Lessons for Liberals

Introduction
Let's begin with what Liberals know to be self-evident: All current Liberal views are true and all non-liberal views are false. Let's add to that what everyone on the Right knows: All Liberals hold exactly the same views on all issues. There are no divisions. No subgroups. And there is certainly no nuance.

So, here's the problem for Liberals. How do we communicate the Truth to all those backward non-liberals? (If you're on the Right, simply swap 'Liberal' with 'political Right' .)

Here's what I want to think about. Suppose you had no reason at all to doubt even in the slightest your views on morality and justice. How should you go about communicating with people who hold mistaken views? In suggesting an answer, I'll touch on three interrelated themes: the means by which we communicate moral knowledge, the relationship between moral knowledge and the good life, the nature of knowledge. 

[This is a short portion of a paper I'm working on so many arguments aren't fully elaborated and several possible objections are left out].

Pumping Intuitions and Cultural Precedent
Why should I spare words? They cost nothing. I cannot know whether I shall help the man to whom I give advice; but I know well that I shall help someone if I advise many. I must scatter this advice by the handful. It is impossible that one who tries often should not sometimes succeed.
--Seneca, Letter XXIX paraphrasing the view he opposes.

Sometimes philosophers construct fanciful thought experiments to illustrate a point. With that in mind, please indulge me...

Suppose there were a group of people who believed that God himself spoke to them. With unwavering certainty they insisted that He taught them what is just and unjust, true and false, moral and immoral.

Upon hearing God's words, these crusaders of Truth and Justice went out into the world spreading the 'good' news to all. Some groups employed the tactics Seneca condemns above: They spread the word indiscriminately to everyone--ignoring varying degrees of receptivity, social context, or norms of discourse. They showed no concern for how others might perceive God's messengers and how that might affect receptivity to the message. Furthermore, those who hesitated to immediately recognize the Truth were condemned as foolish and stupid (at best) or evil.

Instead of engaging in patient thoughtful discourse that demonstrated mutual respect and recognized the concerns of others, many resorted to shaming, name-calling, and bullying tactics. Those who were most certain of the Truth would hold signs kinda like these...

Let's pause here to illuminate an argument that's being assumed in the background. First, knowing the truth about morality and justice is somehow important to living well. This idea has its (Western) roots in Socrates for whom knowledge, truth, justice, and the good life are deeply intertwined. A good life requires we understand the content of 'good' and 'evil' and that we correctly apply them in our daily actions. A life lived contrary to justice can never be a good life.

The above view implies it would be a bad thing if you held false beliefs about justice--not just for others but for you as well. It follows that we do good when we correct other people's false views and teach them the true views.

However, as the hypothetical case above illustrates, some ways of communicating moral truth paradoxically cause people to turn away from the truth--even if it comes direct from God's own sweet lips.

Lessons for Liberals:
The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation. 
--Epicurus

At this point, some of you may have caught on to what I'm rambling about. We all know that the Liberals have the monopoly on moral truth. This isn't the issue. Liberals need to think carefully about how they convey that truth because if they don't, they will come off very much like the people above. And the outcome, with respect to conversion, is negative and predictable. In fact, there's growing evidence that it's counter-productive.

[Note: If you're uncomfortable with applying the concept of truth to justice and morality, simply substitute it with the notion of justification. I take it to be uncontroversial that some moral beliefs are better justified than others.] 

Lesson 1: 
How you treat others with whom you disagree affects how receptive they are to your message. This is true regardless of how wrong they are and how right you are. 

From the point of view of people who aren't on the Left, many on the Left behave just as badly as those in the example above. To the heretic, both appear just as smug, and they are both just as willing to condemn to damnation those who refuse to recognize it. A functioning democracy requires that people at least be open to changing their views. Part of this involves creating a dialectical environment in which people can be open to criticism and new ideas. 

How can we do this? The first step is obviously some baseline of civility and respect. The second is to initially acknowledge your interlocutor's concerns even if, ultimately, you don't think they merit it. You can evaluate their concerns later once you've established some good will. No one is going to be receptive to anyone who's first move is to dismiss their concerns out of hand.

A common objection appeals to the virtue of anger in the face of injustice. Failing to be outraged by injustice (to oneself or to others) is itself morally troublesome; you're complicit by omission. Furthermore, demands for civility unduly burden the oppressed when engaging with their oppressors. There's much to say here but I'll tender only a brief reply. 

The attitude we choose ought to be guided by what we hope to achieve with our moral and political speech. Anger in the face of injustice and unjust ideas signals disapproval and--increasingly--group membership. If that's all you intend to do, by all means, express your anger. But to the person who doesn't already hold your values, your outrage is uncompelling as a reason to abandon their view and to endorse a new one. Also, in some circles, Liberal outrage is cause for delight. Worse still, moral outrage can have the paradoxical effect of galvanizing support for the practice in question where it didn't exist previously.

If, however, I wish to persuade those who don't already hold my view I must offer them arguments and reasons. Most importantly, my arguments must begin from premises my interlocutors also accept. You can't drive someone to your destination if they never get into your car. And, they're not going to get into the car if you're yelling insults at them.

In short, if you purport to persuade, arrest your anger. Better yet, remain respectful. Whatever you do, do not confirm your outgroups' (negative) biases of your group.

(If someone's not being respectful to you, you can always walk away. I'm not sure we owe everyone respect. My point is only applies if you wish to persuade someone of your view.)

The Nature of Knowledge
"Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable." --Epictetus

Two competing accounts of the source of knowledge run throughout the history of philosophy. The ancient Greek philosophers argued that Truth is accessible to everyone because, as rational creatures, we are sensitive to argument and reasons; that is to say, we are all sensitive to the means by which assertions are justified. Logic is objective. Argument forms are either valid or invalid. Anyone, with a little training, can evaluate the validity of an argument. Hence, everyone is equipped (when they so choose!) to evaluate arguments for what constitutes justice and for when that concept is correctly applied. This epistemological assumption inspired the Enlightenment and continues in its contemporary progeny.

On the other hand, in The Republic, Plato remarks that "there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry." Here we have the other strain of epistemology: one that appeals to emotion, inspiration, revelation, or personal experience. These sorts of justifications for belief escape and obscure the objective lens of reason and logic; they aren't publicly scrutable. Hence, they are at least controversial as sources of justification. Nevertheless, at least some knowledge is irreducibly subjective. Historically, Romanticism, existentialism, and post-modernism all claim subjective knowledge epistemically legitimate or valuable. 

The core philosophical issue here is whether access to moral knowledge is universal or not. Some Liberals have adopted the latter view (#NotAllLiberals): Certain groups at the intersections of race and gender have privileged access to moral knowledge. I suggest, that even if true, this is a strategic error.

Lesson 2
If we want people to know (and adopt) different moral views, we cannot do it without offering reasons and arguments that are publicly scrutable. 

Just how compelling are divine revelation or appeals to 'inspired' texts to the atheist? Liberals who rely on privileged access to moral truth engage in the same failed tactics as the kind-hearted Mormons who visited me last week.  As I sat there listening to them in my living room, I was reminded something Thomas Kuhn wrote: "Yet, whatever its force, the status of the circular argument is only that of persuasion. It cannot be made logically or even probabilistically compelling to those who refuse to step into the circle." 

By extension, telling people that their race or gender renders them incapable of grasping moral truth is self-defeating. If they're incapable of grasping it, it's unreasonable to expect them to in the first place. Moral outrage is misplaced. 

Excluding subjective knowing comes with a caveat. Some knowledge is surely subjective and morally relevant. What it's like for me to experience the world or how others' actions and words affect me aren't obviously evaluable through objective reason and argument. They're my experiences. Many these experiences do matter morally. If our theory of justice tells us that we ought avoid institutions, policies, words, and actions that make people feel as though they are being dehumanized or less-than then this subjective data matters.

But appeals to subjective experience on its own can't be the end of a discussion on justice. Many white Christians evangelicals feel as though they are a deeply persecuted group in America. Is it true? After all, until recently, they risked imprisonment for uttering "Merry Christmas." If subjective experience is our only epistemic standard, the conversation ends here: They have experiences as though they are oppressed, therefore they are oppressed. 

Yet, we know that simply feeling outraged does not on its own justify the outrage. Justification depends on how well the response 'fits.' People can be mistaken about the fit of their subjective judgments about and emotional responses to occurrences, intentions, harm, to name a few. 

Surely there are features of being oppressed or unjustly treated that, although subjectively experienced, can measure up to some publicly scrutable standards of 'fit.' Is there a(n unjustified) power imbalance? Is one treated differently than one's peers? Is there a reasonable possibility to meaningfully shape the public institutions that govern one's life? Is one disproportionately excluded from certain opportunities or public resources? Is one group disproportionately negatively affected by what is supposed to be an impartial law or policy? These are all standards within which we can begin to evaluate subjective claims of privilege, discrimination, benefit, and burden.

The idea that moral truth is accessible only to members of a select group is the secular equivalent of divine inspiration. Particularly in a democracy, pronouncements on justice demand justifications accessible to all except perhaps the most extreme and recalcitrant partisans. The alternative leads us away from democratic values and into authoritarianism--which is great when your team's in power but not so great when the pendulum inevitably swings. 

Conclusion:
In closing, indulge me one last thought experiment: Suppose there is some truth to what I have said so far. A) How we treat people affects their receptivity to our message even if God's whispering it in our ear. B) Relying exclusively on a subjectivist/privilege epistemology is self-defeating. 

Now consider your actual epistemic situation. Consider all the beliefs you hold and have held, and all the competing possible beliefs held by others--present and future. What are the chances that, right now, you are the first human being to hold all and only true moral beliefs while everyone else, including future liberals, hold some false beliefs?

In other words, if we take seriously the non-trivial possibility that some of our current moral beliefs are false, we should be even more cautious in berating others who hold beliefs contrary to our own. Not just because of the reasons I've already suggested above but because we should think about how we will want to be treated when the inevitable happens: I.e., when someone on Twitter points out to us why we are mistaken. 

Do you treat others how you would wish to be treated if you turned out to be wrong?

I leave you with Seneca:
Do you think that the man has any thought of mending his ways who counts over his vices as if they were virtues? Therefore, as far as possible, prove yourself guilty, hunt up charges against yourself; play the part, first of accuser, then of judge, last of intercessor. 
--Seneca Letter XXVIII

Why Do Something Rather than Nothing? A Stoic Puzzle

Introduction

The first question of philosophy is, How should I live my life? For the Ancient Greeks, the answer was to live a good life. A trivial answer to be sure until we ask further, What is a good life? Or to rephrase it, what makes a good life good? Answers varied from school to school but for just about all of them a good life consists primarily in developing the virtues—both moral and intellectual.

From our modern perspective it’s perhaps odd to conceive of a good life primarily in terms of moral and intellectual development. For many people ‘living well’ and moral development aren’t necessarily connected. For the Greeks, however, they were intimately connected: You simply cannot have a good life without developing the virtues.

One prominent school, the Stoics, place the virtues at the absolute center of their philosophy of the good life. They believed that a life dedicated to developing the virtues was not only necessary for a good life but also sufficient. That is, a good life isn't possible with out the virtues and a good life requires no other thing. In this post I’m going to discuss their philosophy of living well along with an apparent puzzle that arises out of their view. 

I’m choosing Stoicism because over the last 8 months, as an experiment, I’ve been trying to live according to Stoic principles. For a variety of reasons, I’ve decided to follow Stoic teachings to see how the quality of my life changes. Since at least my early twenties I’ve “tried on” various philosophies in search of a life well-lived. I doubt I’m the only one conducting these sorts of experiment. 

Despite the personal angle, I hope to avoid navel-gazing and stick to the philosophy. However, I do want to briefly mention that by living according to Stoic teachings, the quality of my life has changed dramatically—in the “good” direction. I’m still puzzling through parts of it and I’m not on board with many of their metaphysical beliefs but if you’re looking for a time-tested way to improve the quality of your life, I strongly recommend giving Stoicism a try. 

I’m not grounding this recommendation in a single data point but in a history of great names who studied and incorporated Stoic principles into their lives: Marcus Aurelius, Nelson Mandela, Seneca, James Bond Stockdale, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, Bill Clinton, Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Sullivan (Mayor of Vancouver!), Arnold Swartzenegger, Beatrice Webb, Bill Belichick, T-Pain, Brie Larson, John Steinbeck, JK Rowling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Tim Ferriss to name only a few.

Introducing Stoicism

If we want to live a good life we need to figure out exactly makes a life good in the first place. For the Stoics, a good life is one that is virtuous, mentally tranquil, self-determined, and lived according to reason. An interesting feature of the Stoic system is that it is logically closed. By this I mean I can begin with any premise within the system and get to any other. This leads to a kind of logical equivalence between the various Stoic constituents for a good life: living according to reason, mental tranquility, and virtuous living all amount to the same thing. If I live according to reason, I will practice the virtues, and if I practice and develop the virtues I gain mental tranquility. I can start with virtue or self-determination and make the same connections: If I am virtuous, my actions will conform with reason, and when my actions conform with reason, my mind is tranquil. 

From the point of view of teaching Stoicism, this internal logical structure makes introducing it a bit of a puzzle because it isn’t clear where best to begin. In this post, I’ve decided to begin with the aspirational goal of Stoic living as described by Epictetus: The aim of Stoic practice is to joyfully accept the world as it is. 

When I first read this, I thought this was some D-pak Chopra-level bullshit. I’m supposed to joyfully accept when shit goes wrong? What kind of pollyannaish new-age nonsense is this? 

Aside: You may have noticed that the idea of joyfully accepting the world as it is doesn’t conform with the popular understanding of the Spock-like Stoic. I’ll talk more about the Stoics and emotion in another post but a constant theme throughout Stoic writing is that one should cultivate a cheerful disposition. 

Alright, back to philosophy. The obvious question that falls out of the above aspiration is, How the heck are we supposed to maintain a cheerful disposition when so often our desires and goals are obstructed and frustrated? (Not to mention the general shit-show that the world can be). 

The answer requires we understand clearly what has value and what doesn’t (through exercise of reason!) and to pursue only that which has objective value; i.e., that which is valuable no matter who you are or what you believe. 

For most modern people, the idea that there are things with objective value is foreign: What do you mean there are things everyone should pursue? We are all special individual snowflakes, each with our unique set of things we should pursue to make life go well. Everything’s—like—subjective, maaaaaaaan! Amiright? 

Stoics argue that people get frustrated and anxious—and hence have their tranquility disrupted—because they pursue the wrong sorts of things. They pursue things they mistakenly think have objective value with respect to making their lives go well.

The Stoics divide objects of pursuit into two main categories: Internals and Externals. Externals, such as money, fame, material objects, relationships, career, sex, reputation, power, and even health have no objective value in so far as being able to make your life good or not. The only things that can objectively make your life meaningfully better are internals; i.e., the virtues. 

Note: There is more nuance to the Stoic view regarding the value of externals but I’m going to set that aside for now. It is enough to say here that, for the Stoics, externals have no ultimate value when it comes to determining the goodness of your life.

We can track the distinction between internals and externals as a division between things over which our will does or does not have ultimate control. For example, there are lots of things I can do to try to get recognition or affection but ultimately, receiving either depends on whether others want to give it (and continue to give it) to me. Because achieving these aims depends on something outside my own will (i.e., the wills of others) I set myself up for frustration and resentment when I don’t get what I want. And even if I do momentarily gain reputation or affection, I am anxious because its maintenance depends ultimately on elements outside my will. 

The same goes for something like money. I can work really hard, get the right education, and so on but ultimately the amount of money I get is outside my will: I can get robbed, my company can go bankrupt, my bank can go bankrupt, my business partner can make a bad deal, the stock market can crash, the job market can change rendering me obsolete, etc… 

It’s not that I have no control over acquiring externals, it’s that ultimately, at the end of the day, whether I obtain them and maintain them depends on forces outside my will. This explains why pursuing externals can never lead to a sustained good life. When attaining them is difficult or obstructed—which it inevitably will be—we feel frustrated and resentful. And even if we do attain some external, its maintenance is precarious. It depends not on our will but on the will of others and on the world conforming to our desires, all of which contribute to a perpetual state of background anxiety.

Marcus Aurelius put it this way: 

If you insist on pursuing externals "of necessity you must be envious, jealous, and suspicious of those who can take away those things and plot against those who have that which is valued by you. Of necessity a man must be altogether in a state of perturbation who wants any of these; and besides, he must find fault with the gods" (Meditations, Bk VI, 16).

I’ll make one more remark on Stoic attitudes toward externals. The Stoics were not naive. They recognized that a human life does go better when, for example, a person has some wealth rather than none. But the good that comes from externals is conditional. That is, it is conditional on the circumstances the individual finds himself in. For example, if someone with a bad opioid addiction came into a bunch of money, this would not be a good thing. The goodness of money, unlike the virtues, is conditional--not objective--with respect to making our lives go well. Similar cases can be constructed for any external: the world is full of unhappy people with good careers, fame, reputation, money, material wealth, and so on. 

When we observe that our life circumstances and desires will inevitably change over time, there is no guarantee that the externals we pursue and possess will preserve their goodness in those new circumstances. In short, externals on their own don’t reliably cause us to have a good life; in fact, sometimes they can make it go worse. The virtues, on the other hand, reliably cause us to have a good life: There is no situation or identity where courage, wisdom, self-control, and justice don’t cause one’s life go better.

Also, acquiring internals, unlike externals, depends entirely on my own will. The quality of the judgments and decisions I make (i.e., intellectual virtue), the character of the actions I choose and the way I react to situations (i.e., the moral virtues) are all ultimately under the control of my will. 

No one can force me to assent to a false proposition or make a bad decision, and no one can force me to act foolishly or viciously. Whether I develop wisdom, courage, self-control, patience, compassion, persistence, humility, generosity, and so on, depend entirely on my will. And the same goes for their maintenance. Since I can never be prevented by some outside force from developing and maintaining the virtues, I avoid frustration, resentment, and anxiety towards myself and others. 

The Puzzle

Early into my experiment with Stoicism, the following sorts of thoughts started to creep into my head:

If no thing external to my will has value, what the heck do I do with my life? Get a job? Meh, what’s the point? Money and a career can't make me happy. Besides, they could be taken away at any point. 

Deadline for my dissertation coming up? Meh. Dissertations ultimately have no value, so no real point in doing that.  

I should probably start preparing the lecture for tomorrow. Meh. The lecture has no objective value with respect to how my life goes.  

Well, since I'm not going to work on my dissertation or tomorrow's lecture, I might as well go to the gym to stay healthy. Meh. No point. I could just get sick and lose my gainz despite all my hard work. Worse yet, my time of death is out of my control which means I could die in an hour. Why workout if I might die soon?

Here's the funny thing. At this point, I'd been following Stoicism for about 5-6 months. Despite not caring about anything, I was actually noticeably happier than I had been in quite a while. Things that previously would have made me angry or upset rolled off me like water. Nothing bothered me cuz nothing really mattered. In a way, I’d internalized the most difficult lesson of Stoicism, to joyfully accept the world exactly as it is.

But this way of living, this grinning apathy, can't be right. And it isn't what the Stoics intended either. 

What had I gotten wrong?

Solving the Puzzle

Solving the puzzle requires we hold in our heads what appear to be two inconsistent beliefs: That externals don’t matter but that how we use them does matter. Somehow, Stoicism requires that I act as though externals matter while also believing that they don’t. Epictetus recognizes the apparent paradox: 

It isn’t easy to combine and reconcile the two—the carefulness of a person devoted to externals and the dignity of one who’s detached—but it’s not impossible (Discourse II, vi, 9). 

We can reconcile the positions by way of analogy. Think of a great sportball player. A great sportball player pursues the ball with courage, persistence, and skill—that is what makes her a great sport ballplayer. But does the great sportball player believe the ball itself has objective value? No. The ball, within the context of the game, is a means of developing and demonstrating the virtues of a great sport ballplayer. But no sportball player, no matter how good, thinks that the ball itself has objective value. What has value—what is objectively good or bad—is how sportball players pursue the ball.

As Epictetus puts it, we need

the star athlete’s concentration, together with his coolness, as if it were just another ball we were playing with too. To be sure, external things of whatever kind require skill in their use, but we must not grow attached to them; whatever they are, they should only serve for us to show how skilled we are in our handling of them (Discourse II, v, 21).

Or as he puts it another way: 

Life is indifferent, but the use we make of it is not indifferent. So when you hear that even life and the like are indifferent, don’t become apathetic; and by the same token, when you’re advised to care about them, don’t become superficial and conceive a passion for externals (Discourse II, vi, 1-2).

To summarize, Stoicism done right requires we inhabit a delicate doxastic state: We must believe that externals have no value yet we must act as though they do in order that we may develop the virtues. In a way, externals are a tool to develop the things that actually matter: the virtues. 

My mistake was was to focus solely on the idea that externals have no value. As a result I became apathetic. I failed to realize that apathy cannot breed virtue—the genuine aim of Stoicism and source of a good life. So, while it’s (sadly) true that my dissertation has no objective value with respect to the goodness of my life, how I go about writing it does. My lecture has no objective value but how I go about preparing it and delivering it does. My health has no objective value but how I go about sustaining it does. My career has no objective bearing on the goodness of my life, but how I go about pursuing it does.

How To (Genuinely) Joyfully Accept the World as It Is

In retrospect, I wasn’t genuinely joyfully accepting the world as it was. Because of my new-found non-attachment I think I was merely joyful to be free of the sorts of situations that previously would have sent me into a fit of rage, frustrated, or saddened me. Indifference was just a step up from all the negative emotions that come from attachment to and pursuit of externals. 

But when we adopt the complete Stoic view, that developing the virtues is what makes your life go well, then—through consistent practice—we can approach a joyful state of acceptance. How? Because at every turn, you will find an opportunity to develop at least one of the virtues. 

Stuck in traffic? Here’s a chance to develop patience. Working on a dissertation? Here’s an opportunity to develop persistence. Facing a difficult choice? Here’s an opportunity to develop courage. And just about every judgment, decision, and action affords us a chance to develop our wisdom. 

If it’s the virtues that matter for living a good life then we should be grateful every time we are presented with an opportunity to develop them. These situations should be received joyfully because they are opportunities to acquire something of genuine objective value to the goodness of your life—unlike the externals which have no objective value. Although, in order to develop the virtues we have to act as though externals have value, all the while understanding their objective indifference to the goodness of our life.

And so, as with so much so Stoic thought, we come full circle. If we internalize the idea that it’s the virtues that are the end goal and that have objective value, not externals, we see how we can joyfully accept the world as it is.