The Virtuous Society: (1) Controlling Deviance
So I haven’t written much lately and Billy remarked on it this morning, so I decided to give our readers a taste of what has been going on in my mind the past few months. I’ve been tempted to write a few times, but either there were too many new posts on those days or I felt that I needed a more coherent vision of what I was aiming for. Now I’ve got both space and a vision, so here goes.
This is the first in what will be a series of posts on what constitutes a virtuous society or at least a version of a virtuous society. This has to be a series because it’s too much for one article and I’m not trying to talk about a panacea or silver bullet, so it’ll take some time to lay out. Essentially this series will pose the question “What makes a society virtuous?” and attempt to answer it. When I talk about society here, I’m not just talking about a nation, but a city, a community, basically any group of people sufficiently large that they don’t all know each other and are reliant in one way or another and where people are affected by the actions of others. Technically this can go global if you really want it to, but I’m not that ambitious yet.
One of the first things a society must deal with when defining itself is how to deal with problematic people or behaviors. Do we allow individuals absolute free reign to do as they please with absolutely no restrictions? Do we force people to comply with a set of rules by using the police and coercion? Do we control every aspect of a member’s life with a police state? The virtuous society does none of these.
A virtuous society uses a combination of informal social control mechanisms and police power. Before anyone (Tom) screams, I want to qualify the hell out of that statement. Police power should only be used for the most egregious and outrageous conduct. By that I mean things like violence against the helpless, using a weapon on an unarmed person, murder, irreparable property damage (I’m thinking arson or something like that), fraud, etc. This is not to say that there wouldn’t be laws against other things like battery, intimidation, or even petty traffic offenses. They just wouldn’t have to be enforced much and they would be relatively low priority. Sort of like decriminalizing drug possession. It’s still not legal or ok, just not something we’re going to pursue all that vigorously hopefully because it won’t be necessary.
Let’s start with correctional mechanisms. For the most egregious conduct, yeah we can still have prisons and all that, basically we don’t want people hurting one another physically or severely impairing them financially/in their welfare (and if you’re going to bitch that this isn’t a comprehensive list, I know that, these are just examples). For the rest of the stuff we have alternatives to incarceration. What if, instead of locking up a guy who steals some kid’s iPod or who gets into a bar fight, we turn him over to the community? By community I mean his family, friends, the victim, and neighbors. No, this isn’t vigilante justice, that’s why his friends and family are there. I’m talking about the classic shaming session where everyone gets together and asks the perpetrator to a) admit guilt, b) explain their conduct, and then c) decides on remedial measures. I’m sure you could add to that, but those are the basic elements. Now granted, this won’t work on everyone and it won’t make us all sit around the fire singing kumbaya, but the power of group approval or disapproval is sorely underestimated these days. The end goal is to get the offender to admit guilt understanding that they won’t face punishment by some unfamiliar power and explain why they acted as they did. Once they’ve done that it’s a negotiation process where the victim, family, friends, and neighbors talk about what would be an appropriate way for the offender to kiss the boo boo make all better.
The way that this works is we build on a common moral code. A common moral code means that we have an agreed upon set of things that we think are right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, better and worse. A common moral code requires that the vast majority of people agree on these things, and by vast majority I’m talking maybe 95%. Now before I get any complaints about how that’s not possible, I want to qualify the hell out of this too. I’m not talking about a pervasive every-little-action-you-take morality, but a solid core of what we value. We already have such a core, it’s just not as big as it should be and we don’t enforce it too well. 99% of us don’t commit murder, why? Because we’re afraid of being caught? Well if we just went by our chances of being caught on a strictly cost-benefit rational basis, murder’s not such a bad thing. Ok that’s a bit extreme. Let me give another one. The Los Angeles subway system operates on the honor system. Yeah, you buy a ticket, don’t pass through a turnstile and once in a blue moon a sheriff wanders onto the train and asks people to show their tickets. Mostly they just accept anything that looks vaguely like a ticket without checking the date. The chances of any individual being caught are almost nothing, but the rate of payment is still about 94%. In fact, the city was arguing for a long time whether it should even bother installing turnstiles because the cost-benefit was pretty dubious. Metro loses about $5 million a year to nonpayment, but costs of implementation and maintenance would be high. People are paying because they know they should.
There’s a laundry list of our core values, but I’m not really interested in the specific list at this moment. Maybe we could work that out in the comments section. What I’m interested in is strengthening the core values and expanding them so they encompass more types of behavior. No, I’m also not talking about social control over every aspect of a person’s life. We’re not in a 14th century village, it’s neither practical nor particularly desirable. I’m just talking about normative values that keep people from messing with one another and possibly themselves. I also want to stress that this is voluntary to the extent that it wouldn’t involve state power to force people to accept a core of beliefs. The state might facilitate a dialogue, but it’s not going to be imposed from the top down. This is something that’s organic, bottom-up if you will. A common moral code has to come from a serious conversation about what we value and what kind of life we’d like to live. It’s more than just the golden rule because it’s about how you treat nature, your neighborhood, and abstract entities (businesses, other societies, etc).
Before Tom tells me that this can only come from religion, I’m going to say that religion isn’t enough. Religion can be an element, but it’s simply insufficient both because the language of religion tends to be either-or and because it would by its very nature require physical coercion. Why? Well quite simply that to use religion we’d probably have to pick a religion and well, we live in a diverse, pluralistic society where not everyone has the same religion or any religion at all. We can take elements from religious teaching, sure. I’m good with that, even as a non-theist. We can use some universal elements particularly from multiple religious traditions, but we need more. No, we need a serious society-wide (depending on what level we’re talking it could be national) dialogue about first principles and what we are about as a society and sort of argue it out. Think of it as a moral constitutional convention but with its endpoint being something like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (or in this case Society X’s Declaration of a Moral Consensus).
Ok before I go on too long, I want to wrap up quickly by reminding you all before the flames start to spout that I’m not talking about forcing people to do anything. I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing. Also, I’m not talking about pervasive Spanish Inquisition dogma or even Salem witch trials stuff. I’m talking about a basic set of dos and don’ts that the vast majority of us can agree on and enforce. Yeah we’d be our brother’s keepers. I’m also ok with that. We’d also have consciences. Crazy stuff.
Comment by kofi the you don't want a virtuous society, Hanno, you want a society conforming to your views on 2 April 2008 at 12:45 am:
What if, instead of locking up a guy who steals some kid’s iPod or who gets into a bar fight, we turn him over to the community? By community I mean his family, friends, the victim, and neighbors. No, this isn’t vigilante justice, that’s why his friends and family are there. I’m talking about the classic shaming session where everyone gets together and asks the perpetrator to a) admit guilt, b) explain their conduct, and then c) decides on remedial measures. I’m sure you could add to that, but those are the basic elements.
Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.
I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.
I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.
This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.
Comment by kofi the you don't want a virtuous society, Hanno, you want a society conforming to your views on 2 April 2008 at 12:45 am:
What if, instead of locking up a guy who steals some kid’s iPod or who gets into a bar fight, we turn him over to the community? By community I mean his family, friends, the victim, and neighbors. No, this isn’t vigilante justice, that’s why his friends and family are there. I’m talking about the classic shaming session where everyone gets together and asks the perpetrator to a) admit guilt, b) explain their conduct, and then c) decides on remedial measures. I’m sure you could add to that, but those are the basic elements.
Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.
I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.
I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.
This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.
Comment by kofi the you don't want a virtuous society, Hanno, you want a society conforming to your views on 2 April 2008 at 12:45 am:
What if, instead of locking up a guy who steals some kid’s iPod or who gets into a bar fight, we turn him over to the community? By community I mean his family, friends, the victim, and neighbors. No, this isn’t vigilante justice, that’s why his friends and family are there. I’m talking about the classic shaming session where everyone gets together and asks the perpetrator to a) admit guilt, b) explain their conduct, and then c) decides on remedial measures. I’m sure you could add to that, but those are the basic elements.
Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.
I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.
I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.
This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.
Comment by Anonymous on 2 April 2008 at 10:13 am:
What ridiculous nonsense.
Comment by Katie on 2 April 2008 at 10:30 am:
I’m also a little confused about the “turning him over to the community” proposal. Aside from the polarity caused by major issues, who will have the ultimate deciding authority in smaller criminal disputes? It is impossible to expect the family of the accused to come to a peaceful compromise with victim of a crime, even a petty one. Could you elaborate on the process you’re proposing?
Comment by J. Prescott on 2 April 2008 at 10:41 am:
I think the first thing that has to be mentioned is that this would be a highly libertarian form of government, a form of government being advocated by a dyed in the wool liberal.
My question on this shared morality stems from its application to the federalist system of the US. Namely, I don’t think it would work real well. Hanno advocates a supermajority to pass legislation. He cited 95% in this post, but in out of post discussions, he mention a rate of approximately 80%. Assuming a comparable relationship between the states and federal government, what you would have is the inability of the federal government to override egregious acts by the states that is contrary to national morality.
So for example, something that I think we can all agree was good national legislation was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation. Under Hanno’s theory of government, it would never have passed, because in Congress, the majority never breached the 80% minimum in either House. However, assuming that the way the Southern representatives of both parties voted reflected the region’s overall view, segregation would have been the law of that land.
Now, I understand that there are other issues which would make my underlying assumption about the popularity of segregation in the South somewhat suspect, but I think you get my point. While everyone is tentative in this day and age to identify things as “immoral” because we do not want to offend another party’s cultural sensibilites, it is highly possible that in large communities 80% of that population will permit or even advocate immoral positions. Now whether it is that community’s right to do so is another question entirely.
However, if we are talking about developing a moral community, I think considerations like the one above are significant. Is morality merely agreed upon conventions, or is it something bigger? Specifically, is morality something beyond things people agree to rationally and contain through governmental construct, but something that is inherent and binary? If morality is something that exists independent of agreement or interpretation, defined by some other code or standard, then supermajority rule superfluous to the attempt of obtaining morality society, and indeed could prevent its fruition.
Now I understand you are seeking to limit conflict in a society nby not foisting upon one group of people the beliefs of another, and I understand why you would do it. But I think that there are some issues that are not defined by the type of supermajority you allude to that should be mandated in a culutre. Now what those issues are, how far the government should go in promoting them, and other assorted issues are important questions that should be answered by people far smarter than me. And considerations like the ability to move to areas that better conform to your perspective mitigate some of those concerns, although to what degree, I don’t know. But I think equal rights and protection under the law is one of those issues, and I don’t think under your system those rules would exist. So maybe I am missing something in your analysis regarding these issues, and if so, please let me know.
Comment by tet on 2 April 2008 at 11:15 am:
I think diversity is the enemy of a system like this.
I have spoken in favor of a virtuous society many times in the past. I see such a society as a method by which we can be saved from the police state we’re sliding towards.
I grew up in such a virtuous society in the rural American 1950s. It was a crime-free, pleasant place to live for more than 90% of the population.
The problem with that society, though, is that the “good life” was limited to the white majority. The society was peaceful and just because no differing elements, whether they be gay or colored, were tolerated within it. It was illegal for a black person to be in my hometown and most of the cities in rural Illinois after dark, let alone live there. The majority, in such a society, will invariably inflict its views on the minority.
Hanno is right when he says that religion is not sufficient. I deem it as necessary, though, since any man-made rules will be subject to the corruption inherent in our nature. What is then necessary for his system to work, would be a commonality of belief in the meaning behind the religious rules, which would then lead to a non-coercive society. There wouldn’t be crime because the only criminals would be insane.
The problem with creating the kind of society that Hanno is talking about in America right now is that our country is too large and there are many varying opinions on morality.
However, if it splinters into hundreds or thousands of polis as I expect it to do mid-Century, such systems would be possible, and, I believe, necessary.
There would be no universality of government. Abortion might be so rare in Detroit as to be non-existent. Marijuana and methamphetamine might be sold and enjoyed openly in Phoenix. Voluntary servitude (indenture) could be the rule in New York City. Polygamy would flourish as the most popular form of marriage in Champaign-Urbana.
Some of these could be seen as morally repugnant by the other polis. That’s true. However, the number of people in each would be small enough that it wouldn’t be a big deal and citizens who do not like the situation where they are can move to somewhere where the rules fit them better–self segregation at its finest.
I like the idea of a thousand social experiments going on in North America–Darwinism at its highest. We’ve got to create the society that’s going to survive until the sun burns out–why not set up the labs now? With extreme long life around the corner, you could be there to guide it for millenia.
Tom
Comment by Hanno on 2 April 2008 at 12:04 pm:
Kofi
Actually I’m talking about something that’s not all that radical, we already have programs like this. I’m really just suggesting that we expand the scope and change some of the processes by which we do it. Case in point, in Champaign there is a program called adult diversion where first time offenders for a range of offenses go before a three member panel of lay people who are trained in how to conduct such a panel and mete out restitution. They explain what they did and why they did it. The panel asks questions to clarify and then decides on suitable restitutive measures. I’ve sat on a couple. Generally it’s a certain number of hours of community service, once it was taking a seminar on law for laypeople because the person didn’t seem to get that what he did was illegal/viewed as wrong.
As for scale, I don’t think this would work perfectly at a national level. I even stated in the post that I imagine it working best at a city or large community level. What I’m talking about is a small core at the highest levels with an increasingly large (and rightly different) core the further down you go. So at the national level it might be murder, fraud, extortion, etc. At the state and local level the list would get bigger.
Society might not be divided over kicking a dog, but how many people speak up over it? I mean honestly if you went to the park with your kids (assuming you had them) and some snot-nosed kid was peeing on the slide your kids wanted to use, what would you do? You could say nothing and tell your kids they can’t use the slide. You could yell at the kid. You could let your kids use it anyway. You could clean up. We often find ourselves in uncomfortable situations where we think something is flagrantly wrong, but do nothing about it. I’ve seen a guy screaming at a woman and noted that for about five minutes no one said anything until someone walked over and asked her if she was okay and told him that if he got physical he’d get his ass kicked. It’s not about self-righteousness, but it certainly is about moralizing what is acceptable and unacceptable.
Anonymous – your insight is astounding and your critical analysis is truly daunting to respond to.
Katie – this wasn’t quite the heart of the post, but an illustrative example. My response to Kofi has elaboration, but I can add a little. Legal remedies could still be dangled over people’s heads like a sword of damocles. This would just reduce costs and need for courts (and ironically my career prospects). I mean we could have trained moderators or something and guidelines or restrictions on punishments decided by law to prevent lynchings. The idea is to turn the decision making power over to people to empower them and foster a sense of responsibility and connection that would ideally encourage them to be better people without forcing them to do anything.
Prescott -
I keep telling you that I’m a pretty bad liberal. As I told Kofi, I also don’t particularly imagine this as a national project. Things like Civil Rights are tricky. The classic example of imposed morality is the Civil War. I like the goals, but the process was bad. Back in the 1830s there was a serious dialogue about ending slavery, much of it being discussed in the South. A lot of people didn’t like slavery, in fact probably a majority didn’t like it, but no one was quite sure how to end it. I’ve read some pieces where the authors ask what to do with the formerly enslaved. This conversation sort of ended when the abolitionists gained strength and made it an either-or proposition without seriously considering the consequences of immediate liberation without planning for what would come afterwards. This was the biggest failure of the end of slavery. We freed millions of people, but had to alienate a third of the country to do it and then had no idea what to do with the people we freed once they were freed. It’s not that it wasn’t discussed at all, it’s just that there wasn’t a coherent vision of where to go from there. In this I sort of agree with Tom that if there was no Civil War slavery would have ended anyway and there wouldn’t have been as much backlash.
I think you’re attributing too broad a scope to this moral code idea. It’s not comprehensive. It’s got to be smallish and flexible to avoid becoming authoritarian. Equal rights and protections are one of the core values that we currently hold. I don’t think we could find too many people who would advocate unequal rights and protections under the law.
Tom –
I sort of agree. Diversity makes it harder, but that’s why I’m advocating a small core most everyone can agree on with larger circles for different localities or communities.
Comment by Hanno on 2 April 2008 at 12:19 pm:
Prescott pointed out the inadequacy of my response to him, so I’ll add to it. Basically I imagine it being like an inverted pyramid of morality. So if something like say segregation circa 1960 is the issue then the more core value of basic equality would trump the less core value of keeping people separate.