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Harming others : universal subjectivism and the expanding moral circle Berg, F. van den Citation Berg, F. van den. (2011, April 14). Harming others : universal subjectivism and the expanding moral circle. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/16719 Version: Corrected Publisher’s Version Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the License: Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/16719 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Harming Others Universal Subjectivism and the Expanding Moral Circle Harming others is bad because it’s harmful, and what’s harmful is bad. Michael Allen Fox, Deep Vegetarianism. ISBN/EAN 9789461081476 © 2011 Floris van den Berg Druk: Gildeprint Enschede Oplage: 250 exemplaren Harming Others Universal Subjectivism and the Expanding Moral Circle PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof. mr. P. F. van der Heijden, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op donderdag 14 april 2011 klokke 15.00 uur door Floris van den Berg geboren te Naarden in 1973 Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Prof. dr. P.B. Cliteur Overige leden: Prof. dr. J. Braeckman (Universiteit Gent, België) Prof. dr. A. Ellian Mr. dr. J.P. Loof Prof. dr. S. Haring For Annemarieke Contents 1. Introduction to Universal Subjectivism 1 1.1 Harming Others 1 1.2 Overview of Harming Others 1 1.3 Universal Subjectivism in a Nutshell 2 1.4 Worst-Off Positions 3 1.5 Practical Ethics 6 1.6 The Enlightenment Project 10 2. Preliminaries to Universal Subjectivism 13 2.1 Inconvenient Truths of Harming Others 13 2.2 Moral Nausea 15 2.3 Why Moral Theory? 20 2.4 Basic Concepts 23 2.4.1 Naturalism 23 2.4.2 Constructivism 24 2.4.3 Universalism 25 2.4.4 Subjectivism 27 2.5 Rawls + Singer 27 2.6 A Broad Reinterpretation of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice 29 2.7 Nussbaum’s Expansion of Rawls’ Theory 32 2.8 An Astronomer’s View on Ethics 33 2.9 Singer’s Utilitarian Ethics 33 2.10 Reflective Equilibrium 34 2.11 For Whom? 36 2.12 By Whom? 38 2.13 What For? 39 2.14 Two Principles of Universal Subjectivism 41 3. Universal Subjectivism and the Expanding Moral Circle 43 3.1 One World 44 3.1.1 Rooted Cosmopolitanism 47 3.1.2 A Cosmopolitan Language 48 3.1.3 Rawls’ Pragmatically Limited Scope 49 3.1.4 Critique of Cosmopolitanism 50 3.1.5 Beyond Rootism 53 3.1.6 An Intellectual and Social Dungeon 55 3.1.7 Children Should Be Free From Religion 58 3.1.8 A Blind Spot in Liberal Democracies: Muslim Women 60 3.2 Mentally and Physically Handicapped 62 3.3 Non-human Animals 64 3.3.1 Beyond Speciesism 64 3.3.2 Non-human Animals in Contractarianism 71 3.3.3 Rawls on Non-Human Animals 72 3.3.4 Extending Contractarianism beyond Humans 74 3.3.5 Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach 74 3.3.6 Carruthers and Rational Agency 77 3.3.7 Coeckelbergh’s Co-operation Approach 80 3.3.8 Felipe’s Biocentric Contractarianism 81 3.3.9 Garner’s Argument from Marginal Cases 82 3.3.10 Abbey: Away from Contractarianism 84 3.3.11 Rowland’s Extensionism 85 3.3.12 Conclusion: Pathocentric Contractarianism 85 3.4 The Expanding Moral Circle in Contemporary Literature 90 3.4.1 Saturday 92 3.4.2 The Lives of Animals 93 3.4.3 Eating Animals 97 3.4.4 Solar 102 3.4.5 Freedom 105 3.5 Future Generations 109 3.6 Environmental Cataclysm 113 3.6.1 Universal Subjectivism and Environmentalism 114 3.6.2 The Precautionary Principle in Environmental Ethics 121 3.6.3 Minimal Ecological Consensus 127 3.6.4 Anthropogenic Climate Change 129 3.6.5 Everything Won’t Be Fine 133 3.6.6 Universal Subjectivism and Deep Ecology 138 3.7 Judging the Past 144 3.7.1 Killing Civilians with Allied Area Bombing in WWII 146 4. Applications of Universal Subjectivism 149 4.1 Political Philosophy 149 4.2 Ethics 151 4.3 Social Criticism 153 4.4 A Philosophy of Freethought 155 4.5 Setting Priorities 156 5. Problems of and Obstacles to Universal Subjectivism 159 5.1 Some Critiques on the Project of the Enlightenment 159 5.1.1 John Gray 159 5.1.2 Roger Scruton 165 5.2 Abortion 170 5.3 Pedophilia 172 5.4 Walking on the Grass 173 5.5 Intercultural Evaluation 175 5.5.1 Cultural Relativism 176 5.5.2 Dangerous Liberal Pluralism 179 5.5.3 Worldviews and the Problem of Pluralism 183 5.6 Limits to Freedom 186 5.7 The Problem of Projecting 187 5.8 Lack of Empathy 188 5.9 Non-Equal Consideration of Equal Interests 193 5.10 Compulsory Education 196 5.11 ‘We Are Here Now, and We Deserve It!’ 197 5.12 Partial Rationality 199 5.13 Partial Emotionality 201 6. Clarifications of Universal Subjectivism 205 6.1 No Reliance on Religion 205 6.2 No Reliance on Metaphysics: Political Secularism 206 6.3 No Reliance on Altruism 207 6.4 No Dependence on Human Nature 208 6.5 No Need for Human Dignity 208 6.6 No Natural Law 209 6.7 No Need to Focus on Eudaimonia 209 6.8 No Reliance on Intuitions 210 6.9 No Uncritical Reliance on Tradition, Custom and Authority 210 6.10 A Humanist Outlook 211 6.11 Not a Panacea for All Problems 214 7. Conclusion 217 7.1 Living within Limits 217 7.2 Deep Pessimism or Desperate Optimism 218 8. Mediagraphy 223 8.1 Books and Papers 223 8.2 Documentaries 239 Summary 241 Samenvatting 245 Curriculum Vitae 247 1. Introduction to Universal Subjectivism 1.1 Harming Others We harm others. With the possible exception of a vegan living a frugal life trying hard to reduce his or her harmful impact on others and the environment, we all harm others. Harm is institutionalized in our society. Our way of life - consumerism and an economic system dependent on growth and depletion of nonrenewable natural resources - is based on harming and exploiting others. We harm people in developing countries, we harm animals, we harm future generations and we even harm ourselves. We are usually not aware of this. When we look with blinkers, our liberal open welfare society, which respects human rights, seems to be a morally justifiable society. But when one pulls away the blinkers, the gruesome picture of the inconvenient truth appears. A moral lesson taught by many parents to their children is ‘Don’t harm others’. That is a decent moral lesson - but who are others? That same parents, for example, usually cook food for their children that contains animal products, for which animals have been harmed tremendously. And they probably own and drive a CO2 emitting car, and fly. The western throwaway consumeristic, greenhouse gas emitting life style, which uses non-renewable scarce natural resources, now endangers all of us, including many animals and animal species. Destroying the planet is written into our system. We are rapidly on our way to destroy ourselves. Is it possible to live a life without harming and destroying others? Even if it were impossible, doesn’t it seem a worthwhile ideal to strive towards a life style that harms as little as possible? Our life style and our institutions are a long way from that ‘no harm utopia’. ‘Can we live a life without harming others?’ That is the question. 1.2 Overview of Harming Others Harming Others develops the theory of, what I call, universal subjectivism trying to find out how we should live and how we should arrange our societies in order to live without causing harm, because, as philosopher Michael A. Fox puts it: ‘Harming others is bad because it’s harmful, and what’s harmful is bad.’1 Harming Others is also an exercise in expanding the moral circle and moral empathy. Morality, like many other cultural practices, can be improved by exercise. This study is a self-help book on ‘How to Improve My Empathy and What to Do?’ The introduction starts with the exposition of the political and moral theory of universal subjectivism in a nutshell. ‘Practical Ethics’ reflects on the role of moral philosophy and its applications. ‘The Enlightenment Project’ places this study in the tradition of the Enlightenment in trying to make the world a better place. Chapter two presents the preliminaries to universal subjectivism on what are the most urgent moral problems of our times. ‘Moral Nausea’ follows George Monbiot’s analysis of present day liberal democracies from a moral perspective and shows that there is far more wrong than one would expect. Moral scrutiny reveals many inconvenient truths. ‘Why moral theory?’ deals with the meta-ethical question of the role of moral theory, and I will explain the basic concepts of universal subjectivism: naturalism, constructivism, 1 Fox, (1999: 298). 1 universalism and subjectivism. Then I will look into the most important building blocks of universal subjectivism: John Rawls and Peter Singer in ‘Universal subjectivism: Rawls + Singer’. First I focus on Rawls in ‘A Broad Interpretation of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice’, and Singer in ‘Singer’s Utilitarian Meta-Ethics’. ‘Reflective Equilibrium’ is a concept in Rawls’ theory of justice, which is applied to universal subjectivism. Political philosophy has three basic questions: ‘for whom?’, ‘by whom?’ and ‘what for?’ To each question there is a paragraph.
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