Philosophy for a Better World

225 Pages·2013·1.91 MB·English

by  Berg

Published 2013 by Prometheus Books Philosophy for a Better World. Copyright © 2013 by Floris van den
Berg. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Filosofie voor een betere wereld © Floris van den Berg Houtekiet Linkeroever Uitgevers nv 2009
Houtekiet, Katwilgweg 2 bus 3, B-2020 Antwerpen This publication has been made possible with the
financial support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
Cover design by Liz Scinta Cover image © 2012 PhotoDisc, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Berg, Floris van den, 1973—
Philosophy for a better world / by Floris van den Berg ; translated by Michiel Horn.
[Filosofie voor een betere wereld. English]
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-61614-503-3 (pbk.) • ISBN 978-1-61614-504-0 (ebook) 1. Philosophy and social
sciences. I. Title.
B63.B5513 2013
199'.492—dc23
2012048979
Printed in the United States of America

CHAPTER 1: Introduction to a Better World
Less Suffering, More Happiness
Reevaluating Every Value
The Good Society
Universal Subjectivism in a Nutshell
The Fortuitousness of Existence
CHAPTER 2: Learning to Think Philosophically
About Philosophy
Scientific Philosophy
All Hands on Deck
How to Become a Philosopher without Reading Kant
Thinking Philosophically Is Not “Anything Goes”
Laws, Rules, and Traffic Regulations
A New Golden Rule
CHAPTER 3: Universal Subjectivism as Thought Experiment
Introduction
Why Act Ethically?
The Expanding Circle of Morality
1. Suppose You're in a Wheelchair
2. Suppose You're a Woman in Saudi Arabia
3. Suppose You're Homosexual
4. Suppose You're a Coffee Farmer in Ethiopia
5. Suppose You're a Cow
6. Suppose You're Born in a Low-Income Country
7. Suppose You're Born Five Hundred Years from Now
8. Suppose You're Anne Frank
CHAPTER 4: The Open Society
1. Pluralism
2. Education and Parenting
3. Freedom of Expression
4. The Good Life
CHAPTER 5: Toward a Better World
Ecosophy: Toward a Minimum Ecological Consensus
CHAPTER 6: Eco-humanist Manifesto
Toward a Sustainable Future
To a Better World in Eleven Steps
Humanism: Thinking for Yourself, Living Together
The Moral of the Story: Less Suffering, More Happiness
Postscript: A Gaze into the Crystal Ball
Notes
Mediagraphy for a Better World
Acknowledgments
On the whole, we don't take the ethical and ecological consequences of our daily
activities into account: taking the car to work, eating meat, flying to our holiday
destination, wearing cotton shirts, buying strawberries in winter, acquiring
hardwood garden furniture, eating fish, using plastic bags in stores. There are
ethical and ecological objections to each of these examples. Without our being
aware of it, our lifestyle does an immeasurable amount of damage to human
beings, animals, and nature. Everyday actions therefore have to be assessed on
the basis of their moral acceptability. Alas, the conclusion is that almost nothing
we do can stand up to an ethical analysis. And that is frustrating. A lot of
(unnecessary) suffering attaches to our way of life. The ethical investigation of
your own lifestyle can lead to a disturbing experience, an ethical gestalt switch.
Suddenly you're no longer the hero of your own life story but the villain.
The job of philosophers is searching for blind spots in our knowledge and
epistemological methods on the one hand, and for blind spots in our ethics on the
other. Philosophers are explorers in the realm of ideas.1 During the last few
decades their explorations have turned up many new ethical blind spots. That has
led to emancipation movements and action groups on behalf of homosexuals,
women, unbelievers, animals, the environment, and future generations. But how
do you find such blind spots? After all, you can't perceive your own. By
searching actively, with the help of guidelines and theoretical insight, you can
succeed in finding new moral blind spots. When such a blind spot has been
located, it is important to solve the problem. For example, in his book Animal
Liberation in the early 1970s, the philosopher Peter Singer focused attention on
the suffering of animals in intensive factory farming.
LESS SUFFERING, MORE HAPPINESS
This book explains the theory of what I call universal subjectivism. This is an
ethical theory that everyone can apply quite simply to the search for blind spots
and to finding the ways of making them disappear. The point of departure is the
capacity for suffering. The issue is to diminish suffering and promote happiness.
The summit of 2500 years of philosophical writing is a three-word sentence in
a footnote in a book by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832):
“Can they suffer?” These three words are the most profound and important
words in all of the history of philosophy. Bentham points to the essential issue in
ethics, that is, the capacity for suffering. What matters is not the possession of
certain faculties, such as thinking or speaking, but the capacity of being able to
suffer.
Bentham concludes that, from this perspective, the way human beings treat
animals is unethical: “The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation
may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but
by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of
the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to
the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the
number of the legs, the villosity [hairiness] of the skin, or the termination of the
os sacrum [the large heavy bone at the base of the spine], are reasons equally
insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that
should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the
faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a
more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a day, or a
week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it
avail? The question is not, Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But, Can they
suffer?”2
Human society could be arranged a good deal better than it is. This book
investigates how the world could be made more pleasing, better, more just, more
beautiful, happier, healthier, freer, more prosperous, more peaceful, and more
sustainable than it is now. How could there be less suffering and more
happiness? For this purpose, I have designed a politico-philosophical theory
called universal subjectivism. This theory is a stepping-stone toward looking at
the world and exposing problems. Contemporary philosophers such as John
Rawls, Peter Singer, A. C. Grayling, Paul Cliteur, and Paul Kurtz are an
important source of inspiration. This theory is not a panacea for every problem.
It can make many problems visible and it can also be used to solve them. That
there will be problems left over is yet another reason to keep looking for
solutions. My concern is to decrease suffering and to promote happiness.
Universal subjectivism offers a guiding principle for ethical action.
The need for a theory is urgent, but the need for action is even more pressing.
There is an unbelievable amount of suffering in the world, and a great deal of
that suffering is easily preventable provided there is a collective will to do so.
One of the greatest moral problems in the United States, as in other western
countries—factory farming—could be solved simply by immediately passing a
law prohibiting factory farming while simultaneously stimulating and
subsidizing small-scale and environmentally friendly raising of cattle and other
animals. Every day people die of starvation, although there is enough food to
feed the population of today's world; everyday people die because of a lack of
medication, although the medication could have been supplied easily. A huge
problem is the future: humans are ruining the earth on an unprecedented scale,
and the limits of the earth's capacity will soon be reached. It is five minutes to
twelve. The time has come for action and for establishing priorities. The human
lifestyle has to change drastically. How and why—that is what I will examine in
this book. This is an urgent ethical appeal. If, after reading this book, the reader
continues with business as usual, it means the message hasn't registered. Come
on: wake up! Do something!
REEVALUATING EVERY VALUE
Aided by ethical reflection, I want to show that the basic intuitions that people
have with respect to ethics and the good life are untenable in the light of reason.
By means of thought experiments, striving for moral consistency, and looking
beyond one's own culture and traditions, it will become apparent that the average
person's behavior is deeply immoral. Does this grave accusation frighten the
reader off from reading further? Galileo claimed that Earth circles around the
Sun and not the other way around. Galileo was right, but no one saw it or dared
to see it. That is partly because it was counterintuitive: it seems as if the sun is
circling us; it rises in the east and goes down in the west.
Is it not absurd to say that almost everybody behaves unethically? The ancient
Greeks with their democracy, whom we admire, were deeply immoral because
their culture was based on slavery. Even the great philosophers did not discuss
the matter. It was a huge blind spot. Looking back, therefore, it is clear that all
Greek democrats behaved unethically. In today's society the blind spots are well
known: the environment, animals, future generations, low-income countries.
And yet we continue to ignore them. This book is a re-evaluation of every value.
That is, after all, the risk of thought: you can end up with conclusions you had
not expected or even ones that are not in your own interests. Philosophy is a
quest for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Along the way I have thoroughly
adjusted my ideas and my lifestyle, re-examining my opinions and behavior in