Steiner's possession: As it were

European Journal of Political Theory

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 245-265

  Hutchinson, Phil ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Act token incompossibility; Description; Language game; Prediction; Promises; Pure negative freedom; Subjunctive possession; Threats

Indexed keywords

EID: 34248054412     PISSN: 14748851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474885104043582     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1963) Philosophical Investigations, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, tr. G.E.M. Anscombe, §109. Oxford: Blackwell. Hereafter PI, references will follow the standard format. References to Part I of PI are to numbered remarks and numbers are prefixed by '§', references to Part II of PI will be given in the following order: chapter number (roman numerals); page number; and paragraph (denoted by letters of the alphabet).
2. Hillel Steiner (1974) 'The Natural Right to Equal Freedom', Mind 83: 194-210.
3. Steiner (1974-5) 'Individual Liberty', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 75: 33-50.
4. Steiner (1977) 'The Structure of a Set of Compossible Rights', Journal of Philosophy 767-75.
5. Steiner (1983) 'How Free: Computing Personal Liberty', in A. Phillips Griffiths (ed.) Of Freedom, pp. 73-89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Steiner (1998) 'Freedom, Equality and Justice: A Reply to Wolff', International Journal of Philosophical Studies 6(1): 128-37.
7. Hillel Steiner (1994) An Essay on Rights. Oxford: Blackwell. Hereafter ER.
8. Ian Carter (1992) 'The Measurement of Pure Negative Freedom', Political Studies 40(1): 38-50.
9. Carter (1995) 'The Independent Value of Freedom', Ethics 105: 819-45.
10. Carter (1996) 'The Concept of Freedom in the Work of Amartya Sen: An Alternative Analysis Consistent with Freedom's Independent Value', Notzie di Politeia 43/44: 7-22.
11. Carter (1999) A Measure of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12. Steiner and Carter are quite peculiar among political philosophers in insisting on a non-normative conception of freedom (Steiner, ER ch I, sect, A; and Carter (1999, in n. 4), part III). The driving force behind this, as it is behind Steiner's strategy throughout ER, is the resolution of (normative) disputes over the meaning of key concepts. Steiner's strategy is to subtract 'the normative' from the concept under dispute in order to resolve those disputes, or in Carter's language to 'enable commensurability'. Steiner does this by (as I shall outline) invoking the intension/extension distinction and conducting his analysis only in terms of extension (in addition to the parts of Steiner's argument I discuss in this article see ER, p. 51). Plausibly one could offer a criticism of Steiner's and Carter's strategy in this respect by merely posing the question as to whether this strategy putatively resolves the problem by merely refusing to acknowledge that there is a problem - just crossing the street, as it were. However, my own strategy here is to take Steiner at his word and show that, despite this tactic, he is still faced with many of the problems he claims to have overcome. That is to say, insistence on an analysis of key terms in normative discourse in purely extensional language can be maintained only by ruling out other legitimate (sensible) uses of a term; uses that gain sense owing to their place in intensional vocabulary. Put another way, Steiner's recourse to extension can be challenged in just the same way as recourse to 'just procedures', or recourse to 'meta-ethical' concepts can, in that one's interlocutors are not obliged to accept the non-normativity, the neutrality between competing conceptions of the good, or the 'meta' status of one's claims, respectively. Attempts to shift to a level of inquiry that transcends (or undercuts) normative disagreement in political and moral philosophy are subject to a 'double bind' analogous to that identified by Wilfred Sellars (1956) 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind', in Herbert Feigl and Michael Scriven (eds), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. I, pp. 253-329. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. He invoked the notion of the 'Myth of the Given', where the urge to philosophically resolve disputes of a seemingly interminable nature leads us to search for ground that is beyond those disputes. Steiner's recourse to extensional description is such an attempt (as is the more common attempt to establish just procedures transcending all conceptions of the good life). However, in moving to extension and away from the normative we struggle to demonstrate why our non-normative enquiries are relevant to our normative disputes. The very appeal of extensional description (its non-normativity) as a dispute-resolving foundation is also a limit to its usefulness for normative political philosophy. On the other hand, any retention of normative content and those foundations are open to being contested by political philosophers in just the way that recourse to them was intended to resolve.
13. Carter's book amounts to a book-length meditation on ch. 2 of ER. The core arguments of Steiner's which I address in this article are discussed in even more detail by Carter than by Steiner. Indeed, Carter rejects a number of Steiner's claims - e.g. Steiner's 'constant-sum' claim regarding aggregate freedom. However, whatever criticisms of Steiner Carter advances, those criticisms are meant as amendments to the theory - the pure negative conception of freedom - and not as rejections of the core commitments of Steiner's position. That is to say, Carter's criticisms are intended to give new impetus to the research project, not persuade us of its degeneracy. Furthermore, the criticisms of the pure negative conception of freedom that Carter claims to meet in his book are substantive in that they criticize the Steiner/Carter position by advancing different definitions of freedom in an attempt to demonstrate that those definitions are either more rational or more intuitive (or reflective equilibrium is invoked to balance intuitions and rationality) than the Steiner/Carter position. In contrast I seek only to deflate the philosophical foundations that Steiner and Carter claim for their position.
14. There is no implication of moral relativism here. I only note that in reading and engaging with moral arguments, as advanced in political and moral theory, that agreement with the 'conclusions' of those arguments rests upon agreement in one's attitude towards the subject of discussion. For example, it might be the case that I agree with Peter Singer's 'conclusions' regarding human treatment of non-human animals but find his consequentialist reasoning thoroughly flawed. My agreement with Singer, then, is an agreement in moral attitude. I take this to be a remark that can stand while at the same time remaining agnostic regarding questions in the metaphysics of value. So, while arguments are important as to whether we perceive values as secondary qualities - as John McDowell argues (1998) 'Values and Secondary Qualities', in his Mind, Value and Reality, pp. 131-50. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press - or whether it is rather a case of seeing values as seeing an aspect of an action (where 'seeing as' is to be differentiated from perceiving);
15. or whether we project moral values on to the world - as Simon Blackburn argues (1985) Spreading the Word. Oxford: Clarendon - these arguments do not affect my claim here regarding moral attitudes.
16. Steiner, ER, p. 3. It could be argued that the invocation of 'consumer choice' with regards to one's allegiance to a particular account of justice belies Steiner's claim to be engaged in conceptual analysis and not advancing substantive claims. Steiner's very language here indicates his (all-the-way-down) neo-liberalism whereby he characterizes a person's allegiance to a particular account of justice by modelling it on the relationship between a preference-expressing individual and market consumables as found in a market economy. Individuals, therefore, are seen as preference-expressing consumers, whether of shampoo, compact discs, cars or theories of justice and moral values. It is in paying attention to such ways of characterizing the predicament from the first few pages of ER that we might wish to say that Steiner's moral attitude forms his grammatical horizons from the outset. I shall not pursue this line of argument further; rather I refer the interested reader to Alasdair MacIntyre (1988) Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, ch. 17. London: Duckworth.
17. Also see Nigel Pleasants (1999) Wittgenstein and the Idea of a Critical Social Theory, ch. 5, particularly sect. 6. London: Routledge.
18. I shall focus my attention on a later defence of the arguments of section 'B' by Steiner. I do so because in this defence he meets the arguments of a number of critics. In focusing on this I can, therefore, avoid going over the same ground as earlier critiques .
19. Steiner, ER, p. 4 1.
20. Ibid. p. 33.
21. When I discuss this in more detail below I shall employ 'φ' to denote an act-token.
22. Ibid. p. 37 (italics in original).
23. Ibid. p. 39 (italics in original).
24. Michael Taylor (1982) Community, Anarchy and Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
25. Steiner, ER, pp. 40-1.
26. Ibid., p. 41.
27. The term 'language-game' is employed in a number of ways by Wittgenstein in PI. In this article I will be employing it in accordance with his use at PI, §§249, 486, 632 and Part II, x, p. 190i. The use of the term is therefore not intended to imply that language is comprised of language-games, nor that individual language-games are strictly circumscribed rule-governed areas of our language. No ontological, or methodological, claim or commitment is implied or desired. A game (in all the various ways in which we employ that word) is merely a useful analogy for how we operate in areas of our language. And while games have rules, which we act in accordance with in playing them, we also have a purpose in playing the game - this is something often overlooked by some Wittgenstein exegetes. So, e.g. the utterance 'Beckham's scored the winning goal' made after a football match might be a description in that it makes sense in the language-game of description. Uttered prior to the end of the football match and despite being linguistically (syntactically) identical it might make sense as a prediction or as an expression of appreciation. I use 'language-game of then as an aid to describing what we might be doing and what our purpose is in making utterances in particular contexts. From here on I shall talk only of prediction. I do so for considerations of space. I might equally well work with the language-games of expression of intent, expression of desire and promising. Of course, which of these language-games we look at would make a difference to the remarks I make below, but not to the sense in which those remarks should serve as reminders to Steiner.
28. I could just as well have said 'meaning' instead of 'grammar' here. My purpose in using 'grammar' and using it in this somewhat Wittgensteinian sense is to emphasize that when I want to say 'this is what "prediction" means' I am saying 'this is how we use the word "prediction" in our language, for these purposes etc.' or 'this is the place "prediction" has in our lives with our language'. Thus, using the term grammar in this way emphasizes that I am not making claims about 'meaning' being something akin to a property of the word or concept, nor am I claiming it is an analytic truth.
29. The warrant here then rests on my judgement and nothing else. This is apt to disappoint some philosophers but sometimes we just are stood on soft sand and sometimes this just is the sort of sand that is to be found in these parts.
30. Steiner, ER, p. 41. I have a suspicion the first sentence should read 'were she to be successful in her attempt'.
31. I do not wish to question the sense of using 'mistaken' in this context, only that it might carry misleading connotations.
32. Of course we do have the resources to make an accurate judgement, but the accuracy of the judgement is not wholly in our hands, as it were. When we fail to describe we fail, however, when our judgement fails us the judgement has failed. That is the grammatical distinction. So, 'having the resources to offer a putative description' ought to be distinguished from 'having the resources which determine what counts as an (achieved) description'.
33. One commentator has suggested to me that judgement in a legal context departs from my use of the term. This might well be the case, though not in a way that has impact on my remarks here. It is of note, however, that even where judgement is used in a legal setting as in 'the passing of judgement' it is distinct from a statement of fact or a reporting of fact. Judgement only comes into play when the facts are in some way unclear: i.e. they are in the future, are contested and so on.
34. And no amount of talk about possible worlds will change this.
35. Steiner, ER, p. 41.
36. It is controversial (I take it) because as I said in a previous footnote it collapses a substantive judgement as to who is likely to win or a statement about who actually won into a claim about the sense (meaning) of the concept 'to be free'.
37. There is a sense in which this use of the word 'free' just strikes one as peculiar. We would far more likely say they are both able to win, are eligible to win, or that only one of them can win, or will win.
38. Wittgenstein discusses seeing aspects in relation to word meaning in PI, II, xi, p. 214: Aspect-blindness will be akin to the lack of a 'musical ear'. The importance of this concept lies in the connection between the concepts of 'seeing an aspect' and 'experiencing the meaning of a word'. For we want to ask 'what would you be missing if you did not experience the meaning of a word?' What would you be missing, for instance, if you did not understand the request to pronounce the word 'till' and mean it as a verb, - or if you did not feel that a word lost its meaning and became mere sound if it was repeated ten times over? For an interesting discussion of Wittgenstein's remarks on seeing aspects see Stephen Mulhall (2001) Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, §§42-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
39. For an interesting challenge to Mulhall's reading see Avner Baz (2000) 'What's the Point of Seeing Aspects?', Philosophical Investigations 23(2): 97-121.
40. Jeff Coulter, in 'Fetishising "Syntax"', an unpublished paper, presented at Manchester Mind and Society 9 seminar, Manchester 2002, points out that aspect switching of word or sentence meaning arises in most cases because of the abstract nature of philosophical discussion. In contexts, that is to say, in practices and transactions with others in the world, we immediately grasp what our interlocutor means. It is when we abstract from those contexts that we can experience different meanings dawning. Coulter is correct. I should wish to add one caveat, that I am sure Coulter would endorse, that on rare occasions we may experience aspect switches such as the following: I am stood halfway down the hill talking to my friend who says 'OK, meet you at the bank in half an hour'. At the bottom of the hill is the river, an equal distance away at the top of the hill is a branch of the Co-op bank. I had met my friend while he was walking up the hill and I down. Here I might well experience the meaning of 'bank' as 'riverbank' and he as 'Co-op bank'. I would experience an aspect dawning as further discussion made it clear that my friend had meant the Co-op bank at the top of the hill.
41. Steiner talks of truthfulness at ER, p. 40, 'Can it be true as he [Taylor] suggests that, until he actually does this, everyone else is free to do actions involving that same cabbage or space at that same time? I [Steiner] think not'.
42. Truthfulness in Steiner's sense does not arise. I say 'in Steiner's sense' because throughout ER he writes of truth always in terms of a correspondence theory of truth. Once we see the utterance about Taylor's freedom as a prediction then truth, on Steiner's own understanding of what that word means, can play no part, for until the event (act) has taken place there is no truthmaker. For an interesting discussion and critique of the correspondence theory of truth and 'truthmakers', see Julian Dodd (2000) An Identity Theory of Truth. London: Macmillan.
43. One last word about act-token incompossibility. What this comes down to here is merely a restatement of what 'winning' means in the context of lawn tennis and the Wimbledon Men's Singles Tennis Championship. We do not need to employ the language of act-types, act-tokens, compossibility and incompossibility as does Steiner; all we need do is look at the context. In the context of lawn tennis and the Wimbledon Men's Singles Tennis Championship this is what winning means. And to say this is to make a grammatical point. Is it not just easier and clearer to note that 'winning' means, in this context (set of practices), that one person has won all their matches and no other participant can be said to have done that? Is this not clearer than talk of extensional description, possession, act-tokens and incompossibility?
44. Of course the perceptive reader of Steiner or this article will realize that as soon as Steiner invokes extensional description he forces upon himself the problems outlined above, in that the concept of prediction cannot be incorporated into an analysis conducted in terms of extensional semantics.
45. Steiner (1998, in n. 2).
46. As I have indicated throughout, I take normative questions of morality to be always substantive. The central conceit of much modern moral and political philosophy is the smuggling in of substantive claims as 'procedural' or 'meta-ethical' claims, done unwittingly or in an attempt to mask one's own substantive commitments. For writings that unmask this conceit see the following: D.Z. Phillips (1992) Interventions in Ethics. New York: SUNY Press.
47. D.Z. Phillips (1999) Philosophy's Cool Place. London: Cornell University Press.
48. Paul Johnston (1999) The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy. London: Routledge. Pleasants (n. 8).
49. Steiner (1998, in n. 2), pp. 129-30.
50. While one is not obliged to see meaning in this way it is, as a general account of the meaning of linguistic utterances, a sound account and one that finds much detailed defence in contemporary philosophy of language. The huge amount of literature devoted to 'rule-following and meaning' explores the details and implications of such an account. For a recent overview see A. Miller and C. Wright (eds) (2002) Rule-Following and Meaning. London: Acumen.
51. I wish to reiterate that I am not advancing an argument against such substantive claims as to which meanings of the word freedom are politically or morally important. I am rather saying that our substantive views on these issues are all we have. No amount of conceptual analysis can tell us which use of the word freedom we should value above others. As Peter Winch remarked, 'philosophy can no more show a man what he should attach importance to than geometry can show a man where he should stand': (1972) 'Moral Integrity', in Ethics and Action, p. 191. London: Routledge.
52. Steiner (1998, in n. 2), p. 129.
53. Ibid.
54. Jonathan Wolff (1997) 'Critical Notice of Hillel Steiner's An Essay on Rights', International Journal of Philosophical Studies 5(2): 306-22.
55. The criticisms advanced by Gaus and Smith are recounted in Wolff (n. 42).
56. I am not endorsing a consequentialist argument, or favouring such over alternative approaches. I might just as well have worked with the moral wrongness of the assurance/ promise/threat or argued that the giver/maker/issuer of the assurance/promise/threat is not, in giving/making/issuing such an assurance/promise/threat, expressing the virtues of, say, generosity and justice (though he might be expressing the virtue of honesty while making a threat) and thus is not of virtuous character.
57. Steiner (1998, in n. 2), pp. 129-30.
58. Recall, section 'B' of ER is titled 'offers and threats' not 'offers and promises'. And Steiner talks throughout (1998, in n. 2) of the highwayman's 'threat', not his promise or assurance to take your money or your life. The same is true of Carter, see Carter (1999, in n. 4), ch. 8.2.
59. The argument applies equally well to Carter as he endorses Steiner's conclusions on both threats and subjunctive possession. See Carter (1999, in n. 4), pp. 232 and 262.
60. Dismissed as the product of promiscuity, no less. See Steiner (1998, in n. 2), p. 129.
61. Carter is explicit regarding the claim that he and Steiner provide and defend an 'empirical' conception of freedom (see his (1999, in n. 4), pp. 6-7). I find the claim, that a conception arrived at through conceptual analysis is an empirical conception, an unusual claim. For example, both Steiner and Carter are clear that non-human constraints are not to be counted as constraints on freedom. This strikes me as a resolutely conceptual claim, not an empirical claim. To illustrate: that my friend who is terrified of water, cannot swim and on each occasion he has found himself in water has panicked, sunk and has had to be rescued, is unfree to swim the English Channel makes sense and is, trivially, true. Granted it has no (direct) bearing on questions of distributive justice, but that is not the same as saying that the case of my friend is not a case of being unfree. Carter's and Steiner's claim is not an empirical claim but a substantive claim about the meaning of 'freedom' - in saying this I do not invoke any further claims about the responsibility of others regarding my friend's inability to swim. Once again, I wish to reiterate that I am not denying that Steiner and Carter can sensibly advance such a view of freedom, I merely wish to deny, here, that this is an empirical view. I, therefore, dispute the way Carter and Steiner characterize their own enquiries.