Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism Author(s): Richard Rorty Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 80, No. 10, Part 1: Eightieth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division (Oct., 1983), pp. 583-589 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026153 . Accessed: 30/03/2014 18:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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C

THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

POSTMODERNIST

OF INTELLECTUALS

BOURGEOIS

583

LIBERALISM*

oftheintelOMPLAINTS aboutthesocialirresponsibility

lectuals typically concern the intellectual's tendency to marginalize herself,to move out fromone communityby interioridentificationof herselfwith some othercommunity-for example, anothercountryor historicalperiod,an invisiblecollege, or some alienated subgroup within the larger community.Such marginalizationis, however,common to intellectualsand to miners. In the early days of the United Mine Workersits members rightlyput no faithin the surroundinglegal and political institutions and were loyal only to each other. In this respect theyresembled the literaryand artisticavant-gardebetweenthe wars. It is not clear thatthosewho thus marginalizethemselvescan be criticizedfor social irresponsibility.One cannot be irresponsible toward a communityof which one does not thinkof oneselfas a member.Otherwiserunawayslaves and tunnelersunder the Berlin Wall would be irresponsible.If such criticismwere to make sense there would have to be a supercommunityone had to identify with-humanity as such. Then one could appeal to the needs of that communitywhen breaking with one's familyor tribeor nation, and such groups could appeal to the same thing when criticizing the irresponsibilityof those who break away. Some people believe that thereis such a community.These are the people who think thereare such things as intrinsichuman dignity,intrinsic human rights,and an ahistoricaldistinctionbetweenthe demands of moralityand those of prudence. Call these people "Kantians." They are opposed by people who say that "humanity"is a biological ratherthan a moral notion, thatthereis no human dignitythat is not derivativefromthedignityof some specificcommunity,and no appeal beyond the relativemeritsof various actual or proposed communitiesto impartial criteriawhich will help us weigh those merits.Call thesepeople "Hegelians." Much of contemporarysocial philosophy in the English-speakingworld is a three-cornered debate between Kantians (like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin) distinctionas a who want to keep an ahistoricalmorality-prudence buttressforthe institutionsand practicesof thesurvivingdemocracies, those (like the post-Marxistphilosophical leftin Europe, Ro* To be presentedin an APA symposiumon The Social Responsibilityof Intellectuals, December28, 1983. Virginia Held will be co-symposiast,and Alasdair MacIntyrewill comment;see this JOUIRNAL, this issue, 572-582 and 590/1,respectively.

0022-362X/83/8010/0583$00.70

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1983 The Journalof Philosophy,Inc.

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THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

berto Unger, and Alasdair MacIntyre)who want to abandon these institutionsboth because theypresuppose a discreditedphilosophy and for other, more concrete, reasons, and those (like Michael Oakeshott and John Dewey) who want to preservethe institutions while abandoning theirtraditionalKantian backup. These last two positions take over Hegel's criticismof Kant's conceptionof moral agency,while eithernaturalizingor junking the restof Hegel. If the Hegelians are right,then thereare no ahistorical criteria fordeciding when it is or is not a responsibleact to deserta community,any more than fordeciding when to change loversor professions. The Hegelians see nothing to be responsible to except personsand actual or possible historicalcommunities;so theyview the Kantians' use of 'social responsibility'as misleading. For that use suggestsnot the genuine contrastbetween,forexample, Antigone's loyalties to Thebes and to her brother,or Alcibiades' loyalties to Athensand to Persia, but an illusorycontrastbetweenloyalty to a person or a historical community and to something "higher" than either.It suggeststhat thereis a point of view that abstractsfromany historicalcommunityand adjudicates therights of communitiesvis-a-visthose of individuals. Kantians tend to accuse of social irresponsibilitythose who doubt that thereis such a point of view. So when Michael Walzer says that"A given societyis just if its substantivelifeis lived in ... a way faithful to the shared understandingsof the members," Dworkin calls this view "relativism." "Justice," Dworkin retorts, "cannot be leftto conventionand anecdote." Such Kantian complaints can be defendedusing the Hegelian's own tactics,by noting that the veryAmerican societywhich Walzer wishes to commend and to reformis one whose self-imageis bound up with the Kantian vocabularyof "inalienable rights"and "the dignityof man." Hegelian defendersof liberal institutionsare in the position of defending,on the basis of solidarityalone, a societywhich has traditionallyasked to be based on somethingmore than meresolidarity. Kantian criticismof the traditionthat runs fromHegel through Marx and Nietzsche,a traditionwhich insistson thinkingof morality as the interestof a historicallyconditionedcommunityrather than "the common interestof humanity,"ofteninsiststhatsuch a philosophical outlook is-if one values liberal practicesand institutions-irresponsible.Such criticismrestson a predictionthatsuch practicesand institutionswill not survivethe removalof the traditional Kantian buttresses,buttresseswhich include an account of "rationality"and "morality"as transculturaland ahistorical. I shall call the Hegelian attemptto defendthe institutionsand

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practices of the rich North Atlantic democracies without using such buttresses"postmodernistbourgeois liberalism." I call it "bourgeois" to emphasize that most of the people I am talking about would have no quarrel with the Marxistclaim that a lot of those institutionsand practicesare possible and justifiableonly in certain historical,and especially economic, conditions. I want to contrastbourgeoisliberalism,theattemptto fulfillthehopes of the NorthAtlanticbourgeoisie,withphilosophical liberalism,a collection of Kantian principles thought to justifyus in having those hopes. Hegelians thinkthattheseprinciplesare usefulforsummarizing thesehopes, but not forjustifyingthem(a view Rawls himself vergesupon in his Dewey Lectures).I use 'postmodernist'in a sense given to this termby Jean-FrangoisLyotard,who says that narthepostmodernattitudeis thatof "distrustof metanarratives," rativeswhich describeor predicttheactivitiesof such entitiesas the noumenal selfor theAbsoluteSpiritor theProletariat.These metanarrativesare storieswhich purportto justifyloyaltyto, or breaks with, certain contemporarycommunities,but which are neither historical narrativesabout what these or othercommunitieshave done in the past nor scenarios about what theymight do in the future. "Postmodernistbourgeois liberalism" sounds oxymoronic.This reasons,the mais partlybecause, forlocal and perhaps transitory jorityof those who thinkof themselvesas beyondmetaphysicsand metanarrativesalso thinkof themselvesas having opted out of the bourgeoisie. But partlyit is because it is hard to disentanglebourgeois liberal institutionsfromthevocabularythattheseinstitutions voinheritedfromtheEnlightenment-e.g., theeighteenth-century cabulary of natural rights,which judges, and constitutionallawyerssuch as Dworkin,must use ex officiis.This vocabularyis built around a distinctionbetweenmoralityand prudence.In what follows I want to show how this vocabulary,and in particular this to suit the needs of us postmoddistinction,mightbe reinterpreted ernistbourgeois liberals. I hope therebyto suggesthow such liberals might convince our society that loyalty to itselfis morality enough, and that such loyalty no longer needs an ahistorical backup. I thinktheyshould tryto clear themselvesof chargesof irresponsibilityby convincingour societythatit need be responsible only to its own traditions,and not to the moral law as well. is to thinkof themoral The crucial move in thisreinterpretation of Rawls's original not one as self,the embodimentof rationality, fromher talents her who can self distinguish choosers, somebody and interestsand views about thegood, but as a networkof beliefs,

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desires,and emotionswith nothingbehind it-no substratebehind the attributes.For purposes of moral and political deliberationand conversation,a person just is that network,as forpurposes of ballisticsshe is a point-mass,or forpurposes of chemistrya linkage of molecules. She is a networkthat is constantlyreweavingitselfin the usual Quinean manner-that is to say, not by referenceto general criteria(e.g., "rules of meaning" or "moral principles") but in the hit-or-missway in which cells readjust themselvesto meet the pressuresof the environment.On a Quinean view, rational behavior is just adaptive behavior of a sort which roughlyparallels the behavior,in similar circumstances,of the othermembersof some relevantcommunity.Irrationality,in both physicsand ethics,is a matterof behavior that leads one to abandon, or be strippedof, membership in some such community. For some purposes this adaptive behavior is aptlydescribedas "learning" or "computing" or "redistributionof electricalcharges in neural tissue," and for othersas "deliberation" or "choice." None of thesevocabulariesis privilegedover against another. What plays therole of "human dignity"on thisview of the self? The answer is well expressedby Michael Sandel, who says thatwe cannot regardourselvesas Kantian subjects "capable of constituting meaning on our own," as Rawlsian choosers, whosemoral ... withoutgreatcostto thoseloyaltiesand convictions forceconsistspartlyin thefactthatlivingbythemis inseparable from ourselvesas theparticular peoplewe are-as members understanding ofthisfamilyor community ofthishisornationorpeople,as bearers tory,as sons and daughtersof thatrevolution,as citizensof this republic.' I would argue that the moral forceof such loyaltiesand convictions consists wholly in this fact,and that nothing else has any moral force.There is no "ground" forsuch loyaltiesand convictions save the factthat the beliefsand desiresand emotionswhich buttressthemoverlap those of lots of othermembersof the group with which we identifyforpurposes of moral or political deliberations, and the furtherfactthat theseare distinctivefeaturesof that group, featureswhich it uses to constructits self-imagethrough contrastswith othergroups. This means thatthenaturalizedHegelian analogue of "intrinsic human dignity" is the comparative dignityof a group with which a person identifiesherself.Nations 'Liberalism and the Limits of Justice(New York: Cambridge,1982), p. 179. Sandel's remarkablebook argues masterfullythat Rawls cannot naturalize Kant and still retainthe meta-ethicalauthorityof Kantian "practical reason."

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or churchesor movementsare, on this view, shining historicalexamples not because they reflectrays emanating from a higher source, but because of contrast-effects-comparisons with other, worse communities.Persons have dignitynot as an interiorlumiIt is a cornescence,but because theyshare in such contrast-effects. ollary of this view that the moral justificationof the institutions and practices of one's group-e.g., of the contemporarybourgeoisie-is mostlya matterof historicalnarratives(including scenarios about what is likelyto happen in certainfuturecontingencies), ratherthan of philosophical metanarratives.The principal backup for historiographyis not philosophy but the arts, which serveto develop and modifya group's self-imageby, forexample, apotheosizing its heroes, diabolizing its enemies, mounting dialogues among its members,and refocusingits attention. A furthercorollaryis thatthemorality/prudence distinctionnow appears as a distinctionbetweenappeals to two parts of the network that is the self-parts separated by blurryand constantly shiftingboundaries. One part consists of those beliefsand desires and emotions which overlap with those of most othermembersof some community with which, for purposes of deliberation,she identifiesherself,and which contrastwith those of most members of other communities with which hers contrastsitself.A person appeals to moralityratherthan prudencewhen she appeals to this overlapping, shared part of herself,those beliefsand desires and emotions which permit her to say "WE do not do this sort of thing." Moralityis, as WilfridSellars has said, a matterof "we-intentions."Most moral dilemmasare thusreflectionsof thefactthat mostof us identifywitha numberof different communitiesand are equally reluctant to marginalize ourselves in relation to any of them. This diversityof identificationsincreases with education, just as the numberof communitieswith which a person may identifyincreaseswith civilization. Intra-societaltensions,of the sort which Dworkin rightlysays mark our pluralistic society,are rarelyresolvedby appeals to general principles of the sort Dworkin thinks necessary.More frequently theyare resolvedby appeals to what he calls "convention and anecdote." The political discourse of the democracies,at its best,is the exchange of what Wittgensteincalled "remindersfora particular purpose"-anecdotes about the past effectsof various practicesand predictionsof what will happen if,or unless,some of these are altered. The moral deliberations of the postmodernist bourgeois liberal consists largely in this same sort of discourse, avoiding theformulationof generalprinciplesexceptwherethesit-

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uation may require this particular tactic-as when one writesa constitution,or rules foryoungchildrento memorize.It is usefulto rememberthat this view of moral and political deliberationwas a commonplace among American intellectuals in the days when Dewey-a post-modernistbeforehis time-was thereigningAmerican philosopher,days when "legal realism" was thoughtof as desirable pragmatismratherthan unprincipledsubjectivism. It is also useful to reflecton why this toleranceforanecdote was replaced by a reattachmentto principles.Part of theexplanation, I think, is that most American intellectuals in Dewey's day still thoughttheircountrywas a shininghistoricalexample. They identifiedwith it easily. The largestsingle reason fortheirloss of identificationwas theVietnamWar. The War caused some intellectuals to marginalizethemselvesentirely.Othersattemptedto rehabilitate Kantian notions in orderto say, with Chomsky,that the War not merelybetrayedAmerica's hopes and interestsand self-image,but was immoral,one which we had had no rightto engage in in the firstplace. Dewey would have thoughtsuch attemptsat furtherself-castigation pointless. They may have serveda useful catharticpurpose, but theirlong-runeffecthas been to separatethe intellectualsfrom the moral consensus of the nation ratherthan to alter thatconsensus. Further,Dewey's naturalized Hegelianism has more overlap with the belief-systems of the communitieswe rich North American bourgeois need to talk with than does a naturalizedKantianism. So a reversionto the Deweyan outlook mightleave us in a betterposition to carryon whateverconversationbetweennationsmay still be possible, as well as leaving Americanintellectualsin a betterposition to conversewith theirfellowcitizens. I shall end by takingup two objections to what I have been saying. The firstobjection is thaton my view a child found wandering in the woods, the remnantof a slaughterednation whose temples have been razed and whose books have been burned,has no share in human dignity.This is indeed a consequence, but it does not follow thatshe may be treatedlike an animal. For it is part of the tradition of our community that the human strangerfrom whom all dignity has been stripped is to be taken in, to be reclothed with dignity.This Jewish and Christian element in our traditionis gratefullyinvoked by free-loadingatheistslike myself, who would like to let differences like thatbetweenthe Kantian and the Hegelian remain "merely philosophical." The existence of human rights,in the sense in which it is at issue in thismeta-ethical debate, has as much or as little relevance to our treatmentof

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such a child as the question of the existenceof God. I thinkboth have equally littlerelevance. The second objection is that what I have been calling "postmodernism" is betternamed "relativism," and that relativismis self-refuting. Relativismcertainlyis self-refuting, but thereis a differencebetween saying that everycommunityis as good as every other and saying that we have to work out fromthe networkswe are, fromthe communitieswith which we presentlyidentify.Postmodernismis no morerelativisticthan Hilary Putnam's suggestion thatwe stop tryingfora "God's-eye view" and realize that"We can only hope to produce a morerational conceptionof rationalityor a betterconception of moralityif we operate fromwithin our tradition."2 The view that everytraditionis as rational or as moral as everyothercould be held only by a god, someone who had no need to use (but only to mention)the terms'rational' or 'moral,' because she had no need to inquire or deliberate.Such a being would have escaped from historyand conversation into contemplation and metanarrative.To accuse postmodernismof relativismis to tryto put a metanarrativein thepostmodernist'smouth. One will do this if one identifies"holding a philosophical position" with having a metanarrativeavailable. If we insiston such a definitionof "philosophy," then post-modernismis post-philosophical. But it would be betterto change the definition.3 Universityof Virginia

RICHARD RORTY

2Reason, Truthand History(New York: Cambridge,1981),p. 216. 'I discuss such redefinitionin the Introductionto Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982), and the issue of relativism in "Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity,"forthcomingin Praxis International and in "Solidarite ou ObjectivitO?"forthcomingin Critique.

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