Dialogues concerning Natural Politics: Book Three
The progressive's problem of political evil
Book Three Synopsis: The problem of evil is a problem for believers in the standard conception of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. The problem can be simply stated: Why would an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God permit evil to exist in the world? If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then God can prevent the occurrence of evil; that God allows the occurrence of evil thus seems to undermine God’s purported all-goodness. Alternatively, it could be that God is all-good, but either not all-knowing or not all-powerful, and, thus, not able to prevent the occurrence of evil. In any case, the existence of evil presents a problem that the believer in the traditional conception of God must explain. In Book Three, the characters consider an analogous problem for anyone who accepts a conception of policymakers as aiming to promote the interests of the people: in fact, policy results sometimes fail to promote the interests of the people. How can this be, if policymakers are conceived as altruistic and, implicitly, as knowledgeable and powerful enough (perhaps with the assistance of policy experts) to effectively discharge their policymaking tasks? The conception of policymakers as altruistic seems to face difficulties in adequately explaining relevant cases of policy failure. Anyone who accepts such a conception thus seems to confront a problem analogous to the traditional problem of evil.
Dramatis Personae
Emma – 30 years old; Fifth-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in political philosophy and epistemology; ABD (“all-but-dissertation”); dating Andre
Andre – 35 years old; Fourth-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in philosophy of science; Academic Advisor to undergraduate students in the Philosophy Department; dating Emma
Connor – 24 years old; Second-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in normative ethics; a devout political progressive
Jack – 25 years old; Second-year philosophy PhD student, specializing in logic and epistemology; a devout political libertarian
Book Three
Jack: Alright, it’s my turn to attack Connor. You two have been hogging all the fun.
Andre: Have at him. I’m spent. Do you have anything to add, Em?
Emma: Oh, I have a lot to say, but I want to see what Zippy the Wonderdork has come up with…
Connor: I don’t want to continue this persecution. There’s a party going on. Don’t I have any say here?
Jack [laughing]: No, you don’t. Wait, Zippy the Wonderdork?
Emma: Yeah, I just came up with it. I like it for you.
Jack [shakes head]: My god, OK, whatever.
Emma [laughing]: What? You don’t like it? It’s so fitting.
Jack [shakes head]: No, I don’t like it and it’s not “fitting.” Stop it.
Andre: If the name fits…
Emma: Right?
Jack [turning away]: OK. So, here’s the complaint that I was working up against Connor before you two so rudely interrupted…
Emma [laughing]: Oh, Zippy’s panties are bunching!
Andre: Yep, they’re riding up on him.
Jack [louder, over their voices]: Connor’s progressivism is inconsistent with his rabid hatred of the University Administration and, especially, their recent decision to shift resources away from the humanities.
Connor: Oh, God. Alright, how so?
Jack: Here’s what I mean: what are university administrators?
Emma: Oh, this is gonna be fun! Lemme guess! Lemme guess! Fun sponges? Uhhh, addlepates? What’s the plural form of “ignoramus”? Ignoramuses? Ignorami?
Andre: Addlepated ignorami?
Emma [laughing]: Yeah!
Connor: Soulsuckers? Scumsuckers? They definitely suck…er, uh, something.
Jack: All of the above!! But, they’re also politicians; they’re policymakers.
Emma: Ah, yes! Very good, Zippy.
Jack: I mean, think about it: the administrators of a large American university make policies that affect 50,000 to 60,000 people, more than the mayors of many cities. If the mayor and city council of I don’t know, Missoula, Montana are policymakers – and I would think they definitely are policymakers – then so too are university Presidents and their various boot-licking administrative subordinates. Now, if university administrators are policymakers and if policymakers pursue the collective good, as Connor contends, then, in cutting the Philosophy Department’s budget in favor of the Business College and the STEM disciplines, the University’s administrators are acting on what they take to be the general good of the University.
Andre [to Emma]: Isn’t it ironic that they’re called “STEM” disciplines, but that all inquiry in fact stems from philosophy?
Emma [to Andre]: What actually stem from the STEM disciplines are donations to the University from alumni!
Andre [laughs]: Exactly!
Jack [over their laughter]: My point is that Connor has to deal with something akin to the problem of evil. His requirements for “good” policymaking are seemingly present in the University’s budget decision. I think we can safely assume, given the technocracy-loving administrators we’re talking about here, that their decisions were based on the most advanced and innovative theories of educational best practices, whatever the value of these theories might be, plus the available statistical data. So, on Connor’s own criteria – the application of science, or, in this case, educational theory, to the realization of goals in the interests of the collective, the University itself – he should applaud, not bemoan, the changes coming to the Philosophy Department.
Connor: Oh, God. OK. I deny out of hand your attempt to equate educational or pedagogical theory with anything like science.
Jack: On what grounds? You still haven’t told us what science is or, more generally, how we are to distinguish policy-relevant theories from irrelevant theories, except that consensus is important. What if consensus existed – in the extreme case, what if unanimity existed – about pedagogical theories among scholars of educational practice? Nothing you’ve said so far could license ignoring this consensus and not using the accepted theories in educational policy.
Connor: Oh, come on. You don’t really think such a condition holds in education, do you?
Jack: I honestly don’t know, Connor, but my point is, neither do you! You’ve rejected the Administration’s new policies apparently without considering the possibility that they actually satisfy your own criteria of good policymaking. But the reason I raise this issue is really to suggest another problem. You have never—
Emma [to Andre]: Oh, he’s building to something…I’m excited.
Jack: You don’t apply these criteria consistently. Like most people, you pretty much automatically approve of the policies of your preferred party, without engaging in any analysis of either their supposed scientific basis or the extent to which they are likely to promote the common good; and you reflexively reject the proposals of the rival party, again, without seriously considering their scientific basis or their potential collective benefits. Your attempt to defend your criteria of good policymaking is just a red herring, a smokescreen for the fact that your reasoning about politics is no more sophisticated than that of the average middle-American Gomer: “My side good; other side bad.” You engage in whatever mental gymnastics and intellectual backfilling is necessary to maintain this basic view of the world.
Connor: The other side denies science! They’re just a bunch of religious kooks.
Jack: As I was saying. You treat politicians who happen to agree with your pre-analytical preferences on substantive policy matters as public-spirited intuiters of the general will. All other politicians, you treat as either single-minded and mean-spirited defenders of their own selfish interests or as idiots, basically. If you were serious about your purported criteria of good policymaking, you would have to admit that the University Administration’s decisions constitute good policies. In truth, however, because the criteria that really operate in your mind have nothing to do with the general will or the application of the best theories to the problem at hand, and everything to do with your intuitive preferences and gut instincts, you reject the Administration’s decisions…
Emma: How is it that the other side denies science, Connor? Refusing to make science the end-all of policymaking is not per se denying science or advocating for Christian theocracy. Do members of the rival party deny gravity? No members of the rival party have ever been involved in the design of weapons or in the space program? I’m quite sure that’s wrong. Do they deny the germ theory of disease? No members of the other party have ever contributed to public-health endeavors? I’m quite sure that’s all wrong. Or do you think they were relying on divine revelation or something equally unscientific, and not on prevailing scientific ideas, in their contributions to these activities? What you call “denying science” seems to me to be nothing more than a healthy skepticism – which, as I think Andre has shown, is the proper attitude to adopt toward science – especially about new and untested theories, and about, as Andre called them, “tested-and-falsified-and-not-yet-replaced” theories. The distinction between you and your political opponents on matters scientific is at best one of degree, not of substantive difference. You seem to have a perhaps too-reverential attitude toward science, or at least, toward what you call science. Your opponents do not. I suspect it is your attitude, not theirs, that is the improper one.
Jack: She’s totally right, of course, but, dammit, Emma! I was on a roll. Don’t interrupt my flow.
Andre: Your “flow”? Jesus. You really are a Wonderdork.
Emma: Sorry, Zippy. My apologies. The floor is all yours. “Flow” all over it.
Andre: Gross…
Jack: Where was I?
Emma: Intellectual backfilling, mental gymnastics…
Jack: Right! This is problematic for many reasons. Of course, it’s arbitrary, it’s ad hoc and obviously grounded more in emotion than reason. But, the biggest problem with your approach to politics – “My side good; other side bad” – is that it is empirically unsupported and, ultimately, unsupportable. Only to the extent that a conception of the political good is agreed upon by everyone, shared by members of all relevant parties, is it possible to make a definitive judgment that the members of one party are better than the members of another political party. Mercifully, we have achieved a considerable degree of agreement that, among other things, slavery and genocide are bad, and we can thus make relatively clear judgments about nations, political parties, and individuals who fail to act accordingly. But, easy cases are rare and, as Andre said before, uninteresting. More often, the common standard required of such comparisons is lacking and, outside of the rare easy cases, it seems to me that conceptions of the political good are precisely the things about which rival political parties tend to disagree. Conceptions of the political good are what are at stake, but you pretend that the matter is settled, always and everywhere, till the end of time. All politicians need to do is to govern in line with your moral compass and, hence, in line with what you consider scientific truth, and they will forever find themselves in the realm of the political good.
Emma: So, he’s begging the question against everyone, but people like him?
Jack: Yeah, I think that’s right. He’s assuming an answer to what is under dispute. But, maybe more than that, I think all of this general will and scientific expertise stuff is just post-hoc rationalization. You’re fooling yourself, Connor, if you think that you have discovered or identified the good and bad policymakers. The idea that members of your preferred party pursue goals in the interests of the common good and build their policies on science seems to me more like an ex post rationalization of policies you would have supported anyway, whatever their actual source and justification. I mean, for every person like you, there is presumably a member of the rival party who makes the opposite evaluation that members of his party are “good” and members of your party “bad,” and who has some similar ex post justification that makes him feel as morally superior for supporting his party as your rationalization makes you feel in supporting yours. A pox on both of you, I says!
Emma: You would say that.
Jack: Wait. So, let me get to my point.
Emma: Oh, this is all still prologue to the big “point”?! Zippy, I’m impressed.
Jack: If you had to guess, would you say it is more likely that the University’s administrators are members of Connor’s preferred party or of the rival party?
Emma: Oh, well done, Zippy.
Connor: Ah, dammit. Alright. Let me have it.
Andre: I think we all see where this is going…
Jack: No, let me get to it. Come on, this is my big moment. The requirements for “good” policymaking, as Connor would have them – whether we mean his official or his unofficial criteria, those he claims to follow or those he actually follows – are apparently present in the University’s budget decision: the Administration relied on data, they relied on well-regarded theories of educational best practices, and were well-intentioned with respect to the University’s general good. Indeed, this result is virtually guaranteed by the fact that these administrators are, if not all of them, the vast majority, members of Connor’s preferred party, all or mostly all of whom accept his conception of the political good. Thus, Connor has the problem of explaining how such good policymakers could make such an evil decision as to re-orient the University’s budget away from the humanities.
Andre and Emma [together]: Well done!
Jack [deep breath]: I therefore conclude that Connor’s declared allegiance to his particular conception of good policymaking is inconsistent with his attitudes toward both policymakers of the rival party and, in the present instance, toward the University’s administrators, by and large members of his own party.
Emma: Good job, Zip.
Jack: What’s more—
Emma: Oh no, there’s more. Zippy, quit while you’re sort of ahead.
Jack: Sort of? What do you mean “sort of” ahead?
Emma: Yeah, sort of. We’re not doing arithmetic here. There’s always a way around or over – or through – an argument.
Jack: What’s more!
Emma [smiles]: I think I hurt his feelings…
Andre [laughs]: I think you did, hon.
Jack: What’s more! I have no such problem bewitching my political beliefs, no such inconsistency. I am free to hate the University’s decisions without guilt, because I do not make the error that Connor makes of conceiving of policymakers as single-mindedly benevolent public-interested servants of the general will. Indeed, I think that politicians are – to use Hume’s famous phrase – “knaves,” who, far from caring much for the common good, always pursue their own personal interests. Thus, I can explain the Administration’s new policies, while Connor cannot: shifting resources from the humanities to business, engineering, and the physical sciences promotes the interests of the President, the Dean, and their unprincipled underlings.
Book Three: For Further Reading
On the Conception of Policymakers as Public-Interested
Plato – Republic, Second Edition, Allam Bloom (trans.) ([1991] 2016), Basic Books
Plato – Statesman, Christopher J. Rowe (trans.) (1999), Hackett
Plato – Laws, C. D. C. Reeve (trans.) (2022), Hackett
A. C. Pigou – The Economics of Welfare (1932), MacmillanMichael Hantke-Domas – “The Public Interest Theory of Regulation: Non-Existence or Misinterpretation?” European Journal of Law and Economics (2003), 15 (2): 165–194
Michael Hantke-Domas – “The Public Interest Theory of Regulation: Non-Existence or Misinterpretation?” European Journal of Law and Economics (2003), 15 (2): 165–194
On the Traditional Problem of Evil
David Hume – Dialogues concerning Natural Religion ([1779] 1998), Hackett
Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert M. Adams (eds.) – The Problem of Evil (1990), Oxford University Press
Book Three: Discussion Questions
1. What is the traditional problem of evil?
2. What is the significance of the problem of evil for a conception of policymakers as altruistically aiming to promote the interests of the public?