. They clearly violate democratic norms, not because they consist in the possession of power but because they involve the exercise of that power. They prevent the realization of democratic aims either by anticipation or by simply defeating the realization of the overall aims. And if the capitalists in question forbear from these actions out of deference to democratic decision making, there is no threat here to political equality. The question is, does this same conclusion apply to cases where capitalists respond to policies by unintentionally defeating the aims? In the minimum wage example capitalists lay off workers because they want to avoid higher costs. They need have no intention of defeating the aims, indeed they may favor the aim of improving the condition of the worst off. Let us suppose, to make things simple, that there are clear and evident alternatives to laying off the workers. Suppose that capitalists could keep the workers on by merely cutting the profitability of the firm in a way that does not destroy it or seriously undermine its competitiveness. And further suppose that they can see that their actions will undermine the achievement of the aims though they do not intend to. Admittedly these conditions do not always obtain, but our answer to the question is nevertheless instructive. Would the laying off of workers constitute an exercise of power that violates the principle of political equality? In my view it is hard to see why it does not. It is hard to see how the intention to undermine the democratic aim is necessary to the claim that someone is in fact undermining the democratic aim. After all, the unintentional undermining is still undertaken for the sake of capitalist’s aims and it is known that this will undermine the aim and that there are clear alternatives to it. The capitalist is still putting his or her aims ahead of those of the rest of the citizens in a case where the citizens have legitimately spoken as a single body of equals. Hence, the non-deferring capitalist does abridge political equality.

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This claim does not imply that the government ought to interfere coercively with the capitalists. We are assuming in this paper that liberal property rights are here to stay. I have argued that deference is all that is required of the property holders for them to be acting in accord with political equality.10 Nor does the above conclusion entail that what the non-deferring capitalist does is wrong, all things considered. The benefits of the unrestricted exercise of the right of private property may conceivably override the requirements of democracy in this kind of case. All I am arguing here is that it is clearly an abridgment of political equality and to the extent that political equality is an important political value, it is at least a pro tanto wrong. A principle of deference ought to guide the capitalist’s decision if political equality is to be respected. Let us note some qualifications and clarifications to the thesis. First, it does not automatically apply to modern democratic societies. Modern democratic societies may not always live up to the democratic ideals sufficiently to require that their decisions be honored in the ways I have suggested. The legitimacy of modern democracies has to be ascertained before we can require capitalists to honor their decisions. The occurrences of regulatory capture, special interest legislation, and campaign finance inequalities cast doubt on the claim that modern democracies do warrant the kind of allegiance that I am recommending because they cast doubt on the claim that these democracies have egalitarian legislative processes. Second, the conditions I have specified, such as that there are clear and evident alternatives that do not impose highly destructive demands on the capitalists may not always be met. Sometimes firms cannot survive increases in the costs of doing business. Sometimes it is not at all clear what the proper response to democratic legislation is. Third, the capitalist’s action must make a difference to the achievement of the aims. Often, it is not clear whether one’s action will undermine aims in part or not. These are the circumstances in which most ordinary liberal citizens find themselves. In these conditions, which need to be carefully laid out, the property owners need not take account of the democratically chosen aims in order to defer to the decision. Despite these caveats, there is a kind of incompatibility between the exercise of liberal property rights and the ideal of political equality. The ideal of political equality can be respected in these cases by following a principle of deference and the ideal is violated when the property owner fails to defer to the aim. The work of properly defining the principle of deference is yet to be done, but if the conclusions of this chapter are correct, such an enterprise is necessary to the understanding of the ideal of political equality. Let us review some arguments that go against the thesis that the exercise of the right to property can sometimes violate democratic equality. These are arguments for the full compatibility thesis.

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There are different interpretations of what happens in the second and third resolutions of our central example. One popular one is the natural force interpretation of the industrial firm’s action. The natural force interpretation is that the industry and its owners are merely like forces of nature when they make their decisions. Their moving out of the community to increase profits is a natural response to changed conditions. This naturalness of response need not be entirely non-normative. The response may be one of economic rationality. On the account that individual economic agents are determined to act in their own self-interests or to maximize the profits of their firms, we might say with many economists that individuals necessarily (or naturally) respond to policies in the second and third ways outlined in our small town example.11 I shall consider only this version of the natural force interpretation. On this interpretation, the company’s leaving town would be a necessary or determined response to the town policy. Even if the town’s policy were deeply important for achieving some aim, it is not clear that we would think that the people who make that aim more difficult or less likely to be successful have a disproportionate influence on the process of decision making. What they do is natural in a way that is similar to a storm in nature. If a democratically chosen aim is undermined by terrible weather conditions, we do not say that democracy is undermined. Or if an aim is not realized because the people who are supposed to carry out that aim are physically unable to do so, then we do not say that democracy is undermined or that those people have exercised a disproportionate influence over the decision making. On the natural force interpretation, when a democratic society wishes to pursue certain aims it must take into account the fact that firms maximize profits as a fact of nature just as they must take the weather into account or the physical abilities of its citizens. When they decide against some policy on the ground that it cannot work to achieve the aims they wish to pursue, or when they accept that certain among their aims cannot be fully achieved for these reasons, we would not say, were the natural force interpretation true, that the capitalists unduly influenced the process of decision making. Therefore, the actions of the capitalists do not constitute a violation of political equality; they are not exercising their power in an inegalitarian way. On this argument, the full compatibility thesis is true. This argument fails on account of its reliance on the natural force interpretation, which assumes a conception of human motivation that is, as I see it, incompatible with the point of any political ideals. The falsity of the natural force interpretation is a precondition for the stability of democratic societies as well as for libertarian or egalitarian structures of society. If individuals were merely self-interested where the interests were those of pleasure or money or power (the structure of the interests were such that how well-off one person is did not depend internally on how well-off the others are), the changes in the distribution of power or resources, which are so common in modern, fluid societies, would constantly induce them to change the structure of the society.

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These changes are endemic due to constant changes in technology and social organization. To the extent that the forces of convention and coordination disincline people to alter their society, such forces would work against change towards any particular ideal or away from any particular structure. If we assume the self-interest axiom, then all political arguments in favor of particular ideals would be irrelevant. The social world would be as indifferent to ideals of justice as the natural world is. Such ideas defeat political ideals altogether. Theories of justice or of the proper structure of society that presuppose them are self-defeating theories. If the natural force interpretation and the self-interest version of it were true, it would make the discussion of the nature of political equality and its violation entirely otiose. But it would also make the defense of the ideals of liberalism and the alternative ideals of libertarianism or efficient markets otiose. Ample empirical evidence exists that individuals do not act merely in terms of their self-interest and that they are motivated by considerations of justice. The self-interest axiom is false to the facts.12 It is therefore quite unlikely that motivation in accordance with a principle of deference is unavailable to the capitalist. 9. Democratic Creation of the Market Another argument against the thesis that capitalists can undermine political equality by exercising their liberal property rights is that in a genuinely democratic society, the legal system in which capitalists operate is itself the result of democratic decisions. The legal system provides the options available to capitalists that enable them to respond to legislation in ways that defeat democratically chosen aims. In a genuinely democratic society, the system of private property and the regulations and taxes, as well as the public agencies that play a role in decision making for private corporations, are all ultimately created collectively by the citizens. The capitalists act in accordance with rules and rights that have been democratically chosen. So, this new defender of the full compatibility thesis argues, it is hard to see how the actions of capitalists can be thought to be antidemocratic. Against this claim the partial incompatibilist might argue that the ways capitalists respond to the legal system are not entirely collectively chosen by the citizens, though the set of options are chosen. To this, however, the full compatibilist can reply that the citizens (including capitalists qua citizens) must collectively prefer to have capitalism with the knowledge that capitalists have an independent impact on whether the democratically chosen aims are met, otherwise they would not choose the scheme of liberal property rights. Citizens as a whole may be thought to be imposing constraints on themselves when they choose a mixed economy or they tacitly accept such a system by not making any major changes in the system. Hence, the full compatibilist might argue that the exercise of liberal property rights cannot abridge political equality.

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The full compatibilist might argue that a straightforward solution to the problem of capitalists undermining the democratically chosen aims is to impose further regulations on capitalists. A democratic people have the right to choose to impose special taxes on corporations that decide to take their capital elsewhere. They may impose regulations on laying off workers. They may go so far as to nationalize the firms. One might say that because citizens have not done this, they prefer to have markets even though capitalists sometimes are provided with options that undermine the democratically chosen aims. This is not necessarily a description of democratic decisions in contemporary societies. It merely shows that a fully egalitarian democratic process can bring about a system of property rights that gives individuals options to act in ways that undermine some of the democratically chosen aims, but in which this undermining does not constitute an abridgment of political equality. Any decision to nationalize or regulate capital might face the same difficulties as the ones we are presently discussing. No sooner had such policies been announced than the capitalists would have taken their capital elsewhere. In a capitalist society, even a fully democratic society might have difficulty regulating capital in the ways suggested above. It is not clear exactly how we ought to interpret the lack of regulation in these circumstances.13 Let us put this difficulty aside and assume that the democratic society chooses a market system on its merits. Nevertheless, to be plausible, this way of defending the full compatibilist thesis must rely on the natural force interpretation to be plausible. When a democratic people choose a market system, either they do so with the knowledge that such a system could not produce outcomes higher up on their preference ranking than those produced by capitalists acting in their own self-interests or they believe that they might be able to do better than just the result that self-interested actions bring about in a market. In the former case either they think that the results of market transactions will always accord with democratically chosen aims (and this seems deeply implausible) or they subscribe to the claim that the capitalists cannot act in any other than a self-interested way. They subscribe to the natural force interpretation. The other case is that democratic people chose the market system but are not thereby committed to endorsing all the possible outcomes of market interactions that conflict with subsequent choices of aims. They may, for instance, create a market system with the intention that normally individuals may do what they please, but in cases where market transactions conflict with other democratically chosen aims and the capitalists have clear and acceptable alternatives, the capitalists defer. Hence, the claim that the market system has been democratically created can only defeat the thesis that non-deferring capitalists undermine political equality if the natural force interpretation is true. Since the latter is false, this defense of full compatibilism cannot work.

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10. Imposition of Unreasonable Demands Another argument might plausibly be thought to defeat the partial incompatibility thesis. One might claim that we are imposing excessively onerous demands on capitalists when we ask them to forbear from trying to maximize profits in contexts where such action might defeat the democratic aims. Consider an example. Suppose that a small group of individuals gets together to decide on a common course of action. Suppose that the plan they decide upon requires that a small part of the group do things that require an immense sacrifice and are very difficult and risky to do. Intuitively, the subgroup would not be asserting any special political privilege by refusing to do their assigned part on account of the excessive demands imposed on them, even if that refusal undermined the achievement of the aims that were chosen democratically by the group. Notice that it is not the immensity of the demands per se that is relevant here, it is the fact that the demands are excessive that counts. If it is necessary for someone to perform the onerous task for the sake of the survival of the group, then we might not think that the person chosen would have real grounds for refusal. But if the tasks could be divided up more equitably, those on whom all the burdens are imposed might have grounds for refusal. Two problems with using the above argument in defense of full compatibility exist. The first is that it is part of the function and purpose of democracy to decide such matters as the fair or just allocation of burdens and benefits of policies. Part of the idea behind democracy is that it provides a fair way of deciding what to do when there are unresolved disagreements about how to share burdens and benefits. If democracy is a fair way to make decisions, one ought to abide by the decision even when one disagrees with it. When the injustice of the outcome is a very severe and obvious one, it should outweigh the value of the democratic decision making process. In these cases, the value of democracy is overridden by the severity of the injustice in the outcome. Normally, democracy is supposed to help us fairly decide the issue. But this leads us to the second response to the above argument. In the case of the capitalists described in our central example, it is hard to see that the demands imposed on them can be counted as severe and obvious injustices that excuse them from having to go along with the outcome. Sometimes severe injustices occur and no one can be expected to abide by the decision. In these cases, there may be reason to think that the capitalists are not asserting any special independent and illegitimate political influence by not going along. But these kinds of context are not the norm. In any case, it does not appear that the unreasonableness argument will provide a general argument against the partial incompatibility thesis.

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Another argument against the partial incompatibility thesis is that there is a fundamental right to private property that ought not to be abridged by democratic processes. This right places property entirely beyond the scope of legitimate democratic decision making. This implies that a democratic people may not interfere with property in order to achieve its aims. To expect property holders to defer would be a curtailment of their property rights. A democratic people may not legitimately require or expect any property holder to act in ways that will promote the democratic aims or desist from acting in ways that inhibit the realization of democratic aims. Only if property rights come within the legitimate scope of democratic decision making can any failure to defer to the aims of the people in the exercise of property rights be a violation of democratic principle. Even if property holders fail to defer and thereby undermine democratic aims, they have done nothing that violates the principle of political equality. Therefore, the full compatibility thesis is true on this argument. This argument is really a particular version of the reasonableness argument. It simply says that any intrusion on property rights is profoundly unjust. Take an analogy. Suppose that a democratic people can achieve several of its aims only if some among a certain group of people are enslaved. And suppose that each one of those people does everything he or she can to avoid being selected for enslavement. They flee the country; they go underground; or they resist in some other way. By avoiding the possibility of being selected for enslavement they defeat the democratically chosen aims. Have they assumed more than equal political power to themselves in such a way that they have violated the principle of political equality? It would seem that they have not. What the democratic people have asked of them is not something that is within the scope of democratic decision making. Their resistance to this request therefore does not constitute an assumption of political power. In the same way, those to whom liberal property rights are dear may assert that any requirement of deference of property holders to the democratic people also goes beyond the scope of democracy and therefore any failure to defer is not an assumption of political power. Whether this argument succeeds in defeating the thesis under discussion will depend on the nature of these property rights and the precise specification of the scope principle. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the rights we are dealing with are full libertarian property rights (rights to all the benefits from the owned object, to the full use of the object, to exchange the object, and to all the benefits of that exchange).14 There are two possible accounts of how the property rights limit the scope of democracy. The less stringent account states that democratic choice may never restructure the property rights intrinsically (on the grounds that some think that the property rights are unjust, or that redistribution of wealth or income is required, or that some simply want more of the property); the inherent justice of property rights, on this account, is not open for discussion. But the less

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stringent account does permit some interference with property rights. It states that property rights may be regulated or taxed for the sake of designated public goods (say, limiting pollution, preventing crime, defending the society, and so on) that can only be achieved by requiring property holders to limit their actions in designated ways. On the less stringent account, these latter actions do not overstep the scope of democracy.15 On this kind of account, there will be conflicts of rights between democracy and property when the only way to achieve a democratic aim is to limit the property right or the only way for the property holder to achieve her aims is to limit the ability of the democratic people to achieve its aims. The less stringent account implies that property holders do (or can) exert special influence over the collective world in which everyone lives that is inconsistent with political equality. A more stringent account is that it can never be within anyone’s rights to do anything with anyone else’s property whether as a means to another legitimate outcome or not; these rights are so powerful that they do not merely compete with other rights successfully, they simply eliminate all competitors.16 Any democratic decision that requires that this right be abrogated or that it be exercised in any way has gone beyond the legitimate scope of democracy. This last very stringent limitation on the legitimate scope of democracy does provide a basis on which to claim that the legitimate exercise of liberal property rights is fully compatible with political equality since now there is no legitimate basis on which to require that individuals defer to the democratic decision making. The stringent account of libertarian property rights and their relations to the legitimate scope of democracy seems to me to be implausible on its face, but I want to make three further observations about it. First, someone who accepts this claim must surely think that democracy is rarely if ever justified. The idea that the exercise of these very strong property rights cannot ever constitute an exercise of political power incompatible with political equality is not particularly surprising. A corollary to the claim that there is some incompatibility between political equality and the exercise of liberal property rights is that full compatibility will obtain only when the space for the exercise of the liberal property rights is highly attenuated or when there is little or no room for the exercise of democratic rights. This is confirmation of the partial incompatibility thesis. Second, that we must invoke the strongest form of property right in order to argue against the claim that the exercise of property rights constitutes a violation of political equality is instructive. It suggests that for the great majority of views about property rights, the partial incompatibility between political equality and the exercise of liberal property rights is an ever-present possibility. Third, the argument above against the partial incompatibility thesis is based on a very strong conception of property rights as well as a scope principle saying that democracy has no legitimate business with anything connected with these rights. We have discussed property rights as if their content were not a matter of dispute, and as if the scope of democratic decision making

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were not itself a matter of debate. But now we ought to question the scope principle itself. It is not clear why property rights ought to be protected by such a strong scope principle. Property rights themselves are the subject of serious disagreement. In the light of such disagreement, a political decision making process ought to have a role in defining the system of legal property. If we reject the scope principle itself, then even the strongest form of property right is legitimately subject to modification if a democratic people chooses to do so. If even strong property rights are legitimately modified by democratic decision making then not even the strong form of libertarian property rights can provide a premise in the argument against the thesis that capitalists can undermine political equality by exercising their rights to property. 12. Puzzle about Liberalism I conclude from these observations that the arguments against the thesis of the partial incompatibility of political equality and the exercise of liberal property rights are based on false premises. The central argument for the idea that there is a partial incompatibility between political equality and the exercise of liberal property rights stands. The partial incompatibility thesis generates a deep tension between democracy and liberalism. This source is distinct from the recognized sources of tension. One such source is that under capitalism some may have at their disposal more money with which to influence the legislative process than others. Another source is that some liberal rights such as freedom of expression and association are often thought to be beyond the legitimate scope of democracy. The partial incompatibility thesis posits a much deeper and more troubling tension between democracy and liberalism because it points to ways in which liberalism necessarily undermines democracy. The partial incompatibility thesis also calls into question the clarity of our understanding of democracy. Once we accept that equality in the legislative process is not all there is to political equality and that the exercise of property rights can in some instances abridge political equality, then political equality itself becomes highly amorphous in a liberal society where the ability to exercise liberal political power is widespread and highly diffuse. Many people in a society have opportunities to exercise the kinds of power that seem to threaten political equality. The question then becomes, when do we have political equality? While equality in the legislative process is a reasonably straightforward affair, political equality in the wider sense has an unmanageable quality. How do we compare the power of a voter with the power of an employer who, together with many other employers, could defeat a democratic aim by laying off workers in response to an increase in the minimum wage? This problem becomes particularly serious when we realize that some of these employers may be laying off workers out of necessity or under the threat of serious hardship while others are not. Since many such exercises of many different sorts and under different conditions are at issue in a liberal society, the problem of comparing the po-

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litical power of citizens seems unmanageable. Call this the “power comparison problem.” The hope of democratic theorists is that when a society is genuinely democratic it is relatively straightforwardly so. Democratic equality is meant to be a reasonably transparent and public feature of a society to which all citizens can refer back as testimony to their equal status in society. The power comparison problem poses a serious challenge to this aspiration of democracy. Related to the power comparison problem is the problem of how an individual property holder is to decide when deference to a democratic decision is called for as well as what deference requires of him. We have seen above that there may be conditions under which property holders need not defer. These are when they are unduly burdened, as well as when the impact of their decisions are slight and highly uncertain. We have also seen that property holders need not defer when the decisions that are made are not genuinely democratic. Of course the power comparison problem itself implies that it will be difficult to determine when decisions have been made in a genuinely equal way. Since individuals must decide for themselves when and how to defer to democratic decision making implies that there will be many disagreements whether others have properly deferred or not. Hence, individuals face a very difficult set of problems about how to behave in a democratic society when they are motivated to act in a democratic way. I do not want to say that these problems are irresolvable, but they do pose a serious challenge to our understanding of democracy, especially in an age when we accept that liberal institutions must play a role in any reasonably just and efficient society. These problems must be thoroughly addressed if we are to have a clear idea of what democracy is all about. NOTES 1. See Ralph Nader et al., The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power (San Francisco: Earth Island, 1993). 2. See Fred Block, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule,” Socialist Revolution, 33 (1977), pp. 6–27; and Adam Przeworski and Michael Wallerstein, “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital,” American Political Science Review, (March 1988), pp. 11–29. 3. See Thomas Christiano, The Rule of The Many: Fundamental Issues i n Democratic Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996). 4. See ibid., Part I. 5. See ibid., Part II. 6. See ibid., Part III. 7. See Thomas Christiano, “Social Choice and Democracy,” The Idea of Democracy, eds. David Copp, Jean Hampton, and John Roemer (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 8. See Thomas Christiano, “Voting and Democracy,” Canadian Journal o f Philosophy (October, 1995). 9. See Adam Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

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10. See G. A. Cohen, “Incentives, Inequality and Community,” Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1992); and G.A. Cohen, “Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (Spring 1997). 11. See James Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennan, The Reason of Rules (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 12. See Thomas Christiano, “The Incoherence of Hobbesian Justifications of the State,” American Philosophical Quarterly (January 1994); and The Rule of the Many, chap. 4. 13. See Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977); and Adam Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy. 14. See John Christman, The Myth of Property (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1994). 15. See Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). 16. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

Eight RIGHTS AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Beth J. Singer Affirmative action is on the defensive, not least because its defenders are still having difficulty making a convincing case for it . . . . Further efforts to defend affirmative action will be immensely difficult; but without it, we will be taking a long step away from racial equity and parity. Andrew Hacker1 1. The Problem Andrew Hacker’s article, from which this quotation is taken, was written before the Supreme Court left standing a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit that not only invalidated an affirmative action program at the University of Texas Law School, but also declared that the Supreme Court ruling in the Bakke case was no longer a valid statement of the meaning of “equal protection under the law.” The program that was invalidated was no longer in effect at the time of the Supreme Court’s refusal to act, but, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a memorandum, when there is a case that is genuinely in controversy, the Court will have to address the principle in question.2 If, as many have charged, affirmative action is nothing but reverse discrimination, the Bakke ruling is not valid. I propose to consider this issue in the light of a particular concept of collective rights and collective identity. As Hacker forthrightly asserts, Any program involving preferences means someone will be aggrieved. Most whites resent seeing places allocated to blacks; many men feel they have been displaced by women; some programs bypass native citizens for recent immigrants, causing yet more resentment . . . . While no one uses ‘white rights’ as a slogan, the current intent is to restore the position once accorded that race.3 The personal reaction that Hacker describes is unlikely to change, at least in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, if strong arguments can be given to justify affirmative action, or at least some forms of it, eventually the public may come to accept it more readily. Much of what I write in justification of it is not new, but I believe that the concepts I introduce permit a reconceptualization of the issue. One question I ask is whether affirmative action must be construed as a form of preferential treatment. (Primarily for the sake of economy, in discussing this issue I focus on blacks and women, and on college

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and university admissions. For the same reason, as well as for easier communication, except when explaining my own concepts I do not use my own terminology, but instead employ the commonly accepted terms “race” and “group” as used in the literature on affirmative action.) 2. Bakke and Equal Protection A common argument against affirmative action is that, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, everyone has a right to be judged as an individual rather than as a member of a particular social group. Thus, taking race or gender into account in college and university admissions or in hiring is held to violate a right granted to all individuals by the Fourteenth Amendment.4 The decision in the Bakke case would seem to have been an attempt to reconcile affirmative action with the right of individuals to equal protection, but from the first it was widely believed to have been inconsistent with this right. Ronald Dworkin sums up the Bakke decision as follows: The Supreme Court has now decided . . . that the Civil Rights Act does not in and of itself bar affirmative action programs . . . [and] that the Constitution permits affirmative action plans . . . that allow race to be taken into account, on an individual-by-individual basis, in order to achieve a reasonably diverse student body.5 Together with the negative reading of the Civil Rights Act, taking it to hold only that the Act does not bar affirmative action programs, this individualist interpretation of the Constitution actually provided only very weak support for programs designed to compensate for racial inequality. Even though it permitted consideration of race with the aim of achieving diversity as a criterion for admission in individual cases, the decision did not mandate such consideration or endorse it as a general principle. Both the Bakke decision and the opposition to it construe the Equal Protection Clause in individualist terms. But in “Groups and the Equal Protection Clause,” the legal scholar Owen M. Fiss maintains that the term “equal” in the Clause is ambiguous and does not have to be interpreted individualistically. According to Fiss, the language of the Clause does not provide the courts with a rule of decision but embodies an ideal of equality. Therefore it calls for a mediating or interpreting principle to determine how this ideal is to be actualized––how the Clause is to be applied. Fiss finds it to be most frequently construed in terms of what he calls “the antidiscrimination principle,” which is simplistically taken, even by informed lawyers and Supreme Court Justices, merely to prohibit discrimination (“equal treatment” means “similar things should be treated similarly”). As an alternative, he proposes that the concept of equality in the Clause be interpreted in terms of “the group-disadvantaging principle,” to which it is a response. This, he says, “focuses the issues that must be decided in equal protection cases,” issues that should be understood in terms of the subordinate

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socio-economic and political status of certain groups.6 That is, the language of the Equal Protection Clause must be interpreted within the context of those social, economic, and political conditions that made it necessary and under which it is invoked. Fiss’s article is lengthy and complex, and I do not deal here with his painstaking arguments in justification of his position. What is of crucial importance for the affirmative action issue is his contention that the Equal Protection Clause is not limited in its applicability to individuals as such, but is a protection for specially disadvantaged groups. What the Equal Protection Clause protects is specially disadvantaged groups, not just blacks. A concern for equal treatment and the word ‘person’ appearing in the Clause permit and probably require this generality of coverage.7 He makes one stipulation, however, that I take to be important. The groups he is talking about are “natural classes or social groups,” which he defines as those that are viewed by others as groups and whose members view themselves as such. The importance of these groups is that the identity and social status of their members is largely a function of their membership. He contrasts these with “artificial” groups, for instance those temporary groupings created by such mechanisms as tax categories.8 Each of the natural social groups that the Equal Protection Clause protects (and, Fiss holds, is intended to protect) “has been in a position of perpetual subordination” and “the political power of the group is severely circumscribed.”9 Fiss specifies that a group is “an entity” and that it “has a distinct existence apart from its members.” Further, he states, “There is also a condition of interdependence. The identity and well-being of the members of the group and the identity and well-being of the group are linked.”10 By speaking of a group’s existence apart from its members he means, I assume, to counter the old argument that groups are not real, and to assert that for a group to exist is something more than for any or all of the same persons to exist as individuals. But especially regarding the groups to which affirmative action can be relevant, I believe a further distinction must be made. Taking a group as an existent entity and accepting Fiss’s view of the Equal Protection Clause, the clause would seem to protect groups, social entities, as such. Affirmative action then, as a way of implementing the clause, would have to be understood to apply to those bodies––to the group comprised of all women or that which includes all people identified as black, not to those women or black persons themselves. But this is not the case: in practice it can be used only when considering individual members of the affected groups for admission or for employment. Nevertheless, because their identity and well-being are largely a function of their group membership, affirmative action programs are undertaken on behalf of people in so far as they are members of those groups, treating them collectively, not simply as individuals. I take this to be consistent with the Equal

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Protection Clause, now being applied to all who are identified as black or female (or as members of other disadvantaged groups) and taken as bearers of their respective groups’ collective identities. In earlier works, using the word “community” as a generic term for human collectivities of all sorts, I have distinguished between “agential” communities that can act as entities (the United States Congress, for instance, which passes laws as a body) and “nonagential” communities that cannot do so. Women and blacks, on this interpretation, would be communities in virtue of their shared identities, but they would be nonagential because each group is too widely dispersed and too highly differentiated internally to act as a body. Yet they are more than simply categories of persons, or what Fiss calls “artificial groups.” Despite their lack of agential power, the members of each of these groups are not only identified by others but also identify themselves in terms of their membership, and it is on this basis that those who belong to each group are collectively assigned or relegated to a particular social status. I shall refer to nonagential groups of this kind as “identity groups.” The Equal Protection Clause, then, can be understood to protect identity groups––not the groups as such, however, but the members of each, who are collectively disadvantaged because, and in so far as, they share a collective identity. While each must be individually dealt with (admitted or not admitted, hired or not hired), the treatment they receive is likely to be based on their collective identity. Therefore, the Equal Protection Clause and any procedure adopted to implement it, not only applies to them as individuals, but also, in applying to them as members of an identity group, it applies to all the members of the group collectively. 3. Equal Protection and Rights Furthermore, the Clause confers a right to equal protection, an entitlement that must be respected. As I have defined them, rights are entitlements that are established by the norms or laws of a community or society together with the obligation to respect them. But for an entitlement to be a right rather than a selectively awarded privilege, both it and the obligation to respect it must be conferred upon every member of the community alike. That is, each must be empowered to claim the entitlement if ever his or her circumstances warrant it, and anyone who is in a position to implement respect for that right must be 11 obligated to do so. In applying to individuals in so far as they share collective identities, the Clause gives, not simply an individual right, but a collective right to all the members of each and every identity group. This right can be invoked to protect the members of any such group who are discriminated against and disadvantaged because of their shared identity. Another kind of collective right is that which can only be exercised jointly by members of a group in interaction or communication with one another. The best example of this is the right of a people to their own language. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in 1992 providing that

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persons belonging to . . . minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination.12 It also provided that “states should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.”13 As a right, it must be respected by all, a respect calling for implementation by all who are in a position to implement it. As in Fiss’s case, collective rights have not been clearly distinguished from the rights of groups as entities, the sort of rights that should more properly be termed “group rights.” Classifying groups as communities, in my broad sense of this term, permits me to speak of group rights as “communal rights.” Since to have rights entails the reciprocal obligation to respect them, I contend that only a community that is capable of acting as a body, an agential community, can have communal rights. Only such communities can actively exercise this obligation of respect. In an article entitled “Some Confusions Concerning Collective Rights,” Michael Hartney is talking about the kind of rights that I call group (or communal) rights. Hartney asks “whether it makes any sense to speak of groups as right-holders.”14 In his terminology, right-holders are moral agents, so that, as right-holders, groups would be similar (but not identical) to what I call agential groups or communities. He says: In recent years there has been an increased interest in considering collectivities to be moral agents and holders of collective rights. Peter French and others have argued that corporations are agents and bear moral responsibility for their actions. Virginia Held makes similar claims about nations. She also believes that we have “obligations to humanity collectively . . . and perhaps also to such lesser groups within it as our fellow nationals or conceivably the ethnic group to which we belong or the family or clan of which we are a member” and that in some of these cases––humanity, nations––the obligation correlates with a collective right.15 In this passage, the term “collective rights” is being used for the putative rights of groups, such as ethnic groups and humanity at large, that are nonagential as well as for those of agential groups such as corporations. (One could question whether humanity at large is a group at all.) Used in this way, the term embraces both those rights I would term “communal” or “group rights,” and those I call “collective,” namely rights that the members of a group possess collectively rather than as separate individuals. In addition to the individual right to equal protection under the law, the Equal Protection Clause confers what is properly termed a “collective right.”

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And while it protects––and seems designed to protect––the members of disadvantaged identity groups, the Clause must be understood to confer this right, in principle, on the members of all identity groups, any of whom could claim it if the group to which they belonged became similarly disadvantaged. That is, the Clause does not confer what some authors call a “special right,” for if it were special, that is, selective in its applicability, it would be a privilege rather than a right. On my definition of a right, where a right has been established, anyone who is in a position to claim it is entitled to do so, and all bear the obligation to respect it. Accordingly, rights, to be such, must be equal. “To participate in a right is . . . to be on an equal footing . . . with every other member of the community . . . in a relation of mutual obligation.”16 4. Reverse Discrimination Affirmative action, then, is a way to help actualize the ideal of equality cited by Fiss and, as I interpret it, a way to implement the collective right of the members of every identity group to equal treatment, regardless of differences in collective identity. However, the method employed in programs of affirmative action is widely described, even by some who defend it, as a kind of preferential treatment, and it is on this ground that affirmative action is held to be simply reverse discrimination. Is there any justice in this charge? I believe it to be based on a misconception. Preferential treatment, which deliberately favors one party at the expense of another, is intrinsically a means of producing or perpetuating inequality. If the purpose of affirmative action were to do this, it would be preferential. But its purpose is quite different, namely, to implement, or to promote implementation of, the collective right to equal treatment––a right shared, under the Constitution, by all the members of all identity groups. Given this purpose, whatever program of action it involves, the treatment of individuals embodied in affirmative action, while it may be differential, is not preferential. Differential treatment of members of identity groups having unequal social, economic, and political status, is being used, not as a way of introducing a new inequality, but as a way of establishing equality and justice. The criterion by which any program of affirmative action should be evaluated, both in the community and in the courts, is its effectiveness in helping to bring about equality among the members of different identity groups. It is in this way that it serves democracy. As Martin Luther King put it: Among the many vital jobs to be done, the nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from the past. It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of

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years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis?17 Not being preferential, and not applying to individuals as such, but to them only as members of identity groups, affirmative action is not reverse discrimination, either against individual persons or against particular identity groups. It is intended to have an impact on identity groups and their members, who share in their groups’ collective identities. Strictly speaking, the concept of an individual simply as such, atomic and with a wholly individual identity, is an abstraction. The groups to which we belong, in helping to shape the way we behave and the way we see the world and one another, all enter to some extent into our identity––into who and what we are and how we are perceived. Those groups I am calling “identity groups” play a major role in this, and also in our sense of identity––who and what we take ourselves to be. 5. Implementation In addition to being directed at the members of identity groups collectively, affirmative action is not discriminatory; it is not designed to exclude or disadvantage any individual or the members of any identity group, but is a means of establishing equity among them. It operates by compensating for disadvantage, which it cannot do without at the same time compensating for the correlative advantage or privilege. Because of this it remains problematic. Even though individuals are treated by affirmative action policies and practices as group members and as sharing in the collective identity of their group, they nevertheless experience this treatment and feel its consequences personally, and those who would otherwise be advantaged perceive the loss of this advantage as a positive harm. This problem must be addressed even if we take affirmative action to be justified, and I believe the only way to address it is to devise methods and programs that are as fair as possible, and to take steps to educate the public concerning both the principle and the method. I do not believe there is any simple recipe we can follow. However, I suggest that there are at least two lines of approach that promise to be helpful. One is to rethink the criteria that are conventionally employed, especially for admission to educational institutions, and also for performing the specific tasks for which people are hired. We need to explore the relevance and the comparative centrality not only of potentially new criteria, but of those currently employed, and also reconsider the way they are employed. A second approach might be to explore the possibility of different kinds of affirmative action programs, of strategies other than modifying requirements or selectively lowering standards. For instance, we might consider providing additional preparation, without cost or penalty, for those whom we judge to require it. This is not a new suggestion. Long before the institution of the programs that led to the Bakke decision, but motivated by what, in retrospect, appears clearly to have been a desire to make the admissions process more

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equitable, the administration of the City University of New York adopted a program of what is called “open admissions.” As initially conceived (although not in its ultimate form), this program was not designed to admit directly to the colleges students whose preparation or academic skills did not meet the standards then in effect. Nor did it include giving college credit for remedial work, as was subsequently done. Instead, it was to provide transitional centers in which applicants for admission who did not satisfy the accepted academic criteria would receive supplementary education that would prepare them to cope with college level courses. (Only one such center was ever opened, in Brooklyn.) Work completed at these centers was not to be awarded college credit; giving credit for it would reduce the number of genuine college courses required and provided for a college degree and thereby impoverish the student’s education. There were no fees, since the entire university at that time was tuition-free. I am not aware of any published materials concerning this program. I learned of the program through the administrators of one of the colleges. In 1995, another separate, non-credit remedial program was established in the City University, the results of which remain to be evaluated. Today, unfortunately, the entire enterprise of open admissions is being challenged, and its fate is uncertain. We tend to think that criteria for college and university admission consist only of grade averages achieved at the previous level and scores on tests such as the SAT, GRE, LSAT, or MCAT and, sometimes, a personal essay. But the Educational Testing Service itself has said that scores on its tests cannot be assumed to be perfectly comparable for students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and students who receive special preparation in test taking (the cost of which is prohibitive for many) do better than others on all the tests in question. Consequently, the validity of the test scores cannot be presupposed. In addition, other criteria have long been employed, including the student’s rank in his or her graduating class and geographic origin. The latter has recently become newsworthy: an article in The New York Times reports on the fact that top students from Long Island are having an increasingly difficult time gaining entrance to the leading colleges and universities in the country, on the grounds that so many of them are applying and “many colleges are try18 ing to balance their student bodies geographically.” Rather than simply calculating a score based on grade averages and scores on tests, and then using some other criterion such as geographic origin or race as the principle of selection among those with comparable scores, perhaps we should seek to identify additional criteria that are relevant, not only to academic achievement, but also to the nature and quality of student life (itself an educative force), and perhaps to other important social goals. Race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, geographical origin and even work experience could be included along with the traditional standards, with a specified weight assigned to each, and, after factoring them all in, a composite score calculated for every candidate. Something like this is already being done at a few institutions. In response to a bill concerning standards for scholarship athletes approved by the Texas legislature, Jim Ashlock, Executive Director of

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University Relations at Texas A&M University, noted that “our admissions criteria are not based on grade point averages.” Instead, he said, they include a range of factors, including extracurricular activities as well as test scores and class rankings.19 Candidates could apply to a group of colleges that would jointly select students and apportion those standards among them, endeavoring to secure an appropriate balance of abilities and identities in each college. There are consortia of colleges that already employ this procedure. Perhaps colleges or even graduate and professional schools could recommend to other institutions students whose combined, weighted scores make them desirable candidates for admission but for whom they do not have places available. It might be feasible as well, especially in response to the charge of reverse discrimination, to consider two rounds of admissions, with the first based upon the combined, weighted scores, and the second, for which a determinate number of places could be reserved, based solely on the traditional criteria. Doubtless we could conceive of other possible plans. But however it is conducted, affirmative action will remain necessary until the ideal of equality and collective rights embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment has been fully realized. In his own opinion on the Bakke case, Thurgood Marshall wrote: It is unnecessary in 20th century America to have individual Negroes demonstrate that they have been victims of racial discrimination; the racism of our society has been so pervasive that none, regardless of wealth or position, has managed to escape its impact. The experience of Negroes in America has been different in kind, not just in degree, from that of other ethnic groups. It is not merely the history of slavery alone but also that a whole people were marked as inferior by the 20 law. And that mark has endured . . . . It is because of a legacy of unequal treatment that we now must permit the institutions of this society to give consideration to race in making decisions about who will hold the positions of influence, affluence, and prestige in America. For far too long the doors have been shut to blacks. If we are ever to become a fully integrated society, one in which the color of a person’s skin will not determine the opportunities available to him or her, we must be willing to take steps to open those doors. I do not believe that anyone can truly look into America’s past and still find that a remedy for the effects of that past is impermissible. NOTES 1. Andrew Hacker, “Goodbye to Affirmative Action?” The New York Review of Books, 43 (11 July 1996), pp. 21 and 29. 2. The New York Times, 12 July 1996, p. A 12. 3. Hacker, “Goodbye to Affirmative Action?” pp. 21 and 28.

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4. See Ronald Dworkin, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pt. 5, “Reverse Discrimination.” 5. Ibid., p. 305, my emphasis. 6. Owen M. Fiss, “Groups and the Equal Protection Clause,” in Equality and Preferential Treatment: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader, eds. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanlon (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 85, 125, and 128. 7. Ibid., p. 132. 8. Ibid., pp. 125 and 133. 9. Ibid., pp. 131-132. 10. Ibid., p. 125, italics original. 11. See Beth J. Singer, Operative Rights (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993). 12. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted by the General Assembly, 18 December 1992, Art. 2, sec. 1. 13. Ibid., Art. 4, sec. 3. 14. Michael Hartney, “Some Confusions Concerning Collective Rights,” i n The Rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 204. 15. Ibid., p. 202. 16. Singer, Operative Rights, p. 28. 17. Martin Luther King, Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1964), pp. 146–147. 18. Saslow, Linda, “Top L. I. Students Fall Victim to Colleges’ Balancing Plans,” The New York Times: Long Island Weekly (Sunday, 30 June 1996), p. 1. 19. National Desk, “Texas Bill on Student-Athletes fuels AffirmativeAction Debate,” The New York Times (Monday, 9 June 1997), p. A 13. 20. Thurgood Marshall: Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) quoted in Racism and Justice: The Case for Affirmative Action, ed. Gertrude Ezorsky (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 132–133.

Nine THE PROCEDURAL REPUBLIC Judith Presler Currently in our democratic nation, we hear expressions of concern about the decline in family values, in fiscal responsibility, and in commitment to civil and moral laws or principles. Such concern is expressed among the citizenry as well as in the governing chambers from small townships to the nation’s capital. Such concern is expressed along the entire political spectrum. Yet, in spite of the widespread concern, we seem to be in a stalemate, unable to agree on how to respond to these concerns. Many of the responses proposed by one political party are unacceptable to the other. Many of the responses acceptable to one group in society are unacceptable to other groups. We are rarely able to come to a consensus. To add to our discomfort, we are becoming aware that some political solutions accepted and put in place in the past have proven to be unsuccessful. The citizens are dissatisfied. The politicians struggle to find answers, but little is accomplished. I offer some examples. First, there is no consensus about how to handle welfare. The welfare program seems to many to be unsuccessful because, they claim, it encourages unmarried teenage girls to have babies or it encourages dependency and lack of initiative in its recipients. Many people, both liberal and conservative, hold that the welfare program, or the manner in which it is administered, is partly responsible for destroying the value system of the nation as it touches upon family values, fiscal responsibility, and respect for civil and moral law. Another example is the lack of consensus about the federal budget. We are concerned about the national debt. It seems irresponsible and immoral to burden our children’s and grandchildren’s generations with that debt. Yet, the politicians find it difficult to come to a consensus about balancing the budget. A final example is the lack of consensus about the criminal justice system. We are in flux about the purpose for incarceration (punishment or education), the very form of incarceration, and the death penalty. While our politicians struggle to find just solutions to these and other political, social, and economic problems, some have been guilty of such behavior as sexual misconduct, personal misuse of government money, and violation of the law––the names of United States Presidents from Richard Nixon to William Clinton immediately come to mind. Other politicians whose names come to mind are Gary Condit and Robert Toricelli. Our politicians are, after all, charged with acting on our behalf in the structuring of our nation in order to promote our good, yet some of them find it difficult to manifest in themselves the very values they have been charged to protect and promote.1

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This cynicism grows in the public mind either about the characters of our politicians or about the reality or importance of human values and virtues. The political struggle by both conservatives and liberals to find just solutions centers on enacting laws. The conservative solution aims toward placing governance, the distribution of funds, and even the collection of taxes into the hands of local governing agencies. To the conservative, freedom comes from self-governing. Local as opposed to federal governance enhances our freedom. The liberal solution aims toward federal governance, distribution of funds, collection of taxes. To the liberal, freedom comes from the federal government ensuring that local prejudices and local tyrannies are not impinging upon minorities’ freedoms.2 Some examples follow. There is the current federal law, brought into being by a liberal President, that places a temporal limit in the federal administration of welfare payments. The idea is, perhaps, that the dependency upon welfare would not develop if welfare recipients were aware from the first that welfare is only a temporary solution. The liberal position on abortion is that the federal government must defend women’s rights; the morality of the decision is left up to each individual whose right it is to choose. Collection and distribution of tax money, on the liberal view, provide ways the federal government can guarantee justice to, and protect the freedoms of, every citizen. Justice requires that each citizen have an equal and fair starting position in respect of the physical necessities, educational opportunities, and employment opportunities. The freedom to choose in respect of one’s own conception of the good should also be guaranteed by the government.3 The conservatives agree with the principle of placing a temporal limit on welfare payments, but the conservative view entails placing more control over the distribution of funds––to the poor, for education, for health––in the hands of the local governments (states or cities). The idea is, perhaps, that different regions have different requirements, that a single federal format for regulation and distribution of goods is not equally applicable and appropriate to all communities in the nation, and that, thus, federal control is more likely to be unjust, unfair. Conservatives affirm, also, that local regulation in respect of such vexing human choices as abortion is preferable. It is the right of a locality or a family to be governed in light of its own moral perspective. Generally speaking, the liberal conception is that federal regulation, taxation, and distribution of funds––issuing from a group of persons from a variety of regions and perspectives––is more likely to be fair or just because of the moderating influence of gaining agreement from many perspectives and because of being distributed by a single objective agency. On the liberal view, local legislation, taxation, and distribution of goods is more likely to be unfair, to reflect the tyranny of the local majority. The federal political structure is supposed to guarantee to each citizen justice and the freedom to choose. The choices freely made reflect a variety of views of what is good. The government is not supposed to force a single conception of the good upon individuals, but simply guarantee that individuals are free to pursue their various goods as they perceive them.

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Generally speaking, the conservative conception is that big government impinges on freedom and self-rule. Big government forces a single view of what is right and good upon the citizenry. Justice and freedom are more likely to be ensured by smaller, regional control over governmental functions. Local regulation is more likely to ensure that a citizen’s own conception of the good is articulated and pursued. My brief description of liberal and conservative conceptions of the governmental role reveals that all or almost all parties to our current political debate regard the public realm to be properly governed by procedural justice. That is to say, they both assume that justice is guaranteed by following correct procedures in determining laws, rights, and responsibilities. Citizens are free to determine there own good, limited only by the law and the rights of others. It is not the government’s business or right to determine what is good, but only to guarantee justice and freedom of choice to individuals. The guarantee of justice and freedom of choice, they think, will protect their (and, perhaps, other) pursuits of their various private conceptions of the good. The disagreement is, presumably, a disagreement about how justice and freedom can best be brought about. This account of the current political debate is supported by Michael Sandel, who recognizes that both those who regard themselves as liberals and those who regard themselves as conservatives are convinced of the liberal conception of freedom and procedural justice. He calls this conception of freedom and justice, “contemporary liberalism,” and discusses it in conjunction with an analysis of political economy. I must limit my focus in this chapter to the contemporary liberalism in respect of political freedom and justice. Sandel writes, in the March 1996 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, that according to contemporary liberalism, “government should be neutral as to conceptions of the good life, in order to respect persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own ends.” Two features of contemporary liberalism define what Sandel calls “the procedural republic.” First, policy makers and elected officials “bracket,” or set aside, controversial views of the good society, promising instead a consensus that cannot be achieved when governing is attempting to articulate and aim toward some good. Governing toward some good is referred to by Sandel as “structural formation.” Second, abandoning “the formative project,” government is denied “a stake in the moral character of its citizens.” Rather, persons are “free and independent selves.”4 Sandel tells us that in a 1962 commencement address at Yale University, John F. Kennedy urged people to set aside their ideological convictions. “The central domestic issues of our time,” [Kennedy observed], “are more subtle and less simple” than the large moral and political issues that commanded the nation’s attention in earlier days. “They relate not to basic clashes of philosophy or ideology but to ways and means of reaching common goals.”5

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The new understanding of freedom that developed in the 1960s was that “our liberty depends not on our capacity as citizens to share in shaping the forces that govern our collective destiny, but rather on our capacity as persons to choose our values and ends for ourselves.” Sandel continues: The image of persons as free and independent selves, unbound by moral or communal ties they have not chosen, is a liberating, even exhilarating, ideal. Freed from the dictates of custom or tradition, the liberal self is installed as sovereign, cast as the author of the only obligations that constrain. This image of freedom found expression across the political spectrum. Lyndon B. Johnson argued the case for the welfare state not in terms of communal obligation but instead in terms of enabling persons to choose their own ends “[free] to live as they want to live, to pursue their ambitions, to meet their desires” . . . . The only legitimate functions of government, Barry Goldwater insisted, were those that made it “possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom.”6 While the procedural republic seems to be the commonly accepted conception of our political order, there are disagreements not only about whether justice and freedom are best insured federally or locally, but also substantive disagreements about which laws, among the contrary proposed laws, are just and about what conceptions of liberty among contrary conceptions of liberty, should be guaranteed. For example, the handgun debate concerns whether a law against personal possession of handguns is a just law or whether the liberty to defend oneself entails the right to own one’s own handgun. This debate goes beyond questions about fairness and freedom in respect of such procedural issues as equal distribution versus meritorious distribution. The disagreement about how justice and freedom can best be brought about is actually rooted in a more basic disagreement about what is good. If justice merely guarantees that everyone gets an equal opportunity, then whether or not abortion is a moral issue is irrelevant to the government’s abortion legislation. The only issues relevant to abortion are the issues of rights and freedoms. However, the fervency of the abortion debate belies intense commitments on all sides to some moral principle or another. There are differing underlying conceptions of good that influence the various conceptions of justice and freedom from which proponents of procedural justice come to the debate. In some cases, our politicians admit that compelling moral considerations influence their arguments. In other cases, they do not believe that this is the case. More purified examples of debates about procedural justice are the debates of the philosophers. Consider the debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick on the issue of the just distribution of goods. Rawls mounts an argument that an equal distribution of goods, even a redistribution of goods in order to bring about fair, that is, equivalent, possession of goods, is justified by his notion of procedural justice. His notion of

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procedural justice rests on a conception of the self and a principle of equality. The conception of the self is deontological. The principle of equality is the difference principle, which entails the common ownership on the part of the society of the different advantageous properties that accidentally attach to individuals. The deontological self is not essentially connected to or defined by the various attributes (such as intelligence, talent, or discipline) that a person has.7 The difference principle “permits only those inequalities that work to the benefit of the least advantaged members of society.”8 The society owns the advantageous attributes that accidentally attach to persons and may use those attributes for the sake of the society as a whole without being required to commensurably reward the accidental bearers of those attributes. Rather the goods of society should be distributed equally. Nozick, on the other hand, holds that procedural justice supports the view that people are entitled to their naturally endowed attributes and the benefits that accrue to them as a result of the productive use of those attributes. He argues that the natural attributes of a person are just simply that person’s, and thus are not that person’s owing to any illegal or immoral actions. They just happen not illegitimately to belong to that person. If the person uses those talents productively, that person is entitled to the resulting benefits. To regard a person’s attributes as common property of the society and to regard it as just to redistribute the benefits deriving from the productive use of those talents is to treat individuals as means and not ends.9 Such a treatment of persons violates the foundational principle of the deontological self, the self is and should be treated as an end and never merely as a means.10 Both Rawls and Nozick have preconceptions of the good society. The preconceptions of each influence each one’s deductions from a presumably value-free, fail-safe set of principles of procedural justice. Thus, each produces the desired conclusions. However, these conclusions are not particularly supported on deontological grounds. Each amounts to an unsupported assertion of the conception of justice in which the author believes. The view that the redistribution of wealth is good governs Rawls’ tortured reasoning. The view that persons are entitled to the fruits of their labors inevitably determines the conclusion of Nozick’s argument. While Rawls and Nozick have contrary views of the good, each attempts to use the very same justification for these contrary views, namely the ideal of procedural justice. It is an ideal, that is, presumably, an unbiased and deontologically pure foundation for justice (public and private) and contains no unexamined presuppositions. This foundation is the individual, separate, willing self, shorn of all differing properties bestowed upon persons by nature or the accident of social position and economic situation. Thus their common ideal of the procedural republic contains some presuppositions, such as that the proper description of a person is the deontological self and that the primary defining characteristic of such a self is its capacity to will or choose. Rawls adds a notion that such accidental personal properties are actually common social properties. Thus, he argues that the fruits of such properties should be equally distributed. Nozick adds a notion that such accidental personal proper-

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ties are not illegitimately acquired and, thus, the individual is entitled to their fruits. Each of these two users of the procedural ideal adds whatever conceptions are necessary to drive the argument to the conclusion that each desires. We learn a valuable lesson from this examination of the procedural republic. Our political debates are often couched in terms of this model, albeit sometimes naively. If we or our political representatives believe that we are producing impeccable arguments from pure and unassailable grounds, we may be deceiving ourselves about justice and the best political order. If our conclusions are true, we or our political representatives may still be unable to support them and, because we do not understand why the conclusions are true, we are in danger of being talked out of our correct view and into a disadvantaged position. Thus, our current political ideal, the procedural republic, constitutes a danger to our democracy, to our political well-being. It constitutes a danger because, if it is false, it causes us to be deceived about the proper defense and support of our democratic polity. If it is true, though we hold true opinions about our laws and liberties, it is a weak support for them. Most likely, however, even if it is true, it is an inappropriate support, and we run the risk of being dissuaded from even our true opinions because our grasp of them is insecure. A second danger of our ideal of the procedural republic is that ordinary citizens have become discouraged, discontented, and apathetic about political life. There is a two-fold cause for this. First, the political debate is not about values or how to preserve them, but ordinary citizens are very much concerned about values. Second, because of the value-free context that has developed in the realm of politics, we are exposed to a seemingly greater and greater disregard for virtue and character among our politicians. Such moral dereliction discourages citizens from believing there is any reason to concern themselves with politics. Sandel notes, in his Atlantic Monthly article, that at the beginning of the 1960s Americans were unaware of the progression of the polity into the procedural model. When in 1968 the nation began to unravel into disorder, with the Vietnam protests, riots in the ghettos, and assassinations, Americans were left ill equipped to contend with the dislocations that swirled about them. The liberating promise of the freely choosing self could not compensate for the loss of self-government more broadly conceived. There followed a season of protest that is with us still. As disillusionment with government grew, politicians groped to articulate the frustrations that the reigning political agenda did not address.11 Ronald Reagan, Sandel says, successfully drew upon this discontent to win election to the presidency. Blaming big government for disempowering citizens, he proposed shifting power to states and localities. He appealed to such communal values as “family and neighborhood, religion and patriotism.” He identified “with Americans’ yearnings for a common life of larger mean-

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ings,” but “on a smaller, less impersonal scale than that [which] the procedural republic provides.” Reagan’s opponents, being committed to “rights-oriented liberalism,” seemingly missed the “mood of discontent” of the populace, who were concerned about the “erosion of those communities intermediate between the individual and the nation––families and neighborhoods, cities and towns, schools and congregations.” Rather, because those intermediate communities had so often been “pockets of prejudice, outposts of intolerance, places where the tyranny of the majority held sway,” his opponents viewed those intermediate communities with suspicion, and were committed to using federal power to protect the “individual rights that the local communities had failed to protect.”12 While, on the one hand, the Democrats did not recognize the cause of discontent in our nation, on the other hand, Reagan’s presidency did little to alter the conditions underlying the discontent. He governed more as a market conservative than as a civic conservative. The unfettered capitalism he favored did nothing to repair the moral fabric of families, neighborhoods, and communities and much to undermine them.13 We have molded our democratic nation on the model of the ideal procedural republic for over thirty years. Conservatives and liberals alike have appealed to this model, their debates have taken place within the context of it. Reagan represents a deviation from the concept of the procedural republic, but only insofar as he discoursed about the values that are so important to people and that had been so long neglected in political speech and thought. There is still a thirst today for a return to some sort of political concern about and support of the values of family, neighborhood, and community. There is not merely a thirst for such a return, there is a need. Rioting in Los Angeles, drug trading, police brutality, the failing of the institution of the family, and corruption in high places are some of the many signs that there is a need to attend to these values. The fear that a false conception of value or a merely different conception of value from one’s own will be forced upon the citizens has driven us toward the procedural republic, believing that the procedural republic leaves us free to determine our own values, our own good. Unfortunately, the procedural republic does not leave us free to determine our own good. The foundation for the ideal of the procedural republic is the deontological self, separate from and not determined by socially given or naturally endowed attributes. This individual is characterized fundamentally as autonomous, a free chooser, a free will. The political ideal generated out of this foundation, this conception of the self, is freedom and self-determination. Its good, that towards which the polity should aim, that which the polity should ensure, is that each individual is free. The logical conception of value and good that accompanies the ideal of the procedural republic is that value and good are relative, a function of the choice of

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the free citizen. However, beyond the ideal of freedom of choice there is also an ideal of justice. Two such notions examined earlier in this chapter are those of Rawls and Nozick. Rawls adds to the concept of the deontological self a second basic concept, the difference principle, which entails the common ownership of advantageous social and natural attributes of individuals. Having added the difference principle, he then argues that justice necessarily involves the egalitarian distribution of goods. Nozick adds to the concept of the deontological self a notion of entitlement, that people are entitled to their natural endowments and the benefits derived from the productive use of those endowments. As a result of adding the notion of entitlement, Nozick argues that justice entails not redistributing goods. I have drawn attention first to the fact that procedural justice does imply a good, namely, freedom of choice. This is an empty notion, it provides no guidance in the choosing. The procedural republic leaves us free to choose and pursue our own goods. Theoretically it leaves us free. Under Rawls’ conception of justice, it would seem that one could choose and pursue goods only to have them taken away and redistributed. The procedural republic leaves us free to choose and pursue our own goods, but that freedom is curtailed by some notion of distributive justice and/or retributive justice. Justice does not issue pure and undisputed from the deontological foundation. Egalitarian distribution may be just, entitlement may be just, meritocracy may be just––it depends on whose justice is really just. Implicit in the concept of procedural justice is the idea that freedom is the good. Implicit in the concept of procedural justice is also the idea that freedom must be curtailed by justice. Thus, the desire to avoid having a set of values or goods forced upon us is not fulfilled by the ideal of the procedural republic. Second, beyond supporting the idea that freedom (curtailed by justice) is the good, or, indeed, because supporting the unexpressed idea that freedom is the good, procedural justice implies political and ethical relativism. It is permissible to pursue and enjoy whatever goods and values one chooses so long as one is within the limits of justice. Though we are being formed by the political ideal of our time, we think we are not. We think we are free. In fact, however, both liberals and conservatives have accepted the procedural ideal and are attempting to impose their own ideas of justice and good upon the nation. The danger is that we are lulled into believing we are free, and we thus are not very reflective as a nation about what ideals of justice or goodness might actually be being imposed upon us, might actually be forming us. There is, of course, debate; but it is scattered, it is not focused. We are not seeking a unified vision because we think that as free-choice-makers we do not need to have a unified vision. The danger is that we are not constructively engaged in a debate about what might be the best political, social, and economic structure for us as a nation. Pursuit of a unified vision need not enslave or coerce citizens so long as there is self-conscious debate, so long as there is clear awareness that a unified vision is being sought. Tentative acceptance of a unified vision need not en-

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slave or coerce citizens so long as that vision entails reconsideration and continued debate. Our constitution is a marvelous institution that allows and indeed encourages just such a unified vision and continual reconsideration and debate. There is at present a major problem for our democracy. It is the ideal of the procedural republic that we have embraced for the past thirty years or so. The ideal of the procedural republic divides and weakens us, it lulls us into acceptance and thoughtless choosing. NOTES 1. See Michael J. Sandel, “America’s Search for a New Public Philosophy,” The Atlantic Monthly, 277 (March 1996), p. 72. 2. Ibid., p. 58. 3. See Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 154–165. 4. Sandel, “America’s Search,” p. 66. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid, pp. 66–67. 7. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 102–103, 107, and 179. 8. Sandel, Liberalism, p. 66. See Rawls, Theory of Justice, pp. 78–83, 101–105, and 179; and John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 6–7. 9. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 150–153, 218–219, 225–226, and 228–229. 10. Sandel, Liberalism, pp. 78, 84, 94–98, and 100. See Nozick, Anarchy, pp. 150–153 and 228–229. 11. Sandel, “America’s Search,” p. 68. 12. Ibid., pp. 68–69. 13. Ibid.

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Ten LIVING DEMOCRACY DESPITE THE RULE OF LAW: CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AS POLITICAL NARRATIVE Matthew Silliman Ronald Dworkin’s liberal defense of civil disobedience is well known and widely accepted. Although in many respects his account is both more plausible and more sympathetic than the theories of John Rawls, Joel Feinberg, and others, it nevertheless misunderstands the fundamental nature and democratic potential of principled lawbreaking. In contrast to conventional accounts, epitomized by Dworkin’s, I take civil disobedience to be a potentially revolutionary and uniquely empowering form of public storytelling, and thus an important means of instigating social change. For many of the most disempowered persons and groups in a society, civil disobedience can offer a potent and responsible voice when more conventional legal and political processes fail them, as they inevitably do. Properly understood, therefore, civil disobedience is crucial for any society that hopes to move toward practical justice. Liberal theorists, Dworkin included, tend to view conscientious resistance to legal authority as an incidental aberration to be tolerated (to a point) in the interest of freedom of individual conscience. This reading construes civil disobedience as affirming rather than fundamentally challenging the moral-political status quo. Since on this view it seeks to improve incrementally rather than to transform a society, it is construed as both a domestic and a domesticatable matter. In contrasting my position with that of Dworkin on the subjects of law, conscience, and revolution, I will argue that such a conception of civil disobedience cannot provide the grounding for either a society responsible to its citizens, or a society in which citizens can be responsible. 1. Conscience and Revolution A common liberal strategy for domesticating civil disobedience is analytical fragmentation. Dworkin spends considerable time distinguishing forms of civil disobedience according to the actor’s state of mind as “integrity-based,” “justice-based,” or “policy-based,” each of which he thinks must be justified differently.1 These distinctions are odd, however, from the point of view of those engaging in civilly disobedient action. For example, to say that the women of Greenham Common were engaged in a policy-based resistance (because they believed the deployment of American missiles was stupid and dangerous, rather than because it violated their rights as an electoral minority), in

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contrast to Quakers and others who illegally aided runaway slaves, whose actions he calls integrity- or justice-based, seems strained and artificial. The Dworkinian taxonomy serves little useful purpose in characterizing the various phenomena of civil disobedience, but distracts from the point of commonality, which is the practical conscientiousness to which their motivation and purpose aspired. Alternatively, Gene Sharp distinguishes kinds of civil disobedience in terms of the degree of their opposition to the general order (for example: symbolic action, active non-cooperation, implementation of alternatives, and so forth), a distinction that opens the possibility of some (if not all) forms of civil disobedience having revolutionary implications.2 Dworkin’s typology is also predicated on a dangerously individualistic notion of conscience, whereby each citizen of a liberal democracy is held to be entitled to his own personal moral sentiments and judgments, a diversity of moral opinion to be tolerated to the extent that it does not directly affect public policy. This view is related to the notion of the separation of church and state and the tax exempt status of religious institutions that refrain from direct lobbying of lawmaking bodies. Such tolerance sounds like an appealing and magnanimous way to order a society, but its conception of conscience is insufficiently collective to do justice either to society as a whole or to people who take their conscientious convictions seriously. It thus fails to do justice to civil disobedience. If conscience means anything, it surely implies that the situation, industry, practice, or policy against which one might mount conscientious resistance is open to public criticism and reasoned dispute. Conscience cannot be reduced to the absurd notion that one should (or even could) wash one’s hands of a morally distasteful association or purify oneself by the demonstration of such dissociation. Thus Dworkin reduces to absurdity both conscience and actions founded upon it in asking: “What [legal] means can be found for allowing the greatest possible tolerance of conscientious dissent while minimizing its impact on policy?”3 Since the point of conscientious dissent is, in most cases, to call the status quo into question so as to change it, rather than simply to assuage a sense of personal moral purity, the political effectiveness of the action, over the long term, is at least as important as its moral symbolism. I grant that there may be particular, pure cases of what Dworkin calls integrity-based illegal behavior, but it seems misleading to identify them with civil disobedience as such, since they concern only the individual’s personal moral commitments or sentiments, and are civil only in the nominal sense that they oppose an existing civic order, not in any positive sense of affirming a particular alternative vision of civil relations. (To apply Sharp’s typology, we might classify them as symbolic rather than direct action.) Liberal theorists of civil disobedience seem generally to assume that the term “civil” in the phrase refers to the civil law or civil society, in the Lockean sense, which the civil disobedient violates or challenges. It is on this ground that Rawls, for example, insists that civil disobedience cannot be revolutionary, since it af-

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firms the justice, on the whole, of the existing system in the particular way that it challenges one small piece of it. In the process of distinguishing civil disobedience from civil war resulting from fundamental challenge to civil authority (as though these needed distinguishing), Dworkin makes a similar point: Civil Disobedience involves those who do not challenge authority in so fundamental a way. They do not think of themselves––and they do not ask others to think of them––as seeking any basic rupture or constitutional reorganization. They accept the fundamental legitimacy of both government and community; they act to acquit rather than to challenge their duty as citizens.4 It is not, in my understanding, a particular orientation toward the legitimacy of the status quo that marks an act civil disobedience so much as its active envisioning of a just social order and its consequent rejection of violent means to that end. It is evident here that liberal theorists tacitly presuppose the (essentially Lockean) theory of civil society as political authority legitimated by rational consent. To employ this principle as though it applied to existing states, is misguided or disingenuous. No modern government can plausibly claim to meet the Lockean criteria either for respecting and obtaining its citizens’ free consent, or for upholding the minimum positive and negative obligations of a rationally constituted state. Confused by this theory, liberals find it difficult to imagine the possibility of an action that at once rejects an existing legalpolitical order, while at the same time maintaining a resolve to behave civilly towards other people, or towards a possible future set of social relationships. Yet the practical possibility and value of just such an action should be at the heart of civil disobedience. This confusion within the liberal tradition tends to blur questions of systemic injustice in liberal states presumed to be on the whole just (or at any rate more just than states that present themselves as their ideological enemies). It thus promotes violent rejection of the state by oppressed groups in the absence of more constructive recourse. In short, by begging the question of the legal and political forms just social relations must take, thereby narrowly circumscribing possible conceptions of the good life, applied liberalism seems to do systematically precisely what it is pledged to avoid, namely, encourage resort to violent revolution as the proper way to deal with injustices. I propose an alternative understanding of social obligation that rejects the premises leading to this confusion. Such an understanding is capable that of addressing oppression with much less risk of violence (arising either from the frustration of the oppressed, or from the idea of a state monopoly on the use of force coupled with an abstract right of armed rebellion against a wholly unjust state). If we understand that a civilly disobedient activist properly so-called may, without inconsistency, utterly reject a civic order conceived in liberal terms (at least an existing state claiming this status) while at the same time

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affirming her obligation of constructive respect for other persons, we may begin to comprehend both her attempts to minimize violence and her measured use of existing institutions (even including liberal institutions such as legislative bodies and the courts). She may, in fact, be a genuine revolutionary with respect to the liberal status quo. What is civil about her disobedience is not that it entails or illustrates allegiance to the existing legal system or political community, but that it embodies and adheres to an alternative vision of social order, which her unorthodox public action at once instantiates and actively furthers. 2. Law Dworkin’s “Civil Disobedience and Nuclear Protest” begins with several important and sensible observations, including: Civil disobedience is a feature of our political experience, not because some people are virtuous and others wicked, or because some have a monopoly of wisdom and others of ignorance . . . [but] because we disagree, sometimes profoundly, in the way independent people with a lively sense of justice will disagree, about very serious issues of political morality and strategy.5 With his customary clarity Dworkin undercuts one popular misunderstanding of civil disobedience, the presumption that it is principally a matter of maintaining personal moral purity (an insight which, as we have seen, he sometimes forgets). He makes clear that civil disobedience is a durable feature of public life connected to the process of public moral dialogue. His subsequent point, however, contains a dubious claim: So a theory of civil disobedience is useless if it declares only that people are right to disobey laws or decisions that are wicked or stupid, that the rightness of the disobedience flows directly from the wrongness of the law. Almost everyone will agree that if a particular decision is very wicked, people should disobey it. But this agreement will be worthless in particular, concrete cases, because people will then disagree whether the law is that wicked, or wicked at all.6 It is certainly true that we require a theory that is robust (as he puts it), and proactive, giving us solid criteria for distinguishing well- from illconsidered acts of conscience, but it is far from clear that in our society almost everyone will agree that wicked or stupid laws ought to be disobeyed, even if they agree on which laws are wicked or stupid. Nor do present liberal political education and culture do much to help people think clearly about when and how disobedience is warranted or useful. Much to the contrary, American society seems to be in the grip of a sort of legalistic cult mentality, fostered in part by the kind of monarchist thinking

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about law that Dworkin unwittingly promotes with apparently unconscious irony, his book on the function of law in democratic societies is entitled Law’s Empire.7 Like other irrational beliefs, this widespread devotion to law spawns contradictory effects. On the one hand, it breeds blind faith in and obedience to laws simply because they are laws. For example, it is shocking and remarkable how many otherwise sensible and educated people will respond to news of principled disobedience against an acknowledged evil with an offhand, “Well, they did break the law!” On the other hand, popular devotion to the sovereignty of law also promotes, paradoxically, a dangerous, reactive lawlessness, illustrated by actions as relatively trivial and nearly universal as adolescent vandalism and the habitual exceeding of highway speed limits, and as horrendous as the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, apparently by militant antigovernment survivalists. It does this in part by giving law such an elevated status that it generates expectations of legal omnipotence and infallibility, expectations that quickly fall victim to the contempt proverbially bred by familiarity. For many people, elements of uncritical faith in law persist despite their well- or ill-founded contempt for it, leading to a progressively unstable and dangerous set of habits and attitudes at the roots of civic life. If we perceive law as the chief (or only) source of rules for public life, and come to believe that it is degenerate, capricious, or corrupt, we are left with little but narrow self-interest with which to construct a set of habits and attitudes to support a social order––a dubious foundation at best (and one that may lead to a way of life that Thomas Hobbes famously summarized as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”). One of the reasons Dworkin is predisposed to misunderstand civil disobedience is that he labors under the notion (surely discredited at least since Nazi extermination camps quite legally murdered nine million people) that members of a civil society have an automatic obligation to obey that society’s law. I have argued elsewhere that the ancient debate on whether there is a prima facie obligation to obey the law is largely moot.8 I hold, moreover, that there are no good grounds for believing that there is a moral obligation to obey the law as such, prima facie or otherwise. In my view, practitioners of civil disobedience exercise a very real civic obligation, albeit not to the law (which their acts themselves often repudiate), but to a more or less coherent vision of social order of which their acts (if defensible) are concrete instances. By acting responsibly toward an envisioned society that has a concrete connection to existing social order (independent of law), civil disobedients are distinguishable from criminals or scofflaws, whose disobedience aims to serve only themselves. Ironically, the latter forms of disobedience actually affirm the legal status quo, by implicitly willing others to obey so they (the perpetrators) might benefit by disobeying. Thus, for example, civilly disobedient protesters might blockade the gate of a military base, while doing everything possible to maintain open, respectful dialogue with the military personnel (as well as the policy-makers). In this

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instance, what is civil about the disobedience is not that it implicitly affirms the existing legal-political order (which it may or may not do), but that it employs, while appealing to, norms such as respect for persons, freedom of dialogue, and a struggle actively to pursue justice while rejecting violence. Even in his uncompromising campaign against British rule in India, a political entity to which he conceded not a shred of legitimacy, Mohandas K. Gandhi systematically sought to avoid causing his opponents to suffer, preferring to suffer himself. This choice was not, as Bertrand Russell believed, simply a matter of claiming moral high ground in hopes of shaming his opponents into capitulation (thus depending for its effectiveness on the moral character of the opponents), but a principled and practical example of a new way to conceive genuinely civil relations among people who disagree. In this way, the civil disobedient both lives and tells a story of a different society, one in which not only the evil being protested is resolved, but in which people have learned a different way of confronting each other about their disagreements. Theorists such as Rawls and Dworkin misperceive the principled refusal of civil disobedients to seek their objective by any means necessary. Such a refusal need not be a concession to the legitimacy, on the whole, of the legalpolitical order in which they live. Rather, it may be a testament to what the civil disobedients perceive as a practical alternative ideal of social order (perhaps realized in part by existing society, perhaps not), the legitimacy of which must be judged in terms, not of the laws of existing society, but in terms of its own narrative power and coherence. Thus, far from being a tame, liberal notion, principled civil disobedience (which, I argue at length elsewhere, must seriously seek to act nonviolently) may reject a principal tenet of the liberal political tradition, that citizens have the right to resist unjust or oppressive government by any means, including violence. Dworkin’s allegiance to the notion that law is obligatory, is not casual or uncritical. He has developed a theory of the function and nature of law, whereby law as such commands respect and obedience because it functions as a repository of the moral sense and sensibilities of the society that gives rise to it. Dworkin analogizes the process of interpreting and applying this concrete and changing public conscience to the literary process of writing a chain novel, where each judge or justice does her or his best to write a chapter that is in keeping with the sense and direction of the forgoing chapters, but also responsive to that judge’s perception of the needs and priorities of the present narrative moment. In this way Dworkin attempts to explain how a judge’s decisions can both reflect her or his interests and concerns (as they inevitably do) and at the same time be meaningfully constrained and conditioned by precedent. His use of a literary metaphor in this appealing liberal defense of law is similar to my own. According to his analysis, the quality of a judge’s decisions are to be judged according to standards that are essentially literary rather than narrowly legal, psychological, or logical (for example, their contextual coherence in the past and current life of the society). Similarly, the moral legitimacy of an act

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of civil disobedience must be judged not only in terms of simple consistency of thought and deed, but by reference to the sensibility, desirability, and plausibility of the stories that the lives and actions of the perpetrators tell. Dworkin’s defense of law, the most plausible extant defense of legal naturalism (and thus of the innate obligation to obey law), presents serious difficulties. Certainly it is vulnerable to the criticisms that he underestimates the power of the class interests and prejudices of those members of the social elite who are able to become judges, and that he overestimates legal precedent as a dependable source of guidance and moral wisdom. My chief concern is somewhat larger. Since his account is a theory of the role and process of law in a liberal democracy, we would expect access to the society’s central storytelling apparatus to be more democratic. Dworkin leaves to elected and appointed officials of the reigning government, almost exclusively, the privilege and burden of compiling the society’s moral and political narrative. Among the dispositions of a people truly capable of self-governance I would count the readiness and capacity collectively and individually to tell their own stories, apart from or even contrary to that told by the prevailing system of law. By “tell their own stories,” I mean that they articulate in action their individual and collective visions of how a good and viable society is organized; and systematic, principled civil disobedience is among the chief tools of such articulation. Something like this may be the basis of Gandhi’s insistence that even in a genuinely democratic society civil disobedience would remain a permanent possibility, and something for which all citizens would be actively trained. Dennis Dalton writes: If this basic truth [that “parliaments have no power or even existence independently of the people”] is realized then the most democratic and decentralized state will still carry a corrective within it of satyagraha [literally “truth-grasping;” Gandhi’s coined Sanskrit term for nonviolent resistance or civil disobedience] to remedy abuses of power. At any sign of mob rule, responsible citizens may administer a dose of civil disobedience because that is the real “storehouse of power.” Gandhi asks that we “imagine a whole people unwilling to conform to the laws of the legislature and prepared to suffer the consequences of noncompliance! They will bring the whole legislative and the executive machinery to a standstill . . . no police or military coercion can bend the resolute will of a people out for suffering to the uttermost. And parliamentary procedure is good only when its members are willing to conform to the will of the majority.” If Gandhi’s advocacy of democracy carries this warning to the government of a continuing sanction for mass civil disobedience, it also admonishes the citizenry of its collective responsibility, for “Every citizen, therefore, renders himself [sic] responsible for every act of his government,” and when the government goes astray, “it becomes his duty to 9 withdraw his support.”

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Such a vision owes something to the Lockean notion that citizens of a government that has violated its (contractual) mandate have the right, even the duty, to revolt. It diverges from this liberal notion, of course, by insisting that they are never warranted in employing violence, but only active noncooperation of various sorts (which Gandhi argues are much more effective methods in any case). This idea has much in common with liberalism, which in one construal entails that the state leave it unsettled as to what constitutes the good life. I prefer this condition of the state to the Rawlsian notion that the state remain neutral on the issue. I envision, however, a much more robust version of public discourse than is fostered by the version of liberalism in current practice. In my version, public morality resides not in legal and political institutions controlled by elites, but emerges in active social and political dialogue among people themselves. To the extent that provisional conclusions of this dialogue become institutionalized, as they inevitably do, the institutions remain subordinate to the dialogue that produces them, and are perpetually subject to active recall. Liberal intellectuals have historically been among the most vocal defenders of civil disobedience. My examples and analysis suggest, however, that such defense is surprisingly inadequate when its presuppositions come to the surface. It does not seem to be possible to defend any but the most tame and eviscerated notion of civil disobedience (certainly not the robust theory for which Dworkin calls) unless one abandons liberal premises such as: (1) citizens have an obligation to obey the law; (2) behaving civilly necessarily entails affirming the legitimacy (or the overall justice) of existing legal-political institutions; and (3) one’s conscience is an essentially private matter to be tolerated by a society, rather than the principal substance and driving force of respectful public discourse.10 NOTES 1. Ronald Dworkin, “On Not Prosecuting Civil Disobedience,” Civil Disobedience, ed. Paul Harris (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989), p. 107. 2. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Non-violent Action (Boston: Porter-Sargent Press, 1973). 3. Dworkin, “On Not Prosecuting,” pp. 113–130. 4. Ibid., p. 105. 5. Ibid., pp. 105–6. 6. Ibid., p. 106. 7. Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). 8. Matthew Silliman, “Is Civil Disobedience Morally Coherent?” The Ethics of Liberal Democracy, ed. R. Paul Churchill (Providence, R.I.: Berg Press, 1994). 9. Dennis Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi: Non-violence in Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 77–78. 10. My thanks to David K. Johnson for insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to Laura Duhan Kaplan, Mary Lenzi, John Kultgen,

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and an anonymous reviewer for extensive (and very helpful) suggestions on the current revision.

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PART THREE Democracy and Routes to Peace

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INTRODUCTION The last section of the volume is devoted to connections, or lack thereof, between democracy and peace. Donald A. Wells, in “Unnecessary Suffering and Superfluous Injury,” challenges us to show that there is such a connection. He reviews the disheartening history of attempts to mitigate the brutality of war by prohibitions against excessive force that causes superfluous injury to combatants and bystanders. The restrictions that have been proposed, and in some instances adopted as official policy, have not imposed significant constraints on nations. They have been ineffectual in democratic as well as other forms of society. While they are flouted, the pretense of honoring them is used as a façade to make war more palatable. Part of the difficulty lies in specifying what constitutes excessive force and superfluous injury with sufficient precision to rule out specific practices. Part of it lies in the lack of a will on the part of combatants to observe restraints. Wells goes on to point out that democratic decision procedures, at least as they have been used in America and other Western countries, have produced little change. Democracy does not insure peace, inhibitions about going to war, or even significant restraints on the way war is waged. The remaining chapters in this section consider ways of inhibiting the resort to violence in view of the ineffectiveness of the philosophical theories and moralistic policies to which Wells points. In “Exclusion of Soldiers from War-Making Decisions,” Brian Luke examines the way democracies recruit soldiers to fight their wars, and argues that this not only limits democracy but promotes war. Volunteers as well as draftees enter a form of indenture that effectively disqualifies them from participating in decisions relating to whether to fight and how. They are forced to go to war without being involved in discussions about whether there is to be war or how it is to be waged. Provisions for conscientious objection are limited so that only a few refuse to serve, and the proceedings in which they are awarded this status exclude debate over the merits of the war for which they are drafted. Luke argues that the individual’s right to refuse to engage in combat should be extended beyond the notion of selective conscientious objection proposed by liberal philosophers. A society in which citizens could freely refuse to fight would find its ability to resort to armed force restricted to causes that enjoyed overwhelming support after extensive debate. Uses of armed force would be few and far between, and those that did occur would be much more likely to be justified. Ali Errishi takes up ideological issues in “Recursive Metaphysics is Bad for Democracy.” He argues that the apparent conflict between theocratic and secular states in many parts of the world conceals a rather different opposition, namely, a conflict between political systems based on what Errishi calls “recursive metaphysics” and those that are more open and tolerant of differences in metaphysical beliefs. The recursive metaphysician believes that there is a single way to answer all important questions. The way may be sacred scripture or it may be the methods of science narrowly conceived, and so the political

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system based on the metaphysics may be theocratic or secular. In either case, it is intolerant of differences in points of view and hence of democratic processes that are necessary to make pluralistic societies work. Such democratic processes are also necessary in our world of societies peopled with adherents of other beliefs. While Wells’s data support pacifism, he does not explicitly take up the issue. Andrew Kelley does. In “Toward a Reformulation of the Doctrine of Pacifism,” he seeks to reformulate the concept of pacifism to keep open the possibility of resort to violence to restrain the resort to violence, without losing the intuitive appeal of the pacifist ideal. He proposes to do so by shifting to virtue ethics and away from action or rule ethics. He would substitute the ideal of a pacifist person for that of a life of exclusively nonviolent actions or of allegiance to exceptionless rules prohibiting violence. In Kelley’s terms, pacifists are persons who abhor violence and devote them-selves to finding ways to eliminate it. On rare occasions, they may have to resort to limited violence, but this does not detract from their pacifism or the intuitive attractiveness of the ideal. Kelley also argues that democracy requires a degree of harmony among people that can be achieved only if the individual achieves harmony in his own life. This requires the cultivation of agapistic love. Kelly maintains that this notion captures the spirit of pacifism and avoids the counter-intuitive claims of pacifism conceived as a deontological prohibition against the use of all forms of violence. Agapistic persons strive for peace in everything they do, even when they find themselves in situations that require force to resist force. Extending democracy will not promote peace unless citizens who form effective majorities when questions of war and peace are decided are disposed to seek a nonviolent resolution to conflicts. This can be assured only by an effective program of education. Gregory P. Fields, in “Gandhi and Dewey: Education for Peace,” finds principles to guide this important project in the quite different, but immensely influential, philosophies of John Dewey and Mohandas Gandhi. Dewey’s emphasis is secular and scientific, while Gandhi’s is spiritual, but both insist on the practical use of intelligence to win small victories for nonviolence and the development of effective mechanisms for the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Fields’s essay ends with a sketch of what an effective curriculum in peace education in schools and universities might look like.

Eleven UNNECESSARY SUFFERING AND SUPERFLUOUS INJURY Donald A. Wells The conventional wisdom claims that democratic societies, unlike more dictatorial ones, generate a moral restraint in the decisions of their leaders and a heightened sense of moral concern with what affects life and liberty in their citizens. Thoughtful members of democratic societies are concerned, therefore, whenever ethical principles appear to play ambiguous roles in the decisions of their national leaders and their citizens. The supposition that political democracy has a major moral influence rests on shaky evidence. It is not that democratic principles do not have moral implications, it is rather that other factors may be even more relevant. For example, does the prevalent distaste for the United Nations exhibited by most Republicans derive from democratic principles? Is the failure of our Senate to commit us to rejoin UNESCO, ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to be blamed on our democracy? Do either the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency exist because democratic principles require them? We in America must also take account of the ubiquitous influence of the essentially anarchic economic system of capitalism, whose influence with respect to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has led to an inordinate concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, downsizing to benefit investors at the expense of jobs for the many, the funneling of vast resources to the coffers of a military-industrial complex, and on the part of the citizenry a self-centered approach that prizes liberty above responsibility and ignores the common good. Capitalism is not democracy. A fundamental conflict exists between the public concerns of a democratic society and the drives of a basically selfish economic enterprise. Democracy seeks those blessings that may be shared by all. Capitalism seeks those blessings that the few can have at the expense of the many. Democracy values the common good, while capitalism values the private good. United States foreign policy is far more derived from the quest for profit and economic control than it is from any democratic political concerns. National interest, which justifies so much of what we do abroad, is far more a financial than a political matter. But this is not the whole story. In addition to our political and economic systems, we also have a variety of non-governmental organizations which represent a spectrum of religious and secular views not all of which prize either democracy or capitalism. America is a melting pot of conflicting political,

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economic, social, religious, and secular opinions. It is not obvious which of these many conflicting movements gets either credit or blame for what results. Nowhere has the expectation that democracy should make a moral difference been more ephemeral than in the decisions to go to war. The United States is presumed to be the best example of a democratic nation. If democracy makes a moral difference, here is where it should be found. Yet we have 395 major military bases and hundreds of minor installations in 35 foreign countries. This is a military commitment matched by no other country of any political persuasion. We have 500,000 military staff stationed abroad.1 We have nearly 4,500 nuclear weapons poised to be sent to other countries. In Western Europe alone the United States has 3,700 tactical nuclear weapons stationed.2 Is this because of our democracy? Since 1945 we have conducted almost 50 armed interventions against sovereign nations, as well as over 200 armed violations of human rights abroad sponsored by our Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Our CIA has made ten attempted assassinations of foreign leaders. The United States is the major producer and seller of weapons of mass destruction in the world and currently supplies weapons in 39 of the 42 ethnic and territorial conflicts. In a recent stretch of four years 85 percent of our arms sales to the Third World have gone to undemocratic governments.3 The support for an expanded military through NATO at the expense of a diminished support for the United Nations seems inconsistent with the aims and values of a democratic nation. How, then, can we argue that the democratic values of the United States make a moral difference especially as relates to war? The assumption that the politics of a nation affects its willingness to go to war is difficult to document. Lewis F. Richardson concluded that no evidence existed for any relationship between the politics and the tendency to warlikeness of any given nation, although he did conclude that, in the past, politically strong nations had fought more wars than politically weak ones.4 Another early study concluded that democracies have fought both more wars and more deadly ones than less democratic countries. This was attributed to two practices: universal conscription in times of emergency and a general tendency to fanaticize national patriotism.5 A study of the frequency of wars, written during the First World War, concluded that France had been the most warlike nation of modern times.6 On the other hand, another study at the same time concluded that Spain and Turkey showed the highest incidence of being at war between 1450 and 1900.7 A recent study of current wars noted that 95 percent of the 150 wars since the end of the Second World War have been in the Third World nations, most of which lay no claim to being democracies.8 Thus the historical data fails to establish a strong correlation between form of government and disposition to resort to war. Somewhere between the conviction that wars in defense of the national interest need no further moral justification and the conviction that the killing of men, women, and children is morally forbidden lies a morally murky area bequeathed by just war theory. This theory posits that neither the acceptance nor rejection of war can be done without some justification. Augustine developed his just war theories at the time when the Roman Empire had become

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officially Christian, and he spoke specifically to Christians who had previously not had a homeland and had not had to face the question of defending it. He assumed that war was a legitimate way to defend a country and that rules existed by which any war needed to be justified. He did this from two perspectives. Jus ad bellum enumerated criteria that determined when a war had been justly declared. These criteria included the requirements that a nation had tried all nonviolent alternatives, that war was a proper resort, that a worthy cause existed that justified the inevitable havoc war produced, that the wisest heads had made this decision, and that going to war was a last resort. Once a war had been justly entered a second test was required concerning the means of waging that war. The criteria justifying how the wars were to be waged were explained in jus in bello. These criteria included a sense of moral proportion between the havoc that would be caused by the strategies and weapons of war and the havoc that was conjectured to result by not going to war. The criteria affirmed that innocents ought not to be slain and that, in the case of soldiers, a war of no quarter was forbidden. Augustine presumed that a war that failed to satisfy the criteria of proportionality was unjust and ought not to be waged even though it may have been justly entered.9 He expected, further, that the religion of the soldiers would make a difference (similar to the claim made by defenders of democracy) and he predicted that Christian soldiers would bring a sense of humanity and moderation not found in wars waged by heathen. Little evidence exists that Christianity or any other major religion has made any significant difference to the behavior of soldiers or to the strategies proposed by political leaders. The Irish historian, W. E. H. Lecky remarked that he was driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it. With the possible exception of Islam no religion has done so much to produce war as was done by the religious leaders of Christendom.10 Does democracy make the same difference that Augustine attributed to the Christian religion? Do democracies exhibit more caution before going to war and show more sensitivity in the methods of war than do more dictatorial countries? Indeed, is there anything in our basic democratic documents to suggest that we would go to war for better reasons, show any more humane concern for the fate of civilians or soldiers, or be less likely to go to war prematurely? The major medieval efforts to calculate the justice between the ends and means of war were clerical and they concentrated on the strategies used, the weapons employed, and both the status and the numbers of the persons it was legitimate to slay or wound. The Synod of Charroux in 989 declared anathema against those who attacked, seized, or beat priests.11 The Second Lateran Council of 1139 listed penalties for violating the rules protecting noncombatants and declared that slings and incendiaries were forbidden on the grounds that they caused excessive harm.12 Pope Innocent III banned the

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crossbow on the grounds that it caused needless suffering. The practice of siege was declared suspect because the primary victims were civilians. These concerns were inferred from knightly rules of chivalry and in part from the thesis that since the aim of war was to make the enemy hors de combat, no justification existed for total annihilation. It was believed that a point existed beyond which the infliction of injury should cease. Such concern, however, was contradicted by church leaders when they urged their followers to “make war against infidels without cessation and without mercy.”13 On the lay side, Franciscus de Vitoria (1480–1546) affirmed that limits existed beyond which certain strategies and weapons could not be justified. He concluded: If some city cannot be recaptured without greater evils befalling the State, such as the devastation of many cities, great slaughter of human beings, . . . it is indubitable that the Prince is bound rather to give up his own rights and abstain from war.14 The Spanish king, however, seemed unaware of this reasonable just war inference. Vitoria insisted that old men, women, and children should be spared, and that even in wars against the Turks, it was not allowed to kill these protected ones.15 To do otherwise would be indefensible. Yet, under military necessity Vitoria allowed soldiers to “despoil the innocent,” if it was required to sap the strength of the enemy.16 Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) approved of protecting women, children, and old men as a sign of “commendable mercy.” However, he allowed “for reasons that are weighty,” to break this prohibition, and he observed that it was common practice to kill everyone and that the laws of war even sanctioned it.17 Indeed, Grotius allowed slaying enemy soldiers even after they had surrendered.18 The German jurist Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694) stated that “if a man feels that the avenging of an injury done him will mean more evil than good, he acts in a just and praiseworthy manner in refusing to punish it in recourse to war.”19 Neither Christian Wolff (1679–1754) nor Emmerich Vattel (1714–1767) thought it was proper to kill women, children, and the old even though in total war every citizen of the enemy country was an enemy.20 Vattel, however, allowed exceptions in the case of enemies who had committed “grave breaches” of the laws of war. In such cases reprisals using otherwise forbidden means were permitted.21 How were these grave breaches to be measured, and when did the suffering soldiers caused in reprisal become excessive? These efforts to set limits to justifiable means were vigorously opposed by military writers who rejected any proposals to ban weapons or strategies on the mere grounds of humanitarianism. Historically, military decisions have superseded those of either church councils or university professors. The influence of the judgments of the military came to a zenith in the Policraticus of John of Salisbury (1159). In the tradition of the two-sword theory, John established military service as a form of religious obligation. Obedience to the commanding officer in battle was equated with obedience to God. John stated

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that the profession of the soldier was morally neutral with regard to the causes for which war was fought. “It makes no difference whether a soldier serves one of the faithful or an infidel.”22 Even the venerable Thomas Aquinas deferred to the authority of the military in his answer to the question whether it was lawful to lay ambushes: namely, that in a just war the methods of war were of no concern.23 The history of war reveals that soldiers have not been knights and that no militarily useful weapon or strategy would ever be banned by them solely on the grounds of humanity or chivalry, and this result appeared independently of the political or religious convictions of those who waged war. For the past 1600 years the effort to make some assessment of what should be morally acceptable has explored both the strategies and weapons of war and attempted to determine what a just cause for a war might be and how such a war might be waged justly. General agreement existed that suffering should be minimized, that the innocent should be spared, and that the occasions for going to war should be few. The efforts of international congresses in the past century and a half have established the focus of current debates. The concern was to reduce the suffering caused by war. This concern was expressed on 22 August 1854 in a Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded Armies in the Field, which at the same time established the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). This convention was prompted by concern over both the amount of suffering of soldiers and the neglect of their sick and wounded at Solferino in the Franco-Austrian War of 1859. This first Geneva Convention asserted the need for medical care for the wounded and the protection of all who cared for them. Subsequent ICRC conventions urged prohibitions against designated “particularly indiscriminate weapons,” and added concern for civilian casualties. The effort to find some way to make the assessment of proportionality was continued in the St. Petersburg Congress of 1868. It proposed a ban on explosive bullets weighing less than 400 grams because they “uselessly aggra24 vate the sufferings of disabled men, or render their death inevitable.” The congress asserted that the use of such weapons would be “contrary to the laws of humanity.” A congress at Brussels in 1874 reaffirmed the ban on explosive bullets and added a ban on the use of poisoned weapons, waging a war of no quarter, and killing soldiers who had laid down their arms in surrender. All of these seemed to violate the prohibitions of just war theories.25 The United States has never ratified either the St. Petersburg or Brussels proposals. Did democracy influence the decision? The current United Nations inspections of Iraqi sites suspected of being chemical/biological (C/B) weapons sites raises serious questions concerning the relation of the politics of a nation and its willingness to engage in such a heinous enterprise. Many reasonably assume that Iraq’s political values influence both such weapons development and their willingness to use them. After all, they used such against resident Kurds. But the Turks did the same to their resident Kurds. The Japanese were charged with such warfare against China. None of these was a democratic nation. How do we explain that France, Israel, and the United States all manufacture C/B weapons and threaten to use them?

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Even more troubling were the United States Senate hearings that revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense had carried out C/B experiments on unwitting American citizens for the past fifty years.26 The 1899 congress at The Hague issued a “Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War” (art. 23, par. e), which stated that “it is especially forbidden…to employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause super-fluous injury.”27 The 1907 Hague Congress urged a ban on all weapons that caused “unnecessary suffering.”28 This language seemed felicitous enough for the United States Army manual, The Rules of Land Warfare (1914) to quote the 1907 Convention in a section titled “The Conduct of Hostilities” and to preface the citation with the comment “the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”29 Unnecessary or superfluous injury or suffering seemed to function as criteria. But was their meaning obvious enough for them to serve the intended function? The ambiguity was compounded by the insertion of “The American Rule” as a limitation on the convention that commanders were expected to warn a city if they intended to bombard a place where women and children lived. This rule stated that this warning may be omitted if surprise was a military necessity.30 This hope that weapons might be measured as having unnecessary or superfluous consequences was illustrated in The Hague declarations, which forbade the use of poisonous gases, noxious chemicals, expanding bullets, and attacks on unfortified cities. The United States delegate did not sign these proposals. This was not surprising since all the official delegates from the United States were professional military persons, who by training and commitment do not vote from democratic concerns. Alfred T. Mahan, one of the United States delegates to the congress, cast the sole negative vote against any ban on chemical or biological weapons. In his report to the Senate he stated that while there was unanimous agreement that injury should not be in excess of what was militarily required, he did not believe that chemical or biological weapons caused excessive injuries.31 How are we to reconcile Mahan’s belief that such weapons were not excessive with the judgments of other delegates that they were excessive? If such a matter could be decided by a majority vote we would have lost. On what criteria did Mahan base his judgment? Perhaps Mahan needed to present us with a weapon he considered excessive in order for us to understand why he judged chemical and biological weapons not to cause unnecessary suffering, or superfluous injury. The same difficulty of assessing the meanings of either “superfluous” or “unnecessary” was illustrated in the vote against the ban on dum-dum bullets by Captain Crozier, another United States delegate to the same congress. He reported that while he agreed that bullets “that inflict wounds of useless cruelty,” should be banned, he did not consider that dum-dum bullets were use-

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lessly cruel. Did the terms “unnecessary” and “superfluous” have a sufficiently clear meaning for the delegates to understand the bases for their disagreement?32 Are all such efforts to identify excessive weapons merely subjective? Were the judgments of the delegates derived from or related to their political or religious commitments? The current United States Army manual, FM27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, which guides the American soldier on the meaning of “employment of arms causing unnecessary suffering,” follows the 1914 manual and explains that “the prohibition certainly does not extend to the use of explosives contained in artillery projectiles, mines, rockets, or hand grenades.” The list of unintended weapons also includes atomic weapons, incendiaries, or gas and chemicals used in reprisal.33 But with such a list of exceptions where is the concern with proportionality? The ICRC continued to attempt to establish a quantitative measure for qualitative terms like “superfluous,” “unnecessary” or “inhumane” as they applied to weapons or strategies. In 1925 the members of the ICRC issued a Protocol for the Prohibition of Poisonous Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. The major premise was that The use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world. The High Contracting Parties accept this prohibition, and agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.34 The United States Senate did not ratify the Protocol until 1976, and then with the reservation that we were only unconditionally forbidden the use of bacteriological weapons. With regard to chemical weapons, the Senate agreed not to be the first to use them and insisted, further, that they would decide which gases and chemicals were intended to be forbidden. Once an enemy had used these weapons, however, the United States reserved the right to use them in reprisal. This American reservation was used to justify the development of an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.35 The United States Army, Navy, and Air Force manual on the Employment of Chemical and Biological Agents listed 32 delivery systems for a variety of chemical munitions. The manual classified 21 as producing death. What happened to the concern with superfluous or unnecessary? Does this support the contention that democratic nations show more sensitivity? The ambiguity of all attempts to grade weapons in terms of their superfluity was highlighted when the British scientist, J. B. S. Haldane, wrote a pamphlet, Callinicus, to “prove” that gas and chemical weapons were more humane than any others in the military arsenal.36 In 1957, in New Delhi, the ICRC approved a set of twenty articles of “Draft Rules for the Limitation of the Dangers Incurred by the Civilian Population in Time of War.” These were submitted to the governments of the world for examination and approval. The Preamble stated that “all nations are deeply concerned that war should be banned as a means of settling disputes,” and that

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in view of the technical developments in weapons these rules should be instituted “by the requirements of humanity.” Article 1 stated that military operations should be confined to the destruction of military resources and “leave the civilian population outside the sphere of armed attacks.” Article 14, “Weapons with Uncontrollable Effects,” prohibited incendiary, chemical, bacteriological, radioactive, and delayed-action weapons that were liable to affect the civilian populations. Virtually no national responses were received from countries whatever their political persuasions might have been.37 The question of when the suffering caused by war becomes unnecessary and/or superfluous was raised again in 1973 by the ICRC, which issued a convention concerning “Weapons That May Cause Unnecessary Suffering or Have Indiscriminate Effects.” Their list of such weapons included incendiaries, chemicals, germ warfare, designated small caliber rifles, and nuclear bombs.38 All of these were standard weapons in most military arsenals, thus it was not surprising that the nations, quite apart from their political commitments, were unable to agree that any of them were bad enough to qualify as indiscriminate. The ICRC tried again 12 August 1977 when they issued two Protocols.39 Protocol I stated that “the methods or means of warfare are not unlimited” and that “it is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.” The list included land mines and booby traps. At the urging of Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, the United States Senate did not ratify this Protocol, partially on the grounds that it “unreasonably restricts attacks on civilian targets.”40 Reagan also complained that the protocol disallowed the right of reprisal with weapons of mass destruction. Of particular just war concern was the argument of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that to allow wars for national liberation gave the impression that the reasons for waging a war were germane to the “justice of the cause,” thus abolishing concern with a basic premise of jus ad bellum.41 The United Nations General Assembly has had no better success. On 10 April 1981 they adopted a “Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Weapons Which May Be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects.” Only twenty-nine states ratified it, and the United States was not included. Are we to conclude that national leaders know what superfluous and unnecessary mean, yet refuse to be bound by what they know? Do leaders claim that the terms are without meaning and, hence, they do not wish to appear to pretend otherwise? Part of the difficulty stems from the doctrine of military necessity that interpreted superfluous and unnecessary to apply only to military strategy rather than to express any moral judgment.42 The United States Army manual, FM27-10, took this view when it explained that what was militarily necessary could never be either superfluous or unnecessary. The manual interpreted that “what weapons cause ‘unnecessary injury’ can only be determined in light of the practice of States in refraining from the use of a given weapon because it is believed to have that effect.”43 The list of weapons not included as forbidden included: mines, rockets, grenades, fragmentation bombs, incendiaries, gas and chemicals, and nuclear

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bombs. The short list of forbidden weapons named lances with barbed heads, irregular shaped bullets, and projectiles filled with glass. Are we to imagine that these were forbidden because they caused greater injuries than the weapons in the standard arsenal? Or was it rather that they were simply inefficient for war purposes? Shouldn’t we expect that democratic countries would have a longer list of forbidden weapons than non-democratic ones? At the International Meeting on Mine Clearance 5–7 July 1995, Boutros Boutros Ghali, then United Nations Secretary-General, declared that mine clearance was an absolute necessity and he called for the elimination of the manufacture, sale, or use of them. He declared that they were the most widespread and pernicious of all forms of unexploded weapons. Long after the war for which they were laid was over, these mines were lethal to farmers trying to till their fields and to children at play.44 These were pernicious weapons because they caused suffering and injury to the innocent long after the wars for which they were laid were over. Landmines are not the only weapons that remain lethal to civilians after a war is over. Explosives, like the United States’ made CBU-87 have bomblets designed to look like green baseballs, butterflies, or orange striped soda pop cans especially attractive to children, and they remain like landmines scattered indiscriminately where civilians inevitably live. General Shalikashvili argued that landmines were needed for the protection of American troops in the Korean conflict, in spite of the Defense Department report that one-third of the United States troop casualties were from stepping on one of their own mines. The arguments of the military in defense of the continued use of these mines made no mention of the hazards they posed to civilians, lending credence to the conclusion that no limit existed to the potential collateral damage to civilians that would be acceptable. Do we conclude that democratic principles do not oppose such civilian casualties? The military emphasized that these weapons protected the American troops, and that seemed a sufficient justification. At the time this discussion about the just use of landmines was being conducted the United States Senate announced the development of a new “blinding laser” weapon.45 It authorized the addition of a new atomic bomb, the 12 foot B61-11, which drilled deep into the earth before exploding. The Senate also authorized a sale of CBU-87 cluster bombs to Turkey.46 Were none of these new weapons excessive? Did democratic theory have no moral judgment on the recipients to whom such should be sold? Do we still accept the dictum of Augustine that even if a war had a just cause, a nation might still be judged for having waged it indiscriminately, hence unjustly?47 Let us consider these questions in the light of how the American democratic leaders handled the issues raised by jus ad bellum in the context of the Gulf War. On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and the same day the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 660 demanding that Iraq move its troops to where they were the day before and begin immediate negotiations. Offers to assist in the negotiations came from the Arab League, France, and Russia.48

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Yet on 7 August 1990, George H.W. Bush, then President of the United States, authorized sending up to 150,000 American troops in violation of Resolution 660, which demanded negotiation. Furthermore, Bush insisted, and continued to insist, that the United States opposed any negotiations. This was also in violation of Resolution 660. The five days between 2 August and 7 August could not qualify as sufficient time to demonstrate that war was a last resort. On 12 August 1990, Iraq accepted the conditions of Resolution 660 and was thus ready to negotiate. To emphasize his intentions to negotiate, Javier Perez de Cuellar, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, on 13 August 1990, disassociated himself from any use of force by the United Nations or its member states to resolve the problem. Standing offers to negotiate existed until 15 January 1991, when the air war began, but Bush opposed any negotiations. Is this what democratic countries are expected to do? Or was this a decision based on pressure from Exxon, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan Bank? On 19 November 1990, a United States version of Resolution 678 to authorize all necessary force on 15 January 1991, if Iraq had not complied, faced a threatened veto from China.49 The words “all necessary means” were substituted for “all necessary force” and the resolution passed with Cuba and Yemen voting nay and China abstaining. Did all necessary means include all necessary force? If it did, then why did China abstain rather than exercise the veto? If force was part of the means then why was it necessary to rewrite the original resolution? Quite apart from this ambiguity, the failure of the United States to permit negotiations meant that the Gulf War was not entered as a last resort. If the war was not justly entered, then it should follow that all the suffering caused was unnecessary and all the injuries were superfluous. The reasons the United States leaders offered to justify the war raised serious doubts whether they qualified as adequate to satisfy the jus ad bellum requirements. In his address on 3 September 1990, “Against Aggression in the Persian Gulf,” Bush stated, “Our jobs, our way of life, our own freedom would all suffer if control of the world’s greatest oil reserves fall into the hands of Saddam Hussein.”50 This was reiterated by James Baker, then Secretary of State, and Toni G. Verstandig, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs.51 When Bush gave the war the additional aims of removing Hussein from power and later the aim to make it impossible for Hussein to possess weapons of mass destruction, these new reasons for waging the war needed to be shown to be worthy. The United States State Department assumed that since Hussein would surely use such weapons if he possessed them, this constituted an obvious warrant for a preemptive strike. Did the State Department imagine that the several dozen nations that already possessed or were in the process of possessing these same weapons of mass destruction (which included nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons) had no intention of using them? Why did the State Department not also feel justified in sending bombs preemptively to these other nations as well?

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Let us look at the United States’ waging of the Gulf War in terms of whether it satisfied the criteria of jus in bello. How did we rate in terms of whether we chose weapons or strategies that would minimize superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering? The air war that began 15 January 1991, concentrated on Iraqi cities, meaning it was a war deliberately targeted against civilians. Michael J. Dugan, former United States Air Force Chief of Staff, confirmed that this was the Pentagon plan from the start.52 This was in violation of both Geneva and United Nations declarations, which forbade deliberate attacks on civilian centers. The claim that “smart” bombs were used so that civilians would be spared failed to add that only 4.5 percent (9,342) of the aerial bombs were “smart,” and that they missed their targets 30 percent of the time.53 The rest of the bombs 95.5 percent (210,000) were of the “dumb” variety and they missed their intended targets 70 percent of the time. Weapons banned by both the ICRC and the United Nations General Assembly, fragmentation bombs, cluster bombs, bombs with depleted uranium, incendiaries, and landmines, were all used. Did the failure of the democratic United States to ratify any of these prohibitions mean that the prohibitions were a moral mistake? The ground war was conducted after Iraq had accepted Resolution 678 to withdraw its troops. Does it not follow that the slaughter on the “highway of death” was on surrendered or surrendering troops in violation of the rules of war? Finally, the embargo for the next seven years, as reported by UNICEF, has resulted in the deaths by malnutrition and disease of up to 1 million Iraqi civilians (500,000 of them children). Was this war waged by democratic America conducted with more concern for avoiding superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering?54 Democratic theorists are not alone in having difficulty supporting any claim that they make better efforts to comply with just war limits. Just war theologians have not done any better. In 1950, a commission of the Federal Council of Churches denied that nuclear weapons were forbidden by any Christian concern.55 Paul Tillich claimed that a limited nuclear response could have a Christian defense.56 The Roman Catholic ethicist John Courtney Murray justified a “Christian” use of nuclear weapons.57 Richard J. Krickus asserted that chemical bombs were moral, while biological ones were not.58 Pope Pius XII declared anathema against both chemical and biological weapons but was unclear about nuclear weapons.59 Aerial warfare has been particularly inconsistent with the just war requirement that civilians ought not to be the deliberate targets. During the Second World War the English writer, Vera Brittain, criticized both England and America for the deliberate bombing of civilians.60 She claimed that such bombing was inconsistent with the just war notion of proportionality. The Protestant journal, The Christian Century, editorialized that such bombing was not disproportional. The Saturday Evening Post insisted that it was a sign of mental “instability” for Brittain to question the bombing. However Jacques Maritain agreed with Brittain and affirmed that bombing from the air was absolutely proscribed.61 On the other hand, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian martyred by the Nazis, asserted that on ethical grounds, the killing

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of civilians in war was perfectly permissible.62 But how many civilian casualties does a just war justify? When does slaughter become superfluous? In the First World War, an estimated 38 million died, of whom about five percent (1.9 million) were civilians. The military establishment did not consider this collateral damage to be excessive. In the Second World War, 60 million were estimated to have been killed, of whom forty-five percent (27 million) were civilians. This was still considered to be militarily acceptable collateral damage. In the Korean War, up to 3 million died, of whom eightyfour percent (2.5 million) were civilians. This number was not considered excessive or superfluous. In the Vietnam War, another 2–3 million died, of whom ninety percent (1.9 to 2.7 million) were probably civilians.63 In all of this escalation, warriors never admitted that they had reached or surpassed the limits of superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. Aerial warfare commits soldiers to indiscriminate killing on a scale not imaginable to the traditional just war theorists. Debates continue over whether the numbers slain in bombings of Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, or London, let alone Hiroshima or Nagasaki were excessive, and whether the collateral damage to civilians was superfluous. Neither “superfluous” nor “unnecessary” seem to be meaningful terms. Are we philosophers fiddling while Rome burns when we engage in such just war calculations over when suffering becomes unnecessary or injury becomes superfluous? We may use just war criteria to hold war-makers responsible, especially in respect to their claim that their waging of wars does not exceed the demands of decency. Indeed, as long as warriors use just war language to justify their actions, we may use the same theory to hoist them on their own petard. But when all is said and done, wars have become more, not less, indiscriminate. Neither the political nor the religious beliefs seem to have brought about the least reduction in the arsenals, in the manufacture and sale of these indiscriminate weapons, or in the ease with which a nation goes to war long before a case can be made that to do so is a last resort. Perhaps the inevitable consequence of giving the authority to declare war to the state that takes its advice from its military leaders was to give to these same military leaders, the decisions with regard to proportionality of means. But to whom could we give this task? Francis Lieber, the author of the first United States military manual in 64 1863, insisted that soldiers must function as moral persons. The difficulty then and now was that military necessity preempted moral concerns. No moral compunction that threatened military victory would ever be allowed, and the right of reprisal by whatever means and the obligation of soldiers to obey superior orders of whatever kind would always take precedence over moral concerns. Vitoria’s hope that a wise general would always, or even occasionally, surrender rather than employ excessive measures has never been a functioning part of the practices of nation-states. The doctrine of military necessity has never included moral elements, and any so-called moral right of reprisal is oxymoronic. The enterprise of judging wars with passing or failing grades based on their proportionality remains with little moral merit. Modern weapons of war are designed to be both indiscriminate and excessive, and the

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strategies that employ these weapons, especially in aerial warfare, obligate soldiers to be indifferent as to whom and how many they slay. NOTES 1. The Defense Monitor, vol. 18, no. 2. 1989. 2. Ibid, vol. 19, no. 4, 1990. 3. U.S. Arms Trade and Nonproliferation in the Middle East, Senate Hearing, 102nd Congress, 2nd Session, 13 March 1992. 4. Lewis F. Richardson, Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1960). 5. Hoffman Nickerson, Can We Limit War? (New York: Frederick A. Stocks, 1934), p. 112. 6. Gaston Bodart, Losses of Life in Modern Wars (London: Humphrey Milford, 1916), p. 156. 7. Frederick Adams and Alexander Baltzly, Is War Diminishing? (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), p. 94. 8. Robert E. Harkavy and Stephanie G. Newman, The Lessons of Recent Wars in the Third World (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath & Co.), vol. 1, 1985. 9. St. Augustine, City of God, (New York: Hafner, 1948), bk. 1, par. 7. 10. W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals (New York: G. Braziller, 1955), vol. 2, p. 254. 11. Oliver Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal, A Sourcebook for Medieval History (New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 1907), p. 412. 12. Ibid., p. 403. 13. Leon Gautier, Chivalry (New York: Routledge and Sons, 1891), p. 9. 14. Franciscus de Vitoria, On the Indians (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Foundation, 1917), sec. III, par. 15–18. 15. Ibid., para. 37. 16. Ibid., para. 451. 17. Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace (Birmingham, Ala.: Legal Classics Library, 1984), bk. III, ch. 4, sec. 9. 18. Ibid., sect. 12 and 14. 19. Samuel Pufendorf, The Law of Nature and of Nations (De jure naturae et gentium libri octo) (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1934), bk. 8, chap. 6, sec. 884. 20. Christian Wolff, The Law of Nations (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1934), para. 797; and Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, or the Principles o f Natural Law (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Foundation, 1916), chap. 8, par. 145. 21. Ibid. 22. John Dickerson, trans., The Statesman’s Book of John of Salisbury (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), p. 201. 23. Augustine, Questions Concerning the Heptateuch, Question 1, cited i n The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part II, Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne Ltd., no date), Question XL, Third Article, p. 507. 24. Cf. Leon Friedman, The Law of War: A Documentary History (New York: Random House, Inc., 1972), p. 192. 25. Ibid., p. 196.

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26. Human Drug Testing by the CIA, Senate Hearing, September 1977; Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects by the DOD, Senate Hearing, March and May 1977; Department of Defense Safety Programs for Chemical and Biological Warfare Research, Senate Hearings, 27–28 July 1988; Government Sponsored Testing on Humans, Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, HR, 103rd Congress, 2nd Session, 3 February 1994. 27. Friedman, ibid., p. 229. 28. Ibid., p. 318. 29. Rules of Land Warfare (Washington, D.C.: 1914), ch. 6, sec. 1, par. 184. 30. Ibid., par. 217. 31. Charles E. Heller, Leavenworth Papers: Chemical Warfare in World War I: The American Experience (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1984), p. 3. 32. James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Congresses of 1899 and 1907 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1909), vol. 2, p. 37. 33. FM274–10, The Law of Land Warfare (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), arts. 34–38. 34. Philip John Noel-Baker, The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (London: P.S. King and Sons, 1925). 35. Military Biology and Biological Warfare Agents (Departments of the Army and the Air Force, 11 January 1956); U.S. Chemical Warfare Policy, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1, 2, 7, 9, and 14 May 1974; Chemical Warfare, Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, 4 September 1980; Binary Weapons: Implications of the U.S. Chemical Stockpile Modernization Program for Chemical Weapons Proliferation, Report for the Committee o n Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 24 April 1984; Biological Warfare Testing, Hearing before the Committee on Armed Forces, House of Representatives, 3 May 1988. 36. J. B. S. Haldane, Callinicus: A Defense of Chemical Warfare (New York: Garland Press, 1972). 37. Donald A. Wells, An Encyclopedia of War and Ethics (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996), p. 146. 38. “The Swiss Draft Protocol on Small Calibre Weapon Systems,” International Review of the Red Cross, no. 307 (31 August 1995), pp. 411–425. 39. “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict (Protocol 1),” The American Journal of International Law, 72 (1978). 40. Abraham D. Sofaer, “Agora: The U.S. Decision Not to Ratify Protocol I t o the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of War Victims,” The American Journal of International Law, 82 (1988), pp. 574f. 41. Ibid. 42. The American Journal of International Law, vol. 74, (1980), p. 213. 43. The Law of Land Warfare, ch. 2, sec. 3, art. 34b. 44. UN Chronicle (December 1995), p. 28. 45. Human Rights Watch, Blinding Laser Weapons (September 1995), p. 5. 46. Human Rights Watch, U.S. Cluster Bombs to Turkey (December 1994). 47. St. Augustine, The City of God, bk. 1, par. 7. 48. Dispatch (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department) 14 January 1991. 49. Dispatch (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department) 21 January 1991.

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50. Dispatch (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department) 3 September 1990, p. 54. 51. Dispatch (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department) 10 September 1990, p. 64; and Dispatch (Washington, D.C.: U.S. State Department) 4 April 1994. 52. Washington Post, 6 September 1990. 53. Operation Desert Storm: Data Does Not Exist to Conclusively Say How Well Patriot Performed (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992); and Cynthia Peters, ed., Collateral Damage: The New World Order at Home and Abroad (Boston: South End Press, 1992), pp. 222–227. 54. Ramsey Clark, Challenge to Genocide: Let Iraq Live (New York: International Actions, 1998), pp. 233–238. 55. The Christian Century, 13 December 1950, pp. 1489–91. 56. Paul Tillich, “The Nuclear Dilemma: A Discussion,” The Christian Century (November 1961), p. 204. 57. John Courtney Murray, “Theology in Modern War,” in William J. Nagle, ed., Morality in Modern Warfare (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960), p. 75. 58. Richard J. Krickus, “On the Morality of Chemical/Biological War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution (June 1965), pp. 200–210. 59. C’est une vive satisfaction, radio talk, 14 September 1949. 60. Vera Brittain, “Massacre by Bombing,” Fellowship, 1943. 61. Jacques Maritain, “War and the Bombardment of Cities,” Commonweal (2 September 1938). 62. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1955), p. 116. 63. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (April, 1964). 64. Francis Lieber, General Orders 100: Instructions for the Government o f Armies in the field (United States Military Manual, 1863), sec. 1, par. 15.

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Twelve EXCLUSION OF SOLDIERS FROM WAR-MAKING DECISIONS Brian Luke The United States government has traditionally exempted from compulsory military service a person defined as a conscientious objector (CO). The criterion of eligibility for this classification has gradually broadened during the twentieth century, through a series of judicial decisions and legislative acts. The CO exemptions were initially allowed only for members of the traditional pacifist churches: Quakers, Brethren, and Mennonites. They were later extended to any prospective soldier who, for religious reasons, conscientiously opposed participating in any war. Finally the exemptions were effectively allowed for all conscientious pacifists, that is, those who for deeply held moral reasons oppose participating in any war. Thus the pattern is a successive elimination of requirements for the exemptions. The American wars in Indochina stimulated a great deal of argument supporting a further broadening of the CO classifications. Many advocated dropping the pacifist requirement so that a person who conscientiously oppose participating in some, but not all, wars, would receive an exemption. Such a conscientious objection would be classified as a selective conscientious objector (SCO). This suggestion has not been adopted by the United States military; it is still the case that in order to get a service exemption a soldier must demonstrate a morally based opposition to participating in any war. The arguments supporting the claims of SCOs were initially applied to a system of conscription, but they can also be applied to today’s system of voluntary enlistment. Although no United States soldier today is compelled to enlist, in order to do so soldiers must sign on for a specified number of years during which time they are obliged to fight in all wars so ordered by their superiors. In this sense, soldiering today is a form of indentured service. During the buildup to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, numerous soldiers refused orders to ship out to the gulf. For some of these their refusal was morally based, stemming from the belief that the impending war was unjust. These soldiers were treated as deserters, not as conscientious objectors warranting service exemptions. Many of those who refused to fight were punished with dishonorable discharge and imprisonment. The Persian Gulf War and the Vietnam War raised the question of how soldiers who object to a particular war should be treated. Should they be compelled to fight? The Persian Gulf War has not engendered a literature nearly as extensive as that from the period of the Vietnam War, but there are a few re-

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cent writings on this question.1 The recent writers, like those of the earlier period, all frame the issue in terms of the conscientious objection system. The question about the treatment of dissenting soldiers has been translated into the question of whether CO exemptions should be extended to selective conscientious objectors. This translation, though universal, is not necessary. Soldiers’ refusals to fight raise issues about the democratic process as well as about dilemmas of conscience. Beyond asking whether the state should exempt individuals with troubled consciences from serving in particular wars, we might ask whether soldiers should be able to directly influence war-making by deciding for themselves whether or not to fight in a prospective or ongoing war. My contention is that framing soldiers’ refusals to fight in terms of conscientious objection actually hinders us from addressing the issue of democratic process. This is because, as I show in this chapter, the system for granting draft exemptions to COs is anti-democratic in its structure and intent. It is designed to insulate war-making decisions from the dispositions of the soldiery. It presumes that the decision to wage war should be made by leaders independently of the inclination of the soldiers to fight that particular war. The CO system reinforces the notion that the military has a right to force people to fight by putting the burden on the objectors to prove that they should be granted an exemption from conscription or from their contracts of military service. The CO system would retain its antidemocratic nature even if it were amended to allow exemptions for SCOs in the ways suggested by advocates of reform. As this chapter points out, the denial of the possibility of a broadly democratic decision process regarding the waging of war has always been assumed in debates over conscientious objection to military service. Those who propose extending exemptions to SCOs, equally with those who defend the present system, countenance only structures that limit the influence of the soldiery over war-making decisions. 1. Subjection of the Conscientious Objector The structure of the system for granting CO exemptions has insulated decisions to wage war from possible influence by the soldiery in several ways. First, by narrowly restricting the class of those eligible for exemptions, the number of those actually exempted can be kept low enough to assure the military a sufficient supply of fighting power regardless of the inclinations of the general population. The CO exemptions were initially granted to members of peace churches. As Michael Walzer points out, these churches were clearly identified and had relatively small memberships that were not growing dra2 matically, so the number of exemptions was small and predictable. Though the criterion for exemptions has been considerably broadened, it is still restricted to conscientious pacifists, thus the number of actual exemptions remains small enough that a possible dearth of fighting power need not be a factor in the leaders’ decision process. This maintenance of a large and stable pool of potential fighters, even while granting some CO exemptions, was furthered in the past by requiring the individual CO to provide a substi-

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tute fighter or the monetary equivalent. More recently, a similar effect results from classifying some COs as available for non-combatant military service: since any war effort requires large numbers of non-combatant military personnel, enlisting some COs as support personnel frees up other recruits for fighting. Apart from affecting the actual number of inductees, another way the CO exemption could influence war policy would be if the process were seen as a forum for public discussion and evaluation of war-making in general or of a particular incipient or ongoing war. As Michael Seng notes: By speaking up against war in general and specific wars, conscientious objectors caution us against blindly following our leaders into military confrontations. They also remind us that there may be alternatives to war and military action.3 Since CO claimants are required to present their case to a board, and those cases often include religiously or morally based criticisms of war-making or of the particular war, the processing of CO claims could become a forum for public discussion and evaluation. But legislators, judges, and theorists have consistently structured the process in a way that has precluded this possibility. For example, boards are instructed not to concern themselves with the truth or falsity of the claimant’s beliefs, but only with the claimant’s sincerity. This alone precludes the possibility of the exemption process becoming a public dialogue over war policy. As Alan Gewirth explains: [The objector] makes a claim which purports to be based on the objective merits of the case, and not only on the depth, sincerity, or intensity of his convictions . . . . [H]e is told that . . . the government has no concern with his reason or with participating in this dialogue. In this perspective, the government’s exempting the objector from military service is, in an important sense, not an act of respect for him or for his convictions, since it ignores the chief basis for which he here claims to deserve respect, namely, the specific reasoned content of his convictions.4 The objector’s views are patronized, not respectfully engaged. Legal and theoretical interpretations of conscientious objection have consistently emphasized the subjective nature of claimants’ predicaments at the exclusion of the critical content of their objections, thus supporting the government’s refusal to engage objectors in a rational dialogue. The situation of objectors is interpreted in this way: they are caught between the pressing demands of two valid authorities, their government and their church (later, their government and their conscience). What objectors need, according to this interpretation, is to be relieved of the psychological burden of these conflicting demands. Claimants have no right to be relieved of their obligations to the government, but the government will grant exemptions so long as this does

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not interfere with military needs. There is no sense that some dialogue should be initiated to determine who is correct when an objector’s church or conscience is presenting a view of war directly contradictory to the government’s. The initial CO exemptions granted to religious pacifists were a pragmatic deferral to the partial authority of the peace churches over their members. Those CO exemptions were analogous to the exemptions from conscription traditionally given to resident aliens––both groups were seen as having obligations to authorities other than the United States government. The two groups were seen quite differently in another respect. Whereas the foreign citizenship of the resident aliens might bring them into conflict with the interests of the United States, religious pacifists were perceived as patriots who supported United States foreign and domestic policy but who could not always directly administer it because of their peculiar church-based scruples.5 There have been conscientious objectors who sought relief from conflicting authoritative demands, or who were less concerned with objectively criticizing war itself than with maintaining their personal purity. The entire CO system has been structured to accommodate them, and not the many other objectors who would say not so much that they personally could not fight this war, but that the war should not be fought. Even as the criterion for conscientious exemption broadened from church membership to conscientiousness, a definition of conscience was applied that allowed the retention of a purely subjective interpretation of the objector’s situation. As Jerome Segal explains, “the choice facing the [claimant] is construed as a choice of masters. Either to God or Caesar, State or Conscience, man must be obedient.”6 The conscientious objector is not seen simply as someone who believes a war is unjust, or someone who autonomously chooses not to fight in a war, but rather as someone caught between two external authorities simultaneously issuing conflicting commands. On the one hand there is the authority of the state: in 1931 George Sutherland, writing for the Supreme Court, stated the view, commonly held before and since, that the question of military service belongs “to the wisdom of Congress,” and Congress is “where every nativeborn or admitted citizen is obliged to leave it.”7 This is one external authority. But as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals understood it in 1944, the Congress allows CO exemptions “as an acknowledgment of the right of an individual to believe that a supernatural power, superior to the civil state, might decree that an individual refuse military service.”8 This is the conflicting authority. Though in the theistic CO’s case, God and the State are at odds in their decrees, the two are seen as structurally similar in that both are understood to be external authorities pressing demands upon the individual. In relation to both authorities the individual is seen as a subject, not as a citizen. This construal of the structure of conscientious objection was maintained even when the criterion for exemption was broadened to allow non-theistic claims. Claims of conscience replaced God and the peace churches as the external authority making demands contrary to those of the state.

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In 1967 the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service described the CO as “responding to a moral imperative outside of himself.”9 This slide from God or church to one’s conscience as external authority was accomplished by the Seeger case. The Federal Circuit Court concluded that: When Daniel Andrew Seeger insists that he is obeying the dictates of his conscience . . . it would seem impossible to say with assurance that he is not bowing to “external commands” in virtually the same sense as is the objector who defers to the will of a supernatural power.10 In its 1965 Seeger decision, the Supreme Court stated that the type of belief qualifying a claimant for exemption is that which “occupies in the life of the possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption.”11 The Supreme Court later clarified the meaning of “parallel”; qualify for exemption the claimant’s beliefs must be held “with the strength of traditional religious convictions,” they must “impose upon him a duty of conscience” and give him “no rest or peace” should he participate in the war.12 The courts and likeminded theorists have understood conscience as an external authority with the power to impose sanctions on the individual, just like the state. James Childress writes that the question regarding conscientious exemption is, “When should (or may) we force a person to choose between the severe personal sanction of conscience and some legal sanction?”13 This kind of interpretation depoliticizes conscientious objectors: they are not autonomous individuals––citizens––participating in the determination of foreign policy by articulating a critique of the state’s war making, but rather subjects unfortunately caught between two authorities, subjects whom the state may graciously exempt from service in order to preempt the sanctions of their other governors. According to this framework, the demands of conscience at times may be so insistent that the objector becomes incapable of fighting. Seeing conscience as a “subjective dictator,” changes the objector from an agent exercising moral reasoning and decision making into a passive subject reacting to various external demands.14 Refusal to kill, with all its critical overtones, is transformed into the much more neutral inability to kill. By seeing those who will not kill this way––as helplessly enthralled to a power outside their control––one can attribute to them any set of attitudes, including patriotism. In 1946, William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice, wrote for the Court, “Those whose religious scruples prevent them from killing are no less patriots than those whose special traits or handicaps result in their assignment to duties far behind the fighting front.”15 Under this interpretation the existence of people who will not fight in a war is no more relevant to critically evaluating war policy than the existence of people with myopia or flat feet.

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By interpreting objectors as those whose “scruples prevent them from killing,” the government “exempts conscientious objectors for reasons that do not necessarily call into question the morality of its own action in waging war.”16 It is much easier to apply this politically neutralized construction of conscientious objection to those who reject all wars than to those who only refuse to participate in certain wars. Clearly those who only reject certain wars are choosing not to fight, they are not necessarily incapable of fighting. In 1971, the Supreme Court upheld the rejection of Guy Gillette’s CO claim “because [his] objection ran to a particular war,” reasoning in part that “opposition to a particular war may more likely be political and nonconscientious than otherwise.”17 Many theorists have challenged this argument by showing that objections to a particular war, whether political or not, can perfectly well be based on one’s conscience.18 If “conscientious” is understood simply to mean morally or ethically based, then of course one can have conscientious objections to a particular war. But this is not the sense of “conscientious” that the courts have in mind. They have a history of developing that very particular notion of conscience that depoliticizes the objector, the notion of conscience as a subjective dictator that renders one incapable of any warrelated killing. Clearly someone who says that he will not fight the Vietnamese but might very well fight in other wars does not have that sort of conscience. Clear reasons exist for defining conscience in this very restricted way. Selective objection threatens the state’s war making in a way that pacifism does not. Analysts have noted a long-standing governmental concern that allowing exemptions to selective objectors might deplete the number of available soldiers so significantly as to hinder war making. John Rohr maintains that the real issue behind the government’s rejection of SCO claims is this practical concern: Under the present system the government knows how many CO’s it has before a war begins; under SCO it would not know how many objectors there would be until the guns had sounded. This ignorance could inhibit certain foreign policy decisions.19 John Courtney Murray, who served on the President’s Advisory Commission on Selective Service, recounted that a primary reason for the Commission recommending against exemptions for SCOs was “the fear that if the right to selective objection is acknowledged . . . it might possibly lead to anarchy, to the breakdown of society, and to the paralysis of public policy.”20 If exemptions allowed are too broad, the leaders may call a war for which no one shows up––this would count as a paralysis of public policy and a breakdown of society by those who reject fully democratic decision making processes with respect to war.

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It is not just that exempting SCOs could significantly decrease the number of available soldiers, but also that the selective objector voices a different kind of criticism than does the pacifist. Because pacifists reject all war, they are critical of all governments. Selective objectors claim only that this particular war is unjust, thus their criticism is directed toward their own government.21 For the selective objector the possibility of supporting the other side during a war exists in a way it could not for a pacifist. Ralph Potter expresses the point most strongly: [The pacifist] norm, in condemning all, ruffles none. The pacifist may be allowed to dwell on the outskirts of the system as a curious but generally admirable crank . . . . [The selective objector’s] very existence is an accusation aimed directly at the heart of the political organism. He is, in relation to incumbent powers, essentially subversive.22 The rejection of SCO claims is motivated by the desire to keep decision making about war policy in the hands of the leaders. The antidemocratic intent behind allowing exemptions only to pacifists is expressed particularly clearly in the Federal Court of Appeals’ denial of CO status in United States v Jones: considered the registrant’s “beliefs inconsistent and incompatible with a genuine and sincere opposition to participation in war in any form . . . he merely arrogates unto himself the right to decide when and for what purpose he will fight.”23 Subjects have no right to decide for themselves when and for what purpose they will fight. 3. Advocating Exemptions for Selective Objectors The potential for selective objection to subvert centralized power is acknowledged by those on both sides of the dispute over SCO exemptions. For this reason some would reject exemptions for SCOs altogether. Those who advocate extending exemptions to SCOs would do so in such a way as to minimize the possibility that this reform would undercut the military’s capacity to wage war irrespective of the inclinations of the soldiery. Thus both sides of the SCO debate share the presumption that war-making decisions should be made by a centralized and insulated leadership. During the Vietnam War, those who advocated SCO exemptions were careful to suggest circumscribed reforms that would maintain large pools of available fighters and would continue centralized decision making. Quentin Quade, for example, argued that before we begin granting exemptions to SCOs, we should use public opinion surveys to determine “whether selective objection would have a seriously debilitating impact on the services, and whether it would impair the capacity of the services to perform their functions.”24 This way we could be sure that granting SCO exemptions would not hinder any plans to wage war. Murray argued that conscientious objection should not be used for political opposition to a particular war or to a general course of American foreign policy. He stated that selective conscientious ob-

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jection can only be exercised responsibly by those with “respect for what Socrates called ‘the conscience of the laws.’”25 The many draftees who believed the United States was acting without conscience in the Vietnam War would have had no right to refuse to fight under Murray’s suggested policy. Paul Ramsey stated the conditions commonly articulated by reformists of the time, arguing that SCO exemptions should be claimed only by those “accepting a burden of proof favoring the authority of the commitment of the nation,” and that exemptions should not be granted “if to grant the exemption would frustrate the disposition of the energies and will of the nation one way rather than another,” particularly “its legitimate determination to use military force.”26 Here the phrase “will of the nation” is used as shorthand for “Congressional declarations,” thus eliding the difference between decisions made by a central authority and decisions made by the people themselves. However, if granting SCO exemptions would prevent a particular incipient war, it is not clear that waging that war would express the will of the nation. How to respond to soldiers who object to a particular war is still an issue for today’s all-volunteer forces. Recent reformists who argue for allowing exemptions for volunteers with objections to a particular war propose the familiar twin conditions that the reform perpetuate centralized decision making and maintain a large pool of fighters at the leaders’ disposal. For example, Theodore Koontz argues for SCO exemptions but assures his readers that permitting SCO exemptions “does not allow those being called to fight to decide the policy question for the nation.”27 Koontz would allow service exemptions only to those soldiers whose objections are conscientiously based, because such a system “would be better able to provide necessary manpower than a system which would not impose any test of conscientiousness.”28 Jeffrey Whitman of West Point recently advocated allowing SCO exemptions to soldiers, but only under the restrictive condition that the claimant would have the burden to prove that his or her objection is fully informed and conscientious (not self-interested) and that the exemption will not endanger the life of the nation. Since this would be very difficult to prove and most members of the armed services would be reluctant to try, the soldier as conscientious objector will be an extremely rare individual.29 Whitman’s intent is to limit the policy impact of soldiers’ perspectives by restricting the number of exemptions. G. Albert Ruesga comes closest to countenancing a system that allows military decision making to be influenced by a soldiery free to defer from fighting particular wars. In discussing a policy under which draft boards would honor all claims for service exemptions, Ruesga states: The implementation of this proposal would have a number of welcome effects. For example, in order to guarantee an adequate number of troops for a given campaign, the Government would be required to make a stronger case for military deployment than it does at present. And this, I assume, would be a boon to any democracy worthy of the name.30

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Ruesga observes that if every soldier who asked for a service exemption automatically received it, (thus making soldiering comparable to other forms of labor wherein workers can quit at will), the government could not unilaterally decide to go to war. Soldiers would decide for themselves whether to fight because the government could not force them to do so. This would be an extension of democracy because it would broaden the class of those directly involved in deciding the policy issue of when to use military force. Moreover, if there were no restrictions on service exemptions, soldiers would naturally make their decisions based not only on reasons of religion and morality, but also on political, prudential, and self-interested grounds. Participants in this decision making would thus proceed in the way that citizens make up their minds about other policy questions in democratic society––by bringing to bear any consideration they deem relevant. Ruesga sees the potential boon to democracy here, but refrains from advocating unrestricted service exemptions. He suggests recognizing a strong right not to kill that can be overridden only under very stringent and uncommonly met conditions. Ruesga is moving in the direction of fuller democratic rights for soldiers because his suggestion would shift the burden of proof from the objector to the government. Currently, for soldiers to receive service exemptions, they must demonstrate their conscientiously based pacifism; but under Ruesga’s system for the government to justify denying an SCO claim it would have to prove that the war at issue is just, winnable, and requires the services of the SCOs. Even if such conditions could rarely if ever be met in practice, Ruesga’s proposal does not amount to an unrestricted right to service exemptions for soldiers. Ruesga is still framing the issue in terms of conscience and thereby only considering soldiers whose objections are morally or reli-giously based. How to respond to soldiers who would avoid service in a war on purely political or prudential grounds is not part of the discussion, the unstated implication being that they would still be forced to fight. Ruesga’s proposal thus would continue to insulate war-making decisions from the dispositions of soldiers. This is a consequence of his decision to follow the general tendency to frame soldiers’ refusal to fight purely as an issue of whether and how the state should act to ease the burden of those with troubled consciences. How best to respond to soldiers with dilemmas of conscience is an appropriate issue for public concern, but the CO system has been developed not just to assist individual soldiers, but also to exclude dissent and limit the influence of soldiers on war-making decisions. It is systematically designed to curtail democracy. If our response to soldiers refusing to fight is solely to debate the boundaries of the CO exemption, then we lose crucial opportunities to discuss the basic question of who should have the power decide to go to war. How decisions to wage war should be made, and in particular whether it is justifiable to exclude the fighters themselves from direct participation in these decisions, is a vital issue of democratic process. It should be addressed on its own terms and not be preempted by an overly general application of the norms and presumptions of the conscientious objection system.

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1. See Jeffrey Whitman, “The Soldier as Conscientious Objector,” Public Affairs Quarterly, 9 (January 1995), pp. 87-100; G. Albert Ruesga, “Selective Conscientious Objection and the Right Not to Kill,” Social Theory and Practice, 2 1 (Spring 1995), pp. 61-81; Michael Seng, “The Need for a Reevaluation of the Treatment of Conscientious Objection Under the Laws of the United States,” From the Eye of the Storm, eds. Laurence Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B. V., 1995), pp. 71–83. 2. Michael Walzer, Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War, and Citizenship (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1970), p. 127. 3. Seng, “The Need for a Reevaluation,” p. 80. 4. Alan Gewirth, “Reasons and Conscience: The Claims of the Selective Conscientious Objector,” Philosophy, Morality, and International Affairs, eds. Virginia Held, Sidney Morgenbesser, and Thomas Nagel (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, l974), pp. 112–113. 5. See John Rohr, Prophets Without Honor: Public Policy and the Selective Conscientious Objector (New York: Abingdon Press, 1971), pp. 21–22. 6. Jerome Segal, “Conscientious Objection and Moral Agency,” A Conflict of Loyalties: The Case for Selective Conscientious Objection, ed. James Finn (New York: Pegasus, 1968), p. 269. 7. United States v. Bland, 283 U.S. 636 (1931). 8. Reel v. Badt,141 F. 2d. 847 (C.A. 2d. Cir. 1944). 9. National Advisory Commission on Selective Service, In Pursuit of Equity: Who Serves When Not All Serve? (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1967), p. 50. 10. Seeger v United States, 326 F. 2d 846 (2d Cir. 1963). 11. United States v Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965). 12. Welsh v United States 398 U.S. 333 (1970). 13. James Childress, Moral Responsibility in Conflicts: Essays on Nonviolence, War, and Conscience (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), p. 184. 14. Eileen Flynn, My Country Right or Wrong? Selective Conscientious Objective in the Nuclear Age (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985), p. 5. 15. Girouard v United States, 328 U.S. 61 (1946). 16. John Mansfield, “Conscientious Objection–1964 Term,” Religion and the Public Order, ed. Donald Giannella (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 39. 17. Gillette v United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971). 18. David Malament, “Selective Conscientious Objection and the Gillette Decision,” War and Moral Responsibility, eds. Marshall Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Thomas Scanion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 171 ff.; Quentin Quade, “Selective Conscientious Objection and Political Obligation,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, p. 198; Arnold Kaufman, “The Selective Service System: Actualities and Alternatives,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, pp. 247–48. 19. Rohr, Prophets Without Honor, p. 46. 20. John Courtney Murray, “War and Conscience,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, p. 30. 21. See Quade, “Selective Conscientious Objection,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, p. 202; and Rohr Prophets Without Honor, p. 30.

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22. Ralph Potter, “Conscientious Objection to Particular Wars,” Religion and the Public Order, ed. Donald Gianella (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 88. 23. United States v. Jones, 108 F. Supp. 806, 813 (E.D. S.C. 1956). 24. Quade, “Selective Conscientious Objection,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, p. 216. 25. Murray, “War and Conscience,” p. 26. 26. Paul Ramsey, “Selective Conscientious Objection: Warrants and Reservations,” Finn, A Conflict of Loyalties, pp. 39 and 62. 27. Theodore Koontz, “A Public Policy Case for Permitting Selective Conscien-tious Objection,” Public Affairs Quarterly, 3 (January 1989), p. 60. 28. Ibid., p. 52. 29. Whitman, “The Soldier as Conscientious Objector,” pp. 96–98. 30. Ruesga, “Selective Conscientious Objection,” p. 68.

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Thirteen RECURSIVE METAPHYSICS IS BAD FOR DEMOCRACY Ali Errishi The human mind is incapable of formulating (or mechanizing) all its mathematical intuitions, i.e., if it has succeeded in formulating some of them, this very fact yields new intuitive knowledge, e.g., the consistency of this formalism. This fact may be called the ‘incompletability’ of mathematics. On the other hand, on the basis of what has been proved so far, it remains possible that there may exist (and even be empirically discoverable) a theorem-proving machine which in fact is equivalent to mathematical intuition, but cannot be proved to be so, nor even be proved to yield only correct theorems of finitary number theory. Kurt Gödel1 It would seem to be likely, therefore, on the basis of the viewpoint that I have been attempting to expound, that non-algorithmic action ought to have a role within the physical world of very considerable importance. Roger Penrose 2 1. Recursive Metaphysics The pure secularist, who maintains that religious commitments are inimical to good government, has one thing in common with the theocrat. They both believe that we can have either religion or democracy but not both. The main purpose of this paper is to question the ontological prejudices that the pure secularist and the theocrat use to justify the belief that in democracy there is no place for religious commitments and in religion there is no place for democratic government. This ontological prejudice, which I call recursive metaphysics, is the claim that it is possible for us to know the nature of all-that-isthe-case in such a complete and precise way that any philosophical question whatsoever can be answered with the certainty of a mathematical proof. This prejudice of ontological completeness manifests itself in two forms. The first is recursive naturalism, the view that natural science provides us with logarithmic procedures that make it possible to answer any question. According to this view, only natural science can, and will, settle the matter. Secularism is a political expression of this prejudice, though obviously not all naturalists are recursive. The second expression of the ontological prejudice is recursive theism, the view that God has revealed the laws of His creation in the form of scriptures that contain the correct answers to any question whatso-

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ever. The use of reason, according to this view, is an unlawful defiance of divine truth. Theocracy is a political expression of the prejudice of recursive theism, though not all theists are recursive theists. In defense of democracy and of the right of groups and individuals to give political expression of their will to believe, I intend to argue: (1) pure secularism, which denies the right of religious folk to practice politics according to their religious beliefs, is as a totalitarian form of government as theocracy; and (2) the true ontology of democracy and religion cannot be based on the mechanical determinism of recursive metaphysics. Democracy, to be genuine, must leave room for the exercise of meaningful religious freedom, and religion, to be genuine, must not identify itself with the powers of the state. I intend to argue that since there could be no criterion, be it analytical or empirical, by which we can distinguish the theocratic from the secular, the distinction is politically meaningless. The Romans, for example, considered the egalitarian philosophy of the early Christians to be a secularist threat to the traditional theology of the empire; and the pagan pre-Islamic Arabs looked on Mohammed, the prophet, as a secularist rebel who challenged their traditional religious institutions. Not unlike Georg Friedrich Hegel, the theocrat and the secularist believe that the state is the march of the absolute mind in history. I intend to show that this historical determinism is inconsistent with the true nature of science and religion. Realism requires that we recognize that both natural science and the belief in divine will are here to stay. The question is whether it is possible for democracy to accommodate both the ways of the scientist and the ways of those who believe in divine truths. I happen to have a political interest in answering this question. Indeed, this chapter is a result of an old desire to argue against the fashionable claim that there is a clash of civilizations between the “West” (whatever this means) and the “Islamic world” (a clash that is nothing but a figment of the geopolitician’s imagination). For this reason, my discussion of religion will be centered on transcendental theism, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief that the existence of God transcends the existence of what He has created. Transcendental theists believe that everything that is the case is contingent on the will of God, the one supernatural supreme being who is the absolute sovereign of His creation. In spite of the serious philosophical challenges it has faced, transcendental theism continues to be the ontological commitment of more than three billion people. Recursive naturalists, who, in spite of the Gödelian denial of complete recursion, continue to believe in the causal and logical completeness of nature, and argue that commitments to supernatural reality, that is, to things that do not lend themselves to the methods of natural science, are misguided and, therefore, must come to an end. This does not mean that recursive naturalists deny the right of different individuals to commit themselves to different ontologies. The problem with transcendental theism, they argue with justification, is that it is more than a disinterested ontological commitment that independent individuals maintain for their personal metaphysical satisfaction.

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It is also an axiology, a general theory of values that theists believe is sanctioned by the infallible word of God. This system of values is not made of ideals that are good for nothing but contemplation. It is a form of lex scripta that includes specific rules of conduct that God expects us to obey. Thus, the transcendental theist may become a theocrat who sees himself as the vice-regent of the only true sovereign, God. In this way the theist begins to believe that it is the responsibility of the state to see to it that all its subjects live according to the divine law. The recursive naturalist argues that it is this axiological evangelism (the call that all must live according to what the theocratic theist considers as the only true theory of value), and not the theists’ pure ontological commitment, that makes religion inconsistent with the political pursuit of the good life. The recursive naturalist has his own theory of manifest destiny. Axiological evangelism is at the heart of recursive naturalism. Sidney Hook, for example, wrote that “the chief causes of our maladjustments are to be found precisely in these areas of social life in which the rationale of scientific method has not been employed.”3 Against those who like to remind us of the limits of science, Hook had this to say: “Science has known its dogmatism, too. But the cure of bad science is better science, not theology.”4 Now, at the hand of the geopolitician this evangelical spirit of recursive naturalism takes the form of a philosophical justification for an alleged geopolitical conflict between two world views. Thus Henry Kissinger, for example, wrote: As for the difference in philosophical perspective, it may reflect the divergence of the two lines of thought which since the Renaissance have distinguished the West from the part of the world now called underdeveloped (with Russia occupying an intermediary position). The West is deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data––the more accurately the better. Cultures which escaped the early impact of Newtonian thinking have retained the essentially pre-Newtonian view that the real world is almost completely internal to the observer.5 Kissinger knew that nihilistic geopolitics, disguised as political realism, cannot pass without some philosophical justification. It is no surprise that this justification is quite vagarious. First, the history of science belies Kissinger’s “divergence.” For example, a few historians of science would disagree with Robert Briffault when he says, It is highly probable that but for the Arabs modern European civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain that but for them it would not have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution. For although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is

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ALI ERRISHI not traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that power which constitutes the paramount distinctive force of the modern world and the supreme source of its victory––natural science and the scientific spirit . . . . What we call science arose in Europe as a result of a new spirit of inquiry, of new methods of investigation, of the development of mathematics in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.6

So much for dividing the world into those who are rational (Westerns), half rational (Russians), and not rational at all (the rest of humankind). Moreover, either Kissinger was unaware of the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, which puts the observer at the center of reality, or his geopolitical imperative had forced him to ignore them. In any case, his statements suggest that the Western mind, unlike other minds, is rational and scientific and, therefore, has earned the right to lead the rest of the world. His statement is a good example of what I mean by the axiological evangelism of recursive naturalism. The conflict, then, is not only about whether people should be expected to commit themselves to metaphysical doctrines either insofar as they are independent individuals or insofar as they are members of political organizations. That is, it is not just about whether religion is a purely personal matter or a properly political pursuit. It is a conflict about the philosophical merit of two antagonistic worldviews, each claiming to have the good of the human race as its ultimate goal. This does not mean that all things are equal. Recursive naturalists, with mathematical physics as their ideal science, maintain that while their doctrines are apodictic and experimental, and thus lend themselves to the critical treatment of both reason and sense experience, those of transcendental theism are rhetorical and doxographical. Transcendental theists, on the other hand, argue that reason and sense experience are limited and can only deal with appearances and thus provide us with theories––which, in their view, are sheer opinions of mortals or, to use Plato’s language, doxastic, “likely stories.” They believe that something more is needed if we are to know the true nature of things. Still, both sides think that world peace is contingent on universal commitment to some ontology. This is their mistake. It is not clear why agreements on questions of ontology will lead to world peace. For the idea of world peace to have meaning, human beings must have something in common. In the absence of a universal context, geopoliticians who insist that the idea of universal peace has no political meaning would be right. The idea of universal peace would be nothing more than a category mistake. This is a serious challenge. The universal something we need to make obvious to justify the search for world peace is to be found in philosophy of mind along the lines of Noam Chomsky’s philosophy of language, and not in ontology.7 In this chapter I give a critical account of the axiological doctrines of recursive naturalism and recursive theism, assuming that the idea of universal peace is meaningful.

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2. Distinction Between Secularism and Theocracy In Europe and the United States the tension between religious and secular axiology has become a sharp ideological struggle between recursive theists and everybody else. Politically, this struggle is contained within the limits of a legal doctrine that says that the powers of the state and the powers of religious institutions are independent of each other. The struggle, therefore, is about who has the power to do what. In the United States this doctrine is known as the separation of church and state. Again, it is left to the political process to interpret the meanings of “separation,” “church,” and “state,” which are not always clear. Phenomenologically, at the level of the political struggle between the two ideologies, the distinction between the secular and the theocratic seems to be significant. Yet politics, unlike physics, is teleological, and pure political phenomena are not worth much. The distinction between the secular and the theocratic will remain insignificant as long as our political views are articulated in the narrow terms of political phenomena. The real world is more complicated than the world of political ideologues. To find our bearings look at Karl Marx’s argument that at a level deeper than that of political ideologies, the distinction between religion and the state is a distinction without difference. Those who are familiar with Marx’s response to Bruno Bauer’s answer to what was known as “the Jewish question,” may remember that Marx did not agree that the end of historic religions would necessarily make the state truly secular and therefore democratic. Bauer argued that small religious groups, in this case the Jews in Christian Europe, would not be able to have equal political rights unless all groups renounced their religious identities. He also warned the Jews that the secular state would never tolerate groups that insist on religious identification. In other words, secularism is more than a separation between the state and religious institutions. Secularism requires that religion become a private matter. This, according to Bauer, can only happen when all citizen cease to identify themselves with religious institutions. According to Marx, Bauer’s argument does not go far enough. It is based on the political premise that religion is the true cause of the alienation of religious folk from the secular state. Marx, however, argued that the cause of alienation is not religion. Religion is a psychological response to the alienation of labor, which, in turn, alienates people from themselves both as individuals and members of society. In other words, religion is nothing more than an illusory means to overcome the alienation caused by the conflict between our individualistic existence, as members of civil society, and our true essence, which is social. Religion, therefore, is not a true expression of reality, and abolishing it will have no effect on the reality of the state. This does not mean that the empirical state (that is, according to Marx, the state before it becomes the true expression of the species’ social essence) and historic religions are two separate and independent realities. For Marx, all empirical states are religious and secular states are twice religious. The secular state, which maintains relig-

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ion not as a political ideology but as a national religion, is more deceptive than a religious state. He wrote: The State that continues to profess Christianity as a religion does not yet profess it in political form because it still behaves religiously toward religion. This means that it is not a genuine fulfillment of the human basis of religion, because it is still the product of unreality, of the imaginary shape of the human nucleus.8 Marx was right for the wrong reasons. We need not share his views on religion to agree with him. He argued that both state and religion are social creations, intended to disguise the real nature of capitalism, which will at the end of history give way to reality. Since, on Marx’s view, religion and political life (together with philosophy) will eventually come to an end, the present distinction between the secular and the theocratic does nothing but hide the true causes of alienation. Again, without committing myself to Marx’s political philosophy (for example, I believe that religion and political life, together with philosophy and science, will continue to exist as long as there are people), I agree with him that at a deeper level of analysis the distinction between the secular and theocratic is in itself insignificant. Something more is needed, if we are to allow for a meaningful movement towards democracy. In other words, since not all secular governments are democratic and just (indeed, some of them are as totalitarian as theocratic regimes), the difference between theocracy and secularism, unlike the difference between democracy and political absolutism, is politically meaningless and misleading. When secularism becomes like theocracy, an end in itself––a recursive ontological commitment––and when secularists give military and plutocratic dictators the license to wreak havoc to maintain the interests of the enlightened institutions of the secular state, peace and democracy disappear. This critique of ontological secularism is designed to favor democratic forms of government and not theocracy. Let us take the argument against the narrowness of the distinction between the secular and the theocratic a little further, and turn to the question whether the terms “theocracy” and “secularism” can be defined in a way that makes the distinction between theocracy and secularism significant. There are at least two reasons why definitions of the terms “theocracy” and “secularism” will not make the distinction less insignificant than it is. First, there are actual states that defy any meaningful definitions of theocratic and secular. For example, few people would agree on whether the State of Israel is a theocratic or a secular state. In the State of Israel, the Rabbinic and the ethnic definitions of Israel are inseparable. The State of Israel Proclamation of Independence states: The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved

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independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. . . . The State of Israel will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the principles of liberty, justice and peace as conceived by the Prophets of Israel.9 The secular State of Israel is also theocratic and ethnocratic. Second, definitions of theocracy are rhetorical for the most part and, as I intend to show, no real definitions of theocracy are possible. Theocrats may have little doubt about what theocracy really means. The question, however, is not whether theocrats believe that theocracy is possible, but whether it is possible. According to them, the divine law, in virtue of its absolute truth and God’s will-to-power, must be the civil law. Now I, for one, do not know what this ipse dixit means. My guess is that one must believe in its truth to understand it. That is, in order to accept the theocrat’s definition of theocracy, we must follow St. Augustine’s maxim, “without belief, there could be no understanding” (Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis).10 It is not that I do not believe in the truth of the theocrat’s definition in the same way he believes in its truth. The two beliefs, to use one of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s cryptic, but helpful phrases, are different “tones of thought.”11 The belief of the theocrats in the truth of their statement is the cause of its truth in their minds. I, on the other hand, do not know what to make of their statement because I cannot see how this question can be answered in good faith: How can the divine law become civil and remain divine? In order to become civil, the divine law, perfect and eternal though it is, must be interpreted and administered by imperfect mortal human beings. This does not mean that there are no divine laws. Nor does it mean that it takes a community of gods to obey these laws. Nor does it meant that divine laws, whatever they may be, must not become civil. It simply means that once the divine law becomes civil, it is what it has become. Obviously, it is subject to the secular powers of the mortal politicians and, thus, is no longer divine. This argument becomes more convincing when it is shown that while the fulfillment of the divine law presupposes moral autonomy, civil laws are heteronomous. Consider, for example, the attitudes of two groups of people who believe that the commandment “thou shall not commit adultery” is part of the divine law. The civil law to which the members of the first group are subjects does not prohibit adultery, but they obey the commandment on purely religious grounds. The others feel the obligation to obey the commandment only because it is part of their civil law. Otherwise, they would disobey it. We cannot say that the members of the second group are saved unless, with Thomas Hobbes and Hegel, we mistakenly believe the state to be the savior. In other words, theocratic laws are civil laws that, in so far as they are laws, are to be obeyed regardless of whether we are religiously committed to their truth or

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not. I mean, they are not religious laws. Indeed, there can be no truly religious state, and theocracy is nothing but a form of government that uses a particular religion as a political ideology. The position of those who call themselves “secular” is paradoxical in turn. They must believe and not believe that theocrats genuinely mean what they say. To be genuinely secular, you must believe that theocrats want a form of government different from any possible secular state and also believe that it can be accomplished. But how can this state be possible? What are the conditions that make the state secular and not theocratic? The condition that the clergy must not be a part of the state is, at best, necessary but not sufficient. Islam, for example, has no clergy. The scholar, Ignaz Goldziher warned against the uncritical application of non-Islamic models in the study of Islam: There is no parallel between dogma in Islam and dogma in the religious system of any Christian church. In Islam there are no councils and synods that, after a vigorous debate, fix the formulae that henceforth must be regarded as sound belief. There is no ecclesiastic office that provides a standard of orthodoxy. There is no exclusively authorized exegesis of the sacred texts, upon which the doctrines of a church and the manner of their inculcation, might be based. The consensus is the highest authority in all questions of religious theory and practice, but it is a vague authority, and its judgment can scarcely be precisely determined. Its very concept is variously defined. In theological questions it is especially difficult to reach unanimity about what is to be accepted without dispute, as the verdict of consensus. Where one party sees consensus, another may be far from seeing anything of the sort.12 These, like all facts, never get in the way of those Islamists who believe that the way to heaven goes through the powers of the state. This should tell us that the pursuit of theocracy is not contingent on the existence of an official church. The divine law is not the political property of religious officialdom to the exclusion of everybody else. (Conversely, the Christian Coalition is a secular organization, and democracy allows for the possibility of electing priests, ministers, and rabbis to political offices.) Some may argue that the crucial condition that makes the state secular and not theocratic has to do with the fact that in secular states the laws cannot be legal expressions of religious creeds. The problem with this condition is that it is ambiguous, to say the least. What if voters, on no other grounds than their religious faith, decided that a certain religious dictate (thou shall not kill, for example) must become part of the civil law? Must we reject the results of their vote because of the reasons behind it? Must we accordingly demand that people declare the reasons behind their political preferences so that we may disqualify those that are religious? Some are inclined to protest that the conditions for secularism need not be those for democracy. The majority, the old argument goes, has been wrong

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so many times and its religious beliefs, more than anything else, have been responsible for wars and injustices. Consequently, democracy, if it allows for political expression of religious beliefs, must give way to reason. I find the conclusion of this argument somewhat Faustian: in order to protect the free exercise of reason, secularism must at times do away with democracy. In order to put an end to religious intolerance and absolutism, the secular state has to become intolerant and absolutistic. It may be objected that there is a difference between this ad hoc intolerance of the secular state and the absolute intolerance of theocracy. The dictates of religion, goes the objection, are subjective and arbitrary, because they are inconsistent with the laws of nature, the best if not the perfect standard of objectivity. This is the difference between theocracy and secularism! Secularism is seated on naturalism, the true philosophy, and theocracy must, therefore, be false. Yet this is the same genetic fallacy that theocrats use when they claim for themselves the wisdom, absolute power, and benevolence of God. Never mind the fallacy. The question now is this: In what way is secularism seated on naturalism? 3. Whence Comes Recursive Naturalism? In order to answer this question we need to remember that only systems of recursive naturalism lead to secularism. Naturalism is not ipso facto irreligious. The Greeks, for example, made little distinction between the natural and the divine. In Theogony, Hesiod traces the genealogy of the twelve Olympian Gods to Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky).13 Power and destiny, the power of gods and the destiny of human beings, are at the heart of this religious form of naturalism. In spite of their naturalism, the Greek pagans were not all secular, and those among them who dared challenge the national gods are usually charged with treason. The patriotism of Socrates, for example, did not help him with the jury against the charge of impiety (asebeia). The Romantic views of Georg Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and all those who continue to argue that the ancient polis of classical antiquity is the ideal model of the best state are just that, romantic. Socrates’ unorthodox religious beliefs were considered a threat to the political order, because his fellow Athenians made little distinction between the secular and the divine. While we know that the belief in a simple ontological unity of religion, nature, and political order was practiced in ancient Egypt, it is better if we understand that ontological unity as a function of the polytheistic naturalism of the Greco-Roman tradition. In this tradition, divinities were considered to be the efficient and final causes of all phenomena, and kings ruled as the viceregents of those divinities. As F. M. Cornford put it: We are reminded that the very word cosmos was a political term among the Dorians, before it was borrowed by philosophy to denote the universal order. In later days the situation is reversed and the organization of

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ALI ERRISHI society, or of the individual, comes to be regarded as a miniature copy, in which the majestic order of the macrocosm is to be reproduced.14

It is not, then, unreasonable to say that the roots of recursive naturalism, the view that the individual and the state are nothing but replicas of the macrocosmic machine, are political. Hobbes, the most eloquent and systematic representative of recursive naturalism, argued against René Descartes’ idea of God in the following way: To say that God is independent [i.e. uncaused] is simply to say that God belongs to the class of things such that I cannot image their origin. Similarly, to say that God is infinite is the same as saying that he belongs to the class of things such that we do not conceive of them as having bounds. It follows that any idea of God is ruled out. For what sort of idea is it which has no origin and no limits?15 Here Hobbes subjected Descartes’ God to the two requirements of his recursive naturalism: causal determinism and finitism. It is this metaphysical naturalism with its mechanical completeness and not the methodological naturalism of modern science, which is the philosophical wellspring of modern secularism. Hobbes’ aim was political. His political naturalism, the idea that the state follows from secular laws of nature, was intended to get around the endless and violent theocratic conflicts. He thus wrote to the Earl of Devonshire, “The dispute between the spiritual and the civil power has of late, more than anything in the world, been the cause of civil wars in all places of Christendom.”16 Hobbes’ solution can be viewed as a continuation of Henry VIII’s revolution against the authority of the Pope, who refused to annul the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in favor of Ann Boleyn. Hobbes, the faithful royalist that he was, decided to make the Roman Catholic set of natural laws subject to the power of the state. In the Hobbesian scheme, the distinction between positive and natural law disappears. The problem with Hobbes’ plan becomes obvious once we remember that, according to Hobbes, the origins of religion are as natural as those of the state. He said, “And this fear of things invisible, is the natural seed of that, which every one in himself calleth religion.”17 In other words, since the causes of religion, like those of the state, are to be found in human nature, religion is here to stay. The question then becomes, in what way should religion stay? Hobbes had to go beyond the limits of his recursive naturalism to solve this problem. History, we are told, shows that while the state is objective, religion is not. The objective power of the state can, however, make religion objective in the same way it makes traffic laws objective. The power of the immortal god to decide what is objective and what is not is in the hands of the mortal god, the state. “This is the generation of the great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defense.”18

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This Hobbesian program, which is followed by every modern government save those who believe that religion can and must go, has made the distinction between secular and theocratic forms of government politically meaningless. Hobbes’ clear intent was to establish philosophical homomorphism between the temporal and spiritual. And therefore a Church, such a one as is capable to command, to judge, absolve, condemn, or do any other act, is the same thing with a civil commonwealth, consisting of Christian men; and is called a civil state, for that the subjects of it are men: and a Church, for that the subjects thereof are Christians. Temporal and spiritual government, are but two words brought into the world, to make men see double, and mistake their lawful sovereign. It is true, that the bodies of the faithful, after the resurrection, shall be not only spiritual, but eternal; but in this life they are gross, and corruptible. There is therefore no other government in this life, neither of state, nor religion, but temporal; nor teaching of any doctrine, lawful to any subject, which the governor both of the state, and of the religion forbiddeth to be taught. And that governor must be one; or else there must needs follow faction and civil war in the commonwealth, between the Church and State . . . and, which is more, in every Christian man’s own breast, between the Christian and the man. The doctors of the Church are called pastors; so also are civil sovereigns. But if pastors be not subordinate one to another, so as that there may be one chief pastor, men will be taught contrary doctrines; whereof both may be, and one must be false. Who that one chief pastor is, according to the law of nature, hath been already shown; namely, that it is the civil sovereign: and to whom the Scripture hath assigned that office, we shall see in the chapters following.19 This is an ingenious argument for an old idea. Hobbes’ attempt to establish the pragmatic necessity of civil or political theology is like that of Marcus Terentius Varro. Varro, like Hobbes, did not believe in the truth of the theology of his city, but prudence required that he draw the politically correct conclusion. St. Augustine, on the other hand, followed Varro’s theoretical critique of secular theology to its logical end. Secular theology, he concluded, is impossible. The city of God cannot be political. Unfortunately, St. Augustine’s doctrine of two cities failed the practical test. In the theological conflict between Rome and the Donatists, St. Augustine sanctioned the right of Rome to bring the Donatists under heel. So much for the city of God. This left Christendom with two theological choices with regard to the domain of religion. Christianity is either a private religion or civil theology, but not both. In this way, Hegel’s Volksreligion, which followed Immanuel Kant’s attempt to authenticate historical religion, was intended to bridge the gap between St. Augustine’s idea of two cities and Hobbes, political theology. Hegel wrote, “Folk religion is distinguished from private religion mainly because it strongly affects heart and imagination and thus inspires the soul

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with the force, the enthusiasm, and the spirit that are indispensable for high virtue.”20 The spread of the industrial revolution throughout Europe and the United States turned naturalism into a philosophical powerhouse. Suddenly, the religious institutions and the other custodians of national theology found themselves on the defensive. The naturalists could now become less deliberate. They did not have to argue that their philosophy is not inconsistent with the metaphysical premises of that theology and the ethical principles they entail. In other words, naturalism needed no longer to be recursive. Most naturalists, however, continued to be recursive. Perhaps the world is yet to be safe for naturalism to denounce its recursive defenses. The retreat of traditional theologies notwithstanding, there were still too many supernaturalists and dualists. The time for naturalists to declare victory and allow for some degree of self-doubt was not yet here. Naturalism still needed the Hobbesian belief that all things follow from the logical necessity of natural causes. This deadly mixture of self-confidence, that their system is logically complete, and self-doubt, that lesser systems may, through political caprice, win the day, is what drives recursive naturalists and recursive theists alike. It is the main reason why the struggle between science and religion continues to express itself in the militant terms of recursive metaphysics. What we have then is two belligerent commitments. These commitments begin with different ontological premises but lead to the same political axiology. Recursive metaphysics, whatever the ontology, leads to political absolutism. This of course does not mean that ontological differences do not make any difference. In natural sciences, which are silent axiologically, ontological differences matter. For example, Albert Einstein’s commitment to physical reality independent from the observer led him to conclusions different from the conclusions of those who believed otherwise. However, when different ontologies, like those of our recursivists, are said to follow the same a priori principles of logic, these ontologies become no more than the fulfillment, the pleroma, of this logic, and, thus, fail to respond to the vicissitudes of life. In order to put their questioning minds at ease, and also to silence their critics, recursive naturalists and recursive theists present their axiological commitments as a consequence of metaphysical and logical systems that are allegedly complete. The recursivist extends the tyranny of apodixis, essential for mathematics or as a general criterion of certainty, to religion and philosophy of nature, and thus alienates them from their real source, experience. 4. Al-Ghazali’s and Kant’s Critiques of Recursive Metaphysics The critique of recursive metaphysics cuts deep into the heart of political absolutism. In Western philosophy, this critique finds its highest expression in the philosophical positions of the Muslim theologian and philosopher, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) and Kant. The correspondence between the philosophical worldviews of these two philosophers is quite remarkable. In fact,

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it is not inappropriate to say that Al-Ghazali and Kant represent two different cultural expressions of the same philosophical system. This, however, is not the right occasion to discuss the various terms of this correspondence and its metaphilosophical significance. The only thing we need to know here is this. Al-Ghazali’s and Kant’s critiques of recursive metaphysics tell us that neither science nor religion, when properly understood, are subject to logical necessities. Natural science is only subject to natural, and not logical, necessities, which in the case of Kant means that scientific judgments are synthetic a priori. Natural science is possible because, a priori, we have what it takes to organize experience in the form of universal laws, and not because these natural laws are of the world in itself. Al-Ghazali’s critique of recursive naturalism is more forceful. He argued that since natural causes are not logical necessities, their violation does not lead to contradiction. According to us the connexion between what is usually believed to be a cause and what is believed to be an effect is not a necessary connexion; each of the two things has its own individuality and is not the other, and neither the affirmation nor the negation, neither the existence nor the non-existence of the one is implied in the affirmation, negation, existence, non-existence of other––e.g. the satisfaction of thirst does not imply drinking, nor satiety eating, nor burning contact with fire, nor light sun rise, nor decapitation death, nor recovery the drinking of medicine . . . and so on for all the empirical connexions existing in medicine, astronomy, the sciences, and the crafts.21 Al-Ghazali’s point is that what is necessary in logic is not necessary in nature. He believed that natural causes are what Kant called “hypothetical necessities,” which provide ground not of things but of our knowledge. Karl Ameriks explains Kant’s hypothetical necessities this way: This would mean that the synthetic connections of empirical knowledge are distinguishable from mere logical relations but still quite unlike causal connections in an absolute ontological sense. On this view, the causality we speak of in knowledge claims is a relation used just for connecting accidents (representations) but not substances.22 Both Al-Ghazali and Kant agree that religion is subject to nothing but the free will of the individual, which is the ground for moral, and therefore, religious autonomy. Their critiques of theodicy are powerful arguments against the pretenses of recursive theists. Al-Ghazali writes: Let us imagine a child and a grown-up in Heaven who both died in the True Faith, but the grown-up has a higher place than the child. And the child will ask God, “Why did you give that man a higher place?” And

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ALI ERRISHI God will answer, “He has done many good works.” Then the child will say, “Why did you let me die so soon so that I was prevented from doing good?” God will answer, “I knew that you would grow up a sinner, therefore it was better that you should die a child.” Then a cry goes up from the damned in the depths of Hell, “Why, O Lord, did you not let us die before we became sinners?” . . . . The imponderable decisions of God cannot be weighed by the scales of reason . . . .”23

Kant’s critique of theodicy is included in his eloquent essay on the defense of authentic religiosity, Über das Misslingen das aller Philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee (1791), which Michel Despland translates as On the Failure of All Attempted Philosophical Theodicies. In the concluding remark Kant writes: As we have seen, theodicy is not a task of science but is a matter of faith. The authentic theodicy has taught us that what matters in such affairs is not reasoning but honesty in the avowal of the powerlessness of our reason and sincerity in the expression of our thoughts (a sincerity that never lends itself to a lie, however pious it might be). 24 From Al-Ghazali and Kant we learn that neither is recursive theism religion, nor is recursive naturalism natural science. True science and true religion recognize that algorithmic reason, or what Kant called “pure reason,” cannot provide us with complete account of ourselves and the world. The recursivist, on the other hand, believes that reason is not limited to what we experience. He, in other words, denies the distinction between what we can know and what we can only believe. In his view, Wittgenstein’s distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown is useless, if not altogether harmful. It is this dogmatic belief in the ability of algorithmic reason to prove its own infallibility that makes the recursivist, whether a theist or naturalist, at odds with the tolerant ways of the democrat, whether a theist or a naturalist. 5. Recursivist Challenge to Democracy While the democrat believes that his form of government is the best of all possible governments, he does not use the absolutist tone of the recursivist. Instead, he will say that democracy is less imperfect than any other form of government. The recursivist, on the other hand, will not dilute his absolute belief in the perfection of his form government with the smallest element of skepticism. In other words, the recursivist and the democrat equally believe that their forms of governments are superior to all others, but while the recursivist denies the possibility that his ideal republic is not perfect, the democrat is aware of the imperfections of his form of government. Some of these imperfections of democracy are empirical and have to do with the fact that even in democracy, the distribution of political power is directly proportional to the distribution of wealth. The democrat must learn to

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live with the fact that in democracy all citizens are not equal, that is, not politically equal. The other imperfections of democracy, which are relevant to our discussion, are logical, and have to do with its paradoxical nature. The following four paradoxes of democracy give justification to the recursivist’s claim that the ideals of democracy are not consistent with its realities. We may state the first paradox this way: Sometimes, as in the recent cases of Algeria and Turkey, the democratic process determines that the political program of a certain recursive ideology, unfriendly to democracy, is less imperfect than all the other programs, some of which are friendly to democracy. The fact that a majority of voters can use liberal democracy against itself, suggests that democracy, like all other forms of government, carries the seeds of its own destruction. The second paradox is that while democracy is egalitarian in principle, the free market, one of the necessary conditions for democracy, is not. The third paradox is that while democracy is not a political ideology, it sometimes must become a dogmatic ideology. Because democracy is a process through which the claims of competing political ideologies are to be negotiated, sometimes in order to protect this process against the reach of dogmatic ideologies, democracy must itself become a dogmatic ideology. The fourth paradox has to do with whether a state can be both democratic and nationalistic. Nationalism, whatever else it may be, is the pursuit of national interest. Usually, excessive pursuit of national interest is at odds with the principles of democracy. Most democratic nations are major powers that, in the pursuit of their regional or global interests, are willing to compromise their democratic principles. So, paradoxically, in order to make the world safe for democracy, the great democracies find it necessary to ally themselves with non-democratic governments of smaller nations led by military and tribal dictators. In many cases the national interests of the great democratic nations require that democratic movements in the less developed nations not succeed. These are serious paradoxes that democrats cannot ignore if they are to meet the challenges of the recursivists, who, since their dogmatic temper does not allow for paradoxes, argue that democracy is not as rational as their forms of government. It is possible for democrats to argue that history shows that while democracy is indeed imperfect, it is less imperfect than any other form of government. Winston S. Churchill, for example, justified democracy this way: Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or allwise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.25 Unfortunately, the democrats’ argument from history does not help us do away with the paradoxes. In order to do that we must go beyond the historical justification and see if democracy can stand on its own ontological terms. We

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may never become certain that democracy has no good alternatives, but we can still ask: Does democracy have a metaphysics? There are at least two possible answers. The first is that of the friends of recursive metaphysics and those of democracy, who, while they do not see eye to eye in other matters, equally believe that the question is meaningless. The friends of democracy can do just fine without metaphysics, and the friends of recursive metaphysics believe that democracy is logically impossible. The second answer is to say, á la John Dewey and his metaphysical notion of endless growth, that the principles of natural, and therefore free, evolutionary process is the metaphysical groundwork of democracy. Unfortunately, both of these answers are wrong. First, the answer of the democrats and the recursivists is wrong because the persistence of the paradoxes of democracy means that democracy cannot do without metaphysical justification, and the fact that these paradoxes can be overcome means that democracy is not logically impossible. Second, the idea of evolution does not entail the idea of democracy. Evolutionary processes are not necessarily democratic. In fact, in the case of Darwinian forms of evolution the opposite is true. I believe that Al Ghazali’s and Kant’s critiques of recursive metaphysics can provide us with a good metaphysics of democracy. This is not the right occasion to develop this metaphysics. All what we need to know here is whether democracy can be open to what Kant called the “metaphysical interest” of reason, which has its most accessible expression in historical religions. Those democrats who believe that democracy has no place for metaphysical commitments must explain to us how their position is different from that of the recursivists who believe that democracy’s claim to tolerance is disingenuous. The recursivists are wrong. Democracy, whatever else it may be, is nothing but a political expression of ontological tolerance. The democrat may be a naturalist, but he is not a recursive naturalist. He recognizes that tolerance cannot be deduced from nature, since nature is most discriminatory. The question then remains, whether one be a theist and tolerant at the same time. I believe one can. Al-Ghazali, a traditional theist, wrote: Man’s duty, then, is not to take pride in comparing himself with anyone. Rather if he looks at an ignorant person, he will say, “this man disobeyed God in ignorance and I disobeyed Him with knowledge; so he is more to be excused than I.” If he looks at a learned man, he will say, “this man learned what I did not learn; so how can I be like him?” If he looks at a man who is older than himself in age, he will say, “this man obeyed God before me; so how can I be like him?” If he looks at a man younger than himself, he will say, “I disobeyed God before him; so how can I be like him?” If he looks at a heretic or an infidel, he will say, “how can I know that his end (khatima) will not be made with Islam and my end will not be that in which he now is” . . . so being considerate of the end he is able to banish pride from his mind. 26

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Al-Ghazali wrote these words nine hundred years ago, and it is anachronistic to ask whether he favored secularism or theocracy, whatever these terms may mean. Tolerant he was, since he recognized the ontological incompleteness of human reason. He, thus, believed, within the limits of his religious commitment, that peace requires that we make a sincere effort not to play God. I should, however, make it clear that my arguments in favor of a nonviolent and creative tension between axiological religious commitments and democracy do not imply that all philosophical claims are equally justified. Not only do I believe that some philosophical claims are more justified than others, but I also recognize that political realities do not allow for philosophical anythingarianism. Pyrrhonism, attractive as it is to many people these days, has no place in the recursive world of pure secularists and theocrats. Also, since I believe in universal values, I do not mean to suggest that democracy presupposes axiological relativism. My argument here is that the absoluteness of values can only be established through the exercise of reason and the free trade of ideas, and not through political coercion. Again, my purpose is to warn that democracy requires that we believe in the ontological incompleteness of human reason and thus learn to be tolerant. The alternative to this is the belief in a fateful clash of civilizations, which the geopolitical gladiators would like us to pursue, in other words, endless wars. NOTES 1. Quoted in Hao Wang, From Mathematics to Philosophy (New York: Humanitie Press, Inc., 1974), p. 324. 2. Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Law of Physics (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 430. 3. Sidney Hook, The Quest of Being (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961), p. 80. 4. Ibid., p. 87. 5. Henry Kissinger, American Foreign Policy (New York: W. W. Norton Inc., 1974), p. 48. 6. Robert Briffault, The Making of Humanity (London: Allen and Unwin, 1921), pp. 190-191. 7. Ali Errishi, “Is Universal Peace a Category Mistake?: Can Chomskian Linguistics Account for Einstein’s Anomalies?” presented at the Tenth Annual Conference of Concerned Philosophers for Peace, California State University, Chico, Calif., 1997. 8. Karl Marx, A World without Jews (Zur Judenfrage), trans. Dagobert Runes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1959), p. 16. 9. Walter Laqueur, ed., The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History o f the Middle East Conflict (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 126–127. 10. St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, trans. Francis E. Tourscher (Philadelphia: Peter Reilly, 1973), p. 10; and cf. Isaiah, 7:9. 11. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1958), p. 225.

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12. Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (Vorlesungen uber den Islam), trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 162–163. 13. Hesoid, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Erslyn-White (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 81. 14. F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins o f Western Speculation (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1957), p. 53. 15. René Descartes, Descartes’ Philosophical Writings, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984), vol. 2, p. 131. 16. Quoted by Leslie Stephen, Hobbes (London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1928), p. 30. 17. Thomas Hobbes, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. 3, Leviathan, ed. Sir William Molesworth (Germany: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1966), p. 93. 18. Ibid., p. 158. 19. Ibid., pp. 460–461. 20. Hegels Theologische Jugendschriften, ed. Herman Nohl (Frankfurt/Main: Minerva Books, 1966), quoted by Louis Depre, The Philosophical Foundations o f Marxism (New York: Harcourt, 1966), p. 6. 21. Averroes, Tahafut Al-Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence), trans. Simon Van De Berg (London: Luzac Company, 1969), p. 316. 22. Karl Ameriks, “The Critique of Metaphysics: Kant and Traditional Ontology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. Paul Guyer (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 271. 23. Quoted in Simon Van Den Berg, Averroes’ Tahafut Al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence) (England: Stephen Austin and Sons, 1969), vol. 1, p. x. 24. Michel Despland, Kant on History and Religion (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1973), pp. 293–294. 25. Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), vol. 7, p. 7566. 26. Al-Ghazali, Ihya’ Ulum ad-Din (Vivification of Religious Sciences), quoted in Muhammad Abul Quasem, The Ethics of Al-Ghazali: A Composite Ethics in Islam (Malaysia: Selangor, 1975), p. 139.

Fourteen TOWARD A REFORMULATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF PACIFISM Andrew Kelley The theoretical foundation for pacifism needs to be reformulated along the lines of virtue-based ethics in order to overcome criticisms that are commonly leveled against pacifism. The spirit of pacifism is better served when its theoretical foundation is grounded in a virtue-based ethical theory than in an actbased theory. In what follows, first, I discuss the notions of peace and pacifism. Second, I show why a pacifism that is founded solely an act-based considerations gives rise to the criticisms that are typically leveled against pacifism. Third, I show how a doctrine that looks to virtue-based ethics for its foundation is more coherent and cogent than a pacifism that is founded on an act-based ethical theory. Finally, I conclude with some comments on the relationship between pacifism and democracy. 1. Peace, Politics, and Morality As background, I summarize what I consider to be the relationship between peace, politics, and morality. I stipulate: (1) peace means “harmony,” and is, thus, more than the absence of overt conflict between two or more parties, and (2) peace is also an issue that relates to individuals, qua individuals, and not just to how groups of humans relate to one another. Characterizations of peace can be divided into two broad categories: negative and positive. I understand “negative peace” to mean the absence of external conflict between two or more parties. An absence of armed conflict can exist between two parties while hatred, unrest, and conflict seethe beneath the surface. True peace, which I call “positive peace,” is a situation of harmony between the parties as well as a conscious attempt to promote conditions that will maintain harmony between them in the future. The essence of peace is harmony. Pacifism is an issue that concerns the moral status of the individual person and not just the moral status of actions between two or more groups of people. Ultimately questions of pacifism come down to the ethical question about what the relationship should be between means and end. If violence or use of force between one individual and another is morally permissible, then violence or use of force between one group of people and another would be morally permissible. Likewise, if peace is a type of harmony, then a group of people cannot harmoniously interact unless there is harmony at the level of the individual. For example, it is not enough for the political factions in, say,

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Northern Ireland, the Basque region, or former Yugoslavia simply to declare peace and work together toward a harmonious coexistence. Individuals as well must strive toward harmonious existence, and a large part of this is each individual person striving to overcome rancor, jealously, desire for revenge, and so on. Peace between nations or groups of people cannot succeed without peace at the level of the individual. Peace at this level also means harmony. I shall return to this issue in Section Three of this chapter. 2. Pacifism and Act-Based Moral Theories Criticisms that are typically leveled against pacifism result from pacifist views being understood to be founded upon act-based moral theories and considerations. In From Warism to Pacifism, Duane Cady presents pacifism and just warism as segments along a continuum, but he also remarks that “pacifism and warism seem to differ roughly along traditional deontological/teleological 1 lines.” Ultimately, the distinction has to do with the relationship between means and end. Both camps place great emphasis on the value of human life. However, the just warist, looking at the issue from a teleological perspective, allows that there could be situations in which force or violence to another human may be required in order to promote some even greater goal. The pacifist, on the other hand, seems to hold that the value of a human life is so great that there never are goals to be reached that would make harm and violence to another human being justifiable. Cady remarks that “this clean total separation between means and end . . . appears to be required by the just warist and rejected by the pacifist.”2 At one pole of Cady’s pacifist continuum lies the absolute pacifist view, the position that any use of force, whatsoever, is morally bad.3 As a person moves away from this pole on the continuum, she next arrives at the slightly less-than-absolute view that non-lethal uses of force are permissible.4 Then, the next step along the continuum is what Cady calls “collectivist pacifism.”5 It is the idea that lethal violence may be permissible in cases of individual self-defense, but that collective acts of violence or uses of force are morally bad. The rest of the segments along the continuum concern groups of people. Because I hold that any theory of pacifism must also concern the individual qua individual, I will not consider those branches of pacifism that address only the behavior of groups of people. Another reason that I do not have to address any but the aforementioned varieties of pacifism is that beginning with collectivist pacifism, the principle that underlies all of the subsequent types of pacifism is a teleological principle: there are certain conditions under which respect for the value of a single human life may be overridden by other concerns, such as the good of a country or the good of future humans. I hold that the proper relationship between means and end must be the same whether this relationship pertains to an individual’s actions or to group action. Thus, the only varieties of pacifism along Cady’s continuum that must be considered are either the absolute variety, which holds that all acts of force

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are immoral, or the slightly less absolute variety, which holds that non-lethal force is permissible. All the other types of pacifism along the continuum ultimately collapse back into some form of the slightly-less-than-absolute variety of pacifism, or they really are a just warist doctrine that holds that the end justifies the means. For three reasons, I think that absolute pacifism is the most consistent and most cogent form of pacifism, and thus is the standard bearer of the spirit of pacifism. First, I am worried about the slippery slope to which nonabsolutist varieties of pacifism could lead. If we deem that non-lethal force is permissible, then some force or harm to another individual could be permissible as, say, an act of self-defense. On the surface, this may not seem to be problematic. Yet, might this position also make violence or even torture, in the case of self-defense, to be permissible provided that the torture did not lead to the death of the one being tortured? And if non-lethal force is justifiable and if there is a negligible difference between lethal violence and some types of non-lethal force, then there may be situations in which lethal force may become justifiable. In short, this position could be used to justify a wider scope of actions than many pacifists would want to allow. Second, the absolute variety of pacifism represents the true spirit of pacifism. Ironically, Robert L. Phillips, who is not himself a pacifist, makes a strong case for absolute pacifism when he writes: As has been frequently remarked in the literature on war and ethics, what makes pacifism interesting is not the claim that [because] war involves killing and destruction, every effort should be made to avoid it, but, rather, the belief that it is morally impermissible to use force to repel unjust aggression. It is this radical moral doctrine, consistently applied, that has historically made pacifism either a mark of sainthood or of extreme moral confusion. The hallmark of pacifism has been this kind of 6 moral simplicity. Phillips continues this train of thought by adding that once a person distances herself from the absolutist variety of pacifism, she “describes not so much pacifism as a version of the just war tradition.”7 The absolute variety of pacifism is what carries the heart and soul of pacifism. It says simply that no matter how much force or violence you use against me, I will not return violence or force against you. In this lies the moral beauty of pacifism lies. Third, non-absolutist varieties of pacifism may reinforce the status quo. What I mean is that non-absolutist varieties of pacifism reinforce the idea that violence and force are just part of the natural order of the world. The idea is that because uses of violence and force are found everywhere in nature, pacifists are naive in thinking that uses of violence and force could ever become obsolete. However, it may very well be that violence and force do not have to define how human beings interrelate. Absolute pacifism gives us a goal toward which we can aim, and at least forces us to envision communities in which people do not have to behave violently or with force toward one another. It is

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for these reasons that absolute pacifism must be taken seriously and must be regarded as the standard against which to judge other types of pacifism. Absolute pacifism holds that it is always wrong to use force against living beings. Unfortunately, there are problems that arise when force is used as the criterion that separates absolute pacifism from other varieties of pacifism. First, the use of force cannot be the operative criterion by which absolute pacifism is to be separated from other varieties of pacifism because force is not always morally wrong. If it were, there would be many cases in which we would not be allowed to perform actions that most of us would consider to be morally required. For example, if a friend in a fit of passion is attempting to end her life simply because a lover ended their relationship, it cannot be morally wrong to use force to knock a gun out of her hands in order to save her life. Similarly, if a small child is about to back into the stove, it cannot be morally wrong to use force to redirect the child’s movement so that he does not burn himself. Finally, there is no doubt that even some first aid techniques, such as the Heimlich maneuver, or CPR, involve an element of force. Yet no one would say that it would be immoral to use the Heimlich maneuver on someone who is choking simply because the technique involves force or slight violence to the person being treated. On the other hand, to claim that uses of force are not always morally wrong is not to say that uses of force are good per se. Consider the cases just mentioned: it would be a better if we could persuade the friend to drop the gun without having to resort to a use of force. Likewise, it would be a better if we could prevent the child from backing into the stove without having to use force, and it would be better if we did not have to perform the Heimlich maneuver or CPR at all. Hence, uses of force are neither morally good nor morally bad per se. What the aforementioned scenarios point to is that the criticisms of pacifism that people normally cite may not necessarily have to do with pacifism itself, but rather with difficulties pertaining to the ethical theory that we normally cite as the basis for it. Other things being equal, it is preferable not to have to use force in a given situation. It would be better to convince a suicidal person to drop her weapon instead of having to wrestle it out of her hand. It would be better to convince a mugger not to attack you rather than to have to use force against him. The problem is this: the aforementioned situations are ones in which the person is presented with conflicting duties. If a person is an absolute pacifist, then she sees it as an obligation not to use force against anybody. However, in the situation in which the absolute pacifist is confronted with a child who is backing into a stove or with a friend who is threatening suicide, the pacifist also has a duty to protect the child or the friend. What absolute pacifism is taken to hold is that the duty not to use force takes precedence over every other duty. Thus the problem with absolute pacifism stems from the failure of the moral theory on which it rests to be able to address adequately the problem of how to resolve conflicts between duties; the problem does not have to do with pacifism or the spirit of pacifism.

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In turn, the problem of there being situations in which our obligations may conflict gives rise to another issue, of intended versus foreseen consequences. For example, if a person who is an absolute pacifist refuses to wrestle a weapon out of her suicidal friend’s hand simply because she feels that it is immoral, always and everywhere, to use force, then is she not in some sense responsible for the death of her friend? It was foreseeable that the friend would die if the gun were not removed from her possession. Likewise, why would an absolute pacifist not be behaving in a non-pacifistic manner, if, during a rush of adrenaline as a result of trying to flee from a mugger, she unintentionally uses force against him? The use of force possibly could have been foreseen, but it certainly was not intended. If we are absolute pacifists, should we condemn this person as behaving immorally? The dilemma is this: on the one hand, absolute pacifism represents the spirit and beauty of pacifism. The basic idea is that living beings have value in and of themselves; hence, force, and other actions which negate the value of living beings, are forbidden. On the other hand, it does seem that there are times in which uses of force––whether intended, unintended, or foreseen––may be more in tune with the spirit of pacifism, such as in the case of the child backing into the stove or of the suicidal friend. In short, pacifism, as it stands, is caught between the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, absolute pacifism is the torchbearer of pacifism; it represents the spirit and beauty of pacifism, as Phillips notes. On the other hand, situations exist in which absolute pacifism leads to results or consequences that do not fit with the spirit of pacifism. The issue now becomes whether there is a path between these two horns. 3. Virtue-Based Ethics as the Foundation for Pacifism The criticisms of pacifism that I mentioned in the previous section arise because we most often view pacifism as a doctrine that is founded on deontological ethics. However, the theoretical basis for pacifism would be much more coherent and cogent if it were reformulated along the lines of virtuebased ethical theory, with its focus on character instead of upon the moral worth of individual actions. Furthermore, in a pacifism founded on virtuebased ethics, love should be considered the cardinal virtue. In From Warism to Pacifism, Cady mentions the issue that I see as leading toward a reformulation of the standard notion of pacifism. Cady writes: How can we take the end into consideration without making it the justification for any and all means? Or, from the opposite perspective, how can we insist that we are duty-bound to an action without taking into consideration any aspects of likely consequences of the act?8 Just war theory goes too far in saying that the end justifies the means. This principle allows that acts of violence, torture, and murder, just as long as the goal to be reached is important enough. Absolute pacifism, on the other

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hand, would not allow certain uses of force when they are well within the spirit of pacifism, that is, when they promote long-lasting peace. If Cady is not leaning toward a version of pacifism that is founded on virtue-based ethical considerations, then at least he opens the door for such a move when he writes: “To the pacifist . . . peace is not a separate and isolated objective to achieve but a policy to live. Ends and means coalesce.”9 The spirit of pacifism, indeed, rests with this idea of a policy to live. The standard theoretical basis for pacifism does not capture the true spirit of pacifism. Hereafter, when I refer to the “standard” doctrine of pacifism, I mean the doctrine that considers pacifism only in terms of deontological considerations, which entail that uses of force are always and everywhere wrong. Such a view would make pacifism to be a doctrine that only concerns situations in which uses of force are immanent, such as when a person is drafted into the military or finds himself confronted by a mugger. But pacifism must involve more than in which one is in a quandary. For example, can a person really consider herself a pacifist if she refuses to use force against other humans beings, but has money invested in defense contractors? Can persons truly be pacifists and not raise a hand against an assailant, yet continue to work for a company that is known to routinely exploit its labor force? The person may not be harming other human beings directly, but in working for the company is allowing the abuse of the workers to continue. If persons refuse to use force, but have lifestyles and life choices that support and contribute to conditions unfavorable for a peaceful society, can such persons truly be considered pacifists? Most of us will never be in the mugger-in-the-alley situation and at present there is no military conscription. Yet, being a pacifist extends beyond this. Everything about a person must be committed to peace. This idea is echoed in the words of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who writes, “The acid test of nonviolence 10 is that one thinks, speaks, and acts nonviolently.” This quotation points to the fact that pacifism has to do with more than restrictions on using force in our individual actions; it points to a way to be. The model provided by virtue-based ethics must be taken seriously because in virtue-based ethics moral judgment focuses on a person’s character, as opposed to the moral worth of each action the person performs. Each action that a person performs can and may show something about the person’s character. Virtue-based ethics provides us with a model of morality that not only concerns how we behave in perplexing situations but how we behave in the workplace and at home. A person’s character ultimately influences how that person acts in all aspects of life, including perplexing situations. First, a pacifism founded on virtue-based ethics would underline the notion that peace is something that we must work at continually and in all aspects of our lives. Pacifism cannot be a view that evaluates only the moral worth of actions. It must also be concerned with the type of person we should strive to become. That is, pacifism must be a doctrine about “being” and not just about “doing.” It must be a doctrine about the type of character that we

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should strive to bring about in ourselves, a goal toward which we should strive throughout the course of our lives. More importantly, virtue-based ethics can provide a way around the means-end problem as well as the issue of intended versus unforeseen results. As I mentioned earlier, I take harmony to be the essence of peace. In a pacifism founded on a deontological ethics, the idea is not to use force in any situation whatsoever. Peace is equated with the simple fact of never using force. Yet, as I have shown, there are situations in which not using force does not lead to a positive peace, that is, harmony. A pacifism founded on virtue-based ethics would ask the person to make peace or harmony the goal of life. Because being involves doing, this would require the person to try as much as possible to make peace the goal of each action. This would allow designated situations––such as the suicide examples––in which uses of force would be justified and not condemnable. It would not reflect on character. The goal would be peace, and there may be designated situations in which no ill will is intended but in which some force might be required. Likewise, it also means that a person must take into account the potential results of behavior. For example, using force or violence in the name of future peace without really considering and weighing all the relevant factors can reflect badly on a person’s character. We know that force and violence often beget violence, which, in turn, may prevent future peace. Thus, justifying one’s own uses of violence as a way to promote future peace might show a character flaw, revealing a lack of recognition that much more often than not, violence promotes unrest and disharmony. Still it is often difficult to calculate the extent to which future peace warrants present unrest or lack of harmony. It is difficult to decide and it certainly may not reflect badly on a persons’ characters if they opt for peace in the moment, when it is not clear what effect the choice will have on future events and especially on one’s character in the future. I propose, however, to make love, agape, the cardinal virtue of the theoretical foundation for pacifism. Unlike an Aristotelian virtue, which is a mean between two extremes, love is a character trait that does not admit of excess or defect. It, too, is a goal toward which we strive. First, I think that love ultimately promotes harmony. If persons make love the center of their characters, they will have harmony not only within but also with other persons. Secondly, to make love the cardinal virtue of the system allows for a way out of the means-end difficulty. A pacifism that is based on a deontological theory may have to condemn the person who uses force to wrestle a weapon out of a suicidal friend’s hands. But with pacifism founded on virtue-based ethics, the act, if it were done out of love, would not reflect poorly on the person. Furthermore, it would contribute to greater harmony. Such a theory would forbid acts of violence or torture, simply because a person would be hard pressed to show how violence or torture reflects a loving character. It may reflect something that the person takes to be love, such as love of country, love of one’s friend’s. However, I reiterate that if a person commits violence and justifies it by citing love of country or love of family, I

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would argue that some other character trait such as jealousy, or fear, is actually rearing its ugly head. I contend that a truly loving person, one who is striving to make love the focus of life, could never commit acts, the very committing of which would reveal a lack of love on the person’s part. Finally, my view does not reduce pacifism to agapism. Peace qua harmony is the goal of our being. I contend that the development of love as a character trait is the means to achieve this goal. Many of the standard pacifist worries about the use of force can still play a role as rules of thumb. That is, other things being equal, we should not use force, as this may reflect badly on our characters. Accordingly, whenever we consider the use of force, we need to ask ourselves if the use of force really reflects love and if harmony will be the result. But again, there will be times when uses of force may be justifiable and will not reflect badly on a person’s character. To show that this stress on love is in keeping with the pacifist spirit, I refer the reader to certain passages from Gandhi’s writings. On the surface, truth lies at the heart of Gandhi’s pacifistic views. However, a quick look at his writings reveals that prior to the desire for truth, there is love. Thus love lies at the center of Gandhi’s pacifism. Gandhi writes: “Non-violence is a dormant state. In the waking state it is love . . . . We are alive solely because of love . . . . The soul is informed with knowledge. In it burns the flame of 11 love.” A few pages later, he adds that, “In the ultimate resort it is the power of love that acts even in the midst of the clash and sustains the world.”12 By focusing on love, I am not changing the spirit of pacifism as I find this precedent in Gandhi, as well as others whose status as committed pacifists nobody could question. The theory does not become an agapism as opposed to pacifism because peace, qua harmony, is the goal of the doctrine. The best means for promoting peace both in the moment and in the long-term is for persons to make love the center of their being. The avoidance of the use of force could still be a good “rule of thumb” for the pacifist to keep in mind as it may serve as a check to our notion of love. Every time a person decides to use force against another human being, having such a principle would cause the person to reflect about whether the action is really coming from love. 4. Pacifism and Democracy In this chapter, I have tried to show that the theoretical foundation of pacifism is better captured by a theory that is modeled on virtue-based ethics than on deontological ethics. I have suggested that peace means harmony and, that pacifism strives to promote peace. But peace does not simply concern the behavior of one group of people toward another group; peace concerns also the relationship between individuals. Furthermore, I have demonstrated typical criticisms that are leveled against pacifism come about because the ethical theory on which the standard view of pacifism rests can lead to a conflict of duties for the person. For example, the person has the duty not to use force against another human being, but this might also lead to a situation in which

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by not using force against another human being the person is allowing violence or force to be used against that very human being. As a way beyond this problem, I have argued that we need to look at pacifism in terms of virtue-based ethics, which focuses on character. The goal of persons should be to make love––agape––the essence of who they are. In doing so, the persons will be promoting harmony, both within themselves and in interactions with others. If the pacifist’s goal is to become as loving a person as is possible, so as to promote harmony, the results can only be a smoother working democracy. It is possible in a democracy for there to be dissent, especially when policies and decisions are made by a very narrow majority. In cases in which forty-nine percent of the people do not hold the opinion of the majority, conditions may be ripe for strife and unrest. If peace as harmony becomes the goal, both at the level of the individual and the level of the group, perhaps a more concerted effort may be made by each individual and each group to work together with the dissenters. In such a society, pacifism would foster an attitude of cooperation and respect, and perhaps there would be more harmony on all levels. Although pacifism, based on the model that I have provided, could aid in the functioning of a democracy—in that it would promote harmony at the level of the individual and would promote, in turn, the harmony of the whole democracy—there are potential difficulties. These difficulties are the basis for some of the standard criticisms of democracy. It is possible that in a democracy pacifist voices may not be heard, especially if they are in the minority. The majority defines what policies, laws, and values are to be followed. However, often times such policies are not in the interest of the harmony of the society or of individuals. (Take our consumer-oriented society or the value we place on material wealth as examples). In fact, many times such policies reinforce the idea that peace and harmony are naive ideals as competition and survival-of-the-fittest are seen as “natural.” Peace or harmony should be values that a democracy promotes as they will only help the functioning of democracy. In this respect, pacifism should 13 be seen as anything but naive. NOTES 1. Duane Cady, From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), p. 44. 2. Ibid., p. 44. 3. Ibid., p. 58. 4. Ibid., p. 62. 5. Ibid. 6. Robert L. Phillips and Duane Cady, Humanitarian Intervention: Just War vs. Pacifism (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), p. 82. 7. Ibid., p. 83 8. Cady, From Warism to Pacifism., p. 43. 9. Ibid., p. 45.

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10. Mohandas K. Gandhi, “On Satyagraha,” Non-violence in Theory and Practice, ed. Robert Holmes (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1990), p. 54. 11. Ibid., p. 52. 12. Ibid., p. 54. 13. I wish to thank Kent Simmonds, John Kultgen, and Mary Lenzi for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Fifteen GANDHI AND DEWEY: EDUCATION FOR PEACE Gregory P. Fields Mohandas K. Gandhi and John Dewey were philosophers of education and peace representing the world’s two most populous democratic nations. Education is central in their prescriptions for addressing the problems facing humankind, and for harmonizing the individual’s need for development with society’s need for capable workers and citizens. “Education for peace” as presented in this chapter does not refer primarily to education about peace and conflict, but to education as the foundation of democracy: education as the primary means of cultivating citizens’ dispositions of critical thinking, compassion, and collaborative action necessary for their participation in democratic governance. Education for peace (while including education about peace and conflict) emphasizes effective thought, communication, human concern, and problem solving, and recognizes the reciprocal relation of education and democracy as means for improving conditions of livelihood and social justice. In this chapter I bring Gandhi and Dewey into dialogue to see how our current efforts in education for peace can be guided by their work. My interest in deriving prescriptions for peace education from Dewey and Gandhi stems from my work as a teacher of Comparative Philosophy and Critical Thinking at the university level, and my teaching of Foundations of Education and Multi-cultural Education to university students preparing to be elementary and secondary teachers. By identifying common, complementary, and divergent points in the work of Dewey and Gandhi, I suggest how some seeds of their work might bear fruit in education for a democratic and just peace as we begin the twenty-first century. The holism of Deweyan and Gandhian approaches to human life and learning supports cultivation of peace-oriented education across the curriculum. Rather than seeking to develop specific curricula for peace education, I am concerned here with a rationale for infusing college level and pre-college education with methods and materials that cultivate powers and dispositions supportive of peace and justice-oriented problem solving in democratic societies. Ian M. Harris has identified five major types of Peace Education: Global Education, Conflict Resolution, Violence Prevention, Future Studies, and Nonviolence Education or Gandhian Studies. Harris has charted the characteristics of each under four headings: Violence Addressed, Goals, Peace Type, and Curriculum.1 Nonviolence Education or Gandhian Studies emphasizes positive concepts of peace (rather than peace as absence of strife), the power of non-

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violence, discovery of one’s own and others’ truths, empathy, forgiveness and community, and proactive peacemaking. The Deweyan approach to education for peace coincides with Future Studies, which emphasizes democracy, critical thinking, strategic planning, and problem solving in domains such as economics, social equity, and ecology. Dewey’s and Gandhi’s contributions to education for peace are also represented by Conflict Resolution Peace Education. From the Deweyan standpoint conflict resolution is grounded in cultivation of a community of inquiry in the classroom; and in Gandhian terms, conflict resolution emerges from a spirit of tolerance in the search for truth and social harmony. These two orientations to conflict resolution mirror Dewey’s and Gandhi’s contributions to education for peace: for Dewey, experimenting intelligence is applied to problem solving in a democratic and cooperative classroom or other social setting; and for Gandhi, a spiritual emphasis grounds the acceptance and reconciliation of ideological differences. Dewey’s ideas for peace education were not worked out in a detailed way, but his educational philosophy has much to contribute to development of curricula that support peaceoriented living and learning. While Gandhi’s educational theory does not have the articulated foundations and implications available in Dewey’s philosophy of education, Gandhi’s thought and example offer moral and spiritual imperatives for application of our efforts to understand and achieve peace in its various manifestations Dewey and Gandhi were contemporary leaders in real world problem solving, each applying his efforts in areas including philosophy, religion, ethics, politics, economics, law, and education. India’s Gandhi (1869–1948) began his career as an attorney, but became a social and political leader of India, particularly in the country’s struggle for independence from British rule. By the power of his intellect and spirit, devoted to and strengthened by his life’s work for human welfare, the Mahatma (Great-Soul) earned worldwide respect as a philosopher and moral leader. Gandhi was foremost a social and religious leader and secondarily a philosophical figure. The United States philosopher Dewey (1859–1952) was less a public figure; his career was philosophy, though as a pragmatist he was very involved in public affairs. Dewey was a thinker whose inquiries into human nature (from the workings of the mind to dealings among nations) were grounded in a commitment to the application of an experimenting intelligence to meeting human needs and sustaining wholesome, truthful, productive lives for individuals and society.2 Dewey’s philosophy of education was a major force for educational reform in the United States and other nations, notably China, where Dewey lectured (particularly on democracy and education) over a twoyear period beginning at the time of the student-led demonstrations against Japanese imperialism and corruption in China’s government, 4 May 1919. Dewey’s pragmatism and ideas on participatory democracy found hospitable ground in Chinese thought and culture.3 Dewey’s Democracy and Education, published in 1916, preceded by twenty years Gandhi’s Wardha Scheme for educational reform in India.

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It is not clear how much knowledge Dewey and Gandhi had of the other’s work. K. G. Warty quotes Sri Ramanathan, author of Education from Gandhi to Dewey: There is one reference in the accounts of Gandhi’s talks on Basic Education. When somebody told him that his scheme of education through craft had already been tried by Dewey and given up, Gandhiji replied that Dewey could not have given the scheme a fairly long trial. It is not known whether Gandhiji has left on record any other opinion about Dewey.4 Dewey and Gandhi both recognized education as a fundamental means of socialization and acculturation, along with emphasizing the importance of family, religion, and community, and each affirmed the transformative power of education for the betterment of person and world. Dewey and Gandhi were contemporaries, but their nations were in very different cultural and political circumstances. India has a vast and ancient cultural tradition, a huge population, and was oppressed by British rule and plundering of her tremendous natural and human resources, until gaining independence in 1947, with the help of Gandhi’s spiritual and political leadership. In Dewey’s lifetime, the United States was a young nation, its traditions were still being articulated, and it offered great natural resources and opportunities to its comparatively few inhabitants. The intellectual climate in the United States during Dewey’s career was characterized by major progress in scientific knowledge and methods. On the practical side, scientific progress permitted technological developments that supported the industrial revolution and the shift from a primarily agricultural economy to one of manufacture. On the theoretical side, scientific progress grounded acceptance of the theory of evolution in the United States, which was accompanied by an increasingly skeptical attitude toward religion. Religion in India was and remains a fundamental cultural focus, and in Gandhi’s work for the independence of India, a major religious issue was the conflict between Hindus and Muslims concerning the power balance that would follow liberation from Britain. Gandhi’s efforts to lead resistance to British rule were based in Hindu principles of religious tolerance and practical commitment to truth and nonviolence. India and the United States, along with all other nations, faced world wars and the advent of nuclear weapons. Gandhi and Dewey conceived of education as central to maintaining societies that could address inevitable social and political conflicts with intelligence and compassion. 1. Philosophies of Education Dewey and Gandhi share a view of the organic unity of human and nature. In other words, human beings are part of nature, not separate from it, as much of the western tradition presupposes, represented by the Biblical presentation of

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man’s dominion over nature and Descartes’ conception of mind as a substance wholly different from matter. For Dewey, the unity of the human being and nature is explained according to scientific principles, consonant with Aldous Huxley’s work on physiology and Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. A major educational implication of Dewey’s view of the unity of person and nature is that knowledge is cultivated by engagement with concrete elements of the natural and social worlds, not merely by mastery of concepts and language meanings. For Gandhi, the unity of man and nature is an instance of the root presupposition of the Hindu Vedanta tradition: the unity of all with the absolute Brahman. Gandhi’s view of the person emphasizes the soul as a moral agent for action. His interpretation of the Atman, the individual soul, diverges from the traditional Hindu conception of Atman as identical with Absolute Brahman. For Gandhi, the Atman realizes its true nature in relatedness to others in a community. While Gandhi’s perspective on humankind emphasizes morality, Dewey’s emphasizes knowledge. This is not to say that Dewey neglects morality, on that Gandhi neglects knowledge. According to Dewey, the human being’s nature is to think and experiment in striving for meaning and successful action in the world. The classroom should be a training ground for democratic social life in the larger communities of neighborhood, nation, and world. But beyond being a model or training ground, the classroom should itself be a democratic community (democracy grounded in the moral principles of freedom, justice, and equality), with students and teachers as co-inquirers in meaningful inquiries and projects. Dewey describes a democratic society as one “which makes provision for participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life.”5 Dewey and Gandhi meet on the ground of their social theories, which is evident in the applicability of Dewey’s concept of democracy to Gandhi’s ideal of India’s self-governance. In Democracy and Education, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, Dewey says, “A democracy is more than a form of government, it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communication and experience.”6 For Gandhi, the ideal form of associated living was svaraj, self-rule, which meant for him more than independence from British rule, and symbolized a self-sufficient community of people, constituted by self-disciplined persons guided by the virtues of truth (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa), values bequeathed by and honoring their Indian heritage. The term svaraj has spiritual and political applications, and in both contexts connotes freedom: the spiritual freedom gained by self-mastery, that is, overcoming passions and coming to know and act from one’s true nature as a spiritual person who values truth and morality over power and material gain; and political freedom in the negative sense of freedom from oppression and the positive sense of freedom of self-determination.7

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Gandhi’s economic ideal was the self-sufficient village economy, which encouraged cooperation, equity, and distribution, rather than greed, acquisitiveness, and competition. This is sarvodaya, which means “the welfare of all,”8 and in the language of Dewey’s United States democratic tradition, is comparable to equity, which implies equal opportunity and access to resources. The combining of knowledge and experience is instrumental in Gandhi’s social philosophy. Satyagraha literally means “grasping the truth,” from the Sanskrit satya, truth, and the verbal root grah, to grasp. It must be learned in experience, not merely intellectually. The political and practical meaning of satyagraha is nonviolent resistance, but its root meaning concerns the individual’s self-cultivation and commitment to truth, which grounds a cooperative, nonviolent and non-exploitative social structure. Purosottama Bilimoria says of Gandhi’s approach: He focused at the grassroots level and demanded of each individual certain character, discipline, fortitude, commitment to individual values, such as truth and non-violence, which are to be interiorized or, as it were, become an irrevocable property of the soul. So strong must the discipline be that the whole identity of the individual is subsumed by the commitment: that is what constitutes that being of the individual such as that he or she need not depend on episodic cognitive responses, or on the particular social structure, or an abstract creed or even a written “law” to give the individual direction.9 Gandhi’s and Dewey’s philosophies of education are based upon human development, rather than on an externally imposed theoretical framework. In other words, curricula should respond to the needs and circumstances of learners, rather than following a pre-established prescription for knowledge and skills to be mastered. Both philosophies of education are activity based rather than knowledge based, a radical notion in the time when Indian students had to give a large share of effort to learning English, which made them more useful to the British, and did so at the expense of the Indians’ education for the meeting their own needs. In the United States, Dewey searched with difficulty for tables and chairs constructed to allow children to work actively, in order to furnish his laboratory school at the University of Chicago. Both held that the most successful education is that which draws out (Latin: ducere, “to lead”) the student’s powers, rather that merely instilling information. Consider this comment of Gandhi’s while bearing in mind Dewey’s pragmatism: “Craft, art, health, and education should all be integrated into one scheme . . . . Instead of regarding craft and industry as different from education, I will regard the former as the medium of the latter.”10 A corollary of this approach to education is the position represented by both thinkers, and expressed by Dewey in Democracy and Education, that education must be based in and actually constitute genuine community life.11 For Gandhi, education is far more than formal schooling; it encompasses the education of citizens and political leaders for practical social reforms. Gan-

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dhi carried on “an extended dialogue with students all over India” through his publications Young India and Harijan. His theory of education embodied two objections concerning justice and economics: opposition to the British system of educating Indian youth (in English) to produce government workers, and disapproval of the mechanization imposed on the Indian rural economy.12 Inspired by John Ruskin’s Unto This Last, which advocated teaching children gentleness and justice, knowledge of health, and a craft for learning a livelihood, Gandhi developed his Basic or New Education (Nai Talim), emphasizing spinning as a handicraft. He carried out this experiment at the Phoenix settlement in South Africa and later at the Sabramati Ashram in India.13 Gandhi advocated a decentralized system of education, controlled primarily at the village rather than the state level, in which children would simultaneously receive childcare and contribute to financing their education by the production of goods they learned to craft.14 Education, for Gandhi as for Dewey, embodies a reciprocal relation between the school and the community, and between the good of the individual and the good of the community. M. S. Patel identifies the main similarities of Gandhi’s and Dewey’s educational philosophy: Both Dewey and Gandhi conceive of education not merely in terms of learning, but in terms of construction, use of tools, contact with nature, expression and activity. To them, school is the place where children are working rather than listening, learning life by living life. Its primary business may be said to train children in cooperative and mutually helpful living. The virtues of such a school are learning by doing, the use of muscles, sight and feeling as well as hearing; and the employment of energy, originality, and initiative.15 In Schools of Tomorrow, Dewey and his wife, Evelyn Dewey, describe the integration of curricular subjects at the Elementary School at the University of Missouri at Columbia: The study of industries is continued as history: that is, the history of industries concerned with clothing, feeding, and housing is taken up. The pupils study the history of shelter from the first beginnings with a cave or brush thicket, through the tents of the wandering tribes and the Greek and Roman house, to the steel skyscrapers of today.16 The integration of theory and practice in curriculum is exemplified by the Dewey’s discussion of civic nature study in Chicago public schools: In addition to familiar gardening work, with special attention of the organization of truck gardening, plants are grown in the classroom for purposes of developing appreciation of beauty, scientific illustration, and assistance in geography. But plants are selected with special reference to local conditions, and with the desire to furnish a stimulus to beautifying

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the pupils’ own environment. For it is found that the scientific principles of botany can be taught by means of growing plants which are adapted to home use as well as by specimens selected on abstract scientific grounds.17 Compare Gandhi’s description of the lessons to be given on the takli or spinning device: If we are to revive and reconstruct village life, we must begin the education of children with the takli. My next lesson would therefore be to teach the boys the place the takli used to occupy in our daily life. Next I would take them into a little history and teach them how it declined. Then would follow a brief course in Indian History, starting from the East India Company, or even earlier from the Muslim period, giving them a detailed account of the exploitation that was the stock-in-trade of the East India Company, how by a systematic process our main handicraft was strangled and ultimately killed. Next would follow a brief course in mechanics––construction of the takli . . . . Next would follow a few lectures on cotton . . . and its cultivation. That would make us launch into a little agriculture.18 Gandhi’s takli lessons exemplify the Deweyan curriculum theory. Both aim to engage the learner with a broad range of subjects, related meaningfully to one another within a practical context in the learner’s life. A major difference between Gandhi’s and Dewey’s orientations to curriculum reflect their disparate cultural and economic situations. Although they agree in many ways about educational methods, Gandhi’s system placed great emphasis on vocational training, which he saw as a means for India to rescue itself from economic domination by Britain. A major instance of Britain’s subjugation of India was its manufacture of cloth in the factories of England, and sale of that cloth in India and elsewhere, which deprived countless Indians of livelihood, and crippled village economies. Gandhi wrote in his newspaper Young India, in 1921, “It is impossible for us to attain economic independence without reviving home-spinning.”19 Spinning, according to Gandhi, was not only a way for India to recover economic independence, but a way to finance the education of India’s youth. He recommended in that article that students spin for four hours of the school day, with literary training given during the remaining two hours. In later years, Gandhi gave greater priority to literary education, but he continued to regard literacy as a means and not an end. He wrote in his newspaper Harijan: I am a firm believer in the principle of free and compulsory Primary Education for India. I also hold that we shall realize this only by teaching the children a useful vocation and utilizing it as a means for cultivating their mental, physical, and spiritual faculties.20

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Gandhi regarded intellectual training as necessary for, but subsidiary to, moral conduct and capacity to earn a living. He wrote, “It is not literacy or learning which makes a man, but education for real life.”21 Dewey supported vocational education, but cautioned that it could perpetuate inequity, restricting masses of laborers to narrow technical trades, while only the wealthy had access to liberal education, that is, education that is more than job training, but that liberates individuals from ignorance and from vulnerability to political oppression. In the present context of education for peace in the twenty-first century (with its high-tech resources and threats, along with perennial human needs for service from agriculture, manufacturing, and service occupations), questions about how to prioritize and support children’s physical, intellectual, moral, and vocational development are all the more pressing. Gandhi and Dewey understood the individual’s full development as requiring balanced integration of capacities in these domains. Moreover, Gandhi’s and Dewey’s holistic view of personhood extends to a vision of a reciprocal relation between the well being of the individual and of the community. 2. Education and Peace The Bhagavadgita, the scripture that guided Gandhi’s life, influenced his understanding of war and peace.22 The Gita’s message of nishkama-karma, action without desire, applies not only to peace as contrasted with war, but to the spiritual peace attainable by non-attachment to the fruits of one’s actions: acting to fulfill one’s duties and accepting the consequences, pleasant or unpleasant, with equanimity. It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of peace in Gandhi’s thought, for ahimsa (connoting nonviolence, non-injury and non-oppression), which Gandhi equated with peace, he held to be both the fundamental moral principle and the means of attaining truth. Gandhi conceived of Truth as identical to God, in the Vedic sense of ontological truth: being unconditioned by space and time.23 The strength of Gandhi’s thought on peace consists in its moral and spiritual basis. The following excerpt from Harijan conveys the moral and spiritual foundation as well as the political application of Gandhi’s view of peace. Not to believe in the possibility of permanent peace is to disbelieve in the Godliness of human nature . . . . If the recognized leaders of mankind who have control over the engines of destruction were wholly to renounce their use, with full knowledge of its implications, permanent peace can be obtained . . . . I have been taught from my childhood and tested the truth by experience that the primary virtues of mankind are possible of cultivation by the meanest of the human species. It is this undoubted universal possibility that distinguishes the humans from the rest of God’s creation. If even one nation were unconditionally to perform the supreme act of renunciation, many of us would see in our lifetime visible peace established on earth.24

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Dewey promoted peace in the domains of politics and education, and based his peace work on practical considerations. C. F. Howlett observes: Dewey encourages peace in the name of democratic and economic stability . . . . Peace simply became a practical consideration based on a desirable political outcome: the extension of social democracy that would prevent self-seeking politicians from cleverly playing on the emotion of national loyalty and the ignorance of other lands to advance their own interests.25 While Dewey did not directly oppose the war effort in the First World War, he recommended peaceful endeavors such as agriculture to sustain a peace more lasting than the peace gained by force of arms. In the Columbia University War Papers Dewey proposed that boys participate in training drills with “the spade and the hoe,” rather than military drills, to help contribute to the nation’s food supply during the war.26 Most significant in Dewey’s work toward peace are his proposed curriculum reforms, which focus especially on the teaching of history and geography, especially in their applications to contemporary human life, in order to encourage understanding and fellowship with other cultures. Such initiatives exemplify the Global Education emphasis in Harris’s schema. Dewey’s thoughts on peace education might seem to include naive assumptions, such as his hope that the movement to outlaw war, popular in the 1920s, could succeed because the citizenry educated for peace could provide sufficient opposition to those holding political power. However, the triumph of Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement demonstrates that people may indeed prevail over a government with which they disagree. How might we contribute to peace through education by following paths suggested by Gandhi and Dewey? A first step is recognition of the spiritual and cognitive poverty keeping many young people from developing themselves as self-realizing persons growing in discriminative judgment and productive action. This recognition calls for fortification of both school and community efforts to cultivate such development in young people. Dewey and Gandhi have, in various contexts, expressed visions of curriculum reform applicable to education at the elementary and secondary levels, and to higher education as well. The task before us as educators is to reconstruct and evaluate their prescriptions, and those of other philosophers of education, synthesizing and implementing plans appropriate to current circumstances and problems. 3. Peace Education Initiatives Derivable from Gandhi and Dewey Various forms of the initiatives listed below are operating in schools and universities in various regions of the world. They are presented here in summation of main action principles that the work of Gandhi and Dewey can further support. In brief, their prescriptions for education for peace emphasize the following:

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(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Self-knowledge and self-cultivation Cultural awareness Compassion Communication and conflict resolution Collaboration Contextualization (meaningful connection of information and skills with the learner’s experience) (7) Critical thinking (8) Problem solving (9) Political awareness (10) Social responsibility and participation in governance 4. Education for Peace at Elementary and Secondary Levels Below is a more specific list of peace-oriented initiatives emergent from the work of Gandhi and Dewey, followed by concluding comments on social health as an aim in applying their ideas on education for peace. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(6) (7) (8)

(9)

Communities of Inquiry Make schools and classrooms communities of inquiry, supporting cooperative thinking, and productivity. Cultural and Multi-cultural Education Emphasize the understanding and appreciation of our own and others’ cultural worldviews and traditions. Conflict Resolution Teach and use methods of conflict resolution: personal, peer, domestic, school, community. Critical Thinking Integrate throughout content areas the use of basic procedures of logic and reasoning. Education about Democratic and Other Political Processes Education in the workings of various systems of government, including participatory education in democratic governance in the classroom. Critical Reflection on Social and Political Issues Application of critical reflection to contemporary events in the classroom, community, and world. Study of War and Peace Study of historical and contemporary cases of war and social injustice, along with alternatives and solutions. Occupational Education Work experience as well as academic preparation for earning a livelihood for students planning to enter the work force immediately after high school, as well those planning to attend college. Problem Solving and Contribution to the Community

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Opportunities in the curriculum for real world problem solving, within and beyond the school, allowing students to appreciate their own power to make constructive changes in the world. 5. Education for Peace in Colleges and Universities Colleges and universities possess great human and material resources for research and education concerning issues of peace and conflict. Following are some initiatives that should be supported to carry forward Dewey’s educational vision and Gandhi’s moral imperative in work toward greater peace: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Curricula Provide undergraduate and graduate education in Peace Studies: Interdisciplinary courses, degree programs (both specialized and adjunct to other specializations), and fieldwork, addressing the nature of and alternatives to conflict and injustice. Faculty Development Encourage faculty in a range of disciplines to incorporate issues of peace and justice in their teaching, and to strengthen their students’ critical and reflective thinking about social and political issues. Research Support interdisciplinary research in issues of peace and conflict. This includes financial and material support, valuing of peace research in the tenure and promotion process, research conferences, publications and other means of encouraging collaboration and cross-fertilization of ideas, including multi-cultural and interdisciplinary initiatives. Community Outreach Sponsor community outreach activities (for example, presentations, dialogues, film discussions, study groups) so that citizens outside the university can be more informed and involved in critical and creative thought about sustaining healthful life on earth. Teacher Education Pre-service and in-service education for elementary and secondary teachers, concerning rationale, methods, and materials for peaceoriented education. 6. Education, Peace, and Social Health

A main connection between education and peace can be located in the Hindu view of the human condition: ignorance produces suffering, and knowledge liberates us from it. Dewey’s pragmatism incorporates a comparable postulate; he speaks of knowledge as valuable insofar as it makes our dealings in our environment more fertile and secure.27 The difference is that on the Hindu view, knowledge for fruitful action in the world is subsidiary to knowledge that supports spiritual progress. From the Hindu standpoint, spiritual libera-

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tion depends on self-realization: knowing and attaining one’s true nature, which can be expressed in terms of achieving ultimate health, that is, well being in spiritual as well as psychophysical life. Although Gandhi’s thought is not equivalent to Hindu thought, it is fair to say that he held spiritual life as foundational. However, Gandhi took seriously the realities of the physical and social worlds, so in Gandhi’s view, spiritual development was not only an end in itself, but a means to the moral life that grounds a healthy society, that is, a society where freedom, nonviolence, equity, and justice prevail. Another Indian tradition, Buddhism, with its Four Noble Truths provides a medical model for the diagnosis of the human condition, and a prescription for the individual’s attainment of health and peace. In the domain of social life, the Buddha articulated the idea of peace in terms of the health of society. Similar to the way a person’s spiritual liberation (from suffering and to a state of peace) depends on overcoming the psychic malnutrition that produces suffering, so the health and peace of a community depend on overcoming physical malnutrition.28 Peace thus depends in part on individuals’ having adequate means of securing a livelihood, and for this, education is a necessary condition. An implication of the idea of social health as an aim derivable from Gandhi’s and Dewey’s educational philosophies is that education for peace should incorporate means for self-realization, with emphasis on the spiritual domain from the Gandhian standpoint, and on the cognitive domain from the Deweyan standpoint. This dual notion of self-realization recommends our recognition of the spiritual and cognitive poverty afflicting many young people who could be empowered through peace-oriented education to realize their true nature as intelligent beings, and the moral imperative to strengthen themselves intellectually in order to participate in democratic governance. According to Dewey, a democracy is characterized by “a liberating of greater diversity of personal capacities.”29 Dewey’s thought represents the application of self-realization in the sense of discovering and cultivating one’s talents for a livelihood that is personally fulfilling, as well as productive in one’s social and economic community. Gandhi’s philosophy of education for peace did not so much emphasize the special interests of the individual learner, but we must bear in mind that his work was carried out under the extenuating circumstances of India’s stand for independence from Great Britain, complicated by Muslim-Hindu tension that reduced India’s unity as nation. This brings us to the question of how the educational philosophy of Gandhi and Dewey can be utilized in present and future times and changing socio-political circumstances. At present, tension exists between India and Pakistan, compounded by the possibility of nuclear conflict between them. In the United States, a crushing social problem is that students are bringing firearms to school, and sometimes killing other students and teachers. Without entering into discussion of the causes and potential solutions of these complex problems, we may take them as examples of threats to peace at the international and the community

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levels. We may also regard them as symptoms of political and societal illness, for which peace-oriented education is among several applicable therapeutics. A main lesson from Gandhi and Dewey is that education must address the needs of learners, balanced with addressing the realities of the material, social, and ideological environments in which those persons live. Implicit in their work is the principle that curriculum is not static, but is a living process, in which a teacher orchestrates experiences to engage learners with new ideas and skills applied to meaningful projects. Thus employing Gandhi’s and Dewey’s ideas for education reform does not consist in duplicating their specific procedures, but in utilizing their recommendations for creating curricula appropriate to immediate educational and social circumstances. Inspired by their holistic approaches, we may conceive of education as a process of attaining greater wholeness of a person’s knowledge base and capacities. We may also conceive of a main purpose of education as empowering individuals to solve problems for the greater well being or health of their communities. Societal illness is evident in the schools themselves, exemplified by violence and fear of violence in many United States high schools, middle schools, and even primary schools. Another manifestation of societal illness is the degree to which some students feel alienated from the educational process, sometimes owing to the fact that the learning styles and experiences of many young people, particularly those of diverse cultures, are not well served by curricula based on the Anglo-European macro-culture. An immediate problem is how to make education more relevant to the variety of youths who attend our schools. A suggestion emergent from Gandhi and Dewey is to further incorporate contemporary social issues and student concerns into the curriculum as content for the application of information and skills of critical reasoning, oral communication, reading, writing, and mathematical calculation. Rather than the schools avoiding controversial topics, students can benefit from constructive engagement with issues that affect their health and happiness. Such engagement can help make their education more meaningful, and better prepare them to become adults capable of, and committed to, participating in the governance of our communities and our world. Gandhi said that literacy training could be temporarily sacrificed in order that educational resources be diverted to vocational education, allowing India’s workers to gain freedom from Britain’s economic domination. In the present day, threats to peace (within schools and among nations) call for us to consider peace-oriented curriculum reforms. One such reform is a broader definition of “literacy,” understood not only in terms of fluency in reading and writing, but as incorporating self-cultivation in the domains of emotion, ethics, and politics. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, locates a notion of emotional literacy in Dewey. Philosopher John Dewey saw that a moral education is most potent when lessons are taught to children in the course of real events, not just as abstract lessons (the mode of emotional literacy). If character development

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GREGORY P. FIELDS is a foundation of democratic societies, consider some of the ways emotional intelligence buttresses this foundation. The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on self-control. A related keystone of character is being able to motivate and guide oneself, whether in doing homework, finishing a job, or getting up in the morning . . . . The ability to defer gratification and to control and channel one’s urges to act is a basic emotional skill, one that in a former day was called will.30

This Deweyan notion of emotional intelligence recalls Gandhi’s understanding of satyagraha as an individual’s actualized commitment to truth and goodness, which is a necessary condition for a just and peaceful society. I have shown that while Gandhi and Dewey offer similar approaches to education for peace, they diverge at the point of Gandhi’s spiritual emphasis. A person might object that the spiritual basis of Gandhi’s educational philosophy would be inappropriate in schools where church and state are to remain separate. But Gandhi did not advocate, nor does his educational philosophy recommend, the teaching of particular religious doctrines or traditions. In the United States, while we recognize the need for moral development for our youth, we are reluctant to teach morality in the schools, largely on the assumption that morality is necessarily grounded in, and can be taught only through, specific religious traditions. Gandhi’s religious and social philosophy offers a more encompassing vision of morality, the basis of which is selfrealization wherein a person’s spiritual beliefs may be unique and private. Gandhi and Dewey show us that education for peace in culturally diverse and democratic societies can incorporate education in values, not values directly linked with specific religions, but common values grounding socially healthy democracies (freedom, nonviolence, equity, and justice). A final note: An article in The Journal of the National Education Association in 1937 called for the substitution of “peace heroes” for “war heroes” in children’s books.31 Along with Gandhi’s philosophical contributions to education for peace, his example as an educator and peace worker is a valuable lesson in itself. NOTES 1. Ian M. Harris, “Different Types of Peace Education,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 17 (Fall 1997), pp. 5–9. 2. John J. McDermott, The Philosophy of John Dewey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. xix. 3. John Dewey, Lectures in China, 1919–1920, ed. R. W. Clopton and T. C. Ou (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1973); B. Keenan, The Dewey Experiment in China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977); T. C. Ou, Dewey’s Influence on China’s Efforts for Modernization (Jamaica, N.Y.: St. John’s University Papers in Asian Studies, #24, 1978).

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4. K. G. Warty, A Study of Gandhian Education (Bombay: Nutan Printing Press, 1981), p. 40. 5. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), p. 115. 6. Dewey, Democracy and Education, pp. 383 and 386. 7. Dennis Dalton, Mahatma Gandhi: Non-violent Power in Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 2–7. 8. Purosottama Bilimoria, “Gandhi and the Teaching of Peace,” paper presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago (November 1988), pp. 22–23, 15, and 19. 9. Ibid., p. 28. 10. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Harijan (10 November 1946), p. 394. 11. Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 11. 12. C. V. Rao, “Gandhi and Ruskin on Education,” Gandhi and the West, ed. C. D. Narasimhaiah (Mysore, India: Mysore University Press, 1969), p. 121. 13. Bilimoria, “Gandhi and the Teaching of Peace,” p. 6. 14. Ibid., p. 21 15. M. S. Patel, Educational Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1953), p. 69. 16. John Dewey and Evelyn Dewey, Schools of Tomorrow (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1915), p. 54. 17. Ibid., p. 97. 18. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Basic Education (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1951), p. 9 19. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Young India (2 February 1921), p. 36. 20. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Harijan (9 October 1937), p. 292. 21. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Harijan (2 February 1947), p. 3. 22. R. S. Puri, Gandhi on War and Peace (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987), p. 17. 23. Margaret Chatterjee, Gandhi’s Religious Thought (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 60–61. 24. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Harijan, (16 May 1936 and 18 June 1938), quoted in R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao, The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1945), pp. 455–456. 25. C. F. Howlett, “John Dewey and Nicholas Murray Butler: Contrasting Conceptions of Peace Education in the Twenties,” Educational Theory, 37 (Fall 1987), p. 455. 26. Columbia University War Papers (New York: Columbia University, series 1, no. 1, 1917), p. 5. 27. Dewey, Democracy and Education, pp. 177–178. 28. David J. Kalupahana, “Buddhism and Healing,” paper presented at the University of Hawaii Center for South Asian Studies Tenth Spring Symposium, “Health Systems of South Asia” (Honolulu, Hawaii, March 1993), p. 14. 29. Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 101. 30. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), p. 285. 31. Ellen Lamar Thomas, “Should We Go On Making Little Soldiers?”, The Journal of the National Education Association, 26:9 (December 1937), p. 281.

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Epilogue PHILOSOPHY, PEACE, AND PROBLEMS FOR DEMOCRACY Mary Lenzi 1. Philosophy and Politics Like others before us, we Concerned Philosophers for Peace have tried to engage in political life, using our skills and training for the sake of democracy. And we, too, have found it difficult to trace the connection between the problems of democracy and problems of peace and war, justice, and morality. As I write this epilogue in the third millennium, I might facilely say, “What’s old becomes new again,” and deny any genuinely new ideas and solutions. We are familiar with the precarious state of democracy and peace worldwide, in recent times, in the fighting throughout the world. Leadership, whether it is in the White House, Tel Aviv, the United Nations, or NATO, appears confused both morally and politically. The new high-tech version of war as a way to resolve disputes in another's land presents new difficulties in the form of inaccurate air strikes, and the old versions of war continue to present the old difficulties of the killing of innocents and the gratuitous destruction of property. Problems for Democracy is rich in its variety of questions and answers. Our main concern has been to reflect upon a few complexities of the project to which some concerned philosophers (and other like-minded thinkers) have committed themselves, and to find and promote the opportune and appropriate blend of philosophy, power, and politics for our leaders and decision-makers. What has the passage of time and thought done for peace in our project of joining philosophy and political agency? First, as a group of philosophers we are not answering a new professional calling; we are responding to one that comes from the dawn of philosophy. Our calling is not easy. Post-modernists would argue that time and thought are warped, and that conflicted senses of ourselves and our government have both enlarged and reduced our expectations in light of the actual experiences of our leaders during times of war and peace.1 At the beginning of the art of questioning, some Greek philosophers maintained that politics is a public enterprise, but philosophy requires a more private life. Heraclitus, for example, boldly refused his hereditary kingship in order to philosophize in private. Others maintained that the proper blend of philosophy and politics would work best toward solving social and political ills. Socrates, through his life and death, publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the bad fruits and gory glories of the Golden Age of Greece, including wars of Athenian imperial democracy under Pericles’ leadership. Though he avoided political office in order to philosophize freely, he was a political activist and was executed for his public practice of philosophy, which he under-

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stood to be the pursuit of moral truth and the goading of others to do the same. In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates confronted and questioned the most famous leaders in Periclean Athens. He urged them to strive for philosophic political wisdom and virtue, not mere power achieved by rhetoric, law, force, and persuasion. In premiering this philosophy, Plato led the Socratic line of questioning to a perennially puzzling condition for political good. He said that unless philosophers become rulers, or rulers become philosophers, there will be no rest from the ills of society.2 Aristotle refined and enlarged Plato’s political philosophy of the Republic. He argued that the best way to beat politics as usual is to have philosophy systematically tame it under the guidance of wise leaders and an educated populace. Aristotle, agreeing with the Plato of the Laws, proposed the rule of law under a mixed form of government that would combine the best of aristocracy (rule by those best suited to rule) with democracy. 2. Personalizing Politics The democratic problem of equating popularity with expertise is increasingly evident in the personalization and mass production of politics at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. In a democracy, every person counts, at least as eligible to cast a vote and as entitled to rights and opportunities. This brute equality is a problem when popularity and expertise are equated in the public perception. In our public roles as Concerned Philosophers for Peace and as teaching scholars, we may find small comfort in noting that others have shared and continue to experience our predicament in terms of tasks as contemporary dualists; for example consider those philosopherpsychologists and therapists who organized their own group.3 But how popular can serious academics, theorists, and therapists become without compromising themselves and their tasks, to reach the public politically on behalf of peace and the common good? American Presidents, such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and even Pericles, a fourth-century BC Athenian leader of early Western democracy, became legendary because their leadership came to define the entire age and purpose of a people. Their names signatured their forms of democracy, which broadened democratic culture and democratic ways of life. These leaders learned from and, in some cases, transcended religious and secular experts. Despite their impressive legacies, they were then, and often are now, considered demagogues or populists. The timeless interplay of political leadership and personal bearings becomes a public record and immortalizing test and standard for political leaders, at once determining their political survival, longevity, efficacy, and their legacies of success or failure in war or peace. In a democracy, citizens need criteria for determining what constitutes a good leader, or at least criteria that enable them to pick out and discard bad prospects. It may be that the fate of an entire

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people—their survival, justice, peace, and well-being—rests upon their leaders, especially leaders in time of war, wars fought for these very things. Unfortunately, these days in the United States, the grounds for democratic decisions in elections are most often such things as advertising, opinion polls, and negative campaigning. Thus are chosen the expert, political leaders who serve as guardians of the people and who determine the condition of democracy in war and peace. In the confusion or merging of personal ambition with political good, they make political decisions for continuing life and keeping the peace, or ushering in wars of death and destruction of peoples, cultures, governments, and ways of life. 3. Punditocracy and Pop Culture Experts—the social and political leaders of the people—either mirror or mimic the people. By these means, the people get a picture of themselves. The few chosen elect—officials, experts, pundits, and pop stars—hold up a mirror to the people. The people are reduced or enlarged accordingly by the special effects and degrees of plausibility their leaders reflect and project. We ask an array of experts to give us, the people, what we want or else we will find someone who will. But the desirable elements of a good political leader are moral character, integrity, and wisdom. Thus we need to reevaluate the minimal and maximal requirements for such personal elements in choosing suitable democratic leaders. Our volume has offered detailed analyses, proposals, and solutions pertaining to the relationship between democracy and peace; but the decisions of our democracy seem to be much more influenced by the media, the so-called “fourth branch of the government.” They come to be regarded as our “expert” leaders. The expert leaders and pundits vie for prominence and political position. The media's stars are movie actors and actresses, journalists, legal “experts,” talk show hosts, politicians in office, and politicians serving as news show hosts and commentators. Philosophers concerned for peace, as Beth J. Singer observes from the viewpoint of her life-long experience as a philosopher and political activist, cannot be heard easily above the din of the pundits.4 Thematically in line with the equation of democratic leadership with punditry is our Freudian legacy. The mind and its processes in atomistic individuals stand in close relation to the group mind and processes. This relationship is based on tight, emotional ties of the people to their leaders. In the United States, we the people, during the American Revolution became one democratic nation out of many states. But the people consisted of countless individual citizens and separate states until we became one people through our Constitution and bloody Civil War. Among the people, their political leaders, and the pundits, stands the individual as a political unit. Today we find ourselves in a condition described by John Stuart Mill. “The individual is lost in the crowd.”5

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My brief epilogue cannot detail the logic or implications of the relationship between academic philosophers and peace advocates. On the one hand, we are academics, thinking, writing, teaching, but also practicing our philosophy. On the other hand, we are concerned thinkers who not only quietly write philosophical, polemical, or poetic tracts in the privacy of our studies, but are moved to present our views publicly, as here, speaking out and working openly to advance peace and to diminish pain, and to increase freedom throughout the world. Into the third millennium we still strive to forge many peoples, states, and norms under some functional network of global laws and justice to promote and maintain peace. NOTES 1. See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989; and Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). 2. Plato, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 473d; and Plato, Laws, trans. R. G. Bury, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: 1968), pp. 711e9–712a4. 3. See The American Philosophical Association Bulletin, Proceedings, and Addresses (May 1997), pp. 17 and 86–87. 4. Beth J. Singer, “Presidential Address” for the Concerned Philosophers for Peace conference at George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 3 October 1998. 5. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Garden City, N.Y.: Dolphin Books, Doubleday and Company, 1961), p. 542.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS THOMAS CHRISTIANO is professor of philosophy at University of Arizona. His publications include The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory (Westview Press, 1996). He is currently finishing a book entitled The Constitution of Equality for Oxford University Press. ALI ERRISHI is professor of physics and philosophy at Fitchburg State College. He is currently working on two books to be published by Global Publications of Binghamton University. One deals with the philosophical and logical foundations of physics and includes a new system of logic to deal with some of the anomalies of contemporary physical theory. The second is intended for a wider audience. It includes a critique of the applications of empirical theories of mind to political and social discourse. He also is a regular columnist and essayist for Sentinel and Enterprise of Central Massachusetts. GREGORY FIELDS is associate professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. He holds a Ph.D in Comparative Philosophy from the University of Hawaii and specializes in South Asian and Indigenous American traditions. Fields is author of Religious Therapeutics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002). His work focuses on applications of the model of religious therapeutics in health care, education, and sociopolitical life. Fields’ chapter in The Black elk Reader (Syracuse University Press, 2000) addresses contentious issues of tradition and religious syncretism. His on-going research concerns native Pacific Northwest Coast medicine teachings—spiritual teachings that support the well being of persons and communities. WILLIAM C. GAY is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is past editor of Concerned Philosophers For Peace Newsletter (1987-2002) and, since 2002, editor of CPP’s Special Series on “Philosophy of Peace” (within Rodopi’s VIBS). He is also past President and past Executive Director of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. With T. A. Alekseeva, he is coauthor of Capitalism with a Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996) and coeditor of On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian and American Philosophers (Rowman and Littlefield, 1994) and of Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives (Rodopi, 2004). With Michael Pearson, he is coauthor of The Nuclear Arms Race (American Library Association, 1987), and with I.I. Mazour and A.N. Chumakov, he is coeditor of Global Studies Encyclopedia (Raduga, 2003). He has also published articles and book chapters on issues of peace, justice, and nonviolence from the perspectives of philosophy of language and political philosophy.

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RONALD J. GLOSSOP is Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Studies at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He is author of Philosophy: An Introduction to its Problems and Vocabulary (Dell, 1974); Confronting War: An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem (McFarland, 4th edition, 2001); and World Federation? A Critical Analysis of Federal World Government (McFarland, 1993), of which an Esperanto translation by Johano Rapley was published in 2001. He has published over forty articles in professional journals and presented many papers at professional meetings for philosophers and educators, as well as at conferences on world problems in both English and Esperanto. GILBURT GOFFSTEIN teaches philosophy at Radford University. His current research is directed toward a book–length project on the philosophy of liberation entitled “Self, Society and Liberation.” HOWARD HARRIOTT does research in social and political philosophy and philosophy of science. Recent work has appeared in anthologies devoted to political philosophy and methodology of science, as well as in journals such as International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, and History and Philosophy of Logic. In 1998 he was nominated for the Greg Kavka Prize in Political Philosophy sponsored by the American Philosophical Association. He previously contributed a chapter to Community, Difference, and Diversity, a volume in the Philosophy of Peace series. RON HIRSCHBEIN has served as Visiting Research Philosopher at University of California, San Diego; Visiting Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; and Visiting Professor at the United Nations University in Austria. He coordinates a program in War and Peace Studies at California State University, Chico. He is author of articles on war and peace issues and Newest Weapons/Oldest Psychology: The Dialectics of American Nuclear Strategy and What If They Give a Crisis and Nobody Came?: Interpreting International Crises. He is completing a book for Praeger, Massing the Tropes: The Metaphorical Construction of American Nuclear Strategy. ANDREW KELLEY teaches philosophy at Bradley University. Among his teaching and research responsibilities are history of philosophy and ethics, in addition to peace studies and pacifism. JOHN KULTGEN is professor of philosophy at University of Missouri–Columbia. He has held positions at Oregon State University and Southern Methodist University. He teaches courses in philosophies of war and peace and professional ethics, as well as ethical theory, ancient philosophy, and existentialism. His publications include Ethics and Professionalism (University of Pennsylvania, 1988), Autonomy and Intervention: Parentalism in the Caring

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Life (Oxford, 1996), and In the Valley of the Shadow: Reflections on the Morality of Nuclear Deterrence (Peter Lang, 1999). MARY LENZI teaches philosophy at The University of Wisconsin-Platteville (B.A. Bryn Mawr College; Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania), and from 1989-2001 taught part-time at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She enjoys teaching a variety of courses in the history of philosophy, theoretical and applied ethics, feminism, and peace studies. Her articles on Platonic cosmology, political and feminist philosophy, ethics, and Freudian psychology appeared in The Monist, British Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies, and Peacemaking: Problems for Democracy (a volume in the Philosophy of Peace Series, edited by S. Scholz and J. Presler, 2000), the Encyclopedia for Science, Technology, and Ethics and Proceedings of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy. She has publications forthcoming in the Encyclopedia of business Ethics, in Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Workplace, and articles on complexity Theory, Genethics, and Neo-Platonism in the Italian Renaissance. She publishes some poetry in response to the loves of her life, her two sons. BRIAN LUKE lives in Dayton, Ohio, where he works as a musician and music educator. He received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 1992,and is currently completing a doctorate in music at the Ohio State University. His main areas of research are political philosophy, gender theory, and animal rights. His book on manhood and the exploitation of animals is forthcoming from University of Illinois Press. JUDITH PRESLER teaches courses in philosophy and women’s studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In recent years her presentations at conferences of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace and elsewhere have examined the explanatory adequacy and practical applicability of political and ethical theories. She is an Assistant Editor of the Philosophy of Peace volume, Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future. She has contributed chapters to other POP volumes, including “Plato’s Solution to the Problem of Political Corruption” in Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination. Other interests include the philosophy of Simone Weil, on whom her essay, “Simone Weil: The Person and the Impersonal,” was published in Becoming Persons: Proceedings of the Second Conference on Persons. JERALD RICHARDS is professor of philosophy at Northern Kentucky University, where he teaches courses in ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of peace and war, and philosophy of nonviolence. He has published articles in journals and anthologies in the area of peace studies on such topics and persons as nuclear deterrence, just war morality, nonviolence, the Gulf War, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, and Gene Sharp.

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EDWARD SANKOWSKI is professor of philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. He has taught at New York University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and the University of Capetown, South Africa. He does research in ethics and social and political philosophy, and has published in Inquiry, Ethics, The American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Topics, The Monist, and Social Theory and Practice. He is interested in connecting normative and empirical inquiry and to this end has presented papers not only at the American Philosophical Association, but also the American Anthropological Association, the Philosophy of Education Association, and the American Political Science Association. MATTHEW R. SILLIMAN teaches philosophy at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts. His interest in civil disobedience and other tools of grassroots political change is practical well as theoretical. He has worked (and been arrested) with anti-war, anti-nuclear, and proenvironmental citizens’ groups and studied the history and current practice of nonviolence in India. BETH J. SINGER is professor of philosophy emerita at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She has been a member of Concerned Philosophers for Peace since 1994 and was President in 1998. In addition to the papers in this volume, she has made presentations on “Nationalism and Dehostilization,” “Difference, Otherness, and the Creation of Community,” and “Language and Social Change” at meetings of the organization. Some of her other publications have to do with the theory of rights. They include Operative Rights (State University of New York Press, 1993) and Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy (Fordham University Press, 1998), both of which have been translated into Chinese and published in Shanghai. She has lectured on human rights, democracy, and peacemaking in a number of countries, including Argentina, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and China. Her paper, “The Democratic Solution to Ethnic Pluralism,” was translated into Russian and appeared in the journal, Voprosy filosopfii. JASON SUPPUS is a graduate of the California State University system. He resides in Chico and pursues the life and art of philosophy. He is interested in social philosophy, applied aesthetical phenomenology, hermeneutics, semiotics and the propaganda model. DONALD A. WELLS is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. His prior positions included Oregon State University, Washington State University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. His articles in scholarly journals include “How Much Can the ‘Just War’ Justify?” (The Journal of Philosophy, December 1969) His books on war and peace issues include The War Myth (Pegasus, 1967); War Crimes and Laws of War

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(University Press of America, 1984, revised edition, 1991); The Law of Land Warfare: A Guide to the U.S. Army Manuals (Greenwood, 1992); and An Encyclopedia of War and Ethics (Greenwood, 1996). He has a new book forthcoming, The United Nations: States vs. International L a w s (Algora Publishing).

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Index Abe, Masao, 78 A-Bomb, 22, 96 absolutism, 108, 206, 209, 212 Adam Smith, 107 Adorno, Theodor, 72 AFA, 90 affirmative action, xiii, 57, 103, 139-147 Africa(n)(ns), 2, 5, 36, 50, 52, 111 African National Congress (ANC), 51, 56 African separatism, 28 African-American(s), 21-22, 23, 35, 50 agape, 225, 227 agapism, 226 ahimsa, 232, 236 Air Force, 90, 92, 179, 183 Air Force Association (AFA), 90, 91 Alekseeva, Tatiana A., 108, 109 Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid, 212-214, 216-217 alienation, 21, 24, 26-27, 34-36, 68, 72, 205-206 America(n)(ns), 11, 21-22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 36, 57, 69, 84, 88-89, 91-96, 111, 113-114, 145, 147, 159, 162, 171, 178-179, 183, 189, 195, 246-247 American Legion, 90 apartheid, 45, 47-49, 52-53, 56, 111 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 177 Arab League, 181 Arabs, 26, 202-204 Archer, Robin, 114 Atman, 232 atomic bomb(ing)(s), 84, 86-88, 90-91, 94-96, 181 Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 174-175, 181, 207, 211

autonomy, 6-7, 11-12, 51, 61, 70, 76-77 axiological evangelism, 203-204 axiology, 203, 205, 212 Bachrach, Peter, 112 Baker, James, Secretary of State, 182 Baltzly, Alexander, 2 Baran, Paul, 107 Bauer, Bruno, 205 Bell, Derrick, 34 Bengu, S. M. E., Prime Minister of Education, South Africa, 5356 Benhabib, Seyla, 76-77 Benjamin, Jessica, 69-70 Benoit, Hubert, 74-75 Bernstein, Barton J., 89-90, 96 Bhagavadgita, 246 Bilimoria, Purosottama, 233 black(s), 21, 23, 29, 33-42, 45, 49, 51, 56, 58, 71, 103, 139, 141-142, 147 Black Diaspora, 36, 40-41 Bodart, Gaston, 2 Bodhidharma, 61 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 183 Bosnia, 3, 7-8, 12, 14 Botwinick, Aryeh, 112 Bowles, Samuel, 115 Bradley, Keith, 110 Brahman, 232 Briffault, Robert, 203 Britain (Great Britain), 11, 15, 112, 231, 235, 240-249 British, 3, 15, 164, 179, 230-234 Brittain, Vera, 86-87, 183 Buddha, 61, 240 Buddhism, 81, 240 bullets, 177-178, 180 Bundy, McGeorge, 88

268 Bush, George H. W., President of the United States, 97, 181-182 Buttrick, George, 86 Cady, Duane, 220, 223-224 Camus, Albert, 27, 29 candidate(s), electoral, 4-5, 121, 123 capital(ism)(ist), 3-4, 9, 14, 22, 62, 65-6, 68, 71-72, 105-116, 119-137, 149, 155, 173, 206 Capital strikes, 126 Castoriadis, Cornelius, 74 casualties of war, 89, 177, 181, 183 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2, 173-174, 178 character(s), moral, xiii-xiv, xix, 22, 46-47, 49, 50, 52-53, 55, 57-58, 150-151, 154, 164, 223227, 233, 241-241, 247 Childress, James, 193 China, 11, 15, 177, 182, 230 Chomsky, Noam, 14, 204 Christian (ity), 40, 80, 175, 183, 202, 205-206, 208, 211 Christiano, Thomas, 103, 119138, 261 church and state, 160, 205, 211, 242 church and war, 176, 183, 189, 190-193 Churchill, Winston S., Prime Minister of Great Britain, 87, 215 citizen(s), xiii-xiv, xix-xx, 7-8, 11, 13, 26, 37-38, 41, 45, 4849, 53-54, 57, 62, 64, 66, 76, 83-85, 96-97, 108, 115, 119, 137, 139, 149-157, 159-166, 171-172, 173, 176, 178, 192193, 197, 205, 215, 229, 233, 239, 246-247 citizenship, 49, 53-54, 192 civil disobedience, xiii, 104, 159166

INDEX civil law(s), 149, 160, 207-208 civil rights, 26, 49 Civil Rights Act, 140 civil society, 108, 160-161, 163, 205 civil war(s), 9, 161, 210-211, 247 civilian(s), 11, 25, 28, 86-87, 92, 94, 175-177, 180-181, 183-184 civilization, 9, 87, 203 clash of civilizations, 202, 217 Clinton, William J. (Bill), President of the United States, 15, 94, 97, 149 CO exemptions, 189-197 Cold War, 89, 105-107 collective identity, 139, 142-147 collective rights, 139, 142-147 common good(s), xx, 6, 14, 173, 246 communal, 143, 152, 154 c. rights, 143 communicative action, 61-65, 72, 76 communitarianism, 21-22, 46, 47, 54, 56-58 community, xiii, xx, 3, 6, 10-11, 14, 21, 45-58, 62, 63, 77, 94, 111, 114-115, 119-123, 130, 142-144, 155, 161-162, 207, 230-240 Conant, James B., 88 Concerned Philosophers for Peace (CPP), xiii, xv, xvii, xxi, xxiii, 1, 11, 13, 15, 245-246 concrete other(s), 67, 71, 76-77 conflict(s), armed, xvii, xix, 1-2, 7-8, 10, 12, 14-15, 38, 42, 45, 52, 83, 95, 114, 172, 174, 181, 219, 229, 241 conflict resolution, xvii-xix, 7, 172, 222, 229-230, 238 conscience, 104, 159-160, 162, 164, 166, 189-197 conscientious objection (CO), 171, 189-197

Index consensus, 15, 38, 58, 61, 63, 91, 96, 104, 149, 151, 208 conservative, 2, 103, 110, 149151, 155-156 Constitution of the United States of America, The, xiii-xiv, 140, 144, 157, 247 Constitutional Convention of the United States of America, 13 Cornford, F. M., 209 corporation(s), 14, 107, 110-111, 131-132, 143 Crips, 25 Cristie, Drew, 105 critical theory, 67, 71, 73, 77 Crownover, John, 7 Cuellar, Javier Perez, SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, 182 culture(s), 13, 25, 27, 29, 46-48, 50-58, 65, 79, 143, 162, 203, 207, 130, 237, 241, 246-247 D’Souza, Dinesh, 37 Dahl, Robert A., 109 Danley, John R., 110 Dayton Accords, 7 democracy, xiii-xv, xvii-xxi, 1, 414, 21-22, 23, 33-42, 45-47, 49, 52-54, 57-58, 61-67, 7680, 83, 103-104, 105-106, 108116, 122-124, 127-130, 133137, 149, 152, 157, 160, 165, 170-175, 177, 196-197, 201202, 206, 208-209, 214-215, 217, 219, 227, 229-230, 232233, 237, 240, 245-247 principle(s) of d., 64, 66-67, 76-77, 215 democratic narrative, 22, 84, 97 democratic pluralism, 113 democratic principle(s), 13-14, 105-106, 110, 134, 173, 181 democratization, xxiii, 1, 12-13, 45-46, 96, 106-107, 109, 111112, 114, 115

269 deontological ethics, 223, 225-226 deontological self, 153, 155-156 Descartes, René, 70, 210, 232 determinism, 204, 213 Dewey, John, 4-6, 23, 172, 216, 229-242 DeWitt, Sherri, 112 dialogic reciprocity, 5-7, 12, 14 dictator(s), 11, 15, 206, 215 dictatorship(s), xviii, xix, 2, 14 difference principle, 153, 156 disadvantaged groups, 103, 141142 discrimination, racial, 21, 33, 3839, 103, 115, 130-140, 143145, 147, 173 distributive justice, 156 divine, 108, 202, 207-209, 211 d. law(s), 203, 207-208 domination, 8, 37, 48, 54, 56, 6971, 80, 107, 235, 241 Douglas, William O., Supreme Court Justice, 193 Douglass, Frederick, 38 draft, the, 171, 179, 190, 196, 224 Du Bois, W. E. B, 38 Dugan, Michael, 183 duty, 161, 165-166, 193, 216, 222-223, 226 Dworkin, Ronald, 46, 140, 159166 Early, Stephen, 87 economic issues, xiii, xviii, xxi, 1-5, 10, 14-15, 21, 26, 33-39, 40, 53, 57, 65, 71, 103-115, 126, 130, 141, 149, 153, 156, 173, 233, 235, 237, 240 economic crises, 65-66 economic democracy, 103, 105, 106, 109-115 economic institutions, xviii, xxi, 103 economic justice and rights, 8, 3338, 57, 103, 106-109

270 economic liberalism, 107-108 economic order, xiii, 112 economic power, 4-5, 11, 14, 103 economic standing, xxi, 21, 41, 46 economics, 4, 71, 105, 110, 115, 230, 234 economy, 52, 105, 106, 109-115, 131, 139, 151, 231, 233-234 education, xiii, 37, 46, 51, 53-56, 57, 103, 123, 145-146, 149150, 122, 172, 229-242 Einstein, 212 Eisner, Robert, 1election, 4, 5, 7-8, 51-53, 57, 122-123, 154, 247 empathy, 230 Enola Gay, 83-84, 89-94 Equal Protection Clause, 140-143 equality, xiii-xiv, 4, 8, 14, 33, 48, 51-52, 56-57, 103, 106108, 116, 119-138, 140, 144, 147, 153, 246 political e., 119-139 equity, 139, 145, 230, 233, 240, 242 Errishi, Ali, 171, 201-218, 261 ethics, 65-66, 172, 219, 221, 223227, 230, 241 virtue-based e., 223-227 ethnic, 7, 11, 12, 13, 21, 22, 33, 52, 54, 114, 146, 174, 206 e. background, 146 e. bias, 54 e. cleansing, 11-12 e. conflict (strife), 33, 52, 114, 174 e. definitions, 206 e. group(s), 12, 22, 143, 147 e. identity, 7 multi-e. society, 7 ethnicity, xxi, 13, 21, 146 existentialists, 25 federal governance, 149-150, 155

INDEX Federal Reserve Board of the United States of America, The, 65 federal world governance, 4-5, 1213 federalism, 10, 13 Fields, Gregory P., 172, 229-243, 261 First World War, The, xxiii, 174, 183, 237 Fiss, Owen M., 140-144 force(s), xviii, xx, 3-4, 9, 10, 15, 22, 24, 33, 48, 55, 61-65, 6869, 73, 79, 83, 86, 88, 92, 130132, 146, 152, 161, 166, 171172, 182, 196-197, 204, 219227, 230, 237, 246 armed f.(s), 3, 24, 83, 88, 171172 f. of arms, 237, 246 illlocutionary f., 61-65 military f.(s), 22, 65, 86, 90, 179, 183, 196-197 moral f., 55 natural f., 130-132 pre-linguistic f.(s), 73 psychological f.(s), 8 social, political f.(s), xviii, xx, 3-4, 9, 10, 15, 22, 33, 48, 6869, 79, 92, 131, 146, 152, 161, 166, 171-172, 182, 204 use of f., 219-230 forgiveness, 97, 230 Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 87 Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, 140, 147 France, 2, 11, 15, 176, 177, 181 Fraser, Nancy, 72 freedom(s), xiii-xiv, 15, 33, 48, 51, 53, 56, 71, 83, 87, 107, 111, 113, 136, 150-152, 156, 159, 164, 182, 202, 232, 241242,248 French, Peter, 143 Freud, Sigmund, 28, 68

Index Freudian, 69-70 Friedman, Milton, 110 Fukuyama, Francis, 9, 105 full compatibility thesis, 120, 124, 129-134 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 25 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 110 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 164-166, 172, 224, 226, 229-242 gangs, 21, 23-24, 26, 30 GATT, 3 Gay, William C., 103, 105-118, 261 Geertz, Clifford, 24 Gelb, Alan, 110 gender, 42, 54, 67, 70-72, 77, 140, 146 Geneva Convention, 177, 183 geopolitical perspective, 202-204, 217 German(s), 25, 86, 87, 91-92, 112, 176 Germany, 1, 15, 25, 87 Gewirth, Alan, 191 Ghali, Boutros Boutros, SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, 181 Giliomee, Hermann, 51-52 Gillette, Guy, 194 global, 5, 8, 10-15, 42, 65, 75, 105-106, 110, 113-115, 215, 229, 237, 248 globalism, 15 globalization, 9, 14 Glossop, Ronald J, 1, 3-5, 8, 1013, 15, 262 God, 26-27, 30, 70, 192-193, 202-203, 207, 209-211, 213214, 216-217, 236 Gödel, Kurt, 201-202 Goffstein, Gilburt, 22, 61-82, 262 Goldwater, Barry, 152 Goldziher, Ignaz, 208 Goleman, Daniel, 241

271 good life, 37, 46, 50, 52, 55, 58, 67, 70, 76, 104, 161, 166, 203 Goodin, Robert E., 108 Gordon, David M., 115 government(s), xx, 1, 5-14, 3334, 37-38, 42, 46-49, 53-55, 58, 65-66, 83-85, 88, 91, 9597, 103-104, 108-110, 119-120, 123-126, 129, 149-152, 154, 161, 164-166, 174, 179, 189, 191-192, 194-197, 201-292, 206, 208, 211, 214-215, 234, 237-238, 245-247 Grew, Joseph C., 89 Gross, Rita, 77 Grotius, Hugo, 179 group autonomy, 13 group rights, 46, 56-57, 143 Gulf War of 1991, The (The Persian Gulf War of 1991), 3, 95, 181-182, 189 Habermas, Jürgen, 22, 61-81, 111 Hacker, Andrew, 139 Haldane, J. B. S., 179 Harkavy, Robert E., 2 Harkness, Georgia, 87 Harriott, Howard, 21, 33-43, 262 Harris, Arthur, 87 Harris, Ian M., 229, 237 health, 124, 150, 233-234, 238, 240-241 Hegel, Georg Friedrich, 202, 207, 209, 211 Heilbroner, Robert L., 110 Heraclitus, 245 Hesiod, 212 Heyman, I. Michael, Secretary of the Smithsonian, 90, 93 Hiroshima, 22, 83-97, 184 H. narrative, 22, 83-84, 87, 8990 Hirschbein, Ron, 21, 23-31, 262 Hobbes, Thomas, 108, 163, 207, 210-212 Hook, Sidney, 203

272 hope, 25, 27, 29, 34, 38-39, 9697 Howlett, C. F., 237 human condition, 239-240 human nature, xiii, 75, 107, 210, 230, 236 Hussein, Saddam, 15, 182 Huxley, Aldous, 9-10, 14 ICRC, see International Committee of the Red Cross identity groups, 103, 142, 144145 ideology, 9, 51, 206, 208, 215 illocutionary force, see force independence, 206-207, 233-232, 235 injustice(s), xvii, xix, 4, 26, 38, 103, 133, 161, 209, 238-239 Innocent III, Pope, 175 international, xiii, xvii, 7, 9, 52, 86, 89, 91-95, 110, 115, 119, 177, 240 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 177, 179180, 183 inter-subjective, 24, 28, 73 Iraq, 3, 69, 95, 177, 181-183 Iraqi, 3, 177, 183 Ishin, Seijen, 78-79 Islam, 28, 175, 208, 216 Islamic, 29, 202-203 Islamists, 208 Israel, 26, 206-207 James, William, 39 Japan, 1, 15, 84, 86-89, 91, 110, 113-114 Japanese, 86-97. 113. 177. 230 J. Americans, 97 Jefferson, Thomas, President of the United States, 246 Jews (Jewish people), 205-207 Jewish question, the, 205 John of Salisbury, 176-177

INDEX Johnson, Lyndon B., President of the United States, 152 Jones, E. Stanley, 87 Jung, Courtney, 49 jus ad bellum, 175, 180-182 jus in bello, 175, 182 just, xvii-xviii, 5, 8, 13-14, 26, 54, 83, 86, 92, 94-96, 133, 137, 145, 149-150, 152-153, 156, 161, 174-177, 180-181, 183-184, 197, 206, 221, 223, 229, 242 j. war, 86, 92, 95, 174-177, 180, 183-184, 197, 220-221, 223 j. w. morality, 86, 92, 95 j. w. theory, 174-175, 177, 184, 220-221, 223 justice, xvii-xxi, 4-5, 9-10, 14-15, 33, 67, 70-71, 76, 103, 106110, 114-116, 131, 134, 144, 149-154, 156, 159-162, 164, 166, 175, 180, 207, 229, 232234, 239-240, 242, 245, 247248 procedural j., 153, 156 Kant, Immanuel, xvii, 63, 211216 Kelley, Andrew, 172, 219-228, 262 Keniston, Kenneth, 26 Kennedy, John F., President of the United States, 151 Kennedy, Paul, 9-10 Khanemann, Daniel, 39 Khmer Rouge, 3 King, Martin Luther, 144 Kissinger, Henry, 203-204 Koontz, Theodore, 196 Korea, 3, 94 Korean War, 181, 184 Krickus, Richard J., 183 Kultgen, John, xvii-xxi, 262 Kuwait, 3, 181

Index land mines, 180 Latourette, Kenneth Scott, 87 law(s), xx, 12-13, 40, 47, 49, 51, 86, 87, 91-92, 104, 119-121, 123-125, 142-143, 147, 149152, 154, 159-160, 162-166, 176-177, 196, 201, 203, 207211, 213, 227, 230, 233, 246, 248 civil l.(s), 140, 160, 207-208 divine l,, 201, 203, 207-208 moral l., 149 l.(s) of nature., 209- 211, 213 l.(s) of war. 87, 91-92, 95, 176 natural l(s), 210, 213 Lecky, W. E. H., 175 Lenzi, Mary, 1, 8-17, 245-248, 263 liberal(s), xiii-xiv, 9, 14, 33-34, 37, 40, 42, 45-47, 49-58, 103104, 106-107, 110, 115, 119120, 122, 124, 126, 129, 131, 134-136, 159, 162, 164-166, 171 l. democrac(ies)(y), xiii-xiv, 9, 14, 33-34, 37, 40, 42, 112, 115, 160, 165, 215 l. political power principle, 122, 126 l. property rights, 119-137 l. rights, 50, 52-53, 56, 119, 136 liberalism, 21-22, 46-48, 52, 5455, 58, 108-109, 115, 122, 131, 136, 151, 155, 161, 166 libertarian(ism), 130-131, 134136 liberty, xiv, xx, 9-10, 14, 106107, 152, 154, 173, 207 Lieber, Francis, 184 lifeworld, 24, 65-66, 72-73, 78 Lifton, Robert Jay, 27, 85 Lincoln, Abraham, President of the United States, 246 local governments, 11, 150 Locke, John, 107-108

273 Lockean, 160-161, 166 Loetter, H. P. P., 49 Loewald, Hans, 74 love, 25, 172, 223, 225-227 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, 72 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 46 Madisonian, 14, 38 majority rule, xvii, 120, 122 manifest world, 74 Manson, Ronald M., 114-115 Marcuse, Herbert, 67-69 Margalit, Avishai, 26 Maritain, Jacques, 183 Marsh, James, 72 Marshall, Thurgood, Supreme Court Justice, 147 Marx, Karl, 107, 205-206 Marx(ism)(ist), 71, 112 McLagan, Patricia, 111 Mead, George Herbert, 6, 73, 77 media, 39, 80, 247 Meehan, Johanna, 69-70 meta-narrative, 71-2 metaphysical, 62, 171, 202, 204, 210, 212, 216 m. naturalism, 210 metaphysics, 70-72, 74, 78, 171172, 201-202, 212-213, 216 recursive m., 171, 201-202, 212- 213, 216 methodological naturalism, 210 militarism, 5 Mill, John Stuart, xiii-xiv, 247 Miller, David, 6 minorities, xviii, 5, 7, 22, 33, 38, 143, 150 Mohammed, 202 Molosevic, Slobodan, 15 moral beings, xiv moral foundation, xiii-xiv moral issues, 85-87, 90-95 moral pessimism, 33-42 moral principle(s) (law(s)), 149, 152, 232, 236 moral theories, 220-226

274 morality, xiii-xiv, xix, 22, 67, 8397, 150, 162, 166, 194, 219, 232, 242, 245 multi-culturalism, xiii, 21, 41, 45-58 Murray, John Courtney, 183, 194196 Myrdal, Gunnar, 34 napalm, 94 NAFTA, 3 Nagasaki, 22, 83-97, 184 Narveson, Jan, 109 national, xix, 2, 11-12, 15, 40-42, 48, 50, 54, 57, 85, 92-93, 97, 105, 123, 132, 149, 173-174, 180, 206-207, 209, 212, 215, 237 nationalism, 7-8, 29, 215 nation-state(s), 10, 13, 24, 29, 184 NATO, 3, 12, 15, 174, 245 natural law(s), 210, 213 natural order, 221 natural rights, 107 natural science, 201-202, 204, 212-213 naturalism, 165, 201, 203-204, 209-210, 212-214 legal n., 165 metaphysical n., 210 methodological n., 210 political n., 210 polytheistic n., 209 recursive n., 201-216 negative peace, 106, 115, 219 Nel, Christo, 111 Neuman, Stephanie G., 2 Nicholson, Linda, 72, 73 Nickerson, Hoffman, 2 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 25-27. 209 nihilism, 21, 23-26 experiential n., 21, 24-26 nihilistic despair, 36 nihilistic geopolitics, 203 non-nuclear proliferation, 114

INDEX non-nuclear weapons, 94 non-racialism, 48, 53-55, 57 nonviolence, xviii, 172, 224, 229, 231-232, 236, 240, 242 Nozick, Robert, 103, 152-153 nuclear arms race, 85, 93 nuclear bombs, 180 nuclear deterrence, 85 nuclear war (conflict), 89, 240 nuclear warheads, 27 nuclear weapon(ry)(s), 27, 69, 85, 89, 93-94, 174, 182-183, 231 objective world, 65, 72 obliteration bombing, 86-87 ontological, 201-203, 206, 209, 212-213, 215-217, 236 ontology, 202-104, 212 oppression, xix, 15, 29, 36, 54, 67, 71, 110. 161, 232, 236 orthodoxy, 211 Ozaki, Robert S., 113 pacifism, 9-10, 15, 172, 194, 197, 219-227 Palley, Thomas, 105-216 paradoxes of democracy, 219 participative systems, 111 participatory democracy, 7, 230 Patel, M. S., 234 patriotism, 2, 12, 154, 174, 193, 209 Patterson, Orlando, 36 peace, xiii, xvii-xxi, 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, 10-15, 22, 54, 83, 87, 106-107, 110, 114-115, 171,172, 190, 192-193, 204-207, 210, 217, 219-220, 224-227, 229-230, 236-242, 245-248 negative p., 106, 115, 219 p. churches, 190, 192 p. education, 172, 229-242 p. keeping, 7, p. loving, 22, 83 p. making, 7-8, 13, 230 p. politics 219

Index positive p., 106, 115, 219, 225 universal p., 204-205 world p., 204 Penrose, Roger, 201 performance principle, 68-69, 72 Pericles, 245-246 Persian Gulf War of 1991, The (the Gulf War of 1991), 3, 95, 181-182, 189 Phillips, Robert L., 221, 223 philosophy of education, 230, 240 Pius XII, Pope, 183 Plato, 204, 246 pluralism, 11, 12, 113 positive peace, 106, 115, 219, 225 post-modern, 61, 67, 70-73, 77 post-modernism (ist(s)), 22, 72, 245 Potter, Ralph, 195 prejudice(s), xiv, xviii, 21-22, 34, 150, 155, 165, ontological p., 201 Presler, Judith, xiii-xv, 103-104, 149-157, 263 principle(s), moral or ethical, xiv, 14, 26, 67, 93, 173, 207, 212, 232, 236 principle of deference, 128129,131 principle of discourse, 63, 76 principle of moral argumentation, 64, 66 principle of political discourse, 63, 64, 66 privileging, 67, 71 procedural justice, 151-153, 156 procedural republic, 103, 149-157 property rights, 51, 119-137 Pufendorf, Samuel, 176 racial, 21, 33-35, 38-39, 47, 5254, 115, 139-140, 146-147 racism, 22, 26-27, 34, 49-50, 55, 62-63, 66, 72, 147

275 Ramsey, Paul, 196 Rawls, John, 38, 46, 103, 152153, 156, 159-160, 164 Raz, Joseph, 46-47, 50 Reagan, Ronald, President of the United States, 154-155, 180 reality principle, 28, 68 recursive, 171, 201-217 r. metaphysics, 171, 201-202, 212-213, 216 r. natural(ism) (ist(s)), 201-204, 209-210, 212-216 r. ontological commitment, 206 r. theist(ism) (ist(s))s, 201-205, 212-216 redistribution, 49, 52, 121, 134, 152-153 religion(s), xxi, 6, 13, 21, 49, 54, 56, 86, 143, 154, 175, 197, 201-216, 230-231, 242 Republic, the, of Plato, 246 retributive justice, 156 reverse discrimination, 103, 139, 144-145, 147 revolution(ary), 5, 72, 79, 159162, 210 American R., 247 industrial r., 212, 23 Richards, Jerald, 22, 83-99, 263 Richardson, Lewis F., 2, 174 rights, xiii-xiv, xviii, 5, 7-8, 12, 14, 21, 26, 34, 45-58, 63, 66, 76-77, 83, 93, 95, 107-109, 111, 115, 119-137, 139-147, 150-152, 155, 159, 173-14, 176, 197, 205, 246 civil r., 26, 49 collective r., 139, 142-147 communal rights, 143 group r., 46, 56-57, 143 liberal property r., 119-137 liberal r., 50, 52-53, 56, 119, 136 natural r., 107 property r., 51, 119-137 voting r., 57

276 Rohr, John, 194 Roosevelt, Franklin D., President of the United States, 87-88 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 6, 107 Ruesga, G. Albert, 196-197 Ruskin, John, 234 Russia, 11, 15, 109, 181, 203-204 sacred scripture, 171 sacred texts, 208 St. Petersburg Congress, 177 samsara, 74 Sandel, Michael, 46, 15-152, 154 Sankowski, Edward, 21, 45-59, 264 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 29 Satori, 75 satyagraha, 165, 233, 242 Saudi Arabia, 15 science(s), 13, 42, 86, 201-214 social s., 24, 57 SCO exemptions, 189-197 Scott, Kody, Monster, 23, 28 Second World War, The, xxiii, 2, 10-11, 15, 22, 34, 84, 89, 95, 97, 113, 174, 183-184 secular, 172-174, 202, 205-211, 246 s. state, 171, 205-209 S. theology, 211 secularism, 205-210, 217 Seekings, Jeremy, 49, 56 Segal, Jerome, 195 selective conscientious objection (SCO), 171, 189-197 self-determination, 155, 232 self-governance, 165, 232 self-government, 14, 109, 154 self-identification, 113 self-identity, 36, 40, 76 self-realization, 115, 240, 242 Seng, Michael, 191 Serbia-Kosovo war, 12 Serbs, 7 service exemptions, 189, 196-197 sexism, 22, 62-63, 66, 72

INDEX Shakur, Sanyika, s e e Monster Kody Scott Silliman, Matthew, 103, 159-167, 264 Singer, Beth J., 1, 5-8, 12-15, 103, 139-148, 247, 264 slavery, 9-10, 21, 27, 33, 35-38, 40-42, 147 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 22, 83-84, 8993, 96 social death, 36 social democracy, 8, 237 social harmony, 33, 42, 230 social welfare, 6, 33, 66 social world, 64, 131 social worlds, 232, 240 socialism, 111 socialist, 112-114 societal evolution, 62, 78 Sockman, Ralph, 87 Socrates, 196, 209, 245-246 South Africa (n), 14, 22, 45-58, 111, 234 South African Constitution, 21, 47-48, 51-55 South America, 2 sovereignty, 11, 29, 76, 105, 108, 113 Soviet Union, 69, 85, 89, 105,-06 Spain, 2, 174 speech act(s), 64, 79-80 spirituality, 79 state(s), 6, 9, 11-12, 14-15, 24, 35-37, 48, 54, 65-66, 77, 108109, 111-113, 123, 143, 150, 154, 160-161, 165-166, 176, 180, 182, 190, 192-194, 197, 202-211, 215, 242, 247-248 civil s., 192, 211 democratic s.(s), 6, 36-37, 48, 165 s. governments, 12, welfare s., 61, 108, 152 Stimson, Henry L., Secretary of War, 88-90

Index subjective world, 65, 73 sublimation, 68-69, 73-74 sunyata, 73, 78 Suppus, Jason, 21, 23-31, 264 Supreme Court of the United States of America, 139-140, 192-194 Sweezy, Paul M., 107 Synod of Charroux, 175 Taylor, Charles, 46-47, 56 terrorism, 5, 10 terrorist(s), xiii, 3, 10 The Hague, 15, 86, 178 Congress (1899) at T.H., 86 Congress (1907) at T.H., 178 The Annex to T.H. Convention IV on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 86 T.H. Convention II on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 86 T. H. Convention IV on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 86 The World Court at T. H., 15 theism, 201-202, 204, 214 theocracy, 202, 205-209, 217 theocratic laws, 207 theology, 202-203, 211-212 Third World, 2, 174 Tillich, Paul, 183 tolerance, 11, 22, 33, 35, 41, 5657, 160, 216, 230-231 tribalism, 15 Truman, Harry S., President of the United States, 88, 91 truth, xiv, 61-62, 64-65,78, 165, 191, 202, 207, 211, 226,230233, 236, 240, 242, 246 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, 47 Turkey, 2, 174, 181, 215 Turks, 176-177 Tversky, Amos, 39

277 unjust, , xviii-xix, 86, 92, 97, 104, 107, 134, 150, 161, 164, 175, 177, 189, 192, 195, 221 u. war(s), xviii, 177 United Nations, 11, 13, 15, 142, 173-174, 177, 181, 183, 245 U.N. Charter, 8 U.N. General Assembly, 3, 8, 180, 183 U.N. Security Council, 181 U.N. Security Panel, 11 United States of America, The, xiii, sis, 2-4, 7, 10-13, 15, 2124, 28-29, 33, 37, 45-46, 5758, 83-90, 92-97, 106-107, 112-113, 123, 139, 142, 149, 173-174, 177-184, 189, 195196, 205-206, 212, 230-231, 233, 240-242, 247 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 8 universal laws, 213 values, xvi, xix, 6, 15, 27, 29, 33, 39, 46, 48, 52-53, 57-58, 76, 83, 87, 92-93, 104, 109, 111, 125, 149-157, 174, 177, 203, 217, 227, 232-233, 242 Vanek, Jaroslav, 111 Varro, Marcus Terentius, 211 Vattel, Emmerich, 176 Vietnam, 3, 24, 27, 41, 154, 184, 189, 195-196 V. War, The, 184, 189, 195196 violence, xvii, xix, 9, 23-24, 29, 80, 161-162, 164, 166, 171172, 219-227, 229-230, 241 virtue-based ethics, 219, 223-227 Vitoria, Franciscus de, 176, 184 vote(s), xviii, 4-5, 108,-109, 121127, 178, 208, 246 voter, 32, 138 voter(s), 4, 29, 109, 136, 208, 215

278 voting, 4, 8, 12, 29, 37, 57, 108, 115, 122-123, 127, 182 v. rights, 57 Walzer, Michael, 92, 190 war(s), xiii, xvii-xviii, xix, xxiii, 1-3, 5, 7-13, 15, 28, 84, 86, 87-95, 97, 105-108, 113-115, 161, 171-172, 174-177, 181, 184, 189-197, 209-211, 217, 221, 231, 236-238, 245-247 casualties of w., 89, 177, 181, 183 civil w.(s), 9, 161, 210-211, 247 Cold W., 105-107, 115 First World W., The, xxiii, 174, 183, 237 Franco-Austrian W. of 1859, 177 Gulf War of 1991, The (The Persian Gulf W. of 1991), 3, 95, 181-182, 189 international laws of w., 91-92 Korean W., The, 181, 184 Persian Gulf W. of 1991, The (The Gulf War of 1991), 3, 95, 181-182, 189 Second World W., The, xxiii, 2, 10-11, 15, 22, 34, 84, 89, 95, 97, 113, 174, 183-184 Serbia-Kosovo war, 12 Vietnam W., The, 184, 189, 195-196 world w.(s), xxiii, xix, 2, 911, 15, 22, 34, 84, 89, 95, 97, 113, 174, 183, 184, 231-232, 237 warfare, xvii, 86, 95, 177, 179180 germ w., 180

INDEX warism, 10, 220-221, 223 warist, 11, 220-221 war-making decisions, 190, 195, 197 Warty, K. G., 231 weapon(ry)(s), 2-3, 15, 27, 69, 85, 88-89, 93-95, 174-184, 222223, 225 atomic w.(ry)(s), 88-89, 95, 179 bacteriological w.(ry)(s), 179 biological w.(ry)(s), 94, 177, 179, 182-183 chemical w.(ry)(s), 177-179, 182-183 nuclear w.(ry)(s), 27, 69, 85, 89, 93-94, 174, 180, 182-183, 231 W.(s) of Mass Destruction, 174, 180, 182 Weisskopf, Thomas E., 115 welfare-state-capital(ism)(ist), 6163, 66, 71-72, 78 Wells, Donald A., 1-3, 12-13, 15, 171-172, 173-187, 264 West, Cornel, 23-26, 29, 40 Whitebook, Joel, 72-74 Whitman, Jeffrey, 196 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 23, 79, 207, 214 Woods, Frederick Adams, 2 world citizen(s), 11, 13 World Court at The Hague, 15 world federation(s), 9-14 world government, 5, 10-13 world peace, 204 Zen Buddhism, 22, 61-81

VIBS The Value Inquiry Book Series is co-sponsored by: Adler School of Professional Psychology American Indian Philosophy Association American Maritain Association American Society for Value Inquiry Association for Process Philosophy of Education Canadian Society for Philosophical Practice Center for Bioethics, University of Turku Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Central European Pragmatist Forum Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Centre for the Study of Philosophy and Religion, University College of Cape Breton Centro de Estudos em Filosofia Americana, Brazil College of Education and Allied Professions, Bowling Green State University College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference of Philosophical Societies Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki Gannon University Gilson Society Haitian Studies Association Ikeda University Institute of Philosophy of the High Council of Scientific Research, Spain International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein International Association of Bioethics International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry International Society for Universal Dialogue Natural Law Society Philosophical Society of Finland Philosophy Born of Struggle Association Philosophy Seminar, University of Mainz Pragmatism Archive at The Oklahoma State University R.S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology Research Institute, Lakeridge Health Corporation Russian Philosophical Society Society for Existential Analysis Society for Iberian and Latin-American Thought Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust Unit for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona Yves R. Simon Institute

Titles Published 1.

Noel Balzer, The Human Being as a Logical Thinker

2.

Archie J. Bahm, Axiology: The Science of Values

3.

H. P. P. (Hennie) Lötter, Justice for an Unjust Society

4. H. G. Callaway, Context for Meaning and Analysis: A Critical Study in the Philosophy of Language 5.

Benjamin S. Llamzon, A Humane Case for Moral Intuition

6. James R. Watson, Between Auschwitz and Tradition: Postmodern Reflections on the Task of Thinking. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7. Robert S. Hartman, Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story, Edited by Arthur R. Ellis. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 8.

Archie J. Bahm, Ethics: The Science of Oughtness

9. George David Miller, An Idiosyncratic Ethics; Or, the Lauramachean Ethics 10.

Joseph P. DeMarco, A Coherence Theory in Ethics

11. Frank G. Forrest, Valuemetrics‫א‬: The Science of Personal and Professional Ethics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 12. William Gerber, The Meaning of Life: Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 13. Richard T. Hull, Editor, A Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses of the American Society for Value Inquiry. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 14. William Gerber, Nuggets of Wisdom from Great Jewish Thinkers: From Biblical Times to the Present

15.

Sidney Axinn, The Logic of Hope: Extensions of Kant’s View of Religion

16.

Messay Kebede, Meaning and Development

17. Amihud Gilead, The Platonic Odyssey: A Philosophical-Literary Inquiry into the Phaedo 18. Necip Fikri Alican, Mill’s Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill’s Notorious Proof. A volume in Universal Justice 19.

Michael H. Mitias, Editor, Philosophy and Architecture.

20. Roger T. Simonds, Rational Individualism: The Perennial Philosophy of Legal Interpretation. A volume in Natural Law Studies 21.

William Pencak, The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas

22. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Values, Work, Education: The Meanings of Work 23. N. Georgopoulos and Michael Heim, Editors, Being Human in the Ultimate: Studies in the Thought of John M. Anderson 24. Robert Wesson and Patricia A. Williams, Editors, Evolution and Human Values 25. Wim J. van der Steen, Facts, Values, and Methodology: A New Approach to Ethics 26.

Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman, Religion and Morality

27. Albert William Levi, The High Road of Humanity: The Seven Ethical Ages of Western Man, Edited by Donald Phillip Verene and Molly Black Verene 28. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Work Values: Education, Organization, and Religious Concerns 29. Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan, Editors, From the Eye of the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 30.

Robin Attfield, Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics

31. William Gerber, The Deepest Questions You Can Ask About God: As Answered by the World’s Great Thinkers 32.

Daniel Statman, Moral Dilemmas

33. Rem B. Edwards, Editor, Formal Axiology and Its Critics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 34. George David Miller and Conrad P. Pritscher, On Education and Values: In Praise of Pariahs and Nomads. A volume in Philosophy of Education 35.

Paul S. Penner, Altruistic Behavior: An Inquiry into Motivation

36.

Corbin Fowler, Morality for Moderns

37. Giambattista Vico, The Art of Rhetoric (Institutiones Oratoriae, 1711– 1741), from the definitive Latin text and notes, Italian commentary and introduction byGiuliano Crifò.Translated and Edited by Giorgio A. Pinton and Arthur W. Shippee. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 38. W. H. Werkmeister, Martin Heidegger on the Way. Edited by Richard T. Hull. A volume in Werkmeister Studies 39.

Phillip Stambovsky, Myth and the Limits of Reason

40. Samantha Brennan, Tracy Isaacs, and Michael Milde, Editors, A Question of Values: New Canadian Perspectives in Ethics and Political Philosophy 41. Peter A. Redpath, Cartesian Nightmare: An Introduction to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 42. Clark Butler, History as the Story of Freedom: Philosophy in InterculturalContext, with responses by sixteen scholars 43.

Dennis Rohatyn, Philosophy History Sophistry

44. Leon Shaskolsky Sheleff, Social Cohesion and Legal Coercion: A Critique of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx. Afterword by Virginia Black 45. Alan Soble, Editor, Sex, Love, and Friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love, 1977–1992. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies

46. Peter A. Redpath, Wisdom’s Odyssey: From Philosophy to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 47. Albert A. Anderson, Universal Justice: A Dialectical Approach. A volume in Universal Justice 48. Pio Colonnello, The Philosophy of José Gaos. Translated from Italian by Peter Cocozzella. Edited by Myra Moss. Introduction by Giovanni Gullace. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 49. Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove, Editors, Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination: Theories and Practices. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 50.

Gregory F. Mellema, Collective Responsibility

51. Josef Seifert, What Is Life? The Originality, Irreducibility, and Value of Life. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 52.

William Gerber, Anatomy of What We Value Most

53. Armando Molina, Our Ways: Values and Character, Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 54. Kathleen J. Wininger, Nietzsche’s Reclamation of Philosophy. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 55.

Thomas Magnell, Editor, Explorations of Value

56. HPP (Hennie) Lötter, Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 57. Lennart Nordenfelt, Talking About Health: A Philosophical Dialogue. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 58. Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski, The Ontology of Prejudice. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 59.

Leena Vilkka, The Intrinsic Value of Nature

60. Palmer Talbutt, Jr., Rough Dialectics: Sorokin’s Philosophy of Value, with contributions by Lawrence T. Nichols and Pitirim A. Sorokin 61.

C. L. Sheng, A Utilitarian General Theory of Value

62. George David Miller, Negotiating Toward Truth: The Extinction of Teachers and Students. Epilogue by Mark Roelof Eleveld. A volume in Philosophy of Education 63. William Gerber, Love, Poetry, and Immortality: Luminous Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 64. Dane R. Gordon, Editor, Philosophy in Post-Communist Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 65. Dane R. Gordon and Józef Niznik, Editors, Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 66. John R. Shook, Pragmatism: An Annotated Bibliography, 1898-1940. With contributions by E. Paul Colella, Lesley Friedman, Frank X. Ryan, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis 67.

Lansana Keita, The Human Project and the Temptations of Science

68. Michael M. Kazanjian, Phenomenology and Education: Cosmology, CoBeing, and Core Curriculum. A volume in Philosophy of Education 69. James W. Vice, The Reopening of the American Mind: On Skepticism and Constitutionalism 70. Sarah Bishop Merrill, Defining Personhood: Toward the Ethics of Quality in Clinical Care 71.

Dane R. Gordon, Philosophy and Vision

72. Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg, Editors, Postmodernism and the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 73. Peter A. Redpath, Masquerade of the Dream Walkers: Prophetic Theology from the Cartesians to Hegel. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy

74. Malcolm D. Evans, Whitehead and Philosophy of Education: The Seamless Coat of Learning. A volume in Philosophy of Education 75. Warren E. Steinkraus, Taking Religious Claims Seriously: A Philosophy of Religion, Edited by Michael H. Mitias. A volume in Universal Justice 76.

Thomas Magnell, Editor, Values and Education

77. Kenneth A. Bryson, Persons and Immortality. A volume in Natural Law Studies 78. Steven V. Hicks, International Law and the Possibility of a Just World Order: An Essay on Hegel’s Universalism. A volume in Universal Justice 79. E. F. Kaelin, Texts on Texts and Textuality: A Phenomenology of Literary Art, Edited by Ellen J. Burns 80. Amihud Gilead, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 81. André Mineau, The Making of the Holocaust: Ideology and Ethics in the Systems Perspective. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 82. Howard P. Kainz, Politically Incorrect Dialogues: Topics Not Discussed in Polite Circles 83. Veikko Launis, Juhani Pietarinen, and Juha Räikkä, Editors, Genes and Morality: New Essays. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 84. Steven Schroeder, The Metaphysics of Cooperation: A Study of F. D. Maurice 85. Caroline Joan (“Kay”) S. Picart, Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche: Eroticism, Death, Music, and Laughter. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 86. G. John M. Abbarno, Editor, The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives 87. James Giles, Editor, French Existentialism: Consciousness, Ethics, and Relations with Others. A volume in Nordic Value Studies

88. Deane Curtin and Robert Litke, Editors, Institutional Violence. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 89.

Yuval Lurie, Cultural Beings: Reading the Philosophers of Genesis

90. Sandra A. Wawrytko, Editor, The Problem of Evil: An Intercultural Exploration. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 91. Gary J. Acquaviva, Values, Violence, and Our Future. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 92.

Michael R. Rhodes, Coercion: A Nonevaluative Approach

93. Jacques Kriel, Matter, Mind, and Medicine: Transforming the Clinical Method 94. Haim Gordon, Dwelling Poetically: Educational Challenges in Heidegger’s Thinking on Poetry. A volume in Philosophy of Education 95. Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values: Studies in Axiology, Edited by Cornelia Grünberg and Laura Grünberg 96. Gerhold K. Becker, Editor, The Moral Status of Persons: Perspectives on Bioethics. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 97. Roxanne Claire Farrar, Sartrean Dialectics: A Method for Critical Discourse on Aesthetic Experience 98. Ugo Spirito, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Translated from Italian and Edited by Anthony G. Costantini. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 99. Steven Schroeder, Between Freedom and Necessity: An Essay on the Place of Value 100. Foster N. Walker, Enjoyment and the Activity of Mind: Dialogues on Whitehead and Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 101. Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein 102. Bennie R. Crockett, Jr., Editor, Addresses of the Mississippi Philosophical Association. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies

103. Paul van Dijk, Anthropology in the Age of Technology: The Philosophical Contribution of Günther Anders 104. Giambattista Vico, Universal Right. Translated from Latin and edited by Giorgio Pinton and Margaret Diehl. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 105. Judith Presler and Sally J. Scholz, Editors, Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 106. Dennis Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 107. Phyllis Chiasson, Peirce’s Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 108. Dan Stone, Editor, Theoretical Interpretations of the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 109. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, What Is the Meaning of Human Life? 110. Lennart Nordenfelt, Health, Science, and Ordinary Language, with Contributions by George Khushf and K. W. M. Fulford 111. Daryl Koehn, Local Insights, Global Ethics for Business. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 112. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, The Future of Value Inquiry. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 113.

Conrad P. Pritscher, Quantum Learning: Beyond Duality

114. Thomas M. Dicken and Rem B. Edwards, Dialogues on Values and Centers of Value: Old Friends, New Thoughts. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 115. Rem B. Edwards, What Caused the Big Bang? A volume in Philosophy and Religion 116. Jon Mills, Editor, A Pedagogy of Becoming. A volume in Philosophy of Education

117. Robert T. Radford, Cicero: A Study in the Origins of Republican Philosophy. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 118. Arleen L. F. Salles and María Julia Bertomeu, Editors, Bioethics: Latin American Perspectives. A volume in Philosophy in Latin America 119. Nicola Abbagnano, The Human Project: The Year 2000, with an Interview by Guiseppe Grieco. Translated from Italian by Bruno Martini and Nino Langiulli. Edited with an introduction by Nino Langiulli. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 120. Daniel M. Haybron, Editor, Earth’s Abominations: Philosophical Studies of Evil. A volume in Personalist Studies 121. Anna T. Challenger, Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey 122. George David Miller, Peace, Value, and Wisdom: The Educational Philosophy of Daisaku Ikeda. A volume in Daisaku Ikeda Studies 123. Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon, Sophistry and Twentieth-Century Art 124. Thomas O. Buford and Harold H. Oliver, Editors Personalism Revisited: Its Proponents and Critics. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 125. Avi Sagi, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein 126. Robert S. Hartman, The Knowledge of Good: Critique of Axiological Reason. Expanded translation from the Spanish by Robert S. Hartman. Edited by Arthur R. Ellis and Rem B. Edwards.A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 127. Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, Editors. Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 128. Oscar Vilarroya, The Dissolution of Mind: A Fable of How Experience Gives Rise to Cognition. A volume in Cognitive Science 129. Paul Custodio Bube and Jeffery Geller, Editors, Conversations with Pragmatism: A Multi-Disciplinary Study. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values

130. Richard Rumana, Richard Rorty: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Literature. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 131. Stephen Schneck, Editor, Max Scheler’s Acting Persons: New Perspectives A volume in Personalist Studies 132. Michael Kazanjian, Learning Values Lifelong: From Inert Ideas to Wholes. A volume in Philosophy of Education 133. Rudolph Alexander Kofi Cain, Alain Leroy Locke: Race, Culture, and the Education of African American Adults. A volume in African American Philosophy 134. Werner Krieglstein, Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other 135. Robert N. Fisher, Daniel T. Primozic, Peter A. Day, and Joel A. Thompson, Editors, Suffering, Death, and Identity. A volume in Personalist Studies 136. Steven Schroeder, Touching Philosophy, Sounding Religion, Placing Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 137. Guy DeBrock, Process Pragmatism: Essays on a Quiet Philosophical Revolution. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 138. Lennart Nordenfelt and Per-Erik Liss, Editors, Dimensions of Health and Health Promotion 139. Amihud Gilead, Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties 140. Samantha Mei-che Pang, Nursing Ethics in Modern China: Conflicting Values and Competing Role Requirements. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 141. Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, Editors, Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 142. Peter A. Redpath, Editor, A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson. A volume in Gilson Studies

143. Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Editors, Explorations in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 144. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, Scratching the Surface of Bioethics. A volume in Values in Bioethics 145. Leonidas Donskis, Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature 146. Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Editor, Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz 147. Herman Stark, A Fierce Little Tragedy: Thought, Passion, and SelfFormation in the Philosophy Classroom. A volume in Philosophy of Education 148. William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva, Editors, Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives. A volume in Contemporary Russian Philosophy 149. Xunwu Chen, Being and Authenticity 150. Hugh P. McDonald, Radical Axiology: A First Philosophy of Values 151. Dane R. Gordon and David C. Durst, Editors, Civil Society in Southeast Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 152. John Ryder and Emil Višňovský, Editors, Pragmatism and Values: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume One. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 153. Messay Kebede, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization 154. Steven M. Rosen, Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 155. Albert A. Anderson, Steven V. Hicks, and Lech Witkowski, Editors, Mythos and Logos: How to Regain the Love of Wisdom. A volume in Universal Justice 156. John Ryder and Krystyna Wilkoszewska, Editors, Deconstruction and Reconstruction: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Two. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values

157. Javier Muguerza, Ethics and Perplexity: Toward a Critique of Dialogical Reason. Translated from the Spanish by Jody L. Doran. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 158. Gregory F. Mellema, The Expectations of Morality 159. Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins 160. Stan van Hooft, Life, Death, and Subjectivity: Moral Sources in Bioethics A volume in Values in Bioethics 161. André Mineau, Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity 162. Arthur Efron, Expriencing Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Deweyan Account. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 163. Reyes Mate, Memory of the West: The Contemporaneity of Forgotten Jewish Thinkers. Translated from the Spanish by Anne Day Dewey. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 164. Nancy Nyquist Potter, Editor, Putting Peace into Practice: Evaluating Policy on Local and Global Levels. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 165. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, and Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Bioethics and Social Reality. A volume in Values in Bioethics 166. Maureen Sie, Justifying Blame: Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 167. Leszek Koczanowicz and Beth J. Singer, Editors, Democracy and the Post-Totalitarian Experience. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 168. Michael W. Riley, Plato’s Cratylus: Argument, Form, and Structure. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 169. Leon Pomeroy, The New Science of Axiological Psychology. Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 170. Eric Wolf Fried, Inwardness and Morality

171. Sami Pihlstrom, Pragmatic Moral Realism: A Transcendental Defense. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 172. Charles C. Hinkley II, Moral Conflicts of Organ Retrieval: A Case for Constructive Pluralism. A volume in Values in Bioethics 173. Gábor Forrai and George Kampis, Editors, Intentionality: Past and Future. A volume in Cognitive Science 174. Dixie Lee Harris, Encounters in My Travels: Thoughts Along the Way. A volume in Lived Values:Valued Lives 175. Lynda Burns, Editor, Feminist Alliances. A volume in Philosophy and Women 176. George Allan and Malcolm D. Evans, A Different Three Rs for Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 177. Robert A. Delfino, Editor, What are We to Understand Gracia to Mean?: Realist Challenges to Metaphysical Neutralism. A volume in Gilson Studies 178. Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson, The Curve of the Sacred: An Exploration of Human Spirituality. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 179. John Ryder, Gert Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Editors, Education for a Democratic Society: Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Three. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 180. Florencia Luna, Bioethics and Vulnerability: A Latin American View. A volume in Values in Bioethics 181. John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi, Editors, Problems for Democracy. A volume in Philosophy of Peace