Think Differently: Open your mind. Philosophy for modern life by Adam Ferner

Author:Adam Ferner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MBI
Published: 2018-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

EXAMINE YOURSELF LIBERALLY

‘If there were a word for the consensus within which electoral politics is debated in the industrialized world today, it may as well be liberalism’.

Perhaps Appiah’s claim explains our universal grouchiness about paying taxes – yet even the political liberal thinks taxation is necessary for regulatory purposes (to fund the police and judiciary, and so forth).

On reflection, we might think the state should tax us for other services as well. Take national health care. It’s a good idea – even though it falls outside the ambit of what the liberal state should do. The same is true of state welfare, which protects members of society who can’t protect themselves. The political liberal, however, doesn’t think this should be the state’s job. If a person wants to give money, privately, to charity, they can, but it should be their individual choice.

In ‘Liberalism, Individuality, and Identity’, Appiah puts pressure on what some might see to be this self-serving side of liberalism. And his objections emerge out of a metaphysical and political discussion.

Remember John Locke? In Lesson 9 we saw how fascinated he was by the concept of a person. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he construed a person as a single, discrete entity, with its own distinctive desires. There’s no blurriness between persons, said Locke; you’re you, I’m me, and never the twain shall meet (metaphysically speaking).

Appiah – like some of the other philosophers in this chapter – is wary of this Lockean picture. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Charles Taylor, he suggests that every person, every self, is created ‘dialogically’: through dialogue with others – friends and family, and broader society. The self, says Appiah, is ‘not some authentic inner essence independent of the human world into which we have grown – but rather the product of our interaction from our earliest years with others’.

Think about your personal ambitions. Where did they come from? Did you think them up by yourself? Or were they conceived in conversation with parents, teachers and friends? With books, with films, with music? With other members of society? The Lockean idea of a discrete person, with a complete set of vacuum-packed desires, lies at the heart of political liberalism. But it’s metaphysically confused. Your identity, your selfhood, is inextricably connected with those of your fellow humans. So, Appiah says, the liberal thought that the self should be prioritized over sociability is poorly conceived.

This may not make paying your taxes any more palatable … but it might, at least, make it more metaphysically coherent.

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