Welcome to this week's installment of the Daily Kos Niebuhr Book Club. Today we continue our discussion of Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society. Previous installations are the Introduction to the Book Club, discussion of the book's Introduction, and discussion of Chapter 1. Today, we discuss Niebuhr's views on rationality as a force for justice, and the limits of reason to enforce justice.
In the first chapter, Niebuhr laid out his basic insight that groups have a harder time attaining morality than do individuals. In the second chapter, he advances his views on the role of reason in helping societies achieve moral ends and his hesitations about to what extent it is possible for societies to truly live according to the dictates of reason.
Niebuhr is absolutely clear that reason is a necessary element in the quest to build a just society:
The force of reason makes for justice, not only by placing inner restraints upon the desires of the self in the interest of social harmony, but by judging the claims and assertions of individuals from the perspective of the intelligence of the total community. An irrational society accepts injustice because it does not analyse the pretensions made by powerful and privileged groups of society. Even that portion of society which suffers most from injustice may hold the power, responsible for it, in reverence. A growing rationality in society destroys the uncritical acceptance of injustice. (31)
But Niebuhr parts ways with Enlightenment perspectives that believe that "a growing rationality in society destroys the uncritical acceptance of injustice" tells the whole story. He notes that despite the achievements of education and science in the nineteenth century, injustice has not been done away with in the manner expected by the rationalist Condorcet in the eighteenth century, and continued by educators such as John Dewey in Niebuhr's age.
Niebuhr first turns implicitly to evolutionary theory to stress that reason is but one aspect, and not the dominant aspect, of human existence:
Every type of energy in nature in nature seeks to preserve and perpetuate itself within terms of its unique genius. The energy of human life does not differ in this from the whole world of nature. It differs only in the degree of reason which directs the energy. ... Reason enables him, within limits, to direct his energy so that it will flow in harmony, and not in conflict, with other life. Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life. Reason may extend and stabilize, but it does not create, the capacity to affirm life other than his own. (25-6)
But more importantly, Niebuhr stresses how egoism infiltrates every reasonable endeavor.
In analyzing the limits of reason in morality it is important to begin by recognizing that the force of egoistic impulse is much more powerful than any but the most astute psychological analysts and the most rigorous devotees of introspection realize. (40)
Niebuhr gives one concrete example of how he sees a reasonable approach to social conflict simply providing a cover for a particular segment of society to pursue its own will-to-power.
The utilitarian movement of the nineteenth century had the laudable purpose of persuading men to achieve a decent harmony between selfish and social impulse by diverting egoistic impulse to the most inclusive possible social objectives. It is significant that it merely provided the rising middle class with a nice moral justification for following its own interests. (41)
He furthermore notes how reason can actually contribute to imperialism, by making the group seek to extend its interests masked by reason to the entire world.
My summary could be tighter, but please feel free to join the discussion, even if you haven't had a chance to read the book.
Questions for Discussion
- Before reading Niebuhr, what were your views of the role of reason in pursuing justice? Where were your views most alike and most different from his? Did he make you change your mind on any points?
- What do you think the strongest evidence is for and against Niebuhr's understanding of reason as inevitably hampered by egoism, both individual and collective?
- How does Niebuhr's discussion of reason and egoism help you understand aspects of working for social change through the blogosphere?
- To what extent do you think the idea that the Enlightenment idea that reason alone will solve society's ills is still prevalent in American politics, and in American progressive politics more generally?
- What do you think it says about the difference in political philosophies around 1930 and around 2010 that a progressive voice challenged the supremacy of reason before, whereas the most basic defenses of reason and knowledge have to be fought for now? Is it dangerous to acknowledge the limits of reason in an era when reason is under attack?