Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Consejo Asesor
Jonathan Wolff. University College London, Reino Unido.
Carlos R. Braun. Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Econmicas), Espaa.
Antonio G Santesmases. UNED, Espaa.
M Jos Falcn y Tella. Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Derecho), Espaa.
Olivier Feron. Universidade de vora, Portugal.
Eduardo Rivera Lpez. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella/CONICET, Argentina.
Pablo Lpez lvarez. Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Filosofa), Espaa.
Hugo Biaggini. Universidad de Lans/CONICET, Argentina.
Antonio Hermosa Andjar. Universidad de Sevilla, Espaa.
Ignacio Gutirrez Gutirrez. UNED, Espaa.
Consejo Evaluador
Jorge Novella Surez. Universidad de Murcia, Espaa.
Fernando Aguiar Gonzlez. IESA, CSIC, Espaa.
Jos Mara Carabante Muntada. Centro Universitario Villanueva, Espaa.
Pablo de Lora, Universidad Autnoma de Madrid.
Eduardo Pellejero. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil.
Jos Luis Prez Trivio. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Espaa.
Andrew Price. Saint Louis University, EEUU.
Damin Salcedo Megales. Universidad Complutense de Madrid , Espaa.
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CC BY-NC-SA
Sumario
Editorial.................................................................................................
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La filosofa y las polticas pblicas: una investigacin filosfica
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JONATHAN WOLFF
final es NCB 2005). Diversos miembros del comit tenan bagaje cientfico,
y para algunos la experimentacin con animales haba resultado una
prctica rutinaria de su labor cientfica durante dcadas. Varios eran
expertos en campos en que los animales eran utilizados, bien para
investigacin bsica, bien para probar la eficacia o la seguridad de nuevos
medicamentos. Se nos pidi que elaborramos un breve informe sobre la
actual situacin cientfica en nuestro mbito. Reclutado como filsofo
moral, aunque nunca haba trabajado en cuestiones ticas sobre los
animales, mi primera tarea fue aportar un informe relatando la actual
estado de la cuestin en el mbito de la tica.
Consecuentemente revis algunas de las contribuciones ms
relevantes de la literatura filosfica, al tiempo que realizaba algunas
investigaciones (por ejemplo, Singer 1989, 1995; Carruthers 1992 y
DeGrazia 2002). Tras un primer vistazo, resultaba obvio que no exista
nada que pudiera definirse como la actual situacin cientfica. Haba
divisin en el debate. En un extremo se situaban quienes argan que las
prcticas habituales de investigacin y alimentacin, cuando menos con
respecto a animales complejos y desarrollados, no deban valorarse de
modo distinto, en principio, a como se hara si se realizaran con seres
humanos, y por tanto, tales prcticas no eran simplemente injustas sino
moralmente abominables. En el otro extremo estaban los que defendan
posturas que, en apariencia, no hallaban nada de ticamente objetable en
prcticas como las peleas de gallos, las peleas de perros contra osos o la
tortura de animales por diversin, si bien ninguno de ellos pareca
dispuesto a extraer semejantes conclusiones.
Por mi parte, me sent perfectamente satisfecho de aportar
desacuerdo en mi informe, del mismo modo que los cientficos informaron
del desacuerdo en asuntos como la viabilidad de sustituir algunos
experimentos por simulaciones informticas o sobre el grado en que los
peces padecen dolor. Sin embargo, me sent mucho menos cmodo por el
contenido concreto de las posturas que, en mi informe, generaban tal
desacuerdo. Pues, a grandes rasgos, los filsofos defendan
aparentemente puntos de vista tan alejados de las prcticas habituales,
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tratado completo sobre cmo los filsofos pueden intervenir en las polticas
pblicas. Nada hay en l sobre enviar cartas a los peridicos, aparecer en
los medios de comunicacin, organizar grupos de presin, ayudar a la
captacin de fondos o ser elegido para la labor pblica. Todo ello es
estimable y probablemente dar su fruto. Pero mi objetivo en este trabajo
es discutir cmo pueden los filsofos intervenir, con los argumentos
propios de su campo, en los debates donde se deciden las polticas
pblicas. En mi caso a menudo la experiencia ha consistido en trabajo de
comit, pero ha adoptado tambin otras formas. Sin embargo, no pretendo
sugerir que todo lo que los filsofos pueden hacer se reduzca a establecer
argumentos (y distinciones, y a detectar ambigedades o confusin, y a
reflexionar sobre la conexin lgica entre ideas, etc.), aunque pudiera
sostenerse que eso es lo nico que pueden hacer en tanto que filsofos.
Tampoco quiero insinuar que slo los filsofos son capaces de realizar esa
labor. Miembros de otros campos del mundo acadmico, polticos y
quienes trabajan en los mbitos de la justicia, las finanzas, los negocios, el
periodismo y otros, son tan capaces como los filsofos en cuanto a
detectar confusiones y errores en los argumentos. Nuestra ventaja como
filsofos consiste en que realizamos esa tarea ayudados por nuestro
entrenamiento acadmico. Generaciones de filsofos han luchado con
cuestiones similares, y gran parte de nuestra vida laboral la empleamos en
estudiar y reflexionar sobre cmo lo han hecho y cmo puede hacerse
mejor. Por supuesto, en este libro se sostiene que tal bagaje no nos
proporciona ningn atajo a las respuestas correctas. Pero nos provee de
recursos adicionales para abordar los dilemas ticos de las polticas
pblicas, y ayuda a aportar una gran variedad de perspectivas a los
debates. En el ltimo captulo se retoma esta cuestin.
Tambin quisiera dejar claro que, aunque rechazo un modo concreto
de vincular la filosofa y las polticas pblicas, no soy el primero en
proponer lo que aqu se propone. Bien lejos de ello. Este libro forma parte
de una lnea emergente de pensamiento en el campo de la filosofa moral y
poltica, que se caracteriza por el rechazo del procedimiento antes de
nada, elige tu teora para tratar los problemas morales y polticos
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Bibliografa citada:
Carruthers, Peter (1992), The Animals Issue, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
DeGrazia, David (2002), Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
Dunn, John (1990), Reconceiving the Content and Character of Modern
Political Community, Interpreting Political Responsibility,
Cambridge, Polity Press.
Farrelly, Collin (2007), Justice, Democracy, and Reasonable Agreement,
London, Palgrave.
Feinberg, Joel (1987), Harm to Others, New York, Oxford University Press.
Freud, Sigmund (1963 [1930]), Civilization and Its Discontents, London,
The Hogarth Press.
Holt E.B. (ed) (1912), The New Realism: Cooperative Studies in
Philosophy, New York, Macmillan.
NCB (Nuffield Council on Boiethics) (2005), The Ethics of Research
Involving Animals, London, Nuffield Council.
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JONATHAN WOLFF
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/go/ourwork/animalresearch/publica
tion_178.html
Rawls, John (1989), Political Liberalism, New York, Columbia University
Press.
Sen, Amartya (1999), Development as Freedom, Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
(2009), The Idea of Justice, London, Allen Lane.
Singer, Peter (1995), Animal Liberation, 4th edn, London, Pimlico.
(1989), All Animals Are Equal, T. Regan and P. Singer (eds),
Animal Rights and Human Obligations, 2nd edn, Englewood Cliffs,
NJ, Prentice-Hall.
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1- La Tentacin Autoritaria
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5 Vgl. Financial Times Deutschland vom 10. September 2010, S.1: Merkel
schtzt Atomindustrie vor Rot-Grn.
6 Vgl. zum Beispiel Sddeutsche Zeitung vom 2. August 2011: Hoch lebe China!
Vergesst Europa!; Le Monde vom 16. Juni 2011, S.8: 2En Hongrie, le pouvoir
de Viktor Orban veut faire taire une radio dopposition.
7 Vgl. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 18. Januar 2012, S. 1-2:
Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gegen Ungarn.
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3- Legitimacin procedimental?
Todo esto demuestra un inquietante desequilibrio en la actuacin
estatal aqu un negociar cooperativo, all disposiciones por decreto
autoritario. Frente a esto podran nimos ms serenos replicar: En la
democracia es el pueblo quien meramente ha prestado su poder al Estado
mandatario y el pueblo quien tiene la ltima palabra. La nica condicin es
que se manifieste a travs de las vas legtimas del procedimiento poltico,
es decir, que lo haga principalmente a travs de las elecciones. A quien
argumenta as no parece importarle especialmente que a travs de los
canales polticamente establecidos las voces de los ciudadanos se
ahoguen cuando se ve en peligro el poder de los propietarios de peso en el
mercado.
Este es el caso de la exigencia an incumplida de la sociedad al
completo de crear un fondo privado de garanta de los bancos digno de tal
nombre; tal fondo permitira evitar un seguro a todo riesgo a cargo de los
impuestos del Estado y asegurar que el inversor no gane a travs de
terceros ms de lo que el mismo arriesga.
O considrese tambin la suerte del referndum griego planeado
para el otoo del 2011: resulta que un presidente de gobierno griego se
arma de valor para convocar a los miembros de su pas, en tanto
ciudadanos con deber de responsabilidad, y pedirles su voto sobre unas
drsticas medidas de ahorro de la UE y sobre la permanencia en la unin
monetaria. No haban pasado ni 48 horas cuando el plan para las
elecciones populares ya haba sido desechado, pues, los mercados
financieros reaccionaron con cadas (del curso monetario), las tres
agencias internacionales de evaluacin sacudieron con desaprobacin la
cabeza y los protagonistas oficiales del escenario en Bruselas, Merkel y
Sarkozy, giraron sus pulgares hacia abajo.
La actuacin del Estado de desdobla as en un negociar cmplice
con propietarios y sociedades poderosos, por un lado, y, por otro, en un
mandato autoritario frente a ciudadanos carentes de poder como
inversores o de capacidad de bloqueo como las sociedades poderosas.
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4- Representacin cvica
En cuanto a la cuestin de cules son los criterios para unos
procedimientos de decisin correctos, esa es una de las grandes y
disputadas preguntas de la filosofa poltica. Formulable, por cierto,
tambin en referencia a la democracia directa de referndum y, a menudo,
acompaada del temor de que el individuo particular sucumba en ella
arrasado por la mayora. Para disipar tales temores, se ha de prohibir que
una mayora aplastante pueda, en virtud de la mera decisin, disponer de
los derechos de los individuos particulares. Puesto que ningn hombre se
disuelve en la comunidad, sea sta cual fuere.
Entre los criterios para determinar decisiones correctas y
procedimientos adecuados para ellas estara, as, el de que los derechos
fundamentales estn garantizados. Otro criterio sera que promuevan
previsiblemente el bien comn. Este ltimo criterio tendra un papel
demasiado limitado en una Democracia de Restaurante. En el restaurante
la gente slo piensa, como es lgico, en su propio bien. O, quin sabe,
quiz se les pase por la cabeza tambin el bienestar de los amigos. Eso es
demasiado poco. En una comunidad democrtica los ciudadanos han de
preguntarse tambin qu sera bueno para todos ellos juntos. Esa es la
pregunta por el bien comn y no puede ser respondida sin una adecuada
discusin. Un mero protocolo de los deseos de los votantes por parte de
los partidos no basta. Por lo mismo, el mero otorgar poderes generales a
travs de papeletas de voto es insuficiente tambin.
El bien comn es, aparte, un concepto de peso. Uno que proyecta
una larga sombra en la que mucho queda oscuro e inservible a la poltica.
Pero el bien comn puede aparecer tambin en la escena poltica con los
contornos ntidamente perfilados en trminos de bienes de la comunidad o
bienes pblicos. Buenos servicios de carreteras pblicas o redes de
telecomunicacin en toda el rea cuentan entre tales bienes; como
tambin, en el sistema sanitario, que se garantice a todos las prestaciones
de salud necesarias y se evite el cambio continuo de aseguradoras
sanitarias, que si bien es beneficioso para el individuo, puede ser una ruina
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bien comn. Mas, para ello, no basta instaurar cada vez ms foros de
dilogo entre la poltica organizada y los ciudadanos. Ya que no se trata
simplemente de que se nos oiga ms sino de obtener verdaderas
posibilidades de ejercer influencia. La existencia de mediaciones
legalmente vinculantes, en lugar de meras recomendaciones, constituira
una tal posibilidad para algunos temas. La comprobacin de alternativas
debera ser entonces prescriptiva. De esta forma, con el aumento de las
oportunidades de participacin de los ciudadanos carentes del poder de los
inversores u otras asociaciones se hara posible tambin un aumento de
puntos de vista relevantes sobre la cuestin al caso.
La consideracin de distintas alternativas sobre una materia sera
tambin exigible a la hora de ejercer influencia en una democracia directa.
Una tal forma de democracia directa consistira en la posibilidad de una
iniciativa legal que bajo reserva financiera haga accesible lo tratado en el
Parlamento de turno a un nmero considerable de ciudadanos. Como es
comn en Suiza, tales iniciativas, junto a contrapropuestas alternativas del
Parlamento, deberan ser sometidas despus a votacin popular.
No debemos, no obstante, pasar por alto lo que est antes de los
votos y las elecciones. Aqu hay que considerar el poder mismo de no
someter las cosas a eleccin. Los actores de mbito global del mercado
financiero, por ejemplo, tienen tal poder. Sus movimientos de inversin de
capital han hecho ya necesarios prstamos de estados europeos,
financiados a travs de los impuestos, para la estabilizacin del euro. Ello
a su vez ha llevado a una masiva limitacin de los derechos de la
Administracin Pblica que an poseen los, al menos directamente
elegidos, parlamentos nacionales de la UE. Las Leyes- Sixpack de
Manuel Barroso & Co bendecidas el 28 de septiembre del 2011 por el
Parlamento Europeo en Estrasburgo documentan esta restriccin del
marco de accin de los parlamentos nacionales.8
La comisin de Bruselas puede ahora prescribir medidas de largo
8 Comprese Parlamento Europeo. Textos considerados en la sesin del
mircoles, 28 de Septiembre del 2011 2011, P7_TA-PROV (2011)09-28,
edicin provisional PE 473.469.
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2- Capitalismo Kantiano
Evan y Freeman exponen en 19835 la idea bsica tras la versin
"normativa" de la teora de los stakeholders. Sostienen que los directivos
no pueden tratar a los stakeholders como medios para el fin de obtener el
mximo beneficio,entendido como mximo rendimiento para los
accionistas.
Esta postura contrasta con las primeras enunciaciones de la teora.
La teora que he denominado arriba "inocua" poda leerse como una simple
regla prudencial: para obtener el mximo beneficio, los managers deben
5 Se cita aqu por su tercera edicin, de 1988.
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vida, cada uno usa a los dems como instrumentos de sus intereses, y
cualquier apariencia de respeto o buena voluntad est basada en el
egosmo. Evan y Freeman sostendran que adoptar la visin multistakeholder de las organizaciones es incompatible con esa actitud
instrumental. Esa visin parte de entender que, en una empresa, todos sus
constituyentes estn en pie de igualdad frente al tradicional privilegio del
capital-. La actitud instrumental, por mucho que resulte en polticas de
"responsabilidad" (ms bien habra que decir "beneficencia") hacia ciertos
grupos, no puede estar ms alejada de la visin que trataba de promover
Freeman.
La postura "kantiana" de Evan y Freeman defiende que los
stakeholder tienen derecho a que sus demandas sean atendidas 6. Lo que
en la filosofa jurdica norteamericana se denomina un "claim-right" (una
pretensin legtima). Son acreedores, por s mismos (no por inters de
otro) de una respuesta, o satisfaccin. Freeman recuerda, frente al
privilegio del capital, que los derechos de propiedad no son absolutos. Las
demandas de ciertos stakeholders pueden entenderse como un lmite al
derecho de propiedad de los accionistas, en el que basan sus expectativas
de beneficio y por ende, un lmite legtimo a esa expectativa-.
En palabras de los autores: "La clave de nuestro argumento es que
debemos reconceptualizar la firma en torno a la siguiente cuestin: Para
beneficio de quin y a expensas de quin debera gestionarse una
empresa?" (Evan y Freeman 1988, 97) 7. La perspectiva kantiana supone
que la razn por la que el beneficio ha de ser para todos los que tienen una
demanda legtima es que poseen un derecho (estn legitimados para
reclamar parte del producto de la empresa). Este derecho puede serlo de
propiedad o de distinta naturaleza. En ltima instancia se trata del derecho
moral universal a determinar su propio futuro sin interferencias. Si la
corporacin desprecia la autonoma de los stakeholders, tratndoles como
6 Bowie (1998, 1999) ha desarrollado este argumento de modo mucho ms
detallado y ambicioso.
7 "The crux of our argument is that we must reconceptualize the firm around the
following question: For whose benefit and at whose expense should the firm be
managed?"
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5- Justicia o caridad
La demanda de una "justicia organizacional" puede parecer criticable
por exceso o por defecto. Generar escepticismo por excesiva; un
escepticismo empricamente justificado, basado en la previsin de que las
organizaciones con nimo de lucro, sean o no mbitos para la justicia, se
comportarn ms bien como "estados de naturaleza". Generar en otros,
desasosiego por escasa, ya que limita la tica organizacional a una
moralidad mnima, sin el amparo confortable de la retrica de la dignidad
humana.
Estas reacciones no consideran la alternativa. Para Hume, la justicia
es una virtud artificial; una convencin social. Pero es a la vez algo ms.
Es la convencin que hace posible la convivencia, y los inmensos
beneficios de la vida en comn unos beneficios que se extienden ms all
de lo material-. Esta virtud artificial, y lo que ella hace posible, se apoya en
las virtudes naturales: nuestras disposiciones empticas, la familiaridad y
compasin hacia los de nuestra especie, sobre todo hacia nuestros
vecinos, hacia quienes vemos sufrir, hacia quienes sentimos cercanos o
percibimos desvalidos y necesitados.
Pero sin la justicia y dems virtudes artificiales (las que podemos
llamar "polticas") las ventajas de la cooperacin no seran posibles.
Recordemos que la justicia no slo es posible, sino necesaria cuando se
dan las circunstancias adecuadas. Despreciar, en este contexto, la justicia,
equivale a despreciar las posibilidades de aumentar nuestras opciones
como seres que buscan la felicidad.
En el nivel organizacional, despreciar la justicia como sustento
normativo de la tica en la gestin de stakeholders, implica concebir la
empresa como un terreno de explotacin mutua, restringida slo por la
coaccin estatal y por los sentimientos humanitarios.
Hace bien Freeman en reclamar una "teora normativa", porque la
alternativa es intolerable. La alternativa deja el mbito de las
organizaciones con nimo de lucro (y otras, por cierto) en manos de la
improbable y casi imposible por definicin, en una economa global
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6- Conclusin
Mi objetivo en este texto es mostrar que, al margen del empleo
interesado y retrico del lenguaje de "los stakeholders", tal nocin capta
una idea sobre las relaciones sociales, y en particular sobre las relaciones
entre los miembros de las empresas con nimo de lucro, que merece
atencin. Esa idea es descriptivamente ms acertada que las
idealizaciones propias de la llamada "teora de la firma". Las empresas
privadas no pueden considerarse un instrumento de sus propietarios, sino
una red de relaciones entre personas y grupos con intereses e
"inversiones" o "apuestas" (en un amplio sentido) relacionadas con la
empresa. Personas y grupos que pueden influir en su devenir, en el logro
de sus objetivos, y a quienes el xito o fracaso de la empresa puede
afectar de diversos modos.
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7- Referencias
Axelrod, R. (1984), The Evolution of Cooperation, New York, Basic Books.
Bicchieri, C., Duffy, J. and Tolle, G. (July 2004), "Trust among Strangers",
Philosophy of Science, 71, pp. 286-319.
Bicchieri, C., Jeffrey, R. and Skyrms, B. (eds.) (1997), The Dynamics of
Norms, Cambridge University Press.
Bicchieri, C. (2006), The Grammar of Society. The Nature and Dynamics of
Social Norms, Cambridge University Press.
Binmore, K. (2005), Natural Justice, Oxford University Press.
Bowie, N. E. (1998), "A Kantian Theory of Capitalism", Business Ethics
Quarterly, vol. 8 (1), pp. 37-60.
(1999), Business Ethics. A Kantian Perspective, Oxford, Blackwell.
Coase, R. (1988), The Firm, the Market and the Law, Chicago, The
University of Chicago Press.
Cowton, C. And Haase, M. (eds.) (2008), Trends in Business and
Economic Ethics, Berlin, Springer.
Cowton, C. (2008), "On setting the agenda for business ethics research",
Trends in Business and Economic Ethics, Berlin, Springer, pp. 1132.
Danielson, P. (ed.) (1998), Modelling Rationality, Morality and Evolution,
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1. Utilitarian basis
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condition" (Smith 1988, book II, ch. 3), economic growth seems to be the
only way of creating hopefulness through the image of wealth. As we know,
in The Wealth of Nations, Smith abandoned the idea of his Lectures on
Jurisprudence that state should "foment" abundance, choosing instead to
concentrate on growth, which the state should "allow". The positive
consequence of the generation of wealth is not that money increases the
number of obtainable "happinesses", but the fact of growth, the simple
enjoying of feelings such as curiosity and creation in the market, which offer
the chance to "break" habits. "The progressive state is in reality the cheerful
and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The stationary
is dull; the declining, melancholy" (Smith 1988, book I, ch. 8).
Mill's theory, on the contrary, is an inference of the population
principle and of his "Utopian" Behaviourism. Mill points out that, with the
existing habits, an equal division of property would only make the
population grow up to the initial state (Mill 1848, 118). However, if habits
are modified, then the horizon will be open for Utopia and perfection. For
Mill, habits may be externally modified; and a just distribution of wealth will
in fact tend to modify them. Conversely, Malthus knew the difficulty of
instilling knew ideas in the workers, who were so inactive at that time, and
he trusted in the decrease of abuses more than in the regeneration of
humanity, and he raised the alarm against the revolutionaries of his time.
Mill's optimistic belief in the susceptibility of education of humanity allowed
him to consider as a realizable hope what Malthus did not only see as a
remote ideal, but as a step towards abuses and " the perfectibility abyss"
(Trincado 2003, p. 204).
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3- Malthusianism
From his youth, Mill was a martyr of the Malthusianism cause. He
was actually more intransigent than Malthus with regard to the cause of
misery: for him, too much procreation was a vice, a physical excess similar
to alcoholism. If those who glory in morality, Mill says, censure and despise
the lack of control in the habit of drinking, they should also despise the
incontinence of those who have a large family.
Malthuss indisputable doctrine, as Mill explains, is, first, that the
human race can double in a generation, and, secondly, that the obvious
consequences of that can only be avoided by limiting population growth
through Malthus's positive or preventive brakes: that is to say, through
prudence on the one hand, and through hunger and disease on the other
(Mill 1848, 212). This prudential brake is, not only necessary, but also the
condition without which no other scheme of improvement can be
satisfactory. The doctrine that claims that the progress of society has to
"end in misery" was not "a perverse invention" of Malthus, as some had
said. Mill argued in the same vein as Malthus when he said that the root of
social evil was not inequality of property. An unjust distribution of wealth
does not aggravate the advent of misery, although perhaps it can
accelerate it. "With the existing habits" an equal division of property would
only make the population grow so as to go back to the start (Mill 1848,
118). But Mill defended that "habits" could be modified; and that "a just
distribution of wealth" will tend to modify them. Education is not compatible
with extreme poverty because extreme poverty is only possible if men are
imprudent. If the average standard of living grows, an indefinite
improvement of society is possible. But if an entire generation does not
enjoy enough comfort, this growth will be no use at all. The progress of
race must go beyond normal limits or it would go back speedily.
For the first time, John Stuart Mill's rationalist basis is made evident.
Bagehot (1848) affirms that in the chapter of Mill's Principles concerning the
future condition of the working classes, Mill treats lower classes as beings
of pure intellect. It is interesting to examine his criticism of the 1848 review
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4- Colonial Schemes
In his Principles, Mill shows that the only important difficulty about
settling schemes was their expensiveness. Nevertheless, if governments
borrow money, then a reliable borrower enters the market, and rates of
interest will increase and the country will attract capital. If we have enough
money through taxes, the effect will be, simply, that a certain portion of
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capital that was going to the market of loans, and from there to foreign
countries, would be retained by Government to transfer it to questions of
national utility instead of individual utility. In the case of England, Mill points
out that when interest rates were low, the capital was emigrating or was
exhausted in absurd speculations, which were not giving yields. According
to Mill, there would be no loss if the government confiscated this capital for
national purposes, and the best was to take it directly from long-term
annuities issues. In the ancient nations, nevertheless, the unlimited
increase of capital reduces the rate of profit: as the necessary quantity of
grain to feed population increases, the cost of labour in the marginal lands
and the profits diminish. According to Mill, provided that the profit rate
diminishes in a well-established country, there will come a point in which
people will prefer a biggest rate abroad or capital will be destroyed by
absurd speculations that will inevitably result in commercial crises (see
Bagehot 1848).
Therefore, a fund to achieve the most important government
objectives will be established, without affecting either the workers or
national wealth. Mill defends Wakefield's settling scheme, that is to say,
pricing all unoccupied land and devoting the profits to make emigration
possible (Mill 1891, 540-560). First, it avoids the difficulties and
dissatisfactions generated by a large annual quantity of taxes; something
useless in the context of a dispersed colonial population. As proved by
experience, it is scarcely possible to force those people to pay direct taxes,
or, at least, it will imply a higher cost than the proceedings expected from it
and, in an underdeveloped country, people will soon be up to the limit of
their possibility to pay indirect taxes. Besides, according to Mill, Wakefield's
program is a beneficial control of the trend of colonial population to
disperse and lose all the advantages of trade, markets, the division of
labour and workers combination.
As those who emigrate at the expense of the fund should earn a
considerable sum before they could become land owners, Wakefield's
program maintained a constant supply of workers; and by diminishing
agricultural speculators restlessness of adding land to their states, it also
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habitual also in the Middle Ages). So, a person may appropriate the gross
outputs of land (Mill 1848, 216-217), whose property can only be gained
through work or the improvement of the land; but, in his defence of the
limitation of the inheritance (Mill 1848, 138), Mill tries to end with
concentrations of the property in hands of the landowner aristocracy.
Confronted with privileges and the enormous power inherent in it, Mill
defends the expropriation of land when the landowner does not introduce
improvements in it.
"The claim of the landowners to the land is altogether subordinate to
the general policy of the state... It is due to landowners, and to owners of
any property whatever, recognised as such by the state, that they should
not be dispossessed of it without receiving its pecuniary value, or an annual
income equal to what they derived from it. This is due on the general
principles on which property rests. (...) But, subject to this proviso, the state
is at liberty to deal with landed property as the general interests of the
community may require" (Mill 1848, 220).
So, the claim of landowners to the land is not based, as for Smith, on
a feeling of indignation when we see an injustice made on occupation. The
Ricardian influence on Mill on the question of the land was notable. This
influence is more evident when we see that he considers "land in general
as a natural monopoly, even if property is subdivided, as it has inelastic
supply (Schwartz 1968, 368). "Without mentioning that the land is a gift of
Nature and of limited quantity " (Ibd. 367). According to Ricardian theory, a
tax on pure rent of land would not affect natural prices (as rent does not
participate in cost of production) and, as it is not transferable neither to
consumers nor to lessees, it only relapses on landowners (Ricardo 1973,
143). Thus, the functioning of the economic system would not be affected
by the establishment of this tax and, in addition, the income of the State
would be obtained burdening a "not earned" revenue. However, as Ramos
(2004) says, in the practice an important problem showed up: the total
revenue paid by the lessor to the landowner did not only include the pure
rent, but also what is paid for the use of the buildings, facilities, etc., which
are actually profits of the owners capital. So, if both components were not
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clearly distinguished the tax might harm the culture, unless price of product
rose, and then the tax was transferred to the consumers (Ricardo 1973,
144).
James Mill proposed a more radical measure, the confiscation of all
future increases of the pure revenue - that would be obtained eliminating
the part of total rent that corresponds to improvements. The actual rents
determined the price paid for land based on the present expectations, but
any future increase of rent was simply a bonus to the owner (James Mill
1965, 253). This tax would not affect national industry (Ibid. 248-249).
According to James Mill, capital was always the fruit of human labour. Rent
could be considered a deduction of profits, a tax on profit that was not
going to end up in the State, but in landowners (Ibid. 1965, 253-254).
But for the conservation of the land and the increase of its production
it does not matter "where rent is going to end up". Ricardo dismissed
James Mill's proposal, especially because of the fiscal information problems
it would entail (he thought it would be impossible to know what part of the
increase of rent was a consequence of the legislation or of the growth of
the population, and what of the introduction of improvements) and because
it would foster speculation in periods of war or of legal insecurity (OBrien
1989, 348). In spite of this criticism, James Mill tried to set his tax as a
basis of the fiscal system of India as soon as, in 1820, he joined the East
Indies Company and could make use of that unsurpassable "field of
experimentation" of political economy and the utilitarian theory.
In his History of the British India [1817], James Mill defended that
India had always been a backward zone dominated by primitive despotism,
and that only under the British guardianship it might improve (Rodrguez
Braun 1989, 111). In Mills opinion, one of the reasons that explained the
country's backwardness was the cultural problem (superstitions, traditions,
etc.) and the lack of education, but also the subjugation in the past to
oppressive and arbitrary governments. The tax on pure rent of the land will
not only imply a new source of income, but it would also point the limits of
the fiscal obligations that the government might impose without raising the
costs of production. Richard Jones criticized James Mill's attempts of
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burdening the rent of land in the India, given the peculiar characteristics of
the above-mentioned economy.
As Ramos (2004) points out, John Stuart Mill defended a similar fiscal
proposal as that of his father, although adding some nuances regarding to
its practical application. Therefore, he was a supporter of burdening the
future increases of the pure rent of the land - according to the needs of the
Treasury - with only one tax rate per surface, but without affecting the
yields derived from the improvements introduced in plots. Seemingly, the
fact that the new tax was burdening the future increases of pure rent could
be a good way of making his adoption viable, that is to say, acceptable to
the eyes of the owners. Though John Stuart admitted that the land had
alternative uses, he did not develop this issue and, in the Ricardian way, he
supposed that the land of a country as a whole - had only one
employment, the production of grain.
As Ekelund and Hbert (1992, 227) show, Mill's reflections on land
property are not isolated in his work, but they are part of his general
concern for social reform and equality of opportunities. Mill (1869) says that
society does not owe anything to the poor: the injustice implies the violation
of a right, and not only can there be no violation of the right without a
corresponding obligation, but a right is the violation or the denial that
constitutes someones incorrectness. "The poor, as such, have no
unliquidated claim against the rich. The latter are doing them no wrong, are
guilty of no injustice towards them ... It was not the rich who placed the
poor on the earth, and it is not the rich who owe them the means of living
here ... the grievance is, at any rate, not one with which they can reproach
any of their fellow-creatures, except their own parents." (Mill 1869, 91-94).
As did the contemporary Socialists, Mill says that land property was a
necessary institution in the early years until humanity was sufficiently
civilized to be capable of handling its matters to obtain the general
advantage; but once this moment has come - and according to them it had
already come - the private real estate had no more legitimacy.
First holders cannot put shackles on all generations. In Europe, real
estates' property, John Stuart Mill says, has its origin in force (Mill 1869,
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59). The English laws regarding to the land were designed at first to
support the leading class (Mill 1869, 240). He also points this out in his
Essay on Thornton: in modern Europe, land was taken through military
violence from the former holders, then transmitted them to their actual
owners. Later, most of the land has been transferred voluntarily, and then it
was possessed by persons who had earned the money thanks to their
work.
There will be excellent motives of general utility for the prescription of
illegitimate title to property, says Mill; but, according to him, it is difficult to
establish this position a priori. The question was that landowners had
assured the best places in Malthus's banquet through force, and that they
could benefit from it without contributing to the growth of the national
wealth. Rent, says Cairnes (1874, 333), is an ever-growing fund "even
when their owners sleep". Mill, certainly, admitted that parts of the rent
were due to the use of capital; and he does not propose to confiscate the
wealth of the owners who had acquired their rights rightly in the existing
system. But he was sure that land differed radically from the mobile
property.
For John Stuart Mill (1985, 705) it is unjust to establish a special tax
on a revenue of any class that was not counterweighed by taxes on other
classes. Nevertheless, the increase of the pure rent of land was a revenue
that admitted a discriminatory treatment as it was not the fruit of human
work, and therefore, was not as justifiable as private property (Mill 1985,
216). As Cairnes would say some time after, Mill says "They grow richer, as
it were in their sleep, without working, risking or economizing. What claim
have they, on the general principle of social justice, to this accession of
riches?" (Mill 1985, 700). Only rent increase due to the investment of
capital made by owners in their lands has the right to equal fiscal treatment
of other yields. Then, improvements would not be fiscally discouraged. On
the other hand, the tax on the increases of pure rent had the advantage
that, in principle, it did not discourage the reassignment of lands towards
more lucrative uses, as they did not affect price differences between lands.
Besides, Mill insisted once more on that already indicated by Ricardo and
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by his father: the tax was not transferable and did not affect the cost of
agricultural products, which depended on the cost of production - in terms
of wages and profits - in the least fertile lands that does not pay any rent
(Mill 1985, 705). As Ramos (2004) raises, at the end of his life, Mill returned
to the problem of how to distinguish the increases of pure rent from those
due to improvements, adding some interesting considerations (Mill 1986c,
1242). Though Mill scarcely modified in his last years the opinions that he
had supported previously, he hinted at two concrete aspects. First, he
proposed a mechanism to guarantee that the value of the land was not
affected negatively by the establishment of the new tax: the State should
offer the owners the possibility of selling their land for the price that it had
been in the moment of introduction of the tax, maintaining perpetually that
offer; besides, landowners should be compensated for the increase in
capital value due to improvements financed by themselves (Mill 1986b,
1234; 1986c, 1239).
Secondly, John Stuart Mill defined his position with regard to the
question of nationalization (with compensation) of the land, a burning
question in a time in which a climate favourable to laissez-faire economics
reigned. Opposed to this idea, the Association he directed campaigned in
favour of the State buying lands for its later lease, partly to obtain the
support of workers, who - according to Mill - were in general favourable to a
total nationalization. Mill did not hesitate in affirming that, while private
property of land is allowed, society seems to be obliged to guarantee that
the owner make a use of it that does not interfere with public utility; or, also
that a system of private property that was reasonable while the land was at
everyones hand, is subject to reconsideration so soon as it s insufficient in
quantity and it has been monopolized by a small number of owners 1. The
question is that Mill saw the right of private property of land as a right
essentially limited or determined by public utility, which he identified with
the fact that the land was adequately cultivated.
1 J.S. Mill Letters to C.E. Norton (26.6.1870) and J.B. Kinnear (22.7.1870),
quoted in Schwartz (1968), p. 367.
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historicists such as Richard Jones did- (Screpanti and Zamagni 1997, 108).
At many points, Mill defends competition as beneficial and predicts
misallocation of resources in markets where monopoly power prevails.
However, in contrast to nearly all orthodox economists up to the present,
Mill was not certain whether a nation with a growing economy was a
desirable place in which to live. Individual happiness is not necessarily
measured in material goods and if the pace of economic activity would
decrease, more attention would be focused on the individual happiness and
distribution. Mill found reprehensible the "trampling, crushing, elbowing". A
slowing of population growth will increase per capita income and will reduce
population density. Growing population had made it difficult for people to
find solitude or to enjoy the beauty of nature. Mill hoped that the stationary
state would result in an improvement in the art of living, which, he believed,
had a stronger "likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be
engrossed by the art of getting on". "I am not charmed", Mill remarks, "with
the idea of life held out by those who think that normal state of human
beings is that of struggling to get on". The just distribution of wealth will
modify habits, so men could devote themselves to the development of their
higher capacities.
Only land has the privilege of increasing regularly its value for natural
reasons. The agricultural worker can avoid dependence turning into owner.
But capital diminishes in value with the progress of society. The craftsman
makes a negligible part of a vast organization, and his wages are a fund
that can be affected by economic changes he ignores. He cannot expect
that he will obtain a larger portion of wealth by being prudent. A population
dependent on wages will always increase unless legal restrictions or any
custom that "slowly shapes their conduct" will put a brake on it. This is altogether contrary to Smiths idea of economic growth as the only way of creating hopefulness through the image of wealth.
7- Conclusion
John Stuart Mill, after accepting the scientific validity of a coherent
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system established by Adam Smith in his youth, was incapable, due to his
utilitarianism, of seeing the demarcation line to maintain this coherence
confronting theoretical and practical tensions. His doctrine incorporated
conflicting dogmas, a clash that is especially surprising with regard to his
evaluation of competition: in principle, competition generates self-command
and growth; finally, it makes us unprotected against the extreme need and
that could lead us to a negative demoralizer process for workers, be it from
the social point of view as from the economic one. At first, he was based on
individualistic theories; finally, he adopted not only the socialism, but a
version of socialism open to the objections on which he himself insisted
along his work. Mill, more that a follower of Malthus, was a follower of
William Godwin and Condorcet, authors who, precisely, Malthus was
criticizing in his Essays. His intellectual and utilitarian basis, along with his
elitism, led him to defend a social engineering that was trying to transform
human habits and in this sense it is very near to Socialists theories or
German historicism, contemporary to Mill.
Mill's theory, with regard to the agrarian question, is an inference of
the principle of population and that of conductism. New institutions of
property, says Mill, can transform habits and then the horizon opens for the
absolute Utopia and perfectibility. He affirmed that private property principle
had never been tried in any country and that the inequalities created made
the right of property of land a chimera. The rich landowners are not
harbingers of poverty, but they cannot claim a "right" on their wealth, which
they obtain while sleeping. It is the development of society that has made
their wealth possible, the product of present and past work, and of other
generations who have preserved thanks to their abstinence what they could
have consumed. Therefore, society, in last instance, can claim property on
the real estate and, so, this must be established on the basis of "common
good ".
The whole of Mill's theory, therefore, was intended to transform
institutions so as to achieve the Utopian end that would place us in the
stationary state. Then, equality of property and of opportunities would
enable men to develop their capacities and to enjoy higher pleasures. They
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8- References
Bagehot, Walter (1848), Principles of Political Economy, with some of their
applications to Social Philosophy. By J. S. Mill. The Prospective
Review, vol. IV, 16, pp. 460- 502.
Barber, William J. (1969), "James Mill and the Theory of Economic Policy in
India", History of Political Economy, vol. 1, n. 1 (primavera), pp.
85-100.
Cairnes, John E. (1874), Some Leading Principles of Political Economy
newly Expounded, London, Macmillan and Co.
Ekelund, Robert B. y Hbert, Robert F. (1992), Historia de la Teora
Econmica y de su Mtodo, Madrid, McGraw-Hill.
Escamilla Castillo, Manuel (ed) (2004), John Stuart Mill y las fronteras del
liberalismo, Granada, Universidad de Granada.
Jones, Richard (1831), An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the
Sources of Taxation, London, John Murray.
Kydd, Samuel [Alfred] (1857), The History of the Factory Movement From
the Year, 1802, to the Enactment of the Ten Hours Bill in 1847,
London, Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
Levin, Michael (2004), Mill on Civilization and Barbarism, London y New
York, Routledge.
Marx, Karl (1981a), "La nacionalizacin de la tierra" [The International
Herald, 15.VI.1872], Obras Escogidas, vol. II, Mosc, Progreso,
pp. 305-308.
Michelet, Jules (1845), History of France, from the Earliest Period to the
Present Time, New York , Appleton.
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95
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113-118.
Rodrguez Braun, Carlos (1989), La cuestin colonial y la economa
clsica, Madrid, Alianza.
Sismondi, Jean-Charles-Lonard (1827), Nouveaux principes dconomie
politique, Paris, Calmann-Lvy, 1971.
Schwartz, Pedro (1968), La "Nueva Economa Poltica" de John Stuart Mill,
Madrid, Tecnos.
Screpanti, Ernesto y Zamagni, Stefano (1997), Panorama de historia del
pensamiento econmico, Barcelona, Ariel.
Smith, Adam (1988), Investigacin sobre la Naturaleza y Causas de la
Riqueza de las Naciones, Vilassar de Mar (Barcelona), 2 vols,
Oikus Tau.
Stephen, Leslie, Sir (1900), The English Utilitarians, New York, London,
Edinburgh, G.P. Putnams Sons, 3 volmenes.
The North American Review (1848), Review on "Mill`s Political Economy:
Population and Property", vol 67, n 141, pp 370-420 (University of
Northern Iowa).
Thornton, William T. (1874) [1848], A Plea for Peasant Proprietors, with the
Outlines of a Plan for their Establishment in Ireland, London, J.
Murray and Co.
Trincado, Estrella (2003), "La escuela clsica (IV): John Stuart Mill",
Historia del Pensamiento Econmico, Madrid, Editorial Sntesis,
pp. 201-229.
(2004), "Equity, utility and transaction costs: On the origin of the
judicial power in Adam Smith", Storia del Pensiero Economico,vol
1, issue of the new series, pp. 33-51
(2006), "Adam Smith criticism of the doctrine of utility: a theory of
the Creative Present", Montes, Leonidas y Schliesser, Eric, New
Voices on Adam Smith, New York and London, Routledge, pp.
313-327.
(2008), "John Stuart Mill: punto de inflexin entre los clsicos y los
neoclsicos", Ruiz Resa, J. D. (ed), John Stuart Mill y la
democracia del siglo XXI, Madrid, Dykinson.
believers and their faiths and states that a demand for respect for the
person of the believer does not imply a demand for respect for their faith.
However, being 'respect' a complex and ambiguous notion, the article
studies some arguments that go in the direction of justifying the move from
respect for persons to respect for their beliefs. According to Habermas,
there is a respect citizens of a democracy owe each other that requires
taking each other's opinions seriously, including their religiously motivated
opinions. What is more, Habermas claims that we all have something to
learn from each other. The articles argues against this line of thought and
states there is no obligation to respect anything about people's moral
claims except their right to make them. The article argues against
Habermas's approach by showing its epistemological and ontological
inconsistency and concludes that respect for persons as moral reasongivers or as fellow-citizens does not lead to any substantial respect for the
contents of their claims.
Keywords: respect, secular citizens vs. religious citizens, Habermas,
religion.
Resumen: El artculo aborda la cuestin del respeto que se debe a los
creyentes y sus creencias y afirma que la demanda de respeto por la
persona del creyente no implica una demanda de respeto por su fe. Sin
embargo, al ser el "respeto" una nocin compleja y ambigua, el artculo
analiza algunos de los argumentos que van en la direccin de justificar el
desplazamiento del respeto a las personas al respeto por sus creencias.
Segn Habermas, hay un respeto que los ciudadanos de una democracia
se deben entre s que requiere tomar las opiniones del otro en serio,
incluyendo sus opiniones religiosas. Y an ms, Habermas afirma que
todos tenemos algo que aprender unos de otros. El artculo se opone a
esta lnea de pensamiento y afirma que no hay obligacin de respetar nada
acerca de las afirmaciones morales de las personas, salvo su derecho a
hacerlas. El artculo argumenta en contra de enfoque de Habermas,
mostrando su inconsistencia epistemolgica y ontolgica, y concluye que el
respeto a las personas como sujetos capaces de dar razones morales o
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respect," as Blackburn puts it, is slick but slanted. We have the anxious
thought that [A] disrespect for a person's religious belief entails disrespect
for the person; after all, unlike many other manners of belief, religious belief
seems to reflects on the person and character of the believer we can take
believers' word for this as they assert their sincere faith is central to who
they are. Then we have the praiseworthy thought that we owe persons a
baseline respect. So we shouldn't disrespect people's faith; [B] respect for
the person entails respect for their religious belief.
I do think [A] is true and so I agree people have reason to feel
personally aggrieved if you dismiss their beliefs as foolishness or
regressive (even if ever so politely). But trying to resist disrespect for the
person whose beliefs you deplore entails an unreasonable psychological
burden. Of course, there are exculpatory circumstances, for instance,
culturally ingrained ignorance or prejudice, but that's the point, exculpation
is appropriate. Suppose you are a secularist who cannot help but be wary
of fundamentalist willingness to codify religious sentiment into law; you
must see this not only as an intellectual mistake but also a moral flaw,
perhaps a failing of character. Or the skeptic may find the dogma of the
devout foolish and find the devout culpable for it; and so on. The religionist
may find the secularist's 'relativism' morally lukewarm about values the law
should revere and fervently protect; the devout may chide or pity the
skeptic's modernist lack of moorings. It hardly seems reasonable to forbid
people their sentiments of mutual abhorrence; it's not psychologically
possible except at the price of nearly inhuman self-overcoming or human,
all-too human bad faith.
Moreover, unpleasant as it is, it is not wrong to cause this injury,
aggrievement at your disdain for them for their beliefs; no one is owed this
kind of respect, no one is shielded from this disdain. (Of course, expressing
it is another matter2.) The problem is that 'respect' is a complex and
2 The mere fact that any prudent man finds it necessary to conceal a good part
of his thoughts makes it clear enough that every member of our race is well
advised to be on his guard and not to reveal himself completely. Kant,
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, p. 192.
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ambiguous notion, one must attend carefully to its registers. We can see
this by looking at some arguments that go in the direction of justifying the
move from respect for persons to respect for their beliefs which I want to
address here.
I want to look at the following theses which structure the paper.
(1) There is what I call the Habermas/Darwall line that respecting
persons entails respecting the moral claims they make, perhaps this would
bring us a step closer to having to respect the moral content of their
religious beliefs too. The trouble is, it's wrong; there is no obligation to
respect anything about people's moral claims except their right to make
them.
(2) Habermas has fielded an interesting argument that there is a
respect citizens of a democracy owe each other that requires taking each
other's opinions seriously, including their religiously motivated opinions. I
think this goes too far as a requirement even if it an attractive moral ideal of
deliberative democracy.
(3) Habermas has extended this line to the suggestion that secular
citizens must take religious opinions seriously even to the point of being
prepared to learn from them. The trouble with this idea is the sense in
which it is right is trivial, and the sense in which it is not trivial conflicts, I
think, with Habermas's own meta-ethical views.
I will look at (1) and (2) in the immediately following sections of the
paper and (3) gets addressed in the two sections on sources of
ambivalence. The upshot is, You can't get there from here. I don't see
how respect for persons as moral reason-givers or as fellow-citizens leads
to any substantial respect for their actual opinions or even for them as
individuals. And though there may be a route that leads to the hypothesis
that the non-religious have something to learn from the religious, I think
Habermas's own theoretical premises bar him from it.
102
103
standing to raise moral claims are right. What have we gained? Respect for
people in the sense of respecting their standing to raise moral claims is
perfectly consistent with contempt for them and for their views, indeed, in
one sense, it is a precondition of it. Moral contempt only makes sense as
aimed at persons so, accepting the Darwall/Habermas line, moral contempt
only makes sense as aimed at beings who have 'standing'. It is what they
say (and do) in that standing that merits our disfavor.
Consider that the fact that I am obligated to take seriously a claim
does not imply that I am obligated to accept it. I may find the claim
unjustified in many serious ways. Habermas's discourse ethics lays down
the obligation to justify one's claims but it is relatively silent about what
happens when this justification fails. To use Darwall's example, as I press
my heavy foot on your tender toe, I may seriously consider your claim that I
should (morally speaking) cease and desist -- and reject it. I have satisfied
this elementary duty of respect. We obviously need to know a lot more: we
need to know what counts as good or bad justification. (In addition, to have
practical effect, we have to agree about the duty.) The structure of basic
respect sheds no light on the acceptability of the content of the claims.
So the Darwall/Habermas approach yields a very thin concept of
respect5. It only seems to have more motive force because one imagines
some moral background conditions. For instance and especially one
imagines that one is addressing people one considers worthy on other
grounds than the mere fact they have the moral standing to express moral
opinions. One imagines they are not simply benighted, one imagines there
is plausibility in what they say, etc. etc.
So there is a breach between respecting people persons, respecting
them as good persons, and respecting their views and beliefs. Perhaps we
can go further if we fill in some background conditions. The 'Mosque'
5 Still this is not nothing: it establishes that persons have the status to express
their opinions and, other things being equal, to live according to them. (Some
students of Habermas want to add positive duties to support others' will to live
according to their opinions, the so-called Prinzip der Betroffenheit.) Other
things being equal. Therein lies the rub. In the cases that matter, they are not
equal.
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either.
Democratic principle does not require approval of the content of each
others' beliefs, it does not require agreement in beliefs. Secularists may as
happily reject belief in the resurrection of Jesus as Christians affirm it, both
in complete compliance with democratic principle. Of course, Habermas
knows this. The key to Habermas's defense of, and qualified advocacy for,
religious belief lies in his drawing a distinction which Blackburn also draws
but to contrary purpose: they distinguish the content of religious assertion
from the attitudes the assertions evince. Habermas puts the gravamen of
religious expression not in the assertion of fact about the world but
expression of attitudes towards the world and our place in it.
Onto-theology is the view that religious language purports to be about
actual facts and actual entities such as that there is actually is non-material
person, a 'Supreme Being', who creates the world and providentially guides
our history, rewarding the just and punishing the unjust 7. The intellectual
expression of this ontologically based faith is natural theology with its long
tradition extending from the Church Fathers over Anselm and Aquinas to
Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, William Lane Craig and others, who field
sophisticated arguments designed to prove, or at least establish the
reasonableness of belief in, the existence of this being.
Against this, expressivist theology8 claims religious language is not
7 Blackburn introduces the term on page 183 of his Religion and Respect essay
and while he says it is the done thing to distinguish between theology and
'ontotheology', he doesn't cite any specific sources. He may have Heidegger
and Derrida in mind. It is not a foregone conclusion in some quarters that there
really is such a thing as religious belief. I don't think Wittgenstein thought the
religious believe in 'religious facts'; Georges Rey argues that is the religious no
more have 'beliefs' about God than we have 'beliefs' about Hamlet or Jane
Eyre. (Georges 2001) I assume here religious people do literally believe what
they say they literally believe. Thanks to Mark Wunderlich for awakening to
some problems of belief-attribution.
8 The term doesn't refer to ordinary believers' view of their faith, they tend to be
ontotheologians, maintains Blackburn, and I concur; imagine convincing an
ordinary Christian that Jesus's bones were excavated in a crypt in Palestine: I
doubt they would brush this refutation of the Resurrection with the reflection that
the Resurrection was anyway just metaphor and allegory for eschatological
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to address two of them which are closely related, they have to do with the
epistemological and ontological constraints of his theorizing.
4- Ambivalence in Epistemology
One source of ambivalence arises from a dilemma engendered by the
notion of 'translation'. Habermas's apologia for religious belief involves the
notion of translating what he calls its cognitive content into appropriately
secular language. For instance, the figure of the relationship between
Creator and Creature gets translated into the language of equality of the
person of the parents and their children. Now if this is a translation of a
religious insight into a secular insight, then it is unclear what is specifically
religious about it. The special 'categorical' status of the values expressed in
the religious figure can be expressed in secular language. Blackburn, the
atheist, also holds the night sky 'sacred'; secular-minded scientists consider
the integrity of research 'sacred', the non-religious judge may hold the law
'sacred'. Blackburn's 'second-order' pieties for the human pieties mentioned
above are not religious per se nor are the first-order pieties of which he
speaks. They are human piety for human matters. Habermas must answer
what is there to learn from a religious casting of values which cannot
otherwise be accessed in secular terms.
This dilemma of translation of course is not to deny that secular
citizens can learn from their religious fellow citizens. As mentioned before,
and trivially, they can learn what their religious co-citizens want to say and
what they are willing to permit as matters of public policy and morality.
More interestingly, their religious compatriots may recall them to values that
are neglected in the secular sphere. One thinks of the biblical intonation
and prophetic gestus of Martin Luther King recalling Americans to the
meaning of 'equality under the law' in ways more likely to stir a nation than
volumes of Rawls. But this is not adding to secular values, it is motivating
them in an effective manner. It marks the line Kierkegaard draws
separating the Socratic anamnesis or recollection from the distinctive
claims of faith and revelation.
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5- Ambivalence in Ontology
Blackburn's expressivist interpretation of theology parallels and
contrasts with his expressivist interpretation of ethical discourse with the
difference that while rejecting expressivism in theology, he endorses it in
meta-ethics. On the surface ethical judgments look like fact-stating
propositions ascribing, for instance, the property of 'wrongness' to acts of
cruelty. But this is a misreading of their actual function; Cruelty is wrong
does not state a fact, it expresses an attitude of disapproval. This does not
mean that moral judgments are arbitrary as the idea stated by x is wrong
(merely) because we disapprove of it itself expresses a moral attitude, an
attitude, Blackburn says, we generally strongly disapprove of. You might
call it a 'second-order impiety'. We deplore attitudes that equate moral
attitudes to individual whimsy or idiosyncratic preference. We feel it is
morally unacceptable, people shouldn't (morally speaking) think of morality
that way because it doesn't take the business of morality seriously enough,
not because there are moral facts underlying our judgments.
Similarly, Habermas treats ethical judgments as ways of expressing
attitudes, in his case, attitudes urging others, with greater or lesser force, to
act according to desire or principle. Ethical judgments are wahrheits-analog
in the sense that their syntax is analogous to the syntax of truth-stating
propositions. But this should not mistake their illocutionary force which
defines their real function. Nor does Habermas's prescriptionism mean that
moral judgments are arbitrary or 'relative' since they can attain impersonal
validity if our attitudes converge or rather would converge given sufficient
information, good will and emotional and cognitive acuity.
A common thread binding Habermas and Blackburn is the insistence
that we determine right or wrong, by complex and mostly inarticulate
schemes of coordination and reflection 13. This brings us to the second point
13 In commenting on the 'narrative of secularity' Charles Taylor writes, What is
striking about it is the claim to issue the norms we live by on our own authority.
This thought can set off a tremor, a frisson in us, as we sense how much we are
defying an age-old sense of higher, more-than-human authority; and the
courage we need to take it up. (Taylor 581) Taylor believes it can also lead to
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the religious are talking about, [W]e have to be aware of how believers and
unbelievers can experience their world very differently. The sense that
fullness is to be found in something beyond us can break in on us as a fact
of experience [], says Taylor19 (Taylor 14). The marketing fanatic has to
break out of the one-dimensionality of his frame of 'instrumental reason';
the secularist would have to break out of the flatness (all horizontal, no
vertical dimension) of the 'immanent frame' according to which the different
structures we live in: scientific, social, technological, and so on, are part of
a 'natural', or 'this-worldly' order which can be understood in its own terms,
without reference to the 'supernatural' or 'transcendent'. (Taylor 594). That
means the secularist would have to be open to the possibility that theism
may be true, and open to the possibility of the real existence and power of
the 'transcendent', in a word, open to God.
To be fair, there are passages where Habermas seems to consider
this option. For instance in a pregnant passage he refers to the irruption of
the 'extraordinary within the everyday' ('Ausseralltgliches im Alltag') which
resists translation into the secular discourse of philosophy. 20 I am not sure
how to interpret this passage but I think it supports my point that there is no
19 Taylor defines 'religion' in terms of the distinction transcendent/immanent where
the 'transcendent' for Taylor as a believer is the God of Abraham (Taylor 769);
fullness refers a sense of meaning beyond the ordinary and immanent (Taylor
5-12 et passim). The idea religious belief is a matter of experience has a long
parentage; contemporary thinkers insisting on this include Plantinga who
maintains properly basic beliefs can include belief in God, and Alston who
argues God can be an element of experience and perception.
20 Die ihrer Weltbildfunktion weitgehend beraubte Religion ist, von auen
betrachtet, nach wie vor unersetzlich fr den normalisierenden Umgang mit
dem Aueralltglichen im Alltag. Deshalb koexistiert auch das
nachmetaphysische Denken noch mit einer religisen Praxis. [] Die
fortbestehende Koexistenz beleuchtet sogar eine merkwrdige Abhngigkeit
einer Philosophie, die ihren Kontakt mit dem Aueralltglichen eingebt hat.
Solange die religise Sprache inspirierende, ja unaufgebbare semantische
Gehalte mit sich fhrt, die sich der Ausdruckskraft einer philosophischen
Sprache (vorerst?) entziehen und der bersetzung in begrndende Diskurse
noch harren, wird Philosophie auch in ihrer nachmetaphysischen Gestalt
Religion weder ersetzen noch verdrngen knnen. J. Habermas, Motive
Nachmetaphysischen Denkens, in: Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 60.
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7- Bibliography
Blackburn, Simon (2007), Religion and Respect, Philosophers Without
Gods, edited by Louise Antony. OUP.
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Es justificable el nacionalismo
deportivo?*
Is Sport Nationalism Justifiable?
JOS LUIS PREZ TRIVIO
Universidad Pompeu Fabra
jose.perez@upf.edu
Resumen: El artculo se ocupa de esclarecer las profundas relaciones que se
establecen entre el deporte y el nacionalismo, atendiendo, entre otros factores, a
la instrumentalizacin del deporte por parte de las lites polticas, la apata poltica
ciudadana, los recursos econmicos destinados al deporte, la cuestin de la
violencia o los rasgos identitarios. Con el fin de delimitar si es justificable la
conjuncin de factores deportivos y nacionalistas, se define el concepto
nacionalismo deportivo y se distingue el uso poltico del deporte con fines de
poltica exterior e interior. En el primer apartado el anlisis se centra en determinar
si puede establecerse un vnculo de causalidad con respecto a la contribucin a la
violencia y en lo que concierne al uso en la poltica interior de un Estado se
diferencia entre circunstancias polticas normales y de crisis para abordar la
cuestin de si hay fundamentos suficientes para afirmar que el deporte puede
distraer a la poblacin de la reivindicacin de sus autnticos intereses.
Palabras clave: nacionalismo deportivo, deporte y Estado, uso poltico del
deporte, deporte y violencia, deporte e identidad.
Abstract: The article aims to clarify the deep relationships established between
sport and nationalism by considering, among other factors, the instrumentalisation
of sport by political elites, political apathy of citizens, economic resources for sport,
the question of violence or identitarian matters. In order to define if the combination
of sport and nationalism is admissible, the paper defines sport nationalism and
distinguishes the political use of sport for purposes of domestic and foreign policy.
In the first section the analysis focuses on whether a causal link with respect to the
contribution to violence can be established and with respect to its use in the
internal politics of a state, the paper differentiates between normal political
circumstances and political crises in order to properly address the question of
whether there are grounds to assert that sport can distract citizens from asserting
their genuine interests.
Keywords: sport nationalism, sport and State, sport and violence, sport and
identity.
Este texto corresponde a uno de los captulos del libro del mismo autor, tica y
deporte, Descle De Brouwer, Bilbao, 2011.
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1- Introduccin
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3- Conclusiones
A lo largo de este trabajo he analizado las diversas formas de
relacin entre el deporte y el nacionalismo. No cabe duda de que dada la
importancia del deporte en el imaginario colectivo de nuestras sociedades,
ha habido una constante instrumentalizacin de ste por parte de las lites
polticas. La cuestin es si toda manifestacin de nacionalismo deportivo
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4- Referencias bibliogrficas
Aguilera, A. (1992), Estado y deporte, Granada, ed. Comares.
Bairner, A. (2001), Sport, nationalism, and globalization, Albany, State
University of New York.
Brohm, J.M. (1982), Sociologa poltica del deporte, Mxico, FCE.
Cagigal, J.M. (1990), Deporte y agresin, Madrid, Alianza Deporte.
Dixon, N. (2000), "A justification of moderate patriotism in Sport", Tnnsj,
T.-Tamburrini, C.M. (2000): Values in Sport. Elitism, nationalism,
gender equality and the scientific manufacturing of winners,
Londres-New York, E&FN Spon (Routledge).
(2007), "The Ethics of Supporting Sport Teams", Morgan, W. (ed).
Ethics in Sport, Human Kinetics, Champaign IL.
Cazorla Prieto, L.M. (1979), Deporte y Estado, Madrid, Politeia.
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Envo de
Originales
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Poltica Editorial
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Envo de originales
1. Todos los artculos debern ser originales, inditos y no deben
estar en curso de publicacin.
2. Los trabajos habrn de enviarse por correo electrnico a
editorial@lastorresdelucca.org, como archivo adjunto annimo y
con los datos de identidad en el cuerpo del mensaje.
3. Los archivos debern presentarse en formato OpenOffice, Microsoft
Word o cualquier otro software que cumpla con las caractersticas
del Formato Documento Abierto para Aplicaciones Ofimticas.
4. La extensin mxima de los artculos es de 15000 palabras (aprox.
30 pginas) y las recensiones de 2500 palabras (aprox. 4 pginas).
5. Asimismo, debern incluir resumen (mximo, 200 palabras) y
trminos clave en espaol e ingls.
6. La citacin en el cuerpo del artculo debe hacerse segn el modelo:
(Gauthier 1986, 12).
7. La bibliografa habr de presentarse segn el modelo:
Libros: Gauthier, David (1986), Morals by Agreement, Oxford,
Clarendon.
Artculos de revistas: Gauthier, David (1982), Three against
Justice: The Foole, the Sensible Knave and the Lydian Shepherd,
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 7.
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manera indicada; 4 no enviar el trabajo en el soporte requerido.
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3. Todos los artculos sern arbitrados por evaluadores externos.
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5. Tras la evaluacin, si fuera necesario, los autores recibirn
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