Update: I see that I didn't express myself clearly. I'm not objecting to delayed gratification and self-denial. I think that both are very important and a parent who fails to instill the importance of both in their child is guilty of abuse. But it is also important that these things be done for the right reasons. This post is about how enlightened self interest is not a good reason.
I was raised by good liberals, not just my parents but the extended family, who believed very strongly that individuals and nations should always act in enlightened self interest. When I was a kid we were taught that it is never the case that anyone or any nation should ever do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. When I was teenager, I tended to rebel over moral issues. Over and over again, I would advance the view that some particular act was, in my view anyway, so obviously good and true that it just had to be admired and a huge argument would break out.
The funny thing, looking at it now in retrospect, is how much more strenuous the family's moral choices were than mine. My life was, and is, full of pleasures that I do not need anything more to justify than that is good and true. Their lives are full of complicated arguments for doing or not doing these things.
For us as children, the most notable aspect of morality was the reasons they would give us for denying ourselves. And I have to stress that it is the reasons that matter here. Almost any system of morality will require us to deny ourselves something but the reasons for doing so will vary.
I began to realize as I got older that there was a deeper problem closely related to the above. That is what about the case where you can get away with something without affecting someone else. I don't mean extreme situations that hardly ever happen. I mean those very ordinary cases that happen to all of us where something that will never be noticed can be stolen, or the young woman beside us on the bus who is so intent on the explicit text message she is sending her boyfriend that she has forgotten the guy in the seat behind her (this actually happened to me last week) or the rival employee's computer that is unattended with a file open that can be read? There will be no reason to enlighten your self interest in such a case. In moments of privacy, there is no difference between self-interest and enlightened self interest.
Whether or not we are really correct in assuming that there will be no impact is almost beside the point. The real problem is what is there to keep us honest in such a case? And the answer is nothing at all. And there is a powerful instinct in good liberal circles to protect our own privacy jealously; because that is the only sphere where we can really do what we want. Everywhere else we are like Gulliver in the hands of the Lilliputans.
You can see this most clearly in someone like Woody Allen. He is capable of all sorts of moral talk that he uses to try and control the lives of those around him but in the privacy of his own mind he can always talk himself into doing whatever he wants to do. There is a family member, someone I have known my entire life, who is lately very much like Woody Allen in that respect.
I love my family but I have come to see that I differ radically with them here. It's not a matter where we can manœuver our way around it by not talking about sex, religion or politics, it is the belief that defines them because they have lived according to this principle all their lives. Because they have acted on this basis all their lives the belief runs right to the core of their being.
I was raised by good liberals, not just my parents but the extended family, who believed very strongly that individuals and nations should always act in enlightened self interest. When I was a kid we were taught that it is never the case that anyone or any nation should ever do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. When I was teenager, I tended to rebel over moral issues. Over and over again, I would advance the view that some particular act was, in my view anyway, so obviously good and true that it just had to be admired and a huge argument would break out.
The funny thing, looking at it now in retrospect, is how much more strenuous the family's moral choices were than mine. My life was, and is, full of pleasures that I do not need anything more to justify than that is good and true. Their lives are full of complicated arguments for doing or not doing these things.
For us as children, the most notable aspect of morality was the reasons they would give us for denying ourselves. And I have to stress that it is the reasons that matter here. Almost any system of morality will require us to deny ourselves something but the reasons for doing so will vary.
- One reason for self denial often advanced in the name of enlightened self interest when we were children was deferred gratification. We should hold off on many of the things that we want most because greater satisfaction for ourselves and others will come from delayed gratification.
- One reason for self denial often advanced in the name of enlightened self interest when we were children was that we should compromise even when we had very strong reasons to believe we were right and the other person wrong. In my family's view, the person who compromises is always better than the person who stands firm because compromise is more likely to produce a mutually beneficial results in the short term.
I began to realize as I got older that there was a deeper problem closely related to the above. That is what about the case where you can get away with something without affecting someone else. I don't mean extreme situations that hardly ever happen. I mean those very ordinary cases that happen to all of us where something that will never be noticed can be stolen, or the young woman beside us on the bus who is so intent on the explicit text message she is sending her boyfriend that she has forgotten the guy in the seat behind her (this actually happened to me last week) or the rival employee's computer that is unattended with a file open that can be read? There will be no reason to enlighten your self interest in such a case. In moments of privacy, there is no difference between self-interest and enlightened self interest.
Whether or not we are really correct in assuming that there will be no impact is almost beside the point. The real problem is what is there to keep us honest in such a case? And the answer is nothing at all. And there is a powerful instinct in good liberal circles to protect our own privacy jealously; because that is the only sphere where we can really do what we want. Everywhere else we are like Gulliver in the hands of the Lilliputans.
You can see this most clearly in someone like Woody Allen. He is capable of all sorts of moral talk that he uses to try and control the lives of those around him but in the privacy of his own mind he can always talk himself into doing whatever he wants to do. There is a family member, someone I have known my entire life, who is lately very much like Woody Allen in that respect.
I love my family but I have come to see that I differ radically with them here. It's not a matter where we can manœuver our way around it by not talking about sex, religion or politics, it is the belief that defines them because they have lived according to this principle all their lives. Because they have acted on this basis all their lives the belief runs right to the core of their being.
Well, what you're describing is part of growing up and becoming your own person, and that's as it should be. I don't know how old you are or how old your parents are, but before you condemn them consider the times in which they came of age lived through. If they lived through the Depression and WWII, self-denial and sacrifice was a necessity, it was the only way people survived. Because of their sacrifices and what they denied themselves, you and me are both here. Self-denial and sacrifice was not some metaphysical concept for them, it was a very tangible reality, and they could measure the results day by day, week by week, year by year. My generation--and yours--take so much for granted that our parents did not have the luxury of doing.
ReplyDeleteYou cover a lot of ground here, I think I understand what you're trying to say, maybe. What you ascribe to your parents or family "their lives are full of complicated arguments for doing or not doing these things" that you need no justification for is what Ethicists get paid to do. That's a very good point, and I agree with you. For the most part, all one needs is a basic sense of right and wrong--and some common sense--to make sound moral choices, not an advanced degree. I learned that the hard way.
ReplyDeleteAs far as self-denial and delayed gratification, self-interest--enlightened or not--is the only reason why anyone would or should practice them. I won't go out to eat every night this week so that I have enough money to buy an iPod two weeks from now.
As far as adhering to one's principles, there are times when it is appropriate to compromise and times when it is not. Neville Chamberlain sought to appease Hitler by way of a compromise, and the rest is history.
Regarding your next point about doing ordinary everyday things that you can get away with because nobody is looking, I think that boils down to self-respect and respect for others (this is where the Golden Rule kicks in). Someone once said that the true test of whether or not a man is honest is what he does when no one is looking. I believe that and live my life by that, and its part of how I define myself.
I don't claim to be an expert on Woody Allen nor have I seen all of his films, but I think some of his films raise some very legitmate moral questions. Crimes and Misdemeanors, which I consider probably his best film to date, does just that and has a very unsettling ending. Far from being a cop out its reality, as painful as it is for us to admit. The fact of the matter is, people do get away with murder every day, both literally and figuratively. At the end of the day, Judah Rosenthal goes home with his wife as though nothing had happened. The real question for us is, because he got away with murder, does that mean its ok?
You seem to want to put a liberal spin on all of this, or blame liberals for what you find wrong or inaccurate about them. Forgive me, but your disclosure that you were raised by "good liberals" indicates to me that this has less to do with politics and more to do with coming to terms with who you are, and that's ok. Kind of like Dick Whitman, but its something we all go through at some point in our lives sooner or later.
I don't think self interest is the only reason to practice delayed gratification and self denial. I think building moral character and practicing charity are two other good and better reasons.
ReplyDeleteOk, then you've resolved the two points you said you had a problem with in the original posting. Denying oneself because of the greater satisfaction that will come down the road is called building moral character. Compromising so that others views, wants, or needs can be accommodated is a form of charity.
ReplyDelete"And there is a powerful instinct in good liberal circles to protect our own privacy jealously; because that is the only sphere where we can really do what we want."
ReplyDeleteGuess again. Boy oh boy, those liberals.
N.Y. / REGION | September 30, 2010
Private Moment Made Public, Then a Fatal Jump
By LISA W. FODERARO
Tyler Clementi killed himself after an intimate encounter was broadcast.
The Tyler Clementi story is tragic but doesn't it, in fact, prove my point about how important privacy is to us?
ReplyDeleteI think you are reading something into my post that isn't there. You are seeing this as an attack on a group of people who call themselves liberals and are engaged in a tribal war with other people they call conservatives. I'm talking about liberal in the broadest possible sense of the word not in the sense of someone who has a Vote Obama sticker on their Prius.
Maybe I misunderstood you....I think. Earlier in the post you were critical of people whom you described as liberals whose views you could not subscribe to or didn't comport with your world view. Its hard to tell sometimes when you're using the term as you intended in this post, and when you use it as you have in other posts, i.e. vs. conservatives.
ReplyDeleteOn the above story, of course it proves how important privacy is to us--well obviously not to the two worms who did this horrific thing. But the way I read your original post it seemed as though you were critical of the fact that privacy is something we guard zealously. Regarding Tyler Clementi, the Golden Rule could have saved his life if the two worms had been taught it and if they had stopped to consider it before they did this horrible thing. (BTW, regarding another post I figured out what OTOH means!)
Yes, when I said they are "liberals" all I meant to say was that they are ordinary people like everyone knows. When I said they were "good" I meant they were good people in that they get along, don't cause trouble.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was trying to do was to emphasize just how ordinary their morality is. (And that is my radical point, I don't think ordinary morality works.)
I probably shouldn't have used the word "liberal" as it causes people to reflexively fall back into this tribal war these days.
But I would like to emphasize that the point here is radical. Like Alasdair MacIntyre I reject Enlightenment moral philosophy. And in that sense i do reject "liberal" moral arguments such as enlightened self interest.
Ok, thank you for clarifying, when you used the terms "good liberals" to describe your family I had a vision of people sitting around the dinner table--like the scene in Crimes and Misdemeanors--talking about Progressivism, Hitler, etc etc! I didn't understand you meant ordinary people, trying to do the right thing, stay out of trouble, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a big fan of "enlightened self-interest" either, but I think today in 2010, sometimes that's the only way people can be persuaded to do the right thing. There's always the "whats in it for me" question, I see this directly or indirectly all around me. I don't know that this is as much about the Enlightenement as it is about how selfish our culture as a whole has become. It started in the '70s with "Looking Out for Number One," escalated through the '80s where the vice of Greed was turned into a Virtue, continued through the economic prosperity of the '90s until 2008 when the economy tanked. I think the philosophers of the Enlightenment would be horrified to see how our culture has deteriorated. Frank Schaeffer, who is the son of one of the founders of the Religious Right, wrote an excellent piece a few years ago on Abortion. He said that in our culture Abortion as an option makes perfect sense. If we want to stop Abortion we have to change the values of our culture which makes it a viable option under certain circumstances--not because its legal but because it makes economic sense. His point was that overturning Roe wasn't going to stop Abortion (as the Mad Men pre-Roe story line so clearly demonstrates).