The delusions of a philosopher

Things haven’t changed much in two thousand years. One might add that there is nothing so foolish that has been said by a philosopher that many people have not believed it.

These inspiring thoughts were provoked by reading a book, Practical Ethics, by one of the most famous philosophers of our time, Professor Peter Singer, now of Princeton University. Whether he is as eminent philosophically as he is famous I leave to philosophers to decide. But the great success of his books suggests that he has been influential: for example, Practical Ethics was reprinted nine times in the first four years after its publication.

Professor Singer writes clearly, so that his views are comprehensible to any normally intelligent person. And this is no small merit, given philosophers’ history of deliberate obfuscation, particularly of late, and particularly in the country where I write this, France.

But clarity has its drawbacks, at least from the point of view of the author if the views he expresses are ridiculous,: for verbiage often obscures absurdity. At least Professor Singer has the courage of his nonsense.

His book is a compendium of modern pieties; the average Victorian sermon was daringly freethinking by comparison. I will take just one opinion of Professor Singer to illustrate what I mean, that concerning positive discrimination, or affirmative action.

The professor says:

Opponents of affirmative action have not objected to the goals of social equality and greater minority representation in the professions. They would be hard put to do so.

This is pure ignorant nonsense, of the kind that one might hope that a professor at Princeton would not utter. Many people have objected to the goal of social equality (as measured by equality of outcome) as between different social, ethnic or other groups, for there are reasons other than unfair discrimination for differences in outcome. It is surely not prejudice that accounts for the fact that there are not many Vietnamese heavyweight champion boxers, for example.

Recently (and unusually) the economic situation of people in Britain was broken down not by class or race, but by religion. The results were very instructive. By far the richest group were Jews, followed by – Sikhs. Then came Christians (not broken down by denomination, and I suspect that were richer than others), Hindus, atheists, and Moslems.

What is so interesting about this is that neither the Jews nor the Sikhs ever needed, or benefited from, positive discrimination. Both, in fact, suffered from negative prejudice at the time of their mass arrival in the country, but it was not so great that there was any legal impediment to their progress. All they needed was legal opportunity. It is even conceivable that negative prejudice put a little iron in their souls, and made the try harder.

Nor are we speaking of just a few isolated cases of success: the success was en masse, as it were. Nor is the British case particularly unusual. The Chinese in Malaya have long been discriminated against far more severely than Jews or Sikhs were ever discriminated against in Britain, but their economic success has continued to this day.

Equality of racial representation in the professions is not a desirable goal, except perhaps for racists who believe that race is and should define how people are treated in a society. In this sense, Professor Singer is a deep and uncompromising racist. He has race on the brain.

It is desirable that people should not be prevented from pursuing their chosen careers on account of their race, but that is another matter altogether. Far from producing social harmony, as Professor Singer seems to think, this constant sifting of the statistics on the assumption that only injustice can account for differences in outcome between groups results in bitterness and resentment, which is destructive of individuals and society alike.