A correction
In my previous post I confused the idea of a "best" state of society with the idea of a state of society that ought to exist - typical confusion of right and good. These aren't clearly distinguished in classical political thought (where the good clearly has priority anyway) but it may modify the presentation of the puzzle, since the "best" state of society may serve only as an unatainable guide for improvement, not as a required state of society in some normative sense.
Still, the idea is that, generally, tyranny ought not to exist; it is unjust, not right. If this is so, it would seem to make sense that there must exist actions and activities that can be done to prevent or end it; yet sociologically speaking, in some circumstances, such actions have a vanishingly small probability of occurring. Can we still speak of ought implying can?
Still, the idea is that, generally, tyranny ought not to exist; it is unjust, not right. If this is so, it would seem to make sense that there must exist actions and activities that can be done to prevent or end it; yet sociologically speaking, in some circumstances, such actions have a vanishingly small probability of occurring. Can we still speak of ought implying can?
posted by Xavier Marquez @ 7:08 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Jeremy, I think the problem I have is that while heroism can be demanded at the level of the individual, it makes no good sense (to me) to demad it at the level of society.
It's a statistical problem: suppose the probability of a person acting heroically in moral matters is 1 in 1000. But suppose that in order to prevent tyranny in that society you need 1 in 10 people to act in that way. The probability of 1 in 10 people acting in that way in that society, however, is 1 in 1000^3 = 1 in 10^9, which is much smaller (unless I'm wholly mistaken about probability composition here). At some point the possibility of society moving forward to a better state (an "ought" state) becomes vanishingly small even if the possibility of acting morally at the individual level is not.
In your response to my earlier post you make the point about "sociopathy" at the level of the conditions of society - which I think is very good. At the same time it raises a point about the usefulness of the metaphor of pathology in thinking about politics: pathology seems to imply lack of freedom for the society. Which for the most part is consistent with empirical reflection on politics as the result of a the actions of groups rather than individuals: even when individuals are unpredictable and free, their joint action need not be. But it's not necessarily a very fruitful source of normative theorizing. Perhaps I'll put up a more coherent point about this later.
Also Jeff and Jeremy, note that Emma joined our earlier thread on the metaphor of sickness with a very interesting comment on the use of metaphor in politics generally.
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