Non-foundationa…niversalism

7/31/2019 Non-foundationaniversalism

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Roberto Toscano

THE CASE FOR NON-FOUNDATIONAL UNIVERSALISM

Richard Rorty challenges with great clarity and cogent reasoning the

tenets of foundationalism, i.e. the proposition that it is possible to

maintain that values are rooted in some a priori, non-subjective foundation,

be it religious or philosophical. To quote one of the most significant points

of his Tehran lecture: We anti-foundationalists () regard Enlightenmentrationalism as an unfortunate attempt to beat religion at religionss own

game the game of pretending that there is something above and beyondhuman history that can sit in judgment of that history. Put in these terms,Rortys statement is hardly questionable. Personal, subjective preference in

terms of moral, or political, choice has always been arbitrarily presented as

if it were grounded in objective sources and foundations: Gods will,

human nature, reason. Historical experience, on the other hand, shows

that values allegedly linked to the bedrock of fixed foundations evolve,

change so that one would be obliged, in order to save foundationalism in

the presence of change, to posit the quaint hypothesis of movable

foundations. One can also agree with Rorty when he says: There is no wayto step outside of human history and look at things under the aspect of

eternity.

I will take issue, however, on one of the basic points of Rortys argument:

the assumption that universalism can only be foundationalist. I will, on the

contrary, suggest that there can be such a thing as non-foundational

universalism. What I mean is that relativism can be challenged withouthaving recourse to foundamentalism.

I suggest a three-stage approach:

1. The first has to do with logical scrutiny. Propositions can be questioned

not only on their merits, but also because of a lack of internal consistency.Orwellian obfuscation can be attacked logically, and not only ethically: war

is not peace; slavery is not freedom. Christs message of love and non-violence is intrinsically inconsistent with the Crusades. There cannot be such

a thing as communist capitalism . And so forth. Clearing the ground of

internal inconsistencies will definitely reduce the width of the spectrum of

relativist variation in values. This should be done on purely logical grounds:

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we do not say, in this context, whether non-violence is better than

violence, capitalism better than communism: we just want to clear the

ground of inconsistencies. We want to know what we are talking (and

arguing) about. As Confucius said: If you want peace in the kingdom, takegood care of definitions. Logic is not a foundation, but it can - bysubjecting moral/political propositions to certain minimum standards of

consistency reduce the relativist drift.

2. Since we are talking about ethics, it is important to state going back to

Webers famous definition - that whereas the ethic of conviction has an

inherently foundationalist profile, the ethic of responsibility is linked to an

evaluation of the consequences of our actions. The former is a priori, the

lattera posteriori, i.e. the former is deductive, the latter inductive. If this is

so, then we can try for a second time to narrow the scope of ethical

variability, i.e. of ethical relativism. This can be done, for instance, with

reference to political systems. Of course it would be intellectually absurd,historically unsubstantiated, and politically suspect to maintain that there is

one universal political model, good for all times and all latitudes. On this,

Rorty says: We are sure that rule by officers freely elected by literate and

well-educated voters is better than rule by priests and kings, but we would nottry to demonstrate the truth of this claim to a proponent of theocracy or

monarchy. Here Rortys relativism crosses the threshold into hard-coreskepticism. Of course those who prefer theocracy and monarchy have the

right to their beliefs, and will not be easily convinced. Yet, why not try to

apply some empirical scrutiny, at the end of which process perhaps the

number of those who hold such views would not be as large? Political

systems can be judged, leaving aside a foundationalist approach, by

measuring their performance in terms of:

a. Prevention or, on the contrary, promotion of conflict, both internal and

international. Without being foundationalists, we can say that Senegal is

better than Liberia or Sierra Leone.

b.Economic well-being. All foundations aside, we can say that South Korea

is better than North Korea.

c. Intellectual creativity. How many outstanding works of art? How many

scientists? How many patents? How many Nobel prizes? Democratic Spainis clearly better, culturally speaking, than Spain under Francos dictatorship.

All of the above,pace Rorty, can be demonstrated.

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3.Having thus tried to clear the ground by revealing logical inconsistencies

and by stressing empirical evidence of the consequences of different ethical

and political choices, we can now move to what I believe is the most

decisive argument in favor of non-foundational universalism. The argument

is both historical and empirical, and it focuses on the positive correlation

between the degree of convergence of ethical values and political options on

one hand and the degree of freedom of choice of individuals and groups on

the other. Arent Rorty and other relativists struck by the fact that

universalism grows as coercion diminishes? Dont they notice the growing

ethical convergence in a universalistic direction that recent history has

shown us from Spain to Taiwan? Why, to give one example, women of all

cultures and all parts of the world reflect whenever they have the freedom

to choose - the same patterns in a field so ethically charged and (apparently)

culturally determined as reproductive behavior?

Let me be even more categorical. Relativists are unable to prove theirthesis insofar as the lack of choice in ethics and politics which is the sad lot

of large portions of humanity makes their assumptions arbitrary. Who can

tell, if people are repressed, what is their genuine particular (relative)

Weltanschaaung? Spaniards were supposed to possess certain highlyconservative values, sharply distinct, in particular, from those of their French

neighbors. Then, when allowed to choose with the end of dictatorship, it

turned out that they while remaining Spanish and preserving very

distinctive cultural traits - shared universalistic beliefs (on ethics and

politics) markedly in line with those of their fellow Europeans. One could

add any other examples, the most astonishing being the shift from the values

of Maos time to those of todays China.

Foundationalism is indeed a shaky proposition. It is enough to recall the

fact that on all major, historical debates on values and institutions one

finds foundationalists on both sides of any given issue. There were

foundationalist abolitionists but also foundationalist champions of the

institution of slavery, some of them quoting the Bible, for instance. On the

other hand, this day one does not see many relativists on the issue of

slavery. This proves that, at least on slavery, we are universalist without

being foundationalist.Universalists (or, I would almost prefer to say, anti-relativists) can do

without foundationalism, since the strength of their argument is based on

historical, empirically verifiable, or falsifiable, facts. Relativists, indeed,

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cannot answer the basic question of why universalism demonstrably grows

in parallel with freedom of choice (democracy) 1 while relativism shrinks.

On the contrary, universalists can accept the burden of the proof. We can

suspend judgment (and also continue adhering to our own personal

intellectual and spiritual choices) on why, whenever there is freedom, there

are such overwhelming universalist convergence in moral and political

choices. What I mean is that we should keep our arbitrary foundationalist

convictions some people need them for a healthy moral life and, when

stating propositions that claim objective validity, stick to what is proved by

the historical evolution of mankind.2

Having tried to set up our case for universalism, let me immediately turn

around and, for the sake of clarity and in the guise of a necessary caveat,define what kindof univesalism I am upholding.

In the first place, of course, I will repeat that I believe in universalism byinduction , i.e. all the universalism that is revealed by actual human thought

and behavior in conditions of freedom of choice.

Secondly, I certainly do not see universalism as uniformity. Cultural,

religious, historical differences are not only a fact, but a precious human

asset to be supported and defended: cultural diversity should be considered

as precious as biodiversity.

What we see, after he distorting factor of political repression is removed,

is indeed a universalist convergence, but one that preserves the significant

peculiar aspects of different cultures. Imagining to apply and, worse, to

impose - an identical model everywhere is absurd and can only produce

rejection even of sound universal principles such as freedom and democracy.

Let us remember what happened, from Spain to Southern Italy, when

liberte, egalite, fraternitewere imposed by Napoleons armies. They were

violently rejected by a majority of the people, headed by reactionary but

national leaders. Later, those same immortal principles were freely accepted

throughout Europe, and to a large extent the world.

1 I must interject, here, a note of disagreement with Rortys definition of democracy, in particular where he

defines it as constitutionalism. There is no way, I believe, of equating democracy with constitutionalism,since one can have a monarchic or aristocratic constitution, too. One sees little democracy in XIX-century

Europe. There was the rule of law. There was constitutionalism, but democracy came only later, built uponthose prerequisites, which are indispensable but cannot be identified with democracy itself.

Constitutionalism opens the way to democracy, but is not democracy in itself.2 It is important to stress that I use the term evolution in a totally neutral way, as transformation, and not

as progress. As a matter of fact, we should be aware of the fact that there is no guarantee of a linear

advancement in values, but there can be, on the contrary, regressions that become at least for a time

universal trends. For instance, the ethical effect of the deadly diad terrorism/torture is today quite evident in

its widespread morally regressive effects.

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I believe in what could sound as a contradiction in terms, but is not:

pluralistic universalism. I would like here to reverse a quote from the firstpage of Tolstoys Anna Karenina, where one reads that all happy families

are the same, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way, and

say instead: All non-democratic countries tend to resemble one another,

but democratic countries are each democratic in their own way. Thus, the

way I conceive universalism is exactly the way in which Ramin Jahanbegloo

speaks of soft universalism. I would prefer, however, to use narrow

instead of soft, since what I see is a core, a kernel of (hard) common

beliefs on good and evil, justice and mercy surrounded by a softer and

variable pulp reflecting different traditions, different phases of

development and also, of course, the traces of different foundationalist

inspirations.

Universalism should be seen as pluralistand narrow. Besides, it should

also be seen as constantly evolving. And this is where I rejoin the anti-fundamentalist approach of Richard Rorty. Human groups maintain their

identity through time, but they are constantly changing also in terms of

values. To use Latin, often unbeatable in its clarity, they remain ipse, but

neveridem.

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Non-foundationa…niversalism