“A pig satisfied becomes as valuable as Socrates dissatisfied. Amoral actions don't imply the loss of values any more. Today, one talks of “criminals' values.” Not even barbarians who invaded Rome were in such a deep crisis of criteria,” says philosopher prof. Alvydas Jokubaitis of Vilnius University's Institute of International Relations and Political Science.
His new book, "The Tyranny of Values and Politics," has recently hit bookshop shelves. According to its author, the book was inspired by experiences of Lithuania, even though the name of the country is not mentioned once.
Professor talked to 15min about some topics touched upon in his book: the leveling of good and evil, the establishment of value-neutral approach, ambitions of science to take over politics and ethics, links between the economic crisis and the tyranny of values, and the end of politics.
- In your book, you argue that what was called 'virtues' in Antiquity – clemency, justice, nobility, courage, faith, wisdom – have now turned into values. What's the difference between virtue and value and what are the implication of this metamorphosis?
If all you can say when facing a greedy, selfish, and lazy man is “that's his values,” an economic crisis is imminent.
- Virtues have specific names, while values are a function of a statement. One can inscribe any object, event, process, or action into the function “x is a value.” Wisdom, moderation, or faith are virtues and it is only us who thought of calling them values. Virtues are virtues and there's no sense in calling them values.
- What was the role of classical virtues before this conversion? Why are they held to be some sort of a reference point? You write that moral ideas are now taken to be objects of social contract. But weren't ancient virtues, too, a matter of convention in a way?
- The ethics of virtues is the only reliable starting point for reflections on morality. What I'm interested in is not the conventionality of ethics, but rather its subjection to the standards of economic thinking. In the face of our current economic crisis, one must take a fresh look at the relation between economics and ethics. The market is not, morally speaking, a neutral tool. It establishes a certain view of morals. What has appeared as a market mechanism twenty years ago, is now taken to be the moral norm in Lithuania.
- Kant claims that absolute and scientifically unverifiable truths are necessary for humans as moral subjects. Why? Why is this idea of a pre-existing order and acceptance of absolute principles so important?
- Morals are not mere habitual modes of behaviour. The moral subject can upset any habitual or imposed normative order. It's a small miracle. Even this idea put forward by liberals – that the value of human life lies in its being freely chosen – presupposes that there is something important beyond the individual. Science, meanwhile, cannot accept unconditional statements. However, when Lithuanian guerillas were tortured by the KGB and refused to give away their fellow fighters, that was their final and absolute choice.
- You claim that the word “value” has come to be a symbol of our times and one of the mightiest idols reigning over our minds. Why did people start referring to all their wishes and desires as “values”? What does this word mean then?
- Everything and nothing. Anything that we like could be called a value. If someone values craving for wealth, that is a value, and if someone denies that this thing is valuable, that is also a value. Human life turns into an object of endless evaluations. Every social phenomenon could be explained in terms of values. “Your hands are a value,” says a slogan in an ad. Add to that legs, forearm and a thousand other organs.
- You use a term coined by Nicolai Hartmann to describe this phenomenon of turning everything into “values” – the tyranny of values. You claim that the latter “does not coerce, but frustrates, dulls, and exhausts,” that it opens up the way to the new barbarity. What is this thing, the new barbarity?
There must be a balance among different voices of human experience – science, practice, religion, and art. Modern scientific thinking unjustifiably invades ethics and politics which are provinces of other modes of human experience.
- Once value thinking takes hold, we lose our ability to tell the difference between what is petty and what is great. A satisfied pig comes to be valued as much as dissatisfied Socrates. Amoral acts don't imply a loss of values any more. Today, one talks of “criminals' values.” Not even barbarians who invaded Rome were in such a deep crisis of criteria.
- What do sociologists and political scientists do when they keep talking about values?
- They equate things that used to be incomparable. For a scientist, there is no difference in what "values" to compare. Thieves and saints are simple objects of analysis for them. The so-called “value studies” show a sociological snapshot of moods and opinions of the day. Nothing is of intrinsic value. It is believed that popularity ratings can show the true situation of the value world. On Monday, let's look into the “criminals' values,” on Wednesday – a turn for the “art and cultural values.”
- What do we lose engaging in such value talk?
- We cease to recognize the distinction among norms, values, ideas, principles, and ideals. Speculations about values take away the tension characteristic of reflections on good and evil from previous epochs. Turning evil into a value makes it less visible, less comprehensible. As long as love is love – and not an object of consumption – it doesn't need to be called a value.
- You stress the effect of science on all spheres of life and the entrenched trust in technology. Why was science put above moral capacities of humans? Why has modern science become the engineer of tyranny of values?
- Scientists are not only interested in knowing nature and society, but also conquering them. That can only be done by subjecting thinking to values. As Martin Heidegger put it, values are at the core of scientific thinking. Scientists turn the world into an image dependent on human values. Seeing everything as values is a sign of increasing influence of scientific thinking.
- You write that modern scientists wish to conquer areas that seemed unconquerable to classical philosophy – ethics and politics. Where does this desire to create scientifically-based politics come from and why do scientist want to rule and change the world? Didn't they have this ambition before?
- People of my generation had to study scientific communism and atheism. Nowadays, there are plenty of new pseudo-sciences that we call “science.” Modern society is inconceivable without it. Everything must be scientific there, including ethics and politics. It's almost a form of madness. Obviously, ethics and politics cannot be scientific – but there keep coming converts to the church of Auguste Compte's positivism.
- Scientists impose a certain understanding of values, you claim. On the other hand, if it weren't the understanding of scientists, it would be of someone else. Why should we fear scientific understanding of reality more than religious or artistic?
- There must be a balance among different voices of human experience – science, practice, religion, and art. Modern scientific thinking unjustifiably invades ethics and politics which are provinces of other modes of human experience. The society must be freed from the grip of scientific colonialism, especially when it comes to understanding of morality. It's time to acknowledge that science-infused conception of ethics and politics is not better than metaphysical or theological conception of ethics and politics.
- That means that scientific thinking goes against the nature of politics. Can you explain?
- Science is based on different interests than politics. A scientifically justified conviction is not necessarily justified from the political point of view. Scientists are idealists. They put method above reality. Science is only interested in things that fit its methods. Besides, a purely scientific conception of politics is an impossibility.
- You write that the more scientific thinking takes hold of politics, the less society is able to go after the common good: “Numerous tiny tyrants multiply, isolated from one another and unable to take joint action.” Why is it so? Does that mean that political science is among reasons for the decline of moral and political responsibility?
- Political science is not just a method, it brings along a certain understanding of moral issues. The striving for a value-free science can easily be turned into an argument in support of moral evil. By remaining value-neutral, scientists fail to see the difference between moral order and disorder. They promote a universal method of enquiry which can well ignore moral responsibilities of citizens.
- Why has scientific thinking negatively affected our attitudes to spiritual things?
- Dalai Lama thinks that science can be reconciled with Buddhist spirituality. I know very little about Buddhism. I'm more convinced by Joseph Ratzinger's proposition that what we are facing now is a new kind of dictatorship – that of relativism – that can't tell us anything substantial about moral distinctions.
- Is it possible to free morality and politics from the tyranny of scientific thinking?
- It must be done, but I don't know how.
- You draw a direct link between science and political liberalism. What is the connection?
- Liberals and scientists think along same principles – they advocate value-neutral approach to things, the position of an external observer, procedures, naturalism, and the primacy of economics. There are many similarities between liberalism and positivism. They even share a similar animosity to metaphysics and philosophy. Antanas Maceina was right to call liberalism “positivist liberalism.”
- What happens to politics when one of the biggest values is “freedom from values”?
- Being value-free is a two-way street. We all want to be treated equally by the state – and that is why we need value neutrality. But giving it too much prominence purges political life of any partisanship. Whenever you hear the word “value,” there's also a distrust in politics.
Social workers have replaced statesmen, while the electorate feels like it has been once again deceived after every election. On holidays, the electorate calls itself the “voice of god,” but after a year from election, it feels like a big fool and a loser.
- What is the connection between economics and value thinking?
- If you turn everything into values, they become goods for mass consumption, just like refrigerators and washing machines. Our main goal in life is then to maximize utility. Even phenomena that are not economic in nature get to be judged by economic criteria. Market economy turns into market society.
- Is the current economic crisis in the West related to this tyranny of values?
- If all you can say when facing a greedy, selfish, and lazy man is “that's his values,” an economic crisis is imminent. When the “public sector” becomes a market, the economic crisis inevitably turns into a political one. Westerners are shocked by how much they've given in to the idea of “economic triumph” during the last twenty years.
- In one chapter on religion, you note the fact that there are around 2 billion Christians in the world, one billion Muslims and 0.5 billion Buddhists. Why is that – we put science and technology above everything but still believe in something that science disputes?
- Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his perfectly non-religious treatise that even if we found answers to all scientific questions, this wouldn't even touch the problems of our lives. People accept things that scientific thinking cannot prove. If we eliminated them, we would shut windows through which our mind looks at broader worlds.
- What is the relation between politics and mysticism?
- Every day, two billion people utter lines with a political term in them: “Thy kingdom come.”
- There have been talks about the end of politics. Is it realistic, bearing in mind the famous assertion by Aristotle that man is a political animal? What signs are there of the end of politics?
- One could name two main signs. Some people believe that politics could be replaced by economics and management. Others think that courts should take over politics. There is also a third – the most exotic – group of enemies of politics: anarchists.
