Three constituting values

‘Values’ is the most general way in which I speak about the three parts of modern cultural identity. But they are only sometimes found in the wild as ‘values’. Persons variously experience and enact these values as nomoi, dogmas, first principles, ethics, and virtues. Tracking modern cultural identity will thus be a kind of ‘art of fugue’ in which the impersonal elements of the modern trinity reappear in different forms and manifesting various aspects when subjected, in turn, to being viewed under different lenses or in different conditions. Like the Trinity of old, sometimes I will look at them in their ‘economy’, active in the world, and at other times in their ‘essence’, as concepts of values.

These three values are chiefly claims about the individual human person, the self, and by implication about others and the political community itself. They can provide the beginnings of modern ethical reasoning at multiple levels: the individual, societal, or political. One can, say, write a new constitution by beginning with universal equality, moving to personal autonomy, and ensuring that consensual obligations are the go-to form of moral obligation between such autonomous equals. One could, similarly, work out an ethics, how to act, in a world of autonomous persons just as oneself, moving toward idealizing consensual relations among equals as the fulfilment of its grounding ethic. In either case, and no matter with which value one begins, it would be hard to avoid bringing the other values to bear on the project. When one imagines the world made in the image of one, the others are swiftly come upon, and make sense, for they seem to complement each other, and to stand in want of each other. Without the other values to fill them in or tie them down, they remain shells of themselves or get carried away with themselves.

In fact, consent, equality, and autonomy, as defined below, imply each other to such a degree that they create a ‘metaphysical dream of the world’. Richard Weaver’s famous phrase was about nominalist constructs of the world that supplant realistic metaphysics, but it can equally be applied to modern values. As he says, ‘[m]an created in the divine image, the protagonist of a great drama in which his soul was at stake, was replaced by man the wealth-seeking and consuming animal.’1 _{Inhabiting this dream of the world,} one can ‘be modern’, have modern hopes and dreams, envision a modern

39 heaven, with a modern, voluntaristic Hell, and so forth. One can believe in a modern ‘God’ who respects individual choice, so much that any evil is explicable based on that sincere respect for our authenticity. Such modern theodicy is based in the anthropology of freedom, that is, in personal autonomy and consensual obligations. God would never want anyone in heaven who really did not want to be there and had not freely chosen it (although this new theology rarely extends universal equality to include God as first among equals; God does, however, function as author and referee, ensure universal equality by having created us all as ‘brothers and sisters’ and working out this brotherhood in charity, which sees no distinctions of status). It has been said that ‘only by imagination can the world be known’, but there are many ways of imagining. And the modern moral imaginary lopes on to another field of enquiry, moving through its dream world as if it were the real world. It has made its dream world into the modern man-world.

Consent, equality & autonomy, briefly defined

Following some recent thinkers such as Hart and Rawls, I concede that concepts and conceptions can be usefully distinguished. Concepts are abstract notions that can be filled out by many different conceptions, that is by different content. For instance, the concept of autonomy as self- determination is present in many conceptions of autonomous life: liberal, existential, romantic, post-modern, even Thomistic.2 _{Immediately below I} describe the concept. Then in the chapters that follow I illustrate the conception that typifies the modern value

Consent

There is no perfect word for the many denotations and connotations of ‘consent’ as a value. Each also assumes a myriad of relations and states that need mentioning in order for consent to be ordered properly. I demur from a full definition of the value, and for now restrict myself to its doctrinal statement in ‘consensualism’. ‘Consensualism’ teaches that agreement of some kind needs to be given, preferably by clear, external signs of the persons concerned, before moral obligation arises for those concerned. Thomas Hobbes was the first to announce the consensual nature of all moral obligations: ‘there being no obligation on any man which ariseth not from

40 some act of his own; for all men equally are by nature free’, and moderns followed his lead.3 _{Consensualism is the prejudice against inherited} obligations, which could have been based either on the individual history of the person (son of so-and-so who was bankrupt, and so now you have [moral] debt), or on status (since you are female, you bear some moral obligation to procreate). Rather, the signal consent of the person is the source and (the chief) cause of all legitimate moral obligations. It should go without saying that the existence of self-direction—understanding oneself both as a self among other selves (namely, as a person), and directing oneself as such a self—is a prerequisite for consent. Autonomy in the descriptive sense is required for consensualism.

Sometimes the sign of consent can be the conspicuous absence thereof, such as the principle in contract law that ‘silence implies consent’.4 _If someone takes your hand and walks into battle with you, it is assumed that you’re going along is as much a sign as one needs that you are a compatriot. In private relations, consent could be as simple as a ‘yes’ to a question, suggestion, gesture, or meaningful silence. In politics, consent often involves enfranchisement, and seeking the will of the people through their votes. In international relations it is the forging of peaceful affairs (or even orderly war, e.g. a temporary non-aggression pact) by the signing of treaties between equal parties that brings about international agreements.

In all such cases, the tendency is to think that power exercised over any person, natural or corporate, is only legitimate if consented to, whether in a perfect form when formal consent is gained, or less perfectly when informal consent is gained. It is a contractarian approach to moral obligation. It stands against any ideas that, within nature or before negotiations begin, there are already prior obligations.

Sources of non-consensual moral obligation once were thought to be the natural law, or inherited status within society, or from God, from facts such as biology or those accessible by way of reason, say, according to a principle of the Good. Or they were thought to arise from any other means of acquiring an obligation, aside from consensual means. That would include that which the law called delict or tort, where obligation is based in harm caused, whether intentional or not. Consensualism precludes moral obligations arising from mistake or error, or without intention; and neither

3 _{Leviathan (1651), XXI ‘On the Liberty of Subjects’.}

41 from history, status, society, family, God, nature, culture, or law.5 _Obligations must be intended; such intentions must be chosen; such choices must be indicated by signs (or the meaningful lack thereof). And all must be done only by a person that is considered compos mentis, a cornerstone of what is meant by autonomy. None are to be set below others a priori of consenting to their lower position. So, there is a presumption of natural equality of moral status.

As the chapter below, ‘What is it like to be consensual?’, details, the relevant opposite of consensualism is an understanding of inherited and ascribed obligations. Ascriptive obligations can arise from many sources, and they can similarly be justified by many means; in both cases, the self is not the source either of the obligations or of their justification. A concept such as

noblesse oblige is a case in point. It is only said, in its true meaning, of those who have a privilege that they did not choose for themselves. As a result, some form of perfect or imperfect moral obligation arises for them. It does not arise from personal dealings as say, Suzy van Liechtenstein, but rather from Suzy being an instance of a kind, the aristocracy, which has enjoyed benefits and is not enjoined to benefit others.

Equality

As a value, equality, like consent, is difficult to discuss without involving far too much in the conversation—much that is external to equality—and thus saying very little of use. One could talk of equality of welfare, of resources, of liberty, political equality, equality and capability, equality and the good life, etc.6 _{Equalitarianism is an ugly word for the sense of equality that I am} spelling out here. I locate this levelling impulse at the centre of moral life of modern persons. But it is not at a centre that functions like a magnet with a magnetic field. Rather, it is at the centre like a strategy for victory is at the centre of a military campaign. It requires other actors to judge its proper implementation, and to manifest it, while it always remains an ideal, as the plan for victory does, no matter the outcome of the campaign.

5 _{This has been the most residual of the ancient notions of non-consensual moral obligations. Say I}

learn that I ran over a child playing in my field with my tractor. He was hiding and there was no way to see him. He dies. I decide not to apologize to the family, insisting that ‘it was an accident’. Very few modern persons would imagine that my lack of consent to the deed removes my moral obligation to offer help to the aggrieved. Even if it is hard to say just what I must do. Doing nothing is still a moral failure based in a social obligation, and ultimately deriving from some intentional action: I chose to harvest the field when I could have done anything else.

6 _{All are chapter titles in the ‘Theory’ section of Ronald Dworkin’s Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and}

42 ‘Equality’, as a value, is the universally-valid principle (think: principium7₎

that there is nothing a priori setting one person8 _{over another.}9 _{Meaning that} neither political, nor moral, nor social, nor theological, nor natural, nor name your area, nothing that prejudices us to favour one over another can find a home in our moral dealings. Moral inequality is denied by disconnecting equality from any sense of natural merit.10

Setting aside certain physical and developmental facts, such as that children, because of their weakness and extended period of development, cannot yet participate in all of the rights and privileges of equality, all are equal in dignity (status). And setting aside the fact that some faculties and capacities are distributed differently by the lot of birth (think of ambulatory skills and mathematical acumen), all are equal in moral consideration. Those differences should be mitigated as much as possible to return to some approximation of the purported ‘natural’ status quo ante of (near) equality.

That, according to moderns, was the condition ‘then’, and ‘before’, but before what? Before ‘now’, namely, the present time when things are always

unequal in unjust ways. This is a normative claim that sets the moral bearings

7 _{‘For principle, adequately conceived, is not merely a matter of general normative propositions; more}

fundamentally, it retains its connotative link to principium, a starting point and source. And the source of normativity, in legal or moral schemes of right, is value, purpose, point—in short, common good.’ John Finnis, ‘Nationality and Alienage’ (2013 [2011]).

8 _{The limitation to persons is being breached in favour of a broad sense of ‘universal’: See www.}

AnimalEquality.org.uk. The reasons for this also relate to sentience, and (those to) autonomy. Sentient beings are being denied something by our industrial use of them that we owe them as sentient beings: not only autonomy of body, which would remain unmolested by us, but also integrity of their ‘narrative’, that is, their self-direction and self-authorship. See chapter ‘What is it like to be autonomous?’ below. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, esp. ‘All animals are equal’, 1-25, using utilitarian rather than deontological reasons, says we owe them everything we owe ourselves (as ‘persons’), relative to relevant circumstances: ‘the ethical principle on which human equality rests requires us to extend equal consideration to animals too’.

9 _{Ronald Dworkin speaks of ‘the principle of equal importance’, which although ill-defined, amounts}

to a similar statement of liberal apriori non-distinction. Sovereign Virtue, 5-6.

10 _{Often following Rousseau in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1992[1755]), wherein he}

recognizes the undeniable, namely, that natural inequalities exist. He then proceeds to discount the necessary relation of natural inequalities to the inequalities found in every human society. He purports that the latter were originally—mistaken and harmful—extensions of the former from nature to culture. Those cultures transmuted insignificant and perhaps surmountable differences in natural capacity or endowment into sundry statuses, distinctions, divisions between and among men. Many of these cultural constructs (my word, not his) then became heritable as honourable or dishonourable classes, such as ‘rich’ and ‘poor’. As cultural artefacts they seem to be intractable, unless a new political order is constructed based on a correct, naturalistic anthropology. As Rousseau says in the opening lines of Emile (1979 [1762]): The Author of Nature ‘makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil.’

43 away from ‘here and now’—or ‘then’ and ‘there’—and toward the future, which should be a less unequal order and ordering of the world. It is also the anthropological claim that ‘man is originally good, society corrupts’.11 _None meriting unequal treatment, all thus deserve equal moral consideration.

That is, unless there are good reasons standing against it, hopefully reasons relating to increasing universal equality.12 _{Those who cannot (yet)} function amongst other equals are entitled to protections and/or education and removal of handicaps insofar as possible for (the sake of) approaching real (moral) equality. In a given community that is dedicated to universal equality, it is not hard to justify the removal of impediments to equality by means of curbing the liberties—or equal access to certain liberties—of others.

Equality is also a principle of political justice. It states that there is not an

a priori better distribution of goods or services, honours or rewards, than equal distribution. Furthermore, reason must be given for betraying equal distribution. That reasoning cannot fly in the face of the value of equal moral consideration. It could be a reason that is inequalitarian in its means but equalitarian in its (purported) ends.

Equality does not require autonomy or consensualism in order to be what it is as a value. However, its tendency is to take over the discourse and snuff out other considerations. Consensualism saves autonomy from imposing too much of itself as moral obligations on those seeking a more egalitarian way of life. Autonomy, however, provides equality with its much-needed content, the identity of the goods which it is meant to equalize.

As the chapter below, ‘What is it like to be equal?’, details, the relevant opposite of universal equality is an understanding of status, which then involves ‘likes being treated alike’ and ‘unlikes being treated unlike’. ‘Proportional equality’ carries with it no conceit such as ‘all men are created equal’. However, it does affirm a shared humanity, ‘all men are created human’. That is the only reason that they can be measured on a scale of more or less likeness. Dogs and human beings are incommensurate, just as rocks and men are incommensurate. Man and man are commensurate, no matter how different. Included here in ‘man’ is always woman, for men have usually been generous in the universal application of their collective pronouns.

11 _{A paraphrase of Rousseau’s repeated doctrine. Concerning the moral education of children, he says}

‘A child is naturally inclined to benevolence… [.] …what makes man essentially good is to have few needs and to compare himself little to others; what makes him essentially wicked is to have many needs and to depend very much on opinion [of others].’ Emile, 213-214.

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Autonomy

Autonomy is the most fraught of the three values, the most contentious, and the most important. The autonomous person is the inscrutable, metaphysical anchor of the egalitarian constitution. For, in its billions of subsisting forms—living persons—it provides the content and reason for all egalitarian action in the world. This brief attempt at defining the value will be a grab-bag of ideas that are later sorted and explained, first regarding the core concept, in the chapter on what it is like to be autonomous, and then in terms of the favoured modern conception in the chapter on being an end in oneself.

‘Autonomy’ means that one is ‘self-sovereign’. But what does that mean? Originally autonomy was ‘a right assumed by states to administer their own affairs’.13 _{It was about the quintessential secular corporate person. The term} was lately applied to natural persons in more or less the same meaning. But autonomy now also carries a moral overtone when invoked as a value, indicating a sort of inviolability of the person. It also carries with it the right to self-direction and what could be called self-authorship, or what has been called a ‘self-directed dignity’.14

But there is also the moral positioning of each such sovereign person, who should seek to be treated as an end in oneself by all other persons, and also by oneself. One should have the freedom to pursue the great project that is one’s life and goals.15 _{Other persons should be treated in ways that do not}