Scant-Fact Zones

I think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand. At the same time, these shared attributes of the disciplines can lead to some dangerous wrongheaded conclusions about specific things. Here's Chris Betram thinking about philosophy:

I’ve recently had to advise some students who wanted to write papers on the topic of humanitarian intervention. Not for the first time, it brought home to me how strong the disciplinary pressures towards a particular perspective can be. Political philosophy (of the Rawlsian/Kantian variety) isn’t an entirely fact-free zone, but the way we often discuss matters of principle tends to push us towards favouring policies independently of the way things actually are. So we might ask, what should be the foreign policy of a just liberal state and what attitude should such a state have to “outlaw regimes” which are engaged in systematic human rights violations. And, in the light of such thinking, what would the laws of a just international order look like? What rights against interference would states have? When would there be a duty to intervene? And so on.

Straightforward answers come easily and slickly along: states don’t have any immunity to intervention as such, since they only exist for the protection and benefit of their citizens. If they are actively harming their citizens and we can act to stop this, then we, the just liberal state, should do so. And maybe there should be special permissions granted to bona fide democracies, giving them more extensive rights of intervention than other states. Etc etc. (I rather agree with some of this in the abstract, but it is not hard to see how one might thereby build up enthusiasm for the Iraq war—to pick an example at random—without ever troubling to acquire further information about the country, its history, people, society etc.)

To some extent I think Iraq, which generated a lot of discussion over a prolonged period of time, suffered less from this in the punditsphere (the trouble was more that a lot of people were operating with made up facts rather than with no facts per se) than have a lot of other issues. But I think discussion of Darfur, and then the brief moment of hype around invading Burma, and then again Zimbabwe from time to time tends to partake of rather a lot of this. Robert Mugabe and his regime have no real ethical claims on anyone, so, hey, why not invade?

And of course since it's all non-specialists out having the argument it's difficult to say with authority in detail what would likely go wrong with an invasion of Burma. What's needed is to recover the time-honored sense of a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries.

Comments

"how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand."

There is no way.

Posted by g | July 3, 2008 9:25 AM

One of my graduate advisors (in history) used to tell a story about a friend of his from the philosophy department who would frequently comment on how strange and inconvenient it must be for him (my advisor) to work in a "data-dependent" discipline.

Posted by JJO | July 3, 2008 9:29 AM

Resolving this issue doesn't take an undergraduate degree in Philosopy, just a basic understanding of the distinction between the moral and pragmatic.

For example, if we could invade a country like Iraq, dispose Saddam, set up a stable, democratic, and peaceful civil society, and get back out at a low cost to ourselves and the Iraqis and in a short time frame, then we would have a moral right, and maybe even moral obligation, to do so.

But since that wasn't possible, we didn't have a moral obligation, and maybe not even a moral right, to invade Iraq. Of course a bunch of people just bullshitted about the pragmatic issues, and some people apparently believed this bullshit. So in that sense, I agree with Matt's conclusion: we need "a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries." But again I think it should be understood the fundamental grounding for that predisposition is pragmatic, not moral.

Posted by DTM | July 3, 2008 9:30 AM

I think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand. At the same time, these shared attributes of the disciplines can lead to some dangerous wrongheaded conclusions about specific things...
What's needed is to recover the time-honored sense of a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries.

...
Uh...
While it certainly would be nice to have a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries, it might also be helpful to not take seriously people who play with words but lack factual background on the subject. WTF?

Posted by Cyrus | July 3, 2008 9:39 AM

think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand.

...which is why I think most "Philosophy" departments should be renamed "Rhetoric" departments (rhetoric in the old sense of the word), in the interests of truth in advertising.

Posted by Tel | July 3, 2008 9:45 AM

Of course, the outcome is not ever clear in advance. What was the difference between Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq before the US interventions? I think the main problem in Iraq was a lack of an exit strategy and clear goals - we should have been gone in early 2004.

But consider Yugoslavia: Given out 20/20 hindsight, it was flat-out immoral for strong, democratic states to allow things like Srebenica to happen.

Further, consider places like Rwanda and Congo. If strong foreign states could have done something that would prevent net suffering there, I think we're philosophically obligated to have done it.

Look at the history of the 20th century. Civil wars and domestic dictators have caused far more suffering than international wars, even when you include the World Wars. Let's not throw out humanitarian intervention just yet; rather, let's just learn how to do it more effectively.

Posted by cure | July 3, 2008 9:45 AM

Let's not throw out humanitarian intervention just yet; rather, let's just learn how to do it more effectively.

Yes, communism would have worked if only the right people had been in charge!

Posted by Just Dropping By | July 3, 2008 9:49 AM

I think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand. At the same time, these shared attributes of the disciplines can lead to some dangerous wrongheaded conclusions about specific things. Here's Chris Betram thinking about philosophy

This is precisely the reason there should not be political pundits. Stop now before it's too late.

The worst lesson one can take away from Philosophy is that it makes you "superior in argument." Not really. In the absence of any actual knowledge or expertise about anything, it just makes you a sophist, and sophists, as Plato tells us, are bad.

Posted by jcasey | July 3, 2008 9:55 AM

I think Cure hits on part of the problem with philosophy's tendency to detach itself from reality. Mix in some history, particularly the history of ideas and cultural history, and then you have the foundation for a good political philosophy that isn't to detached. I mean, we're still dealing with the ramifications of Lockean and Rousseauian ideas (the latter springing up in Hegel, Marx and Sorel) all because some leaders thought they were good ideas and decided to actually implement them. Political history would go very slowly if intellectuals didn't take some ideas from philosophy and see if the damn things work. History just gives us a background on the successes and failures. So, to really make a good pundit or policy-maker you need both philosophy and history. Just as long as the philosophy isn't sophistry as Tel points out. Otherwise it's just intellectual masturbation.

Posted by Jordan Lawrence | July 3, 2008 9:57 AM

The funny thing is even their philosophizing is wrong.
You can't come up with a worthwhile moral philosophy in abstract. Ethics that's meaningful to humans is dependent on the facts of human nature.

Posted by jolly inquisition | July 3, 2008 9:57 AM

And Jolly Inquisition has a point too. There's a need for a side of philosophy that just goes bonkers and a side that actually makes the ideas useful in a real-world sense. Just don't confuse the two.

Posted by Jordan Lawrence | July 3, 2008 10:04 AM

In fact, I think Matt has a recipe for disaster here, because he has a — how appropriate, considering the rest of the post — faulty premise in his last sentence. "Recover" a predisposition against attacking other countries? It never existed. I counted eight wars with other countries between the American Revolution and the Civil War* before I lost count of which should be considered an actual war and had to get back to work. And I'm leaving out dozens of military adventures outside the country's borders that didn't rise to the level of war, and the decades-long conquest of Indian territory.

Of course, America didn't declare all of those and some were probably just wars and no doubt other countries have even more belligerent records. I'm not saying America is particularly evil, or that the argument Matt's making might not ultimately sway the audience of political thinkers, only that it's not based in reality. If we want to avoid stupid, unnecessary, aggressive wars, we'd better work on the "stupid" part, because the rest of it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

* Quasi-war with France, First Barbary War, War of 1812, second Barbary War, first Seminole War, Mexican-American War, Utah War, and a dozen or so conflicts with Spanish Florida which should probably count as a war taken together since they resulted in a new state, but I admit this is the shakiest of them.

Posted by Cyrus | July 3, 2008 10:20 AM

Replace

"recover the time-honored sense of a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries"

with

mature from the storybook fiction that, on one side is a regime with interests that are antithetical to popular welfare (Baathists, nationalist Serbs, etc...) while on the other side is a tabula rasa upon which we can simply project our good intentions. If the US state is an actor, its intentions, which too are often antithetical to the popular will, must be taken into account.

While that would be excessively reasonable, it would force too many people to break an emotional attachment to the US government as moral actor. It has not been.

Posted by frazelt | July 3, 2008 10:32 AM

If we want to avoid stupid, unnecessary, aggressive wars, we'd better work on the "stupid" part, because the rest of it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

That looks a little bit unclear. I guess I'd say "we'd better focus on the 'stupid' part." The way I wrote it, it looks like I'm saying I'm fine with an unnecessary, aggressive war as long as it's well-executed, which isn't right.

What I meant was, an America with a smarter, more critical, etc. press corps and voting public would have been less likely to invade Iraq than an America as intellectually lazy as in the real world but with an ingrained isolationist streak or more Dennis Kuciniches in Congress. Pundits and politicians who actually know what they're talking about, not just another generation of David Brooks who have been told that Iraq went badly.

Posted by Cyrus | July 3, 2008 10:33 AM

"But consider Yugoslavia: Given out 20/20 hindsight, it was flat-out immoral for strong, democratic states to allow things like Srebenica to happen."

We also had the UN there (and thus needed to stand up for itself after Srebrenica) and NATO right next door. In addition, in both Bosnia and Kosovo we chose to back a particular ethnic group - Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo - against the Serbs. In Iraq, on the other hand, there was no real way to make Iraq democratic, a peaceful ally, an ally of Israel and a unified country while also backing major aggrieved ethnic groups - Shi'ites and Kurds - against the Sunni Arabs. All of our goals were at cross purposes. The only possible solution that could have turned out peaceful was partition, but the likes of Turkey and the Sunni Arab nations would never have stood for that and Iran would have been ambivalent. The logistical difficulties were blatantly obvious from the outset to anyone who knew about Iraq's ethnic history. Also, there's the little matter of the entire war being based on bullshit about WMD's.

"Further, consider places like Rwanda and Congo. If strong foreign states could have done something that would prevent net suffering there, I think we're philosophically obligated to have done it."

Rwanda is a relatively small nation with clear ethnic lines - Hutu vs. Tutsi. It is also bordering a Tutsi-majority nation in Burundi, which would likely have backed us. While hilly geography would have created some time delays to getting any troops there, a minimum intervention could have saved at least 70,000. It is a country that we could have easily overrun alone and could likely have controlled rather easily if we went in as part of a real UN peacekeeping force. The Tutsis also went on to win the civil war despite the genocide against them and a lack of an intervention backing them.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), on the other hand, is just too big to invade. We are talking about a country roughly half the size of the US east of the Mississippi. Even invading problem areas in the eastern part of the country would have been difficult. Logistically re-supplying troops in the interior would be difficult. Controlling such vast expanses of land would be difficult. The DRC's ethnic cleavages are also extremely complicated.

Posted by Reality Man | July 3, 2008 10:37 AM

"...and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand.."

Finally, we learn what Harvard is really all about.

Posted by kafka | July 3, 2008 10:48 AM

The other downside of intervention not listed so far: if you do it, so will everyone else. Everyone thinks they're the good guy, so, if you say you can intervene because you have the moral right, then every punk dictator and fanatic will declare the right to rob and murder their neighbors using the precedence you set.

This is why the Europeans set themselves so firmly in favor of keeping 1945 boundaries in place through the Cold War and de0-colonialization. If you let one group have self-determination, then everyone wants it, and most of them will be robbing and murdering their neighbors to get "justice" for themselves.

Posted by Midland | July 3, 2008 10:57 AM

"Further, consider places like Rwanda and Congo. If strong foreign states could have done something that would prevent net suffering there, I think we're philosophically obligated to have done it."

Nonsense. "We" aren't doing anything. What happens is a president (who swore to protect the US constitution) directs US citizens (who also swore to protect the US constitution) to travel to foreign lands and emesh themselves in conflicts they (we) barely understand.

"recover the time-honored sense of a very strong predisposition against attacking other countries"

There IS a predisposition in this country against attacking other countries. It is held by the citizens, not by the politicians who gain the most through war. A president should never feel the need to convince the people to engage in a war.

"War...should only be declared by the authority of the people...instead of the government which is to reap its fruits."
~James Madison

Posted by hankest | July 3, 2008 10:58 AM

Thucydides said that history is philosophy learned from examples.

The best corrective to what Bertram describes is the study of history.

Posted by Anderson | July 3, 2008 11:09 AM

Sounds like Chris Betram was getting some push-back from his "naive" students about humanitarian intervention.

Good.

These kids have no recollection of the Cold War which is long gone, where yes the US behaved insanely bad in the name of fighting Communism. Rigging elections, coups, etc. Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. etc. etc.

But these idealistic kids look around today and see a fat complacent West sitting on its ass, playing its Guitar Hero, while Mugabe or the SLORC or whoever bully and intimidate their citizens. And then you have undemocratic China or Russia say, at the UN, "it's an internal affair."

I think an attack on Iran would be a disaster of epic proportions and I don't see it happening, but it's good to see kids question the conventional anti-war wisdom.

Posted by Peter K. | July 3, 2008 11:11 AM

I admit that its been a long time since I’ve studied philosophy in the academy, but last time I checked, the Anglophone philosophical world is extremely biased toward empiricism and suspicious of any claims to knowledge not based on empiricism. Heck even Kant wrote, “[t]here can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.” I expect some government majors at Harvard who dabbled in some philosophical text might think facts aren’t all that important to philosophers, but I think they are missing the boat.

As jcasey notes above, “[t]he worst lesson one can take away from Philosophy is that it makes you "superior in argument." Not really. In the absence of any actual knowledge or expertise about anything, it just makes you a sophist, and sophists, as Plato tells us, are bad.”

The sophist were the ancient Greek equivalent to our modern day lawyers—think John Yoo. As a proud member of that profession, I can assure you that our elite law schools are terrific training grounds for arguing for whatever outcome suits your purpose. After 3 years at an elite law school I expect most graduate don’t know much law and are convinced that there is no law—again see john Yoo) and are fully qualified arm-chair-economist-sociologist-historians-psychologist-philosophers-etc.

Of course when those who don’t believe in law are in charge of the law, there tends to be no law. Kinda like when those who don’t believe in government run the government, the government turns into a shambles.

Posted by Sash | July 3, 2008 11:42 AM

"Political philosophy (of the Rawlsian/Kantian variety)" lacks any kind of necessary or self-evident foundation. It relies instead on someone's ardent moral opinions or feelings, which I for one see no reason to agree with. Moreover, though I'm not sure if the majority of people agree or disagree with most of Kant's moral opinions, I'm close to positive that a majority disagrees with Rawls' moral opinions. This is one good reason why we like consensus and democracy. We don't all agree on what is right, so we take a vote. In the case of stupid interventions like Iraq, it was illegal because we had voted as best we could and enacted an international law making interventions like that illegal. I don't know why all these arrogant Americans thought they knew better than this established wisdom, which has been clear enough for 300 years, and has been almost universally agreed on law for fifty years. Establishing law is the best we can do. The laws we have are the best we could do so far. It's a good idea to try to pass better laws. But breaking grave laws concerning war and peace because you think you know better is the worst we can do.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 3, 2008 12:01 PM

DTM is right - all you need is a vague sense (learned from studying history?) of how difficult it is to invade other countries, and how much can go wrong when you try. Otherwise the students are arguing from ignorance.
Similarly you could make a philosophically convincing case that there is a moral onus on the US to construct a giant sunshield in space to counteract global warming, but only if you were completely ignorant of how difficult and expensive it is to do things in space.
My own view on Zimbabwe, etc, is based on reciprocity: I didn't see a lot of Zimbabweans turning up to help us get rid of Charles I in the 1640s, so why the hell should we help them get rid of their tyrant now?

Posted by ajay | July 3, 2008 12:05 PM

In re: smug comments about contributing to conversations w/o factual background...

Of course you can contribute value to a conversation without having a lot of factual background. If you're well-trained in philosophy, you'll have no trouble, e.g., picking out unstated assumptions that maybe aren't self-evident when explicitly stated, and making those putting forth ideas based on those assumptions defend those assumptions. In politics, I think we refer to that as "framing the debate" and "attacking Republican frames". The main idea being, of course, that the GOP frames political debate by making unstated assumptions who, if unchallenged, inevitably lead to conclusions that favor the GOP.

There are other ways too; point out internal inconsistencies; being good with something very useful in pundit debate, the reductio ad absurdum arguments; in general being able to pick out logical fallacies and being comfortable and natural in knowing how to respond to them in clear and persuasive language, etc.

Now, none of those things are replacements for factual knowledge, and generalist pundits should make some effort to acquaint themselves with multiple viewpoints on given issues and at least some factual background on the subject. That's not in doubt. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to contribute without that.

Posted by Michael | July 3, 2008 12:20 PM

I think MY's original claim was this:

I think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand.

Unfortunately MY seems to treat an undergraduate training in philosophy as a sufficient condition for punditry. I'd say it's a necessary condition (one ought to know how to make a coherent argument and do the things Michael at 12:20 correctly points out) but hardly a sufficient one. Unless, of course, punditry is merely undergraduate philosophical conversation. Much of it, however, doesn't even aspire to that.

Posted by jcasey | July 3, 2008 12:29 PM

"I'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty."

Can't remember who said that, but somehow Matt's stuff often brings it to mind.

Posted by kafka | July 3, 2008 12:52 PM

Are you kidding me? Rawls and Kant? Really? Is that all they taught you at Harvard?

What about Hegel and critical theory? or Pragmatism? or feminist theory? Last I checked there are several theoretical perspectives in philosophy that reject the abstractions of 'fact-free rhetoric'.

That our society rejects philosophy [a discipline that very few seem to know much about] speaks volumes as to where we are right now.

Come on Matt...

Posted by stick | July 3, 2008 1:45 PM

The problem with American foreign policy is that a surpisingly large number of people are convinced by the Zapp Brannigan justification for war:

Regarding the enemy: "We don't know anything about their language, their history, or what they look like. But we can assume this: they stand for everything we don't stand for. Also, they told me you guys look like dorks."

That gets about 35 percent of the country to back your war plans. Throw in a few lies about WMDs and terrorists links and you got yourself 40 to 50 percent ready to invade Iraq. Since Bush invaded with around 55 percent opposing the idea, that's apparently all you need.
The question here seems to be whether humanitarian concerns will also net the 40-50 percent, and that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Posted by Jack | July 3, 2008 4:07 PM

What could go wrong with invading Burma? From a Rawlsian/Kantian perspective, go for it!

Of course, there was this guy named Douglas MacArthur who warned us against getting involved in "a land war in Asia," but how much Rawls did he read, so what does MacArthur know?

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 3, 2008 5:14 PM

Matt: "I think studying philosophy as an undergraduate is excellent preparation for being a political pundit -- it's a lot of arguing, a lot of playing with words, and a lot of learning about how to make a contribution to a discussion without a lot of factual background on the subject at hand. At the same time, these shared attributes of the disciplines can lead to some dangerous wrongheaded conclusions about specific things."

Matt finally reveals himself. This is nothing I haven't been saying here for months now. What do think I mean when I call Matt a "wannabe pundit"?

Now if only he would apply that insight to his utterly "dangerous wrongheaded conclusions" about Afghanistan and Pakistan which he blithely posted about earlier and will no doubt do again soon.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 3, 2008 5:37 PM