Whitehead's Religious Thought

From Mechanism to Organism, From Force to Persuasion

Daniel A. Dombrowski

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781438464312
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía de la religión

This original interpretation of the religious thought of Alfred North Whitehead highlights Whitehead's moves from mechanism to organism, and from force to persuasion to offer a third alternative between classical theism and religious skepticism. Daniel A. Dombrowski argues that the move from force to persuasion, in particular, is not only fundamental to Whitehead's own thought and to process thought in general, but is a necessary condition for the continuing existence of civilized life. Following this line of analysis, Dombrowski demonstrates Whitehead's relevance to contemporary work in philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and environmental ethics by placing him in dialogue with six major thinkers: David Ray Griffin, Isabelle Stengers, John Rawls, Charles Hartshorne, Judith Butler, and William Wordsworth.

FIVE

Butler and Grievable Lives

THE ARGUMENT FROM MARGINAL CASES

The question Which lives are grievable? is a major concern for Judith Butler in at least two recent books: Precarious Life and Frames of War. Indeed, these two works can be seen, as Butler admits, as one extended response to this and related questions (e.g., When is life grievable?). It will be the purpose of the present chapter to respond to these questions by way of what has come to be known as the argument from marginal cases (hereafter, AMC). Sometimes this argument is also known as the argument from species overlap. I will not be merely reviewing or comparing the similarities and/or differences between Whitehead and Butler. Rather, I will be defending an argument that is, as I see things, a genuine attempt not only to clarify but also to develop and use some of the best aspects of these two thinkers in the effort to understand both MTO and FTP.

My hope is that an adequate response to the question Which lives are grievable? will be facilitated by a consideration of Whitehead and Butler together as their thought relates to AMC. (A recent conference at the Claremont Graduate School devoted to the relationship between Whitehead and Butler provides hope that this effort will be fruitful—see Faber, Halewood, and Lin.) At the end of the chapter I will clearly state my own response to this question, and I will explicitly summarize the ways in which Whitehead and Butler facilitate this response. Granted, the context for Butler’s questions—the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an extension of her interest in these two wars so as to include a concern for the more general question regarding which lives are grievable—initially seems remote from the context of Whitehead’s later, metaphysical books. We should remember, however, that it was largely Whitehead’s grief over the death of his son in World War One that led him to devote his intellectual energies full time to philosophy and to questions that have at least a family resemblance to those asked by Butler.

There has recently been an explosion of interest in philosophy regarding our current environmental crisis, in general, and regarding the moral status of nonhuman animals, in particular. This interest often intersects with philosophical arguments in favor of nonhuman animal rights. The purpose of the present section is to present one such argument (indeed, one of the most important philosophical arguments in favor of nonhuman animal rights) and to argue for its philosophical soundness.

This line of reasoning is usually (and controversially) called AMC. It is a bit more complicated than another philosophical argument in favor of nonhuman animal rights, the more familiar argument from sentiency. This simpler argument looks something like this:

A. Any being that can experience pain or suffer has, at the very least, the right not to be forced to experience pain or suffer (or be killed) unnecessarily or gratuitously.

B. It is not necessary that we inflict pain or suffering (or death) on sentient nonhuman animals in order for us to have a healthy diet.

C. Therefore, eating sentient nonhuman animals is an example of unnecessary infliction of pain or suffering (or death) and ought to be avoided, that is, their lives are definitely grievable.

The intuitive appeal of the argument from sentiency is enough to convince many philosophical vegetarians. Whiteheadians who are convinced by it might speak in terms of tragic loss, and Butlerians who are convinced by it might speak in terms of the cogency of mourning with respect to the unnecessary suffering and death of nonhuman animals, as we will see. However, the realization that it is not necessarily rationality that is the criterion that must be met in order to deserve moral respect and to be grievable leads to further considerations that are treated in the argument that will be the focus of this chapter: AMC.

Defenders of this argument agree with almost everyone else regarding the criterion that must be met in order to be a moral agent (i.e., someone who can perform moral or immoral actions and who can be held morally responsible for his/her actions): rationality. At times it might be difficult to apply this criterion if the alleged moral agent is not obviously rational, but almost everyone agrees that rationality is the property that would be required in order to hold someone morally accountable for his/her actions.

The key question, however, is the following: What property needs to be possessed in order to be a moral patient or a moral beneficiary or a being who is grievable (i.e., someone who can receive immoral treatment from others, or who can have his/her rights violated, or who can be treated cruelly)? Here the issue is quite complicated and contentious. One of the complicating factors is that to speak without qualification of “properties” of “subjects” is both to run the risk of remaining within the subject-predicate mode of thought and to continue the fiction of a substantial self, which both Whitehead and Butler legitimately want to criticize. The proper task is to temporalize moral patiency status so as to avoid both of these defects, as we will see, while nonetheless paying sufficient attention to the infliction of unnecessary suffering or death that understandably results in a Whiteheadian sense of tragic loss or a Butlerian sense of mourning (see Dombrowski 1997a, 189–193). Tragic loss and mourning are understandable reactions to the failure to transition from FTP.

The most parsimonious response to this question also leads to a type of symmetry that some find attractive: Make rationality do double-duty by serving as the criterion for moral patiency status or grievability as well as for moral agency. But this response leads to disastrous consequences in that on its basis many human beings (the marginal cases of humanity) would not be moral patients and hence would not deserve moral respect or be grievable.

An understandable reaction to the difficulties involved in demanding a very high criterion for moral patiency status like rationality is to lower it significantly. For example, some religious believers (e.g., Albert Schweitzer and other “prolife” proponents in Christianity) wish to make life the criterion for moral patiency status. All life, we are told, deserves moral respect. But this response also leads to disastrous consequences in that on its basis we would not be morally permitted to mow, or even walk on, grass because living insects would be killed, cut out cancerous tumors because cancer cells are (unfortunately) quite alive and well, or even breathe if perchance we would suck in living organisms that would be killed, and so forth. What would we be able to eat on a consistent prolife basis? Schweitzer’s own writings indicate what some of the absurd consequences would be (see Schweitzer). That is, AMC forces us to be a bit more specific than we have been thus far regarding the “O” in MTO, as we will see.

Defenders of AMC work their way, both theoretically and practically, to a place in between these two extremes so as to find a defensible criterion for moral patiency status or grievability in sentiency. On this basis all human beings deserve respect (even the most marginal of marginal cases still have a functioning central nervous system and hence are sentient), but nonhuman animals with central nervous systems, and hence sentiency, are also protected.

Before moving to the connection between AMC, on the one hand, and Whitehead and Butler, on the other, an ordinary language statement of the argument might be helpful:

(a) It is undeniable that members of many species other than our own have “interests,” at least in the minimal sense that they feel and try to avoid pain, and feel and seek various sorts of pleasure and satisfaction.

(b) It is equally undeniable that human infants and some of the profoundly mentally impaired have interests in only the sense that members of these other species have them and not in the sense that normal adult humans have them. That is, human infants and some of the profoundly mentally impaired (i.e., the marginal cases of humanity) lack the normal adult qualities of purposiveness, self-consciousness, memory, imagination, and anticipation to the same extent that members of some other species of animals lack those qualities.

(c) Thus, in terms of the morally relevant characteristic of having interests, some humans must be equated with members of other species rather than with normal adult human beings.

(d) Yet predominant moral judgments about conduct toward these humans are dramatically different from judgments about conduct toward the comparable nonhuman animals. It is customary to raise the nonhuman animals for food, to subject them to lethal scientific experiments, to treat them as chattels, and so forth. It is not customary—indeed it is abhorrent to most people even to consider—the same practices for human infants and the mentally impaired.

(e) But lacking a finding of some morally relevant characteristic (other than having interests) that distinguishes these humans and nonhuman animals, we must conclude that the predominant moral judgments about them are inconsistent. To be consistent, and to that extent rational, we must either treat the humans the same way we now treat the nonhuman animals or treat the nonhuman animals the same way we now treat the humans.

(f) And there does not seem to be a morally relevant characteristic that distinguishes all humans from all other animals. Sentience, rationality, and so forth all fail. The assertion that the difference lies in the potential to develop interests analogous to those of normal adult humans should also be dismissed. After all, it is easily shown that some humans—whom we nonetheless refuse to treat as nonhuman animals—lack the relevant potential. In short, the standard candidates for a morally relevant differentiating characteristic can be rejected.

(g) The conclusion is, therefore, that we cannot give a reasoned justification for the differences in ordinary conduct toward some humans against some nonhuman animals (loosely based on Becker).

In one sense, the point of AMC is to ask for a more responsible use of apparently harmless terms like “all” and “only.” Any morally relevant characteristic that is possessed only by human beings will not be possessed by all human beings. To try to escape from the ramifications of this observation by claiming, as many philosophers do, that all humans deserve moral respect because they are human, is clearly to beg the question. Exactly what morally relevant property is it that all humans, but only humans, possess that nonhuman animals do not possess?

I should note here my willingness to adjust any language I have used in this section that might be offensive. For example, to speak as I have of the “mental impairment” of some human beings is in one sense quite accurate, I think (other things being equal, we would wish our children to have brains and/or mental lives that function well), but it could be interpreted by some to imply a rational essence to humanity. Along with Whitehead and Butler, however, I am a critic of essentialism. Or again, to refer to the argument in question as that from “marginal cases” is a concession to standard usage among philosophers and it is not meant to imply that those who are different should be pushed to the margins. Actually, my obvious intent is quite the opposite. This is why “argument for moral consistency” or “argument from species overlap” might be better.

REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM

A defense of AMC does not have to be based on the idea that there are independently existing facts out there that dictate our morality, as in some versions of natural law theory. (This point is crucial if we wish to understand Butler’s contributions to AMC.) Rather, our values and obligations can legitimately be derived from facts if the facts to which they refer are intelligibly seen as the relevant ones, and if the values derived from these facts are defensible ones. Or again, a defender of AMC need not commit to the naïve view that facts wear their relevance on their face and that values can be immediately derived from them. That is, AMC is indeed an argument that gives reasons for the defensibility of the claims that nonhuman animals have basic rights due to their sentiency and that species membership is irrelevant when considering moral patiency status itself or grievability.

By way of contrast, critics of AMC like Elizabeth Anderson and Cora Diamond seem to move illegitimately from the claim that human decision-making is a necessary condition for there being rights to the claim that it constitutes a sufficient condition for there being rights. Another way to put the point is to say that Anderson and Diamond’s views, in contrast to Butler’s, as we will see, are overly nominalistic when they hold that beings acquire status as moral patients (entirely?) because we say that they deserve such status. Human beings on this view have the Orpheus-like and Wittgenstein-inspired ability to bring moral patiency status or grievability to life merely by saying that it should be so. The remedy for such an approach does not run to the other extreme, where it is assumed that moral patiency status is a fact “out there” waiting to be discovered. Rather, human beings are the measurers of nature, but not necessarily the measure; for they are the primary beholders of value in nature, but not necessarily the only holders of such value (to use Holmes Rolston’s helpful language).

It is quite understandable why some people are sensitive to the possibility that others might exhibit insensitivity regarding marginal cases of humanity. This is because marginal cases of humanity have been treated deplorably in the past and because, for example, a United Nations statement declaring the rights of intellectually impaired beings did not occur until the 1970s, with many other historically marginalized groups receiving attention years before.

But as philosophers we must be on the alert to continue the Aristotelian project of treating similar cases alike and varying cases differently in proportion to their variances. James Rachels is on the mark in regard to AMC in stating that

Aristotle knew that like cases should be treated alike, and different cases should be treated differently; so when he defended slavery he felt it necessary to explain why slaves are “different.” Therefore, if the doctrine of [anthropocentrism] was to be maintained, it was necessary to identify the differences between humans and other animals that justified the difference in moral status. … [AMC is] … nothing but the consistent application of the principle of equality to decisions about what should be done … about our relation to the other creatures that inhabit the earth. (Rachels 196–197)

My defense of AMC, along with the amplifications of this argument by Whitehead and Butler, is compatible with the method of reflective equilibrium made famous by Rawls regarding theory of justice, and which is of use in ethics generally. The idea is that we should first carefully examine all of the relevant intuitions that we have and the judgments that we make, asking which are the most basic intuitions or which are considered judgments. Then we should investigate different theories that claim to organize these intuitions and judgments. Nothing is held to be fixed. The goal is to seek consistency and fit among both intuitions/judgments and theory when all are taken together as a whole. Or again, AMC follows the pattern of many contemporary arguments in applied philosophy in that it starts with considered opinion among reflective people, then moves to relatively unconsidered consequences. Thus, it makes sense to think that AMC could also be called the argument for moral consistency.

It is crucial in this method that we be able to revise our considered judgments, and even our intuitions, if such revision is required by a powerful theory. It is also possible that we might revise, or even reject, a theory in the face of considered judgments or intuitions. Neither component is fixed in advance. It is my hope that some small, yet real, contribution to ethics can be made by AMC. As a result of this theoretical argument, which has as its aim the familiar goal of logical consistency, closer attention should be paid to our common sympathetic intuitions in the face of: the suffering of nonhuman animals and the marginal cases of humanity, the basic rights of all human beings, as well as the special moral patiency status of rational beings. Both Anderson and Diamond should be seen by animal rightists as dialectical partners rather than as antagonists in the pursuit of this goal. That is, animal rightists can deliberate together with them, as derived from the Latin deliberare: to weigh in mind, to ponder, to thoroughly consider.

WHITEHEAD AND GRIEVABILITY

Before moving explicitly to Whitehead’s contribution to an adequate response to the questions asked earlier regarding grievability, four preliminary points should be made.

(a) Whitehead’s philosophy should be seen (along with Griffin’s and Stengers’ and Butler’s) in the context of the long-term project in philosophy to revolt against dualism. This revolt has the implication that animals, in general (including human animals), are not understandable in abstraction from bodies. Likewise, bodies are not understandable in abstraction from experience of some sort, however miniscule; they are not machines. In Whiteheadian language, an actual occasion is a bipolar fusion of the physical and the appetitive or mental. Once Descartes separated mind and matter and viewed them as distinct substances, it was relatively easy for later mechanistic materialist philosophers to exorcise the Cartesian ghost from the machine due to the infamous problems regarding interaction and discontinuity in nature found in dualism, leaving human...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Abbreviations of Works by Whitehead
• One Griffin’s Panexperientialism as Perennial Philosophy
• Two Stengers on Whitehead on God
• Three Rawlsian Political Liberalism and Process Thought
• Four Hartshorne, the Process Concept of God, and Pacifism
• Five Butler and Grievable Lives
• Six Wordsworth, Whitehead, and the Romantic Reaction
• Bibliography
• Index of Names
• Back Cover