Brings One into Being
Given an intentionality, there must be some instrumental way, some instrumental means to move one from the state of "not-yet" to the state of satisfaction. I have used the rather pretentious phrase, "the instrumental act brings one into being," to describe what I believe to be a point of convergence (if not the point of convergence) for ontology and epistemology, and the point of convergence is in "instrumentality." If we revert to our hunger game for a moment, it should be clear enough that, considered from a purely utilitarian frame, some things in the world will count as food, other things will not, and hunger will drive a creature to seek out those things that count as food and ingest it. The former, I might add, takes place within a realm of freedom, the latter is rather mechanistic, but it is important to note for the moment that the intentionality creates a dualistic categorization of the world, a differentiation between those things that are food (and all that is not). An amoeba swimming in a droplet and a human being in a wider world are not fundamentally different in this respect. Both "categorize" their world into food (and all that is not food) and there must be some level of "awareness" of the differentiations within their world. I would not, of course, be so bold as to suggest that the "awareness" is of the same nature or the same quality -- indeed what counts as food will be wholly different for the two creatures -- I am simply suggesting that intentionality brings it and us into interaction with the world, such as it is, and it does so instrumentally.
There are a number of things I can and should point out here, and I should begin with the observation that instrumental acts are, to a certain extent, arbitrary, but it is an arbitrariness bounded by contingency and utility. If I am hungry, there are any number of instrumental acts that I can use to satisfy my hunger, any one of which might be sufficient unto the cause. As I pointed out earlier, if I am hungry enough, and if circumstances are dire enough, I could even go so far as to scrounge for insects. Fortunately, circumstances are not so dire, and I can open the refrigerator and scrounge there for something that might take away my appetite. Just how I go about satisfying my hunger, the instrumental acts I actually engage, are the result of many things, not least contingency (what is available for me to do). I am in the world here and now, and I interact with a world here and now, in the early twenty first century, in the United States, in a mid-sized city replete with grocery outlets, to which food is brought through a wide distribution net from as far away as Mexico and from which I can purchase from an equally array of potential foods. The notion "I can purchase" -- as opposed to say, "I can grow" -- evinces a whole range of preliminary activities within institutions that provide "a living," the money that was needed to purchase the tomatoes, the mozzarella, and the basil that are waiting in the refrigerator to become the salad which in turn will satisfy my hunger. To suggest that a given intentionality, my hunger, brings me into being is at once a statement trivial and profound. I am hungry here and now, and I am free to engage in any number of instrumental acts, any efforts I might make to free myself from the subjectivity of my hunger must take place within the contingency of here and now.
On the side of utility, given an intentionality, some things do (and other things do not) contribute to its satisfaction. If I am hungry, I do not go to the garage and rummage through my tool box for something to eat, but go to the kitchen and rummage through the refrigerator. In some ways this seems too obvious to mention, and perhaps it is, but often the obvious is overlooked. Here I want to make a couple of ancillary points. The utility of any instrumental act (or the actual instrumentality of any instrumental act) is bounded by contingency, the historical "here and nowness" of its performance. I have already elaborated on contingency, and don't really need to do so again, but I need to point out something that is equally obvious but often overlooked -- the performance of an act is adaptive, both in the micro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of my individual physical being in the world, my "going" to the refrigerator) and in the macro scale adaptations of and to the world such as it is here and now (including the adaptations of the institutional contingency, the facts of a refrigerator, the electric power to run a refrigerator, the distribution networks necessary to fill the refrigerator, and so on). I am, so to speak, subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality -- I am hungry -- and the "I am" that is hungry, the "self" that is hungry, makes use of the world such as it is here and now to free itself from its subjectivity. The "self" that is hungry at once adapts to the world in which it finds itself to free itself from its hunger, and in doing so the performance of the act, changes the world, however slightly. If I eat the tomatoes and mozzarella, it is no longer there to be eaten. The instrumentality of an instrumental act is both bound by contingency and, in the performance, changes contingency.
A Bit of Summative Elaboration
If I might elaborate a bit here, there are several claims implicit to what I'm saying. The first set is materialist. I have a physical being such as it is, and because my physical being is such as it is, I have intentionality. We can describe, for example, the physical mechanisms that make me grow hungry, and that might be useful knowledge, but the "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" implies that my physical being exercises a certain autocracy over the "me," the subjective self, an autocracy that I express in the phrase "I am subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality." The "makes me" in "makes me grow hungry" also implies that the autocracy, being subject to the subjectivity of a given intentionality, is undesirable, is being bound to one degree or another in a form of suffering. It is an imperative to no longer be subject to the subjectivity of the given intentionality, or an imperative to free myself from its suffering. To free myself from the subjectivity of the given intentionality, I must be free to act, but my freedom is bound up within contingency and utility. I am here and now, but I am "not yet" free from my subjectivity, and I must act within and on the world such as it is, and my act must be efficacious if I am to free myself. The imperative, or so I want to say, "brings me into being," brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being as the subject that must act, and is also intended to suggest that it brings me as a subject into awareness of and engagement with the world such as it is. The given intentionality shapes "me" as and within a "form of life."
The second set is institutional. To extend the argument a bit, it is possible to imagine a single individual fraught with intentionality -- the science fiction scenario, where the protagonist wakes from an apocalyptic event, alone in the universe, a singularity. The physical trappings of institutional life remain -- the abandoned cityscape -- but it is rendered uncanny by the absence of others. We do not, of course, live in a world absent others, but it is possible to imagine being in the world alone in part because we are in the world alone. I do not have the immediate access to others intentionality in quite the way that I have immediate access to my own intentionality. I do not "feel" others suffering in quite the way the way that I "feel" my own suffering, indeed, for the most part, I do not feel it at all. This has a number of implications. At some fundamental level, of course, I can behave as though I were truly a singularity, and that all others around me were simply automatons of one sort or another, that all others around me were part of the world within which and with which I must satisfy any given intentionality. There is, in this, a reduction of the other to a mere instrumentality, the value of which, to "me," is merely their instrumentality to a given intentionality, their utility. I am suggesting, of course, that is precisely how we behave in the world -- to an extent. To do so wholly, to reduce the other to mere utility, is pathological, though it goes without saying that we all know those who see others principally in their instrumental value. It might be indicative of a creeping pathology that much recent apocalyptic fiction, where protagonist inhabits a world almost, but not quite bereft of others, cannibalism has become a central trope. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the protagonist must navigate a world where most value him, not as human beings, but for his utility as meat stock.
It perhaps goes without saying that the protagonist would prefer to be valued otherwise, and part of the horror of reading The Road lies in the disconnect between our own recognition of the protagonist for his humanity within a world where he has been reduced to a potential meal. It is one thing for "me" in my singularity to reduce others to their instrumental value, but quite something else for others to reduce "me" to a mere instrumental value. I am suggesting, of course, that the "me'ness" of the "me" comes into being relative to a given intentionality, and one such intentionality that brings the "me'ness" of the "me" into being is the need for "recognition" as full human being. I should point out that my need for recognition does not place a special or metaphysical demand on others -- they may still view me solely as an automaton -- but the instrumental means available to me, and the efficacy of those instrumental means, does imply and depend upon what might be called an semiotic epistemology of others. If I see someone eating, for example, I make the assumption that their behavior is governed by the same intentionality that my behavior is governed by when I eat, and the ravenousness of their eating signals the urgency of the intentionality. I know the other, not because I can feel their hunger, but because I can, so to speak, read their acts as signifiers to a signified intentionality, one that I share. There are, of course, any number of things wrong with the assumption. When I see a spider eating a trapped fly, though we recognize the governing intentionality of "hunger," there is little reason to assume that the spider with all its differences of physiology "feels" hunger in the way that I feel hunger. That argument extends upward and outward to suggest that unless another is "me" precisely, and of course no one is "me" precisely, they cannot know with certainty how "I" feel when brought into being by "my" governing intentionality, so I am left with my singularity and my impossible need for recognition -- one of the great discoveries of adolescence.
Having said that, however, the reconciliation of my singularity and my need for recognition implies not a social contract as such (there is no particular time at which people sit down and decide upon these matters) but a social semiotic where my instrumental acts signify a signified intentionality. I should point out as well that there is nothing particularly "intentional" about this, nor is it contingent upon "language" per se. I eat, not because I wish to signify a signified intentionality, but because I am beset to one degree or another with hunger and eating is instrumental to the satisfaction of that intentionality. My actions, so to speak, nevertheless signify a signified intentionality, and insofar as I am also beset with the need for recognition, and that need demands of my instrumental acts that they be comprehensible to others, there is a corresponding instrumental demand that my acts conform to the apparent expectations of others -- to choose from among the available instrumental acts those acts that will signify the signified intentionality. This implies a two-fold contingency -- a physical contingency that determines the available acts, and from within the physical contingency a social contingency that limits the available acts. The latter is not necessarily "rule" bound, though the limitations might well be described as "rules," perhaps even prescribed and enforced as "rules" (one can think here of dietary restrictions -- more on that later) but it is worth noting that, under duress, the "rules" break down and the instrumental acts nevertheless signify a signified intentionality.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Back to the Top -- Intentionality
Artificial Intelligence
Let me begin with an apology for a certain amount of terminological awkwardness. I have settled on the term "intentionality" and have been pondering the notion of a "governing intentionality" for most of my (largely wasted) adult life. There are a number of near synonyms that I could have chosen -- mission, purpose, end -- but each comes freighted with its own connotations, most of which I want to avoid for reasons that will become apparent.
Rather than provide a formal definition of intentionality, let me just say that I first began pondering intentionality in the context of artificial intelligence. The anecdote I use stems from the mid-eighties when I was in graduate school, specifically when I was in a computational linguistics course. I took on, as a class project, the programming of a computer to produce sentences, and then, just to take it to the next level, gave it a vocabulary and syntax so the cumulative sentences would resemble a poem by the poet John Ashbery. It all sounds much more impressive than it was, but the poems that the machine produced were close enough to being poems that they were able to fool some of my fellow graduate students in the English department -- that is to say, some took them to be poems by a person -- which is to say they passed the infamous "Turing test." In order to read a poem as a poem, one must ascribe authorial intent to the text. One must assume, in other words, that the author intended those particular words and that he meant something by them. Those who were fooled by the poems did just that and some had quite ingenious "readings" that ascribed intent and meaning well beyond anything the computer had in mind.
I bring this forward to talk about the disconnects, the first of which is the disconnect between the intentionality governing production of the poem and the intentionality ascribed to the poem itself. At one remove, I created a computer program. While I was quite proud of the body of the program, it did what most would consider a simple and useless task. It chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal," to a final state, "a printed poem." The program "knew" that it had achieved its final state when it had fulfilled certain criteria specified in advance in the body of the program. I have strong doubts that the computer had "intention," in the way that we would normally think of "intention" as a state of mind, but I cannot be sure. I had no doubt, however, that the computer had "intentionality," that it worked through more or less random iterations until it satisfied the criteria of the final state and a produced what was recognizably a poem. In a certain social context, where there were writers and readers of poems, the readers struggled through the "surrealist" combinations until they too had satisfied the criteria and had produced what might be called a "reading." To use Wittgenstein's term, both the computer and the reader engaged in separate, but connected "language games." The outcome of neither game was entirely predictable, at least not to me, but the game itself and the outcome of the game, the satisfaction of the criteria, was recognizable.
The Hunger Game
Let me put this same discussion in another context, one that most would recognize as wholly physiological -- hunger. Most would consider hunger and the need to satisfy hunger a basic need, not only for humans, but for most living things. For those who are reading this, it sits right down there at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it occupies a good deal of our time and effort throughout any given day. I don't want to make too much or too little of this, but most of us would consider hunger mechanistic -- that is to say, it is built into the mechanism of our physiology. We feel hungry, and when we feel hungry, we go about the business of getting something to eat, something that will satisfy our hunger. To use the language of the previous section, our bodies chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal" of hunger, to a final state, a "satisfied hunger." Here, however, I have no doubts whatsoever that I was aware of my hunger, that I had "intention" to satisfy my hunger, and that I took certain actions that I knew would suffice to do so -- I went to refrigerator in search of left overs that I could heat up in the microwave, found them, and ate them. I went through the motions of what most would recognize as a "hunger game," and if my actions were being watched, some hidden spy camera in the light fixtures, my actions would signal (or to use a more loaded term, would signify) my "intention" to get something to eat. Likewise, though, I have no doubt that I had "intentionality" -- that the physiological "go signal" of my hunger was prior to my "intention" to get something to eat and that the instrumental acts associated with getting something to eat were governed by that physiological state. The final state of "a satisfied hunger" is itself a given -- that is to say, I did not choose to be hungry, and while I could choose to resist the impulse or attempt to ignore the stomach pangs, it is there nevertheless -- but the final state of a satisfied hunger does not determine the acts sufficient to its satisfaction. One can imagine many ways of going about "getting something to eat." Instead of opening the refrigerator, I could have grabbed the car keys and popped on down to Burger King. Nevertheless, implicit to my physiological being are certain criteria that the instrumental acts must meet in order to bring about "a satisfied hunger" -- certain acts do (and many more potential acts do not) contribute to the final state of a satisfied hunger.
There are a couple of things I want to point out here. First, the whole business of intentionality, as I am describing it above, can be rather uncanny once we recognize it for what it is. Consider, for example, the sci-fi staple, the almost human android. I am imagining the Star Trek character of Data, but I could be speaking of the more sophisticated android like creatures that populated Battlestar Gallactica. Imagine, in other words, that everyone around you is simply a machine, cleverly designed by an advanced alien race to replicate the actions of human beings in every possible way conceivable. Unlike you, they have no "inner life." They do not have "states of mind," but in the limited case here, only the intermittent "go-signal" that sets in motion a "hunger game," which they play to completion, and then go about other "games." Ultimately, it's not terribly difficult to imagine, in part because we suspect that we are indeed machines at some level, and in part because we do not have the sort of direct access to the inner lives of others that we have to our own. We must "surmise" it from actions that we recognize as instrumental to certain intentionalites. Even if we don't recognize the substance, placing it in the mouth, masticating it, swallowing it, all signal someone who is attempting to reach the final state of a satisfied hunger. We must "surmise," as an interpretive act, that the "eater" felt hungry and has the intention of satisfying that hunger. I will return to this point later, but it is important to keep it in the back of one's mind because it has moral and ethical implications. In certain respects, by asking you to imagine a world in which others are simply machines (and by implication, sub-human) I have also asked you to inhabit the world of a socio-path, one who fails to "surmise" the inner lives of others.
Second, as a sort of first noble truth, I am suggesting that intentionality is suffering. We have labeled it differently -- hunger as need, hunger as desire, et cetera -- but at fundament hunger is a state of discomfiture. Having said that, "suffering" overstates the case, "discomfiture" understates the case, but it serves to make another point. I strongly suspect that I have not felt hunger in quite the way that others around the globe have felt hunger. I am more to the "discomfiture" end of the spectrum than the "suffering" end of the spectrum, and the instrumental acts sufficient to its satisfaction are more readily available to me, in wider variety than for many others. We might split a hair and suggest that others play the "hunger game" while I play something more akin to an "appetite game," and such distinctions may prove to be important, but for the moment I simply want to make the point that the game comes as an a priori and a governing imperative. I must do something, and insofar as it must satisfy certain criteria or conditions set out within my physiology, I must eat. I must, in other words, free myself from hunger, and I am more or less free to engage in instrumental acts pursuant to that end. I say "more or less free" because clearly some things can be eaten, other things cannot, and among those things that "can" be eaten from a purely utilitarian perspective, we may choose not to eat. While I have no particular objections to eating insects, and I recognize that they could be a source of protein, I choose not to do so, in part because my hunger is more "discomfiture" than "suffering," in part because it is simply not what "we" do. If my wife were to observe me scrounging the back yard for bugs to eat, she might "surmise" that I was hungry, but she might also "surmise" that I had gone off he deep end.
The Chess Game
Let me put this initial discussion of intentionality into one last context. Current novels and movies aside, most do not think of hunger as a game -- not, for example, in the way we think of chess as a game. Here again, let me point out the basic structure of what I'm describing as intentionality. In any chess game, there is an initial state of affairs in the arrangement of the pieces on the board, a go signal when one of the two players moves the first pawn, a number of intervening moves each of which is intended to achieve a final state of checkmate. There are, of course, profound differences between the hunger game and the chess game. The one is for the most part biologically constructed, the other is a social construct from top to bottom. I use the term "socially construct" rather guardedly, but purposefully on a couple of levels.
At one level, there is the game itself. While the game has an existence outside and before any particular player, and in that sense is a given, but the game itself is wholly constituted within and by its "rules." This would seem to have rather profound implications for the governing imperative. Because the hunger game is implicit to our biological being, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and because it is implicit to our biological being, because it comes from within our very being, so to speak, it would seem to carry a different weight than the governing imperative of chess. We suffer under a failure to satisfy our hunger in ways that we do not suffer under a similar failure to achieve checkmate, and somehow this difference must be taken into account. Perhaps so, and they are very different games, but for the moment, I am merely suggesting a structural similarity. Because the chess game has been defined within our social environment, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and in that sense the chess game, no less than the hunger game, presents us with an a priori and a governing imperative. Once I have chosen to enter into the game, I must achieve checkmate. I must, in other words, free myself from the "not-yet" (as in "not-yet-checkmate") and I am more or less free to engage in acts pursuant to that end. Here again, I say "more or less" because some acts are efficacious to that end, other acts are not, and among those acts that might potentially be efficacious (if only I could move my knight just a bit differently I would have him) are those that are prohibited under the rules of the engagement.
At another level, there is the competition between the players. I could have chosen solitaire as my example, and avoided this discussion for the moment, but the chess game allows me to make a number of additional preliminary points. If we imagine a chess game in progress, the two players are sitting slumped over the board, and one makes a move. Both players are now attempting to reach a state of checkmate, both have entered into a state of "not-yet-checkmate" and the white player's move has now set the context for the black player's move. He makes a move, and his move sets the context for the white player's next move, and so on. I am suggesting that there is an evolving contingency within which each of the subsequent moves take place. The white player is free to make his moves, the black player is free to make her moves, but each move changes the contingency within which the next move takes place -- changes, that is, the potential efficacy of any individual move. The while player may have had a strategy, but the black player's move just threw it out the window, and a move that is possible -- that is permitted under the rules -- no longer has pragmatic efficacy. The black player is, in effect, still free to make the move, but insofar as the white player's last move precludes its effectiveness, insofar as it no longer contributes to his freedom from "not-yet checkmate," one might say there is a difference between a theoretical freedom to act and a pragmatic freedom to act. I am simply making the common sense observation that the imperative remains the same, but what is possible is not always practical, and it is good to keep the distinction in mind.
The Institutional
Ok, at one level there is the game itself, and it is socially constituted within the mutually understood rules of the game, and then there is the playing of the game. Some will recognize this as de Saussure's structuralist distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic -- between the grammar of a language and the actual production of contingent utterances within that language -- between the rules of chess and the actual production of a contingent game within those rules -- and so on. I am less interested in the temporal argument per se (though clearly, intentionality, as I have described it, exists within the temporal frame of a "now" fraught with the "not-yet") somewhat more interested in what might be called the "institutional" argument. It is the admittedly structuralist distinction between an institution, which we generally understand to have a synchronic existence and the individuals who participate within the institution, which we generally understand to have a contingent diachronic existence. In general parlance, we hear this referred to as "being part of something larger than ourselves," and I am suggesting that the a priori and governing imperative -- that intentionality -- brings into being an institution.
The choice of language is not altogether gratuitous. Within political and moral philosophy, it is rather commonplace to imagine points of origin, so I will engage a version of that particular thought experiment and allow the uncanny to peek through momentarily again. Imagine, if you will, that technology has progressed to the point that we can replicate exactly existing human beings, with one exception -- they have no memory, no contingent experience, prior to the moment of being "activated." Imagine further that a group of human beings have been placed on a deserted island, which we will call Eden to capture its paradisiacal nature. At the moment of their activation, they have he inherent biologically constituted imperatives, but no others, nothing that would resemble a "socially constituted imperative." They are merely an aggregate of "individuals," in what might be called a "state of nature," and I will refer to this aggregate as the "polis" for lack of a better term. It is clear enough that the polis lacks a collective purpose, and whether the polis devolves into a Hobbesian war of all on all, or evolves into a utilitarian commune, depends upon any number of contingent factors, but is also clear enough that those in the polis will create institutions which do have a collective purpose. If one imagines a Hobbesian war of all on all, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a police force. If one imagines a utilitarian commune, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a redistributive economy, moving goods (e.g. food) from those with a surfeit to those in need. The institution as such may have an historical point of origin, but once created, once given an a priori and governing intentionality, the institution takes on a life of its own -- to use Wittgenstein's phrase, it becomes a "form of life."
I am also suggesting that some of the same distinctions pertain as we speak. The individual, as an individual, is brought into being by intentionality. He or she or it must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. I am, as it were, subject to the subjectivity of my given imperatives, you are subject to the subjectivity of your imperatives, et cetera. We can look at the city of New York or Los Angeles and see nothing but an aggregate of individuals, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. The institution, as an institution, is brought into being by intentionality. It must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. We can look at the City of New York or Los Angeles and see a polis proper, with institutions, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. Insofar as individuals participate within institutions, within socially constituted intentionalities, I am subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which I participate, you are subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which you participate, et cetera. Here again my language is not gratuitous. I use the phrase "brought into being" and "subject to the subjectivity" rather deliberately, and I return to them in my next set of posts, but let me close out this post with an observation. Just as I don't know if my poem writing computer program had an intention to write poems, a consciousness or a subjectivity within the wiring of the machine, I do not know if an institution has an intention to satisfy its intentionality, a consciousness or subjectivity that transcends the consciousness or subjectivity of the individuals that participate within it.
Let me begin with an apology for a certain amount of terminological awkwardness. I have settled on the term "intentionality" and have been pondering the notion of a "governing intentionality" for most of my (largely wasted) adult life. There are a number of near synonyms that I could have chosen -- mission, purpose, end -- but each comes freighted with its own connotations, most of which I want to avoid for reasons that will become apparent.
Rather than provide a formal definition of intentionality, let me just say that I first began pondering intentionality in the context of artificial intelligence. The anecdote I use stems from the mid-eighties when I was in graduate school, specifically when I was in a computational linguistics course. I took on, as a class project, the programming of a computer to produce sentences, and then, just to take it to the next level, gave it a vocabulary and syntax so the cumulative sentences would resemble a poem by the poet John Ashbery. It all sounds much more impressive than it was, but the poems that the machine produced were close enough to being poems that they were able to fool some of my fellow graduate students in the English department -- that is to say, some took them to be poems by a person -- which is to say they passed the infamous "Turing test." In order to read a poem as a poem, one must ascribe authorial intent to the text. One must assume, in other words, that the author intended those particular words and that he meant something by them. Those who were fooled by the poems did just that and some had quite ingenious "readings" that ascribed intent and meaning well beyond anything the computer had in mind.
I bring this forward to talk about the disconnects, the first of which is the disconnect between the intentionality governing production of the poem and the intentionality ascribed to the poem itself. At one remove, I created a computer program. While I was quite proud of the body of the program, it did what most would consider a simple and useless task. It chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal," to a final state, "a printed poem." The program "knew" that it had achieved its final state when it had fulfilled certain criteria specified in advance in the body of the program. I have strong doubts that the computer had "intention," in the way that we would normally think of "intention" as a state of mind, but I cannot be sure. I had no doubt, however, that the computer had "intentionality," that it worked through more or less random iterations until it satisfied the criteria of the final state and a produced what was recognizably a poem. In a certain social context, where there were writers and readers of poems, the readers struggled through the "surrealist" combinations until they too had satisfied the criteria and had produced what might be called a "reading." To use Wittgenstein's term, both the computer and the reader engaged in separate, but connected "language games." The outcome of neither game was entirely predictable, at least not to me, but the game itself and the outcome of the game, the satisfaction of the criteria, was recognizable.
The Hunger Game
Let me put this same discussion in another context, one that most would recognize as wholly physiological -- hunger. Most would consider hunger and the need to satisfy hunger a basic need, not only for humans, but for most living things. For those who are reading this, it sits right down there at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it occupies a good deal of our time and effort throughout any given day. I don't want to make too much or too little of this, but most of us would consider hunger mechanistic -- that is to say, it is built into the mechanism of our physiology. We feel hungry, and when we feel hungry, we go about the business of getting something to eat, something that will satisfy our hunger. To use the language of the previous section, our bodies chugged from an initial state, a sort of "go-signal" of hunger, to a final state, a "satisfied hunger." Here, however, I have no doubts whatsoever that I was aware of my hunger, that I had "intention" to satisfy my hunger, and that I took certain actions that I knew would suffice to do so -- I went to refrigerator in search of left overs that I could heat up in the microwave, found them, and ate them. I went through the motions of what most would recognize as a "hunger game," and if my actions were being watched, some hidden spy camera in the light fixtures, my actions would signal (or to use a more loaded term, would signify) my "intention" to get something to eat. Likewise, though, I have no doubt that I had "intentionality" -- that the physiological "go signal" of my hunger was prior to my "intention" to get something to eat and that the instrumental acts associated with getting something to eat were governed by that physiological state. The final state of "a satisfied hunger" is itself a given -- that is to say, I did not choose to be hungry, and while I could choose to resist the impulse or attempt to ignore the stomach pangs, it is there nevertheless -- but the final state of a satisfied hunger does not determine the acts sufficient to its satisfaction. One can imagine many ways of going about "getting something to eat." Instead of opening the refrigerator, I could have grabbed the car keys and popped on down to Burger King. Nevertheless, implicit to my physiological being are certain criteria that the instrumental acts must meet in order to bring about "a satisfied hunger" -- certain acts do (and many more potential acts do not) contribute to the final state of a satisfied hunger.
There are a couple of things I want to point out here. First, the whole business of intentionality, as I am describing it above, can be rather uncanny once we recognize it for what it is. Consider, for example, the sci-fi staple, the almost human android. I am imagining the Star Trek character of Data, but I could be speaking of the more sophisticated android like creatures that populated Battlestar Gallactica. Imagine, in other words, that everyone around you is simply a machine, cleverly designed by an advanced alien race to replicate the actions of human beings in every possible way conceivable. Unlike you, they have no "inner life." They do not have "states of mind," but in the limited case here, only the intermittent "go-signal" that sets in motion a "hunger game," which they play to completion, and then go about other "games." Ultimately, it's not terribly difficult to imagine, in part because we suspect that we are indeed machines at some level, and in part because we do not have the sort of direct access to the inner lives of others that we have to our own. We must "surmise" it from actions that we recognize as instrumental to certain intentionalites. Even if we don't recognize the substance, placing it in the mouth, masticating it, swallowing it, all signal someone who is attempting to reach the final state of a satisfied hunger. We must "surmise," as an interpretive act, that the "eater" felt hungry and has the intention of satisfying that hunger. I will return to this point later, but it is important to keep it in the back of one's mind because it has moral and ethical implications. In certain respects, by asking you to imagine a world in which others are simply machines (and by implication, sub-human) I have also asked you to inhabit the world of a socio-path, one who fails to "surmise" the inner lives of others.
Second, as a sort of first noble truth, I am suggesting that intentionality is suffering. We have labeled it differently -- hunger as need, hunger as desire, et cetera -- but at fundament hunger is a state of discomfiture. Having said that, "suffering" overstates the case, "discomfiture" understates the case, but it serves to make another point. I strongly suspect that I have not felt hunger in quite the way that others around the globe have felt hunger. I am more to the "discomfiture" end of the spectrum than the "suffering" end of the spectrum, and the instrumental acts sufficient to its satisfaction are more readily available to me, in wider variety than for many others. We might split a hair and suggest that others play the "hunger game" while I play something more akin to an "appetite game," and such distinctions may prove to be important, but for the moment I simply want to make the point that the game comes as an a priori and a governing imperative. I must do something, and insofar as it must satisfy certain criteria or conditions set out within my physiology, I must eat. I must, in other words, free myself from hunger, and I am more or less free to engage in instrumental acts pursuant to that end. I say "more or less free" because clearly some things can be eaten, other things cannot, and among those things that "can" be eaten from a purely utilitarian perspective, we may choose not to eat. While I have no particular objections to eating insects, and I recognize that they could be a source of protein, I choose not to do so, in part because my hunger is more "discomfiture" than "suffering," in part because it is simply not what "we" do. If my wife were to observe me scrounging the back yard for bugs to eat, she might "surmise" that I was hungry, but she might also "surmise" that I had gone off he deep end.
The Chess Game
Let me put this initial discussion of intentionality into one last context. Current novels and movies aside, most do not think of hunger as a game -- not, for example, in the way we think of chess as a game. Here again, let me point out the basic structure of what I'm describing as intentionality. In any chess game, there is an initial state of affairs in the arrangement of the pieces on the board, a go signal when one of the two players moves the first pawn, a number of intervening moves each of which is intended to achieve a final state of checkmate. There are, of course, profound differences between the hunger game and the chess game. The one is for the most part biologically constructed, the other is a social construct from top to bottom. I use the term "socially construct" rather guardedly, but purposefully on a couple of levels.
At one level, there is the game itself. While the game has an existence outside and before any particular player, and in that sense is a given, but the game itself is wholly constituted within and by its "rules." This would seem to have rather profound implications for the governing imperative. Because the hunger game is implicit to our biological being, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and because it is implicit to our biological being, because it comes from within our very being, so to speak, it would seem to carry a different weight than the governing imperative of chess. We suffer under a failure to satisfy our hunger in ways that we do not suffer under a similar failure to achieve checkmate, and somehow this difference must be taken into account. Perhaps so, and they are very different games, but for the moment, I am merely suggesting a structural similarity. Because the chess game has been defined within our social environment, we do not choose either the initiating state or the final state, and in that sense the chess game, no less than the hunger game, presents us with an a priori and a governing imperative. Once I have chosen to enter into the game, I must achieve checkmate. I must, in other words, free myself from the "not-yet" (as in "not-yet-checkmate") and I am more or less free to engage in acts pursuant to that end. Here again, I say "more or less" because some acts are efficacious to that end, other acts are not, and among those acts that might potentially be efficacious (if only I could move my knight just a bit differently I would have him) are those that are prohibited under the rules of the engagement.
At another level, there is the competition between the players. I could have chosen solitaire as my example, and avoided this discussion for the moment, but the chess game allows me to make a number of additional preliminary points. If we imagine a chess game in progress, the two players are sitting slumped over the board, and one makes a move. Both players are now attempting to reach a state of checkmate, both have entered into a state of "not-yet-checkmate" and the white player's move has now set the context for the black player's move. He makes a move, and his move sets the context for the white player's next move, and so on. I am suggesting that there is an evolving contingency within which each of the subsequent moves take place. The white player is free to make his moves, the black player is free to make her moves, but each move changes the contingency within which the next move takes place -- changes, that is, the potential efficacy of any individual move. The while player may have had a strategy, but the black player's move just threw it out the window, and a move that is possible -- that is permitted under the rules -- no longer has pragmatic efficacy. The black player is, in effect, still free to make the move, but insofar as the white player's last move precludes its effectiveness, insofar as it no longer contributes to his freedom from "not-yet checkmate," one might say there is a difference between a theoretical freedom to act and a pragmatic freedom to act. I am simply making the common sense observation that the imperative remains the same, but what is possible is not always practical, and it is good to keep the distinction in mind.
The Institutional
Ok, at one level there is the game itself, and it is socially constituted within the mutually understood rules of the game, and then there is the playing of the game. Some will recognize this as de Saussure's structuralist distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic -- between the grammar of a language and the actual production of contingent utterances within that language -- between the rules of chess and the actual production of a contingent game within those rules -- and so on. I am less interested in the temporal argument per se (though clearly, intentionality, as I have described it, exists within the temporal frame of a "now" fraught with the "not-yet") somewhat more interested in what might be called the "institutional" argument. It is the admittedly structuralist distinction between an institution, which we generally understand to have a synchronic existence and the individuals who participate within the institution, which we generally understand to have a contingent diachronic existence. In general parlance, we hear this referred to as "being part of something larger than ourselves," and I am suggesting that the a priori and governing imperative -- that intentionality -- brings into being an institution.
The choice of language is not altogether gratuitous. Within political and moral philosophy, it is rather commonplace to imagine points of origin, so I will engage a version of that particular thought experiment and allow the uncanny to peek through momentarily again. Imagine, if you will, that technology has progressed to the point that we can replicate exactly existing human beings, with one exception -- they have no memory, no contingent experience, prior to the moment of being "activated." Imagine further that a group of human beings have been placed on a deserted island, which we will call Eden to capture its paradisiacal nature. At the moment of their activation, they have he inherent biologically constituted imperatives, but no others, nothing that would resemble a "socially constituted imperative." They are merely an aggregate of "individuals," in what might be called a "state of nature," and I will refer to this aggregate as the "polis" for lack of a better term. It is clear enough that the polis lacks a collective purpose, and whether the polis devolves into a Hobbesian war of all on all, or evolves into a utilitarian commune, depends upon any number of contingent factors, but is also clear enough that those in the polis will create institutions which do have a collective purpose. If one imagines a Hobbesian war of all on all, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a police force. If one imagines a utilitarian commune, it will not be long before one has something that resembles a redistributive economy, moving goods (e.g. food) from those with a surfeit to those in need. The institution as such may have an historical point of origin, but once created, once given an a priori and governing intentionality, the institution takes on a life of its own -- to use Wittgenstein's phrase, it becomes a "form of life."
I am also suggesting that some of the same distinctions pertain as we speak. The individual, as an individual, is brought into being by intentionality. He or she or it must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. I am, as it were, subject to the subjectivity of my given imperatives, you are subject to the subjectivity of your imperatives, et cetera. We can look at the city of New York or Los Angeles and see nothing but an aggregate of individuals, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. The institution, as an institution, is brought into being by intentionality. It must engage instrumentally with the world to satisfy what has been given as an intentionality. We can look at the City of New York or Los Angeles and see a polis proper, with institutions, each engaged instrumentally with the world to satisfy their individual imperatives. Insofar as individuals participate within institutions, within socially constituted intentionalities, I am subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which I participate, you are subject to the subjectivity of those institutions within which you participate, et cetera. Here again my language is not gratuitous. I use the phrase "brought into being" and "subject to the subjectivity" rather deliberately, and I return to them in my next set of posts, but let me close out this post with an observation. Just as I don't know if my poem writing computer program had an intention to write poems, a consciousness or a subjectivity within the wiring of the machine, I do not know if an institution has an intention to satisfy its intentionality, a consciousness or subjectivity that transcends the consciousness or subjectivity of the individuals that participate within it.
Monday, September 10, 2012
The Democratic State
To make clear what is at stake here, let me first distinguish between a "polis" and an "institution." The polis I want to define as any recognizable aggregate of people, for the most part geographic. A major city stands as a polis. The difference between a polis and an institution, analytically, can be revealed by asking the question what is the governing intentionality of each. I want to say neither Salt Lake City nor New York City have a governing intentionality, but they do have institutions -- city government, the police, the metropolitan opera, and the like -- and it is relatively easy to articulate a governing intentionality (a mission and purpose) for each. It was, I think, the great genius of the framers to recognize this distinction implicitly, and upend what is traditional by placing the polis over the institution.
Both the theocratic and ideological states want to give governing intentionality to the polis -- that is to say, turn the polis into an institution. Winthrop, for example, wanted the Plymouth settlement to be a city on the hill, a shining example of the Puritan faith, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. Lenin, for example, wanted the Soviet state to be the harbinger of the world wide communist revolution, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. It is, of course, somewhat more complex, but whether one credits the will of god or the will of history, in both cases, the state must then be free to act on behalf of the governing intentionality, reducing individuals to instruments to that end.
The democratic state substitutes the will of the people for the will of God (a substitution that particularly galls the conservative evangelical for whom the will of God, as revealed, can not be supplanted). It might be argued that the will of the people is no more no less a contingent, historically determined fiction than the will of God, and I will argue as much insofar as the will of the people is revealed through institutions no less than the will of God. Consider, for example, the "vote," such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the vote reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, a majority and minority opinion, the latter of which might be called the opposing faction because, as I suggested to a colleague, losers are typically neither gracious in defeat nor persuaded by the vote itself. Consider also, for example, the notion of the market place, such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the market place reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, the invidious comparisons of pecuniary emulation, to invoke Veblen. Relative to the individual, the so-called "invisible hand" of the marketplace substitutes for the invisible hand of God and bestows grace on the winners, penury on the losers, and as such carries not only utilitarian significance, but also moral significance as well. The successful are the virtuous, a paradigm upheld more in the supposition than in the examination of fact (e.g. that "hard work" and a sort of native "cleverness" are the virtues most in demand, and that anyone in possession of these virtues can rise to the top). So long as there are institutions to keep the peace on the streets (e.g. the police) and so long as there are governing norms (e.g. the constitution, which substitutes for the sacred text, and the first amendment right to speech) the state can subsist, as a polis, without a governing intentionality.
There is the broad outline, and what is most called for (I believe) is a post-democratic state that is not regressive the to the barbarian or the theocratic, but difficult to imagine. As with any substitution, and the will of the people for the will of God (or history), there are consequences, not least what might be called the "primacy of rhetoric." This carries the full freight of the platonic distinction between dialectic (aimed at truth) and rhetoric (aimed at persuasion). Within the polis, moral efficacy rises, not with the dialectical apprehension of truth, but in what most can be persuaded to believe. Here again, this is particularly galling to those who would believe that there is truth, that it is apprehensible to human beings, and that truth should govern, not a transient social majority. This plays out on two fronts, the one being religion, the other being science, both of which ostensibly aim at truth once and for all. Consider, for example, the following from the correspondence section of the newspaper:
"I find it curious that Latter-Day Saints who are Democrats sincerely feel they are taking the high road on social issues, when actually the opposite is true. What these misinformed Mormon Democrats fail to realize is that we are obligated as individuals to help the needy through voluntary donation of our time and resources, but it should never be done through the forced process of involuntary, confiscatory taxation! There is a huge difference between those two philosophies. One way is very good; the other way is evil through and through. This is apparently not understood by those well-meaning members. If they stopped to think about it, they would realize that it was Satan's plan to force us all to be good (Democratic strategy) but Christ taught us to do good of our own free choice (Republican plan) If everyone understood this simple correct principle, there would be no more liberals." SL Tribune, Sep 10, 2012.
There are any number of difficulties with Mr. James C. Green's argument, so many that it would take a chapter to address them all. I bring it forward to point out that his fundamental position is theocratic, not democratic (though one suspects he would feel he is both). Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to create an institution whose governing intentionality it is, so to speak, to provide alms to those in need. Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to levy a tax to fund the institution whose governing intentionality it is to provide alms to those in need, and do so on privately held good Christian principles. Ostensibly, within the polis, those who disagree, as apparently Mr. Green would disagree, can likewise exercise rhetoric to persuade a majority to disband the welfare institution in favor of private giving. Given the opportunity, one suspects Mr. Green, not unlike the mullahs of the middle east, would impose the "simple correct principle," regardless of the majority opinion, in part because, to his mind, the majority opinion is so obviously false. Truth should prevail over mere opinion.
PS the barbarian state and the imperial state I see as roughly synonymous, insofar as the history of imperialism is the history of the survival instinct writ large, but more on that later as well.
Both the theocratic and ideological states want to give governing intentionality to the polis -- that is to say, turn the polis into an institution. Winthrop, for example, wanted the Plymouth settlement to be a city on the hill, a shining example of the Puritan faith, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. Lenin, for example, wanted the Soviet state to be the harbinger of the world wide communist revolution, and as such provided governing imperatives for each and all. It is, of course, somewhat more complex, but whether one credits the will of god or the will of history, in both cases, the state must then be free to act on behalf of the governing intentionality, reducing individuals to instruments to that end.
The democratic state substitutes the will of the people for the will of God (a substitution that particularly galls the conservative evangelical for whom the will of God, as revealed, can not be supplanted). It might be argued that the will of the people is no more no less a contingent, historically determined fiction than the will of God, and I will argue as much insofar as the will of the people is revealed through institutions no less than the will of God. Consider, for example, the "vote," such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the vote reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, a majority and minority opinion, the latter of which might be called the opposing faction because, as I suggested to a colleague, losers are typically neither gracious in defeat nor persuaded by the vote itself. Consider also, for example, the notion of the market place, such as it is. Given opposing courses of action, the market place reveals the will of the people, and often winners and losers, the invidious comparisons of pecuniary emulation, to invoke Veblen. Relative to the individual, the so-called "invisible hand" of the marketplace substitutes for the invisible hand of God and bestows grace on the winners, penury on the losers, and as such carries not only utilitarian significance, but also moral significance as well. The successful are the virtuous, a paradigm upheld more in the supposition than in the examination of fact (e.g. that "hard work" and a sort of native "cleverness" are the virtues most in demand, and that anyone in possession of these virtues can rise to the top). So long as there are institutions to keep the peace on the streets (e.g. the police) and so long as there are governing norms (e.g. the constitution, which substitutes for the sacred text, and the first amendment right to speech) the state can subsist, as a polis, without a governing intentionality.
There is the broad outline, and what is most called for (I believe) is a post-democratic state that is not regressive the to the barbarian or the theocratic, but difficult to imagine. As with any substitution, and the will of the people for the will of God (or history), there are consequences, not least what might be called the "primacy of rhetoric." This carries the full freight of the platonic distinction between dialectic (aimed at truth) and rhetoric (aimed at persuasion). Within the polis, moral efficacy rises, not with the dialectical apprehension of truth, but in what most can be persuaded to believe. Here again, this is particularly galling to those who would believe that there is truth, that it is apprehensible to human beings, and that truth should govern, not a transient social majority. This plays out on two fronts, the one being religion, the other being science, both of which ostensibly aim at truth once and for all. Consider, for example, the following from the correspondence section of the newspaper:
"I find it curious that Latter-Day Saints who are Democrats sincerely feel they are taking the high road on social issues, when actually the opposite is true. What these misinformed Mormon Democrats fail to realize is that we are obligated as individuals to help the needy through voluntary donation of our time and resources, but it should never be done through the forced process of involuntary, confiscatory taxation! There is a huge difference between those two philosophies. One way is very good; the other way is evil through and through. This is apparently not understood by those well-meaning members. If they stopped to think about it, they would realize that it was Satan's plan to force us all to be good (Democratic strategy) but Christ taught us to do good of our own free choice (Republican plan) If everyone understood this simple correct principle, there would be no more liberals." SL Tribune, Sep 10, 2012.
There are any number of difficulties with Mr. James C. Green's argument, so many that it would take a chapter to address them all. I bring it forward to point out that his fundamental position is theocratic, not democratic (though one suspects he would feel he is both). Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to create an institution whose governing intentionality it is, so to speak, to provide alms to those in need. Within the polis, the majority can be persuaded to levy a tax to fund the institution whose governing intentionality it is to provide alms to those in need, and do so on privately held good Christian principles. Ostensibly, within the polis, those who disagree, as apparently Mr. Green would disagree, can likewise exercise rhetoric to persuade a majority to disband the welfare institution in favor of private giving. Given the opportunity, one suspects Mr. Green, not unlike the mullahs of the middle east, would impose the "simple correct principle," regardless of the majority opinion, in part because, to his mind, the majority opinion is so obviously false. Truth should prevail over mere opinion.
PS the barbarian state and the imperial state I see as roughly synonymous, insofar as the history of imperialism is the history of the survival instinct writ large, but more on that later as well.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Four Contextualizations
The four contexts or forms of life are the barbarian, the theocentric, the ideocentric, and the democratic state. I think, definitionally, what is meant by each is relatively clear, but I should point out first of all that there are no clear types. While I would say, generally speaking, the four supersede each other historically, the theocentric form of life is an imposition from within and on the barbarian form of life, the ideocenric is an imposition from within and on the theocentric form of life, but it is a theocentrism that has not shaken free entirely of the barbarian, and so on.
The barbarian state is analytically, if not historically, prior to the others. It emerges from within and represents what might be meant by a more or less Hobbesian state of nature resulting in a sovereign. It is predicated on the absolute freedom which leads to the war of all on all postulated by Hobbes. The virtues most in demand are the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness, or as Veblen put it, the virtues of Achilles and Ulysses. There is a rudimentary market, but it is essentially a barter economy, where the excess goods of one are distributed to others in exchange for their excess goods of another -- likewise the acquired skills of one are distributed to others in exchange for the acquired skills of another. The moral virtue most in demand is reciprocity, fairness, though it is a reciprocity always subject to invidious distortion by individual disparities of strength and cleverness. The state, such as it is, exists through the appropriation of tribute, in part because it has the acquired strength to appropriate tribute, in part as an exchange for protection from yet others who might appropriate tribute. An individual, the sovereign as it were, personifies the state, not abstractly as a trope, but concretely in his person. His rule and rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate from his character and his virtues, his strength and his cleverness, and it demands two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty. The governing intentionality of the state, as such, is survival. For the sovereign, survival in the role as sovereign. For those subject to his subjectivity, survival within the appropriations of the sovereign under his protection from the violent appropriations of others.
The theocentric state emerges from within and is a superimposition on the barbarian state. I do not want to dispute the existence of divinity. It seems clear enough to me that divinity exists, if only in the mind of humankind, and if only as an evolutionary quirk, yet nevertheless tangibly enough to motivate the creation of the most superb temples and paintings and poetry. It also seems clear enough to me that humankind invents gods and goddesses, a mythos, to articulate these intimations of the divine. There is a very long history of religious apprehension, in both senses of the word apprehension, and I will take this history as sufficient proof that divinity exists, and that the institutional articulations of that divinity are the creation of men and women over time. Having said that, the theocentric state emerges from within the context of the barbarian state. The emergence of monotheistic religion posits a God that is, at once, a reflection of the sovereign, but one that transcends the sovereign. The transcendent god served first, principally, as a justification for and a means of rebellion against the caprice of the sovereign and the moral decay of the state. The (re)emergence of evangelical Christianity and Islam serve as a case in point, but in the nature of such rebellions, if successful, the rebels must rule, but they do so not simply on the usurpations of might, but a might that has been sanctified by God. The transcendent God served subsequently, principally, as a justification for the exercise of state power, but it is a state power that (ostensibly) freely limits its freedom to act in fealty to the moral imperatives of the transcendent sovereign God. The Machiavellian prince revealed sufficiently the inherent duplicity, insofar as the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness are the virtues which most sustain power, and the state must continue to appropriate tribute, but the sovereign himself must in turn pay tribute to the transcendent God. His rule and his rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate not only from his character and his virtues, but from the transcendent God, and it demands again two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty to him as the representative of the transcendent God.
Ideology emerges from within theology, and literacy plays a role not only in the institutionalization of religion around the sacred text and its explication. Religion, as it were, posits an intentionality once and for all and set out the instrumental means of attain to the satisfaction of that intentionality. This intentionality is at once individual and historical -- individual insofar as it predicates the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire (e.g. the kingdom of heaven, the pure land) if and only if one demonstrates fealty to the religion by freely accepting limitations on one's freedom (e.g. thou shalt not kill) -- historical insofar as it predicates an end time (e.g. the kingdom of heaven on earth) which is the fulfillment of God's plan for mankind. The latter is often hastened by the former. Regardless, religion, in positing an intentionality once and for all, and by setting out the instrumental means of attaining to the satisfaction of that intentionality once and for all, superimposes another moral virtue -- purity and sanctity -- on in-group loyalty. Consider, for example, dietary restrictions. They have no instrumental value, per say, to basic biologically driven intentionality (the suffering of hunger or the desire for food). They are, largely, arbitrary impositions on a pure utility, and have, as it were, a role as signifier to a signified fealty to a particular religion, to a particular form of purity and sanctity. They are also signifiers of an in-group loyalty, being one of us, and consequently not simply religious disobedience, but also social disobedience and the pretext for the exercise of state power, an exercise sanctified by God and exercised through the sovereign against those who would impose a false god from without, and those who would subvert the true god from within. The exercise of power is still the exercise of coercive power, but it is the "principled" exercise of power.
Here again, I should perhaps emphasize that the locution "from within" is intended to suggest an interdependency, and another principle which perhaps might be called "substitution." Ideology emerges from within theology when one term is substituted for another. In the great twentieth century ideology of communism, both engaged in what might be called a substitution of terms. Communism predicated the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire within the communist state proper. The underlying religious structure remained the same, with the substitution of terms. I am suggesting, of course, that the ideological state, is simply a recasting of the theocratic state under secular terms, and both the theocratic state.
The barbarian state is analytically, if not historically, prior to the others. It emerges from within and represents what might be meant by a more or less Hobbesian state of nature resulting in a sovereign. It is predicated on the absolute freedom which leads to the war of all on all postulated by Hobbes. The virtues most in demand are the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness, or as Veblen put it, the virtues of Achilles and Ulysses. There is a rudimentary market, but it is essentially a barter economy, where the excess goods of one are distributed to others in exchange for their excess goods of another -- likewise the acquired skills of one are distributed to others in exchange for the acquired skills of another. The moral virtue most in demand is reciprocity, fairness, though it is a reciprocity always subject to invidious distortion by individual disparities of strength and cleverness. The state, such as it is, exists through the appropriation of tribute, in part because it has the acquired strength to appropriate tribute, in part as an exchange for protection from yet others who might appropriate tribute. An individual, the sovereign as it were, personifies the state, not abstractly as a trope, but concretely in his person. His rule and rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate from his character and his virtues, his strength and his cleverness, and it demands two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty. The governing intentionality of the state, as such, is survival. For the sovereign, survival in the role as sovereign. For those subject to his subjectivity, survival within the appropriations of the sovereign under his protection from the violent appropriations of others.
The theocentric state emerges from within and is a superimposition on the barbarian state. I do not want to dispute the existence of divinity. It seems clear enough to me that divinity exists, if only in the mind of humankind, and if only as an evolutionary quirk, yet nevertheless tangibly enough to motivate the creation of the most superb temples and paintings and poetry. It also seems clear enough to me that humankind invents gods and goddesses, a mythos, to articulate these intimations of the divine. There is a very long history of religious apprehension, in both senses of the word apprehension, and I will take this history as sufficient proof that divinity exists, and that the institutional articulations of that divinity are the creation of men and women over time. Having said that, the theocentric state emerges from within the context of the barbarian state. The emergence of monotheistic religion posits a God that is, at once, a reflection of the sovereign, but one that transcends the sovereign. The transcendent god served first, principally, as a justification for and a means of rebellion against the caprice of the sovereign and the moral decay of the state. The (re)emergence of evangelical Christianity and Islam serve as a case in point, but in the nature of such rebellions, if successful, the rebels must rule, but they do so not simply on the usurpations of might, but a might that has been sanctified by God. The transcendent God served subsequently, principally, as a justification for the exercise of state power, but it is a state power that (ostensibly) freely limits its freedom to act in fealty to the moral imperatives of the transcendent sovereign God. The Machiavellian prince revealed sufficiently the inherent duplicity, insofar as the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness are the virtues which most sustain power, and the state must continue to appropriate tribute, but the sovereign himself must in turn pay tribute to the transcendent God. His rule and his rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate not only from his character and his virtues, but from the transcendent God, and it demands again two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty to him as the representative of the transcendent God.
Ideology emerges from within theology, and literacy plays a role not only in the institutionalization of religion around the sacred text and its explication. Religion, as it were, posits an intentionality once and for all and set out the instrumental means of attain to the satisfaction of that intentionality. This intentionality is at once individual and historical -- individual insofar as it predicates the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire (e.g. the kingdom of heaven, the pure land) if and only if one demonstrates fealty to the religion by freely accepting limitations on one's freedom (e.g. thou shalt not kill) -- historical insofar as it predicates an end time (e.g. the kingdom of heaven on earth) which is the fulfillment of God's plan for mankind. The latter is often hastened by the former. Regardless, religion, in positing an intentionality once and for all, and by setting out the instrumental means of attaining to the satisfaction of that intentionality once and for all, superimposes another moral virtue -- purity and sanctity -- on in-group loyalty. Consider, for example, dietary restrictions. They have no instrumental value, per say, to basic biologically driven intentionality (the suffering of hunger or the desire for food). They are, largely, arbitrary impositions on a pure utility, and have, as it were, a role as signifier to a signified fealty to a particular religion, to a particular form of purity and sanctity. They are also signifiers of an in-group loyalty, being one of us, and consequently not simply religious disobedience, but also social disobedience and the pretext for the exercise of state power, an exercise sanctified by God and exercised through the sovereign against those who would impose a false god from without, and those who would subvert the true god from within. The exercise of power is still the exercise of coercive power, but it is the "principled" exercise of power.
Here again, I should perhaps emphasize that the locution "from within" is intended to suggest an interdependency, and another principle which perhaps might be called "substitution." Ideology emerges from within theology when one term is substituted for another. In the great twentieth century ideology of communism, both engaged in what might be called a substitution of terms. Communism predicated the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire within the communist state proper. The underlying religious structure remained the same, with the substitution of terms. I am suggesting, of course, that the ideological state, is simply a recasting of the theocratic state under secular terms, and both the theocratic state.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Incommensurability
Beyond intermediacy, there is what might be called the principle of incommensurability. Although freedom is a necessary condition for morality, we recognize that it is not a sufficient condition. Something more is needed, and I have expressed it elsewhere as "freedom must freely limit itself" for a condition of morality to exist. It is this insufficiency that I term incommensurability because ultimately freedom and morality are incommensurate, as is freedom and justice.
There is an unfortunate anthropomorphism of "freedom," and I could have expressed it "a free people must freely limit themselves," but that too brings a number of new questions to the foreground. Just what, for example, would we consider "a free people?" I will let the statement stand with the understanding that it is precisely what must be explicated, and explicated within context. I believe there are essentially four contexts:
i. freedom and morality within the barbarian state
ii. freedom and morality within the theocentric state
iii. freedom and morality within the ideocentric state
iv. freedom and morality within the democratic state
In the background, of course, are notions of wealth, and the distribution of wealth, but I will deal with that within the analytical frame articulated within the last few posts -- that is to say, wealth is an instrumental means to an end. Such is the immediate outline of the supreme fiction.
There is an unfortunate anthropomorphism of "freedom," and I could have expressed it "a free people must freely limit themselves," but that too brings a number of new questions to the foreground. Just what, for example, would we consider "a free people?" I will let the statement stand with the understanding that it is precisely what must be explicated, and explicated within context. I believe there are essentially four contexts:
i. freedom and morality within the barbarian state
ii. freedom and morality within the theocentric state
iii. freedom and morality within the ideocentric state
iv. freedom and morality within the democratic state
In the background, of course, are notions of wealth, and the distribution of wealth, but I will deal with that within the analytical frame articulated within the last few posts -- that is to say, wealth is an instrumental means to an end. Such is the immediate outline of the supreme fiction.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Insurance Battles to Come
I left off last post with the statement that "morality sneaks in here." Actually, "sneaking" might be a poor choice of word, but it nevertheless makes its presence felt. It is a Kantian notion that choice and morality are intimately bound, and so freedom and morality are intimately bound. A simplistic version goes something like this -- we cannot hold a person morally or ethically responsible for an action if he did not choose that action freely.
This, of course, is fraught with difficulty. The banality of Adolf Eichmann's evil, for example, lies in his participation in an institution, a form of life, one governing intentionality of which we want to call "evil." It wished to free itself from an ethnic impurity. As a manager within that institution, Eichmann made generally competent instrumental decisions, banal decisions, relative to what was given as a governing intentionality.
Here is another example, one closer to home. The governing intentionality of "insurance" as an industry is to make money, to improve profits. They take money in the form of "premiums" and pay out money in the form of "claims." Within this basic set of "rules," there is a strong incentive to maximize "premiums" and minimize "claims." At the furthest extreme, they would collect money from everyone and pay out money to no one. Assuming that people have a choice in the purchase of insurance, itself arguable, there are "market based" checks and balances within the basic rules. People would cease paying premiums if there were no opportunity to make a claim. Nevertheless, the basic rule within the insurance industry prevails, and one expects that executives within the institution spend considerable time "minimizing risk," and the insurance operative who spends his day poring over claims looking for defensible ways to deny them, is behaving how? He is simply making, one assumes, generally competent instrumental decision, banal decisions, relative to what was given institutionally as a governing intentionality.
There are a number of implications within the example above, the first being the principle of intermediacy. One might imagine a morally neutral institution whose governing intentionality is "getting the trains to run on time," but that same institution becomes morally suspect when it is instrumental to another morally suspect institution whose governing intentionality is "ethnic cleansing."
Likewise, one might imagine a morally neutral institution whose governing intentionality is "making money." Personally, I find it a bit difficult to imagine as much, and that perhaps was a motivation for Marx to find a post-capitalist society, but be that as it may for the moment, we can make the assumption that there are morally neutral institutions dedicated to "making money." Likewise, we can imagine a morally positive institution whose governing intentionality is "healing the sick." A moment's reflection should reveal that the institutions of insurance and healthcare have many fracture points where their governing intentionality, their values, so to speak, compete. The insurance industry may be morally neutral, considered in the abstract, but when it becomes instrumental within the institution for "healing the sick," it becomes morally suspect.
You can imagine that I'm pondering this in anticipation of "insurance wars to come," as we struggle to find ways to pay for my wife's health care ...
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