Peter Levine: values, moral judgments, ethics, politics, deliberation, engagement …

I’m struggling, once again and forever these last 15 years, to try to better understand various schools of thought relative to ethics and value. I'm not even sure where I stand, but I think it is pretty close to what I found from Peter Levine's Blog for Civic Renewal, March 29, 2007, titled what I believe. Maybe we can use it as a springboard to better understand utilitarianism, consequentialism, and other monistic pursuits (assuming they are indeed "monistic pursuits"), relative to more pluralistic pursuits and the space that Peter Levine and I seem to find ourselves in.

Since Levine and Elizabeth Anderson, among others seem to admire John Dewey's work, I'm guessing that they hold somewhat similar views one relative to the other re: value and ethics. But that's just a guess, knowing that we are all different and only by searching for commonality (rather than difference) can one find common ground. At minimum, please study Elizabeth Anderson's Dewey's Moral Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to get a feel for a 'Moral Philosophy' I can easily buy into.

Here's Levine:

(In Albuquerque) For whatever it's worth, here are the most basic and central positions I hold these days. The links refer to longer blog posts on each idea:

what I believe
[Peter Levine]

Ethical particularism: The proper object of moral judgment is a whole situation, not an abstract noun. Some general concepts have deep moral significance, but their significance varies unpredictably depending on their interplay with other factors present in any given situation.

Historicism: Our values are deeply influenced by our collections of prior experiences, examples, and stories. Each person's collection is his or her "culture." But no two people have precisely the same background; one culture shades into another. A culture is not, therefore, a perspective (i.e., a single point from which to observe everything), nor a premise or set of premises from which our conclusions follow. There are no barriers among cultures, although there are differences.

Dialectic over entropy: Cultural interaction generally leads to convergence. Convergence is bad when it is automatic and the result is uniformity. It is good when it is deliberate and the result is greater complexity.

Narratives justify moral judgments: We make sense of situations by describing them in coherent, temporal terms--as stories. Narratives make up a large portion of what we call culture.

Populism: It is an appropriate general assumption--for both ethical and practical reasons--that all people can make valuable contributions to issues of moral significance that involve them. (Note that ethical particularism rebuts claims to special moral authority or expertise.)

Public deliberation: When judgments of situations and policies differ, the people who are affected ought to exchange ideas and stories under conditions of peace and reasonable equality, with the objective of consensus. This process can, however, be local and voluntary, not something that encompasses the whole polity.

Public work: Deliberation should be connected to action. Otherwise, it is not informed by experience, nor is it motivating. (Most people don't like merely to talk.)

Civic republicanism: Participation--the liberty of the ancients--is not only a means to an end; it is also intrinsically dignified.

Open-ended politics: We need a kind of political leadership and organizing that does not aim at specific policies or social outcomes, but rather increases the prevalence of deliberation and public work. Like other forms of politics, this variety needs strategies, messages, constituencies, and institutions.

The creative commons: Many indispensable public goods are not just given (like the sun or air) but are created by collective effort. Although there is a global creative commons, many public goods are local and have a local cultural character.

Developmentalism: Human beings pass through a life course, having different needs and assets at different points. Development is not a matter of passing automatically through stages; it requires opportunities. Active citizens are made, not born. They acquire culture and help make it.

Associations: Voluntary private associations create and preserve public goods, host deliberations, and recruit and teach the next generation.

Some of these ideas fit together very neatly, but there are tensions. For example, how can I be skeptical about judging abstract moral concepts and yet offer a positive judgment of "participation," which is surely an abstract idea? As a matter of fact, I don't think participation is always intrinsically good; I simply think that we tend to undervalue it or overlook its intrinsic merits. But how weakly can I make that claim without undermining it entirely?

I post this up as much to get me to delve deeper into Levine's thinking (which I was unaware of until yesterday) as anything else. It will prove interesting—at least to me—to see if I agree as much with Levine after I've digested his works as I do now having just been attracted to them.

Comments

[c!]

I'm going to have to swim through the Dewey essay before I respond!