March 2001, Amersfoort
See
below….
By Connie Aarsbergen, PhD-candidate
In
this paper the theme “Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation” is approached
from a liberal-humanistic angle, namely from the views of the Oxford
philosopher and historian of ideas Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997). According to
Berlin, one of the most important causes of conflict is monist thinking, the
belief that for colliding ends and values, there is only one solution. Closely
connected with monism is teleological thinking, the belief that in history there
is a goal towards a situation of final harmony where there will be no
conflicting values and ends.
In
this paper I start with giving a description of how Berlin justifies his
pluralist and anti-teleological views. Furthermore, one of the consequences of
views such as Berlin’s (with regard to the negative role religions and
ideologies play to stimulate conflicts) is that visions of the good life are
kept out of the public domain as much as possible. An undesired result of this
is that a modern Western individual is more and more disconnected from the
moral sources that give motivation and inspiration for positive moral action.
In this paper I will also try to take away some misunderstandings about
teleological thinking that are behind the wish to keep the public domain as
neutral as possible.
Before giving an account of Berlin’s anti-teleological views, I first have to say something about Berlin’s theory of knowledge. It is based on concepts and categories through which people think and act and order the data of experience. The concepts and categories are not a priori given, but transmitted through communities in which individuals live. They change when circumstances in the community alter. Certain concepts and categories can have an enslaving or discriminating effect and should therefore be critically examined. Wrong ideas are for Berlin the main source of evil: they can encourage inhuman behaviour. As a historian of ideas but also as refugee from the Russian Revolution (as a child) and as a Second World War correspondent, he is strongly motivated to trace wrong ideas that lead to human misery. One of the most evil causing ideas is the belief that in a situation of conflicting values and ends there is one solution or only one set of values that is true (monism) and that in history it is possibility to reach a situation of final harmony.
Berlin
is a pluralist[1]. There is a
plurality of cultures and of individual temperaments. Also there are many ends
that an individual can follow in his life. There is a choice in esthetical,
ethical and intellectual values that can be realised. The different ends and
values are not always combinable in one lifetime or in one society. For
example, a life as an unrecognised but talented artist (outside a welfare state
such as the Netherlands) is difficult to combine with family duties. When a
judge shows too much mercy towards a criminal, he is not doing justice to the
victim. If a government is too active in reducing inequalities in society, this
can lead to serious limitations of liberty and conversely, more freedom is
often reached at the cost of equality.
In
order to make the right choices, there is a great desire for universal
measuring-rods to decide which value or end should get priority, but according
to Berlin there are none. People like to believe – both in religions and
sciences - that only one set of values is true. however, there is not only
pluralism in values and ends, but also in the criteria to decide which one
should get priority. Each community or culture has its own value system. These
value systems are not always compatible and can even be contradictory. For
these incommensurable value systems, reconciliation is not possible by
referring to one true system.
The
only thing an individual or policymaker can do is to make an own choice between
the incommensurable values or ends. Connected with that choice is the
responsibility of the consequences of the decision and the sad knowledge that
one of the cherished values or ends will have to be given up to give priority
to another one. Choices involve responsibility and this is a burden which many
people find hard to bear.[2]
They seek various ways to avoid this burden. In scientific concepts, believing that
our lives are determined (by for instance material or biological factors) can
relieve the moral burden. We can no longer blame or be blamed for a world
largely outside out of our control. In religions[3],
moral dilemmas can be solved by reference to the Will of God. God stands for a
rational and harmonious order in which all values have its proper place. But
also in scientific concepts influenced by the Enlightenment the world is not
untidy, cruel or purposeless, but harmonious, clear, intelligible.[4]
It has an end and a rational person ranks its ends and values according to the
telos. In this fixed order, clashes are – in principle – avoidable. If
conflicts and tragedies occur, it is because the correct order and telos is not
yet known. Religions fulfil in the need for a harmonious world by providing the
concepts and categories capable of finding final answers. Religious believers
have difficulties with accepting moral dilemmas that would lead to ultimate
tragedy: that would subvert the providential order.[5]
In
religions and secular worldviews the telos of mankind can be connected with
establishing an ideal society on earth. On this planet we can work on a
situation of final harmony in which there will be no conflict in values. There
are ideologists or religious leaders who claim to have special knowledge about
this future, about inevitable courses in history leading to it, or about the
exact situation of the Golden Age that needs to be restored. Marx believed that
history would lead to a Classless Welfare State in which the tensions between
equality and liberty and individual and group interests will be solved.
The
situation of final harmony is very much desired. There is much at stake and
people are willing to pay a high price for it. Ideologists and religious
leaders can take disadvantage of it by justifying cruel acts leading to that
goal. For this higher telos, normal human responsibility is given up so that
followers can act inhumanly.
Knowledge
of the truth with regard to metaphysical, moral and political questions has the
tendency to split human kind into two worlds. Holy wars or wars of
extermination against enemies with rival claims are justified by referring to
that truth. In the ancient world or the Middle Ages, one of the most important
virtues was to defend the truth by all means. People were prepared to die for
their beliefs or to kill in order to destroy heresies. Due to the influence of
Romanticism, the notion of sincerity has become more important in Western
thought. This notion makes it possible to admire the sincerity of their
believes, although they are considered to be wrong.
Within
the class conflict of Marxism, the bourgeoisie and the capitalists made the
rival claims. For Berlin Marxism is even more dangerous than fanatical
religious movements. At least in most religions, if the infidel accepts the
true faith, he is welcomed as a brother. Within Marxism, discussion about the
truth with the enemy was regarded as senseless; they should be eliminated as soon
as possible.[6]
It
should be noted here that the majority of Berlin’s criticism against
teleological thinking is not specifically aimed at religions but at communism
and fascism. Berlin is not an atheist seeking to abolish all religion. In his
work, he also shows much respect for (non-fanatical forms of) religion as a way
of life. For instance, in his biography he mentions how much hidden wisdom he
had found in the Jewish rituals of burial and mourning when his father died.
Within
religions, Berlin makes a distinction between religions that claim to know the
Will of God and the ones that emphasise the impossibility of human perfection
due to the Fall of Man.[7]
Intolerance
and monism can be found in the first type of religion. Respect for different
views is more likely to be found in the latter type, as it is believed that
because of human sin, the Will of God and the paths leading to final harmony
cannot be fully known. In his work, Berlin did not specifically mention
Christian theologies that believe that the Kingdom of God will not be part of
this earth, but in a New World to come. But he must have had them in mind as
such eschatology is often inspired by the awareness of the fallen state of man
and this world.
If in
a religion, there is too much stress on the Fall of Man, for Berlin this can
also be dangerous. It can justify despotic, non-democratic governments because
man are evil and not capable of doing anything good. Berlin describes this in
his essay about the 19th century conservative Roman Catholic Frenchmen Joseph
de Maistre.[8]
There
are more objections against teleological thinking. According to Berlin, a
monistic society, with just one overriding human purpose, cannot put an end to
the conflicts within that society![9] The (sacred) formulas accepted by that
society carry different (perhaps incompatible) meanings for different persons
in different situations. This is especially the case when vague and general
terms are used (such as the fulfilment of the Law of God or the common good,
etc.) Furthermore, problems will arise in the secondary ends, the penultimate
values for more specific purposes on lower levels. When these subordinate ends
come into conflict, a simple deduction from the overriding human goal is in
most cases not possible.
With
regard to utopias that are based on a Golden Age in the past, Berlin explains
why the results seldom correspond to the hopes of the religious leaders or
human engineers who conducted these social experiments. Makers of the
revolution found themselves in each case swept on by the forces, which they had
released in a direction scarcely anticipated. In the plans for human
improvement usually only those facts are included which fit neatly into the
theories of society, history, political development and change, forgetting the
complicated facts which are more unsusceptible to tidy classification.
Ideologists who look at a past Golden age usually forget that they look at it
from a later vantage point and leave out important facts which for them are too
obvious to need mentioning. The revolution usually concentrates upon certain
aspect of the upper, public level but inevitably stirs up the lower levels of
life, in the obscurest corners of the life in society. The results are by-products,
which are largely incalculable. According to Berlin the more theorists of
social programmes force the facts into some preconceived mould, the more
(violent) resistance they encounter. The consequences of the experiments are
beyond what anybody had wished or planned or expected.
When
there is pluralism and furthermore, when there are incommensurable values
without universal measuring-rods, how to deal with moral dilemmas? For Berlin
there are no fixed procedures how to solve value conflicts. However, in his
work some guidelines can be found.
First
of all, I would like to make a distinction between conflicts among groups (each
representing certain incommensurable values), conflicts between an individual
and its community (the conflict between personal ends and group interests) and
inner conflicts within a personal life.
As an
historian of ideas, for all these types of conflict, Berlin stresses that the
notion of final harmony should first be abandoned. This idea has slaughtered
many individuals on the altars of the great historical ideas. Conflicts of
value should be considered as an intrinsic irremovable element in human life.[10]
With
regard to conflicts of ends between groups, Berlin’s guideline can be found in
his writings about Jews as a minority in diaspora.[11]
When Jews suffer because they are not recognised as a group and feel
discriminated due to their deviating values and ends, they should be able to
live in an own country.[12]
(This was Berlin’s secular motivation to become a Zionist. During and after the
Second World War, as a war correspondent in Washington and friend of Chaim
Weizmann, Berlin has helped actively founding the state of Israel). But in our
present multicultural societies, founding new countries for minorities is not a
practical solution to pluralism anymore. Later in his life, Berlin acknowledged
that the claims of the Palestinian citizens within the state of Israel are
justified too,[13] but he
could not give any advice how to deal with this conflict.
What
could Berlin’s pluralism mean for present day UN-interventions or endeavours of
churches to reconcile conflicting parties? The lack of a universal
measuring-rod does not make such a peace or reconciliation process any easier.
Berlin’s pluralism prevents a ‘solution’ that the conflicting parties must
adopt the value system of the interventionist or reconciler: this would not pay
respect to the value systems of the conflicting groups themselves. Berlin’s
pluralism, however, does not lead to moral relativism. When an act is inhuman
or insane, people can recognise this.[14]
We know the inhuman when we encounter it. For Berlin there is a ‘common human
horizon’ formed by rules and commandments, which have been accepted so widely
‘and are grounded so deeply in the actual nature of man as they have developed
through history, as to be by now, an essential part of what we mean by being a
normal human being’.[15]
Some concepts and categories apply to mankind over sufficiently long stretches
of time that they are regarded as virtually universal.[16]
So for Berlin it is possible to condemn certain (inhuman) practices.
Most
of Berlin’s work is aimed at value conflicts between individuals and groups and
inner conflicts. Between the two, Berlin does not make such a big difference.
The most probable reason for that is that he is strongly aware that it is the
community who gives the concepts and categories containing the values and ends
to choose from. Although Berlin maintains that the individual is (in the end)
free, he is also aware that a person’s identity is strongly influenced by its
community. Even if a dilemma looks very
personal at first sight (for instance shall I have a career or a family), it is
very much influenced by the values and ends in the community of that individual.
In
trying to work out a moral dilemma, it is very important for Berlin that
personal responsibility is not evaded by referring to the Will of God or
alternatives such as our determined nature or inevitable causes in history or
life. Berlin is afraid that this can lead to inhuman action. A side effect of
this popular ‘existentialist’ view is that all references to religious or
secular moral sources have become suspect.
For
Berlin, conflicts between the ends of individuals and the interests of their
societies cannot be avoided entirely, but they can be reduced considerably. In
his most famous essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ Berlin gives a clear guideline
how to reduce value conflicts: decisions about giving priorities in conflicting
values or rankings in the ends of life should be left to the individual as far
as possible. Individuals should be given a maximum space to take such decisions
themselves.
To
reduce the number of value conflicts between the individual and the group,
Berlin has a strong preference for negative liberty, the freedom of not being
interfered in personal choices by government, church or community. It is the
freedom ‘from’. Berlin is very suspicious about all kinds of forms of positive
liberty, the freedom to live your life in a certain way. It is the freedom ‘to’
live according to specific forms of life and it is believed that following that
kind of life will generate more freedom in the long term.
Religions
have always offered their followers forms of life that promise more freedom.
The believer should for instance liberate himself of the slavery to unbridled
passions. Ascetics, quietists, Stoics or Buddhists followed (and are still
following) these forms of self-abnegation. For Berlin ascetic self-denial may
be a source of integrity or serenity and spiritual strength, but he cannot see
how it can be called an enlargement of liberty.[17]
But
Berlin is more concerned with the political translation of these religious forms
of self-realisation in the 19th and 20th century. There is a political goal,
for instance a just society, which a person would, if he was more enlightened,
pursues himself. Coercion can therefore be justified. The problem with this
kind of freedom, according to Berlin, is that it can get any meaning, which the
manipulator wishes.
Closely
connected with political theories of self-realisation is fanatical nationalism.
Before Romanticism, there were already divisions made between higher and lower
selves or heternomous or autonomous selves. Romantic thinkers such as the
German philosopher and poet Johann Gottfried Herder added the possibility of
identification of the individual self with the collective self. There is a
collective self that gives meaning and purpose to all its members: without my
folk I have no significance.[18]
According to Berlin, in this way - again - personal responsibility is given up.
The road is opened to justify cruel and inhuman acts.
Looking
back at his life, Berlin told one of his biographers Ramin Jahanbegloo that the
strong emphasis on negative liberty has been perverted into a species of
'laissez-faire’ that also had led to injustices and sufferings. He admitted
that his “Two Concepts of Liberty” was deeply influenced by the monstrous
misuses of the word liberty in totalitarian countries.[19]
In October 1997 the current British Prime Minister Tony Blair asked Berlin for
the limitations of negative liberty and suggested that ‘positive liberty had
its validity, whatever its depredations in the Soviet Model’.[20]
In posing this question, Tony Blair must have had in mind some ‘paternalistic’
measures to prevent poverty and misery due to broken marriages, ‘inherited’
unemployment, children still on the streets late at night and drop outs at
school. Berlin was already too ill to reply and died a month later.
Why
could Berlin’s concept of negative liberty have been perverted into
‘laissez-faire’ policy? One of the most
probable reasons is that during the last decades Western liberal governments
(like Berlin) have presupposed that individuals have their own moral sources or
do not need visions of the good life that can help when making the right
decisions in life. In the Fifties and Sixties most Western individuals still
belong to a religion or secular world-view but due to secularisation and
individualism this has changed. An increasing number of people are not
connected to specific visions of the good life anymore, and want to sort out
the important value decisions themselves. There is also no government
assistance as Western governments are expected to maintain a strict division
between public and private domain. Trespassing that border would mean that one
of the visions of the good life is preferred above another one and that could
cause conflict with rival ideologies and religions.
Berlin’s
has a preference for a maximum of negative liberty at the cost of positive
forms of liberty. But according to the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor,[21]
this leads to problems. With the rejection of positive forms of liberty, also
the conveyance of visions of the good life is thrown away. Moral views and
moral sources belong together and cannot be separated. They are essential for
the motivation and inspiration for positive action and function as a source of
empowerment that gets lost when reference to one’s moral sources is not
possible.
Charles
Taylor is not totally in disagreement with Isaiah Berlin. He also acknowledges
that there are incommensurable values that cannot be reconciled by referring to
one universal set of values or one measuring-rod. But he does not agree with
the ‘solution’ that Berlin gives to emphasise only negative liberty. How can
individuals or policy makers make judgements about the priorities in life if
there are no moral sources and no frameworks of the good life? Taylor gives an
alternative approach when encountering a moral dilemma. He does not want to
keep the moral sources hidden privately, but instead, they should be
articulated. Articulacy – especially within the public domain - is needed to
make clear what the deeper problems and motivations of moral dilemmas are.
But
bearing in mind all past and present religious conflicts, when moral sources
are articulated in the public domain, does this not lead to a sharpening of the
conflict instead of solving it?
But
before answering this question, why not taking up Taylor’s suggestion to
articulate the moral sources of Berlin? Berlin has a strong desire to avoid
human suffering. Human beings should be respected. He thinks it is important
that people are responsible for each other. He values autonomy and pluralism.
He acknowledges the importance of the community to convey concepts and
categories. He has a strong preference for ordinary life forms instead of
‘higher’ religious or monastic life forms, etc. These are all values that are part of a (liberal and humanist)
vision of the good life.
In
modern liberal thinking, values such as respect and pluralism are sometimes confused
with neutral ‘procedural values’. For Berlin these values are also so
self-evident, that he hardly makes them explicit. But comparing them with other
world-views, they are not neutral, but substantive and are part of a Western
liberal world-view.
There
is more confusion. Visions of the good life are often mixed up with
teleological views. However, within a vision of the good life, not all aspects
are teleological. Values such as mutual respect, avoidance of pain and misery,
preference for pluralism and autonomy, are not referring to any teleological
paths in history, but to more prudent considerations or perhaps the motivation
to keep the only life you have worthwhile to live. Although not teleological,
this is also a vision of the good life.
A further confusion is that all teleological visions are regarded as potentially dangerous. As Berlin already notices, there are religions without fixed blue prints to final harmony due to a relativization of the human knowledge and ability to become perfect. The latter one leads to more respect for pluralism.
These
misunderstandings are still underlying the reluctance to articulate our moral
sources when a moral dilemma is discussed. A consequence of these confusions is
that also the connection is lost with visions of the good life that inspire
their followers not to evade moral responsibility, and motivate them to
positive moral action, both at community and universal level.
When
a good distinction is made between the fanatical kinds of teleological thinking
and inspirational and peaceful forms of teleology, in my opinion few objections
are left to follow Charles Taylor’s suggestion to lift up the inarticulacy of
our moral motivations.
Through
the philosophy of Isaiah Berlin, I have described monism and teleological
thinking as one of the main causes of (religious) conflict. Berlin’s pluralist
thinking leads to a strong emphasis on negative liberty. Furthermore, to keep
peace within the public domain and to be refrained from paternalism, there has
been a strong reluctance to actively promote forms of the good life. This in
turn has generated other forms of human misery. In this paper I have tried to
show that there are also forms of teleology that do not lead to conflicts or
disrespect for other opinions and that visions of the good life are not
necessarily teleological.
Hopefully
this paper and this conference will lead to debates on moral and political
dilemmas in which our moral sources are not hidden but articulated and that
groups or communities with a specific vision of the good life feel less
reluctant to convey their moral sources as a positive example and inspiration
for their members and outsiders.
Connie
Aarsbergen, PhD candidate
Is value
pluralism true? Who can falsify value pluralism? In my thesis
'Isaiah Berlin. A View on Human Nature and Meaning
of Life', but also in
my articles 'The Dangers of Religious and
Secular Imagination and Richard Rorty's Alternative',
and 'Isaiah Berlin and teleological thinking as cause of
conflict' I assume that Berlin is right in his view that our
moral universe is not harmonious but characterized by VALUE CONFLICTS.
In our moral order there are values that are in itself good, but in
combination with each other, they are ion conflict. For instance the value
conflict between liberty and equality, ecology and economy or mercy and justice.
There is no universal measuring rod available that can help to decide which
of the conflicting values should have priority. In my research I have not
found any proper theory that can falsify Berlin's thesis, but perhaps you
can? Do
you also think that our moral order is non harmonious and characterized by
value conflicts? And if so, do you also think that it is therefore not possible
to have perfect societies on earth? Do you agree with Isaiah Berlin that
one of the main causes of bloody religious conflicts is the fanatical belief
in the own truth (monist thinking)? Do you think that religions that belief
that they can establish perfect societies on earth are more violent than
religions who emphasize human
imperfection and the non-availability of a
blue-print of the kingdom to come? Please reply to connie@aarsbergen.nl
[1] Berlin, I, ‘Two
Concepts of Liberty’, in: Four Essays on
Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969, p.169
[2] Berlin, I, ‘Historical
Inevitability’, in: Four Essays on
Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969, p.114.
[3] Berlin writes primarily
for a Western audience and has mostly theistic religions in mind.
[4] Historical
Inevitablity, p. 106-108
[5] Gray, J., Berlin, Fontana Press, London, 1995,
p.42
[6] Berlin, I. ‘Marxism and
the International in the 19th century’, in: The
Sense of Reality, London, 1997, p139
[7] Berlin, I, ‘Does
Political Theory Still Exist?’ In: Concepts and Categories, Pimlico,
London, 1978, p.153
[8] Berlin, I., ‘Joseph de
Maistre and the Origins of Fascism’,
in: The Crooked Timer of Humanity, London,
1990
[9] Does Political Theory
Still Exists? p.150-151
[10] Berlin, I. ‘Two Concepts
of Liberty’, in : Four Essays on Liberty,
Oxford University Press, 1969, p.167
[11] Berlin, I. ‘Benjamin
Disraeli, Karl Marx and the Search for Identity’ in: Against the Current, London, 1979. A hidden but recently published
essay: Berlin, I., ‘Jewish Slavery and Emancipation’, in: The Power of Ideas, Chatto & Windus, London, 2000
[12] Jahanbegloo, R. Conversations with Isaiah Berlin,
London, 1992, p85.
[13] Gray, J, Berlin, London, 1995, p.117
[14] Does Political Theory
Still Exist, p.166
[15] Two Concepts of Liberty,
p.165
[16] Berlin, I, ‘The Sense
of Reality’, in: The Sense of Reality,
Pimlico, London, 1996, p.17
[17] Two Concepts of
Liberty, p.139
[18] Berlin, I. ‘Kant as an
Unfamiliar Source of Nationalism’, in: The
Sense of Reality, Pimlico, London, 1996, p.245
[19] Jahanbegloo, R., Conversations with Isaiah Berlin, Peter
Halban, London, 1992, p147
[20] Ignatieff, M,. Isaiah Berlin a Life, New York, 1998,
p298.
[21] Taylor, C. Sources of the Self. The Making of the
Modern Identity, Cambridge, 1989