First off, apologies to Robert Miller for having gotten his point not quite right when I restated it in my post.
At the risk of overanalyzing a topic that it is not really edifying to overanalyze (First Thoughts, your one stop shop for hotel porn!) I think it would be fruitful for me to offer the following responses.
1) Miller and Beckwith have both misread my post on one point. I did not say it was a victory that porn use had migrated to a different technological platform. What I said was that this technological change has opened a window of opportunity, if we are smart enough to seize it while it is still open, to score an important victory. We can live in a world where hotel chains phase out porn very slowly and mostly out of the media spotlight, or we can live in a world where hotel chains get rid of porn faster and in a more high-profile way because public opposition to porn accellerated the decision. Which of those two worlds is better for us?
It’s true that you can’t just focus on changing law and institutional policies without changing public opinion. However, you also can’t get much traction on public opinion unless you are fighting to change law and institutional policies. The trick is to pick the right fights.
Focusing public attention on partial-birth abortion was the smartest thing the pro-life movement ever did. We won the legislative fight, but more important, we moved public opinion. We picked a winnable fight and we won it. The subsequent fate of the law in the courts didn’t take that movement of public opinion away.
Steve Forbes summarized the strategy: “You can only change the law by changing the culture, and the way to change the culture is to change the law a little bit at a time.” That’s oversimplified – to change culture you need to be doing a lot of other things besides just changing the law (or in this case hotel policy). But picking the right fights on policy is not optional; you can’t change culture without it.
2) The debate over the basis of democratic capitalism is an old one. Readers of Miller’s post may get the impression that I didn’t engage the question of whether democratic capitalism produces authentic human flourishing by design or only by accidental tendency. But I did: “Democracy is right because it does a better job than the alternatives of cultivating authentic human good in the polity. Capitalism is right because it does a better job than the alternative (note the singular) of cultivating authentic human good in the economy. That they do so is not an accidental by-product; this is their only justification for existing. No one should believe in them for any other reason” (emphasis added).
We’re not going to rehash the entire debate between teleological and deontological approaches to social ethics here on First Thoughts. But I wonder if Miller would be willing to satisfy my curiosity on one question. If democratic capitalism is not designed to produce human flourishing, on what basis is it designed?
July 18th, 2012 | 10:22 am
There’s some imprecisions here that obscure some important points. By now we should not use “capitalism” without qualifications, as if there was a single way of organizing an economy shared by, say, China, Sweden and the US. Even if we add “democratic” we lose important distinctions between the second two. In any case, what is at issue here is not the moral virtues of different forms of economic organization, it’s the moral effect of markets. And on one point there really can be no argument: markets are amoral, and there’s no reason to suppose they tend towards the moral improvement of those who partake in them. Quite the opposite–functioning markets assume moral constraints that they will tend to corrupt if unregulated.
July 18th, 2012 | 10:41 am
Perhaps we are dealing with a confusion of time lines – short term versus long term evaluations of the telos of democratic capitalism.
Yes, in the short term democratic capitalism does tend to cater to the whims of the masses. However, in the long term, catering to those whims will force us to recognize that a culture that merely caters to whims and neglects and undermines important human goods and virtues will fail.
If we suppose that the theory of the necessity of moral virtues to a well-functioning society is really true (i.e. that a society without a population devoted in some measure to objectively true moral virtues will eventually collapse or degenerate in some catastrophic way), then in the long run democratic capitalism will speed up and exacerbate the collapse of a society lacking those necessary virtues.
But by speeding up and exacerbating the collapse of a society lacking important moral virtues, perhaps it is serving the human good of educating people about the need for a population devoted to certain important moral virtues. Since a large majority of human beings today only seem to learn from experience rather than from principles, perhaps this is a good thing.
The main thing we seem destined to learn from this outrageously costly and harmful experiment is the reality of original sin and the difficult, strenuous, inefficient (in market terms) and costly efforts that are necessary to build a decent and flourishing society made up of flawed human beings.
Too bad, of course, for those whose lives will be destroyed in the course of this ghastly experiment, but I guess you can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs.
July 18th, 2012 | 10:43 am
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
As I understand the teachings of the Catholic Church, capitalism in and of itself is amoral or even evil. Capitalism alone does not produce “authentic human good.” Intervention and regulation is required to make capitalism work for the common good.
July 18th, 2012 | 11:07 am
Greg,
Re your question above, “If democratic capitalism is not designed to produce human flourishing, on what basis is it designed?” I worry I misunderstand it, for I have said several times now that, in my view, the institutions of democratic capitalism are designed to give people what they want, regardless of the moral quality of what they want. This, in my view, is their function, or, as you put it, the basis on which they are designed.
Consider this comparison. The internet is a tool, the function or design of which is to deliver information to people, whatever information people want. This information may be the Leonine text of the Summa Theologiae or the latest installment of Vampire Vixens from Venus. In itself, the internet is, as it were, morally neutral; its design does not cause its uses to be either good or bad. Rather, individual human beings may use the internet for good or bad purposes, and it is here that the moral element comes it.
I see the institutions of democratic capitalism as being tools. They are tools to aggregate human desires, good and bad, and they produce outcomes that reflect aggregated desires. When these desires are good, the outcomes are good, and when the desires are bad, the outcomes are bad. Just as with the internet, on balance the institutions of democratic capitalism produce a lot more good than bad. But, just as with the internet, this morally good result is not somehow built into the tool itself. It results from the fact that the users of the tool are by and large using it for good purposes.
July 18th, 2012 | 11:28 am
Let me clarify: What justifies the system? Given a choice, why should we have a system that gives people what they want as opposed to some other system?
July 18th, 2012 | 11:53 am
Part of what justifies this system (of giving people what they want) must be a refined anthropology that emphasizes equality and human dignity. Because each human being is the type of person who is capable of governing themselves and participating in the governing of the community, we should establish and maintain the institution of democratic capitalism.
What this anthropology may have underestimated is, as I mentioned above, the ever present pull of original sin that tends to lead people to abuse and misuse the power of self-government to the ultimate detriment of themselves and the community. That’s why we need institutions and internal habits that militate against this tendency, and this is precisely the threat posed by the libertarian “anything goes” mentality that we see exemplified in this debate about pornography.
July 18th, 2012 | 1:20 pm
Well stated Sally Rogers. To that I would add just a bit. People can want what they have no business having, and so I think it’s wrong to suppose we have right to what we want. For that reason, that they give people what they want (up to a point) can not by itself be a moral justification for using markets. Markets can be defended pragmatically in so far as they can be efficient and powerful tools for providing people what they genuinely need and can rightfully claim. In other words, they can be a powerful way of producing the kind of wealth that furthers genuine flourishing. They can also be defended morally insofar as the moral and practical costs of overly restricting free production and exchange can be high.
July 18th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
“As I understand the teachings of the Catholic Church, capitalism in and of itself is amoral or even evil. Capitalism alone does not produce “authentic human good.” Intervention and regulation is required to make capitalism work for the common good.”
@David Nickol,
I seriously doubt that you can find one “captialistic nation”. You surely won’t find it here. The US federal government spends close to $ 4 trillion per anum (out of a GDP of $14 trillion), has the most progressive tax system in the world, and will lavish some $100 trillion of entitlements to the poor and eldery through the next 40 years. By using the definition you posted above, the US is one of the most “moral” nations on earth.
July 18th, 2012 | 3:08 pm
Greg writes: “Miller and Beckwith have both misread my post on one point. I did not say it was a victory that porn use had migrated to a different technological platform. What I said was that this technological change has opened a window of opportunity, if we are smart enough to seize it while it is still open, to score an important victory.”
No, I understood your point. What I was suggesting is that any “victory” expunges porn from hotel flat screen televisions that depends on the porn migrating to a guest’s laptop or tablet is strictly pyrrhic.
July 18th, 2012 | 3:56 pm
Maybe the smaller screens and fear of getting an internet virus will discourage some people from viewing dirty movies on their computers, who would otherwise watch it on their big screen tv’s in hotel rooms.
Also, there is a ‘normalizing’ factor of having dirty movies sold by otherwise respectable businesses. Having hotels get out of the porn pimping business is probably a good thing for this reason alone.
However, if these are the kinds of “victories” we are hoping for, we are truly in deep trouble. In comparison to the scale of the problem, such accomplishments seems to be pretty pointless.
On the other hand, recall how the “broken windows” theory and crack down on vandalism in New York City ended up leading to very substantial crime reductions. Maybe the baby steps are more influential than they seem to be.
July 18th, 2012 | 9:01 pm
Picking up on Dr. Barr’s point, let’s consider the following scenarios: (a) a society wherein social and commercial institutions declined to provide access to pornography, but pornography “use” nonetheless ran at 90% and (b) a society wherein social and commercial institutions facilitated access to pornography, and pornography “use” ran at 90%.
Wouldn’t scenario A still be preferable to scenario B from a moral perspective?
July 20th, 2012 | 9:11 am
St Thomas says that commerce has a certain baseness (turpitudo) about it, because it is not, of itself, directed to any honest or necessary end (although it can be).
He notes that nothing prevents a merchant from ordering his profit to some other honest and necessary good, and so profit is licit. He qualifies this by says that when someone orders the moderate profit he seeks by business to the support of his household or to help the needy, or even when someone is in business for the benefit of the public, so that his country will not be lacking in the things necessary for life, he is not seeking profit for its own sake, but as the rightful fee for his labour..[ST II-II q 77]
The Ancients recognised the demoralising effects of commerce.. Plato wanted the laws to punish any citizen who engages in commerce and Aristotle believed it was only with the corruption of certain democracies that artisans attained the status of citizens. He maintains that a good republic will never grant them civil rights.
During the French Revolution, the young idealist, Saint-Just declared, “Trade ill becomes the true citizen. The hand of man was made only to till the soil and to bear arms.” It was to prevent anyone from debasing himself by practicing a trade that he wanted to distribute land to everyone.
July 20th, 2012 | 10:00 am
Thomas was simply wrong and an abstract thinker should no better. Commerce is directed to honest and necessary ends. It adds value by bringing commodities to where they are desired. And it builds civilization by allowing more specialties that are not directly involved in food production. One of those specialties just happens to be allowing clerical philosophers to spend their time Thinking Deep Thoughts instead of hunting mastodons.
July 20th, 2012 | 1:56 pm
Jason Taylor
But it is not necessarily so directed. Exchanging weapons for conflict diamonds is as much a species of commerce as any other
The end of medicine is healing, the end of agriculture is food production and so on. But the end of commerce is gain, which may be used well or ill
July 20th, 2012 | 9:14 pm
Greg:
You ask, “What justifies the system? Given a choice, why should we have a system that gives people what they want as opposed to some other system?”
Assuming you mean what justifies the system from a moral point of view, I would say that, the justification lies in the fact that, for a people like us in a society like ours (though not necessarily for people with a very different culture organized in a very different kind of society), democratic capitalism tends on balance and in the long run to promote the objective human good better than the known alternatives.
I base the moral justification for democratic capitalism on the objective human good because I am Aristotelian in morals; hence, I think that whenever anything is morally justified–an action, an institution, a policy, a law, whatever–its justification is ultimately founded on the objective human good.
This doesn’t mean that the things whose existence are so justified have promoting the human good as their function. What is the moral justification for reinforced concrete? Clearly, that in certain circumstances, making reinforced concrete promotes the objective human good; when this is the case, making reinforced concrete is morally justified. This tells you nothing about the nature or function of reinforced concrete. All it tells you is that, if you’re an Aristotelian, you justify everything you justify in terms of the human good.
July 20th, 2012 | 9:37 pm
How do you square that view with the thesis of your original post? Which was:
“The legal institutions of a democratic and capitalist society are not designed to give people what is good and prevent them from getting what is bad; they are designed to give people what they want and not give them what they don’t want.
Is it that institutions designed to give people what they want regardless of whether it’s good do a better job of giving people what’s good than systems actually designed to give them what’s good? Or do you have some other way of reconciling these positions?
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact