Den i övrigt ganska sympatiske sjuttonhundratalsfilosofen, utilitaristen, och upplysningstänkaren Jeremy Benthams fängelsemodell panoptikonen används ofta inom samhälls-, beteende- och humanvetenskaper (läs: löjligt ofta, på gränsen till tjatigt) som en dystopisk metafor för en tilltagande tendens i det moderna, på optimistiska upplysningsideal, grundade samhället.

Panoptikonen, som i korta drag är en fängelsemodell där fångarna hålls ordningssamma med minsta möjliga maktmedel, genom att de hela tiden är medvetna om att de kan vara sedda (samtidigt som de aldrig kan förutspå ifall de verkligen är det), användes först som en sociologisk metafor av fransmannen Foucault, filosof, historiker och sociolog. Här kan vi se ett uppenbart exempel på principen för panoptikonen i praktiskt arbete. Den helt uppenbara parallellen till panoptikon-problematiken nämns inte i ens några förenklade ordalag.

Att skolelever blir övervakade när de går på toaletten kanske i sig inte kan tyckas som något stort eller alarmerande problem, beroende på vad man har för utgångspunkter, men jag tycker det verkar vara ett i raden av många exempel på en samhällsutveckling som innehåller alltmer av denna typ av ordning genom övervakning. Samhällsmedborgarna ska sköta sig genom att dåligt uppförande omöjliggörs. Exemplen är många från gated communities, till upplysta öppna miljöer i stadsplaneringen, till stämpling av vissa grupper, men inte andra, vid passkontroller, och när blir när man pratar om IT-frågor så.. ska man helt enkelt inte tala om det (FRA kan ju lyssna, dessutom blir ämnet så omfattande). Nyckelfrågan i sammanhanget är om ett samhälle där folk faktiskt beter sig gott, men för att de är tvugna verkligen i sig är ett gott samhälle?

Pessimisten Foucault mot, den mycket försiktige, optimisten Habermas: 1-0.

(Och för er som inte hann se Rapportinslaget (för jag antar att det tas bort efter en tid) handlade det om en malmöitisk skola som infört elektroniska id-brickor som fungerar som nycklar (“nodis”, eller vad säger de i inslaget.. eh, va?) för att besöka toaletten. Vem som besöker toaletten registreras; vandaliseringen av toaletterna som tidigare förekom har upphört (och givetvis har nya möjligheter att trakassera och sätta dit obekväma personer uppkommit), men till vilket pris?)

« Depuis l’origine de la philosophie, la question du « summum bonum », ou, en d’autres termes, du fondement de la morale, a été considéré comme le plus important des problèmes posés à la pensée spéculative »

John Stuart Mill, L’utilitarisme

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GRILLE DE LECTURE

L’utilitarisme de John Stuart Mill a été publié en 1863. Sa philosophie pratique y a acquis sa forme définitive. Ce disciple de Bentham, fidèle à la tradition empiriste anglaise, est un des tenants de la morale utilitariste. En consacrant sa réflexion à l’expérience morale, il s’est attelé à donner à la morale une conscience, le sentiment d’un devoir et d’une obligation morale. Car depuis l’origine de la philosophie, depuis le temps où le jeune Socrate écoutait le vieux Protagoras, le problème central de la pensée aura été la question du critérium du bien et du mal.

Mais la pensée spéculative lui paraît avoir été incapable de faire face adéquatement à ce problème axiologique, qui a divisé selon lui d’éminents penseurs en sectes et écoles dressées les unes contre les autres. Même si une situation analogue règne dans beaucoup d’autres sciences, il lui importe qu’un fondement soit fourni à la morale. Ce critérium du bien devrait permettre de déterminer avec certitude ce qui est bien ou mal. L’attachement de John Stuart Mill à la morale (au problème moral) s’explique par l’importance qu’elle revêt dans le champ de l’action humaine.

Comme Bergson, John Stuart Mill pensait qu’il fallait agir en homme de pensée et penser en homme d’action. Au sein du courant utilitariste, il était un révolutionnaire par rapport à son maître Bentham. Pour John Stuart Mill, il ne s’agissait pas seulement de chercher le bonheur du plus grand nombre en identifiant toujours l’intérêt de l’individu à l’intérêt universel, mais il était aussi convaincu qu’on trouve d’autant mieux le bonheur personnel qu’on le cherche moins, et que l’on le trouve en travaillant à l’amélioration de la condition humaine. Il s’est battu entre autres pour le suffrage des femmes, la représentation proportionnelle, les réformes de structure orientées vers le socialisme.

Emmanuel AVONYO, op

Pensée du 22 novembre

L’academos

Sommaire

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]]> http://vahidos.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/panoptico-o-como-escribir-con-hijos/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:36:46 +0000 vahidos http://vahidos.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/panoptico-o-como-escribir-con-hijos/

Los niños son una bendición que lo envuelve todo. Es más, son la mágica felicidad del hogar que nos ata de pies y manos. No desespere, es posible salir de esa maraña de requerimientos infantiles, es hora de hacer que esas criaturas, luces de la familia, dejen de acumular la atención exclusiva con tiránica simpatía.

Para Usted, escritor de vocación que reniega de limitar su vocación a las siestas domingueras, que lucha día y noche por eslabonar ideas sueltas en un párrafo y que pretende elaborar algún texto coherente sin perder de atención a sus críos, ha llegado la solución. Ya no escribirá parrafadas ilegibles, de sintaxis distraída y de coherencia con peligro de derrumbe. Ya no sufrirá, frente a la pantalla o a la página en blanco, por la culpa de desentender al pequeñín que inserta clavos en los enchufes o al querubín que arroja llaves al inodoro. Termine con los chirlos y las penitencias que tantas derivaciones terribles han evidenciado en la sociedad, deje de atormentar al lenguaje con mutaciones del tipeo acelerado o con letras manuscritas transformadas en gusanos crípticos. Por fin, de la mano de Jeremías Bentham, ha llegado la invención ideal para ejercer su literatura sin perder de vista a los angelitos sin alas, por una suma insignificante podrá recibir en su hogar el exclusivo Panóptico Familiar®. 

Elaborado en madera resistente, transportable y en la gama de colores más conveniente para la estética de su casa (blanco o negro). Sin el costo ni la fragilidad de las cámaras de seguridad, más barato que una niñera y más pedagógico que una colorida soga ajustada, el Panóptico Familiar ® le permitirá observar todos los movimientos de los niños desde una altura ideal, abarcando los diversos ambientes de la casa. Para complementar la función de vigilancia feliz usted puede armarse con los juguetes preferidos de los chiquillos y utilizarlos como proyectiles de ataques preventivos. Sorpréndase de la efectividad de un conejito de tela arrojado desde el Panóptico Familiar ® , usted no sabrá si el niño llora por el dolor del golpe o por la pena de ver a su conejito despanzurrado.

Cuando el Panóptico llegue a su hogar, nadie dejara de lado sus tareas, nadie pospondrá labores ansiadas. Este moderno sistema de vigilancia redundará en la libertad asistida de los niños y en la extensión productiva de los adultos. Pero las maravillas de esta herramienta no se limitan a la vigilancia, es un único y revolucionario sistema de educación. Tras unos pocos meses, sus niños sentirán la vigilancia sin necesidad de que usted se sitúe el Panóptico, es más, tras unos años, los niños dejarán de requerir atención humana y efectuarán todos sus reclamos infantiles a la herramienta. Adiós a los reclamos infantiles, simpáticos pero desgastantes; basta de métodos anticuados para la imposición de límites.

El panóptico es un extraordinario sistema infantil de auto-regulación y represión voluntaria. Con la compra inmediata le regalamos una entrada a la exposición “Cabeza de Bentham”. Pídalo ya mismo, si después de la utilización del Panóptico Familiar ® usted no se muestra satisfecho le ofrecemos, en forma gratuita, un negro literario “full time” durante un año y dos lobotomías infantiles con curitas ilustradas.

La reflexión filosófica de la Ética sobre la moral no tiene forzosamente un carácter normativo-tal es el papel de los moralistas-, aunque su crítica tiene incidencia en el obrar. Esta situación bifronte de la Ética se recoge en la distinción entre la ética normativa y la ética crítica o metaética.

Ética normativa: éticas teleológicas, deontológicas y axiológicas.

La ética normativa es una disciplina filosófica que trata de señalar lo bueno o lo malo en la vida humana, siendo misión de la prhónesis, de la prudencia en sentido aristotélico (tema que trataremos más adelante pues merece mención aparte), su aplicación a la inmensa variabilidad de los casos particulares. Los principales modelos han sido los teleológicos (de télos, fin) y los deontológicos (de déon, deber). El primero viene ejemplificado por la ética aristotélica, en la cual el Bien es aquello a lo que todas las cosas tienden, siendo la eudaimonía (felicidad) el bien buscado por los humanos. La tarea de su ética consistirá en esbozar un modo de vida que nos conduzca a la dicha. Mucho después, utilitaristas del siglo XIX (J. Bentham, J.S. Mill) la asumirán, desde perspectivas diferentes, para promover “el mayor bien para el mayor número”, contribuyendo de algún modo al Estado del Bienestar.

La ética kantiana no se preocupa tanto por la felicidad, cuestión de nuestras inclinaciones, sino de que nos hagamos dignos de ella. Si el fin fuese simplemente ser feliz, la razón no sería el mejor mecanismo, sino un sistema instintivo. Por lo tanto, la razón, como capacidad práctica, deberá tener influjo sobre la voluntad para que ésta sea buena en sí misma, asimilada al cumplimiento del deber por el deber.

Max Scheler, con su Ética axiológica (de axión, valor) trató de otorgar al concepto de “valor” la centralidad que antes detentaran el “fin” y el “deber”.

Ética crítica o metaética: teorías descriptivistas y no-descriptivistas.

La Ética ha clasificado las distintas teorías éticas en descriptivistas (también denominadas realistas o cognitivistas) y no-descriptivistas. Dentro de las descriptivistas, las teorías naturalistas estiman que las condiciones de verdad de los enunciados morales son similares a los de las ciencias empíricas, por lo que los métodos de éstas serían suficientes para dilucidar su verdad o falsedad, sin precisar de ninguna premisa ética, dado que el significado de los enunciados éticos es similar al de aquellos otros en los que no aparecen términos éticos. Tras la denuncia de Hume respecto a la legitimidad de paso de “es” al “debe”, G.E. Moore criticaría esa concepción al pensar que incurría en lo que denominó como “falacia naturalista”. Su posición intuicionista comparte con el naturalismo el que los enunciados éticos pueden ser verdaderos o falsos y que los términos éticos se refieren a propiedades, pero sosteniendo que éstas son indefinibles (en el sentido de que serían tan indefinibles e inalizables como el amarillo), ni empíricamente observables, sino propiedades sólo accesibles a la intuición.

Frente a las teorías descriptivistas (naturalistas o intuicionistas), el no-descriptivismo, con F. Hutcheson y D. Hume, se desarrolló a mediados del siglo XX en el emotivismo de C.L. Stevenson y el prescriptivismo de R.M. Hare. Para el no-descriptivismo, ni los términos éticos se refieren a propiedades ni los enunciados éticos pueden ser parafraseados metalingüísticamente en el lenguaje de la verdad o la falsedad. Si alguien dice: “Esta mesa es blanca” podremos decir de la proposición que es verdadera o falsa, pero si decimos: “Matar es malo”, descritiva, aparentemente, es en realidad prescriptiva, pues “malo” no es ningún hecho del mundo, sino un valor introducido por el que juzga, así que únicamente cabe decir que nos parece correcta o incorrecta. Según el emotivismo, un enunciado ético no describe nada del mundo, sino que expresa las actitudes o emociones del hablante, haciéndose imposible el discurso racional en ética.

I min post “Några tankar om moral” skriver signaturen Hans att en bra moral (enligt min tolkning) har som mål att främja släktets bestånd samt lycka för individerna.

Främja släktet låter som ett evolutionens imperativ och får mig att tänka på Hobbes naturlag om att man som människa måste försöka överleva. Den andra påminner om Benthams utilitarism att den objektiva moralen är att göra alla lyckliga.

Båda dessa anser jag vara otillfredsställande svar på vad moralens mål ska vara. Att bara överleva som lycklig skulle innebära att t.ex. Huxleys “Brave New World” skulle vara en utopi. Att helt enkelt droga sig lycklig och fortsätta le är ur ett sådant perspektiv inte bara helt ok utan utopiskt ultimat.

Ett annat svar på vad som är moralens mål erbjuds av Hegel där människors erkännande av varandra är målet. Människan är ofta beredd att dö för att bli erkänd. Det är detta som enligt Hegel skiljer oss från djuren. Ett samhälle med ett moralsystem som erbjuder alla att erkännas som individer skulle då vara slutmålet.

Enligt Marx är det socialistiska samhället svaret på detta, enligt Fukuyama är det det liberala.

Att ömsesidigt erkännande skulle vara moralens mål tilltalar mig mycket och jag tar det till mig allt mer. Det betyder inte att det måste vara det slutliga svaret men det är det bästa jag hittills kommit över.

Uppdatering 091112
Att Marx skulle anse att ömsesidigt erkännande är ett moraliskt eller samhälleligt mål vet jag inte. Jag tolkar det i alla fall som så att med de socialistiska produktionsprinciperna så blir slavarna/arbetarna sina egna herrar och blir erkända som människor av varandra. Skillnaden mellan Marx och Hegel är då att bara att drivkraften i historien är hos Hegel ideell medan den hos Marx är materiell.

Doesn’t seem like it’d take a rocket scientist or child prodigy to bump Kant’s interesting, but typically irrelevant, unhelpful, counter-factual, global question– “What if everyone did it?”– in favor of the more pointed, practical, specific query “What if I did it now, in this situation?” Categorical imperatives feel like straight-jackets.

J.S. Mill (1806-73), the prodigy (he read Greek at age 3, at his father’s insistence… and suffered a breakdown at 20), and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) the hedonic calculator (hardly a rocket scientist, but very good with numbers), were all about consequences. Mill, dodging the charge that too much focus on unqualified pleasure is a porcine philosophy, insisted on adding a quality distinction. There’s that pig again.  ”Better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Better to be a disgruntled Socrates than a happy fool.

Best of all, of course, to be Socrates satisfied. But this is a question of value and priorities. Nietzsche, jabbing Bentham and Mill and the utilitarian mindset,  said only the English place pleasure above all. That was false then, and it was heedless of Mill’s efforts at quality control. It’s laughably false now. We wallow in our pleasure-centered culture of mindless lowbrow entertainment, torpid and sluggish. Hand me the remote.

Maybe what we need is more Aristotelian virtue, especially with its emphasis on balancing  moderation, temperance, and enjoyment, avoiding extremes, and making an effort to achieve excellence in all its human forms– intellectual, emotional, moral, physical.

Aristotle’s search for the mean between extremes, for the right act performed in the right way at the right time for the right reasons, has much appeal. Its flexibility is its greatest virtue, but some find it unhelpfully vague.

Or do we need Nietzsche’s “revaluation of all values,” a repudiation of “master-slave” or “herd” morality, of the comforts and conveniences of modern middle-class consumerism, and an embrace of the strong, proud, few “dynamic individuals” who would be Ubermenschen?

That didn’t work out so well for the young man in Little Miss Sunshine. He was a bit superior,  disaffected, and anything but heroic while he stood silently beyond the circle of his family. The formula of his happiness, Nietzsche insisted, was “a yes, a no, a straight line, a goal.” But a formula is not enough.

“Give style to your character”, sure. Be yourself, be an original. But don’t be snarly and unpleasant and rude and lonely and spiteful. A sunny disposition moves more people off their couches than misanthropy.

Darren posed a question for us the other day, inspired by a new film that presents a less than sunny scenario: you’re entrusted with a box, attached to which is a button that will bring you a million dollars. The cost of pushing it? Someone, somewhere will die.

This is the kind of example most often offered in criticism of utilitarianism, and of consequentialist ethics in general. But if I ask myself “What if I push the button?” in a sincere attempt to clarify the moral implications of my act, and answer honestly, I’m not going to push it. Am I? A human being will die! A presumption of the moral life is that, as moral agents, we are not killers-for-hire. That goes for Ubermenschen and Benthamites as much as for Kantians and commandment-keepers. Has life become so cheap?

“Why be moral?” is  a good question, but asking it in a moral context presupposes the questioner’s commitment to finding an answer. While the search continues, we do need a “standard or standpoint.” A narrowly self-serving slide to relativism, egoism, and selfishness, even if it pulls up short of murder, is just not unacceptable. We can still serve ourselves while respecting the humanity of our fellow humans (and not just our friends), Ms. Rand. We must.

Maybe the story is more complex than the “Box” trailer makes it sound; but if you’re tempted to consider pushing that hypothetical button, for even an instant, please take some time to reflect on your moral philosophy (or lack thereof). Looks like you’ve got a vacuum to fill. Better let in some fresh air and fellow-feeling and sunshine.

« L’interprétation utilitariste de la justice consiste chez Epicure à garder l’enveloppe de ce qui est juste tout en en rejetant le contenu. Pour lui, est juste ce qui est utile en société.»

Dominique ASSALE AKA-BWASSI, Extrait du cours des Grands courants de philosophie, L2, 2008-2009, UCAO-UUA, ABIDJAN

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GRILLE DE LECTURE

L’utilitarisme contemporain porte la marque des philosophes anglo-saxons. L’école utilitariste rassemble depuis le 19^e siècle des figures comme James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Edward Moore. Cette doctrine politique et morale se définit comme la recherche du plus grand bonheur pour le  plus grand nombre. Elle soutient que les actions sont bonnes et justes dans la mesure où elles tendent à accroître le bonheur (eudémonisme). La valeur morale d’une action est déterminée par l’utilité sociale. Ainsi, en société, à force de chercher à maximiser le plus le bien-être du plus grand nombre, l’on peut être amené à sacrifier ceux qui ne sont pas utiles (infirmes, impotents, chômeurs…) Cette forme de justice est qualifiée de téléologique, elle est préconisée par l’utilitarisme qui proclame la priorité du bien recherché sur le juste. C’est le contraire que revendique le déontologisme de Jürgen Habermas et de John Rawls dans sa Théorie de la justice comme équité.

La pensée de Dominique ASSALE a le mérite de nous renvoyer aux sources antiques de l’utilitarisme. Epicure (-341.-270) serait le père de l’utilitarisme. En plaçant le bonheur suprême dans le plaisir sensible (hédonisme), les épicuriens faisaient déjà le lit de l’utilitarisme contemporain. En effet, rechercher seulement le plaisir, le bonheur et l’utilité sans se préoccuper d’attribuer à aux citoyens ce qui leur revient de droit, c’est travestir la définition de la justice. Faire de l’utile en société ce qui est juste, c’est chercher la production sans aucun égard pour le producteur. Le sage épicurien, selon ASSALE, peut bien rendre à chacun ce qui lui est dû et obéir aux lois dans le seul but de garder la paix. C’est cette vision restrictive du bien et ce formalisme de la justice qui justifient l’idée selon laquelle l’interprétation utilitariste de la justice garde l’enveloppe de ce qui est juste tout en la vidant de son contenu.

Emmanuel Sena AVONYO, op

Pensée du 18 octobre

NUL N’ENTRE ICI S’IL N’EST GEOMETRE>>>

Jeremy Bentham, lawyer and legal reformer, wrote a series of books and essays over the last quarter of the eighteenth century, arguing, in the unfortunate “geometric” (pseudo-deductive) style of the era, for active revision of existing English law according to principles of utility. Given the tenor of the times, he undertook the task under pretense of “first principles,” going so far as to declare utility the underlying justification for, not just law, but morality as well. Proceeding with about as much hubris as Ayn Rand in her own reformative/reductive project 200 years on, and about as little acquaintance with moral philosophy, Bentham managed to achieve (apparently) a greal deal of his legal agenda, as well as a lasting and baneful influence on moral thought—at least within the academy. (Whether today’s “vulgar ultilitarianism” really descends from its eighteenth-century promulgator is unclear.)

That influence came primarily through his protege, amanuensis, and unflagging champion, John Stuart Mill, the son of Bentham’s pal and catechumen, James Mill. Young Mill, arrogant and hectoring to Bentham’s pseudo-precise and pedantic, shifted utilitarianism’s emphasis from the law to ethics, thereby giving it wider significance but burdening it with greater philosophical difficulties (see below—though some might see those as inhering in Bentham’s original pretentions to rigor and universality). Mill, however, was so impressed with the Romanticism of the age as to modify Bentham’s thesis to accomodate its “higher” virtues: the “sense of honour and personal dignity…, the love of beauty…, of order…, of power…, of action…, of loving.”

The thought alone of providing a blow-by-blow account of the present collection enervates the mind and demoralizes the soul. Briefly, then:

The introduction is a wide-ranging and useful essay written by editor Allen Ryan in 1987. It’s followed by chapters 1-5 and 13-14 of Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, laying out the principle of utility (“that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question;….[i.e.,] to promote or to oppose happiness”), its vindication, its competitors (asceticism, sympathy/antipathy, and “pretended systems,” relying on a “moral sense” or common sense or etc.), its application to penal law, and an elaborate taxonomy of plearures and pains. This last manages, against all odds, to be the most edifying.

Next we find excerpts from Mill’s A System of Logic: “Of Liberty and Necessity,” espousing a compatibilism on free will (faintly presaging Ayer’s position) [note that this question appears to have become acute around the end of 18th century, when Boswell repeatedly raises it with Johnson in much the way as: culture in the "Indies," the existence of ghosts, and the phenomenon of "melancholy"]; and “Of the Logic of Practice, or Art; Including Morality and Policy,” arguing (1) against a purely deductive method (“the habitual error” of the “geometrical school…especially in France”), but (2) in favor of a quasi-deductive method exploiting where possible the results of “speculative science,” and relying on a fixed telos (his word)—in this case, the utility principle.

Mill’s eponymous essay on Bentham [1838; 1867] puts one in mind of Boswell’s observation of Johnson that he allowed only himself to criticize Garrick. Mill’s principal scruple with his old master was his failure to appreciate the Romantic virtues enumerated above. Otherwise, the essay is interesting for its tacit endorsement of the purportedly historical judicial activism in “English law, as in the Roman before it….” Mill comes across altogether as a proponent of increase in state power. [It also includes the curious contrast of "an essentially subjective people like the Germans" with the "essentially objective people... (of) Northern and Central Italy." I should like to find a book on changing national stereotypes since the Renaissance.]

Coleridge, in turn, is feted as the Acceptable Conservative: though he toiled to preserve the good in existing institutions, he was no reactionary! No: the establishment church was defended as chief promoter of civilization rather than on religious grounds; the Reform Bill (reorganization of representation in Parliament) opposed for defects in its drafting rather than for its intent; Tories disparaged; laissez-faire governance rejected [curious that this political philosophy appeared self-consciously at the turn of the 19th century]; limits conceded to (land-)property rights; Scripture endorsed only insofar as reason could, and its literal interpretation condemned.

With “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” Mill’s writing style hits its peak of arrogance and boorishness. Dr. Whewell’s work is reproached for its tendency “to shape the whole of morality, physical as well as moral, into a form adapted to serve as a support and a justification to any opinions which happen to be established.” In the main, Mill’s criticisms appear sound, even if his manner is churlish. Nevertheless, the deficiencies of utilitarianism are on full display. I suppose a word or two on these is obligatory.

For implementing (discovering? inventing?) his method of deriving ethical claims, Mill credits Bentham with “a position in moral science analogous to that of Bacon in physical.” Obviously the very phrase “moral science” is emblematic of the hubristic Enlightenment scientism that mars much 19th-century thought. One only wonders whether Bacon himself is not overrated in his own role.

Whewell objects that our inability to calculate all the results of an action fatally undermines utilitarianism (or for that matter any purely consequentialist ethic), to which Mill responds that inability to calculate precisely is a feature of all human practices. (“[B]ecause we cannot foresee everything, is there no such thing as foresight?”) But this misses the more serious ramification: predicating rightness and wrongness on a calculation opens up the possibility that tomorrow we may have to radically—and all at once—reform our moral notions; making the sinner a saint and vice versa. And that’s really queer. Moral theories which take intentions into account avoid this problem. And to concede that the former saint’s actions were nevertheless “commendable” is to put utilitarianism in the following dilemma: either “commendable” is to be stripped of (most of?) its moral content—in which case the concession buys nothing—or the utility principle is trivialized: We should reform our ethics when they manifestly lead to great unhappiness. Oh, yes. (Note that the “great” is required, once again on account of calculation issues: since the calculation cannot attain precision, moral reforms based on them require more evidence.)

[Another historical curiosity appears in this essay: Whewell apparently classified the virtues under five types: benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and order. These bear a remarkable resemblance to J. Haidt's five "psychological foundations of morality": harm/care, fairness/justice, ingroup/loyalty, purity/sanctity, and authority/respect. Oops, Jonathan, I guess you forgot Truth! Well, maybe if you'd read Whewell....]

Finally, we have Mill’s famous “Utilitarianism.” Here Mill’s meliorist instincts are on full display: “The present wretched education, and wretched soicial arrangements, are the only real hindrance to happiness’s being attainable by all.” Is this the foundation for the modern liberal worldview?? Or is Mill merely articulating a view in the air in the mid-nineteeth century?

Here again the grotesque utilitarian conceit that motives are irrelevant to the right- or wrongness of an action is affirmed: “[U]tilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the actions, though much with the worth of the agent.” What work is the second clause supposed to do?? (See my remarks on “commendable” above.) For elaboration we look to the affixed footnote, in which one Rev. J. Llewellyn Davies submits that “Surely the rightness or wrongness of saving a man from drowning does depend very much upon the motive with which it is done. Suppose that a tyrant” saved his enemy from drowing so that he might torture him; etc.

Mill responds that the tyrant’s action as well as his motive differ from that of the Good Samaritan, apparently because he had not just a different “Motive”—“the feeling which makes him will so to do [something]”—but a different “Intention”—“what the agent wills to do” (“confound[ing] the very different ideas” being “an oversight too common not to be quite venial”). Presumably Intentions matter because good (happiness-oriented) Intentions usually eventuate in good actions. Still, then, the Intention plays second fiddle to the consequences: if someone consistently achieved good ends under the influence of bad Intentions, the utilitarian would have to endorse those bad Intentions.

But the more serious problem is that this way trivialization lies: The Motive is not supposed to matter, but can we think of a case in which Motives differ but Intentions do not? I give to the Rotary Club to receive the plaudits of my peers rather than to help the poor. Well, then I didn’t really will that the hungry be fed; I never even thought about it; I willed rather that I might be perceived as magnanimous. Or again: I share with my sister to avoid my parents’ punishment rather than out of love. The motive is not supposed to matter and hence my action is equally good—except that I Intended not that my sister have my toy, but that my parents not punish me.

The issue is quite serious—though not, apparently, enough to warrant inclusion in the text proper. Oh well!

Further on, Mill endorses what looks at first to be a kind of “rule utilitarianism”: “The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another.” But on second glance this appears to be a purely practical concern: such rules are useful, but they are not the ultimate criterion for moral action. So even in surely following the rules one is not sure that he has done right.

What this apparently odd view suggests is that Mill had—was perhaps pioneering—an unusual, “philosophical” notion of right and wrong, or
perhaps right- and wrong-making features; effectively divorcing them from everyday choices to do the right thing, from practices of moral censure and praise, etc. The former and latter maintain some connection, inasmuch as the utility principle, the real source of normativity, provides reformative guidance for the latter: e.g. if it turns out that blaming people for x leads on balance to a great deal of unhappiness, we ought to start accepting x. Now, this conclusion is not terribly contentious. But the strange thought is that the everyday choices, systems of blame, etc. derive their ethical content strictly through the utility principle; upshots of which, apparently, are that (1) motives don’t matter (although see above), and (2) our practices are susceptible to radical revision, and this on purely descriptive grounds (a calculation shows that…).

Was Mill making the queer claim or the uncontentious? Given the ambiguity about Motives sketched about (differences in Intentions = differences in Motives??) and his silence on radical revision, it’s not clear. Of course this possible reconciliation still leaves the other vexing utilitarian thesis: that happiness trumps all. But here Mill evinces—in the present essay—a casuistical streak, inclining him to bend his calculations so as to include his own fancied virtues (e.g. the list of romantic ones above) among the determinants of happiness.

Justification of the principle of utility is itself fraught. Mill’s argument of course runs afoul of the naturalistic fallacy: how can the apparent orientation of ethics toward maximizing social happiness imply that it ought to be thus? This is doubly problematic, in fact, for modern evolutionary thinking would suggest that the aim of a society’s ethics will be, on the contrary, the reproduction of that culture and perhaps (as a consequence) its bearers, i.e. a particular people. Such ethics will sometimes conform to its society’s happiness (hence Mill’s observation) and sometimes not. How could Mill and Bentham—both early observers of the “is-ought problem”—fall prey to the fallacy?? Well, both seem motivated by a felt need for a criterion on which to base ethical calculations—“moral science.” Setting aside even the possibility of other criteria (the dominance of that culture, e.g.), one could easily read this proof as a reductio ad absurdum: so much the worse for a so-called science of morals. The intuition that there must be one such is, again, perhaps the paramount weakness of utilitarianism, especially for modern readers, much less sanguine about any such project.

Neatly combining the topics of a number of my previous posts, namely the surveillance society, computer games, and Foucault, a new Internet ‘game’ is about to be launched that enables members of the public to win cash prizes by spotting criminals in ‘real-life’ video surveillance footage.

Although the United Kingdom has one of the highest proportion of video surveillance cameras in the world, the sheer amount of footage generated currently means that any criminals filmed are unlikely to be observed by any human camera operator, thereby escaping detection.

As described in Foucault’s book ‘Discipline and Punish’, this new scheme mirrors the design of Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’, a proposed prison in which inmates are potentially under constant observation, yet are unaware whether they are actually being observed at any particular moment. Consequently, those under surveillance must behave as if their every action is observed, thereby subjecting themselves to discipline instead of having it forced upon them, and so becoming the instruments of their own control.

The widespread connectivity provided by the Internet similarly enables numerous members of the public to co-operate in tackling somewhat more altruistic large-scale projects, exemplified by the collaboratively produced encyclopedia Wikipedia. Likewise, the open-source software movement is able to work together to develop free alternatives to commercial products, despite being geographically distributed. These include operating systems, office productivity suites, web-browsers, and for those of you currently involved in academic writing, reference managers.

This use of human ‘distributed processing’ mirrors the design of super-computers, in which a large number of relatively low-powered processors concurrently tackle small sub-parts of a much larger and more complex task. Once again, the Internet can be key in facilitating the necessary interconnections, as illustrated by the SETI@home project, where members of the public donate the spare computing power of their home PC to help the search for extra-terrestrial life.

Story from the Daily Mail

Sunar, D. (2009). Suggestions for a New Integration in the Psychology of Morality

This past week, my Perspectives class studied Rational Choice; needless to say, the issue provoked responses from across the spectrum, albeit clustered towards the skeptical end. Indeed, there are problems aplenty with Rational Choice Theory (RC), but I would like to focus only on a specific issue that has been bothering me.

My problem arises from the avowed RC focus on methodological individualism i.e. the individual as the unit of analysis. In this construct, society is merely an aggregate of individual impulses, desires, actions and so on. Thus, from Jeremy Bentham in chapter 1 of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation:

The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what?- the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

It is important to note here that this RC approach does not preclude formulating a predictive model of society as a whole- indeed, RC advocates repeatedly state their commitment to churning out socially beneficial work. However, implicit within the approach is a belief that societal models can follow from studies of the individual, since all human beings are assumed to display similar principles of behavior viz. an ability to make ends-oriented decisions in the most efficient manner. Therein lies the central assumption about all human behavior that underpins most RC literature: that human beings are purposive, utility-maximizing actors. Notice, this leaves plenty of room open for diversity of ends, secondary motives and so on; however, to the extent that all human beings are purposive, utility-maximizing actors, RC takes a homogeneous view of humanity. Hence, society is an aggregation of individuals…so far so good.

The RC approach is often called the ‘economic approach’ to social science. Now, consider the following from Mancur Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action (p. 161):

Where nonrational or irrational behavior is the basis for a lobby, it would perhaps be better to turn to psychology or social psychology than to economics for a relevant theory.

Is Olson acknowledging that the RC view of human motivations may not always be tenable? It is not a novel concept nowadays, with the rise of political psychology and behavioral economics; indeed, most sensible RC exponents do not adhere to a strictly Bentham-esque view of human society either. The aggregate view of society now seems more a move of expediency (how else would one formulate policy?) than the manifestation of a rigid belief. That having been said, what does a point, such as the one identified by Olson say about the predictive power of RC models? Say the majority of individuals adhere to the RC view of actors, but a sizeable minority does not: think lost causes (Olson’s example), inertia to change, etc. Behavioral revelations on herd behavior and heuristic decision making tell us that the sizeable minority may in fact, be a majority. Regardless, when faced by two (or more) sets of individuals who behave in such contrasting manners, how can one possibly aggregate across individuals? I refer not to statistical aggregation, but the conceptual aggregation that a predictive model seeks to do. This is an important question, given the centrality of predictive power to RC theory.

As far as I can see, RC could attempt to deal with the Olson issue in one of two ways:

1. Seemingly irrational individuals suffer from an information asymmetry that lends their actions the sheen of rationality; thus, in fact, their actions actually conform to the RC theory of society. For example, in the case of lost causes, actors may hold the misapprehension that theirs is, in fact, not a lost cause with a real chance of success.

I find this argument unpersuasive. To be certain, there are instances when a dearth of information can make an irrational actions seem rational (Consider an ant attempting to climb a mountain, the peak of which is not visible to him due to various outcroppings of rock. To a human being (and his larger perspective), the ant is clearly engaging in an exercise in futility…not so for the ant). However, the ant analogy does not extend to every such instance in society- how often have we heard of people “fighting the good fight” because it is the right thing to do. Think of the common trope of the warrior who dies in battle, or the valor attributed to the Light Brigade and so on. Human beings do consciously engage in irrational acts. This leads to the second possible solution:

2. An individual engaged in irrational behavior may have shifted his ends- thus, if I am fighting the good fight, my ultimate end is no longer success, but a desire to go down gloriously. If such is the case, then my continued devotion to a lost cause is perfectly rational.

Again, not very persuasive- does the warrior truly go into a suicidal campaign motivated purely by the desire for a glorious death? More abstractly, can ends always be separated so easily? By shifting the ends, we would seem to merely be engaging in a tautological exercise by way of which, all actions are deemed rational in order to justify their rationality. I am afraid I don’t have a coherent response to this particular “solution”, but it seems intuitively unpersuasive.

In the final reckoning, the crux of the issue is the inability of RC to reconcile its view of human society with instances of conscious irrationality, since it is premised upon either rationality, or unconscious irrationality. My own issue is: even if RC gives a shout out to behavioral explanations of human irrationality, how can its aggregate view of society follow from the same? Any thoughts?

Chapter 49 ~ “Panopticism” by Michel Foucault (1978)

Foucault begins with a discussion about the plague and what happened in a town when the plague arose.

1- strict spatial partitioning
2- ceaseless inspection
3- strict purification

It is a town of segmented discipline. The chaos and uncertainty of the plague demanded a power structure be developed that secured society…and the plague itself.

Foucault then mentions lepers and illustrates a distinction between the leper and the plague-filled town; the leper initiated separate societies; however, the plague called for disciplined societies.

Foucault likens this disciplined society to Bentham’s “Panopticon,” in which visibility is a trap.

Individualizing the surveillance, which is done in the Panopticon, helps to avoid the angry mob syndrome, keeping individuals from coming together as a group to fight against “the machine.” In doing this, the “the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (592).

So, unlike the plague, in which its effects have a top-down mentality of power, the Panopticon works as much as the people being watched work (within the minute exertions of discipline). Because no one person, like a king, controls it, this mechanism can be utilized in various ways – the prison system, the health system, the school system, and the work environment system, to name a few.

I’m not entirely sure, but in the right column of 593, it seems as if Foucault is implying that even those at the top of the Panopticon mechanism become trapped within its casing.

Foucault spends a few pages comparing the system derived from the plague and the Panopticon mechanism, one of which is that with the plague “an exceptional situation” occurs that mobilizes power against its extraordinary evil; whereas, the Panopticon is “a generalizable model of functioning” (594).

A great deal of manipulation occurs in both, but that manipulation seems to be finessed in the Panopticon as if each movement is tested and analyzed and reconfigure to increase power, disabling the ability for it to break down. The mechanism – unlike most power structures in which those in power keep the knowledge strictly among themselves – is transparent, allowing outsiders a glimpse into how it works, making the power not so much about one person but about the society as a whole. This connection of society also illustrates that the individual is not disconnected from social order but “fabricated in it” (596). Makes me wonder, in this scenario, if something does go wrong all we all to blame because we are about the knowledge that makes and generates this power.

The Panopticon, with its efficiency, has the ability to make power more economic. It doesn’t seem that its ultimate goal is to develop humanity despite outcomes such as the spread of education and of public morality.

I read this and take things such as power, the “gaze” mentioned early on, and the individualistic coercion and think about the classroom as a sort of Panopticon. There is a structure that’s intrinsically connected to a classroom, very transparent, but when the one person stands before a classroom of students, line of power are almost immediately drawn and understood. And though there might be the chance of a mutiny against the teacher, the classroom is very individualistic as each student knows he/she is being watched and analyzed by the instructor.

In regards to technology, I wonder if the Internet is the Panopticon…if that’s what we’re supposed to get from this reading. Does the internet individualize us? Does it exert a sort of power of us that conforms us in so subtle a way that we fail to realize our part in the development? And if we are to like the Internet as the Panopticon, then how is this power structure spreading education, public morality, the economy? I can see education and economy, but public morality? No.

If you want to get up close and personal with Jeremy Bentham then you can visit his body in King’s College, London.

Alas, the head is wax as the original one was stolen by rival students from Christ’s College and it got a bit battered whilst on its journey (it was found in a locker in a train station in Scotland). I’ll leave you to google the head picture – it’s way to gross to be on here.

Jeremy Bentham - Utilitarian, reformer and mummy

En 1816, Etienne Dumont, dió a conocer una de las obras políticas más desconocidas del padre del Utilitarismo, Jeremy Bentham. De hecho se publicó antes en francés, dada la apatía característica de su autor a la hora de publicar sus obras, en su inglés original. No se público en Inglaterra hasta 8 años después.

No estoy hablando de la obra principal de este político, más que filósofo, tal como lo definió Bertrand Russell; pero la fuerza de esta obra es digna de mención en estos días que corren. Me estoy refiriendo a la, para mi, trascendental, “Falacias Políticas”.

Con este libro, Bentham, pretendía denunciar el peor de los males que a su juicio había prendido en el parlamentarismo inglés: el reino de la falacia, el ardid, la mentira, la confusión como herramienta diaria de los próceres del Parlamento (¿Os suena?).

No voy a ser prolijo con respecto a introducirte el tema, querid@ lector@. Mi recomendación, si te interesa la política es que leas este excelente tratado, y más aún si eres representante público o te dedicas a la “res publica”; es más lo haría de lectura obligatoria entre nuestros parlamentarios de todos los niveles: estatal y autonómico, para que recobren la razón y dejen de tratar a la ciudadanía como a peleles a los que se les puede manipular alegremente. Hay un sector de la población, que pese a tener nuestra orientación ideológica muy definida, no nos dejamos manipular mediante ardides claramente prefabricados en las “cocinas” de las sedes de los partidos.

Vuelvo a las “Falacias Políticas“. Bentham establecía cuatro grandes tipos de ellas, dedicando especial interés a las que el llamaba Falacias de Confusión, a su juicio las más nocivas para el sistema parlamentario (democrático, por supuesto); y de entre ellas me quedo con una: la que el denominaba como la “Corrupción Popular”.

Bentham la definía así: es aquella en la que la fuente de la corrupción radica en el pueblo. A tal grado llega y tan dilatada es su extensión, que ninguna reforma política sería capaz de eliminarla. Lo que pretende es provocar el desagrado con el que quien habla contemplando a aquellos de quienes habla, imputándoles una mala índole moral o intelectual, si proporcionar indicación alguna de su naturaleza.

Puntualización previa a lo que voy a exponer: si hay algo que me disgusta en la política es cómo se intenta manipular la opinión pública y más aún como se pervierte la capacidad de razonamiento y crítica de los acólitos, seguidores y simpatizantes de cualquier causa o ideología. Esto sin duda empobrece el debate, coarta la libertad y cercena al intelecto; pero claro es el juego del Poder, y ya sabemos lo que esto supone.

Decía, que todo representante público debería leer el tratado de Bentham; bueno creo que en la calle Génova han hecho los deberes, pero han entendido MUY MAL los postulados defendidos por el autor, ya que lo que han conseguido es prostituir la esencia del principio más noble que ha de perseguir todo representante público: la defensa de la verdad (como virtud ética). Es más, está tan retorcidamente interpretada, que lo que han hecho es llevar a la enésima potencia los postulados de esta falacia, utilizándola de forma perversa, en un alocada huida hacia adelante, atacando incluso a los poderes legítimamente constituidos en nuestro país, poniendo en duda todo el sistema, bajo la creencia de que ellos están por encima del bien y del mal.

Es triste ver como el principal partido de la oposición no acata los principios constitucionales más elementales; no respeta las decisiones judiciales; ni respeta la profesionalidad de uno de los poderes esenciales de la División de Poderes: el Poder Judicial (del que les recuerdo que “su” mayoritaria APM tiene la mayoría en casi todos los tribunales regionales de justicia – recuérdese la vista del caso “Camps” en el Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Valencia).

Imaginémosnos por un momento, que dada la jurisprudencia que se está creando, cualquier ciudadano de nuestro país, pudiera invocar a partir de ahora que no acata decisión judicial alguna, porque está sometido a la represión y vigilancia torticera de los cuerpos y fuerzas de seguridad del estado. Antaño nos provocaría una carcajada, digna de una astracanada.

Pero lo peligroso, es que la astracanada la está protagonizando el principal partido de la oposición, y eso, no es bueno ni para nuestra joven democracia, ni para lograr una ciudadanía más activa en la participación política.

Y esto, me temo, no ha hecho sino empezar. Espero, sinceramente, estar claramente equivocado.

Onfray says that French philosophy, preferring German Idealism, has often ignored the Anglo-Saxon tradition. He specifically mentions Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Peirce. I find this rather surprising; Bentham’s work was – notoriously – used by Michel Foucault in “Surveiller et Punir”, the French translation of Mill’s “On Liberty” was published one year after its publication in English, and Peirce is well-known to semioticians, his work having been taken up by Roland Barthes among others. But perhaps he is referring to the text-books used in lycées; I remember being very impressed when I discovered that Philosophy was taught as a school subject in France. (Onfray was himself a school-teacher for some years before founding his free academy). However, friends told me that much of the time was spent studying Marx and Freud (this was back in the late 60s), which seemed to me a less than optimal use of the time spent in class. To get some idea of what 18-year olds are expected to study today, you can look over the programme for the final year of a Literary Baccalaureat. Russell and Popper figure among the list of modern philosophers, as does Wittgenstein, but Bentham and Peirce are absent. John Stuart Mill is in there, however. Perhaps he is a recent addition.

La filosofia di Lost. La filosofia di Lost? Davvero una serie tv può avere a che fare con la metafisica? O meglio può la metafisica avere a che fare con una serie tv? Fenomenologicamente la risposta affermativa è ineccepibile e La filosofia di Lost (Ponte alle Grazie, pp. 166; 10,20 euro) a firma Simone Regazzoni è la prova che si può condurre un’indagine rigorosa sul terreno della cultura pop sviscerando gli interrogativi “principe” dell’intera storia delle idee. Da Derrida a Heidegger, da Foucault a Freud passando per Cartesio, Gramsci, Aristotele, Nietzsche, Pascal, Schopenhauer, Sartre e Deleuze. Regazzoni, professore alla Cattolica di Milano, riesce, con una scrittura fluida, “narrativa” e accattivante laddove nessuno si era nemmeno avventurato – se non con risultati deludenti, nell’esplorazione della philosphy fiction. Dopo Harry Potter e la filosofia (Il Melangolo, 2008) e La filosofia del dr. House (Ponte alle Grazie, 2007 – con il collettivo Blitris), scandaglia l’Isola con gli strumenti della speculazione, evitando la forma saggio e costruendo uno spin off, un rizoma, di stampo filosofico della serie. Lo ho incontrato.

Tra tutte le serie televisive, perché Lost?

Cominciamo con il dire che molte, tra le nuove serie tv americane, meriterebbero attenzione da parte della filosofia, proprio nella misura in cui rappresentano le grandi narrazioni del nostro tempo. È come se la fine delle grandi narrazioni ideologiche avesse lasciato spazio a un ritorno delle narrazioni forti e strutturate nell’ambito del cinema, della letteratura e in particolare nelle nuove serie tv statunitensi. Con queste narrazioni credo sia urgente confrontarsi, anche inventando nuove forme mutanti di filosofia. Perché oggi più che mia la fiction è parte integrante di ciò che chiamiamo “realtà”. Non a caso, prima di Lost, mi sono occupato di dr. House e di Harry Potter. Quanto a Lost, ciò che in questa serie mi ha affascinato (perché prima di qualsiasi calcolo o ragionamento c’è questo: fascinazione, amore, ossessione da fan: non è possibile lavorare con la cultura di massa senza una certa dose di partecipazione) è stata la capacità di unire complessità e popolarità. Lost è un’opera d’arte – non esito a dirlo – che mostra come si possa essere, al contempo, radicalmente sperimentali e insieme popolari (stiamo parlando di milioni di telespettatori), mescolando filosofia e disaster movie, riferimenti biblici e fantascienza. Il tutto inserito in una narrazione di grande potenza ed efficacia, che sembra avvalorare la tesi di Orson Welles secondo cui la televisione ha una forza narrativa che il cinema non può eguagliare. Ecco il primo fattore di interesse, ai miei occhi, cui si connette immediatamente il secondo: l’effetto poetico di Lost. Umberto Eco, nelle sue Postille a Il nome della rosa, definisce “effetto poetico” la capacità di un’opera di generare sempre letture diverse senza esaurirsi. Ora, Lost è una macchina progettata per produrre le letture più disparate, rendendo lo spettatore una sorta di co-autore. Basta vedere che cosa accade in rete per capire fino a che punto funzioni la macchina narrativa di questa serie. Lost, detto altrimenti, è un universo narrativo in espansione transmediale. Alcune dichiarazione di Damon Lindelof, uno dei creatori della serie, sono a questo proposito molto significative: “Quando la serie sarà finita, e magari secondo le nostre volontà, il pubblico potrà ancora tornare indietro e ci sarà ancora spazio di interpretazione, come in qualsiasi opera letteraria”.

La filosofia e la tv, un rapporto burrascoso…

Sì, per molti filosofi oggi è ancora così. Ma questi filosofi non vanno presi troppo sul serio (Popper in primis naturalmente) se non come sintomo di una resistenza a un processo irreversibile di trasformazione della filosofia di fronte alla tv e, più in generale, ai nuovi media. Oggi non è più credibile, se mai lo è stato, il filosofo che, di preferenza in televisione, dichiara di non guardare la tv o di non possederla. È puro kitsch intellettuale: una caricatura del filosofo buona, ad esempio, per una serie televisiva italiana per famiglie. Certo, le caricature di filosofo non mancano, e devo dire che in fondo le amo molto. Non a caso spesso le uso nei miei libri come personaggi concettuali. C’è chi si chiede dalle colonne dei quotidiani, cito a memoria, “Guardare o non guardare Lost, 24, CSI, e quant’altro?” e chi accusa la televisione di essere un “paradigma pornografico”. Ora, è chiaro che queste accuse non sono altro che una forma di esorcismo verso un oscuro e inconfessabile oggetto del desiderio. Ma come ho già avuto modo di dire, questi filosofi sono dinosauri destinati a estinguersi. Non a caso la più importante rivista italiana di filosofia, Aut aut, dedicava nel 2007 un intero numero alla televisione dal titolo Davanti alla televisione, in cui si parlava anche dell’altro spauracchio di ogni intellettuale culturalmente corretto: i reality, a partire dal Grande Fratello. Presto occorrerà occuparsi anche di questo, a costo di scatenare nuove burrasche.

Locke, Rousseu, Hume, Bentham, Bakunin: troppo facile…

Troppo facile e banale. Lost fortunatamente non è un compendio di storia della filosofia. Altrimenti, almeno per quanto mi riguarda, sarei passato immediatamente ad altro. Sull’Isola ci sono nomi di filosofo come ci sono mille altri indizi letterari, mitologici, tratti dalla storia delle religioni. Sono tutti elementi di un gioco cui prendere parte, ma che non tollera strategie troppo prevedibili. Per questo se ci sono filosofi di cui non mi occupo nel mio libro sono proprio quelli il cui nome compare nella serie. Al di là dei nomi, sono le questioni filosofiche che l’Isola pone a interessarmi, a partire da quelle legate alle idee di mondo (è Desmond che dice: “Non esiste il mondo esterno”), di verità e, più in generale, di complessità. Leggo l’Isola come un sistema complesso cioè un sistema composto da un gran numero di parti che interagiscono in modo non semplice e in cui l’insieme è qualcosa di più della somma delle parti. Per questo chi sostiene, come il razionale Jack, che l’Isola è solo un’isola non arriverà mai a comprenderla. La razionalità di Jack sull’Isola, come nella realtà, è una semplificazione pericolosa. In un momento in cui anche importanti filosofi come Žižek o Badiou sembrano tentati di riproporre le virtù di un mondo ordinato che rompa con le logiche della complessità (tentazione che giudico pericolosa) mi sembra oltremodo interessante riflettere attorno alla questione della complessità così come viene messa in scena in Lost.

La questione dell’alterità, dell’altro, è un tema filosofico (di questi tempi più tangibile che mai) per eccellenza. In Lost è un punto centrale del meccanismo narrativo…

Sì, è centrale al punto che il termine “Altri”, con la maiuscola, diventa nella serie il nome di coloro che si trovano già sull’Isola al momento dell’incidente aereo. La tentazione potrebbe essere qui quella di evocare la filosofia di Levinas, in cui il concetto di “Altri” svolge un ruolo capitale. Ma se non chiamo in causa Levinas è perché in Lost gli Altri sono molto più traumatici di quanto non lo sia Altri in Levinas. Non a caso cito Sarte, en passant, che in una sua famosa opera teatrale fa dire a uno dei suoi personaggi: “L’inferno sono gli altri”. Gli Altri, sull’Isola, sono traumatici, sono una Cosa traumatica. Chi sono davvero? Che cosa fanno? Perché ci rapiscono? Perché ci attaccano? Perché ci imprigionano e torturano? Ecco tutta una seria di questioni che assillano i superstiti nel loro rapporto con gli Altri. Gli Altri, qui, non si lasciano facilmente addomesticare, non c’è nessuna fascinazione esotica verso di loro, ma prima di tutto conflitto e poi interazioni complesse. Ma quello che è più interessante è che agli occhi degli Altri sono proprio i superstiti ad essere Altri: dal punto di vista degli Altri i superstiti sono minacciosi, sono anch’essi Altri, gli Altri degli Altri. Il che significa che siamo sempre Altri per coloro che chiamiamo Altri. Altri è un concetto relativo alla posizione ci chi lo enuncia, come mostra bene John Locke quando afferma che Sayid è uno degli Altri per la Rousseau.

L’Isola viene paragonata alla radura di Heidegger…

Niente di più semplice per chi conosca un poco Heidegger. Credo che Heidegger ci abbia regalato, nel Novecento, uno dei più radicali e interessanti ripensamenti dell’idea di verità. Per farla breve, Heidegger pensa la verità non come adeguazione del linguaggio alla cosa, ma come non-nascondimento, come apertura di un orizzonte che nel suo aprirsi conserva sempre in sé un elemento di opacità, enigmatico e insondabile, una sorta di cuore di tenebra della verità. Per spiegare questa sua idea, Heidegger ha usato la figura della radura: la verità è una sorta di radura che si apre nel cuore di un bosco o di una foresta. Ora, ogni una radura per essere tale – uno spazio illuminato che si dischiude in una foresta – ha bisogno di conservare attorno a sé l’oscurità della foresta. Questa oscurità non è un difetto che nuoce alla radura, ma un elemento essenziale alla radura stessa. Se questa oscurità venisse eliminata, verrebbe eliminata anche l’apertura della radura. Lo stesso accade secondo Heidegger alla verità come radura: essa necessita sempre di un fondo di oscurità per manifestarsi. In Lost incontriamo spesso radure che si aprono nella foresta e che dischiudono una qualche verità: sempre parziale, che conserva sempre un elemento di opacità. Ecco perché ho evocato Heidegger. Più in generale, questa idea di verità è in assoluta consonanza con l’idea di sistema complesso di cui l’Isola è l’incarnazione. E questo con buona pace di quanti pensano che Heidegger sia una sorta di pensatore arcaicizzante e antimoderno. Non a caso il filosofo spagnolo Daniel Innerarity, parlando di come i sistemi complessi abbiano messo in crisi l’idea secondo cui i fenomeni possono essere sempre completamente svelati, ha evocato Heidegger che per primo ha posto l’accento sull’inevitabilità dell’occultamento. Venendo a Lost, direi che l’Isola ci mette proprio di fronte all’enigma di questo occultamento che sta alla base dei sistemi complessi.

Deleuze, Derrida e lo stesso Heidegger. Che cosa c’entrano con Lost?

Cominciamo con il dire che il mio libro non è, né non vuole essere, un saggio su Lost. La filosofia di Lost si presenta come uno spin-off filosofico (non a caso il sottotitolo è philosophy fiction) che prende spunto da un certo numero di questioni sollevate dalla serie per comporre un testo filosofico mutante, che si contamina con l’oggetto con cui si confronta, ne riprende alcuni elementi e strategie, e si propone esso stesso come oggetto filosofico in grado di circolare nella cultura di massa. Come testo filosofico pop. Date queste premesse mi sono preso la libertà di far interagire con l’Isola filosofi che in qualche modo mi sembravano in consonanza con alcune questioni sollevate dall’Isola. Questi filosofi sono i miei fantasmi che ho incontrato sull’Isola. Perché proprio loro? Di Heidegger ho già detto. Per quanto riguarda Deleuze e Derrida, sia l’uno sia l’altro si sono occupati, in momenti diversi, proprio di isole per elaborare una riflessione sullo statuto ontologico della realtà. Come se interrogarsi su che cos’è un’isola significasse interrogarsi nel modo più radicale su che cos’è la realtà o il mondo. Ciò significa che questi filosofi, per altro considerati difficili, si prestavano ottimamente a entrare con le loro questioni radicali nel mio testo mutante. Credo che quanto Wu Ming 1 ha scritto in Noi dobbiamo essere genitori a proposito di un certo modo di fare e concepire la letteratura valga oggi anche per un nuovo modo di fare filosofia: si tratta di portare dentro la popular culture un certo polemos filosofico per non ridurlo semplicemente a un gioco da tavolo accademico. Per parte mia cerco di portare una certa radicalità decostruttiva nell’ambito della pop culture. Perché credo abbia ragione Mark Taylor quando afferma che Derrida aveva sottovalutato il crescente impatto dei media e della cultura popolare.

C’è anche chi accusa Lost, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Prison Break, Dollhouse, ecc. di giustificare la tortura…

Niente di nuovo sotto il sole. C’era chi accusava Il Padrino di giustificare la mafia. Direi che è sempre buona regola di fronte alle opere di fiction attenersi all’idea che non ci dobbiamo aspettare storie con la buona morale incorporata. Altrimenti corriamo il rischio di introdurre anche nell’arte i politicamente o il moralmente corretto. Se c’è un’etica nell’ambito dell’arte, si può star certi che essa non ha nulla a che fare con l’idea di dover produrre messaggi edificanti. Poi naturalmente ciascuno è libero di preferire Il maresciallo Rocca a 24 o Lost. Per parte mia troverei artisticamente preoccupante non vedere in scena la questione della tortura e dei suoi dilemmi in opere d’arte del nostro tempo. E troverei francamente noiose opere che mostrassero quanto è brutta e cattiva la tortura. A un’opera d’arte chiedo che mi metta di fronte anche alla fascinazione che la tortura opera su di noi, alla tentazione che in certi contesti politici essa può suscitare. Mi pare che Lost e 24 facciano bene questo, proprio perché sono opere complesse. E poi non dimentichiamo che il rapporto tra un messaggio e colui che lo decifra non è un meccanismo semplicistico del tipo: vedi la tortura giustificata in una narrazione di finzione quindi giustificherai anche tu la tortura nella realtà. Per capire che tipo di fruizione sia oggi quella della cultura di massa basta vere che cosa accade in rete attorno alle serie tv: non si è mai vista un’interazione così attiva con l’opera d’arte.

C’è anche un pubblico, quello dei giovanissimi per esempio, a cui forse non vengono forniti tutti gli strumenti per confrontarsi con il “meccanismo semplicistico” della giustificazione della tortura…

Che strumenti dovrebbe avere? Chi decide quali dovrebbero essere? Dipende dall’età, dal genere, dal livello di cultura, dal tipo di formazione, dalla classe sociale, dal quoziente intellettivo? Credo che inoltrarsi su questa strada sia molto pericoloso: si arriva inevitabilmente ai comitati dei genitori, dei saggi o degli esperti, fino alla censura. Preferisco il rischio della libertà alla sicurezza della censura.

Il libro usa l’espediente dell’apostrofe, si rivolge a un lettore, anzi a una lettrice…

Sì, mi rivolgo per tutto il libro a un tu femminile (cosa insolita per un testo di filosofia) cui talvolta attribuisco idee e gusti diversi dai miei. All’inizio, nei miei appunti, il tu funzionava come una sorta di sparring partner – non pensavo che avrei mantenuto quella forma. Poiché però, al momento di dare forma al libro, non sapevo bene come orientarmi nel sistema complesso di Lost, ho scelto di farmi accompagnare e forse guidare da una figura femminile. Hai presente quando Kate aiuta Jack o Sawyer a seguire delle tracce nella foresta? Ecco, anche io avevo bisogno di qualcuno che mi aiutasse. Non volevo creare mappe che semplificassero la complessità, così ho scelto qualcuno che mi aiutasse a seguire delle tracce. Perché un tu femminile? Me lo sono chiesto anch’io e anche il mio editor (una donna, Cristina Palomba) che subito non era convinta di questa scelta. Non so perché, ma il fantasma del tu femminile era la dimensione più naturale per la mia scrittura in quel momento. A un certo punto questa forma mi si è imposta. E l’ho accolta senza nessun problema, tanto più che penso, proprio come Derrida, che i filosofi a venire siano donne.

Articolo pubblicato su Panorama.it (quando ancora mi ci facevano scrivere…)

Bentham Science Publishers ha puenteado al Dr. Bambang Parmanto, editor principal de la revista “The Open Information Science Journal” y ha aceptado un artículo en su revista sin que él lo supiera ni viera los comentarios de los revisores, si los hubo. Este informático de la University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ha abandonado su puesto como editor. Lo peor es que el artículo había sido escrito por SCIgen, un programa de ordenador para escribir artículos sin sentido (hoax), y enviado por el estudiante de doctorado Philip Davis, en Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Envió el artículo el 29 de enero. El 3 de junio Bentham informó a Davis que el manuscrito había sido aceptado y sería publicado si pagaba 800 dólares. Obviamente, Davis se retractó del artículo y no los pagó. Nos lo cuenta Natasha Gilbert, “Editor will quit over hoax paper. Computer-generated manuscript accepted for publication in open-access journal,” Nature News, Published online 15 June 2009 , y el propio Philip Davis en “Open Access Publisher Accepts Nonsense Manuscript for Dollars,” the scholarly kitchen, 10 june 2009. Muchos otros se han hecho eco de esta noticia, como Peter Aldhous, “CRAP paper accepted by journal,” NewScientist, 12 June 2009.

Bambang Parmanto: “I think this is a breach of policy. I will definitely resign. Normally I see everything that comes through. I don’t know why I did not see this. I at least need to see the reviewer’s comments. (…) The peer review didn’t work. The publisher could take advantage of the fees, and that is why I want to leave.”

Davis cuenta que le molestaba recibir tantos correos de Bentham invitándole a enviar artículos (todo el mundo y yo incluido recibimos estos mensajes semanalmente, no sólo de Bentham también de Hindawi y otras editoriales de pay-per-publish open-papers). Davis utilizó, como no, el software SCIgen, para fabricar el artículo sin sentido titulado “Deconstructing Access Points.” El artículo fue aceptado “This is to inform you that your submitted article has been accepted for publication after peer-reviewing process in TOISCIJ,” y Davis se retractó de forma políticamente correcta “I’m afraid that we have to retract this article. We have discovered several errors in the manuscript which question both the validity of the study and the results.”

Por cierto, Davis debe ser un cachondo. Rrepitió la jugada en febrero con otro artículo bulo “A Study of Wide-Area Networks” que envió a la revista “The Open Software Engineering Journal,” también publicada por Bentham Science Publishing. Pero un mes más tarde el artículo fue rechazado. Utilizó un pseudónimo y afiliación diferentes.

¿Qué dice la editorial al respecto? Mahmood Alam, director de publicaciones de Bentham Science Publishing, envió un e-mail a Nature defendiendo a su editorial e indicando, a toro pasado, que aceptaron el artículo sin que el editor lo supiera para tratar de desvelar quien era el bromista detrás del artículo y tomar medidas legales contra él. El bromista, Davis, dice que no se lo cree. En su opinión, no tomaron ninguna medida para conocer su verdadera identidad.

Por cierto, Bentham publica más de 200 revistas internacionales de libre acceso de las cuales 30 aparecen en el ISI JCR 2007 (todas de medicina y biociencias).

Uno de los comentarios a la noticia me ha llamado especialmente la atención. En biología es habitual que si otro biólogo te pide los datos de un estudio tú se los envíes con prontitud. Shi V. Liu, del Eagle Institute of Molecular Medicine, Apex, North Carolina, EEUU, pensó que el estudio de Jennifer E. Mendell et al. “Extreme polyploidy in a large bacterium,”  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. (PNAS) 105: 6730-6734, 2008, era demasiado espectacular para ser verdad. El estudio llegó a tener gran repercusión y apareció comentado hasta en Nature News, H. Ledford “Giant bacterium carries thousands of genomes.” Ante las dudas, Liu decidió pedirle los datos del estudio a sus autores. No se los dieron. Pidió ayuda a los editores de PNAS y juntos solicitaron los datos del estudio a sus autores. No se los dieron. Resulta que los datos los tenía un estudiante y no había ninguna otra copia de los mismos. Curioso. Liu decidió escribir una carta al editor de PNAS para contar públicamente lo que le había pasado. Se la rechazaron. Lo ha logrado publicar en Logical Biology 9:42-43, 2009.

En todos los lares se cuecen habas.

Gruselig und schon seit 2006 online: Das panopti.com, eine interaktive Flash-Animation zum Thema Überwachung im Alltag. Ziemlich pessimistisch zeigt sie die diversen Gelegenheiten auf, ungewollt Details über sich preiszugeben. Zumindest der Titel ist sicherlich inspiriert von Benthams Panoptikum, an dessen Architektur Foucault später seine Analyse westlicher Gesellschaftsmechanismen anlehnte.

Kostprobe aus dem panopti.com: Farblaserdrucker und -kopierer hinterlassen fast unsichtbare Markierungen auf jedem Blatt, die u.a. die Seriennummer des Gerätes enthalten. Bekennerschreiben und Flugblätter sollte man also eher im anonymen Copyshop drucken.. (Details beim CCC)

via @piratenpartei