The Damaging Effects of Philosophical Pragmatism

This blog begins a series of philosophical posts examining current day social thought in America, and its historical underpinnings. We are all products not only of the current age, but of the ages that precede us in history. While philosophical pragmatism may sound like an ivory tower term dreamed up by philosophers with too much time on their hands (which may be true), it actually is a useful term that reflects 19th century thinking and has had profound implications throughout the 20th century into now, the 21st.  In Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth, she describes philosophical pragmatism as a distinctly “home-grown” American philosophy that has been enormously influential since the late nineteenth century when Darwinism (Charles Darwin’s theory of the transmutation of species, or rather, evolution at the macro level) crossed the Atlantic. It’s core assumption, according to Pearcey, is that if life has evolved, then the human mind has evolved as well, and all the human sciences must be rebuilt on that basis. This ethic has had no small effect on American thinking, as Pearcey notes, as it has not only altered the way Americans think, but also the very structure of American social institutions.

Pearcey notes that at its heart, pragmatism is a (purely) Darwinian view of knowledge (epistemology). Pragmatism means the mind is nothing more than a part of nature, rejecting the older view that the human mind is transcendent to matter, in favor of a Darwinian view that mind is produced by matter. This presumption subverted both traditional and liberal forms of theism, since both forms make mind prior to matter. In traditional theology, a transcendent God creates the world according to his own design and purpose, whereas in liberal theology, an immanent deity externalizes its purpose through historical development of the world. Notwithstanding the differences between the two, both views hold that mind precedes matter, shaping and directing the development of the material world. Yet Darwin reversed this order, by positing that mind emerges very late in evolutionary history as a product of purely natural forces. Mind is not a fundamental, creative force but merely an evolutionary by-product. For the pragmatists, this “naturalizing” of the mind was the most revolutionary impact of Darwinian theory, implying that mental functions are merely adaptations for solving problems in the environment. So to get this right, our beliefs are not reflections of reality, but rules for action aimed at a payoff, not aimed at truth. As the pioneering psychologist William James opined, truth is the “cash value” of an idea. If it pays off, then we can call it true.

Previous to this system of thought, notes Pearcey, the dominant theory of knowledge was based on the biblical doctrine of the image of God. It is because human reason reflects the divine reason that we can trust human knowledge to be generally reliable. God created our minds to “fit” the universe that he made for us to inhabit, and when our cognitive faculties are functioning properly, they are designed to give us genuine knowledge (more specifically, epistemologist Alvin Plantinga argues that our beliefs have warrant if produced by properly functioning cognitive faculties in a congenial epistemic environment, according to a design plan successfully aimed at truth). Yet the pragmatists, states Pearcey, faced squarely the implications of evolution. If blind, undirected natural forces produced the mind, they said, then it is meaningless to ask whether our ideas reflect reality. To pragmatists, ideas are simply mental survival strategies—continuations of the struggle for existence by other means.

In general, pragmatists hold the belief that knowledge is a social construction, in that individuals don’t create knowledge, groups do. William James however, was more charitable in that he allowed each individual to decide what works satisfactorily for them, suggesting that something is true for someone if it meets their needs. In other words, whatever you decide, that’s your truth. In essence, this was the precursor to what we now call postmodern thought, which is becoming increasingly dominant in American culture today. The “pragmatic” thing to do, these days, is to believe there is no objective moral truth, and that we make our own truth. Whatever works, is true. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me. But what is important to understand here, according to Pearcey, is that pragmatic success does not make a claim true. And therein, I assert, lies the fallacy of pragmatism. It avoids truth claims, but in so doing actually makes a truth claim which is, ostensibly, an objective truth. In my view, the wholesale acceptance of a Darwinian system of thought that is not properly aimed at objective truth is ill-considered, and will lead us down a highly dangerous path if carried to its logical conclusion. We need look no further than the 20th century regimes of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin, all of which accepted and implemented, with horrific results, a purely Darwinian worldview. The key question is if that is our inevitable trajectory as we continue to reject objective truth under the rubric of “pragmatism.”

* References:

Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005.

Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function. New York: Oxford, 1993.

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Can Government Provide a Healthcare Solution?

My plan was to begin a new series on philosophical pragmatism and its damaging effects on society, but I will delay that topic until my next post so I can talk a little about “government solutions,” which, in my view, is more of an oxymoronic exception than it is an actual truth. In a number of exchanges with my Facebook friends recently, I have seen expressions of skepticism and a lack of faith in the capitalist system of the United States.  Yet their alternative to resolve the “evils of capitalism” always seems to be more and bigger government, as if government represents some paragon of virtue and ethics that the unenlightened masses lack. My view is since government is made up of fallen people, then it has the same imperfections as the fallen people that make it up. This means that those in government who are supposed to represent the people can have personal agendas that are counter to the will of the people, and can enact legislation that may be ultimately bad for the people. This is particularly a problem at the federal level, since all people are affected, and is precisely why the people should hold government accountable, which includes getting the federal government out of areas in which it lacks competence or purpose.

"While the 10th Amendment explicitly limits the power of the federal government, today it has become little more than a quaint, and toothless, sentiment. But that wasn't always the case. The Founding Fathers were no fools. They understood that those who are inclined to power are also tenacious defenders of that power once they have achieved it."

Let’s take for example the current healthcare debate, with some feeling government-run healthcare is a “fundamental right.” I don’t agree with this because fundamental rights are, and I believe should, be strictly within the limits of natural law. In other words, those rights given by the creator that are unalienable: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Beyond that, we have rights based on the social contract that people make with government which gives it authority over certain moral and/or political obligations. So I don’t see healthcare as an unalienable right, but as a potential policy directive added to the social contract between the people and our government. Otherwise, we could go on forever with people continually declaring certain rights, giving more control to the government that coerces others against their will to pay for those rights (since a right costs something if some good or service must be provided to honor that right). You will ultimately get more and more people demanding rights with less and less people to actually pay for them. So regardless of where the debate over healthcare goes, healthcare is certainly not an unalienable right.

With respect to healthcare, I believe free market capitalism, though it is not perfect, provides for the most win-win scenarios based on a free exchange of market-based services. And within a framework of rule of law and property rights, the free market system works beautifully. Somehow, though, people expect it work perfectly, which is anything but realistic. Based on human nature, there will always be market bubbles that form and burst and there will always be creative destruction as technological advances are made. The healthcare system demonstrates the very issues that have come about with the advancement of innovative, life-saving technologies over the past five decades. But these technologies come at a price and have contributed to about half of all growth in costs (with preventable illness making up 90% of all healthcare costs, much of this due to obesity and smoking). Yet If we look at the way that people live now compared to 100 years ago, we see that due to capitalism, people now enjoy a far higher standard of living. Still, Americans are not satisfied that we have an exemplary economic system which needs to be defended, even though it isn't perfect.

My understanding is that most people who go to a doctor when their medical situation is advanced, or go to the ER, are those that can afford insurance but choose not to purchase it because they have other priorities. The ER is for those that need critical care regardless of whether they have insurance or not, with the insured bearing the full burden. But the ER is also used by those without insurance even if the need is not critical, which the insured pay for as well. The truth is we will always have those that don't purchase insurance when they can afford it, who drive up costs in the ER, and those who make poor health choices in life that drive up insurance premiums directly or indirectly based on whether they have insurance or not. People of today behave irresponsibly mainly because they can, since social mores and personal responsibility don't have the value they once did, and of course, the fact that the government will step in with other people's money in exchange for cheap votes and expanded powers. So I am certain that government-run healthcare is not the solution, since it won’t fundamentally change human nature.

The truth is any solution will be imperfect. Yet I continue to believe strongly that capitalism and our system of government as framed by the founding fathers is the best system to respond to the current issues in healthcare. What is needed is more competition rather than less, with the federal government not involved as a player in healthcare, but involved only in policy that facilitates the free market system. This would include the federal government getting out of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, remanding these to state and local governments that will provide this safety net for the truly needy in a more personal and efficient manner. Within the free market system, there should be a premium to pay for those who don’t (or won’t) accept responsibility for their lifestyle choices that cause preventable diseases. That is why it is perfectly acceptable to me that insurance companies be able to set premiums based on the lifestyle choices of the insured, and practical limits on how much care they will pay for. Those who refuse to purchase insurance when they can afford to should not be able to take unlimited advantage of the ER, particularly for non-emergency care.

The bottom line is Americans need to become more physically active and more responsible about their life choices, and if they don't, accept the consequences. It is unreasonable for someone to smoke, drink to excess, and live a generally unhealthy lifestyle expecting someone else to foot the bill. The government should not enforce this, but should work with insurance companies and healthcare providers on common sense policies that support their efforts to provide the best possible balance of coverage that would include preventive measures and reasonable limits on care based on objective criteria. We are all going to die some day, so we shouldn’t expect to be kept alive when our time has come solely because medical technology allows it. Doctors, along with their patients and patient families, have been making end-of-life decisions for generations, long before insurance. The blessing of private insurance has greatly improved the availability of healthcare, so let’s celebrate it and accept the fact that it has limits, while looking for ways to make it more available that preserves the efficiency and efficacy of the free market.

* References:

Jamieson, Bob, in Letters section. "Could America Ever Become the Not-So-United States?" The Wall Street Journal, 20 June 2009. Available from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545060728632553.html. Accessed 20 June, 2009.

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Solutions for Social Justice – Part 3

In the final installment of this series, I want to first outline a key point about capitalism that we all inherently know, but it is worth repeating: capitalism as an economic system is not perfect. Now that I have that off my chest, I believe we all need to realize, if we haven’t already, that there is no perfect economic system and there will be no perfect system, ever. What should hearten us, however, is the excellent point that Jay Richards makes in his book Money, Greed, and God, stating that though free market [capitalism] doesn’t guarantee that everyone will win in any given competition, it allows many more win-win encounters than any alternative. And thus free market capitalism is the solution and not a part of the problem. The problem that actually led to the current economic crisis was an abuse of capitalism, and not the outcome of capitalism itself. So the worst thing we could do is to unceremoniously ditch capitalism in favor of some utopian alternative, particularly alternatives that have been demonstrably proven to not work, such as socialism.

One thing I have heard regularly from my liberal friends is how greed brought about the current economic crisis. I absolutely agree with the assertion that greed contributed to the economic crisis, but it was largely caused by the government in terms of monetary policy and gross interference in the free market by browbeating lenders into making home loans they would not otherwise make for the sake of encouraging an “ownership society.” This government interference crossed party boundaries, so there is plenty of blame to go around, but I would argue that the lack of proper regulation by the House Financial Services committee and the Senate Banking Committee caused untold damage, particularly in their oversight (or lack thereof) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. My liberal friends, however, go further by excoriating corporate executives in general for their greed. And this is where we part ways, because first, whereas I do agree that greed is wrong, I don’t believe it always produces a poor outcome. I have on numerous occasions done business with people who I thought were greedy, but the transaction occurred because they offered a better value than the alternatives, possibly seeking to make more profit by volume. Second, since we have the rule of law in place, I know that the greedy people I chose to avoid will ultimately be brought to justice (some of which was served by me not giving them my business). As well, the greedy person’s volume strategy could fail causing them to go out of business, or they might rub enough people the wrong way and achieve the same effect. So consumer choice and rule of law are clearly two important keys to making free markets work.

As Richards points out in his book, free trade is not anarchy, as some would assert. It requires “a rule of law that makes sure one person doesn’t steal from another person or force the other person into an unwilling exchange (merely a more sophisticated form of theft).” He next argues that this doesn’t mean the government should control the market. The government’s job, amongst the few things it is designed to do, is to put a rule of law in place so unwilling exchanges are minimized, such as when unseemly brokers and banks attempt to sell “toxic loans” to unsuspecting homebuyers. In effect, this was the sophisticated theft through greed that the government was supposed to prevent, but only aided and abetted through poor monetary policy and lack of proper oversight of the financial markets. Beyond proper oversight, the government cannot control an economy because the free actions of individuals engaging in free trade is enormously complex, and when the government goes into the business of setting prices and controlling the production of goods and services through central planning, it has never worked out well for the people. In the governments whose leaders have tried this approach, such as those of Lenin and Mao Tse-tung, widespread famine and death resulted. So hopefully we have learned our lesson from history.

Richards notes that determining the economic value of anything is indeed a mystery and that market order is a wonder. Essentially, the price of a good or a service in a free economy is a little “packet of information” that tells us its economic value at that moment. It represents an underlying reality that is not merely the random choice of  a store clerk, but is a highly sensitive network for gathering and disseminating information, leading to specific prices for goods and services of interest. Richards further states that price alone allows entrepreneurs to decide where to invest, and it tells producers of goods how much to produce compared with other things it could produce. Thus, in a free market, goods and services will typically end up where they are valued the most. An excellent example is if a hurricane in the South leads to a local shortage of gasoline, gas prices will go up there and draw more gasoline to that region where it is more needed. Unfortunately, what typically happens in a crisis is that the government manipulates prices instead of allowing the free market to do its work. Another classic example is the “oil crisis” of the 1970s, when the government implemented price controls which, according to historian Thomas Woods, led to perverse outcomes that basic economic literacy would have avoided. In short, price controls did not allow more expensive oil to flow where it was most productive, which included oil rigs off the Louisiana coast, and further, did not allow other oil suppliers to enter the American market and alleviate the shortage. The result was long, unnecessary lines at the pump (as I distinctly recall, thus dating myself).

To bring this to a close and solidly address social justice, my conclusion is that a free market, properly regulated by consumer choice and a rule of law that minimizes (since it cannot eliminate) win-lose exchanges, provides for the greatest degree of social justice since it allows for the free exchange of goods and services with prices being set by willing sellers and willing buyers. If sellers don’t meet the needs and desires of buyers, then those sellers will ultimately go out of business. Now as to the rich, they do not become so at the expense of the poor, because economics is not a zero-sum game where for someone to win, someone else has to lose. The economy grows naturally as greater productivity is achieved, lifting all involved. And capitalism is setup precisely to maximize win-win situations so the economy can increase productivity and expand accordingly. The problem is with so much government meddling in capital markets, and the confiscation of wealth to fund inefficient, bureaucratic social programs, the poor have less capital to work with to start businesses or achieve more education that would allow them to command higher salaries. Indeed, most people of wealth today in the United States started from very humble beginnings, so we can have confidence that people of all economic levels can aspire to a better life, even if not great wealth.

In this current technological age, new wealth and opportunities to create wealth are created all the time. Yes, there will be the inevitable disruptions as technology shifts, but this is no different than the way things were 150 years ago when whole agrarian communities could be wiped out after a couple of years of drought, or in the early 1900s when the horseless carriage put buggy manufacturers out of business. Yet we live in a time of unprecedented comfort and leisure that even the wealthiest people 100 years ago could only dream of, due to high productivity and division of labor. In day to day life, there isn’t a major lifestyle difference between the average middle-class family and Hollywood celebrities or sports stars though obviously, many of the latter have a more secure financial future (presuming they don’t blow it). Even the poor today live considerably better than the average middle-class family in the early 1900s (e.g., running water, sanitation, refrigeration, air conditioning). But to bring about the social justice necessary to lift up those in poverty will require the church and charities working at the local level, in concert with the principle of subsidiarity as I discussed in my previous blog post. If the federal government gets out of the business of social programs, the necessary capital will be freed up so that people can make free decisions in an efficient manner to help those less fortunate within their own communities. The American people have always been up to this task, and it is time the government put its trust and the future of America back into the hands of the people.

* References:

Richards, Jay W. Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Woods Jr., Thomas E. The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Market. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2005.

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“Equality”: Its Use and Misuse

I’m introducing an interim topic while I continue my research on solutions for social justice, and am happy to be out of school for summer for the first time in three years. After perusing reader contributions to the commentary section on gay marriage in this past Sunday’s Orange County Register, I felt I should respond to the overloaded use of the word “equality” as the LGBT community likes to define it. Personally, I think if they took a hard look at the way they are trying to redefine this word, let alone marriage, they would see the logical fallacies of their arguments, and what the unintended consequences might be if they were to have their way. Specifically, the way they use the word equality makes the word mean that if someone, in their own mind, doesn’t feel like they’re getting what someone else has, then there is a fundamental inequality that exists and must thus be ameliorated so they can feel “equal.”

One young gentlemen wrote in to say that those who voted for Prop. 8 (the ballot measure that amends the CA constitution so it only recognizes marriage between a man and woman) chose to “fear and hate homosexuality rather than understand it.” So, according to him, anyone and everyone who voted for Prop. 8 fear and hate homosexuals while not understanding their lifestyle, and there is no possible alternative way of thinking. He further states that the ruling puts forth the idea that members of the LGBT community are not “equal” to those of the heterosexual community, so this is “discrimination by definition.” Well first, I would like to state that I don’t think he knows the mind of those who voted for Prop. 8 because he has probably not had a civil conversation with any of them. Anyone who chooses to paint others with a broad-brushed stroke to assert they know with certainty what others think without doing their due diligence is arguing speciously. I personally know of no one who fears or hates homosexuals, but they simply don’t agree that homosexuality should be accepted as a normative lifestyle. As to understanding the gay lifestyle, I think most people clearly understand monogamous homosexual relationships, but have little knowledge of the sexual profligacy of the gay “scene” in major metropolitan areas that has contributed greatly to HIV/AIDS transmission. This is the side of the gay lifestyle they don’t discuss in public. In fact, one of my best college friends contracted HIV/AIDS in the LA gay scene and is now back in Florida living with the unfortunate consequences of his chosen lifestyle.

On this gentleman’s second point, he states that members of the LGBT community are not equal to those of the heterosexual community, which is discrimination by definition. This is classically flawed thinking. There are few things in this life that are “equal,” but the inequality here does not imply discrimination in the sense that someone is somehow being slighted if all things are not being made “equal” to their liking. For example, in the eyes of God, Bill Gates and the poor children he is helping in Africa have an equal spiritual status. Yet they don’t have an equal economic status in terms of wealth. So is it inherently bad because Bill Gates won’t “equalize” his wealth with the children he helps, or is the issue that these poor families don’t have an equal opportunity to gain wealth, which Gates is pressing for? I would argue for the latter. Another example is my company’s eight weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave, respectively, for a mother and father having a child. Is it “unequal” that since I don’t have any children, I don’t get the same benefit?  Yes it is, but as I stated, few things in this life are “equal.” So it would be the height of narcissism for me to presume that I should be treated “equal” to those who have children, since my situation is decidedly not “equal” to theirs. This could also be applied to tax benefits for married couples and to mortgage deductions, which are clearly “unequal” since others are, in essence, being discriminated against, but these policies are designed to serve the common good by encouraging responsible behavior that leads to societal stability.

Now as this relates to the young man who wrote to the Register, and another who goes even further, stating that the electorate has “disenfranchised and marginalized” a minority group (even comparing this situation to the days of Hitler and hysteria against the Jews), I will lay out my case in opposition. First, I would say that I am a minority whose people endured almost four hundred years of horrific slavery, Jim Crow, and “separate but unequal” status before achieving our full civil rights in 1964. To my knowledge, the LGBT community enjoys full protections under the law as I do, and have access to civil unions in California that provide benefits equivalent to heterosexual marriages. So I fail to see how this group is being disenfranchised, marginalized, or is suffering in any way as did Jews under Hitler or as blacks did under slavery and Jim Crow. They have freely chosen their lifestyles and are free to live their lives as they choose. But what they want at core is acceptance by the majority (and the church), yet they push for it under the guise of equality due to a mistaken idea of what equality truly means and the many dimensions in which equality may be defined. For millennia, societies have determined that male and female, in a committed relationship, set the normative definition of marriage that can produce children in concert with nature. Those who believe that is somehow inherently discriminatory clearly have no respect for the institution of traditional marriage and its stabilizing force in society, as they cannot marshal any demonstrated alternative superior to this norm other than to express their felt needs that their freely chosen alternative relationships should be “included” in this definition.

If we allow gay marriage then we must necessarily allow for polygamous marriages, “geometric” arrangements (such as “triads” and “quads”), and incestuous relationships, because the argument for gay marriage is the same as that in favor of any other alternative arrangement: it is one about choice and not about any inherently normative family structure. In her prescient book on worldview titled Total Truth, author Nancy Pearcey states that the social institution of marriage is a moral entity in itself, with its own normative definition, where there is a “good” for the individuals in the relationship and there is a “common good” for their lives together. She laments that we live in a time when “family bonds are rapidly dissolving in the acids of personal autonomy,” counter to the wisdom of traditionalist cultures where the clan or tribe takes precedence over the individual.  In other words, we are allowing radical individualism to slowly and inexorably break the bonds of traditional family structures and values, with the outcome eventually being the breakdown of society itself. Somehow I don’t see these gentlemen that wrote to the register as seriously deliberating about the potential unintended consequences of gaining what they desire, as their arguments are about choices and feelings, and not a truly working definition of equality that accounts for the common good and what history has taught us.

* References

Pearcey, Nancy. Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition). Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005.

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