Philosophy and Politics with Bryan Magee (1977)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2017
- In this program, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and Ronald Dworkin, Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, examine how the explosive issues of the 1960s compelled the reassessment of fundamental political ideas, and discuss the effect of this movement on political philosophy at the universities.
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This is from the series Modern Philosophy.
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Introduction to Philosophy with Isaiah Berlin: • Isaiah Berlin intervie...
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Philosophy of Science: • The Philosophy of Scie...
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a really great interview. much said in a short time. so sad that we no longer have bryan magee among us.
X
@@alirezabaghai-wadji8954 XO
I have no idea what they are saying, but I love these discussions.
What do value? Political philosophy are just value judgements.
They're talking about two American ethical philosophers, John Rawls and Robert Nozick. John Rawls was committed to an extreme welfare state structure of society which stressed egalitarianism. Robert Nozick's was like the contemporary libertarian view of a very limited state.
It's beautidul that you enjoyed it even though you say you have understood little of it. I think that SEP (encyclopedia) entries on Rawls and Nozick could be of help. Good luck!
@@MiesAnthrophy You would probably enjoy the discussion with Hillary Putman on this same show. He discusses the fact and value dichotomy.
@@Fatihkilic075 if you are in US let me know. Good to see someone interested this type of topic.
34:20 *working the same street* “Nozick goes for, as it were, rights without equality-Rawls goes for equality without rights. What you want to do is to insist that the two can only be even conceptualized in relation to each other-that they are mutually supportive notions.”
“That third certainly is my view.
Wow amazing interview. So relevant today.
amazing video to watch ,this is my third time rewatching it as learn and relearn everytime as a person and as the Law student that i am .
@@cliffpinchon2832 I have bought "a theory of Justice" by Rawls and even though I haven't finished the book, his prospects seems very brilliant, of course some technicalities as Dworkin points are a little bit to approximated but still it is an excellent theory but I think the best way for me to give a good opinion would be after I finish to read "Anarchy, State and Utopia" by Nozick and "Taking Rights Seriously" which is a book doublely interesting since it makes a critic of two fascinating book for me the one of Rawls and "the concept of Law" by HLA Hart and then by looking at the balance of different theories, I would give some fair review of Rawls's social contract ; all these are books which makes interesting development on the question of "Justice in distribution" and even if some of their conclusions may turn out to be non-sequitur from the methods they used in order to get to it which to some people is the case of man such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx, etc their theories still remain of grand importance for us 👌🏾👌🏾
@@cliffpinchon2832 as much as I would like to work in academics in countries like Belgium where I have citizenship I'm from a country where sitting idle in light of many injustices that go unpunished due to the system that sustain them would feel almost complicit to these injustices especially if you have knowledge of that may improve the system even if it is by iota . Rawls has that thing that he calls "the reflective equilibrium" where he sees the balance between theory and practice and depending on the outcome one gets an idea of what to change in between the two and possibly to what extent ; obviously I'm not overidealistic thinking that those theories are the sole grounds for the best of possible worlds but at least having them as intellectual tools in one's understanding of how he understands the practice of a social/political theory may surely be handy. Thanks for the advice by the way way.
@@cliffpinchon2832 Thanks for the support, it can't be totally fair but we can still strive to make a it a better place.
We need a theory of education that enriches choices without dictating choices. Interesting and relevant today. Also, Kant is his hero of the political philosophers.
We have that already - it's called home schooling.
NEED those glasses !
33:42 *motor of liberalism* “It would seem to me, to protect liberalism from an unnecessary position-namely that liberalism somehow is unconcerned with the worst off people in society. Rawls it seems to me shows that it needn’t be. But I want to go a bit further than that and argue that _there is in the motor of liberalism, in that basic conception, there is a drive towards equality._ So that at every moment the defense of liberalism is itself a defense of equality.”
In the end, It all goes to this question of What is in Human Nature?
Then what is a good life?
to me, naively-a good life is taking more full ethical responsibility for the trespasses of our "fathers" in order to break the cycle of transgression-a life that embraces the duty of _weeding one's garden_ as central to the development of a caring self sounds pretty human
very interesting
37:41 *Dworkinian argument for market redistribution* “When we select political institutions in order to pursue the general welfare then-because we can only use rough institutions like the marketplace or parliament or congress to achieve this-there are certain structural inequalities that result. For example, people who aren’t very clever will end up in a worse position, not because their demands are expensive to satisfy, so it would be showing them favoritism to satisfy, but because a marketplace is going to cheat them because they weren’t lucky enough to be born having the qualities other people want. Therefore, redistribution of the result of the market is _required,_ not because it serves some value competitive with the value served by the market, but because only with redistribution can the package _market + redistribution_ fulfill the only justification for having the market in the first place which is a basically egalitarian justification. Now just taking economic rights as an illustration of how the argument must go but it does seem that we have to supply arguments for these rights and can’t take them as primitive.”
"weren’t lucky enough to be born having the qualities other people want" - the argument can be sharpened by saying that some people were not "lucky" period. The market system includes "luck" fluctuations, which are not necessarily neutralized but being amplified in time, with those having luck amassing fortunes and others left behind...
The final line is "... and can't take them as primitive." Kant did not take them as primitive! :)
@@eoinhurley4360 thank u 😂
The basic critique strikes me as valid, but I’m a bit vague about what specifically Dworkin proposes to replace the ideologies he critiques. Possibly I just spaced a bit toward the end. In any case, I’ve observed for some time how it’s a curious thing that most of us tend to insist on absolute rights that we seem to consider “God given”, “natural”, “self-evident”, or some such thing, whereas it seems to me, on the contrary, self-evident that God and nature care not a fig for our notion of rights. The notion of rights is a human conception and convention, not a natural or divine or inevitable one. Among the most curious of these typically proposed rights is the putative right to “property” if by “property” we mean, as we usually seem to, land. (Intellectual property is an entirely distinct matter in my opinion.) How possibly could one individual, family, corporation, or nation “own” land at all when all the land there is was already here? How did you acquire this land? You either arbitrarily and presumptively laid claim to it or you negotiated with someone else who arbitrarily and presumptively laid claim to it.
What does he say at 20:41 ‘they might be conservative or they may gamblit/begamlit’
You are right, he says 'gambler'. He means that after the veil of ignorance, there can be still some 'gamblers' who choose not to establish an egalitarian principle; they would rather take the chance and perhaps enjoy advantages or deal with disadvantages.
This is a criticism of Rawls's assumption that everyone will reach the same conclusion on the original position
"... whereas they might be gamblers"
l
I’m surprised Magee didn‘t mention Hayek‘s _The Road to Serfdom_ (1944) in his introductory remarks as being at least one other major work of political philosophy in addition to Popper‘s _Open Society_ during the War period…
I'd add that Rawls' argument in ATOJ is not that agents in the original position would select the two principles of justice. Instead, the argument is that agents in the original position would select the two principles of justice rather than utilitarianism provided they accept the minimax rule for decisions under ignorance. That's important because the literature responding to Rawls, both then and today, is, in part, reacting to those positions in decision theory, economics, law, tort schemes, etc. That's also an additional reason for why Nozick's entitlement theory never caught on; all the assumptions in areas like decision theory or law contained in ASAU were never fleshed out.
Also, Dworkin's appeal to liberal neutrality (institutions do not favor differing competing conceptions of the good life) as the line between political liberalism and alternative positions is interesting. It seems like the political liberal needs to discriminate against some conceptions of the good life such as the life pursued by a serial killer or a violent anarchist. They could justify it by saying the political liberals organization of social institutions can only exist provided those sorts of lives are discriminated against. So, it seems to me that liberal neutrality may not be the distinguishing fact between political liberalism and its competitors.
Can anyone tell me what thinkers might hold to the masochistic view that they mention around 2:30?
Do you mean 22.30? If so I do. :-)
then why don't you tell us
Inequality between us is demonstrated to be much more important than material wealth. Even in countries of hugely divergent levels of material income should the levels of inequality be similar the outcomes are similar......www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/the-spirit-level
thank you!
@@dancinmad I think what Dworkin said was a bit of a strawman to be honest. He was a brilliant interlocutor with Rawls and Nozick, but hardly charitable to views further to his left. I also don't think you'll find the authors of The Spirit Level, an acclaimed book, defending that view
why i cannot download this??
You can if you have TH-cam premium
I would argue that the most influential analytical philosophers of that generation were Noam Chomsky and John Rawls rather than Nozick. I think politics developed much more toward Nozick than Rawls or Chomsky but R and C have been much more influential on academia and serious philosophy.
Nozick is the deeper thinkers. Rawls thr must influential. Comply is a political commentator.
@@firstal3799 dude were you having a stoke when you wrote that? What's with all the typos? Chomsky is both an analytical philosopher and a political commentator. Additionally, I don't find Nozick or Rawl very deep at all. If you're looking for depth read Debord or Baudrillard or McLuhan.
I type from my phone and frankly I don't find it easy. My autocorrext doesn't even alow me to write Noam. So I let it be.
Chomsky is not considered a theorist in academic circles. The first name in your list I searched is a filmmaker. I never said Rawls is very deep but he is very influential.
And Nozick is pretty deep. Anyway whatever my opinion, you take poll of political scientists/ theorists of who were most influential political philosophers of 20th century. Rawls and Robert N will appear in top 10 list without question.
I wil tell you a likely list. I am.sure I may forget some.
Rawls, Nozick, Laski, Focault, Gramsci, possibly Trotsky. If we include non taditional or from adjacent fields we can include libertsrisn economists but with tremendous theoretical and political impact Mises, Hayek. I am inclined to include Charles Tilly who was a great sociologist. Noam C is very influential no doubt But more as a public intellectual ( in similar style as lets say Pinker) not as an original theorist. In fact if he didn't already was famous for his linguist work he won't have been renown based on his writings on politics and international affairs
First Al Dude Debord wrote the society of the spectacle. The fact that you had to look him up and assumed he was primarily a filmmaker is kind of revealing. I also admitted that Nozick was influential I just think Chomsky was more so. Over the last decade or so Nozick has fallen pretty out of favor in academia. Most of that stuff is pretty archaic compared to Mark Fisher or Yanis Varoufakis.
We argue about different things. I am talking about political philosophers or theorists. You go and check out any major political theory textbook or course in a major university covering political science people like Rawls, Nozick Laski find a pride of place with all time historical figures likes Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli , Benham, Marx, Stuart Mill, Hobbies, Locke etc. Even guys like Focault and Gramsci are mere footnotes in history of political theory. Rawls is more prominent in this tradition than Nozick btw. The guys you mentioning are public intellectuals , they aren't considered theorists. I majored in political science.fairky recent, I know. No point in talking with different definitions.
41:41 *true father of liberalism* “The true father of liberalism, if you will, is not Jeremy Bentham (who is rather an embarrassment for liberals) but Kant, who’s conception of human nature can not be called impoverished.”
Very uninformed assessment. Where did they dig this Dworkin up? If there is any father of liberalism, it's Locke.
100,000 feet Locke yes originally, but perhaps Dworkin places Bentham here as a more applicable father of the modern scene of neoliberal American utilitarianism. Dworkin’s extended point is valid though, in that Kant’s intellectual struggle over _duty/autonomy_ is at the heart of philosophical liberalism-like Dworkin says, a liberal in the classic sense will fight _passionately_ for someone else’s right to live differently than they do. Rights and justice and universals being inherent to this strain of liberalism.. allowing people flexibility to find their own path to *the good* being key-Kant’s _categorical imperative_ drawing us into reflexivity is liberalism’s impetus.
Markets and anarchism though rarely mix
because you win then we win?
The split between left and right in the 1960s sounds almost exactly the same as it does now. Nothing has changed, even with fall of Berlin Wall and Soviet Union. Economics and law in USA led to rebirth of political philosophy.
Rawls: If liberties are protected, can we ever help the worst off? How could we ever tax anyone because that would violate the right to hold property.
Liberals: They are between the left and the right, both of whom wish to mold citizens in their image. Liberals don't wish to do that, but to preserve freedom. Really?
Liberals wish to mold people in their images of ideology.
Not really what you have now is Democrat’s who are center right neoliberals and Republicans who are far right neoliberals. In the 60s the Democratic Party were generally social democrats and encouraged strong social safety nets, think FDR, Kennedy and LBJ. Even Eisenhower who presided over the conservative wet dream of the 50s employed social democratic Keynesian welfare state. Today these people, including Eisenhower, would be labeled “Far left” by the current establishment (Democrat’s and Republicans) because of their economic policy. Today Neoliberalism has brought us to a point where both parties are right wing economically and the only real debates are on social views and how hard to step on the gas of right wing economics.
@@gravenewworld6521 agreed. The Overton window has shifted so far to the right.
Fran Riding absolutely, I think it’s hilarious when people try to call democrats socialists today because it’s so foolish. Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics and Overton’s window concept should know better
The Allies included the Stalinist Soviet Union, so I don't think it can be accurately claimed that there was a consensus among them that they were fighting for the freedom of the individual.
GodsOwnPrototype He said the “Western” allies. ;-)
+TheLocoUnion
Well fair enough...except it does not explain why they made Germany their enemy & the Soviets their ally.
At that time the Soviets had already committed several brutal and dehumanising genocides whilst the Germans had not.
In fact the Germans were attempting a rather humane genocide by comparison that the allies could have made even more so by merely taking boatloads of Germany's undesirables.
GodsOwnPrototype : America never wanted to enter any war at that time as you know. Genocide was never discovered or known in the United States and Britain till after the war... in fact Germans themselves stated that they knew of no genocides.
No one entered the war to stop mass murder, France entered because they knew they would be invaded next... Britain because of agreements and treaties with Poland, the United States was bombed by Japan and Hitler declared war on the U.S. , at no time did any nation fight against genocide.
Germany, unlike Russia at the time violated WW I arms agreements and became a conquering nation....(Poland, Austria and the Sudetenland)... eventually France and a massive attempt at Britain.
Russia was not openly aggressive... and was not in violation of treaties.
LOL.
Well. Generally whenever anyone talks about this sort of thing, you can substitute "American Consensus" for allied consensus. Because that is what they are inevitably describing. But even then, the description is mostly inaccurate.
The best statement of wartime allied liberalism and its goals is the Atlantic Charter. The Atlantic Charter has no call for individual anything in it. Most of it expresses liberal collective-style goals (a world free of want and fear, free trade and so on).
The closest FDR came to talking about "freedom of the individual" was his "four freedoms" speech. But he only articulated perhaps one perhaps individual right (freedom of speech). Freedom of Worship was a collective right assigned to religions, not individuals. The final two freedoms mentioned were "collective" freedoms (free from want and free from fear) which were collective obligations of the state rather than individual rights.
The video discussion is somewhat confusing. I think rather than the second world war, the consensus on individual rights would actually be something more associated with the Cold War in the 1950s.
I have trouble understanding the argumentation behind Rawls' second principle, i.e. that given liberty is guaranteed for everyone (first principle), rights should maximize the interest of those who are worse off in a society.
. Say, one's policy benefits a group of people which are at a relative disadvantage to all others, but the result of such policy is that another, larger group ends up worse off at the end than the group that was benefited by the policy. It seems like the principle should be qualified to state: policy should always be conducive to the improvement of those who are worse of in the present (P for Poor), UNLESS doing so results in a larger group(s) being worse than P.
Hi, please see 13:22 again, about the lexicographycal order: the first principle has priority over the second. You can also see Rawls critique to Utilitarian Justice ('the greater good for the greatest number') in Rawls's ATOJ Revised Edition for more information, which I highly recommend that you read. Kind Regards.
Rawls focuses on everyone rather than just the worst off. Rawls is asking, when might inequality be justified. His answer is when advantages of privilege or wealth would encourage those not motivated by justice to produce something which would benefit everyone in society. By tieing the worth of liberty to individuals ability to access or excersise liberty Rawls reconciles the first and second principle, and thus liberty and equality. After all, a right to property cannot be exercised without access to property.
The second principle says that, “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.” (p. 53)
There are no rights if one can take them for good or bad reasons, you have freedom but that can go, free speak but the use the same word can be harassment, so bank can close no money, so right need to be basic like water food and roof, then the rest we can fight about later?
Nozickian selfish ghouls should explain why the right to property should be absolute. No right is absolute including the right to life because absolutism collides with the optimum functioning of society. Society makes itv possible to have any rights possible. There are no rights without organized society. The societal optimum is probably (not sure) the golden rule applied to basic human needs: health (including food) education and shelter. Happiness is an individual endeavor.
Why is it on all on the government and not big business, to help with welfare.
I have no problem with redistribution, but redistribution forced on me by indifferent government bureaucrats.
Who and how, then?
@@fede2 voluntary organizations,
@@zhengyangwu8289 I guess that means its not a priority.
@@fede2 I have no idea whether you believe in humanity. I do. I believe that most people are willing to help others without involvement of indifferent government bureaucrats.
@@zhengyangwu8289 Sounds nice, but in at least our current institutional and political landscape, wealth tends towards concentration and efforts redistribute it are acitvely resisted by those who have it.
So we should base our society on a fairytale !! That's a great idea!
Which part is meant to be too outlandish or unrealistic?
I'm no philosopher (just a musician interested in philosophy) but I have a question: why is nature never a parameter? Throw a piece of meat to a a Rottweiler, then try to take it back again and see how much "right" the Rottweiler has on what is now called "his property". The extension of his right is directly related to the amount of flesh he is going to bite off your arm. Seems simple enough. I think humans start from a point that says that we are different from nature, so the simple unwritten uninvented "laws" don't apply to us, and thus we must come up with some scheme to rule the whole show. Is it a good question or, as a friend assures me, I'm just an idiot?
Yours is a good question for I agree that we ought to recognize the scheme that rules the whole show. But what do you mean by nature and why do you look over at the Rottweiler?
Certainly we are both animals but is human nature merely animal nature?
Is it sufficient that if you cut me I bleed and bleeding is what human nature amounts to?
In a certain sense, you are very well within your rights to start with the Rottweiler and conceive/assert our starting point as defending what appears to be the property that belongs to me.
Yet, there is a sense in which human nature and culture is divine and it is that nobility that we possess, which distinguishes humans from beasts.
So, choose.. as human, where should you start; from animal nature or divine human nature (whatever that is)?
There is an amusing statement by Aquinas: “Man is Rational”. He focuses your attention on what Man is, while leaving open for your deliberation what Rational is. There is great wisdom there if you decide it’s worth following. It is a murky concept for many if you take Fragment 1 On Nature, Heraclitus, at his Word. ;) Hth.
@@jerryrhee7748 Thank god you didn't say I'm an idiot. I never read much, don't know much about philosophy and, since I had forgotten about this comment of mine, even I was surprised that I left a comment here. I should just listen and learn, specially with English not being my mother tongue. But there you go. It must be the Argentinean in the family (I'm Brazilian with Argentinean parents). I appreciate your response and will try to do my homework. Since I live in the countryside, I see lots of laws all the time, that's why I took the Rottweiler as an example. There is something very well defined there, but no one "composed", or invented it. It's just part of nature (i.e. everything that exists), and man, however rational, superior, devine etc, is still part of nature and these "laws" still apply to us just as to the Rottweiler - or ants, spiders, clouds, rocks etc. Maybe something more to the Buddhist kind of philosophy? Let's say we are animal + devine, not just devine and no animal. But as I said, I should maybe look for something to read about it prior to making comments and starting something that later I won't be able to handle for lack of knowledge. Thank you very much. PS - what's "Hth"?
Hth: hope that helps.
One answer is that people are 'political animals" (Aristotle). The same applies to some other animals with strong community feelings. So, 'everyone at each other's throat' is not necessarily 'nature.'
I think it may come down to this: do you think there is such a thing as morality? That is, do you believe there is something you *ought* to do, which is right to do, or the opposite, you *ought not* to do, i.e., is wrong to do? When a Rottweiler acts, it does basically what it feels like, what it wants (let’s say, to simplify). It may take into account that it will be punished, and so be able to reason as far as to not rip your arm off. But it doesn’t choose not to rip your arm off because it thinks that action *wrong*. Humans, we might think, are not like this. I can reflect on the morality of the action (i.e., that it would be wrong to rip your arm off) and choose not to. Since we are also social beings - that is, we live together in society - we can also make reflective decisions about what rules and procedures we have to this end: what laws and institutions we have, our mutual rights and obligations. Just as morality bears on our individual decisions, so too it bears on our collective decisions. Of course, this is not to deny nature, or that we are animals. Nature will also be a parameter: we are corruptible, prone to error, ignorant of many things, poor judges, lack motivation, and so on. But to some extent events are not merely just the course of nature, in which we are just bystanders, but a foreseeable product of choices under our control. If you don’t believe in morality, or have a particular interpretation of it, however (something like “might is right!”), then this might not persuade you. But I’d hazard a guess that if your neighbour stole your car, declaring it their property, and saying they had every right to it, you’d disagree, and when you called the police or attempted to take it back, you’d think you were “within your rights”!
If forced, I'd distribute "benefits" disproportionately to those who give quantitatively more of it back. Because while laborers make consumer purchases, BUSINESSES create wage-PAYING jobs AND make consumer purchases of their own as well--often enormous ones. Simply making payments to those would use the money only to make consumer purchases goods GUARANTEES they will never rise above a situation in which they must receive payments in order to purchase consumer goods, while letting, say, Microsoft off the hook for paying taxes puts them in a position to enlarge operations, requiring the hiring of more employees earning Microsoft's payments to THEM in the form of salaries. Letting them however instead pay, say, Chinese workers the going rate THERE instead of American workers a wage related to contemporary American economic conditions cannot be countenanced due to the fact that we no longer are speaking of AN economy, but multiple economIES--something political economy is not designed to address.
My guy's havin a stoke wit dat bottom lip tho
These thinkers ignore basic bodily rights to food, shelter and health, so their theories end up sounding rather childish.
Well, Rawls certainly thinks of those as among our basic rights, and thinks they should be protected, i.e. the state can and should intervene to protect them. Dworkin would agree. I think you’re right in the case of Nozick, though. We don’t have a right to the help or concern of others. We have to rely on their benevolence or charity if we cannot afford to feed ourselves.
not at all, the "property" that Dworkin had stated is already a right, he needed not to expand his theory of materials, because he is on the theory of JUSTICE!! your understanding is more childish than your scorn...
What has philosophy and politics done to his face 😭😫
He stood on the rake of liberalism when he went to the toilet during the night.