Shared notions of repugnance can often adjudicate public concerns *better* than do reasons. If I want to keep a strip club out of my neighborhood, I'm not going to lay a transcendental deduction on the citizen's council, am I? This is one of those obviously true points that has been submereged in the general move towards Rawlsian "public reason" arguments. Sure, you might *think* that appeals to publicity or utility or pareto optimality will command more assent than "eww, gross." But they won't.
I was unclear. Instead of "it doesn't help to adjudicate issues of public concern," I should have written, "it shouldn't be used to adjudicate issues of public concern." I agree with you about the effectiveness of "eww, gross;" that's part of the point of the post. But I do think we shouldn't make those kinds of arguments and that emphasizing the possiblity of competing dislikes is the most accessible way to have people avoid them.
To be fair, I think there was some willful misinterpretation going on there. And I wonder further: do we really think core dislikes *shouldn't* play a role in public policy? Why do we think imagine appeals to public reason, (whatever the hell that is) should predominate?
Perhaps there's a Millian principle here -- the truth will out, etc. I suspect a larger factor, however, lies in our particular history. In the west, Enlightenment appeals to "reason" have overcome ingrained predjudices that we largely view as immoral: racial, sexual "ick" judgments. But why do we imagine appeals to reason won't overcome "ick judgements" we view as basically correct? Kass clearly thinks this has happened -- abortion, assisted suicide, maybe infanticide coming down the pike next. And it's not like enlightenment reason is the only one that can be appealed to. Publicity and equity aren't, contra vulgar Rawlsians, built into rational evaulation. Government house utilitarianism is highly "rational," unless (like me) you believe the Utilitarian enterprise is bankrupt from day one. But is the bankrupcy of utilitariansim going to be debated by "public reason," or even accessible to it?
As a moified Millian, I have an answer to this, but it's not an answer I feel is super-duper iron-clad. And I would really not want to use appeals to public reason to adjudicate infanticide. Infantacide seems pretty darn means-ends rational to me.
"repugnance is the emotional expression of a deep wisdom, beyond reason's power to fully articulate it."
The first part of this statement may be true, the second part is not. While there do seem to be certain things that trigger an instinctive disgust in us, all or most of these can be over-ridden by social conditioning. Other disgust patterns, such as homophobia or racism, are created by social conditioning. Conditioning that takes place in the family, in school, in church, and so on. So while a person filled with disgust may be beyond reason, a person's disgust will always have roots and origins that can be articulated.
Shared notions of repugnance can often adjudicate public concerns *better* than do reasons. If I want to keep a strip club out of my neighborhood, I'm not going to lay a transcendental deduction on the citizen's council, am I? This is one of those obviously true points that has been submereged in the general move towards Rawlsian "public reason" arguments. Sure, you might *think* that appeals to publicity or utility or pareto optimality will command more assent than "eww, gross." But they won't.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 05-27-04 3:48 PM
I was unclear. Instead of "it doesn't help to adjudicate issues of public concern," I should have written, "it shouldn't be used to adjudicate issues of public concern." I agree with you about the effectiveness of "eww, gross;" that's part of the point of the post. But I do think we shouldn't make those kinds of arguments and that emphasizing the possiblity of competing dislikes is the most accessible way to have people avoid them.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-04 3:56 PM
To be fair, I think there was some willful misinterpretation going on there. And I wonder further: do we really think core dislikes *shouldn't* play a role in public policy? Why do we think imagine appeals to public reason, (whatever the hell that is) should predominate?
Perhaps there's a Millian principle here -- the truth will out, etc. I suspect a larger factor, however, lies in our particular history. In the west, Enlightenment appeals to "reason" have overcome ingrained predjudices that we largely view as immoral: racial, sexual "ick" judgments. But why do we imagine appeals to reason won't overcome "ick judgements" we view as basically correct? Kass clearly thinks this has happened -- abortion, assisted suicide, maybe infanticide coming down the pike next. And it's not like enlightenment reason is the only one that can be appealed to. Publicity and equity aren't, contra vulgar Rawlsians, built into rational evaulation. Government house utilitarianism is highly "rational," unless (like me) you believe the Utilitarian enterprise is bankrupt from day one. But is the bankrupcy of utilitariansim going to be debated by "public reason," or even accessible to it?
As a moified Millian, I have an answer to this, but it's not an answer I feel is super-duper iron-clad. And I would really not want to use appeals to public reason to adjudicate infanticide. Infantacide seems pretty darn means-ends rational to me.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 05-27-04 4:28 PM
Infantacide seems pretty darn means-ends rational to me.
Well, you know, they do make a lot of noise and carry diseases.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-27-04 11:07 PM
"repugnance is the emotional expression of a deep wisdom, beyond reason's power to fully articulate it."
The first part of this statement may be true, the second part is not. While there do seem to be certain things that trigger an instinctive disgust in us, all or most of these can be over-ridden by social conditioning. Other disgust patterns, such as homophobia or racism, are created by social conditioning. Conditioning that takes place in the family, in school, in church, and so on. So while a person filled with disgust may be beyond reason, a person's disgust will always have roots and origins that can be articulated.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-28-04 1:51 AM