Jul 29, 2017 12:50 AM
https://aeon.co/essays/how-cold-war-phil...o-this-day
EXCERPT: [...] Many countries, of course have meritocracies – but few pin them as tightly to rational choice as the US does
But to say that with the waning of McCarthyism Cold War philosophy itself vanished from the scene is far too simplistic. The Cold War lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Cold War philosophy is still with us today. Thus, humanists long ago abandoned McCarthy-era attempts to subject their work to scientific method (as New Criticism was held to do). But in universities at large, intellectual respectability still tends to follow the sciences.
Cold War philosophy also continues to structure US society at large. Consider the widespread use of multiple-choice tests for tracking students. [...]
Cold War philosophy also influences US society through its ethics. Its main ethical implication is somewhat hidden, because Cold War philosophy inherits from rational choice theory a proclamation of ethical neutrality: a person’s preferences and goals are not subjected to moral evaluation. As far as rational choice theory is concerned, it doesn’t matter if I want to end world hunger, pass the bar, or buy myself a nice private jet; I make my choices the same way. Similarly for Cold War philosophy – but it also has an ethical imperative that concerns not ends but means. However laudable or nefarious my goals might be, I will be better able to achieve them if I have two things: wealth and power. We therefore derive an ‘ethical’ imperative: whatever else you want to do, increase your wealth and power!
Results of this are easily seen in today’s universities. Academic units that enable individuals to become wealthy and powerful (business schools, law schools) or stay that way (medical schools) are extravagantly funded; units that do not (humanities departments) are on tight rations. Also on tight rations nationwide are facilities that help individuals become wealthy and powerful but do not convey competitive advantage on them because they are open to all or most: highways, bridges, dams, airports, and so on.
Seventy years after the Cold War began, and almost 30 after it ended, Cold War philosophy also continues to affect US politics. The Right holds that if reason itself is rooted in market choice, then business skills must transfer smoothly into all other domains, including governance – an explicit principle of the Trump administration. On the Left, meritocracy rules: all three of Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees attended law school at either Harvard (as Obama himself did) or Yale (as Hillary Clinton did). The view that choice solves all problems is evident in the White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s presentation of the Republican vision for US health care, at his press briefing last March 23: ‘We’ve lost consumer choice … The idea is to instil choice back into the market.’
Part of the reason for Cold War philosophy’s continuing dominance is that though it is really a philosophy, proffering a normative and universal theory of correct reasoning, it has never been directly confronted on a philosophical level. Its concern with promulgating free markets and contested elections gave it homes in departments of economics and political science, where it thrives today. Philosophers, for their part, have until recently occupied themselves mainly with apolitical fields such as logic, metaphysics and epistemology.
On a philosophical level, however, Cold War philosophy has some obvious problems. Its ‘ethics’, for example, is not a traditional philosophical ethics at all. [...]
Another problem with Cold War philosophy’s ethics concerns what I will call ‘disidentification’. [...]
None of this suggests that we should stop valuing freedom of choice. But we should stop assuming that making choices amounts to freedom itself, or that making them rationally is the whole job of human reason. [...]
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/how-cold-war-phil...o-this-day
EXCERPT: [...] Many countries, of course have meritocracies – but few pin them as tightly to rational choice as the US does
But to say that with the waning of McCarthyism Cold War philosophy itself vanished from the scene is far too simplistic. The Cold War lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Cold War philosophy is still with us today. Thus, humanists long ago abandoned McCarthy-era attempts to subject their work to scientific method (as New Criticism was held to do). But in universities at large, intellectual respectability still tends to follow the sciences.
Cold War philosophy also continues to structure US society at large. Consider the widespread use of multiple-choice tests for tracking students. [...]
Cold War philosophy also influences US society through its ethics. Its main ethical implication is somewhat hidden, because Cold War philosophy inherits from rational choice theory a proclamation of ethical neutrality: a person’s preferences and goals are not subjected to moral evaluation. As far as rational choice theory is concerned, it doesn’t matter if I want to end world hunger, pass the bar, or buy myself a nice private jet; I make my choices the same way. Similarly for Cold War philosophy – but it also has an ethical imperative that concerns not ends but means. However laudable or nefarious my goals might be, I will be better able to achieve them if I have two things: wealth and power. We therefore derive an ‘ethical’ imperative: whatever else you want to do, increase your wealth and power!
Results of this are easily seen in today’s universities. Academic units that enable individuals to become wealthy and powerful (business schools, law schools) or stay that way (medical schools) are extravagantly funded; units that do not (humanities departments) are on tight rations. Also on tight rations nationwide are facilities that help individuals become wealthy and powerful but do not convey competitive advantage on them because they are open to all or most: highways, bridges, dams, airports, and so on.
Seventy years after the Cold War began, and almost 30 after it ended, Cold War philosophy also continues to affect US politics. The Right holds that if reason itself is rooted in market choice, then business skills must transfer smoothly into all other domains, including governance – an explicit principle of the Trump administration. On the Left, meritocracy rules: all three of Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees attended law school at either Harvard (as Obama himself did) or Yale (as Hillary Clinton did). The view that choice solves all problems is evident in the White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s presentation of the Republican vision for US health care, at his press briefing last March 23: ‘We’ve lost consumer choice … The idea is to instil choice back into the market.’
Part of the reason for Cold War philosophy’s continuing dominance is that though it is really a philosophy, proffering a normative and universal theory of correct reasoning, it has never been directly confronted on a philosophical level. Its concern with promulgating free markets and contested elections gave it homes in departments of economics and political science, where it thrives today. Philosophers, for their part, have until recently occupied themselves mainly with apolitical fields such as logic, metaphysics and epistemology.
On a philosophical level, however, Cold War philosophy has some obvious problems. Its ‘ethics’, for example, is not a traditional philosophical ethics at all. [...]
Another problem with Cold War philosophy’s ethics concerns what I will call ‘disidentification’. [...]
None of this suggests that we should stop valuing freedom of choice. But we should stop assuming that making choices amounts to freedom itself, or that making them rationally is the whole job of human reason. [...]
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/how-cold-war-phil...o-this-day