Philosophy Over Politics

It seems obvious that there is a necessary connection between philosophy and politics. The odd thing, however, is that people don't want to delve into the vagaries of philosophy in our day, but demonstrate an insatiable appetite for politics (perhaps we should call it "popular politics"). As someone who is a semi-trained philosopher, every conversation of politics feels to me like I've entered a book half-way or walked into a movie mid-stream. There is a crucial and determinative philosophical background that is never discussed, and I literally can't hear the argument because of it.

Let me offer a few of the topics of heated political controversy today and something of the philosophical background that is almost totally unexamined wherever these topics appear, but especially in popular discussions. And I'll try to stay away from gay marriage and abortion, but clearly an analysis can be done in those areas, and I've attempted to do so in various blog articles. But let's consider these few political controversies:

1. Income inequality

All of these discussions start with bold assertions like this: "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and we should do something about it!" It is unfair for the majority of the wealth/capital in the world to be in the hands of a privileged few. What usually follows this "self-evident" ethical proclamation is a bevy of solutions, usually targeted at those rich people who clearly have too much.

And now to consider a few philosophical perspectives on this question that might be important. The first philosophical question of course is, "So what?"

In a purely atheistic view of the world, in which there is nothing but mindless purposeless nature, surely one should expect income inequality. Animals compete and some lose.

But ethically, how does an atheist even make sense of ought language? If it is true that we are merely a bunch of evolved animals, then it surely makes little sense to argue that I "ought" to provide for weaker human beings. If I came to affirm atheism, it would be of the sort seen in the writings of Nietzsche. In other words, somebody has to clean my house and iron my shirts, and the vicissitudes of luck and genetics have given me advantage over enough people to put them to work for me. This is no different than a lion batting around an insubordinate member of the pride. Alphas will be alphas.

Most people today class themselves as theists, so let's consider that view. Now a theist is a vaguely religious person, and what I mean is that he is the sort of person so vaguely religious that he can live as if he is not. Both pantheism and theism share this attractive quality of providing what Lewis called, "the benefits of religion without any of the costs." In short, you can feel like a Christian and live like a secularist. Of course the problem with such a view is its epistemology (philosophical theory of knowledge). Since God doesn't bother about actually informing people, then people get to inform themselves. Practically, theism becomes no better than atheism and one is left only with the static of human opinion regarding ethical problems like poverty. Should we tax more? Tax less? Should we see this as a parenting problem, a social problem, a national problem? To what extent in every area? Only God knows, but He is on vacation or is mystically informing us from within, even though the gaggle of self-professing theists are in violent disagreement about what to do about it all.

Or consider the Christian view. Jesus said something clear and shocking on this: He said, "The poor you will always have with you." Really Jesus, always? I thought we were clever enough to fix the problem of poverty. After all, it surely is a resource problem, right? The point Jesus is making is simply that we don't possess the resources to fix the problem of poverty. Jesus is giving us a humility slap! In effect, human beings can take all the wealth of the richest people in the world and give it to the poorest people in the world, but if the human heart is not changed, things will be exactly as they were before in only a few short years.

Jesus' point is that poverty is a problem with the human heart, and no amount of capital can cleanse sloth or greed or pride.

The odd thing in all of this is that we think we have a political problem of disagreement when we have a deeper philosophical problem.

2. Divorce

Again, we usually begin these discussions with feelings, laws, opinions, blah, blah, blah... We don't begin with the underlying philosophy that informs, or should inform, our views. And as such, there is no meaningful cultural consensus on the issue, but neither is there any understanding of why there is little consensus.

Again, in a purely atheistic view of the world, why should I stick it out under pain? If I am an atheist, and things get difficult, I'm out. I live only one short life, so why take chances? Why even make the commitment of marriage? Isn't marriage itself a merely religious notion? Would two animals bind themselves by a promise of lifelong constancy? Even atheists like Paul Kurtz have recognized how silly a concept marriage is if we are nothing more than animals. Think of it. In marriage, you are committing to what another person will become. How absurd is that? What if they become a jerk? Evolution doesn't prescribe things, so why should I think of marriage as a prescription?

The Christian view gives clear ethical principles for a lifelong union. More than that, it says we are designed for a deep immersion into another person's life. It is there that we are trained in agape love, and it is there that we are transformed into the image of the Triune God. Divorce is a horror because it undermines this deep union that God intends for us, and thus deprives us of a quality of love for which He made us.

A pantheistic view is more concerned with what is going on inside the person acting. Divorce or don't divorce, but don't define oneself by one action and its subsequent results. One is to be a pure actor, merely participating with the flow of nature. As such, there can be no objective defense of divorce as an evil action. It is merely an action.

3. Obamacare

Again, the discussion begins with an ethical principle: "We should provide healthcare for the needy among us." It is so self-evident that no one need question it.

Here are the philosophical questions that demand an answer before we can affirm this sentence:

Why "should" we provide for the needy?

What do we mean by "provide?" Is that money? How much? Who should pay? Why should they pay that much? Why should doctors earn what they do? Shouldn't they provide healthcare because it is merely the right thing to do? Aren't they motivated by love for humanity?

What counts as "healthcare?" Dietary specialists? Contraception? Abortion? Gym memberships? Preventative medicine? Good food? Drugs? All manner of specialists? Treatments for controversial maladies, like ADD? Is it left to doctors? Why? Aren't they motivated by self-interest to find problems they can treat?

Who are the needy? Who counts as a needy person? What is the income level? Does it matter how help is received?

Now, again, if I am an atheist, surely there can be no reason for me to care one wit about other people. I may have to fool others into thinking I care about them, but when it comes to laws that compromise my self-interest, then why care? If I am the one in need of medical care, and an atheist, then I will assert my advantage through laws that coerce rich people to take care of me. If I am a rich atheist, then I will seek my own self-interest by minimizing what I give away to weak people. The evolved man will be the one who wins.

It really is the run-of-the-mill middle class atheist who benefits from the kind of economic situation in which we currently find ourselves today. He gets to pay little in the form of taxation and has somehow gotten away with placing the burden for caring for the weak upon the shoulders of relatively small number of rich people. So, he doesn't have to interact with the poor and disadvantaged, nor does he have to pay much to care for them. He certainly won't be the first to give voluntarily to the poor, provided of course that he is consistent with his atheism. That is the governments job in a civilized society. In other words, it is someone else's job!

Of course the real question is one of "rights" and "privileges." What worldview can give one the language of "natural rights" pertaining to something like healthcare? It certainly won't be atheism! One can perhaps argue whether or not medical care is a right, but clearly one must have a worldview robust enough to provide the language of natural rights in the first place. What rights can a collection of cells really have?

4. Environmentalism

"You should care for this fragile planet!"

Oh really! Why?

If this planet is a mud clod suspended in the vacuous ocean of space, then I'm puzzled as to why I should care about it. For my survival, I am told, and the survival of my progeny. But again, why exactly should I care about that? Perhaps there is an immediate visceral connection to my own children, to my own life, but surely that is all it is! If the earth is a fortuitous accident without meaning, purpose or future, then why on earth care about my life or the life of some person I will never meet?

I strain myself, even making allowances for generosity, to imagine any reasonable answer to this question coming from an atheistic point of view. Honest atheists like Hume, Nietzsche and Sarte recognized that the only retreat is subjectivism (they were nihilists or relativists). Perhaps a generous answer might grant that atheists still want to make the world a "better" place for future generations. Okay, but on what rational or logical basis can this conviction be made consistent with a view that says that we are only star dust adrift in a material wasteland?

Take global warming as illustrative here: If evolution is true, and evolution does not make prescriptions, then perhaps the universe is indifferent to one smoldering ember in some remote region of the universe becoming a bit warmer before it is extinguished forever. In the meantime, evolution may "create" an organism better suited to the heat than human beings, or maybe it won't. Either way, there is no preferred outcome in a universe that prefers nothing. So why should I prefer one? Why sing Donne's Sonnet into a screeching cauldron of noise?

As for the pantheists, who equate human life and the natural order with God, as though the margins and distinctions are simply artificial human superimpositions, it becomes clear that bacteria and brains are of equal value. Now there is a puzzling dilemma here. Either slugs and crabs are as valuable as babies, and should be revered, or our seemingly tacit assumption that human beings possess some inherent dignity over the rest of the natural order is an anthropocentric (man centered) delusion (Karma), and as such we can squash spiders or babies and feel nothing about it. It is all the same indestructible stuff, whether we call it God or matter or energy or however one wishes to speak of it.