Philosophy concerns itself with the deepest questions, such as what it means to be human and how best to live one's life. Philosophers, it seems, commit themselves to the investigation of reality, to the disclosure of eternal truths. But despite millennia of discussion and debate, we seem no closer than the Greeks to a conclusive consensus regarding such issues such as the origin and foundation of morality. Perhaps the best strategy, the truest truth, is to say no truth exists, that all philosophical arguments are sophistry or casuistry, that we should choose which perspective to adopt for ethical or political or pragmatic reasons rather than because there is some way objectively to verify it. And that this is how it should be.
In today's post I want to talk about identity and ethics. What I am trying to express hopefully shall become clear as I go along.
What does it mean to describe a person? Say I choose, at random, a girl called Alice. I can describe her physical attributes – her hair color, her height, her dress size. I could describe her with respect to her occupations, saying for instance that she works as a telemarketer but has worked in hospitality in the past. I could define her in terms of her family, saying for instance that she is the youngest of four siblings, two of whom are successful journalists; I could specify in which suburb she grew up or which secondary school she attended. I could name her personality traits, saying that she is "generous" or "miserly", "extroverted" or "shy", "open-minded" or "intolerant". If I was a doctor, I could tell her that she has diabetes, perhaps, or that she has a genetic susceptibility to breast cancer or Parkinson's. If I was a psychiatrist I could diagnose her with Avoidant Personality Disorder, or Autistic Spectrum Disorder. All of these are means of delineating, characterizing, a person.
We live in a very essentialist age. Although we no longer believe, as the nineteenth century phrenologists did, that we can identify criminal tendencies by mapping bumps in the human skull, people often tend to believe that a person's behavior and lifestyle emerges from his or her essential nature. Thus we have the hypothesis that Maori and African-Americans are more likely than Europeans to have "a warrior gene" that makes it more probable that they will be violent, or the hypothesis advanced by the book The Bell Curve that different races have different levels of intelligence. The faith the public puts in DNA and biology generally as an explanation for everything arises from three key ideas: first, a strong belief in science, that every event has a cause, second, materialism, the idea that a person is identical with his or her own body, and, third, individualism, the idea that every person is a separate complete entity independent of his or her environment. These three creeds together make up modern essentialism which can express itself in its worst form in racism and other forms of bigotry or, not much more benignly, in the belief that a person's life can be radically improved through psychotropic medication or just multivitamins.
Arguably the rise in use of antidepressants, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety medication, together with the apparent increased prevalence of 'mental illness' arises from this essentialism and can be tied to neoliberal shift of the 'eighties in the Western World (neoliberalism being all about individualism after all.)
Are there alternative ways than Essentialism to understand a person? Yes, of course. One is Existentialism. Satre argued that our actions do not originate in a fundamental essential nature but in the exercise of free will. Famously, in L'Etranger by Albert Camus, Meursault shoots and kills an Arab for no reason at all. Existentialists, like Camus and Satre did not just argue that we freely choose our actions, they also said that we freely choose our identities. ("Existence precedes Essence.") Essentialism, for Satre and other Existentialists, is a form of 'bad faith' - the example often given being the waiter who believes so entirely that he is essentially a waiter that he never considers he could be anything else. Satre argues however that the meaning we assign to ourselves and others is always freely chosen. The wonder is that at least some people can face this fact, that the world is 'essentially' meaningless, absurd, ruled by chance and chance decisions, without being overwhelmed by terrible feelings of angst and dread.
Existentialism breaks with traditional science and materialism because it proposes that events can occur without causes (in this way resembling quantum physics), that actions do not arise from some 'deep self', and because it proposes a radical distinction between the ego that chooses and the physical body through which the ego operates. In these ways it rejects essentialism, while remaining deeply committed to individualism.
Although Existentialism seems preferable to Essentialism, there is a problem with it. Satre asserts that we freely choose who we are and so consequently must bear full responsibility for the lives we elect. As much as this may seem an attractive idea, it is morally untenable. Consider the girl who robs a grocery store when a teenager. An essentialist would simply label her a criminal for life; an Existentialist would ask her to assume responsibility for her action which amounts to same thing. A better approach, it seems to me, would be to enquire into the situation the girl found herself in when she committed the robbery. What influenced her decision to carry out the crime, what world encompassed her? To understand the girl, we must take into account such possible environmental factors as familial dysfunction, poverty, peer pressure. alcohol abuse, etc. It is wrong to define a person for life because of an action carried out once and, by paying attention to the girl's circumstances, we can more likely achieve this, be more likely to forgive.
What I would like to propose is a theory of ethics and identity we can call 'situationalism'. (It resembles in some ways the situational ethics proposed by Joseph Fletcher among others but I think is in some ways quite different.) I would like to argue that when we describe or try to understand another, what we are compelled to do is comprehend not that person's essential nature or the mystery of her free will but the situation in which she finds himself or herself. Consider Alice again. Perhaps Alice works as a tele-marketer but really considers herself a poet, or perhaps Alice comes from an affluent family who all vote National but identifies with the poor and votes Labour herself. In either scenario, Alice's situation is distinct from who she is. Alice's occupation and family politics do not really reflect her 'essential' identity; she is distinct, apart from her situation.
Sometimes we can identify a person with her situation. Sometimes a person is locked in an unceasing war against the situation in which she finds herself – in which case it is impossible or at least immoral for us to identify her with her situation.
To return to the various descriptions of Alice given above…Most of these descriptions apply not so much to Alice as her situation. Perhaps Alice works as a telemarketer because it is the only job she could find. Her circumstances are the result of luck, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Alice is lucky to have a job at all, even if it is not her desired job. That she should belong to the family she has is also the result of accidental and contingent circumstances, is not necessary. Luck, whether good and bad, has determined her situation. It is neither chosen nor natural.
When we start to look at the world this way, to see people in terms of their situations rather than their essential characters, it enables us to better empathize with others. We start to appreciate that a person's situation is neither natural nor chosen; more often it is contingent or accidental. Alice, to reiterate, may be working as a telemarketer solely because it is the only job she could find. Consider a person who is diagnosed schizophrenic: that diagnosis is part of the situation in which she finds herself, a situation that is neither deliberate nor natural. If we recognize this, that the diagnosis is part of the person's situation rather than her essential identity, it makes it easier to empathize with her. It helps us view the sufferer as a kindred human being. Perhaps, for instance, the schizophrenic hates the label which has been attached to her; perhaps the diagnosis is incorrect. Perhaps the schizophrenic wants to be a dog groomer or adores Beethoven. By viewing the diagnosis as part of her situation rather than as a character-defining feature, we are better placed to understand her. Schizophrenia, I believe, is neither natural nor willed. Moreover. I believe that if we can understand the circumstances of a person's first psychotic episode, really understand them, we may be far less inclined to blame the victim. Psychosis in my observation is often the result simply of bad luck. Consider another example: suppose walking the streets you see a 'rough sleeper'. If you are an Essentialist, you may simply label him 'homeless' and walk on. If you are Existentialist, you may hold him himself responsible for his vagrancy. If you are a Situationalist however, you may be inclined to wonder about the situation he was in that first drove him to the streets and the situation that keeps him there. If you truly understand others, which is only possible if you understand their situations, you are less inclined to play judge. A focus on the situation rather than the essence of a person helps us to identify with him or her – it enables a person to love his neighbor as he loves himself. If you appreciate that a person's situation is often accidental, contingent, it makes it more difficult to blame the person for his troubles. "There", you might say, as the true Christians say, "but for the grace of God go I".
This perspective on the world, in which we assess a person by looking to the person's situation rather than essential character, runs completely counter to the ways in which psychiatrists assess their patients. There is a tendency in society today to put people into boxes. A discourse which treats a patient as an isolated object to be observed and described actually reduces the likelihood of empathy. But if one treats a person as someone much like oneself who just happens to be in different circumstances, the possibility of empathy is far greater. It may seem strange to you, my reader, that I am saying it is possible for a sane person to empathize with and identify with a crazy person but I believe that it is not only possible but necessary.
How can we train ourselves to be more empathetic? To empathize, we need to imagine ourselves in someone else's position and this is no easy task. The best way to become more empathetic is to read a lot of literature and watch a lot of TV. A novel, to pick a random example, like The Power and the Glory, asks the reader, obliges the reader, to put himself or herself in the position of a Catholic priest in Mexico. Quality literature and to a lesser extent film and television continually ask the reader or viewer to identify with some other person, with someone of a different ethnicity, religion, political allegiance. Perhaps this is the preeminent purpose of literature. It teaches us how to view the world through others' eyes. And true empathy is as important to society as science. Perhaps more important.
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