Lecture 12 Flashcards
Rawls dismisses all concerns about race as irrelevant for justice
“[In the original position] no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength and the like …. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged of disadvantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contingency of social circumstances” (Rawls 1971: 11).
What is the liberal argument?
The liberal argument is simple:
All people must be treated with equal concern and respect.
Black lives don’t matter in particular, because all lives matter equally.
egalitarian plateau and Kymlicka
Indeed, the essential principle of equal concern and respect – Kymlicka’s ‘egalitarian plateau’ – means that race can have no place in matters of justice. This is true also for multiculturalists:
Race matters if attached to culture. But that’s because culture matters, not race.
This is Kymlicka’s multiculturalism position; also David Miller’s liberal nationalist positon.
So black lives matter politically, but not philosophically.
Police brutality is simply an expression of society under non-ideal conditions.
Some questions about race
1) What if race is mischaracterized as simply an ascriptive condition? (If a society cannot be color blind, the problem cannot be pushed away).
2) What if racism is better understood as an ideology, part of the language of society itself? Racism, then, is like the patriarchy (as in Hirschman) socially constructed but ever-present.
Consequently, what if liberal neutrality legitimates domination?
Plato’s republic and race
In Plato’s Republic, the question of war emerges. Socrates argues it is better to enslave barbarians than Greeks:
“How will our soldiers deal with enemies? … Which seems just, that Greek cities enslave Greeks; or that they … make it a habit to spare the Greek stock … ?” (469b-c).
The Greeks were civilized, and thus subjects of justice; barbarians were uncivilized, and could thus be enslaved.
Aristotle’s politics and race
Aristotle’s Politics defends slavery, especially of uncivilized peoples (barbarians) who are unfit for freedom. He discusses different regimes and argues that Asiatic peoples are predisposed to despotic rule:
“Barbarians, being more servile in character than Hellenes, and Asiatics than Europeans, do not rebel against a despotic government … because the people are by nature slaves” (1285a17-24).
Rousseau’s ideas about race
Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762) argued in favor of the maturity of states, and that some peoples are not ready for freedom.
“For nations, as for men, there is a time of maturity that must be awaited before subjecting them to the laws” (II: 8).
- Used to justify colonialism
John Stuart Mill’s ideas about race
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859), argued that barbarian peoples can legitimately be ruled by despotism, as only civilized peoples can rule themselves:
“Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians … Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion” (81).
Arguments like these can easily be used to justify colonialism.
Fanon spotlight
Fanon (1925-1961), was a colonial subject of French Martinique, and was a practicing psychiatrist (in addition to being a philosopher).
He begins with the fact of colonial oppression and domination – race as erasure.
Structural inequality (including and especially in language) – similar starting point as Hirschmann.
This leads to psychosis and alienation.
The problem isn’t purely biological, it is the interplay between biology and sociology
Fanon’s observations
This sociological observations lead to a moral conclusion:
Forces of structural imbalance, erasure, and self-alienation destroy the black psyche and lead to psychosis - the colonized predicament
Fanon’s option = psychological transformation
What to do? One answer: psychological transformation
“The juxtaposition of the white and black races has created a massive psychoexistential complex. I hope by analyzing it to destroy it” (5).
“What I want to do is help the black man to free himself of the arsenal of complexes that has been developed by the colonial environment” (20).
Fanon’s option = violence
Another answer: violence
“From the moment the Negro accepts the separation imposed by the European he has no further respite, and ‘is it not understandable that thenceforth he will try to elevate himself to the white man’s level? To elevate himself in the range of colors to which he attributes a kind of hierarchy? … We shall see that another solution is possible. It implies a restructuring of the world” (Fanon 1952: 65).
Baldwin spotlight
He had a different perspective: the problem wasn’t just the history of (colonial) violence, but of the ideology of white innocence.
This white innocence suggests:
Past racism is gone (slavery is over)
We have atoned for the sins of prior generations
We now believe racism is wrong
We are innocent
Conceptually: white innocence sounds a lot like liberal neutrality
Baldwin’s solution
Further: White innocence places the burden of acceptance on blacks.
In short: the solution is to see race, to understand it – not to pretend it doesn’t exist.
This is the opposite of liberalism:
We will only become free, if we become free from racism.
We will only become free from racism, by facing it head on.
The means both: freeing blacks from racism, and whites from the ideology of innocence
NOTE: Baldwin’s “in the mind” is reminiscent of Hirschmann & Taylor
Liberalism revisited
Was Rawls right?
If so, race is just a social problem not a philosophical problem.
But if racial hierarchy is embedded in language and culture as Fanon suggests, and shared history as Baldwin suggests, perhaps it cannot be so easily willed away.
What can we do to correct socially constructed facts? (without violence)
Hirschmann: change language
Fanon: change psychology
Baldwin: open the black box of history
#BLM: Embrace social movements
