{"id":10541,"date":"2011-07-14T16:27:16","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T16:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/07\/14\/private-and-public-morality\/"},"modified":"2011-07-14T16:27:16","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T16:27:16","slug":"private-and-public-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/07\/14\/private-and-public-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"On Private and Public Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many liberals have the bad habit of confusing private and public morality.  They think that moral injunctions that make sense in private ought to be carried over into the public sphere.  Such liberals are dangerously confused.  There are those who, for example, take the Biblical injunction to "welcome the stranger" as a reason to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration.  Or consider the NT injunction to "turn the other cheek."<\/span><\/p>\n

Although it is morally permissible for an individual to "turn the other cheek," "to resist not the evildoer," etc. in the letter and spirit of the New Testament, it is morally impermissible for government officials in charge of national defense and security to do the same. For they are responsible for people besides themselves. Consider the analogy of the pater familias<\/em>. He cannot allow himself to be slaughtered if that would result in the slaughter of his spouse and children. He must, morally speaking, defend himself  and them. With a single person it is different. Such a person may (morally speaking) heed the advice Ludwig Wittgenstein gave to M. O'C. Drury: "If it ever happens that you get mixed up in hand-to-hand fighting, you must just stand aside and let yourself be massacred." (Recollections of Wittgenstein<\/em>, ed. R. Rhees, p. 149) That was presumably advice Wittgenstein gave himself while a combatant in World War I.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It is a serious mistake, and one oft-made by liberals, to confuse the private and public spheres and the different moralities pertaining to each.<\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine a society that implements a policy of not resisting (apprehending, trying, convicting, incarcerating, killing) rapists, murderers, foreign invaders, and miscreants generally. Such a society <\/span>would seal its own death warrant and cease to function. It is a fact of human nature that people, in the main, behave tolerably well only under threat of punishment. People for the most part do not do the <\/span>right thing because it is the right thing, but out of fear of  punishment. This is not pessimism, but realism, and is known to be true by all unprejudiced students of history and society.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for turning the other cheek, it is a policy that works well in certain atypical circumstances. If a man has a well-formed conscience,  and is capable of feeling shame, then turning the other cheek in the <\/span>face of his affront can achieve a result far superior to that achieved by replying in kind. Nonviolence can work. Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to the British may serve as an historical example. The Brits could be shamed and in any case Gandhi had no other means at his  disposal. But imagine what would happen if Israel turned the other cheek in the face of its Islamic enemies who would blow it off the <\/span>face of the map at the first opportunity?<\/span><\/p>\n

Once your enemy has reduced you to the status of a pig or a monkey fit only to be slaughtered, then there is no way to reach him, shame him, or persuade him by acts of forebearance and kindness. You must resist him, with deadly force if necessary, if you wish to preserve your existence. And even if you in particular do not care to preserve your existence, if you are a government official charged with a defense function, then you are morally obliged to resist with as much deadly force as is necessary to stop the attacker even if that means targeting the attacker's civilian population.<\/span><\/p>\n

But is it not better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, as Socrates maintained? Would it not be better to perish than to defend one's life by taking life? Perhaps, but only if the underlying metaphysics and<\/span>
soteriology are true. If the soul is immortal, and the phenomenal world is of no ultimate concern — being a vale of tears, a place through which we temporarily sojourn on our way to our true home —<\/span>
then the care of the soul is paramount and to suffer wrong is better than to inflict it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The same goes for Christianity which, as Nietzsche remarks, is "Platonism for the people." If you are a Christian, and look beyond this world for your true happiness, then you are entitled to practice an austere morality in your private life. But you are not entitled to impose that morality and metaphysics on others, or demand that the State codify that morality and metaphysics in its laws and policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

For one thing, it would violate the separation of Church and State. More importantly, the implementation of Christian morality would lead to the destruction of the State and the State's ability to secure life, liberty, and property — the three Lockean purposes for which we have a state in the first place. And bear in mind that a part of the  liberty the State protects is the liberty to practice one's religion or no religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no use denying that the State is a violent and coercive entity. To function at all in pursuit of its legitimate tasks of securing life, liberty, and property, it must be able to make war against external enemies and impose discipline upon internal malefactors. The violence may be justified, but it is violence  nonethless. To incarcerate a person, for example, is to violate his liberty; it is to do evil to him, an evil necessary for a greater good that can be attained in no other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future<\/em>, Penguin 1968, p. 245):<\/span><\/p>\n

     The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all<\/span>
     earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular<\/span>
     — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been<\/span>
     frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended<\/span>
     protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of<\/span>
     the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the<\/span>
     wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned<\/span>
     against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who<\/span>
     for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good<\/span>
     for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for<\/span>
     others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth<\/span>
     interests of the community.) [Arendt cites the Nicomachean Ethics<\/em>,<\/span>
     Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.] There is a tension<\/span>
     between man qua philosopher\/Christian and man qua citizen.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a philosopher raised in Christianity, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic "Better to suffer wrong than to do it" and the Christian  "Resist not the evildoer." But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori<\/em> of public officials and people in a position to  influence public opinion, people like Catholic bishops many of whom are woefully ignorant of the simple points Arendt makes in the passage quoted. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian <\/span>admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his  perishable body, is not applicable to me as citizen. As a citizen, I   cannot "welcome the stranger" who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug-smuggler or a human-trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I cannot aid and abet his law breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger's law breaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" as the New Testament enjoins us to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops  and others who apparently cannot comprehend the simple distinctions I have tried to set forth.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many liberals have the bad habit of confusing private and public morality.  They think that moral injunctions that make sense in private ought to be carried over into the public sphere.  Such liberals are dangerously confused.  There are those who, for example, take the Biblical injunction to "welcome the stranger" as a reason to turn a … Continue reading “On Private and Public Morality”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,139,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-religion","category-social-and-political-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}