A morally trenchant conversation about the good life requires, then, that the pattern of our actions which is disguised and diffracted in the prevailing moral discourse is itself made the moral issue. And the very fact that what we normally do, unlike what we typically say, exhibits a commitment to a definite and pervasive way of acting entitles us to the hope that such a conversation is possible. Still, there are a number of reasons why that enterprise will be arduous and perilous. The first is that the liberal banishment of ethical concerns from the sphere of government sprang in part from a plausible, if not justifiable, response to pernicious historical forces. The first of these is dogmatism, the insistence on a set of moral principles that have been cut off from their animating and legitimating source. The second is bigotry, the unwillingness to allow one’s moral position to be tested in light of competing views or scientific findings. Finally, there is presumption where the holder of a moral position infers from it a feeling of personal superiority and claims a privileged voice in the determination of the collective morality. Mischievous and dictatorial versions of these tendencies are still with us, and it is tempting to want to extirpate them in the liberal democratic way.
A second problem that one faces in making the technological way of life a moral issue lies in the fact, alluded to in prior chapters, that the moral measure of the device paradigm cannot be taken by the traditional moral standards. This is not to say that the typical technological enterprise is free of problems of honesty, compassion, or fortitude, nor does it mean that these problems are not identifiable and evident as culpable by the traditional standards. It is rather that to one who has accepted the technological paradigm the traditional standards are alien in proportion to that acceptance, and such a person is unlikely to be dislodged from the allegiance to the paradigm by an appeal to traditional morality alone. Hence the task is not only one of moving attention from the superficial and misleading moral talk to the underlying mode of behavior but also one of setting aside a traditional moral idiom and of discovering one that is appropriate to our deeper concerns.13 The final obstacle to proper moral discourse is the most difficult. When it comes to examination and explanation, science today sets the standard; its mode of discourse, as seen in Chapters 4 and 5, is distinguished by cogency. And though the popular command of scientific theory and information is weak, the cogency of science is accepted and respected. Scientific cogency which pertains to theoretical propositions has a practical technological analogue in control which pertains to the procurement of commodities. Something is truly a commodity only when it is present in the assured and accessible fashion that we have called availability. Moral discourse is not cogent, and its insights cannot be procured. This is so for good and desirable reasons, as I hope to show. Commonly, however, we take an impatient and frustrated view of the lack of moral cogency and control. This leads to the ironical circumstance where a practice that is based on cogent insight and embodies a commitment to control is to be questioned by a kind of discourse which is forever contestable. There is an appearance of arrogance when one attempts a moral examination of the technological enterprise.
And yet, as suggested in Chapter 18, a certain willingness to measure the technological culture by the standard of traditional excellence still exists in our common aspirations. In social thought, there is a clearer effort to determine a goal beyond our implication in the present as is evident from Stanley’s succinct summary, referred to earlier:
Consider Saint-Simon’s ideal of cooperative rationality; John Stuart Mill’s desire for the spread of the “higher pleasures” of civilization; Marx’s ideal of surmounting the dualist tensions of “individual versus society” and “theory versus practice”; Durkheim’s expectation of organic solidarity; Weber’s wish for the renewability of charismatic inspiration; or Mannheim’s planned freedom. We find in these and other themes of classical social theory persistent hope for progressive redemption from the present.14
But how is one to travel the distance from the morally self-sufficient posture of the technological society and its insistence on effective procedures to a transcendent moral standard and social ideal? The common move among modern social theorists is the endeavor to derive strong conclusions from weak assumptions. “Weak” is meant here in the technical sense of minimal, self-evident, or uncontroversial. “Strong” means decisive, orienting, implying a definite order of things. To begin with weak assumptions is to issue an invitation that cannot be well refused. It is to say to the citizens of technology something like: If you accept anything at all, you will surely accept this (the set of weak assumptions). In this way one tries to avoid moral arrogance and to take account of the moral minimalism or vacuity that characterize the technological society. The social theorists then try to avail themselves of the commitment to cogency and control by using effective procedures, i.e., modes of reasoning that approximate logical deduction, to show that a consistent allegiance to the initial assumptions entails an allegiance to a society that is more just, more vigorous, more compassionate, more harmonious than ours is now. Consistency then requires the citizens of technology to accept and even work toward social reform, bringing about the kind of society to which, so it is concluded, they are committed to begin with. Thus John Stuart Mill invites us to pursue nothing but the greatest amount of satisfaction for the greatest number of people, and he assures us that in most cases the pursuit of one’s private pleasures will conform to the larger principle.15 John Rawls invites us, at least in one vein of his complex and admirable book, to assume nothing but the role of a rational, self-interested person among equals.16 Blaise Pascal issued a similar invitation in the seventeenth century to show that one must accept God’s existence; and in the eleventh century Anselm of Canterbury thought one would come to the same conclusion if only one entertained the concept of God.17 The attempt to begin with little and end with much has a long ancestry. It has become the dominant move of moral discourse in our era because it seems so adequate to the modern temper. But the critics of these various moves have invariably shown that, if one assumes little, one can conclude but little. If a strong conclusion is arrived at, then strong assumptions have joined the argument on its way from the initial assumptions; or the latter turn out, on closer inspection, to have been stronger and hence less easily acceptable than initially thought.
Why, then, should one set out to criticize a way of life that has a tendency toward stability, seems morally self-sufficient, is deeply entrenched and widely accepted, one that is heir to a tradition of moral restraint and embodies a commitment to effective procedures that the critic cannot equal? The critique of technology has two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. The first is the existence of a concern of ultimate significance that one sees threatened by technology.18 The second is a profound regard for one’s fellows. At least some matters of ultimate concern can be guarded and enjoyed in privacy. Hence a privately viable ultimate concern would allow one to remain reticent if one did not care for others of one’s kind. If I am moved by a deep regard for others but have no conception of what should ultimately concern them, again I would have no reason to speak up. But if there is something that I have experienced as greater than myself and of ultimate significance and if the welfare of humankind truly concerns me, then I will want to join the two concerns and act on that joint concern to ensure its welfare. In this chapter I will assume that such a concern is given, and I will try to show how in response to it a fruitful discourse of criticism and reform is possible, a kind of discourse that I have called deictic all along for reasons soon to be given. Not only at first but in the end also one cannot do more than assume such a concern in the sense of accepting it and responding to it. One can never procure or control it or build it up from small and uncontroversial pieces. Still, one should begin with little by way of clearing the ground first and of obliging the justifiable reservations that are likely to meet deictic discourse. If that procedure is helpful, it is also misleading in this sense. It may give the appea
rance of laying down necessary conditions that determine in advance and ever more closely what can finally count as a matter of ultimate significance and a pivot of reform. Such a procedure is also misleadingly abstract and may suggest that an ultimate concern has essentially ideal and intangible character.19 Still, this way of proceeding advances by small and familiar steps and is so more likely to reach its goal than one that takes a great leap as it were. The enumeration and elucidation of the features that belong to deictic discourse and its object should be understood then as the anticipation and recollection of real or concrete things that are their own warrant. On such an understanding it will be apparent also that the variety of features is just the unfolding of the one way in which we respond to a matter of final significance.
We can unfold it by attending to the discourse in which an ultimate concern becomes eloquent. Such discourse embodies a kind of attitude, and it has a certain force. The attitude will be one of enthusiasm, sympathy, and tolerance. To be enthusiastic, according to the original sense of the word, is to be filled with the divine. Something is of ultimate concern if it is divine in a catholic sense, if it is greater and more enduring than myself, a source of guidance and solace and of delight. It is from enthusiasm that one draws the courage of speaking to others in a way that finally matters. In this way, enthusiasm leads to sympathy, the concern for the integrity and final well-being of my fellow human beings. In sympathy I want to share the greatness that I have experienced; I want the others to respond as I have responded; and since divinity has addressed and filled me in the fullness and subtlety of my powers, sympathy does not desire allegiance simply but one that comes from the undiminished capacities of the other, i.e., one that confirms the other’s integrity. I will therefore reject or accept with reservations someone’s allegiance when it engages only some of that person’s faculties, and I will forestall an allegiance if its accomplishment would injure a person’s capacities. Thus sympathy leads to tolerance. Tolerance springs from the realization that, if violence is used to give deictic discourse compelling force, the method of addressing someone disables that person from grasping fully what I want to say. And my use of compulsion is itself oblivious to the character of the thing on whose behalf I want to speak.20
This explains the lack of cogency and control in deictic discourse which was pointed up above. However, deictic discourse is contestable not only because it makes such profound and hence defeasible requirements of its recipient but also because of the richness of its concern. The two sources of contestability are really one. An ultimate concern can so fully engage one’s capabilities only because it has so many dimensions. But if I find that a thing engages my powers entirely, I must know that it also may exceed them. Thus I can never possess a matter of ultimate concern; I may fall short of it or even be mistaken about it.21 Correspondingly I can expect another to speak more appropriately of my ultimate concern or to disclose to me one that is greater. Thus tolerance is the renouncement of violence, the acknowledgment of my fallibility, and the openness to others in matters of ultimate concern. It should be understood, however, that the experience and affirmation of my limitations do not normally take the form of a nagging doubt about the validity of what finally matters to me. They rather bespeak my certainty that the force that centers my life is a living and inexhaustible source of significance. Similarly, though tolerance renounces force in trying to obtain assent, it is not diffident or indifferent about its concern.
We can shed further light on the attitude that deictic discourse embodies by linking it to the concept of democracy. I believe that a revival of democracy requires the restoration of deictic discourse. The most apparent link between the two phenomena is of course tolerance. It signifies the commitment to liberty and equality that is characteristic of democracy. Tolerance, however, when defined as a feature of deictic discourse, points out more clearly in what regard people are equal and for what they are free. They are equals in that they are all capable of ultimate significance, and they must therefore be free to act on behalf of that significance and to withhold assent to another’s ultimate concern. Hence if assent to a common concern is to be secured, it must be in the cautious and respectful way that is unique to democratic procedures. The feasibility and enforceability of collective decisions will be discussed in Chapters 22 and 25. Here we must stress a crucial difference between tolerance as presently defined and the commitment to liberty and equality in the technologically specified liberal democracies. Whereas the latter implies that the question of the good life and of fellow feeling must and can be left open, the former springs from the experience of what is finally good in and for life and from the profoundest regard for one’s fellows, i.e., tolerance springs from enthusiasm and sympathy. One might reply on behalf of the technological democracies that both liberty and realism require a more radical tolerance, one that allows the other to be left alone entirely if that is desired. Enthusiastic and sympathetic tolerance might be subtly oppressive.22 And even if it is not, it could well, by dragging admittedly uncontrollable matters into the political debate, lead to debilitating stalemates in the public arena. The rejoinder to the first objection is clear from preceding arguments. Technological democracies have themselves been unable to provide the radical openness that the objector calls for. People today have no real opportunity to become ranchers, weavers, wheelwrights, poets, or musicians. It is increasingly difficult for them to be faithful to a place and to persons. And the technological society often does leave them alone, i.e., isolated or institutionalized, when that is anything but desired. The question of the good life, as said before, cannot be left open. What remains open is not whether but how we will answer it.
But can deictic discourse avoid confusion and chaos in trying to find an answer? Clearly, the answer will in part depend on what kind of force deictic discourse possesses. Since such discourse is centered around a matter of ultimate concern, we must, to understand the discourse, take that concern as given, and as given in the strong sense of concrete or tangible embodiment. Given that kind of presence, enthusiasm can be vital and tolerance resourceful. Discourse of ultimate concern can draw continued strength from something that is present visibly, forcefully, and in its own right, and it can address others by inviting them to see for themselves. Thus deictic discourse need not cajole, threaten, or overwhelm. The word “deictic” comes from Greek deiknýnai, which means to show, to point out, to bring to light, to set before one, and then also to explain and to teach. Speakers of deictic discourse never finally warrant the validity of what they tell but point away from themselves to what finally matters; they speak essentially as witnesses. Enthusiasm gives deictic discourse the force of testimony. Sympathy requires that one testify not simply by setting out in some way what matters but by reaching out to the peculiar condition in which one finds the listener, by inviting the listener to search his or her experiences and aspirations; and so one ensures that the listener is as fully engaged as possible by the concern to be conveyed. Sympathy gives deictic discourse the force of appeal.
The language of ultimate concern has a great variety of forms that can be ordered and considered from many points of view. The two regards that are helpful to our purpose are testimony and appeal. Accordingly, we can distinguish kinds of deictic discourse that are eminently testimonial or appellative. The former kind is poetical, the latter political. Poetry, at least in its traditional form, gathers, guards, and presents something of ultimate significance. How that is possible in words is the great question of poetics. Poetical speech, at any rate, is the purest kind of deictic discourse since it is the most adequate linguistic medium of ultimate significance. It is not always the most effective since it can be demanding of its listeners or require the calm and open setting that is rarely given. Political discourse, on the other hand, at least in its higher forms, forcefully reaches out to its listeners, takes account of their situation, and searches out the strongest existing bonds between the audience and the matter of concern. Thus it is m
ost likely to create conditions of collective assent and the basis of common action. But it does so by referring to the ultimate concern itself in general and common terms.
To appreciate the force of deictic discourse, finally, we must recall earlier remarks on scientific and paradigmatic explanation.23 Scientific explanation owes its cogency to the rigorous subsumption of a sharply defined event under precise and empirical laws. The force of such an explanation is manifest in the deductive form that it takes. Hence we have called such an explanation “apodeictic.” It is limited in scope because in general it cannot disclose to us how it gets underway, i.e., how its laws are discovered and how something emerges as worthy or in need of explanation. But it is just the well-defined scope of these explanations and their perspicuity that force assent and give them cogency. In a scientific explanation it is entirely clear what in general (the laws) and in particular (the conditions) is the case and how the general and particular (the explanans) issue in a definite outcome (the explanandum). I cannot withhold assent and must declare: Yes, this is so. But the assent that is exacted by scientific cogency is as narrow as the explanation. Normally it ties me into the world by so thin or shallow a bond that I am not moved to act. It is only when a scientific explanation comes to be located at the center of a more profound concern that it can serve as a trigger for action. “. . . Therefore the sulfuric compounds in the air are dissolving the stone of the cathedral.” Given such an explanation we will act to stop the burning of high sulfur fossil fuels in the vicinity of the cathedral. But this is not because it is scientifically self-evident that chemical reactions involving sulfur compounds must be stopped; we may find them desirable in the production of paper. It is so rather because the cathedral is a focus of a tradition that we value and want to guard. Hence we much rather accept the expense of switching to a different fuel than see the cathedral decay. The cathedral as a concrete thing in turn is inexhaustible to scientific explanation. Even one crocket is the intersection of countless causal chains as appears from the questions we can ask about it: How did the limestone come into being? How were tools able to shape it? What are the kinetics of a mallet blow? How does the metal of the chisel interact with the mineral structure of the stone? What makes the stone appear cream colored? And there are endlessly more questions, each of which can be unraveled into indefinitely many further questions.
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