Gandalf stood up. He spoke sternly. ‘You will be a fool if you do, Bilbo,’ he said. ‘You make that clearer with every word you say. It has got far too much hold on you. Let it go! And then you can go yourself, and be free.’As readers of this blog know, I sometimes make my posts connect things I’m reading with things happening in our philosophy department and/or the news.
--J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (emphasis mine)
That might be why I see links between current headlines (e.g., marijuana laws) and our department’s upcoming talks on happiness, harm, and the proper role of the state in promoting one and preventing the other.
So I hope this post can be an appetizer to our philoso-feast in the next two weeks: come enjoy our own Kyle Swan and Dan Weijers and UC’s Distinguished Professors David Brink and Gerald Dworkin.
In Mill’s Progressive Principles (OUP 2013) David Brink explains one reason why John Stuart Mill’s “perfectionistic” liberalism is preferable to John Rawls’ “political” liberalism (Rawls insists that states remain “neutral” between competing views of “the good life”):
“…whereas liberal neutrality is neutral about the good, it is not neutral about matters of rights and social justice. This presupposes a sharp line between issues about the good and issues about the right. But this distinction may be hard to draw sharply. Presumably, central among the individual rights that liberal neutrality insists on upholding are rights against harm. But harm involves the setback of important interests, making individuals worse off then they would otherwise be. But then one can’t identify harms without making some assumptions about what makes an individual’s life go better or worse. Nor should we assume that one could recognize only those harms that set back interests that are part of any reasonable conception of the good. For instance, you’ve harmed me if you’ve injured me in a way that prevents me from pursuing sports as a vocation or avocation, even though there are reasonable conceptions of the good that assign no significance to sports. You've harmed me if you rendered me impotent, even though sexual intimacy is not a part of every reasonable conception of the good. In short, it is hard to see how the state can do its job of enforcing the right without making some assumptions about the good.” (256-7)I am sympathetic with this criticism of liberal neutrality. But I think it can go further.
That’s because I think something called “legal moralism” can be derived—in part—from Mill’s On Liberty.
Since On Liberty is widely (and correctly) regarded as a classic source of fruitful lines of argument against legal moralism (and its cousin, legal paternalism), my thought here may be of interest to both friends and foes of Mill’s project there.
First, some quick definitions:
Legal paternalism is roughly the idea that the fact that an activity harms the one doing it is a good and perhaps sufficient (though override-able) reason for making that activity illegal.
Legal moralism is roughly the idea that the fact that an activity is immoral is a good and perhaps sufficient (though override-able) reason for making that activity illegal.
So very briefly, and without many important qualifications, my argument is this.
Mill’s final chapter of On Liberty discusses many “applications” of the principles he advanced in the earlier portion of the book, but his application forbidding even “voluntary” slavery relies on an additional principle like this:
VS: the fact that an activity involves giving up one’s own freedom in a way like the voluntary slave gives his up is a sufficient reason for making that activity illegal.Legal moralism, again, is roughly the following principle:
LM: the fact that an activity is immoral is a good and perhaps sufficient (though override-able) reason for making that activity illegal.To get from Mill’s discussion of voluntary slavery to legal moralism, what we need is some sort of ‘bridge’ principle that states a close connection between immorality and freedom:
B: the fact that an activity is immoral is sufficient for the said activity to involve giving up one’s own freedom in a way like the voluntary slave gives his up.Perhaps the strongest version of such a principle is the idea that immorality, as such, is slavery. Arguably something like this idea can be found in Kant, in Plato, and elsewhere. One statement of the idea is found in eight words of Jesus from the gospel of John: “…everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
This is not an isolated verse fragment plucked out of nowhere. The context of these eight words, what comes before and after them, is relevant. Likewise, the story in John from which these words are taken is not an isolated story plucked out of nowhere. The idea that sin, qua sin, is a form of slavery resonates with the Jewish thought-world that Jesus was born into, and it is echoed by his followers so frequently we might call it the “Peter, Paul, and Mary Principle” (with no disrespect to the musical group).
Still, since other thoughtful people, like Plato and Kant, have thought the same or similar thing, here’s a more inclusive way of putting the idea: “immorality is slavery.”
Here, I exercise my liberty to coin a new term—“oughtabeillegal” (which reflects how a New Yorker says “ought to be illegal”)—we can state the argument in less than eight words:
- Slavery oughtabeillegal. (This is from Mill’s On Liberty. See VS above.)
- Immorality is slavery. (This is the inclusive Peter, Paul, and Mary Principle. See B above.)
- Immorality oughtabeillegal. (This is Legal Moralism. See LM above.)
Isaiah Berlin fans, this is your cue to pounce.
Russell DiSilvestro
Department of Philosophy
Sacramento State
I guess I wouldn't have thought that this notion of slavery would be particularly probative here. Making use of it for an argument like this would seem to quickly give rise to what we might call "Dylan's Dilemma." Judeo-Christian thought-world doesn't just include the idea sin is slavery; it also includes the idea that, at least in a spiritual sense, everyone is a slave either to sin or to righteousness. This is clearest in Paul's letter to the Romans (6:17-18). In addition to Paul (Romans 1:1 and Titus 1:1), James (1:1) also calls himself a slave of Christ.
ReplyDeleteI'm counting on you agreeing that Christianity shouldn't be illegal and so the sense in which being a Christian is a kind of slavery is different from the kind of slavery that Mill thought should be prohibited even when voluntary. But if that's right then perhaps the sense in which being sinful or immoral is a kind of slavery is also different from the kind of slavery that Mill thought should be prohibited even when voluntary.
Kyle,
DeleteThat’s a clear and clever point. I had forgotten about Dylan’s Dilemma. And you are right that I’m looking for a way to read Mill as endorsing something less than criminalizing everything! (A coherent, but implausible, way of reading him here…if you’re looking for a reductio of his position…)
I’m happy to admit for the sake of discussion that slavery to ordinary humans is one kind of slavery, whereas slavery to sin, righteousness, Christ, or the devil, is a second kind of slavery. Perhaps the former is ‘literal’ and the latter are all ‘metaphorical’.
Still, even with that admission in place, there’s an evaluative valence difference within the latter; slavery to righteousness has a positive valence; slavery to sin, negative. (Compare: an NBA player may be a ‘slave’ to his own demanding self-imposed workout routine, or a ‘slave’ to his own bad habit of drinking unhealthy sodas after practice: both are metaphorical, but there’s an evaluative difference.)
Mill seems to think that slavery to ordinary humans always has a negative evaluative valence.
Connect those dots and you’ll see where it leads.
Russell
I'm a little embarrassed because I'm not quite sure how you want me to connect the dots. If the kind of slavery we're talking about someone being in when they do something immoral is merely metaphorical, and not literal, then it just looks like your argument trades on an ambiguity in the second premise. Immorality is *a kind* of slavery. Is it the sort that is oughttabeillegal? Why should the answer be yes?
DeleteMaybe your suggestion that on Mill's view slavery to ordinary humans always has a negative evaluative valence is an attempt to address the ambiguity. But it seems to me that the reason he thinks that it is oughttabeillegal is because it's literally slavery. It seems question-begging to suggest that the reason immorality as such is oughttabeillegal is the bare fact that it has negative evaluative valence. You need an independent argument for that. You can't just rely on the idea that immorality is a kind of slavery.
But maybe I didn't connect the dots the way you intended.
Ah, this is what I get for thinking I’ve put dots on a page and can safely walk away and let another philosopher connect them…
DeleteThe points I was counting on you to connect are the premises of one way of clarifying the original argument.
Here, again, was the original argument, replacing ‘oughtabeillegal’ with ‘ought to be illegal’:
The original argument:
1. Slavery ought to be illegal.
2. Immorality is slavery.
3. Immorality ought to be illegal.
You suspect that the original argument is implicitly invalid because it trades on an ambiguity with ‘slavery’—and when the ambiguity eliminated, the clarified argument looks like this:
The first way of clarifying the original argument:
1L. Literal slavery ought to be illegal.
2M. Immorality is metaphorical slavery.
3. Immorality ought to be illegal.
Now, I agree with you that that would be an invalid argument.
But here’s the clarification I was hoping to make, by using the negative valence idea, and by thereby avoiding the “literal” and “metaphorical” distinction, and thereby avoiding 1L and 2M:
The second way of clarifying the original argument:
1N. Negative-valenced slavery ought to be illegal.
2N. Immorality is negative-valenced slavery.
3. Immorality ought to be illegal.
And that argument is not invalid.
And that was the way I was hoping you’d connect the dots.
But perhaps you think that this move merely repeats the original mistake, by concealing the literal/metaphorical distinction. And when that distinction is made explicit again, we are right back to a familiar troublesome spot:
The third way of clarifying the original argument:
1N-L. Negative-valenced literal slavery ought to be illegal.
2N-M. Immorality is negative-valenced metaphorical slavery.
3. Immorality ought to be illegal.
That’s clearly invalid. (Again.)
But my initial response to this is that it might not be the literalness of the slavery that does the heavy lifting (for Mill, or for us). Rather, it is the negative valence of the literal slavery that does the heavy lifting (for Mill and us).
If there was a case of literal slavery that had positive valence, then I suspect if Mill had recognized it, then he would have backed off his apparently categorical rejection of voluntary slavery.
What could I possibly be thinking of here, with literal slavery having positive valence?
A conjecture: when a slavery contract actually delivers you a net increase in freedom.
For example, imagine you are a man who views his current “freedom” as very limited—because you are a penniless, friendless drug addict who does not see a way out and you anticipate your life will be over in the next year. You are offered a job of being the CEO of what you view as the world’s best corporation (Google, Facebook, whatever), with all the typical perks and salary and travel, and they will cure you of your meth addiction, on one condition: your position is for life, it’s title is “slave” to the shareholders, and it really does have whatever other legal conditions qualify it as a slave contract. Based on your interview with the last person who had this contract—he loved every minute of it!—you reason that this is an offer you can’t refuse, in part, because it seems to you to represent staggering increase in your net freedom. It’s literal slavery, but with positive valence.
If Mill had been thinking of the voluntary slave contract in terms like these, perhaps he would not have written them off the way he did.
But that’s another way of saying that it’s not the literal versus metaphorical distinction doing the heavy lifting. It’s the negative versus positive distinction that’s doing the heavy lifting.
I’m willing to admit that both distinctions admit of degrees. That admission may complicate things. But it may strengthen the overall position, as follows: if literal slavery with a low degree of negative valence ought to be illegal, then surely (?) metaphorical slavery with a high degree of negative valence ought to be illegal.
Well, minimally I’ve shown that you can’t do it in 8 words. :)
DeleteI don’t think the CEO example helps. In my first quick read, it seemed like just another example of metaphorical (e.g., wage) slavery, except with better perks. Then I saw that “it really does have whatever other legal conditions qualify it as a [voluntary] slave contract.” But for Mill, this means “he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it, beyond that single act…. He is no longer free…” (Mill doesn’t seem to offer an argument against enforcing voluntary contracts that limit and/or temporary abridge one’s liberty). If that’s right, then there’s no increase (let alone a net increase) in freedom for a voluntary slave. A voluntary slave isn’t free.
Apart from that, you say it’s the negative valence of literal slavery that does the heavy lifting in thinking it ought to be illegal and so it doesn’t much matter whether the slavery is literal or metaphorical. I’m tempted to read the first part as saying “it’s the badness of slavery that does the heavy lifting.” But then it looks like you’re assuming something at least a lot like legal moralism from the start. That makes the argument question-begging.
Russell, Mill's stance on voluntary slavery always seemed to me to rest on his view that it is incoherent to exercise your freedom by giving it up, not unlike the incoherence of God demonstrating his omnipotence by creating a rock he cannot lift.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm reluctant to agree that Mill needs a principle like VS, and I also would be surprised if he or any right thinking person would accept it, since it would seem to be a warrant for making contracts and promises of all sorts illegal.
Randy,
DeleteI think that by doing me a kindness you have inadvertently made my task a bit harder.
The kindness was your editorial revision. On closer reading, I did not recognize the quoted VS. Then I realized: while you were making other cosmetic improvements to my original submission before posting it, you tweaked my original VS from this:
“the fact that an activity involves giving up one’s own freedom in a way like the voluntary slave gives his up is a sufficient reason for making that activity illegal.”
To this:
“the fact that an activity involves giving up one’s own freedom, as in voluntary slavery, is a sufficient reason for making that activity illegal.”
My original VS—call it ‘OVS’—is more explicit on the point that Mill’s target here is not just any voluntary relinquishment of freedom, but a particular sort of voluntary relinquishment of freedom—the sort that’s relevantly like what the voluntary slave does. At least, that’s part of my suggestion.
Still, is OVS a reasonable interpretation of what Mill says? (That’s separate from the question, is OVS a reasonable principle?)
Here’s what Mill says in part of the relevant passage (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm) :
“In this and most other civilised countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom.”
Now, in re-reading this, I submit that it’s more plausible that whatever principle Mill had in mind here is closer to OVS than it is to the VS you posted for me.
But, in fairness to your editorial skills, it does seem possible to interpret Mill as meaning something very, very strong—perhaps as strong as the VS you posted for me.
But then again, as you note, it’s hard to see how any right-thinking person would accept the VS you posted for me.
Which makes me realize something…
It’s one thing to have a person A attribute something to you, and then have another person B say ‘you know, it’s hard to see how any right-thinking person would accept that.’
But it’s a slightly different thing to have both activities done to you by the same person…
: )
Russell, good point! Believe it or not I did mean for it to be a friendly revision because I wasn't sure what "in a way like" meant. So does "in a way like" mean "in a way that is relevantly similar to"? If so, I suppose the question is why all forms of promising aren't relevantly similar to selling oneself into slavery. It has always seemed to me that it is just a distinction of degree. Clearly I can very much harm myself by promising to do something that it is not in my interest to do, and I'm not sure what else counts for similarity. I'm not sure why a promise would enslave me any less relevantly similarly than a sin would. At any rate, I promise to change this back to your original wording even though it appears to weaken my criticism.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I'm not sure what to say here. Mill was against society enforcing a voluntary slave contract. I'm not sure what the analog is for promising--society enforcing you to keep your promise, perhaps? With law or social pressure? I need to think this challenge over more...
ReplyDelete