Tag: historicism

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)

Assessing Critical Race Theory’s Views about Knowledge

Introduction

Earlier, I described CRT’s approach to knowledge as one in which we are situated historically and contingently, such that no one can achieve a neutral, unbiased standpoint to gaze directly into reality and know it as such. Instead, to even have an experience requires interpretation. We may call this a kind of standpoint epistemology: we always gain knowledge from our particular, limited standpoints, which have been shaped by the aforementioned kinds of factors. Moreover, drawing from people like Nietzsche and Foucault, Crits hold that claims to have knowledge of objective truth really reflect our provisional interpretive grids and our wills to power.

Now, as I have noted earlier, there are some key strengths to their view. Here are two. First, Crits call our attention to actual, concrete human lives, and not abstractions, to see how actions and policies may harm them. The colorblind model can contribute to this effect, for it influences people to not notice the specific ways blacks and other minorities experience and suffer from racism by treating all people in a generalized way. Second, CRT helps researchers by calling attention to systems and institutions, to see ifthere are cases of racism therein.

But there also are some key problems, ones which threaten to undermine CRT itself and its contributions.

Problems with CRT’s Standpoint Epistemology

Let me start with a conceptual problem. If everything is interpretation, then it is not possible to even have an experience of the world without that involving interpretation. Now, I do think it is very important that we interpret our experiences. Yet, CRT is not saying just that. It espouses the view that all our experiences themselves are interpretation- (or theory-) laden. It is as though our interpretive lenses are glued to our faces, and so we cannot remove them.

Suppose this is the case, and we experience a situation in which it seems to us that a white police officer racially profiled a black driver. Yet, if everything is interpretation, we cannot access what actually is the case. We are so constrained by our situatedness that apparently all we can access is our interpretation thereof. But, then we face a further problem: we cannot even access that interpretation as it is, for it too is interpreted. Evidently, then, a second interpretation is involved. However, the same requirement repeats again and again, without any way in principle to stop a regress of interpretations. Knowledge, much less interpretations, cannot even get started, it seems.

If so, then it seems that this result undermines all of CRT’s claims whatsoever, for they too can be nothing other than its particular interpretations. So, it seems Crits could not even begin to form the core concepts of CRT, such as the realities of white supremacy, systemic racism, oppression of racial minorities, inequality, injustice, and more. Nor could we know that these concepts match up with reality. If so, why should others listen to Crits?

We also should consider how Crits tend to argue strenuously for their positions, and they supply good, descriptive support for many points. They want others (non-Crits) to see that their view is correct and should be adopted. However, if CRT cannot even begin to give us knowledge of how things really are in society, why should others give allegiance to its interpretations? Moreover, since CRT must be just a particular interpretation of justice, then it seems that national policy, which would apply to all people therein, should not be set on the basis of CRT.

Still more can be written against the presupposition that interpretation goes “all the way down.” It does not seem to be true descriptively. While it is true that we are shaped by a number of factors, which do contribute to our “interpretive grid,” it still seems possible (even actual) that we can learn to pay attention to other things that we may not have noticed before. J. P. Moreland explains that due to “attentive influence,” we can become habituated in terms of what we pay attention to, which also can lead to habituated interpretations. Yet, over time, we can fall into ruts and not pay attention to other phenomena. Still, we can develop new habits and begin to notice other things, even though it may be difficult.[1]

In my own case, I come from a Caucasian, middle-class family, and I did not experience racial profiling by police. Now, my growing up in that kind of home obviously is very different than one in which someone is a racial minority and has experienced much racial profiling. While I have not had the same experiences of such a person, it still seems I can seek to develop habits that would enable me to become more attentive to such incidents and how they happen. Part of that can occur by my getting to know and listening to stories of people of color who have experienced profiling, which I have tried to do even in my classes.  

Another issue is that according to CRT, all its views must be contingent; they are not necessary, a priori truths, for there are no essences. So, for example, when we come to Crits’ claims of widespread, systemic racism, we should not interpret this as an in-principle truth claim. Rather, to be consistent, it must be an a posteriori claim, one that would be known empirically and be so due to various contingencies.

Nevertheless, that is not how Crits always argue. For instance, consider Ibram Kendi’s claim that “to oppose reparations is to be racist. To support reparations is to be anti-racist.”[2] His wording suggests he intends it as a blanket, universal truth claim. Rhetorically, it is powerful and, if true, no one could oppose reparations and yet not be a racist. However, that is not true, for George Yancey, who himself is black, is a counterexample. Yancey provides reasons against reparations that are not racist and has worked toward racial reconciliation.[3] So even this claim is not true in principle. It, along with other CRT claims, has to be investigated and found to be true in fact. Moreover, like I argued above, this and other such claims can be only Crits’ interpretations, yet without being able to know if they are in line with reality.

Conclusion

This is but a brief assessment of issues related to CRT and standpoint epistemology. But in the next post, I will try to explore more issues from CRT for ethics.

[1] J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2:  307–12.

[2] Ibram X. Kendi, “There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations,” The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/ibram-x-kendi-opposing-reparations-racist/592060/, June 19, 2019, accessed February 2, 2022. Note: while Kendi uses “antiracist” as a self-description, nonetheless his views do seem to draw deeply from CRT.

[3] George Yancey, Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2006), 105–106.

Making Sense of Morality: A Brief Assessment of MacIntyre’s Ethics

Various ethics terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Some Contributions

What should we make of MacIntyre’s proposals? His ethics focuses on the importance of good character by embodying moral virtues and being authentic. He also draws attention to the importance of community. And, he emphasizes the need for living out the virtues, and not merely engaging in abstract theorizing.

Broad Concerns

As we have seen, MacIntyre and other authors writing in the light of the postmodern turn embrace nominalism. Yet, we have seen its disastrous effects, leaving us without any qualities whatsoever. So, there are no people, no morals (not even our core ones), no world, etc. But surely this is false, and it destroys morality.

We also have surveyed issues with historicism, which ends up with no way to start making interpretations. Yet, are we really so situated that we cannot access reality directly? Now, surely no human is blind to nothing, and we cannot know something exhaustively. Surely we have our biases, too.

Yet, from daily life, it seems we can notice that we do access reality. For example, how do children learn to form concepts of apples? It seems it is by having many experiences of them. Then they can notice their commonalities, and they can form a concept on that basis. Then they can use that concept to compare something else they see (e.g., a tomato) and notice if it too is an apple or not. Adults do this, too, when they use phones to refill prescriptions, or enter their “PIN” for a debit card purchase.

It seems to be a descriptive fact that we can compare our concepts with things as they are, just as in that apple example. We also can adjust our concepts to better fit with reality. I think we can know this to be so, if we pay close attention to what is consciously before our minds.

However, how we attend to what we are aware of can reflect patterns. We can fall into ruts, noticing some things while not attending to others. As J. P. Moreland suggests, “situatedness functions as a set of habit forming background beliefs and concepts that direct our acts of noticing or failing to notice various features of reality” (Moreland, 311). But these habits do not preclude us from accessing reality.

Specific Concerns

Now, MacIntyre rejects the soul as the basis for one’s being the same person through change. For one, it would be an essence, and he seems to think humans are just bodies (Dependent Rational Animals, 6). Can the unity of one’s narrative meet this need?

For him, a narrative does not have an essence; it is composed of sentences that tell a person’s story. At any time, the narrative’s identity just is the bundle of sentences that are its members. However, if a new sentence is added, then the set of members has changed, and a new story has taken the old one’s place. Sadly, then, someone cannot grow in virtue or rationality on this view, for they do not maintain their identity through change.

Moreover, can we really see that one tradition is rationally superior to another? MacIntyre in banking on our ability to become bilingual. However, on his view, a person at any time is constituted by his or her narrative, and that in turn cannot be pried off from the tradition on which it is based. When a person immerses him or herself into another tradition to learn its language, that learning always will be done from the interpretive standpoint of the first tradition, by which that person has been formed. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since that person is narratively “constituted” by the first tradition’s conceptual/linguistic framework. But, as that person “learns” that second language, new sentences should be added to that person’s narrative. Yet, if so, that person no longer is the same! So it becomes impossible to see the rational superiority of another tradition on his own views.

For Further Reading

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed.; Dependent Rational Animals; and Whose Justice? Which Rationality?

J. P. Moreland, “Two Areas of Reflection and Dialogue with John Franke,” Philosophia Christi 8:2 (2006)

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 11

Making Sense of Morality: An Introduction to Postmodernism

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction to Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the last major kind of ethical views I will survey. Since it is post-modern, we will need to survey the modern era’s traits to which postmoderns are responding. In this essay, I will explore some of the historical and sociological factors leading to postmodernity, along with some key philosophical positions, too.

Historical, Sociological Influences

People date modernity’s beginning differently, but we can point to the rise of the Scientific Revolution with Gassendi’s and Hobbes’s influences in the 16th century, and the related scientific shifts then and in the 17th century. As a first trait, modernity was marked by a tendency to believe in the inevitability of progress from scientific discoveries, particularly from the theory of evolution. Due to this progress, humankind could get better and better.

In sharp contrast, in postmodernity, people are far less trusting of science’s inherent goodness. They have witnessed the 20th century, with two world wars, concentration camps, genocides, and mass murders. (Indeed, some mark the end of modernity with World War II.) Nazis used medical science to perpetrate gross experiments upon Jewish and other subjects. Science also provided the most destructive weapon yet developed, the nuclear bomb. So, people therefore are far less trusting that science and scientists are working just for peoples’ good.

Second, moderns had confidence in human reason, apart from divine revelation, to know universal truths. For example, witness Descartes’s (d. 1650) view of having certainty as a foundation for our beliefs. But, postmoderns stress the fallibility of human reason and its biases, and how all too often people use it to oppress others. Further, they reject knowledge of universal truths; we know truths from our particular standpoints (such as a community and its formative narrative).

Third, in modernity,people tended to trust their political and religious leaders. Yet, there have been many political scandals and cover-ups which have eroded that trust. Scandals also surfaced amongst religious leaders, such as accusations of molestation by Catholic priests. Many assume televangelists simply want money. In postmodernity,people have grown suspicious from the fallout of these betrayals of trust.

Fourth, moderns tend to think we can find objective, universal truths that apply to everyone. There are normative ways for all cultures to live. However, to postmoderns, that idea seems oppressive and imperialistic. 

Philosophical Influences 

We already have seen major shifts in western history from universals to nominalism; from mind-body dualism to materialism, and with both of these, a turn to empiricism; and from the view that we can know reality directly to historicism. But, postmodernity is not a complete rejection of what developed during modernity. Even though we have seen the above mentioned sociological and historical shifts in mindsets in postmodernity, postmoderns continue the modern focus on nominalism with its rejection of universals with their essences. For instance, they focus on knowledge being tied to particular “forms of life” (or communities, social groups). We are so shaped by our situatedness (the various social, familial, historical, cultural factors that shape how we interpret and understand life) that we cannot gaze directly into reality from a universal standpoint. Moreover, they tend to reject an essential nature to all humans, leading some toward materialism.

A key factor in postmodern thought is the turn to interpretation. This reflects a further turn than just the “turn to language.” We already have seen how Nietzsche placed much stress on how we use our words. Often, in modernity, the focus was on individual sentences that could be understood by anyone due to their universal meaning. However, for postmoderns, the focus is on holism: meaning is found in a whole – a form of life – which cannot be separated from its language and formative story, or narrative. And, we all speak different languages. Meanings then are a matter of how we use language (i.e., verbal and nonverbal behavior) in a given form of life, according to the “grammar” of that community.

Next, I will explore the views of a particular ethicist, Alasdair MacIntyre, who writes in light of the postmodern turn.

For Further Reading

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Making Sense of Morality: Critical Theory Overview

Various ethical terms

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