Two Kinds of Progress

A group of protesters in China is making news* objecting to the catching and killing of cats for food. Thinking about whether this represents progress for those of us who would like to see no animals killed for food raises an important distinction within the incrementalism versus revolutionism idea I posted about the other day.

My first reaction was that even if the protesters are successful, it wouldn't count as progress. The protests apparently are directed strictly at cats, so it's easy to move to the common complaint about hypocritical within-animals speciesism by which people happily eat factory-farmed chickens but object to cute kitties being harmed. (I should point out that since I'm just going by the AP article, I don't know the details of the protestors' philosophical positions.) Though I'm no expert in Cantonese food, I would guess that if denied a dish with cat, most diners would opt for another meat dish -- say, chicken -- rather than tofu or another non-meat option. So a successful ban on the cat industry would just shift the suffering onto another animal, making no net progress from a global perspective (there may be progress if the number of animals involved in producing the quantity of meat is drastically different, or if one species is treated much worse in its raising and slaughter, but I don't have nearly the information it would take to calculate this).

But then it occurred to me that improvements in the actual situation are not the only form progress can take. Progress can also be found in moving closer to the realization of some improvement in the actual situation, even if the new situation is not intrinsically better. And I think that stopping the eating of one species can move us closer to not eating any animals, even if the total amount of animal suffering doesn't change until we reach that end point.

The key here is that it's likely that animal industries can be reformed or shut down on a species-by-species basis. That is, if one's society kills one million cats and two million chickens a day, it's far easier to get the cat industry shut down than to cut the chicken industry back to just one million. Thus defeating one species industry moves us a step closer to defeating them all, even if each shutdown does not improve animals' lot because it just concentrates the suffering under a smaller set of umbrellas. Eventually, we'll (hopefully) get rid of that last umbrella.

Doubtless this kind of progress, in which we get closer to the realization of the goal without conditions improving incrementally along the way, is found in other situations too.

*In part, I'm sure, because it strokes our idea of crazy furriners eating inappropriate things -- though it seems that the facts about the Chinese cat cuisine industry are accurate.

The Reasonableness of Refuse-but-Refer

The Bush administration has officially announced a rule change that expands the ability of health care workers to refuse to provide services that are against their religion -- abortion and birth control being, obviously, the services that will be in question. Jill at Feministe points out that under current law, health care workers can already refuse to perform some of these services as long as they refer the patient to a doctor who will. Jill calls this a "reasonable compromise[] and accomodation[] for religious and moral belief."

Whether the "refuse, but refer" policy is "reasonable" I think depends a lot on what the nature of the religious objection is. "Refuse, but refer" makes perfect sense if the objection is a personal one: 'I the conservative Christian don't like, and am morally squeamish about, abortion. I don't want to perform an abortion because that would damage my own holiness and relationship with God.' This is the kind of situation Hilzoy is imagining when she raises the hypothetical of "if one of thirty Ob/Gyns in a large hospital believed that it would be wrong for her to perform abortions" (emphasis added). Liberals, particularly those of a secular bent, have a strong tendency to want all religion to operate in this personal mold -- a desire which often spills over into thinking that all religion does in fact operate in this mold.

It would be highly convenient if religion was all personal in this sense. It would make it easy to achieve a purely procedural accommodation and tolerance between divergent substantive views. That, I take it, is what Jill means by calling the current situation "reasonable" and what is communicated by the bumper sticker that says "If you don't like abortion, don't have one." This desire to agree on laws without having to answer any major substantive questions is the heart of traditional philosophical liberalism*.

But not all religion is personal. Some of it is consequentialist -- believers see themselves as called not to engage in certain personal practices for individual salvation and holiness, but to promote good and attack evil in the world. If one has a consequentialist objection to abortion, one's concern is not 'I don't want to perform abortions,' but rather 'I don't want abortions to be performed.' Thus, a "refuse, but refer" policy is cold comfort. While referring an abortion-seeker to another doctor may give a little psychological relief to the consequentialist conservative Christian, an abortion performed by another doctor is just as bad, in God's eyes, as one performed by the refuse-and-refer-er. The same number of fetuses is being killed. Personal refusal to participate is useful only as a mechanism for stopping the practice from occurring at all.

If some substantial number of conservative doctors has a consequentialist, rather than personal, objection to abortion -- and I think this is so -- then no liberal tolerance compromise is available. The substantive question -- is abortion a service that people are entitled to get from any health care provider? -- must be faced head-on. If the "yes" side wins -- and I think it should -- then anti-abortion doctors will have to either accept the requirement to do something they hold to be wrong (either directly or by culpably delegating the responsibility to someone else), or get out of the medical business. And those of us pushing for the "yes" side to win must be cognizant that this fight is over a substantive issue, not over whether a personal belief is to be accommodated or overstep its boundaries.

*Liberalism may try to get around this by decreeing that to be acceptable, religion must be private. This would allow the liberal project to move forward -- but at the price of an arguably illiberal law that strongly restricts the range of application of liberalism's vaunted tolerance. This is one of the more troublesome aspects of Rawls' theory, to my mind -- his breezy declaration that he was limiting himself to "reasonable" substantive doctrines tends to disguise how narrow the range of accepatble doctrines is, as many of the ones found in our actual society would not meet Rawls' criterion of reasonableness.

Pragmatism versus idealism

I'm a bit reluctant to get involved in the pragmatism versus idealism debate, since it seems quite resistant to any progress by either side*. But it occurs to me that the pragmatism versus idealism choice -- when that's really what's at issue, rather than this debate being fallen into as a proxy for some other dispute -- is really three choices, which are conceptually distinct and can in theory be mixed and matched in any combination.

1. Moderation versus radicalism. This is a choice of what the end-goal is. Moderates only desire a small change from the current status quo. Radicals believe a major overhaul is necessary -- because the current situation is so far from ideal, and because the causes of our problems go so deep in the structure of society. The choice here is about one's real desired goal, not the goal one espouses. Choosing what goal to publicly call for is a strategic one, and one's publicly espoused goal may differ from one's privately held one by being either more moderate (to win the support of genuine moderates and because that's all the more change you believe is realistic right now) or more radical (to win the support of genuine radicals and as a high opening bid from which you can negotiate down).

2. Consequentialism versus expressivism. This choice is a matter of what the aim of one's strategies are. Consequentialism judges strategies strictly by their effects on the wider world -- does this move us closer to the desired goal? Expressivism judges strategies by their ability to keep one true to oneself, making a statement of one's position and preserving one's integrity. Nearly everyone values both consequences and expression to some degree, so this choice is a balancing act. It's further complicated by the fact that it's plausible that in some cases an outwardly expressivist strategy may in fact be the most consequentialistically effective, if it serves a "witnessing" function. Further, the identity that one is drawn to express may not be "look at how radical and uncompromising I am," but rather "look at what a normal, pragmatic, don't-rock-the-boat type of person I am."

3. Incrementalism versus revolutionism. This is a choice about how changes can occur in society. Incrementalism holds that change can -- in the strong form, can only -- occur through an accumulation of smaller steps, each building on the previous and preparing the way for the next. Revolutionism holds that change by small steps will never be effective because it is always weighed down by the existing structure, so that structure needs to be swept away and replaced wholesale. The strongest forms of radicalism hold that incremental improvements are actually detrimental to the cause of change, because they sap the motivation for overthrowing the system.

These three choices can, in theory, be mixed and matched in any combination (though strict expressivism would seem to make incrementalism versus revolutionism practically irrelevant**), and one person may hold different combinations in different situations. For example, on animal rights issues, I'd count myself a medium-radical, a strong consequentialist, and fairly incrementalist. Whereas on electoral college reform, I'm more moderate, still strongly consequentialist, and rather revolutionist.

* Which is not to say individuals don't change their positions on this question, but they mostly change them for reasons arising from changes in their situation and experiences, then look to arguments for justification, rather than being talked out of their position by sound argumentation.

** Then again, worrying about irrelevance in practice would seem to be a consequentialist concern.

Originality

I think the big question arising from this whole shoe-throwing incident is: How many editorial cartoonists are going to come out with cartoons showing Bush being pelted by shoes labeled as whatever they see as Bush's big problems? Judging by the response to the pretzel-choking incident, I'm going to guess "all of them."