Creel Froman's Language and Power

Lewis Acrelius (Creel) Froman (1935-2014) was a professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He earned a B.A. in political science from Yale University in 1957, and a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University in 1960.  He became professor of political science at UCI in 1965, and served as the Dean of the School of Social Sciences from 1971-75. He retired in 2004. His publications include The Manuscript of Hugo Potts: An Inquiry into Meaning (1973), Congressmen and Their Constituencies (1974), The Two American Political Systems: Society, Economics, and Politics (1984), and Language and Power (4 volumes: Books I and II, 1992; Books III, IV, and V, 1993; Books VI and VII, 1995; and Books VIII and IX, 1997).

      In Language and Power, Froman argues that language is power, in the sense that language creates power and power creates language. Language both constructs power and is a construction of power.¹ Power structures are “languaged,” in the sense that their construction/representation in language is controlled by those in power. Knowledge/meaning/reality is constructed/represented in language, and whoever controls language also controls the construction/representation of knowledge/meaning/reality.

      Language may be described as a structure of meaning and of knowledge/reality creation, while power may be described as a structure of inequality and of positional and distributional advantages provided to various individuals and groups within social units.

      Power maintains itself through control over descriptive and structural language. “The language of the whole” (the language of power) treats each member of society as part of a larger structure, but as a result of the asymmetry of positions within social structures, some members of society are empowered, while others are disempowered.

      “Language is a product of the powered conditions in which its construction takes place,” says Froman, and it thus “reflects/represents/incorporates the interests of those who construct knowledge/meaning/reality within it.”² The language of power, which is misleadingly promoted as “the language of the whole,” serves the interests of power not only by ignoring/justifying the relative positional and distributional disadvantages of the disempowered with respect to the structure of social institutions, but also by masking/justifying the relative positional and distributional advantages of the empowered.

      “The language of the whole” consists of both a structural language of inequality and an individual language of merit or just desert justifying that inequality.³ In structural language, positional and distributional inequality is seen as a matter of structural relationships between the advantaged and disadvantaged, while in individual language, it is seen as a matter of individual merit or just desert.

      Power in individual/liberal language is understood as being dispersed among individuals, based on a fair and equal opportunity to participate being offered to all, rather than as concentrated in structures of unfair and unequal positional and distributional advantages.⁴

      Power is manifested socially as inequality between the empowered and disempowered with respect to how any given group or social institution is structured.⁵ Because the language of the empowered (who are promoted as “the leading part” in the structure of the whole) becomes hegemonic in its ability to define what knowledge/meaning/reality is, alternative languages arise in response to the disempowerment of some individuals and groups. Alternative (resistance) languages call attention to structural inequalities that are seen as just in conventional language (“legitimate language,” according to the empowered), but that are seen as unjust in alternative (resistance) language.⁶

      Conventional language (power’s language, or “the language of the whole”) is authorized or legitimized by those in power, while unconventional (resistance) language is discouraged or delegitimized.

      However, power is based not only on the control of language, but also on the division of society into criterial groups (according to race, gender, class, and age) or structural parts. This division of society into criterial groups establishes relations of inequality (with, for example, non-whites seen as unequal to whites, women seen as unequal to men, and the poor seen as unequal to the wealthy). Power/language is thus the construction of knowledge/meaning/reality on the basis of criterial inequalities established by institutional structures.⁷ Criterial groups are ways of understanding persons not as individual, unique persons, but as raced/gendered/classed/aged “heterohumans.”⁸ Structural language constructs persons "heteronomously" as being in unequal relations of power (dominance or subordination) to one another.⁹

      Power languagers attempt to mask/justify/ignore/deny structural inequalities by their use of individual/liberal language. Resistance languagers, on the other hand, use the already present structural language in power’s language to assert that reality does indeed consist of gendered/classed/raced/aged kinds of persons, and that these “heterohuman” categories unfairly assign unequal positional and distributional advantages or disadvantages to various individuals within the (social, economic, and political) structures of the social unit.¹⁰

      While “the language of the whole” (power’s language) may propose, or be based on, the unequal distribution of (social, economic, legal, or political) advantages to various individuals within a social unit, alternative (resistance) languages may propose alternative distributions of advantages. While the language of power may treat (social, economic, legal, or political) inequalities as merited and just, resistance languages may treat them as unmerited and unjust.

      Froman explains that “social units are divisions of labor which locate their members unequally with respect to positional and distributional advantages, based on/in a powered language of inequality.”¹¹ Social units include the empowered (“the leading part”) and the disempowered (“the other part”). “The other part” includes “the languaging class” and “the non-languaging class” (“the oppressed”). “The languaging class” consists of those individuals who control the language of institutional structures (structural language, or “the language of the whole”), thus acting as agents for “the leading part.” "The non-languaging class" consists of those individuals for whom “the language of the whole” is least suitable, since it creates/reinforces/justifies institutional structures in which they are positionally and distributionally disadvantaged.¹²

      Language controllers are also problem controllers, insofar as their control over language gives them the power to tell the rest of society whether there are problems (in language, or in the world), what the problems are, and how they are to be solved.¹³

      “The languaging class” includes those persons (such as teachers, administrative personnel, lawyers, government officials, journalists, writers, and professionals of all kinds) who benefit, in terms of positional and distributional advantages, by (knowingly or unknowingly) serving the interests of those in power.¹⁴ “The languaging class” promotes “the language of the whole,” and it discourages alternative or resistance languages.

      Power’s language asserts that social inequalities are justified, because of differences in individual merit or just desert, but resistance language asserts that social inequalities are unjustified, because of illegitimate structural asymmetries in the positional and distributional advantages afforded to various individuals and groups.¹⁵ Justice as individually merited inequality (power’s morality) thus comes into conflict with justice as structural equality (resistance’s morality).¹⁶ In the language of power, justice is impossible without social inequality, but in the language of resistance, justice is impossible without social equality.¹⁷

FOOTNOTES

¹Creel Froman, Language and Power: Books VI and VII (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1996), p. 71.

²Ibid., p. 12.

³Ibid., p. 2.

⁴Froman, Language and Power: Books III, IV, and V (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1993), p. 84.

⁵Froman, Language and Power: Books I and II (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1992), p. 4.

⁶Language and Power: Books III, IV, and V, p. 87.

⁷Language and Power, Books VI and VII, p. 75.

⁸Language and Power, Books III, IV, and V, p. 116.

⁹Ibid., p. 121.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 125.

¹¹Ibid., p. 91.

¹²Ibid., p. 91.

¹³Language and Power: Books I and II, p. 38.

¹⁴Language and Power, Books III, IV, and V, p. 91.

¹⁵Language and Power, Books VI and VII, p. 33.

¹⁶Ibid., p. 2.

¹⁷Ibid., p. 3.

Moral Imagination

What is moral imagination, and what role does (or should) it play in moral reasoning? What is its importance in moral decision-making?

      Moral imagination may be described as an ability to devise new or alternative approaches to moral problem-solving, and thus an ability to formulate new interpretations of the meaning of moral actions and situations.

      It may also be described as an ability to conceive of new or alternative moral principles and values, and thus an ability to engage with, and have a fuller understanding of, one’s own moral capacities and those of a given individual, group, or society.

      It may also be described as an ability to develop new or alternative interpretations of the moral motivations of others, and thus an ability to recognize the range of possibilities available for moral behavior.

      For some individuals, moral imagination may take the form of imagining a kind of morality different from conventional morality. It may take the form of imagining that what is conventionally taken as right is actually wrong, or that what is conventionally taken as wrong is actually right, or that there actually is no right or wrong.

      For those who do not know right from wrong (such as, perhaps, some young children or cognitively impaired individuals or psychiatrically disabled individuals), moral imagination may be an imagining that something is right or wrong because of the responses that it seems to evoke from others. The emotionally immature or cognitively impaired individual may in some cases only discover that something is right or wrong by becoming acquainted with the moral and social responses of others to it.

      Trying to improve our moral conduct, and striving toward a moral ideal, may also to some extent involve our imagining the kinds of people we could be if we were to live up to all our responsibilities and fulfill all our moral ideals. In order to become better citizens, we may sometimes have to imagine how we could become better fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, teachers, students, co-workers, colleagues, teammates, friends, or neighbors.

      To imagine something may be to conceive of that thing without ever having actually seen or experienced it. It may also be to perceive something as present or possible without its ever having actually been present for, or accessible to, sensory perception.

      To imagine something may also be to conceive of an object, person, situation, or condition that doesn't yet, but could, exist. It may be to evoke, summon, or call forth unrealized possibilities.

      If something engages or captivates our imaginations, we may find it to be particularly intriguing or compelling. We may discover that it presents to us a range of possibilities that we were previously unaware of or were only partially aware of. We may then be drawn to further explore its nature, meaning, significance, and implications.

      Moral imagination may be a power or faculty of producing from current or past perceptions new ideas or concepts that have moral applications, implications, or dimensions. It may involve creative and intuitive, as well as analytic and critical thinking. It may be combined with other moral faculties, such as moral perception, intuition, insight, reasoning, and understanding, in order to produce a more secure and reliable foundation for moral judgment.

      Moral imagination may also enable us to recognize that there may be more than one way of looking at and responding to moral problems.

      The ability to be imaginative may depend on an openness to new thoughts, new impressions, and new ways of looking at things.

      Moral imagination may therefore enable us to find creative solutions to moral dilemmas. It may enable us to envision and formulate ideal modes of conduct.

      Supererogatory conduct (actions that go beyond what is morally obligatory) may depend on the power of the imagination to inspire us to perform actions that go beyond the call of duty.

      Imagination may also play an important role in such moral attitudes as sympathy, empathy, and compassion. The ability to feel and express sympathy, empathy, or compassion for others may to some extent depend on the ability to imagine what they are feeling, and thus to imagine the pain, suffering, distress, anxiety, embarrassment, shame, sadness, or despair they may be experiencing.

      A constricted moral imagination may constrict the ability to feel sympathy, empathy, or compassion for others. Failure to respond to the suffering and distress of those who are seen as outsiders or strangers may thus in some cases be due to a constriction, deficiency, or failure of imagination.

      Imagination may also enable us to evaluate our own actions in light of what we think others may think about them. It may help us to recognize that our conduct can always be improved.

      Moral imagination may enable us to exercise capacities for moral decision-making that we didn't previously know we possessed or that we were only dimly aware of. It may enable us to anticipate the possible unintended consequences of our actions, and to judge whether those consequences are desirable or undesirable. In cases in which we are compelled to ask ourselves whether we may have failed to treat others as we ourselves would want to be treated, it may enable us to recognize how we would feel if we were treated by others in the same way that we have treated them.

       Moral imagination may also play a role in, or be incorporated into, other forms of imagination, such as religious, aesthetic, literary, poetic, or dramatic imagination. It may inspire the creation of moral comedy or tragedy. It may provide a foundation for moral aesthetics or poetics, including the poetics of moral possibility.

      As a creative enterprise, moral imagination may also be opposed to mimesis, rote repetition, or mechanical mimicry of conventionally accepted behavior. It may be opposed to rigid and inflexible adherence to moral norms and principles of duty. Thus, it may make possible the perception of a kind of moral truth that transcends conventionally accepted truth, and it may inspire new approaches to, and creative strategies for, moral problem-solving.

      Moral imagination may therefore depend less on the seeing of things as they are (though it certainly does depend on this kind of seeing) than on the seeing of things as they might be. The seeing of things as they might be, or as they could possibly be, is also the awareness of possibility, which may be the essence or most fundamental feature of imagination.

      Moral imagination may be something that makes possible Raskolnikov’s overwhelming sense of guilt in Crime and Punishment, Ahab’s maniacal quest for revenge in Moby Dick, Kurz’s ultimate sense of horror in Heart of Darkness, and Joseph K’s inescapable sense of anxiety and desperation in The Trial.

      It may also be something that makes possible Jane’s faithfulness to her sense of duty in Jane Eyre, Strether’s moral scrupulousness and faithfulness to personal conscience in The Ambassadors, Jay Gatsby’s romantic idealism and sense of hope in The Great Gatsby, Emma’s carelessness and capriciousness in Madame Bovary, Hedda’s recklessness and self-indulgence in Hedda Gabler, Blanche’s disdain for Stanley’s crudeness in A Streetcar Named Desire, Levee’s sense of futility and rage in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Dimmesdale’s agonizing sense of guilt in The Scarlet Letter, and Aschenbach’s hopeless infatuation with Tadzio in Death in Venice.

      Matthew Kieran, in an article entitled “Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals” (1996), explains that morally significant art may promote imaginative understandings of moral problems, concerns, or situations. Art "may extend or deepen our understanding of the values and commitments that underlie our actions and desires,” and it "may also shape our understanding of what we value by showing us how to act…in morally fruitful or harmful ways.”¹

      John Dewey (1922) explains that “deliberation is a dramatic rehearsal (in imagination) of various competing possible lines of action….Each habit, each impulse involved in the temporary suspense of overt action takes its turn in being tried out. Deliberation…. is an experiment in making various combinations of selected elements of habits and impulses, [in order] to see what the resultant action would be like if it were entered upon.”²

      Steven Fesmire (2003) extends Dewey’s conception of the role of imagination in moral deliberation by proposing three interrelated theses: (1) moral character, belief, and reasoning are inherently social, embodied, and historically situated, (2) moral deliberation is fundamentally imaginative and takes the form of dramatic rehearsal, and (3) moral imagination may be conceived as a process of aesthetic perception and artistic creation.³ Fesmire therefore argues that imagination may provide deliberative resources for moral decision-making that are not provided by rigid adherence to abstract principles of morality.
      Mark Johnson (1993) explains that "moral reasoning is...basically an imaginative activity, because it...requires imagination to discern what is morally relevant in situations, to understand empathetically how others experience things, and to envision the full range of possibilities open to us in a particular case."⁴ He also says that moral situations may be metaphorically conceptualized in order to more clearly understand them, and that "the metaphorical character of moral understanding is precisely what makes it possible to make appropriate moral judgments."⁵

      Moral imagination may inspire the construction of moral narratives, and it may promote understanding of the ways in which such narratives can be framed or contextualized. Moral narratives may be those that have a moral content, subject matter, theme, purpose, or meaning. The understanding of moral situations may to some extent depend on the understanding of narrative accounts and explanations that have been provided with respect to those situations. Moral understanding may therefore be to some extent a kind of narrative understanding.
      However, moral understanding may be not only analytic, conceptual, thematic, and textual, but also synthetic, imaginative, empathetic, and experiential.
      Moral imagination may include the capacity to perceive previously unrecognized or poorly understood moral dimensions of our actions. It may also include, as a result of the capacity to think creatively about moral possibility and responsibility, the capacity to perceive those moral dimensions of our actions that are not immediately or prima facie evident. It may therefore enable us to develop a fuller understanding of the morally good, and a clearer understanding of the true nature of morality (whatever that may be).

     

FOOTNOTES

¹Matthew Kieran, “Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 54, No. 4 (1996), p. 345.

²John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1922), p. 190.

³Steven Fesmire, John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 4.
⁴Mark Johnson, Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. ix-x.
⁵Ibid., p. 10.

Health Care as a Basic Human Right

If every person has, or should have, the right to health care, then what are the limits of that right? To what kind of health care is every person entitled, if health care is a basic human right?

      I believe the right to health care is indeed a basic human right, along with the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to personal security, the right to due process of law, the right to work, the right to receive an education, and other basic human rights.

      The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, says that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”¹

      I believe there is a moral argument to be made (which I shall not present here) for providing some level of basic health care to everyone who is in need of care, regardless of their ability to pay. What then is the level of basic care that should be provided?

       Allen Buchanan, in an article entitled “The Right to a Decent Minimum of Health Care” (1984), argues that the right to health care is not an unlimited right, but rather a right to a “decent minimum” of care.² However, I would argue that the concept of a “decent minimum” of care is unacceptable for a number of reasons, and that the right to health care is a right to timely and adequate access to medically necessary care, recognizing that (1) access must be reasonable, not unnecessarily impeded, not unduly burdensome, and actual rather than merely theoretical, and (2) the care provided must be respectful of the human and personal dignity of each individual.

      Medically necessary care may be defined as care provided to prevent, diagnose, or treat a medical condition, in accordance with the accepted medical standard of care for that condition. The standard of care for a given medical condition may be defined as the kind of care that would ordinarily be rendered by a competent health care provider in the same community under similar circumstances. Medically necessary care may also be defined as care without which the patient being treated would suffer debilitating symptoms, preventable complications, irreparable injury, or permanent loss of function.

      The right to health care is not a right to unlimited or unnecessary care. Patients do not have the right to demand unnecessary services, and care providers do not have an obligation to provide unnecessary services. Indeed, care providers have an obligation not to provide unnecessary services, because such services may be harmful to patients and wasteful of health care resources.

      What then is wrong with the concept of a “decent minimum” of care? A “decent minimum” may be defined in a number of ways, some of them quite problematic. For example, from the point of view of party A, who thinks that party B is morally and socially inferior and therefore undeserving of the same level of health care available to party A, a “decent minimum” of care for party B may be something quite lower than what party A is entitled to. Also, from the viewpoint of party A, who lives in wealthy country C, a “decent minimum” of care for party B, who lives in poor country D, may be something quite lower than what party A is entitled to, because of the disparities between the economic and health care resources of countries C and D and the consequent disparity between what people of the two countries may see as the “decent minimum” level of care to which they are entitled. Both of these viewpoints may lead to arbitrariness, inequity, and injustice in the way in which the definition of a “decent minimum” of care is decided upon.

      It may also be argued that people have a right to more than a “decent minimum” of care, and that they have a right to the best quality of medically necessary care that can be provided, within the logistical, economic, and technological constraints of the health care system of the society in which they live.

      The financial cost of health care, of course, has to be taken into account in determining what constitutes the best possible care. The best possible care is also the safest, most reliable, most effective, and most cost-efficient care, as well as the care that is least burdensome for patients and most likely to produce the best possible outcomes.

      Buchanan says that debate about the claim that there is a right to a “decent minimum” of health care may center on two issues: (1) the issue of whether there is a more extensive right to health care, and (2) the issue of what health care services comprise the “decent minimum” of care to which there is a right.³ He admits that the claim that there is a “decent minimum” of care usually presupposes that this “decent minimum” is relative to the given society in which it is said to exist, but he argues that the advantages of the concept of a “decent minimum” for all individuals, as opposed to an equality of opportunity (regarding health care) for all individuals, are that (1) the concept of a “decent minimum” enables us to adjust the level of care according to relevant social conditions, (2) it “avoids the excesses of the strong equal access principle” (that everyone has an equal right to the best health care available) , while still acknowledging a substantive universal right, and (3) it recognizes that there must be some limitation to the right to health care, because of the limitations in resources available to any given society.⁴

      Buchanan thus explains that it’s reasonable to assume that, just as with other social goods and services, the extent of the right to health care services depends on the resources available to a given society.⁵ He makes a distinction between universal rights claims (which attribute the same rights to all individuals) and special rights claims (which attribute rights to particular individuals or groups).⁶ He also explains that special rights claims may be based on past discrimination against an individual or group (because that individual or group may have a special right to goods or services they have previously been denied) or may be based on unjust harms suffered by an individual or group (because that individual or group may have a special right to compensation for the unjust harms they have suffered) or may be based on sacrifices made by an individual or group for the good of society as a whole (because that individual or group may have a special right to compensation for the sacrifices they have made).⁷

      It may be argued, however, that everyone has a right to the best care available within the logistical, economic, and technological constraints of the health care system of the society in which they live, although everyone may not necessarily have the same right. Those who are more in need of health care may have more of a right to the best care available. Those who invest their financial resources in order to ensure that they receive the best care available may also have a special right to receive the best care available. However, need should be considered more important than ability to pay in determining who is most deserving of available health care. Individuals should not be prohibited from investing their financial resources in order to ensure that they receive the best care available, but all individuals should be able to receive the best care available if they are really in need, regardless of their ability to pay.

      Another argument against the acceptability of the concept of a “decent minimum” of care is that care providers may have a duty to provide more than a “decent minimum.” They actually have a duty to fulfill a “reasonable standard of care,” which may be more than a “decent minimum.” Moreover, it may be argued they have a duty to provide the best care they can provide within the constraints of the health care system in which they function as providers. Requiring them to provide only a “decent minimum” of care may conflict with their duty to fulfill a “reasonable standard” of care and to provide the best care they can provide within the constraints of the given health care system.

      I would argue that health care providers also have a duty to provide the best possible care for all their patients, regardless of their patients’ socioeconomic status, age, gender, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

      Part of the duty of every health care provider is to function as an advocate for their patients in order to help them navigate the health care system, and in order to ensure that they have access to all the care they need. Patients have a right to expect that their health care providers will do their best to ensure that they receive all the care they need, and to ensure that they receive the best care possible.

      The concept of a “decent minimum” of care may therefore become a means to unfairly discriminate against individuals, based on their socioeconomic status or other factors. Those who are seen as being of lower socioeconomic status may be seen as being entitled to only a “decent minimum” of care, while those who are seen as being of higher socioeconomic status may be seen as being entitled to the best care available.

      The supposed obligation to provide only a “decent minimum” of care may also become a “slippery slope” for care providers, leading them to provide less and less care until the concept of a “decent minimum” has hardly any meaning. A “decent minimum” may come to mean almost nothing at all. A “decent minimum” may also come to mean a lower level of care than could reasonably be provided within the constraints of the health care system.  A “decent minimum” may become a kind of “race to the bottom,” rather than an effort to make a higher baseline level of health care available to all individuals.

      Perhaps, instead of trying to explore the content of a “decent minimum of care,” we should try to explore the content of an “adequate baseline level of care.”

      Justice in health care does not require that everyone have the same access to care and receive the same level of care, regardless of whether some are more in need of care than others. It does, however, require that everyone be provided with the health care they need, and that an adequate baseline level of health care be made available to all.

      Kenneth Cust (1997) describes a “just minimum of health care” as a more viable concept than a “decent minimum of health care.” He says that

“Thus far we have taken the phrase ‘decent minimum of health care’ to mean roughly an adequate amount of health care. However, the concept “decent” has normative content as well. It can mean, for example, conformity with a standard of conduct or propriety. On this account, to say that people were entitled to a decent minimum of health care would mean little more than to say they were entitled to only what we choose to give them. If this is what Buchanan meant by a decent minimum of health care, then it may not be sufficient to meet people’s basic heath care needs.”⁸

      The right to medically necessary care may imply other rights, such as those enumerated in various statements of patient rights and responsibilities. Patient rights implied by the right to medically necessary care may include such rights as (1) the right to be treated with dignity and respect, (2) the right to be treated in a safe and secure environment, (3) the right to be protected from abuse, neglect, and mistreatment, (4) the right to be protected from discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or disability, (5) the right to informed consent, (6) the right to privacy, (7) the right to confidentiality of personal and health information, (8) the right to participate in medical decision-making concerning their own care and treatment, and (9) the right to timely and understandable communications from health care providers.

      Patient responsibilities, on the other hand, may include (1) the responsibility to provide complete and accurate information about present symptoms, present and past medications, past medical history, and past treatment, (2) the responsibility to cooperate with care providers in order to develop plans of treatment, (3) the responsibility to comply with recommended treatment, (4) the responsibility to return for follow-up appointments in a timely fashion, and (5) the responsibility to respect the rights of other patients.

FOOTNOTES

¹United Nations, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” (1948), online at http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.

²Allen Buchanan,, “The Right to a Decent Minimum of Health Care” (1984), in Justice and Health Care: Selected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 4.

³Ibid., p. 17.

⁴Ibid., p. 20.

⁵Ibid., p. 20.

⁶Ibid., p. 27.

⁷Ibid., p. 27.

⁸Kenneth Cust, A Just Minimum of Health Care (Lanham: University Press of America, 1997), p. 61.

Seeing Others as Ourselves, and Ourselves as Others

What does it mean to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Does it mean to love your neighbor as you yourself would want to be loved? Does it mean to care for your neighbor’s well-being as much as you care for your own well-being? Does it mean to love your neighbor as if you yourself were your neighbor and you were in the same situation that your neighbor finds themself in?

      Who exactly is your neighbor? Can your neighbor be anyone you meet, regardless of the particular neighborhood or community they belong to?

      What does it mean to love another (or the other) as self, to love the other as other, to love the self as self, and to love the self as other?

      When we love others as ourselves, we may act for their benefit as often as, or even more often than, we act for our own benefit. We may indeed see their benefit as no different from our own benefit. We may see others as having the same basic needs, interests, and concerns that we have. We may empathize with them when they suffer loss or misfortune, and we may try to “put ourselves in their shoes” when we make judgments about their actions.

      We may also find that seeing ourselves as others is inseparable from seeing others as ourselves. Seeing ourselves as others and seeing others as ourselves may be complementary aspects of self-awareness and social understanding. They both may be ways of becoming ourselves. They may also be ways of transcending ourselves.

       When we see others as ourselves, we cannot ignore them when they are suffering or in distress. Their well-being may become as important to us as our own well-being. We may discover that by promoting their well-being, we also promote our own well-being. We may then need to recognize that from their perspective, we may be the “others.” We may need to recognize our own otherness, and to ask ourselves whether our whole way of conceptualizing sameness and otherness needs to be revised and rethought.

      When we love others as ourselves, their suffering may indirectly become our own suffering, but we still do not directly experience their suffering unless we take that suffering directly upon ourselves in an effort to comfort or relieve them. If we are truly altruistic, then we will, if necessary, sacrifice our own comfort and security in order to relieve the suffering of others, and we will take upon ourselves the task of removing all suffering. We will also show compassion toward those whose suffering cannot be completely remedied or relieved.

      When we love others as others, we love them in all their difference(s) from us. We may even love them for their difference(s) from us. We may celebrate, rather than disparage or mistrust, their difference(s).

       When we love others as others, we also love them for who they are, rather than for who we want them to be. We respect their differences, rather than try to contest or change them. We accept their otherness, and love them without trying to deny or erase their difference(s).

      On the other hand, when we see others as others, we may sometimes make the mistake of seeing only their difference(s) from us. We may try to maintain their otherness, rather than see them as more or less the same as, or similar to, ourselves. We may try to separate ourselves from them, rather than recognize the ways in which they share with us the same basic needs, interests, and concerns. We may see them as others simply because we are ignorant about, or do not really know, them.

      If the idea of seeing others as ourselves makes us feel apprehensive, uncertain, or insecure, then we may also try to maintain their otherness for the sake of our own perceived self-interest. We may see others as fundamentally different from ourselves, even when such an attitude is based on implicit or explicit bias (racial, ethnic, gender, religious, social, or cultural), rather than on objective assessment.

      We may therefore see others as others approvingly or disapprovingly. If we see them as others disapprovingly, then we may try to maintain their otherness, rather than try to see their being in the same way that we see our own being.

      Luce Irigaray (2000), in an interview concerning her book I Love to You: Sketch for a Felicity Within History (1996), says, “’I Love to You’ means: I don’t take you as an object of my love or desire. I love you as irreducibly other. I keep a ‘to’ as an inalienable space between us, a guarantor of your freedom and mine…I protect the two that we are and the relationship between this two: I love to you like I talk to you…”I love to you” means that I will never entirely know you and that to love you implies respecting the mystery that you will always be for me.”¹

     The “others” for us may be those who are (racially, ethnically, sexually, politically, socially, or culturally) different from us. But we ourselves are all, to some extent, different from one another. We all are “others” to, or for, others.

      We also are more or less psychologically, emotionally, and cognitively different from one another. We all may to some extent differ in our perceptions of ourselves and of one another.

      There may also be a true and a false sense of otherness. We may sometimes feel as if we are others, when in fact we are not. We may try to become others by appropriating their otherness, but we may not obtain a true otherness by doing so. We may indeed only obtain a false sense of otherness and of being outsiders, when in fact we are merely others and outsiders by choice. The true outsiders may be those who have been excluded by the insiders.

      On the other hand, we may not always be aware of our own otherness. We may have a false sense of being accepted as the same, when in fact we are not accepted as the same, and are different.

      As others, we may sometimes be made objects of suspicion, ridicule, derision, and contempt by those who want to subjugate, oppress, and impose otherness on us. We may be made victims of (racial, ethnic, gender, religious, social, or cultural) prejudice and discrimination. We may be unfairly perceived as interlopers or trespassers.

     We each may have to ask ourselves, “Who am I?” But we may find that we can only answer, “I am myself” or “I am the other.”

      If we love the self as self, then we may see the self as self, and not as other. We may, however, also become selfish or solipsistic. We may put our own interests and concerns before the interests and concerns of others. Our own self-love may guide our attitudes and actions toward others. We may be narcissistic in our concern for, or about, ourselves. We may look favorably on ourselves and unfavorably on others, simply because we see ourselves as different from them, and see them as different from us.

      On the other hand, if we love the self as other, then we may see ourselves as in some way strange and not understood by (or not understandable to) us. We may see ourselves as alien or unknown to us.

      Emmanuel Levinas (1961) describes “Welcoming the Other” as a mode of subjectivity that places the freedom of the self in question, because the self is faced with the infinity of the Other. The self remains free by separating itself from the Other, but the self is responsible for the decisions it makes regarding the use of its own freedom.²

      The dialectic of self and other is also the dialectic of “we” and “they.” “We” are the same or similar, while “they” are different. “We” belong to the same group or community, while “they” are others or outsiders.

      Welcoming others may consist of inviting them to become members of our (residential, professional, academic, religious, social, or cultural) community. It may also be a means of affirming the aims, interests, and concerns we share in common. It may also be a means of promoting social and cultural pluralism.

     

FOOTNOTES

¹Luce Irigaray, “Different from You/Different Between Us,” in Why Different? A Culture of Two Subjects: Interviews with Luce Irigaray, edited by Luce irigaray and Sylvère Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 2000), p. 81.

²Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (Totalité et Infini, 1961), translated by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), pp. 27, 85.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation

Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung, 1792), despite its title, is a defense, rather than a critique, of the meaningfulness and validity of the concept of revelation, and is an investigation not of “all revelation” (in the sense of both religious and non-religious revelation), but only of religious revelation (which for Fichte constitutes “all revelation”).

      Fichte describes a theory of volition according to which the will to obey principles of morality may be guided by practical reason. Insofar as the idea of God as moral lawgiver may facilitate determinations of the will, it may also guide us to act according to practical reason. The translation of the idea of God as moral lawgiver into the idea of the moral law in human nature is the principle of religion, insofar as this translation of pure into practical reason may serve as a guide for determinations of the will.¹

      Fichte distinguishes between natural and revealed religion by saying that God as moral lawgiver may proclaim Himself to us through natural or supernatural means. Natural (or rational) religion is based on recognition of the natural (or rational) means by which God may proclaim Himself to us as lawgiver, while revealed religion is based on recognition of the supernatural means by which God may proclaim Himself to us as lawgiver. Natural and revealed religion may be combined, and they are mutually compatible.

      Revelation, according to Fichte, is an event or experience by which something is made known to us. Something is revealed to us when it is made known to us. Revelation therefore presupposes two internal conditions: the thing that is made known, and the form in which it is made known. It also presupposes two external conditions: someone who makes something known, and someone to whom that thing is made known. ²

      The possibility of divine revelation also presupposes the existence of God. Fichte therefore asks: how can we know that a given revelation comes from God? How can we know that it is God who has revealed something to us?

       Such questions may be especially important when we try to distinguish revelation from other phenomena, such as fantasy, hallucination, or the delusion of a deranged person who commits some senseless crime or irrational act and then says, “I heard God’s voice talking to me,” or “I had a vision from God,” or “God made me do it.” In contrast to a delusion, which may be described as a fixed, persistent, idiosyncratic, false belief that is resistant to reason, a revelation may be described as a proclamation or communication from God that apparently conforms to reason.

      In order to answer the question of how we can know that a given revelation comes from God, Fichte describes some criteria for the divinity of a revelation (with regard to its form), including (1) any revelation that has proclaimed, maintained, or propagated itself by immoral means cannot be from God,³ (2) only a revelation that proclaims God as moral lawgiver can be truly believed to be from God,⁴ and (3) any revelation that attempts to move us to act on account of motives other than reverence and respect for God’s holiness cannot be from God.⁵

      Fichte describes some additional criteria for the divinity of a revelation (with regard to its content), including: (1) a revelation cannot require faith in teachings that cannot be arrived at by reason, (2) a revelation cannot require faith in teachings that are contradictory to reason (indeed, we can convince ourselves of the divinity of a given revelation only if it conforms to reason⁶), and (3) the divinity of a revelation must be evident not only on grounds of its conformity to reason, but also on other grounds⁷ (such as its arising from something supernatural in the sensory world).

      Fichte explains that the essential element of (divine) revelation is the proclamation, through a supernatural effect in the sensory world, of God as moral lawgiver.⁸ Thus, revelation cannot be proven to have any objective validity, and it may not even have subjective validity for all rational individuals.⁹ A rational acceptance of a particular revelation as divine is possible only on a priori grounds, and this renders problematic any acceptance of a particular revelation as divine on the basis of principles learned from experience.

      Fichte also explains that a priori knowledge of something is demonstrated, rather than revealed, to us.¹⁰ We can have a posteriori knowledge of something on the basis of experience, but only a priori knowledge enables us to conclusively prove or objectively demonstrate it.

      A questionable claim made by Fichte is that something can be made known to us only if we do not already know it. Something that we already know cannot be made known to us; only the fact that we already know it can be made known to us. But this claim raises the question: why can’t something be made known to us more than once? Why can’t something that we already know be repeatedly revealed to us? —Perhaps the repeated revelation of a given thing may secure our knowledge or confirm our certainty of that thing,

      Another questionable claim is that whenever something is made known to us, there must be someone other than ourselves who has directly or indirectly made it known to us. But why isn’t it possible for us to reveal things to ourselves? Why can’t we reveal things to ourselves that we weren’t previously aware of? Perhaps in revealing things about ourselves to others, we may reveal to ourselves things about ourselves that we weren’t previously aware of or that we weren’t previously prepared to acknowledge.

      Another questionable claim is that only things that are known a priori are provable or objectively demonstrable. —What about proof by experience or scientific testing?

      The concept of revelation presupposes an empirically given moral need for revelation, explains Fichte. God would not reveal something to us if it were not logically necessary for Him to do so. Every (divine) revelation proclaims God as moral lawgiver, and therefore only those revelations that have this proclamation as their ultimate purpose can be truly believed to be from God.

     Fichte concludes that (divine) revelation is rationally possible, and that a critique of it can only apply the concept of it to a given event or experience and guide us in doing so; that is to say, a critique of (divine) revelation can only determine the conditions under which the application of the concept of revelation to a given event or experience is possible.¹¹ We may therefore be certain of both the possibility of revelation in general and the possibility of a particular manifestation of it by some event or experience that fulfills the proper criteria.

FOOTNOTES

¹Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, edited by Allen Wood, translated by Garrett Green (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 41.

²Ibid., p. 51.

³Ibid., p. 93.

⁴Ibid., p. 94.

⁵Ibid., p. 94.

⁶Ibid., pp. 100-101.

⁷Ibid., p. 99.

⁸Ibid., p. 96.

⁹Ibid., p. 66.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 52.

¹¹Ibid., p. 132.