A Decent Life Page 4
But we must be clear at the outset. To say that others have lives to live, and even to admit that their lives are no less valuable than mine, that my life is only one among others, is not to say that I am committed to treating all those lives on an equal moral plane. That thought, which is in line with both consequentialism and deontology, leads us back to the kind of extreme altruism of which most of us are not capable. If we are to treat everyone else as being on an equal moral plane with ourselves and those we care for, then it is possible that we would have to sacrifice our interests—and perhaps our most significant interests—when they are outweighed by the interests of others, even distant others. This is the territory occupied by Peter Singer and those who are allied with him. Perhaps it is possible, however, to recognize that others have lives to live and to respect that fact without having to embrace the conclusion that I must treat the interests of those lives as equal to my own. Or, even if morally I am obliged to treat those interests as equal, perhaps I can conduct myself in a way that does not fully meet my obligations but that still takes those others into account.
This might strike some as moral mediocrity. What decency is there in not living up to one’s moral obligations? How can I call myself a decent person if I am not acting on the fundamental moral idea that the interests of all are equal? As Singer points out in his essay on famine and affluence, the idea that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” is “uncontroversial.”23 By “uncontroversial” he does not mean easy. In fact, the point of the essay is to educate us about how difficult the requirements flowing from it would be. Rather, it is uncontroversial as a moral principle, since it relies on the idea that the interests of all are equal.
And, indeed, from Singer’s point of view, what this book proposes is likely some form of moral mediocrity. I do not share that point of view. It seems to me one thing to say that the ideal moral standard would have us act altruistically. It is quite another to say that anything that does not measure up to that standard is less than morally decent. I have insisted that while most of us are not capable of living up to the moral standards proposed by traditional moral theories, we would like our lives to take place within a broadly moral framework. (And, as we have seen, it is even an open question of whether everyone should always act morally.) To the extent that this is true, it raises the question of what that moral framework would look like.
My suggestion is that we can construct a moral framework starting from the recognition that others have lives to lead and a general idea of what that means without having to embrace in our conduct the conclusion of traditional moral theory that we must treat the interests of those other lives as equal to our own. This leaves the question of how we are supposed to conduct ourselves in regard to that recognition a bit vague. That, in itself, should not be troubling. Although the rest of this book is dedicated to putting flesh on that idea, we should not ask for more precision than can be supplied. As Aristotle—often wise when he wasn’t being misogynist or racist—reminds us in his Nichomachean Ethics, “the educated person seeks exactness in each area to the extent that the nature of the subject allows; for apparently it is just as mistaken to demand demonstrations from a rhetorician as to accept merely persuasive arguments from a mathematician.”24 The goal then will be to construct a moral framework for the rest of us who are not altruists that offers as much exactness as the nature of the subject allows.
In constructing this framework, I will start close to home and then work my way outward in several directions. That is to say, I will begin by asking about our moral relations with those with whom we come into interpersonal contact. These include not only our friends and family, but also strangers we run across in our daily lives. It may also include people with whom we have virtual contact through email and particularly through media such as Skype or Facetime. Then we will turn to those more distant from us in both space and time. From there we can look at others who are more distant from us in a different way: nonhuman animals. Finally, we will ask what the framework that has emerged means for our political relations. Morality and politics are, after all, inseparable. Although this book starts from the moral side of things, it would seem to spin in some kind of social void if the relationships between this framework and our political lives were not brought into the picture.25
A final note. I don’t take myself here to be offering the way a moral framework should be constructed when we recognize that most of us are creatures who seek to be generally moral but not altruistic. What I am seeking here is simply one way to construct that framework. There may be others. Moral philosophy has for too long spent itself on creating theoretical frameworks that are distant from our lives, through abstraction or through the creation of altruistic moral theories or, more often, both. Recently, that distance has been challenged, but little work has been done to offer alternative frameworks that offer general moral guidance. (The exception here is in the field that is often called “practical ethics,” where much work has been done on issues like animal rights, the environment, war, abortion, and medical and business ethics. We will see some of these more specific issues in the following chapters.) The challenges themselves remain abstract. There is much to learn both from traditional moral philosophy and from its challenges. These pages could not have been written without them.
The wager of this book, however, is that a moral framework that is both enlightening and guiding can be written for those of us who want to reflect on our moral lives as nonaltruists. But the wager is a limited one. Even if it is won, there are other wagers of the same type that could be won through the construction of other moral frameworks. Indeed, there could well be others (and likely will be) that surpass this one in clarity or rigor or helpfulness. Consider this, then, an opening word and an invitation to conversation as well as reflection. We all—or almost all—are attempting to live decently. My hope is to contribute within the limits of my own abilities to one understanding of what that attempt might amount to.
[ 2 ]
Decency toward Those around Us
In the fall semester of 2011, Matthew Stevenson, an orthodox Jew, invited a fellow student at his college, New College in Florida, to join him for his Friday evening Shabbat dinner. The student’s name was Derek Black. Black was not Jewish. Normally this would not seem to be an unusual invitation. Stevenson was the only orthodox Jew at New College, and so his Shabbat dinner was often attended by non-Jews. However, in this case it was very unusual. Derek Black is the son of Don Black, a virulent white nationalist and founder of the website Stormfront. Black had followed in his father’s footsteps and was at the time a rising star in white nationalist circles. He had written posts on the Stormfront website that contained such sentences as “Jews are NOT white,” and “They must go.”1
Matthew Stevenson knew all this when he invited Black to Shabbat dinner. He thought to himself, “Maybe he’s never spent much time with a Jewish person before.” This particular dinner was boycotted by most of the usual attendees. But it went off well. Black brought a bottle of wine. The issues that would have driven a wedge between him and the other participants were not discussed. Black became a regular member of the Shabbat dinners, and gradually the other members drifted back. In the meantime, Stevenson and Black became closer, occasionally playing pool together.
What Stevenson did not know is that he was a central figure in the growing doubts Black was having about his white nationalism. Those doubts were seeded when Black began to attend New College, a liberal arts school with a diverse student body. But before he met Stevenson the effect of his new colleagues had been only to motivate him to hide his convictions rather than state them openly. Later, in good part under the influence of the Shabbat dinners, he began to question his views more deeply. Eventually he renounced his white nationalism and decided to work against it.2
What Matthew Stevenson did was quietly courageous. By extending
an invitation to Shabbat dinner to someone who had espoused an egregiously racist and anti-Semitic philosophy, he risked at the same time the opprobrium of his friends and humiliation at the hands of a sworn enemy. And yet he recognized that Derek Black was also a person, and perhaps one who had more sides to him than Black himself might have recognized. In doing something that Black, at least in his more active political phase, would never have done for Stevenson, he acknowledged Derek Black as fully human, with a life to live like everyone else, and he acted on that recognition. And he did more than that. He went out of his way to act on that recognition, even in the face of the denial of Black’s mutual recognition. He risked his own friendships and perhaps even public shame. But he did so in the name of the acknowledgment of Derek Black as a fellow human being. “Maybe he’s never spent much time with a Jewish person before.”
Although very different in character and far more courageous, Matthew Stevenson’s invitation has something in common with the Copenhagen train riders I mentioned at the outset. In both cases, the actors treated those around them with what I am calling decency. They recognized that others have lives they are trying to live and they sought to act on that recognition. Moreover, they did so in situations where they shared a space and a time. Matthew Stevenson might not have seen Derek Black before, but they attended the same college and by the time of the initial invitation Stevenson knew a good bit about Black. Alternatively, the riders on the Copenhagen metro did not know the names of any of their fellow passengers, but they were there among them. They could see their faces, their clothing, their style of walking.
This chapter is about decency toward those with whom we broadly share a space and time. I say broadly because the limits of this sharing are difficult to draw. The Copenhagen metro riders certainly shared a time and space with their fellow riders. Matthew Stevenson attended the same college as Derek Black at the same time, but perhaps with an effort might not have met him face-to-face. We all have certain colleagues with whom we have extended email contact before we meet them, perhaps even before we know what they look like. Does this constitute sharing a time and space? Sometimes advertisements for fund-raising efforts for impoverished children present us with a child’s face and even their name. How does this compare with the email contact whose face I have never seen?
For the purposes of this chapter, the email contact will count as sharing a space and time and the impoverished child will not. This, admittedly, is a difficult line to draw. The difference here is that I have interpersonal interaction with my email colleague but do not with the child (and Stevenson, for his part, was sharing a campus with Black before he met him). I bring my colleague into my space and time, and vice versa. While the Copenhagen metro riders find themselves sharing a space and time with other riders, my email contact creates a common space and time. For reasons that I hope to become clear as this chapter unfolds, that will count as being among “those around us” to whom we should be decent.
Face-to-Face
In approaching this issue, let’s start simply and look at interactions with those with whom we uncontroversially share space and time. We often call these interactions “face-to-face.” Although that phrase is used to contrast interactions that involve people who occupy the same time and physical space with those who don’t—say people on email, Skype, or in other times writing letters to each other—we should linger over the fact that these interactions give us access to the living face of one another. It is easy to pass over the fact that in these interactions a person has available to them the visage of another person, or perhaps several other persons.3
Recall times when you gazed into the face of someone you care for: a friend, a lover, a child. That gazing was probably characterized by affection. You seemed to see their whole being reflected in the depth of their eyes or in the roundness of their cheeks or in the way their smile lit up their features or the way they cocked their head to the side when someone else spoke to them. A whole living person appeared in front of you in all their promise and vulnerability. At moments their history with you can seem to be etched into their visage.
We too often neglect this simple experience, although it is often available to us. But when we do experience it, it is with a tenderness that emerges from a sense that we have a real life in front of us. After all, it is a life we already care about. But how often does that caring become salient for us? When we gaze actively into the face of another person that we care about, then, among other times, their life in its fullness is right there in front of us.
To recognize the importance of this experience, remember the last time you were angry with someone you love. If you shouted at them, did you at the same time gaze at their face, take it in? Of course, when you shouted, you probably did so to their face or at their face. But did you see their face as you shouted? When we shout at people there is a blurring of the features of the object of our anger. They don’t appear to us in the way of someone with another life but instead as someone more anonymous. In that sense rather being engaged with the object of our anger we are instead engaged with ourselves, and specifically with the anger itself.
We can see this phenomenon especially when a parent shouts at a small child for misbehaving. (I have heard about this phenomenon. I assure you, though, that I have never done anything like this myself. No, sir. Far be it from me.) If the child starts to cry, the parent might start to feel bad; it’s as though the child’s full being starts to come back into view. But if the parent is too caught up in anger, that feeling gets buried under the anger, which remains the parent’s focus.
Even when we do not shout at another, or after we are done shouting, we avoid gazing into the face of someone with whom we are angry. We do not meet their look. If we are living with that person a certain awkwardness takes hold of the interactions as gazes cross one another without meeting. Usually it is only after reconciliation of the anger that gazing into the face of another is a real possibility again.
It is not surprising, then, to find that it is difficult to train people to kill others, for instance in face-to-face combat. As the philosopher John Protevi tells us, “the vast majority of soldiers cannot kill in cold blood and need to kill in a desubjectified state, for example, in reflexes, rages, and panics.” Therefore, “The military problem of the berserker rage is how to turn it on and off on command (and only on command): this is the problem of the conversion of the warrior (whose triggers include insults to honor) into the soldier who kills only on command.”4
This is not to say that we should never be angry with another person. Others might merit our anger at certain points in our lives, as we merit the anger of others. What I am pointing to here is an experience, one that is mundane enough that it might elude reflection. In it, we come into intimate contact with the fact of a living person. Earlier I said that to lead a human life is “to engage in projects and relationships that unfold over time; to be aware of one’s death in a way that affects how one sees the arc of one’s life; to have biological needs like food, shelter, and sleep; to have basic psychological needs like care and a sense of attachment to one’s surroundings.” A recognition of the other when gazing at their face is an arresting awareness of something like this.
Of course, we don’t tell ourselves this. We don’t say to ourselves, “My goodness, here is someone engaged in projects and relationships, and so on.” Our experience of another person when gazing at their face is not reflective in this way. We might put the point by saying that in gazing at the face of another what we do instead is have a sense of the fullness of a life, one that, if we reflected on it, we would recognize as being engaged with projects and relationships, and so on. In the immediate experience we are gripped by the life itself in a way that is beneath or beyond our cognitive grip.
We have been talking here of people we know: friends and family. However, the idea can be extended. We often don’t think about this because we often don’t gaze at the face of our colleagues or strangers in the same way
that we do with those we know. We don’t take them in visually. Our gaze doesn’t linger; it glances off them and fastens on something else. However, if we watch someone we know only casually, say when they are sitting across from us in our office, we can elicit the experience of sensing their life in their face.
It can happen elsewhere as well. I recall once walking on a cold winter night in New York. I passed someone standing in a doorway who asked me whether I had some spare change. I handed him some without thinking much about him and then continued on my way. About half a block later I passed by another man sitting against a wall. He too asked me whether I could spare a little money. I figured he wasn’t in a strategically well-placed spot, so I said as I passed him (without looking at him), “I’m sorry, there’s a guy a half a block back that I just gave some money to.” He responded with a smile in his voice (who forgets things like this?), “Yeah, well I’m an independent operator.” At that point I turned to look at him and saw someone with a real face smiling at me. We talked a few minutes about the cold and I gave him some money. As I look back on it, the idea of his being an independent operator suggests metaphorically the underlying thought of this book. We are all independent operators in the sense that we are all people with our own lives to lead, lives whose value is not dependent on the acknowledgement of others. (In another sense we aren’t so independent. More on that below.)
It is actually difficult to look at the face of someone begging for money and then walk past them indifferently. This, however, is precisely the kind of simple recommendation urged by the great homeless activist Mitch Snyder. During the Reagan administration, Snyder went on a hunger strike to pressure the President and Congress to devote funds to renovating an abandoned building his group, the Center for Creative Nonviolence, had turned into a homeless shelter. After the administration agreed to fund the renovation but neglected to turn over funds, Snyder embarked on a second, waterless fast (which allows one to survive only about a week or so) to get the funds, which finally the administration released.5 While Snyder himself was an altruist of the first order, his advice to the rest of us was simple: look at a homeless person as though they were another human being. Don’t just walk by. He knew that that first act of meeting the gaze of another would elicit a human reaction that would place the homeless person on another plane in relation to us. Rather than being an object to avoid, the person would be another human being to be interacted with.