Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
Poverty and Philosophy
By Tom Smith

I seem to have irritated betrandrussell with my post about Stupid Philosophers. It might be worth a word in reply to what might be called betrandrussell's temperate attack on my comments.

As to philosophers, I think a lot of professional philosophers overestimate their intelligence relative to people in other professions and to people generally. Philosophers tend to be good at some forms of reasoning, but often have very little in the way of what you might call practical wisdom in other areas. I have found it amusing over the years to observe, for example, that many moral philosophers seem to have trouble living very morally. My philosophy advisor, a truly wonderful man and teacher, Norman Kretzman, who died some years ago, once remarked at a meeting in which one of his (now pretty well known) philandering colleagues was assigned to teach the course "Contemporary Moral Problems" that "it takes one to know one." Sometimes you have great moral philosophers, but having an insight about metaethics or whatever does not give you a leg up on insights into the world's problems. But I have no reason to think Honderich is even a particularly good philosopher. Honderich seems to me to be a second rate philosopher at best, and one who is spouting wicked nonsense. That he is well insulated from the consequences of his ideas just makes him more contemptible. His gesture of trying to buy off his critics with a scrap of his wealth is disgusting. OxFam showed a bit of real moral rectitude by refusing his donation. The idea that his moral wisdom on any topic is worth listening to, is ridiculous.

As to my views on terrorism, I think it is wrong under all circumstances. By definition, it means killing the innocent indiscriminately. I would be willing to fight for liberty, and kill its enemies as necessary, but that does not include waging war on civilians. I'm not interested in the opinions of philosophers who support terrorism, when I know it's not their children who will be blown to pieces or forced to murder themselves to avoid a worse fate. That's why I suggested Honderich put in a year in Africa working with people who are poor and suffering. Maybe if he acquainted himself with some real suffering, he would be more circumspect about advocating doling it out.

On the point of suffering and poverty generally, I think that Marxists and other materialists overestimate the role that wealth plays in making people happy. Empirical social science tends to support this claim. The very poorest of the poor, in Bangladesh and parts of Africa, are indeed unhappy. But most people, including people very poor indeed by American standards, tend to be pretty happy with their lives, and do not miss the things Americans put so much stock in. When people like the Shining Path start killing people in order to bring about more equality and justice, I think as an empirical matter they are causing more unhappiness than will ever be outweighed by the changes they seek to bring about. It just would not occur to most philosophers to actually inquire, using social science, how unhappy poor people are, before advocating equality. I was struck by the dignity and relative simplicity of the life of Peruvian Indians, though they are very poor. There were not miserable that I could tell. They were not particularly friendly to tourists--they were too proud for that. They were surrounded by a rich environment in which they were intensely interested. Their kids did not watch TV for 4-6 hours a day like many American kids. The idea that we should start a civil war so they could have all the pleasures of modern life strikes me as ridiculous. As to whether I would choose to live the life of a hunter-gatherer in the Amazon, well, I have a wife and kids and wouldn't impose that choice on them, but as for myself, I wouldn't mind trying it for a year or so. Lice don't bother me that much.

posted by thomas at 10/29/2003 09:57:00 AM