Reith Lecture: Morality in Politics

One of the benefits of my flexible working arrangements is that I sometimes catch a radio programme I would otherwise miss. Sometimes it is Woman's Hour, and sometimes it is something interesting. This morning, it was the second of this year's Reith Lectures on Radio 4.

The Reith Lectures are an annual series of broadcast lectures, on a question of significant contemporary interest. The 2009 lectures are about "A New Citizenship". The lecturer, Professor Michael Sandel, has studied the idea of a "politics of the common good". This page on the Reith Lectures website gives an introduction to the lecturer.

A transcript of the first lecture can be downloaded from this page. I listened to this last week, but have not yet studied it in detail. I think it would be interesting to read this transcript along with my posts earlier this year about Professor Philip Booth's lecture at Westminster Cathedral: here and here. I think the question of "self-interest" and "selfishness" which Professor Booth addresses particularly in the second of these posts is also addressed by the Reith lecture.

A transcript of the second lecture can be downloaded from this page. This is a very interesting lecture, arguing as it does for a proper place for a moral and religious discourse in the political sphere. Professor Sandel argues against the idea of a moral space in the political sphere that is "neutral".

Many people shudder at the prospect. “Isn’t it dangerous?”, they ask, “to bring morality and religion into politics? Isn’t it safer for a government to try to be neutral and avoid taking sides on the moral and religious convictions its citizens espouse?” I say no, not necessarily, for two reasons. First, it’s often not possible for government to be neutral on substantive moral questions; and, second, the attempt to do so can make for an impoverished public discourse.

I hope that, with the following quotation, I am successfully extracting the essence of Professor Sandel's argument, whilst abstracting from his exemplification:

So this idea that there are certain proper ends or purposes to social practices, this idea suggests that to determine the right way of valuing things, we have to figure out the purpose, the end of the social practice in question. And this idea is an idea that goes all the way back to Aristotle. ....

Most people would agree that flutes are for the sake of producing music. What happens if people disagree about the purpose of the activity in question? Is it possible to reason about the purpose of social practices in the face of disagreement? Aristotle believes that it is, and I think he’s right.

The advocacy of reason here is a theme that is reminiscent of Pope Benedict XVI, speaking for example, in the context of the university (cf the La Sapienza controversy). Professor Sandel continues:

.... debates about rights are often unavoidably debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honour and reward.

And this is, of course, something to which equalities advocates wish to remain, at a best interpretation, indifferent and at a worst interpretation, hostile. Professor Sandel follows this argument through in a detailed discussion of the question of legal recognition of same-sex relations. Well worth reading in the transcript of the lecture.

Another interesting point made at the very end of the lecture is an argument for a more robust recognition of difference or disagreement in society.

But if, as I’ve argued, it’s not possible for government to be neutral on these disagreements, is it nonetheless possible to conduct our politics on the basis of mutual respect? The answer, I think, is yes. In recent decades, we’ve come to assume that respecting our fellow citizens’ moral and religious convictions means ignoring them, leaving them undisturbed, conducting our public life in so far as possible without reference to them. But this stance of avoidance makes for a spurious respect. Often it means suppressing moral disagreement rather than actually avoiding it. This in turn provokes backlash and resentment, as we see in the rise of religious fundamentalism. A more robust public engagement with our moral disagreements could provide a stronger, not a weaker basis for mutual respect. What would that look like? Well rather than avoid the moral and religious convictions of our fellow citizens, we should attend to them more directly - sometimes by challenging and contesting them, sometimes by listening and learning from them. It is always possible that learning more about a moral or religious doctrine will lead us to like it less, but we cannot know until we try. A politics of moral engagement is not only a more inspiring ideal than a politics of avoidance. If it’s true, as I’ve tried to argue, that our debates about justice are often inescapably arguments about the good life, then a politics of moral engagement is also a more promising basis for a just society. Thank you very much.

In the discussion after the lecture, a question was asked by one Dr Evan Harris MP, who represents a constituency near the Oxford venue of this second lecture.

HARRIS: Thank you. I do a lot of public policy on abortion and gay rights and assisted dying and embryos, and it seems to me that it’s not the morality that’s missing on either side. I come from the non-religious side and I would say that I bring morality - the principle of non-discrimination, the principle of not harming someone unless there’s evidence that your policy creates harm. Obviously the religious side bring their morality. But one side, I think, tends to bring evidence and an acceptance that their position might change with evidence; whereas another side, the religious side, is much less likely to accept and consider evidence and bring that to the table because their moral position is relatively absolute. And so shouldn’t we be arguing that we should bring evidence into the moral arguments, where appropriate, not bring morality in when it’s already there on both sides?

MICHAEL SANDEL: I agree with what may be the impulse behind your worry, which is that if people simply assert dogmas rather than offer reasons and listen to the reasons given by their interlocutors in public debate, that’s not a very valuable contribution. Where I think you and I may disagree is on this. I don’t think that those who enter into public discourse and advance moral arguments that may be informed by faith traditions, I don’t think they have a monopoly on dogmatic assertions. I think there are dogmatic secularists, just as there are dogmatic religious fundamentalists.

Professor Sandel might have answered more strongly on the grounds of reason providing the common ground for a contribution of a religious believer just as much as the contribution of the secularist. But, on air, his answer came over ever so wonderfully ...