Doesnt it seem as though there is a failure to understand cause and effect in the discussion? It used to be thought that C&E were necessary connections, and sometimes sufficient connections as well. If A causes B, then if you have A, you have B. And what is it that Hume writes, "If the first object had not been, the second never had existed"? It was also frequently thought that the cause was one "thing" and not a multitude of things.
If cause and effect are necessarily and sufficiently connected, then saying that social factors cause some effect would strip the individual of responsibility. They could play no causal role in the "choices" made.
And if one "thing" causes another "thing", then again, there is no room for saying societal conditions cause behaviours at the same time maintaining the role of the individual.
But cause and effect are not so connected. There are multiple elements in any causal connection, so that the individual choice can play a role, as well as the impact of society. And cause and effect, especially in human behaviour, is neither necessary nor sufficient, as long as there is some notion of free will.
On both accounts, then, it is a false dichotomy to say either there is personal responsibility or there is socially responsibility.
It is a case of multiple causal factors and the "personal responsibility" move is oversimplifying the causal story in such a way that the people who say personal responsibility are doing so in order to discount any factor for which they themsleves would be responsible as part of the larger society. The point is that a full accounting points to several operative causes coming together. One side tends to look to a particular set of causes and the other to a single cause. The full picture brings all of them in when assigning blame or when looking to make things better.
A classic example of this is the HPV vaccine. There is a vaccine that will largely prevent the spread of a sexually transmitted virus that leads to cancer in women. Some on the right are arguing that it sdhould not be a universally applied medication because it may lead some women to choose not remain celibate. Now, never mind whether fear of the largely unknown amongst sexually active teens HPV is actually a factor in their choice to sleep with their boy/girlfriends, but the point is that the Christian right's opposition is an attempt to shift everything to individual choice and away from being able arrange the larger society in a way that avoids unnecessary suffering and death. There is no doubt that to have sex with someone is a personal choice made by the will, but to deny that social factors can help prevent the spread of disease is proposterous. And that is what we see.
"But white guilt has a short shelf life"
Damn, that is a good line. And so true. And yet, we continue to enjoy the privileges that we didn't earn (doesn't mean they are wrong), but nonetheless . . . so, what do we do to point out that we are complicit in the structural disadvantages without getting peoples' backs up?
Hanno--
Then again, maybe personal responsibility or "will" are fictions. Perhaps this is left over folk psychology, and the further we plunge into neuroscience, the less we will be able to trot out these utterly philosophical concepts. At the core, personal responsibility assumes free will, i.e. that human agency can somehow operate outside the causal networks of nature. I hate to say it, but every day I become more and more of a determinist. Hume had a soft determinism position, which is rather untenable if you think about it. He allowed for some modicum of free will, but its not clear exactly how that works out if ultimately the die is cast from the beginning. Dennett's arguments against free will seem more philosophically persuasive.
"Reagan played this like a virtuoso. Personal responsibility became a buzzword that meant, "Sociology does not exist. The structure of society is irrelevant. We are not making anymore changes. Don't even look to see if there are advantages and disadvantages. They do not exist. We are not listening. Lalalalalalalala. I can't hear you. Oh, say, can you see..." It was a full on backlash against addressing social ills by changing sociological factors."
I am not sure this is right. First, the Reganites were full of non-individualist explanations of whatever was wrong with the country: it was government policies. And they were full of cultural criticism of the media: movies glorify bad behavior, which makes people use drugs and have sex, and others. Second, some granted that there were sociological factors, but that governmental polices designed to counter those factors had unintended consequences that made things worse, not better.
I am not defending these views, of course.
aspazia:
I have never seen an argument against free will that does not beg the question, or make an appeal to ignorance. For that matter, I have never seen one that argues for the existence of free will that does not beg the question either.
Prima facia, it certainly seems as if I have free will. I might post this note. I might not. If you see it, I made the choice to push "publish" So I would need a good reason, it seems to me, to reject the existence of FW.
"But white guilt has a short shelf life. In the Reagan 80's, it lost its potency amongst those in the middle and Reagan played this like a virtuoso."
I wonder if it is the other way around? That people tend to accept the "personal responsibility" dogma to assauge the guilt? That might be what you were saying initially, either way, it's one of those throwaway points - a habit it seems I've picked up as well ^^
The main force of this post is that I think it has been a failure of the left to indicate to the public what it means to give up some degree of privledge for the greater good. People in the lay public hear that and think communism. They tend to think that it means that it means they'll have to give up everything they have earned. There is an obvious attachment to what is earned (since even those who earn more because of starting position do earn on their own merits as well), and so it makes this strawman of a position from the left entirely unappealing.
The left needs to do a better job of education on two fronts: (a) the value of social projects and (b) why paying taxes is how we achieve that value. I think it is quite natural to have the gutteral reaction of "yikes, look at all that money I am paying to the IRS!" when taxes are due - and people leave it at only that issue. There is a disconnect between paying taxes, and what taxes are for. I think if people were more aware of the more widespead position on the left - that the income of the privledged can help support the less privledged, it would be less easy to caricature.
I do think people are willing to give freely from their income when an issue is in their faces. Look at the response to Hurricane Katrina for example. Humanizing the issue, and forcing people to come out from behind veils of ignorance on the matter of the poor led to a tremendous outpouring of support. If we were all more generally aware of both the continued plight of the poor and the way in which tax payments can help alleviate it, perhaps people would be more willing to make those kind of payments, and also more willing to deny the personal responsibility rhetoric.
anonymous:
"I have never seen an argument against free will that does not beg the question, or make an appeal to ignorance. For that matter, I have never seen one that argues for the existence of free will that does not beg the question either."
Give me a couple of examples here.
"Prima facia, it certainly seems as if I have free will. I might post this note. I might not. If you see it, I made the choice to push "publish" So I would need a good reason, it seems to me, to reject the existence of FW."
The key here is that you wrote "it seems." Sure, we do have a subjective sense that we can choose what to do and when to do it. I don't doubt that. But it could be that fMRI technology will demonstrate that our body begins to do something before we are even cognitively aware of our intention. It is possible to imagine that we can give accounts of what we are doing by appealing to a host of antecedent causes: some biological, some environmental, some "psychological" (although I imagine that word will become increasingly suspect). But, perhaps what matters is that we "feel" like we have free will. While you suggest that arguments against FW beg the question, I would argue that you just did the same here.
Jeff--
You are right on point here. I do see the rhetoric of "personal responsibility" as a means for "assuaging the guilt." But, if I am thinking strategy-wise, I am willing to appeal to folks and the benefits of paying taxes and building better infrastructure in other ways. Why not appeal to self-interest and point out, for example, that medicare is far more efficient (less administrative costs) than private insurance. What if single-payer health care were to ultimately save you more money. Sure, you pay more taxes, but you pay NO out of pocket fees for increasing health care costs, particularly as our deductibles get higher and higher.
"But it could be that fMRI technology will demonstrate that our body begins to do something before we are even cognitively aware of our intention."
And what would that show? It would not show that we are not free. It would at best show that our free will kicks in even before we are cognitively aware of our intention.
"It is possible to imagine that we can give accounts of what we are doing by appealing to a host of antecedent causes: some biological, some environmental, some "psychological" (although I imagine that word will become increasingly suspect). But, perhaps what matters is that we "feel" like we have free will. While you suggest that arguments against FW beg the question, I would argue that you just did the same here."
And you would be correct. I already admitted it begged the question. But it is unfair to use my own argument to show that I am right, isnt it?
"Give me a couple of examples here."
Go ahead, and give me your best shot. In the absence of an argument, I leave it to my prima facia intuition.
"Responsiblism" is a little like Reformation Protestantism both in theme and in goal. Both involve "ideas" engineered to bring the downfall of an institution. Personal responsibility to the deity obviates the priesthood. Personal responsibility for your welfare obviates "the welfare state" or governmental programs addressing unaffiliated individuals, as opposed to corporations.
I remarked on another irony of the free market faith.
My first visit - glad your here!! george foreman grill
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