Here’s a brief overview of why I think one’s self-conceptualization (i.e., one’s “true self”) will not preserve one’s dignity.
Tag: critical theory
Ethics & Critical Race Theory
Here’s a new video created and posted by my program, the MA Christian Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology/Biola University. The ethics of CRT is one of my latest areas of research, and now I am working with one of our graduates, Michael Williams, on a forthcoming book. One of the things we are trying to do is give a careful description of CRT, including its underlying philosophical presuppositions, and then assess it in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. This talk gives an overview of several of those things.
Dr. R. Scott Smith talks on Critical Race Theory (youtube.com)
Ethics and Critical Race Theory – General and Philosophical Positions
Introduction
In previous posts, I discussed the role of suspicion in critical race theory (CRT), and there I included the influences of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. I also touched on the CRT analysis that power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy. Moreover, critical legal studies helped reinforce the view that law is mainly about power, not morals. Michel Foucault argued that the dominant group’s power is transmitted and normalized through institutions, and radical feminism contributed how power relates to the construction of social roles, which results in largely unnoticed patterns of domination.
Now, I will explore some more key positions of CRT, starting with some general ones. Then I will look at some key philosophical views, including what is real, and how we know things. In the next blog entry, I will look at several key ethical stances of CRT.
Additional, General Tenets of CRT
First, racism is common, and it is not limited to individuals. It also is systemic, which is the focus of CRT. Second, there is racial disparity: there are differences in outcomes (such as for health and economic considerations) based on race. Third is interest convergence: only if the material interests of the majority group align with those of minoritized groups will the majority group cooperate with minorities.
Fourth, races are social constructions which are not fixed, for they are not rooted in biology. Instead, we all share in a common humanity. Roles and expectations are constructs. Fifth is intersectionality. That is, we all have many sources for our “identities” (or, our self-conceptualizations), and these can overlap in many ways to oppress people (e.g., a poor, black poor lesbian). Sixth, hegemony is “domination by the ruling class and unconscious acceptance of that state of affairs by the subordinate group.”[1]
To help understand CRT better, let’s also look at some of the key philosophical positions of Crits.
Some Key Philosophical Positions
In addition to these key shaping influences, CRT also draws from the broader stream of thought of critical theory (CT). Like we have seen with CRT, critical theorists embraced the view that oppressed groups need to be liberated from their domination by the oppressor group. Moreover, like Marx, key critical theorists, such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse were materialists and thus they rejected essential natures. So did Nietzsche.
If essences were real, they would have many implications. Why? Essences would define something as what kind of thing it is.[2] Foe example, for Aristotle, the essence of being a human is due its having a human soul, and not some other “principle of life.” However, Adorno rejected the idea that reality is objectively real with essential natures, for that leads us “to establish a single order, a single mode of representing and relating to reality.”[3] For him, on such a view, people would tend to fit into the definitions from the majority’s ideology. Yet, such a view was just a construct that undergirded the dominant group’s hegemony. Thus, peoples’ freedom to define their “true” selves would be undermined, leaving them oppressed.[4]
Likewise, Horkheimer believed that humans are nothing but material beings embedded holistically in nature.[5] Further, Marcuse believed reality is socially conditioned. Our “essence” is not some ontological reality. It is just a term for our human potential to achieve the ideals present in culture, which involves overcoming oppression:
Materialist theory thus transcends the given state of fact and moves toward a different potentiality, proceeding from immediate appearance to the essence that appears in it. But here appearance and essence become members of a real antithesis arising from the particular historical structure of the social process of life.[6]
So, what are some implications for their views if there are no essences? First, since there is no essence, such as the soul, to define and ground one’s personal identity (i.e., what makes someone the same person through time and change), it seems our “identity” is something that is definable by us. This can lead to a great sense of unrestricted freedom to not be bound by any of the dominant group’s ideological categories. Instead, people are free to define their “true selves.”
Second, it seems there are no universal qualities, not just for what it means to be authentically human, but also for moral principles and virtues. For example, suppose justice has an essence. Then it seems there would be an identical quality present in each instance of justice, and justice would be a universal quality. Yet, if there are no essences, then each instance would be particular, or nominal: we would call them all instances of justice, yet that is just due to the word we use for them.
Third, if essences are real, they would exist objectively and transcend our own conceptualizations. Yet, on CT and CRT, we are so shaped by our situating factors that all that we know is from a particular, historically situated standpoint. We cannot transcend those limitations and achieve a gaze directly into how reality is, apart from our “situatedness.” That is a strongly nominalist view. Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, who seem strongly influenced by CRT, claim that knowledge is not “outside of human interests, perspectives, and values”; instead, it “reflects the social hierarchies of a given society.”[7]
The Next Step
In the next entry, I will explore the various moral positions of CRT.
[1] Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 175.
[2] J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 218.
[3] Andrew Fagan, “Theodor Adorno,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://www.iep.utm.edu/adorno/, accessed July 11, 2019.
[4] While I was a graduate student in the University of Southern California’s School of Religion, several fellow students were ex-Catholics who were angry that the Church’s hierarchy defined what is “natural,” especially sexually, for them by appealing to natural law and essential natures.
[5] See Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory (Repr.; New York, NY: Continuum, 1982), 24. In an effort to unify science and philosophy, Horkheimer endorses materialism.
[6] Herbert Marcuse, “Concept of Essence,” in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 67.
[7] Özlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo, Is Everyone Really Equal? in Multicultural Education Series (2nd ed.; ed. James A. Banks; New York: Teachers College Press, 2017), 31. Though DiAngelo might be better classified as an “antiracist,” I include her here because she has embraced much of CRT.
New essay: Critical Theory and Abortion as an Act of Oppression
My new essay just came out in Christian Research Journal (Dec 2021). Here is a synposis:
Critical theory (CT) has become a major influence in society. It maintains that oppressed groups should be liberated from their oppressors. CT manifests itself in many ways, including critical race theory and feminist theory. That is, CT provides justification for women to be liberated from their patriarchal domination, and a crucial way that can be achieved is through the permissibility of abortion. Yet, on the contrary, I argue that abortion should be construed as immoral based on CT’s own internal logic. By determining the value of their unborn by their conceptualizations, women arbitrarily exercise power over and oppress their unborn.
Some counter that actually the unborn is an oppressor, restricting the woman’s freedom to make her own choices, as well as to define her own sense of identity via her self-conception. Another objection is that while the unborn are humans, they are not persons, for in order to count as persons, humans also have to have certain functional qualities, such as a self-concept. However, for CT, there is no equality on the basis of self-concepts. According to CT, there are no essences, and thus the claim that we are valuable because we have self-concepts is nothing but an interpretation given from a particular standpoint, which results in an arbitrary imposition of power. It is a much greater oppression for the woman to have the unborn put to death than for her to remain pregnant. Thus, taking CT consistently, the unborn need to be liberated from their oppression by abortion….
See that issue, pages 16-21.
Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of Critical Theory
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay
What then should we think of critical theory (CT) and its shaping influences in these other views? I’ll consider some strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths
First, proponents rightly point out many injustices that should be addressed. They are right that too often, people in power abuse it to oppress people, which is wrong. Second, they rightly note that (for example) racial injustices can be embedded in systems, even if there are no individuals’ racist intentions. Third, reasoning morally in abstract ways can blind us to oppression and harms. We need to attend to peoples’ particular, embodied, social-historical factors in our policies, for they have to live with their good and bad effects. Fourth, people should be treated with justice, dignity, and equality.
Reality
CT proponents tend to adopt materialism and nominalism. Now, we saw with Daniel Dennett how without essences, everything becomes interpretation, yet without a way to get started and know anything. Also, with nominalism, while focuses our attention on particulars, it also undermines reality. But this end undermines all for which CT advocates have labored, for there is no real oppression or liberation, no rights or wrongs, or anything else. What they rely on to give their views strength (i.e., nominalism) actually destroys them.
Yet, if we don’t come to grips with the end result of nominalism, we can seduce ourselves to think everything is what it is in name only – due to how we have conceived of it. So, both these views lead us to think that what exists is our construct. Yet, to be consistent, that means oppression (as well as liberation) is just some particular group’s construct. Justice, dignity, and equality, all of which are good moral values, end up being just the way a particular group has constructed their morals. But that result is anything but what critical theorists want. They argue for their views as the way things really are, and the way things should be for all people. Yet, based on their own theory’s bases, they cannot be such. Indeed, they are just a particular group’s constructs, and if they try to universalize them, they actually could be imperialistic and oppressive.
Knowledge
Earlier, I explored how Kant’s epistemology led to an inability to know anything, since we cannot traverse the series of appearances that “stand between” us and something as it really is. A similar problem resurfaces with historicism. Here, we cannot access reality directly; we can know it only insofar as we interpret it. Now, there is a very good point to be made here: what we experience we do need to interpret. It is one thing for me to see an animal in my yard; it is another for me to see it as one of our pets and act accordingly.
Similarly, the strength of CT claims depends upon our ability to see real people in real conditions, and see them as unjust. But, can we do this on historicism? I do not think so. Since we can never access something real as it is in itself, apart from our interpretation, it seems we only access our interpretation (call it I1) thereof. But, now a new regress appears. I1 is real, but, per the theory, I cannot access it as it really is, but only as I interpret it (I2). But then that same repetition occurs with I3, I4, and so on, without a way to ever get started. Knowledge becomes impossible on historicism. (Moreover, how can we even form an interpretation if we cannot access something as it really is, even if we do not know it exhaustively?)
Ethics
So, justice, dignity, and equality are nothing but our constructs, and they cannot be preserved due to the reasons above. Plus, since they are just “up to us,” it is possible (conceivable) that their moral goodness could have turned out otherwise.
Further, the fundamental duty on CT (that we are to liberate the oppressed from the oppressors) seems to lead to never-ending violence. Since there are only two groups, once the oppressed have been liberated, now they are the oppressors, and they and the former oppressors have switched places. But, now the cycle must repeat endlessly, with wanton violence.
Though CT identifies real injustices and oppression, it cannot hope to be an adequate basis to address them.
Making Sense of Morality: Liberation, Feminist, & Queer Ethics
Introduction
In this essay, I will survey key points of three theories that have been deeply shaped by critical theory (CT). I will try to draw out their ethical implications. In the next essay, I will assess CT.
Liberation Theology
The first is liberation theology. We will explore it through the teachings of the Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928). His ideas have been widely influential in Latin America and the west.
For him, the purpose of liberation is achieve freedom from anything that hinders humans’ fulfillment and communion with God and one another. Economic oppression is a key, but not the only, form of domination. In general, liberation is from sin. Yet, liberation can take many forms, such as by abolishing private property, changing the access to power by the exploited, and using a social revolution to break dependencies, such as upon the United States and its capitalist system. In his mind, socialism is far more fruitful as a political organization.
Rather than stressing abstract, universal principles, Gutiérrez focuses on concrete, particular people and their embodiment of oppression and suffering. For him, he endorses the interpretive lens of liberation as normative, and he sees liberation as a dominant biblical theme. So, we should read Scripture through this lens and in light of our embodied experience.
Feminist Ethics of Welch and Harrison
There are varieties of feminist thought, but here I will look at two exemplars, Sharon Welch and Bev Harrison. For them, feminism follows CT in some key ways. First, feminist thought assumes the dynamic of oppression by oppressors. Second, it rejects many dualisms, such as of body and soul. Third, it stresses embodied, situated particulars in a historicist epistemology. Fourth, it rejects universals and essential natures.
For Sharon Welch (b. 1952), by attending to universal, abstract theorizing, we overlook practical effects thereof. For example, if we attend to the actual history of Christianity, she thinks we can see “the denial by the church and by Western culture of full humanity to women and minorities” (Welch, 59). Welch also embraces a historicist view of truth (Welch, 10). Our concepts are contingent upon our historical conditions.
Bev Harrison (d. 2012) agrees that we are historically situated. All our concepts, including our norms, dualisms, and even what is right or wrong are the social constructs of a given people. Since all knowledge is a construct, based on the particulars in a given setting, she thinks we should focus on praxis versus abstract theory in ethics.
Our historical situatedness entails we are embodied beings. To her, mind-body dualism is mistaken for various reasons. For one, we cannot pry the body off the soul, for all knowledge is body mediated. Two, it denigrates the body. Third, dualism entails difference and therefore subjugation.
To her, male-female dualism grounds patriarchy and its oppression of women. Further, other oppressive power relations and injustices are interrelated with sexism. These include racism, economic exploitation, and cultural imperialism, from all of which we need liberation.
Gender Studies and Queer Theory
Gender studies focuses on embodied particulars and historically situated knowledge. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.” Gender identity is an interpretation of oneself as a particular individual, without reference to universals or essences. Yet, it is not separated from groups, and these in turn are tied to oppression.
Moreover, queer theorists reject heteronormativity and male-female “binary” thinking as static and oppressive views. Michele Foucault (d. 1984) thought there is no essence to sex. Judith Butler (b. 1956) describes gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 45). Thus, queer theory creates many possibilities for how to conceive of one’s sexuality, resulting in a perception of having a liberated sexuality, notwithstanding one’s anatomy.
For Further Reading
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed.
Bev Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics
R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8
Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity
Making Sense of Morality: Critical Theory Overview
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay
Introduction
Naturalistic ethics remains a dominant moral approach in the west. But there are at least two other contemporary kinds of ethics. They are critical theory and its particular versions, as well as postmodernism. I will start with critical theory (CT), with a focus today on social justice.
Overview of Critical Theory
Social justice has a long and venerable history, including efforts such as abolishing British and American slavery; caring for the vulnerable, such as the poor, widows, orphans, and minorities; and caring for the sick, such as through building hospitals. Today, however, there seems to be a “new kind” of social justice that focuses on issues such as (1) economic justice through the redistribution of resources; (2) freedom from discrimination due to one’s gender identity, and to be given positive rights on that basis; (3) environmental justice; and (4) racism and reparations.
Often, these contemporary efforts seem to be grounded in CT, which has a deep influence in the humanities, whether at secular or religious institutions. CT has spawned a number of specific studies, such as critical race, ethnic, legal, gender and queer, and cultural studies. It is having much influence in part because proponents are identifying some real injustices which should be addressed, such as racism, sexism, slavery, economic oppression, mistreatment of women, etc.
Based on several key philosophical positions, and Marxist-inspired thought, CT began in the “Frankfurt school.” That school included several key thinkers, such as Max Horkheimer (d. 1973), Theodor Adorno (d. 1969), and Herbert Marcuse (d. 1979). CT also was influenced by Antonio Gramsci (d. 1937), and all four were influenced significantly by Karl Marx (d. 1883).
Three Key Positions
Some of the reasons for the influence of CT is that it taps into accepted views we have seen. First, it accepts materialism: reality is made of matter, without any essences. Second, everything is particular (nominalism). Third, in terms of knowledge, it accepts historicism.
Historicism is like the view we saw in Kant, that we cannot know reality as it is in itself (i.e., directly). CT rejects knowledge of universal truths for all people at all times and places, for that would require a universal standpoint. Instead, historicists believe all knowledge is situated: it is socially-based and embedded in a given historical location and time. Our situatedness shapes how we interpret reality, and, like a set of lenses, we always experience and interpret reality through that interpretive framework. Yet, we cannot take off our glasses and get a direct, uninterpreted gaze into reality itself. Everything is our interpretation, drawn from our particular historical location.
Nietzsche (d. 1900) helped give rise to historicism, too. As a naturalist, he denied any essences. Also, due to nominalism, there are no literal identities between any two things; we construct things by taking them to be identical. Unlike Kant, there are no truths of reason (a priori). Indeed, things like the will are just words, the way we happen to talk. Even that we are the subjects of our thoughts is just an interpretation according to our grammatical formulae. Our teaching how to use words deceives us to think such things are real. Indeed, claims to know what is real just reflect our will to power, when actually all knowledge is perspectival.
Ethics
Now, CT posits that there are two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. A critical theory seeks to liberate people from domination and oppression and increase freedom in all their forms. Ethically, our fundamental duty is to liberate the oppressed. That is done by leveling power and redistributing resources (i.e., material solutions, since matter is what is real). This means an equality ofoutcomes, notopportunity.
Moreover, traditional western societies’ institutions oppress and alienate people from their true selves by disrespect, disapproval, and social inequalities. Instead, people are to be free to live as they want (e.g., define their own sexuality). For secular critical theorists, this liberation is accomplished in part by the state’s coercive power.
For Further Reading
Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Life, Knowledge, and Self-Consciousness,” and “Prejudices of Philosophers,” in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Patrick Gardiner
Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left