Thursday 30 March 2017

Word of the Week: Inconsistency



I've just been reading today's Brexit White Paper (called Legislating for the United Kingdom's Withdrawal from the European Union). I've noticed that it is inconsistent with the Government's first Brexit White Paper (called The United Kingdom's exit from, and new partnership with, the European Union). How significant is this inconsistency, and should we be worried about it? 

Prime Minister Theresa May might like Thursday 30 March 2017 to be a day remembered by historians, when her 'Brexit Secretary' David Davis pronounced: 'the Great Repeal Bill will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 on the day we leave the EU. The UK Parliament will unquestionably be sovereign again' (p. 7, Forward from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union).

This was from the second White Paper issued by the Government on Brexit. However, in the first White Paper (released on 2 February 2017) it says 'Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU' (p. 13, Section 2.1).

So in February, the Government thought that Parliament, even when the UK is in the EU, is sovereign. In March, the Government decided that Parliament is not sovereign. So this is the message we're getting from the Government: while the UK remains in the EU, Parliament is simultaneously sovereign, and not sovereign. There's only one word to describe this: inconsistent.

There are, broadly, two possible reasons for this inconsistency. On the one hand, David Davis's choice of words may be what John Mearsheimer in Why Leaders Lie calls a 'nationalist myth'. Davis, following this line of logic, is concocting a myth to mislead the public in order to create country-wide support for Brexit. The idea that Parliament will only be sovereign after Brexit is, perhaps, a nationalist myth. However, the fact that this 'myth' genuinely contradicts the first Brexit White Paper suggests that the reality is less malevolent. (Otherwise, the Government would consistent in its myth-making.)

The Government may simply be confused. It's likely that the first White Paper was written, for the most part, by competent civil servants rather than loyal Brexiteers. So Davis may be misunderstanding what sovereignty means, or civil servants may be misinterpreting the Government's messaging. Either way, the Government is acting in a confused way. This is not tantamount to a 'lie', since it is not deliberate. But it is incompetent. And incompetency is no way to run a country - especially at a time like this.

For if the Government's not careful, we won't have a Great Repeal Bill. Rather, following the logic of Anthony King and Ivor Crewe's The Blunders of Our Governments, we'll have a Great Repeal Blunder.

Then again, this might all be a red herring - the Government might not have inconsistent thinking at all. The White Papers might plausibly each be referring to a different type of sovereignty. It is widely believed that there are two types of sovereignty. On the one hand, there is legal sovereignty, or, as Roger Scruton calls it, 'de jure (legal)' sovereignty. Perhaps this is what the first White Paper meant by parliamentary sovereignty - sovereignty in the eyes of the law. On the other hand, there is political sovereignty, or, as Roger Scruton calls it, 'de facto (coercive)' sovereignty (A Dictionary of Political Thought, p. 441). Perhaps this latter meaning is what the second White Paper means when Davis emphasises the need to become sovereign 'again'. Whilst legal sovereignty has remained intact throughout the UK's EU membership, political or coercive sovereignty has been pooled with other EU states (rather than being solely vested in the UK Parliament). Therefore, the Government may be totally consistent in voicing different aspects of sovereignty in different White Papers: the first may be referring to legal sovereignty, whilst the second may be referring to political sovereignty. 

However, David Davis does not make such a distinction between legal and coercive sovereignty. The White Paper hints at the difference, but does not use the term 'sovereignty' to refer to what Scruton terms its 'coercive aspect'. Therefore, Davis's use of the term 'sovereignty' suggests that he is indeed referring to legal sovereignty. If so, then this is inconsistent with the first White Paper, which claimed that legal sovereignty remained constant, whereas Davis is suggesting that legal sovereignty has changed and will change. In all probability, therefore, the Government is being inconsistent, or, at the very least, dangerously misleading. And that is a blunder in itself. 

Sunday 26 March 2017

Word of the Week: Trap



Thomas Hobbes's translation of Thucydides's 'History of the Peloponnesian War' (Creative Commons)

A historical project led by Professor Graham Allison has drawn attention to a surprisingly ill-documented phenomenon: the Thucydides trap. It's a pertinent theory, since, if applied to the rise of modern-day China, it would predict a US-Chinese war. According to Ancient Greek historian Thucydides, 'It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this instilled in Sparta, that made war inevitable.' Thucydides was referring to the Pelopponesian War, fought between the ambitious Athenians and powerful Spartans in the city-state system of Ancient Greece. After the Greco-Persian Wars of 499-449 BC, which resulted in Greek victory and Persian acquiescence, Athens concluded a peace treaty with Sparta in 445 BC. This resulted in the 'Thirty Years Peace' (which only actually lasted 14 years), dividing Greece into Athenian and Spartan spheres of influence. Adam Watson has more recently referred to this period as the 'diarchy', in which Sparta and Athens exercised joint hegemony, or dominance, over the Greek city states. However, after Athens launched its bid for unilateral, Athenian hegemony over Greece, and invaded Potidaea in 432 BC, the furious Corinthians persuaded Sparta to begin the Pelopponesian War in 431 BC. By 404 BC, the Athenians, exhausted, forfeited power to Sparta, symbolising the failure of Athens's attempt to replace Sparta. But the real cost of Athenian ambition was the war that they precipitated.

Graham Allison summarises Thucydides's account as what he calls 'the Thucydides trap'. According to this theory, war is particularly likely when a 'rising power' confronts a 'ruling power'. In Thucydides's example, Athens was the rising power and Sparta was the ruling power. Perhaps Allison's account is misleading, because, technically speaking, both Athens and Sparta were 'ruling powers' during the 14 years of peace up to the Pelopponesian War (Watson, 2009). But at least Allison is certainly right in characterising Athens as a 'rising power'. Athens, after all, was more powerful at the beginning of the Pelopponesian War than it was at the end of the Greco-Persian Wars: it controlled the Delian League of city states from the Bosphorus straits to the island of Rhodes, inspiring fear in the hearts of Spartans. Perhaps the distinction is not between 'ruling' and 'rising', but rather between the status quo power of Sparta (since it wanted to preserve the present power balance rather than changing it in Athens's favour) and the rising power of Athens. 

Whether Thucydides would have agreed or not is perhaps a matter for another day. But generally speaking, when we refer to the Thucydides trap, we are referring to one state increasing its power in such a way that the other feels compelled to respond violently. When one state rises, and the other does not want to budge, war becomes more probable. Let me summarise the Thucydides trap as follows:
  1. When a rising power confronts a ruling (or status quo) power,
  2. The probability of war is raised significantly.
Possibly the best objection to the theory of the Thucydides trap is that it's outdated. In the 21st century, one may argue, war between great powers has become impossible. Although I recently argued that China's rise may displace America, this does not necessarily mean that war will happen as a result of this. Perhaps circumstances have changed: it is arguable that a rising Athens is infinitely less wise than a rising China, and that a ruling Sparta is infinitely more paranoid than a ruling America. However, the evidence suggests that Thucydides would not be too out-of-place in the modern age: out of 16 cases of a rising power confronting a ruling power since the 15th century, 12 have resulted in war. All other things being equal, that means that the probability of a US-Chinese war is approximately 75%, which is quite high. Too high.



Harvard Thucydides's Trap Project (2015 onwards): table of the historical evidence for the Thucydides trap

Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to looking at these 16 cases in more detail, asking 
if they can tell us anything about the probability of a US-Chinese war. Because if the case studies do have some relevance to the modern world, then the question is not: will the Thucydides trap spring? If Graham Allison is right, and the Thucydides trap has already sprung, then the question we really need to ask is: can America and China escape the Thucydides trap?

References
Allison, Graham (2015), ‘The Thucydides Trap: Are the US and China headed for war?’, The Atlantic. Available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/united-states-china-war-thucydides-trap/406756/
Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project (2015 onwards), ‘Thucydides’s Trap Case File’. Available online at: http://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/resources/case-file-graphic
Watson, Adam (2009), The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis Reissue with a new introduction by Barry Buzan and Richard Little, Routledge.

Sunday 19 March 2017

Word of the Week: Duty

Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals in its vernacular German.

Note: This post is about Kant's theory of duty. It can be therefore be read in conjunction with my post on Kant's theory of free will. As with this previous post, in this post everything in purple is part of Kant's theory, whereas everything in orange is what Kant (or other people) judge to be in opposition to his theory

How is duty possible?

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) provided perhaps the most sophisticated account of morality ever created in his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788). The most fundamental and profound aspect of this account was his three-fold theory of duty. According to this, Kant saw being moral as the equivalent to being dutiful. Kant thought that an action is moral, or dutiful, if and only if it originates from:
  1. A motive of duty rather than inclination;
  2. A will which is autonomous rather than heteronomous;
  3. An imperative which is categorical rather than hypothetical.
For Kant, duty is exercised through the pure motive of duty, the autonomous will and the categorical imperative. In order to understand why Kant equates morality with duty, it is worth considering his reasoning behind each of these three ideas. By looking at each step of Kant's reasoning, we may be able to see the word 'duty' in a different light. For the question at the heart of Kant's moral theory is this: how is duty possible? It is this question that leads to Kant's three-part answer, starting with the supreme motive of morality.

1) The Motive of Duty

Kant thought that all moral actions must be motivated by duty, rather than inclination. Thus Kant's theory is 'deontological' (coming from the Greek word deon, or duty), rather than 'teleological' (coming from the Greek word telos, or purpose). Deontology emphasises duty, whereas teleology, to which Kant is opposed, emphasises the purpose of actions in fulfilling an inclination, such as pleasure. One can think of this distinction between duty and inclination as comparable to the distinction between knowledge obtained a priori versus knowledge obtained a posteriori. Knowledge obtained a priori is gained prior to experience. For instance, it doesn't matter how many times you see 5 bananas and 7 more bananas equalling a total of 12 bananas. For Kant, '5+7=12' is true no matter how many particular instances of that universal law you see. However, knowledge obtained a posteriori is gained from experience, so it could be wrong. For instance, the statement that 'bananas are yellow' is a piece of a posteriori knowledge, since it is gained from seeing, say, 100 bananas being yellow. But as experience is limited, the 101st banana one sees might be not be yellow. It could be a green banana! Thus a priori knowledge is infallible whereas a posteriori knowledge is fallible. The same is true for duty and inclination. 

Being moral, for Kant, is doing something from a universally valid principle, such as acting in a fair and just way. The alternative is to act from inclination, such as self-interest, empathy or any other feeling we may have. Whilst duty is a priori and thus infallible, inclination is a posteriori and thus fallible. A duty is comparable with '5+7=12', which is true regardless of circumstances, whilst an inclination is comparable with 'all bananas are yellow', which may only be true in certain circumstances. Duty tells us what we ought to do in all circumstances, whereas our inclination could be applicable only to certain circumstances. Just because we are inclined to stealing an apple, this does not mean that stealing an apple would be the right thing to do. Duty is rational, whereas inclination is somewhat empirical and, therefore, fallible. Kant gives the example of a greengrocer who refrains from overcharging his customers. The greengrocer is therefore doing a beneficial thing, since the consequence is the greengrocers' customers having more money in their pockets after buying their groceries. So everyone is happier as a result. But Kant does not think that happiness (an inclination) is the be-all-and-end-all. The greengrocer is not moral just on the grounds of the consequences of their actions. Rather, the greengrocer is only moral if they are acting from duty. 

But Kant's greengrocer is only refraining from overcharging his customers because he does not want his customers to go somewhere else to buy their groceries. They're motivated by self-interest (an inclination), rather than respect for their fellow human beings (a duty). In other words, the greengrocer is apparently, but not really, dutiful. They're acting with the duty of acting fairly, but are not acting from that duty, since their real motive is self interest. They're not acting 'from duty', but 'solely from the purposes of self-interest'. Therefore, for Kant at least, you cannot just be like the greengrocer and act with duty, but rather you must act from duty, or for duty's own sake. So even though the greengrocer would not behave any differently if they were acting from duty, there's still a difference for Kant. It doesn't matter what the consequences are - the motive is the important thing. You can't just be empirical about morals - you have to be rational, so you have to think about what is the right thing. Reason, or a priori thinking, is thus the centrepiece of the first layer of Kant's theory of duty.

However, Hegel (1770 - 1831) articulated a problem with this first element of Kant's theory of duty. The problem is that Kant, by emphasising rational duty, forgets about the irrational side of humanity. For Hegel, Kant's concept of duty is too cold. Rather, Hegel contends, our inclinations are just as important as duties, and ought to be so. The organic culture of language, social practices and values is what makes us who we are. Without an inclination towards our family, for instance, we wouldn't have a good society, since societies are built on family values. Therefore, Hegel challenges Kant's favouring of duty over inclinations.

Anticipating Kant's work, David Hume (1711 - 1776) similarly challenged the notion that morality is rational, or a priori. Rather, Hume saw morality as being derived from a posteriori factors, such as inclinations. For Hume, as well as Hegel, duty is in no way superior to inclination, contrary to Kant's belief. Hume noticed that 'reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions'. Therefore, it is not necessarily a bad thing that the greengrocer is motivated by the inclination of self-interest to not overcharge. Hume noticed that self-interest and other inclinations should be used to achieve good outcomes. For neo-Humeans such as Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832), it does not matter whether the motive is from duty or not: all that matters is whether the consequences alleviate pain and maximise pleasure. In other words, whether our actions produce desirable outcomes according to our inclinations is more important than the supposed duty which Kant thinks should motivate them. 

However, Kant responded to these critiques by arguing that duty is exercised through an autonomous, or free, will. In this way, Kant demonstrated that, if the will was free, then motives could and should come from duty. So to see whether Hegel, Hume and Bentham are right, it's worth considering the second layer of Kant's theory of duty.

2) The Autonomous Will

The motive of duty is the only motive, for Kant. Duty, therefore, can be exercised through moral motives. But for moral motives in turn to be possible, they must be exercised through an autonomous, or free, will. Think about it: if the will weren't free, then how could we ever act from duty? If the will weren't free, we would only be able to act from inclinations. Free will, in other words, is the centrepiece of this second layer of Kant's theory of duty, and is what makes the rest of his theory possible. 

Kant contrasts an autonomous will with a heteronomous will. If the will is heteronomous, then it has a heteronomy, or plurality, of possible motives. Such motives are nearly always inclinations, such as self-interest or altruism. In this respect, Kant is anticipating the findings of Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) and his followers that instinct governs our inclinations. Feelings such as altruism are based on what best suits (in modern scientific terms) the propagation of our genes. We have no control over our inclinations, so abiding by inclinations gives us heteronomous wills.

Nevertheless, the will, or the mind making moral decisions, need not be heteronomous. Whilst it most frequently abides by inclinations, when making moral decisions it has the capacity to act autonomously. To act autonomously is to act according to a moral law that I give myself, rather than a moral law that someone else gives me. We can escape the 'causality of nature', which governs the physical world, by postulating a 'causality of freedom', which says that the will is autonomous when it is determined by itself and its own maxims. Inclinations, feelings and all the other possible causes that one can think of tend to be part of the causality of nature, and therefore constitute the heteronomous will. But Kant wants us, in our moral decision-making, to use our autonomous will. In essence, this is the moral equivalent of defying gravity

It must be noted that Kant has no problem with the causality of nature. After all, he wrote a whole book about it in 1781 - the Critique of Pure Reason. But it has no place in his theory of duty, which abides by different rules. Morality is a very different game from physics and mathematics. Morality plays by its own rules. This is not to say that morality is totally subjective. Indeed, because we all share the same causality of freedom, we also share the same rationality. This rationality which we all share means that, although we all will come to the same moral conclusions when we're thinking straight, we are all nevertheless autonomous. This is because 'autonomy' doesn't mean 'being a rebel' for Kant. It simply means acting according to the moral law, which is the same for all human beings. 

But Friesdorf et al. (2015) provide some reason to doubt Kant's claim that we all share the same capacity for rational thought and, therefore, autonomy. Their findings hint at 'gender differences in responses to moral dilemmas'. Women, the study found, tended to be more 'deontological', or Kantian, in their approach to moral dilemmas. They would, for instance, think that abiding by the rules of morality is more important than the 'teleological' consequences. (Deontology looks at motives of duty, whereas teleology looks at consequences of actions in fulfilling our inclinations.) Men, however, tended to be less inclined to a Kantian approach, and more inclined to a teleological one. This suggests that we do not all share Kant's rational autonomy.

Moreover, not only is autonomy not the same for everyone, but also 'we have no independent insight into the alleged necessity for presupposing freedom', according to philosopher H.J. Paton (1887 - 1969). There's no real reason why we're free, in other words, and its just an assumption that Kant makes.

However, both Friesdorf and Paton can be countered by relying on the third and final layer of Kant's theory of duty. Whilst the previous two layers give form to morality, this final one gives content to morality. According to this, the idea that we aren't free or that not everyone shares the same rational autonomy can be countered by resorting to the very foundation of the autonomous will and dutiful motives. For duty and autonomy tell us what kind of maxims are moral ones, but they cannot tell us which specific maxims are moral and which are not. So duty is not only exercised through the motive of duty and the autonomous will, but also through the categorical imperative. And it is on the categorical imperative that Kant's theory survives or falls. 

3) The Categorical Imperative

Ultimately, duty is possible through the application of what Kant terms the categorical imperative. By 'categorical', Kant really means 'not hypothetical'. A hypothetical imperative is an imperative with an 'if' clause, e.g. 'If I want to live, then it is imperative that I eat healthily'. But a categorical imperative has no such 'if' clause, because it applies to all situations universally, e.g. 'Live!'

Kant thought that all so-called 'categorical imperatives' can be reduced to a simple 'categorical imperative' with three formulations. The first formulation of this three-fold categorical imperative says, 'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law'. It is our duty to follow this imperative, which basically says that we should only do something if we would be happy for that to be done by everyone in all circumstances, as if it were a 'universal law'. So we would be violating our moral duty if we failed to abide by this imperative. Even if we try, we might fall short of the mark in two ways. First, we could, when universalising our maxim, make a contradiction in the law of nature. Suicide is such a contradiction, whose maxim is 'From self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life'. This maxim is contradictory because life is a law of nature, so it is self-contradictory to assert that everyone has the right to commit suicide, since that would make the concept of life redundant. Suicide violates the categorical imperative because, if it were to become a universal law, it would be self-contradictory. So suicide cannot become a universal law. The second way in which one could fail to universalise a maxim is by generating a contradiction in the will. For instance, saying that 'I do not care to contribute anything' to people's welfare would not be a contradiction in the law of nature (as it is perfectly possible for everyone to be nasty to one another). But this wouldn't be something that one would reasonably will to occur. One will always will to be given assistance in need, so it is a contradiction in the will to make selfishness a universal law.

However, Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out that even if we avoid these two failings, we could just create really narrow maxims, which 'will permit me to do what I want while prohibiting others' from similarly acting. One could say that, if one's aircraft crashed on 13 October 1972 in the Andes Mountains, then it is permissible to eat the flesh of the 12 people who died in the crash to stay alive if one survived the crash. This maxim could be made a universal law, and would not be contradictory in any way, since it is so narrow that no contradiction can be found. Therefore, Kant's first formulation falls apart on the grounds that, given suitably narrow maxims, it can be used to justify anything.

Nevertheless, as Michael Sandel has pointed out, the first formulation is only a test, so it doesn't matter if it is not perfect when applied to all maxims. The real categorical imperative, he argues, comes in the second formulation, which says, 'Act in such a way that you always treat humanity [...] never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end'. Therefore, in the Gafgen v. Germany case of 2010 at the European Court of Human Rights, which considering whether it was right for police to use the threat of torture to extract information from child-killer Magnus Gafgen, Kant would have argued that it was wrong to use the threat of torture. By threatening Gafgen with torture in order to extract information from him, police were using Gafgen as a means to an end, rather than as an end in himself. Therefore, the only maxims which are acceptable to Kant are ones which treat humans as ends in themselves. The court, coincidentally, more-or-less upholded the Kantian freedom from torture in their verdict. This is also in accordance with Kant's third formulation of the categorical imperative, which says that one should 'Act as if you were, through your maxims, a law-making member of a kingdom of ends'. In other words, Kant would have said that the threat of torture is always wrong because it is not fitting for law-making individuals: law-making individuals tend to favour universal laws over exceptional verdicts. The fact that Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits torture means that it is inviolable in any situation, since we should always act as if we were law-makers rather than law-breakers.

But here's my problem with the categorical imperative. It emphasises that humans are ends in themselves, and that moral duty is centred on treating humans as equal. Admittedly, it's good that this means that the will is autonomous, since categorical imperatives are only possible through a free will. But I cannot help but ask: is that all morality is? 

Because if duty just means acting autonomously, in accordance with the categorical imperative, then there's nothing virtuous about promoting intuitively good things like 'happiness'. Happiness, for Kant, is unimportant, because it's an inclination, an example of the heteronomous will, and a hypothetical imperative. To say that torture is wrong because torture promotes pain rather than happiness is not sufficient for Kant. It's not even a consideration, since only rational duty (exercised through a priori motive, an autonomous will and the categorical imperative) is sufficient for making actions moral. 

So Kant cannot, I argue, give a good reason to justify our intuitive belief that happiness is good. Because happiness is a mere inclination, for Kant. All actions supporting happiness are using humans as means to the end of happiness, rather as ends in themselves. But I argue that treating humans as ends in themselves is not in humans' best interests. What is the point of following the law if the world suffers? Increasing happiness and decreasing pain are moral things to do, but Kant does not recognise them as such

Indeed, what does treating humans as ends in themselves actually mean? If you are to say, 'respecting their dignity', then that begs the question. Indeed, using G.E. Moore's terminology, it's an 'open', or unanswerable question. Because Kant, I argue, cannot answer it. It is far more reasonable to assert 'happiness' as an end in itself, but Kant instead says that humans are ends in themselves. In brief: Kant's theory treats humans as mystical, free entities, when actually we are feeling, sentimental and empathic individuals whose inclinations bind us together more than anything else. If there is a categorical imperative, then Kant does not have it.

A happy duty?

Kant's theory can be thought of as a step-by-step analysis of what moral duty means. Firstly, to act dutifully is to act from the motive of duty. But to act from the motive of duty presupposes the existence of an autonomous will which can generate such motives. This autonomous will is autonomous by virtue of its following the categorical imperative. Kant comes to a lot of valid conclusions in case studies, many of which I would agree with. But by downplaying the importance of happiness, Kant makes 'end in itself' seem to lack meaning. An end is a valuable goal to which we can strive, such as making humans happier. But for Kant we can only treat humans as ends in themselves, as if humans were metaphysical creatures whose inclinations formed a part of their 'scientific' rather than 'moral' selves. I argue that the desire to achieve happiness and avoid suffering is the most categorical imperative there is, since it treats the happiness of humanity as an end in itself. Perhaps that's what duty really means: improving the welfare of each and every human on Earth, since we all share the same capacity, not necessarily to reason, but to be happy. So, if I were Kant, I would say that an action is moral if it originates from:
  1. A motive of duty, which means the inclination toward the collective happiness of humanity;
  2. A will that is autonomous, by virtue of its pursuing happiness without external (e.g. governmental or authoritarian) intervention;
  3. An imperative which is categorical, by virtue of its treating happiness as an end in itself.
Kant thought that duty was treating humans as ends in themselves. But I think we have a greater duty to treat human happiness as an end in itself. Expanding on this view is a matter for another day.

What do you think?

Sunday 12 March 2017

Word of the Week: Phenomenalism


George Berkeley - the founding father of phenomenalism

Note
This entry follows on from a previous entry on 'realism', which talked about the attitude that we can clearly and distinctly perceive the world as it really is, rather than as Trump wants it to look like! As you'll see, 'phenomenalism' is virtually the opposite. What do you think: are you a realist or phenomenalist? Please give your view in the comments section, and I'll do my best to respond!

Phenomenalism is undoubtedly one of the most radical responses to the problem of perception. In its rejection of the common-sense principles of naïve realism, phenomenalism is second only to idealism in its scepticism of the power of our senses at gaining access to the external world. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage for phenomenalists, who eliminate the problems of realism but at the cost of advancing counter-intuitive assumptions about the nature of perception. I contend that, despite phenomenalism’s clear advantages in contrast with naïve realism, the theory fails to clearly and simply model our sense experience. If phenomenalism is to survive, the theory should either be modified to taken into account its flaws or rejected in favour of one of the less radical solutions to the problem of perception (e.g., Russell’s representative realism). In reaching this conclusion, I shall address the following issues: firstly, the merits of the phenomenalist solution to the problem of perception; secondly, the difficulties with accepting the ‘traditional’ phenomenalism of Berkeley, Mill and Ayer; thirdly, the equally problematic ‘adverbial’ modification to phenomenalism. Then I shall reiterate my belief that phenomenalism, although giving a compelling critique of naïve realism, fails to provide the simplicity that realism, whether naïve or representative, provides.

Firstly, it is worth considering the problem that phenomenalists are trying to solve. Whilst our common-sense notion of perception suggests that, as John McDowell notes, our senses have ‘Openness to the world’ and the ordinary (physical) objects therein, it is clear that this is not always the case. Whilst we would like for our senses to be both open to the primary qualities of objects and aware of their existence apart from our own minds, we do not always have such direct perceptual contact with objects. In illusion, as Paul Snowden and C.D. Broad note, one is not aware of an ordinary object, or objects made up of physical matter. Since the same account of experience must apply to both veridical (correct) and illusory (incorrect or misleading) experiences, the conclusion that one is never perceptually aware of ordinary objects seems inevitable. Moreover, hallucinatory experience of an ordinary (material) object is not a case of awareness of an ordinary object. For instance, if one is dreaming of a flying multi-coloured teddy bear, this does not mean that we are actually aware of a multi-coloured teddy bear; rather, we are only aware of an idea of a teddy bear. As veridical and hallucinatory experiences are to be given the same account, it seems that one is never perceptually aware of ordinary objects in veridical experience, since hallucinatory perception is subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception. That is, if we are dreaming, we do not necessarily know that we are dreaming, so there is nothing obviously distinguishable between dream and reality. This is the problem of perception: we do not directly perceive ordinary objects in illusions and hallucinations, so we do not directly perceive ordinary objects in veridical experiences either.

Thus the problem of perception leads to a rejection of the common-sense, or naïve, assertion that we directly perceive the world. Phenomenalism attempts to solve this problem by introducing a new theory. Phenomenalists accept the arguments from illusion and hallucination as premises, and move from these premises to the conclusion that, as we do not directly perceive ordinary objects, we must perceive non-ordinary objects. These non-ordinary objects are ideas in our mind. For phenomenalists, these perceptual ideas can be called ‘sense data’, or the immaterial objects of sensation. In this way, we are indubitably and directly acquainted with sense data even when we are not directly acquainted with material ordinary objects. Instead of having awareness of ordinary objects, we are, as G.E. Moore and Howard Robinson contend, aware of non-ordinary sense data. Phenomenalism solves the problem of perception by rejecting naïve, or common-sense, realism, since it accepts the commonality between dreaming and being awake by admitting sense data as the omnipresent objects of perception. The problem of not being aware of ordinary objects does not apply for phenomenalists, since only non-ordinary objects are perceivable. So the chief merit of phenomenalism is its ingenious solution to the problem of perception.

However, the non-ordinary nature of sense data is simultaneously the greatest strength and most fundamental weakness of phenomenalism. George Berkeley unintentionally elucidated this weakness in phenomenalism. As Peter Millican notes, Berkeley read John Locke as saying that secondary qualities, or the qualities within objects which cause sensations in the subject (perceiver), are the sensations themselves. In other words, Berkeley took the phenomenalist position to its logical conclusion of denying the distinction between perceiver and perceived. He therefore viewed all qualities of object, be they primary (e.g., extension, solidity and other quantifiable properties) or secondary (e.g., sight, smell, or other obviously sensory properties), as sensations. Berkeley therefore maintained that a sentence such as ‘I see a camel’ states ‘I see an idea of a camel’ (my example). Hence Berkeley is regarded both as an ‘idealist’ and a ‘phenomenalist’. Objects do not really exist in themselves, because only ideas (sense data) are real for Berkeley. This led Berkeley to a total denial of the material world in favour of the idealist maxim that, regarding objects, ‘their esse is percipi’, or ‘their essence is to be perceived’ and not to exist. This leads to a complete scepticism of all claims to the existence of matter, which controversial amongst materialists (or physicalists) both in Berkeley’s day and today. Matter, it seems, is common sense for most people, and central to the doctrines of thinkers from Aristotle to Russell. Without matter, it is not clear how objects could really exist as simply sensations, since non-ordinary sense data are fleeting, whereas ordinary objects seem to be at least moderately permanent. This, therefore, represents a key problem for Berkeley’s phenomenalism, regarding how a phenomenalist can account for the endurance of objects when unperceived.

Berkeley himself solved this dilemma by postulating the existence of a deity who can perceive objects even when they are not perceived by anyone else. This explains why objects exist when unperceived by humans, since they still exist in the mind of God. As Ronald Knox acknowledged in his lyrical homage to Berkeley, even when a tree in a Quad is unperceived by any living thing, ‘the tree will continue to be, since [it is] observed by yours faithfully, God’. However, this presupposition of the existence of God fails to apply Ockham’s razor somewhat, since the postulation of a deity generates more epistemic assumptions than it explains. Put simply, God is an unnecessary element of a perceptual theory, since the existence of God, as with all things, should not be taken for granted. Therefore, the problem remains as to how phenomenalism explains the fact that material objects, even when unperceived, appear to endure. As Bertrand Russell reminds us, it would seem odd if, upon a cat’s passing from one part of the room to another, having been hidden from our view for some duration of its journey, someone said that the cat vanished. But this is what Berkeley would have to contend without postulating a deity: that the cat, when unperceived, truly vanished and, seemingly by magic, reappeared at another part of the room subsequently. In fact, it is quite clear that the more parsimonious model would accept that the cat, whether as an idea or ordinary object, actually endured. So if the cat endured when unperceived, and if objects in general exist when unperceived, the question remains: what are these objects, or sense data, which exist when unperceived?

J.S. Mill responded to this question by supposing that objects, rather than being physical objects or fleeting ideas, represent enduring possibilities of perception. Objects are indeed material, but matter, for Mill, ‘may be defined [as] a Permanent Possibility of Sensation’. Mill has solved the problem of enduring substance in the very definition of his theory, since matter is defined as ‘something which exists when we are not thinking of it; which existed before we had ever thought and would exist if we were annihilated’. Arguably, this solves the problem of enduring substance without resorting to realist claims about reality, since all we can perceive is a ‘set of appearances’. All properties of objects are, to use Locke’s terminology, ‘secondary’. There are no primary qualities, since such qualities could exist regardless of their ability to cause sensations in us. Secondary qualities, by contrast, are such that they necessarily cause sensations within us, such that ‘all attributes which we ascribe to objects consist in their having power of exciting one or another variety of sensation in our mind’. Only sense data exist for Mill, therefore, since only sense data can be perceived. But sense data are not physical themselves, and nor can we infer from sense data to unobserved non-mental objects. The only realm is the mental, or phenomenal. Nevertheless, Mill’s case is incomplete. He wants to say that objects are simultaneously temporary sense data and enduring possibilities of sense data. This is a paradox which is somewhat lacking in explanation. Mill does not answer the question regarding why, if sense data only temporarily exist in the mind of the perceiver, sense data have the power to reappear whenever observed. His account is therefore paradoxical, as it does not account for why permanent possibilities of sensation are ‘permanent’ or ‘possible’. A realist could just as easily reply that this permanency is derived from objects existing independently of the mind, lending little support to the phenomenalist case.

A.J. Ayer tried to bypass the problem with a different version of phenomenalism—namely, linguistic phenomenalism. Instead of trying to ask what objects are, Ayer asked what our statements about objects were, and thus found a way of dodging Mill’s paradoxes. He argued that ‘every empirical statement about a physical object’ is ‘reducible to a statement, or set of statements, which refer exclusively to sense-data’. Sense data, for Ayer, are not actual, material things. Sense data are Berkeleian ideas, similar to Mill’s permanent possibilities of sensation, but are linguistic rather than factual. Ayer therefore referred to the endurance of unperceived material objects, such as Russell’s disappearing cat, as reducible to a set of linguistic statements about possible sense data. To say that the cat exists when unperceived is to say that, were one in a suitable position, one would have a sense datum of a cat. However, this is complicated by Ayer’s denial of the linguistic significance of matter, since it is not possible to say that one is standing a suitable angle to observe the cat, as this presupposes the existence of ‘I’ and the spatial dimensions necessary for observation to take place. Instead, for Ayer, one must use conditional statements purely about sense data. Applying this to Russell’s cat, one would have to say that, were one to experience a sense datum of oneself being in a certain position, one would have the sense datum of a cat. This, however, makes the laws of physics seem coincidental, since an apple falling to the Earth is reducible to a statement about a sense datum of an apple, followed by a sense datum of an apple in a lower position, followed by a sense datum of an apple on the ground. Apart from being counter to the realist assumptions of science, this also over-complicates all talk about the world, as a phenomenalist can only talk about possible and actual sense data, rather then enduring physical objects. For each physical object, a phenomenalist refers to an infinite number of possible sense data. By failing Ockham’s parsimony (simplicity) test, Ayer’s phenomenalism demonstrates is impracticability.

Moving on to the third and final part of this discussion, it is worth considering the adverbial modification to phenomenalism and its usefulness. The theory is, amongst other things, a response to general problems with traditional phenomenalism, such as Roderick Chisholm’s ‘problem of the speckled hen’. According to this problem, a phenomenalist claims that all statements, including statements about number, are reducible to statements about sense data. However, the statement that a hen has ‘48 speckles’ is not thus reducible, since one’s estimation may be incorrect. The number ‘48’ is qualitatively indistinguishable from the numbers 47, 49 or 50. This forced Ayer into the position of denying the possibility of counting using sense data alone, since inductive inference (or rational thinking outside of mere acquaintance with sense data) is also needed to enumerate things. This has led adverbial phenomenalists to ask whether sense data exist at all, due to their lack of utility in the basic practice of counting. Adverbialists, such as Chisholm, C.G. Ducasse and Ned Block, contend that secondary qualities are instantiated, not as sense data, but as adverbs. These adverbs, as Gilbert Harman notes, are the ‘mental paint’ of perceptual experience, and allow us to perceive without the need for immaterial sense data or material objects. For an adverbial phenomenalist, to say ‘I see a pink gate’ is to say ‘I am seeing pinkly and gately’, since there is no object, be it a non-ordinary sense datum or ordinary object, to be perceived. There is only our experience and its intrinsic qualities, which are analogous to adverbs. However, adverbialism fails on two grounds. Firstly, it cannot explain why objects exist when unperceived, since seeing a pink gate recurrently is analogous to ‘sensing pinkly and gately’ at several different occasions, with total coincidence and no physical necessity. The fact that Russell’s cat reappears after travelling through a tunnel or emerging from a cave is, for an adverbial phenomenalist, a mere coincidence. Secondly, as Frank Jackson notes, to see a brown square and a green triangle is simply ‘sensing brownly and squarely and greenly and triangularly’. But this removes the association between ‘brown’ and square’, such that, on the adverbialist account, a brown square could be mistaken for a green triangle, and a green triangle could be mistaken for a brown square. So adverbialism cannot cope with multiple sensations at once.

Overall, phenomenalism is praiseworthy for its ingenious solution to the problem of perception, since it restricts our perception to non-ordinary (immaterial) phenomena rather than ordinary (material) objects. However, traditional phenomenalism fails at explaining why objects persist when unperceived: Berkeley posits a deity without first providing a coherent argument for such a being; Mill begs the question by failing to explain why sense data are ‘permanent possibilities of sensation’; and Ayer’s linguistic phenomenalism restricts all talk of physics to talk of possible sense data, making Newton’s celebrated laws seem like coincidences rather than the products of necessity (or, as we should say in today’s ‘Quantum age’, at least high probability). The attempt to rescue phenomenalism through adverbialism is similarly brittle when scrutinised properly. All in all, phenomenalism is insufficient at explaining the patterns of our perceptual experience. Perhaps realism should come to the rescue.

Saturday 4 March 2017

Word of the Week: Bluffing



Who's the nicest? Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left) meets the cordial Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right).


What's in a bluff? The diplomatic world would not go round without the everyday complements, ideological declarations and deceits that are exchanged between politicians, between citizens and, increasingly, between politicians and citizens via print and digital media. Those who do not understand the language of diplomacy are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their forbears. But the language of diplomacy is hard to translate, and the best we can ask is that we and our representatives, at least some of the time, scratch beneath the surface of cordial transactions to get at what's really going on. In other words, we ask that there is some distinction made between diplomatic appearance and political reality.

This spring provides a nice example of cordial bluffing. China still lays claims to its militarised islands in the South China Sea, and thus demonstrates its willingness to become a regional hegemon by expanding its territorial assets (see my post on China's political and military rise). But Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lu Kang, in an interview with NBC News, alleged that Chinese objectives were far more modest. Firstly, Mr Lu identified China's desire to preserve its territorial integrity, such that China wants to be seen as being on the defensive rather than the offensive. Secondly, the diplomat described China's desire for peace and stability in Southeast Asia as the next most important motive of Chinese foreign policy. In other words, China alleges that it has no intention whatsoever to expand its territory beyond its legitimate borders. Instead, China alleges that it is protecting its sovereignty, which is 'not something negotiable' (Youtube, 24 January 2017). 

Perhaps the Chinese foreign policy establishment is telling the truth. Perhaps China is altruistic in its motives. But this picture does not add up when taken in the context of China's rapid militarisation of islets in the South China Sea. Two US officials recently revealed that there are nearly two dozen Chinese structures in the South China Sea capable of housing long-range surface-to-air missiles. Despite the apparently amiable phone call between President Trump and President Xi on 10 February 2017, on 21 February the Philippines said that it and other Southeast Asian states found China's 'recent developments [...] very unsettling'. The new structures being constructed in the South China Sea are likely to expand the area of China's air defence, despite the Pentagon's commitment to 'non-militarisation in the South China Sea' (The Guardian, 22 February 2017). What is more, China lays claim to many islands both outside its UN-mandated economic exclusion zone and within the economic exclusion zones of most other states bordering the South China Sea. This offensive (and therefore aggressive) foreign policy is quite evident from the following map of China's claim all the waters and islands lying within the 'nine-dash line' to which it originally laid claim in 1947 (BBC News, 12 July 2016).




China's bluff, in short, is not working. It is quite clear that China is expanding its territory, rather than simply protecting the status quo, and seeks to take a rather offensive foreign policy stance. That's not to say that China is behaving unjustly. On the contrary, the reason why China earlier today announced its intention to boost defence spending by 7% is that President Trump announced a 10% boost in American defence spending earlier this week (BBC News, 4 March 2017).

And still China bluffs. After invalidating a rival claim to the Trump trademark in September 2016, the Chinese trademark review board recently gave the President's business the Trump trademark, suggesting that China is heading for a mutually beneficial bilateral relationship, albeit a morally dubious one (Cevallos, 23 February 2017). Moreover, China's suspension of coal imports from North Korea on 18 February, following North Korea's ballistic missile test on 12 February and the subsequent assassination of Kim Jong Un's half-brother Kim Jong Nam, suggests that China is willing to abide by UN-mandated sanctions on North Korea (The Economist, 25 February 2017). Thus China's grand bluff makes it look law-abiding and altruistic.

The reason that this may all be a bluff is that China's intentions are not primarily altruistic. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it's just how interstate relations work. China, in all likelihood, will try to become a regional hegemon through egoistic, militaristic means, and may 'try to push the United States out of Asia' (Mearsheimer, 2006: 162). All signalling to the contrary is bluffing. 

Then again, China might not be bluffing. It might genuinely be that Xi Jinping has benign intentions (but has a partiality towards surface-to-air missile launchers on former coral reefs...) But, in all likelihood, China is engaging in a strategic cover-up, to mask not a policy mi-hap, but rather 'a controversial but smart strategy'. Although he doesn't apply the term to modern China specifically, Mearsheimer's (2011: 63) account of what constitutes a strategic cover-up, or a bluff, nicely fits the behaviour of the Chinese government. While China wants to maintain an appearance of innocence, the reality is that the Chinese are trying to dominate Asia just as America tried to dominate the Americas in the 19th century. China sometimes paints people as friends whom it really sees as enemies, and thus uses bluffs to create Trumpian alternative facts.

However, the one possibility I haven't considered is that China simply doesn't know what its foreign policy should be. If that is so, then the reason why China cannot make its actions match its professed intentions is that the Chinese Communist Party's leadership is itself conflicted. Instead of bluffing, China may just be blundering. Due do its relative inexperience in fighting coalition wars or engaging in grand diplomacy, Christopher Coker (2015: 132) argues that China lacks the 'strategic acumen' to allow it to coordinate an effective foreign policy, meaning that its bluffing represents a paranoid uncertainty embedded in the Chinese diplomatic consciousness. Perhaps this is the most worrying scenario of all.

Think about it: if China is bluffing, then America can easily predict its actions on the assumption that the underlying intention is coherent. If China is bluffing, it has an underlying game plan which itself is predictable. But if China is not bluffing, and it is instead muddling its way through an incoherent foreign policy, then its policy is no longer predictable. If President Xi suffers from the same 'strategic autism' that Imperial Germany suffered form in the run-up to the First World War, then China may behave just as irrationally and aggressively as Germany then did (Luttwak: 63). Just as Germany's uncertainty and incoherence in its foreign policy drove the world to war, so might China's inexperience and autism in its foreign policy tear down the veil of peace in our time. 

Unless I'm bluffing.


References

BBC News (2017), ‘China to increase military spending by 7% in 2017’, 4 Mar. Available online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39165080
Cevallos, Danny (2017), ‘What does China want from Trump?’, CNN, 23 Feb. Available online at: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/23/opinions/trump-china-trademark-costs-cevallos/index.html
Coker, Christopher (2015), The Improbable War: China, The United States & The Logic of Great Power Conflict, London: Hurst & Company.
The Economist (2017), ‘Shock and ore: Furious with North Korea, China stops buying its coal’, 25 Feb. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/news/china/21717370-theres-message-america-too-furious-north-korea-china-stops-buying-its-coal
The Guardian (2017), ‘China close to finishing building on South China Sea islands that could house missiles, US says’, 22 Feb. Available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/22/china-close-to-finishing-buildings-on-south-china-sea-islands-that-could-house-missiles-us-says
Luttwak, Edward N. (2012), The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mearsheimer, John (2006), ‘China’s Unpeaceful Rise’, Current History, 105, 690.
Mearsheimer, John J. (2011), Why leaders lie: the truth about lying in international politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Youtube (2017), ‘China Speaks About President Donald Trump, South China Sea, Trade (Full Interview) | NBC News’, 24 Jan. Available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7J6wFa-vYc