The USA of today is a cautionary tale of the importance of teaching students philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, political theory. It seems clear few here in the USA can consider or discuss such matters in any sensible way. Let’s talk about that this week.
There seems a notable tendency in American culture to try to present normative or ethical issues as scientific, mathematical, or logical ones. So, for example, people who disagree one’s values are often cast as sick, demented, psychologically impaired, insane. In popular economics, much of the rhetorical power of bad economics in the conservative style comes from the notion it provides answers to thorny ethical questions of how to allocate resources, resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences, using only math, logic, science. Indeed, it’s still not uncommon, although possibly less common than a few years ago, to hear people claiming the normative or ethical conclusions of neoclassical welfare economics are entirely the result of math and logic, with no normative inputs involved. Others appreciate there are a few simple normative inputs involved, but then get confused by supposing a great, generalized ethical edifice may be constructed on that basis using math, logic, rather than understanding all the difficult ethical issues have simply been set aside. The ethical half-theory of neoclassical economics holds in abeyance the controversial issues that dictate the outcomes of markets, that is, the ethics of the definition, distribution, use of economic power, then further reduces content with false but convenient assumptions. In reality, the conclusions of neoclassical welfare economics are just as limited as one might expect given the limited inputs. No magic is performed, no values created wondrously from nothing, as it were. That’s all a sleight of hand, a parlor game, a bit of wordplay, rhetoric. But confusion relating to positive and normative issues runs right through neoclassical economics, which can function as either a simple but false engineering model for predicting empirical phenomena or as an oddly delineated ethical theory for a fairy land.
What makes Americans such suckers for that sort of rhetoric? Is it their traditional faith in science and technology as the forces that will solve all society’s ills? They’ll build or produce their way to a good society? Is it some residual effect of 1950s logical positivism? Even on this site, when the topic of philosophy arises, it typically seems to draw condemnation as a sort of archaic substitute for science rather than careful thinking about issues apart from science, as for example ethics. One can feel the hatred. In American culture, it’s quite common to see thoroughly egoistic ethics or amorality held up as more rigorous, scientific, logical, rational, than other views on ethics, and one suspects some role for logical positivism and bad economics in the conservative style. The inevitable result of this anti-philosophy stance is Americans often have great difficulty with even basic thinking relating to things like ethics, epistemology, political philosophy. They have no real idea how to think about or express their views, communicate with others. And when they do take up philosophy, not having any background or knowledge of it, they tend to take up bad philosophy as, say, there is no difference between normative and positive, or in politics, fascism, anarchism, theocratism, or there is no more or less justified belief. We’ve created a nation of poorly educated imbeciles when it comes to thinking and talking seriously about philosophical issues, with the result all they can conceive as far as dealing with those with other views is violence, gaining power over them. Nor is the problem only philosophy but the humanities in general. Many Americans know little about real history. Many have never received the insights and understanding of the human condition from great literature, poetry, the arts. Too busy learning to code, market themselves. It’s unfortunate because democracy is predicated on voters being interested in issues, able to discuss them reasonably, rationally, argue about them, vote on them, accept the results with equanimity. But we’ve created a population that increasingly cannot rise to that challenge.
Interestingly, ancient Greece, the birthplace of political democracy, had an educational system devoted both to the science and technology of the day, how to do things, and to ethics, what one should actually do and not do. It wasn’t just about tools but what to do with them. Can we modify our fascination with science, technology, engineering, math enough to create the sort of population that can sustain a democracy, think and talk seriously about philosophical matters such as ethics, epistemology? Time will tell the tale.
