har University Justice go Michael Sand today we turn to K's reply to Aristotle K thinks that Aristotle just made a mistake it's one thing Kant says to support a fair framework of Rights within which people can pursue their own conceptions of the good life it's something else and something that runs the risk of coercion to base law or principles of Justice on any particular conception of the good life you remember Aristotle says in order to investigate the ideal Constitution we have first to figure out the best way to live K would reject that idea he
says that constitutions and laws and rights should not embody or affirm or promote any particular way of life that's at odds with freedom for Aristotle the whole point of law the purpose of the polus is to shape character to cultivate the virtue of citizens to inculcate Civic Excellence to make possible a good way of life that's what he tells us in the politics for account on the other hand the purpose of law the point of a constitution is not to inculcate or to promote virtue it's to set up a fair framework of Rights within which
citizens may be free to pursue their their own conceptions of the good for themselves so we see the difference in their theories of Justice we see the difference in their account of law or the role of a constitution the point of politics and underlying these differences are two different accounts of what it means to be a free person for Aristotle we're free in so far as we have the capacity to realize our potential and that leads us to the question of fit fit between persons and the roles that are appropriate to them figuring out what
I'm cut out for that's what it means to lead a free life to live up to my potential Kant rejects that idea and instead substitutes his famously demanding notion of Freedom as the capacity to act autonomously Freedom means acting according to a law I give myself freedom is autonomy part of the the appeal part of the moral force of the view of Kant and of RS consists in the conception of the person as a free and independent self capable of choosing his or her own the image of the self as free and independent offers a
if you think about it a powerful liberating Vision because what it says is that as free moral persons we are not bound by any ties of history or of tradition or of inherited status that we haven't chosen for ourselves and so we're Unbound by any moral ties prior to our choosing them and that means that means that we are free and independent Sovereign selves we're the authors of the only obligations that constrain us the communitarian critics of Conan and rosian liberalism acknowledge that there is something powerful and inspiring in that account of Freedom the free
independent choosing self but they argue it misses something it misses the whole dimension of moral life and even political life it can't make sense of our moral experience because it can't account for certain moral and political obligations that we commonly recognize and even prize and these include obligations of membership loyalty solidarity and other moral ties that may claim us for reasons that we can't trace to an act of consent Alistair McIntyre gives an account what he calls a narrative conception of the self it's a different account of the self human beings are essentially storytelling creatures
McIntyre argues that means I can only answer the question what am I to do if I can answer the prior question of what story or stories do I find myself apart that's what he means by The Narrative conception of the self what does this have to do with the idea of community and belonging McIntyre says this once you accept this narrative aspect of moral reflection you will notice that we can never seek for the good or exercise the virtues only as individuals we all approach our circumstance as bearers of particular social identities I am someone's
son or daughter a citizen of this or that City I belong to this clan that tribe this nation hence McIntyre argues what is good for me has to be the good for someone who inhabits these roles I inherit from the past of my family my city My Tribe my nation a variety of debts inheritances expectations and obligations these constitute the given of my life my moral starting point this is in part what gives my life its moral particularity that's the narrative conception of the self and it's a conception that sees the self as claimed or
encumbered at least to some extent by the history the tradition the communities of which it's a part we can't make sense of Our Lives not only as a psychological matter but also as a moral matter in thinking what we ought to do without attending to these features about us now McIntyre recognizes that this narrative account this picture of the encumbered self puts his account at odds with contemporary liberalism and individualism from the standpoint of individualism I am what I myself choose to be I may biologically be my Father's son but I can't be held responsible
for what he did unless I choose to assume such responsibility I can't be held responsible for what my country does or has done unless I choose to assume such responsibility but McIntyre says this reflects a certain kind of moral shallowness even blindness it's a blindness that odds with the full measure of responsibility which sometimes he says involves Collective responsibility or responsibilities that may flow from historic memories and he gives some examples such individualism is expressed by those contemporary Americans who deny any responsibility for the effects of slavery upon black Americans saying I never never owned
any slaves or the young German who believes that having been born after 1945 means that what Nazis did to Jews has no moral relevance to his relationship to his Jewish contemporaries McIntyre says all of these attitudes of historical Amnesia amount to a kind of moral abdication what once you see that who we are and what it means to sort out our obligations can't be separated shouldn't be separated from the life histories that Define us the contrast he says with the narrative account is clear for the story of my life is always embedded in the story
of those communities from which I derive my identity I am born with the past and to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships so there you have in McIntyre a strong statement of the idea that the self can't be detached shouldn't be detached from its particular ties of membership history story narrative now I want to get your reactions to the communitarian critique peak of the individualist or the voluntarist the unencumbered self but let's make it concrete so that you can react to more than just the theory of it
by looking at the two different accounts of moral and political obligation that arise depending on which of these conceptions of the person one accepts on the liberal conception moral and political obligations arise in one of two ways there are natural duties that we owe human beings as such duties of respect for persons qu persons these obligations are Universal then as RS points out there are also voluntary obligations obligations that we owe to particular others in so far as we have agreed read whether through a promise or a deal or a contract now the issue between
the liberal and communitarian accounts of the self is there another category of obligation or not the communitarian says there is there is a third category that might be called obligations of solidarity or loyalty or membership the communitarian argues that construing all obligations as either natural duties or voluntary obligations fails to capture obligations of membership or solidarity loyalties whose moral Force consists partly in the fact that living by them is inseparable from understanding ourselves as the particular persons we are what would be some examples and then I want to see how you would react to them
examples of obligations of membership that are particular but don't necessarily flow from consent but rather from membership narrative Community one situation the most common examples are ones to do with the family the relation between parents and children for examp example Suppose there were two children drowning you could save only one of them one was your child the other was a stranger's child would you have an obligation to flip a coin or would there be something morally obtuse if you didn't rush to save your child now you may say well parents have agreed to have their
children so take the other case the case of children's obligation for their parents now we don't choose our parents we don't even choose to have parents there is that asymmetry and yet consider two aging parents one of them yours the other a strangers doesn't it make moral sense to think that you have a greater obligation to look after your aged parent than to flip a coin or to help the strangers now is this traceable to consent not likely or take a couple of political examples during World War II French Resistance Pilots flew bombing raids over
occupied France one day one of the pilots received his targets and noticed that the vill he was being asked to bomb was his home Village he refused not disputing that it was as necessary as the target he bombed yesterday he refused on the ground that he couldn't bring himself it would be a special moral crime for him to bomb his people even in a cause that he supported the cause of liberating France now do we admire that if we do the communitarian argues it's because we do recognize obligations of solidarity take another example some years
ago there was a famine in Ethiopia hundreds of thousands of people were starving the Israeli government organized an airlift to rescue Ethiopian Jews they didn't have the capacity to rescue everyone in Ethiopia they rescued several hundred Ethiopian Jews now what's your moral assessment is that a kind of morally troubling partiality a kind of prejudice or as the Israeli government thought is there a special obligation of solidarity that this airlift properly responded to well that takes us to the broader question of patriotism what morally speaking is to be said for patriotism there are two towns named
Franklin one is Franklin Texas and the other is just across the Rio Grand River Franklin Mexico what is the moral significance of national boundaries why is it or is it the case that we as Americans have a greater responsibility for the health and the education and the welfare and public provision for people who live in Franklin Texas than equally needy people just across the river living in Franklin Mexico according to the communitarian account membership does matter and the reason patriotism is at least potentially a virtue is that it is an expression of the obligations of
citizenship how many are sympathetic to the idea that there is this third category of obligation the oblig obligations of solidarity or membership how many are sympathetic to that idea and how many are critical of that idea how many think all obligations can be accounted for in the first two ways all right let's from the critics of the communitarian idea first yes my biggest concern with the idea of having obligations because you're a member of something or because of solidarity is that it seems that if you accept those obligations as being sort of morally binding then
there's a greater currence of overlapping obligations um a greater currence of good versus good and I don't know if this sort of framework allows us to choose between them good and what's your name Patrick so you worry that if we recognize obligations of membership or solidarity since we inhabit different communities their claims might conflict and what would we do if we have competing obligations yes well well one solution is that we could view ourselves as ultimately um members of the human community and that then within that we have all these smaller spheres of that you
know I am American or I am a student at Harvard and so the most important um Community to be to be obligated to is the community of human beings and then from there you can sort of evaluate which other ones are most important to you so the most UN and what's your name Nicola so Nicola you say the most universal Community we inhabit the community of humankind always takes precedence yes Patrick are you satisfied no why not um it seems rather arbitrary that we should choose the universal obligation over the more specific obligation I might
also say that I should be obligated first to the most specific of my obligations for instance take my family as a small unit of solidarity perhaps I should be first obligated to that unit and then perhaps to the unit of my town and then my country and then the human race good thank you let's I want to hear from another critic of the communitarian view we have the objection well what have Goods Collide who objects to the whole idea of it who sees patriotism as just a kind of prejudice that ideally we should overcome yes
patriotism reflects a community membership that's a like a given I think the problem is that whereas some memberships are natural narratives The Narrative of citizenship is a constructed one and I think a false one because as the river is just a historical accident it makes no sense that because the lottery of birth threw me into the United States as opposed to Mexico that that's the membership that I should be a part of good and what's your name Elizabeth Elizabeth who has a reply yes I think in in general uh we have to ask where do
our moral obligations arise from anyway and I think basically there'd be two places from which they could arise one would be kin and another one would be reciprocity and isn't the closer you are associated to other people there's a natural reciprocity there in terms of having um interactions with those people uh you interact with the neighbors on your street with the other people in your country through economic Arrangements but I don't know and you don't know those people in Franklin Texas any more than you know the people in in Franklin Mexico do you Pres presumably
you're naturally more connected with the people in your own country in terms of interaction and trade than you are with people in other countries good who else go ahead yeah I think that a lot of um the basis for patriotism can be compared to like school spirit or even house spirit that we see here where freshmen are sorted into houses and then within a day they have developed some sort of attachment or Pride associated with that house and so I think that we can probably um draw a distinction between a moral obligation um for communitarian
beliefs and sort of just a Sentimental emotional attachment good wait say stay there what's your name Reena what about go back to my example about the obligation of the child to the parent would you say the same thing there it's just a may may may or may not be a Sentimental type but it has no moral weight well I mean I'm not entirely certain that accident um in the initial stages something that will preclude like moral obligations later um so you know just because we're randomly sorted into a house or just because we don't choose
um who our parents are or a country we born into doesn't necessarily mean that we won't like develop an obligation based on some type of benefit I guess which is sort of shap so your obligation to your aged parent that's greater than to aged parents around the world is only because and in so far as you're repaying a benefit that your parent gave you when you were growing up yeah I mean I would say that if you look at um cases of adoption where you know you have a biological parent somewhere else that you don't
interact with and then you have a parent you know who adapted you most people would say that if you had to pick between them in the case of you know aging parents that your obligation would lie more with the person who raised you and who had exchanges with you meaningfully one more question about the parent sure do you think that a person with a bad parent owes them less I don't know because I've never had a bad parent I think that's a good place to endk we'll continue with this next time thank you if I
were working on an e problem set for example and and I saw that my roommate was cheating that might be a bad thing for who for him to do but I wouldn't turn him in you would not turn him in I wouldn't turn him in and I think that I would argue that's the right thing to do because of my obligation to you know you don't have a duty to tell the truth to report someone who cheated
