What magic is there in the pronoun ‘my’?
I propose a new normative analysis of the pronoun ‘my’. We currently think of ‘my’ as marking an ownership claim to an external object or resource. Designed to solve contingent sources of conflict, the idea of ownership and property rights remains resolutely problematic: no argument for basic property rights stands up to close scrutiny. I suggest that this is because many have mistakenly accorded property rights a fundamental status, when they are in fact merely instrumental or derivative rights.

 

Given the difficulties presented by the concept of ownership and property rights, how do we go about recognising the special normative relationship we can come to have with certain external objects? I propose replacing an absolutist concept of ownership with the more flexible and appropriate concept of stewardship. I shall show how a well-developed concept of stewardship can do all the normative work we have tried (and failed) to do with ownership, and that the concept of stewardship offers promising ways of meeting concerns about global distributive justice and environmental ethics.

[I got the idea for the title from William Godwin, who was famously sceptical about the 'my' pronoun where it marked the value of close interpersonal relationships. My project is less controversial: I'm only talking about property rights.]

This blog post grew out of a discussion on Facebook where a Friend challenged me, questioning what I meant by being a Christian Quaker. In the discussion which followed, a Friend proposed a dilemma for Christian Quakers: it looks like being a Christian and a Quaker either involves a diluted, trivial sense of ‘Christian’, or committing oneself to a demanding package of beliefs which could well be incompatible with contemporary liberal Quakerism. I suggest that this dichotomy is false. One can be a Christian in a substantial sense, while being at home within contemporary liberal Quakerism.

But before I get too far down the road, I want to make an important caveat about statements of faith and doctrine: they’re not the main issue. What is important is a transformative, living experience of God in one’s life. Here I agree with a recent blog post from Nate Macy:

‘I don’t remember the early church having statement of faith background checks before they let people do ministry. The qualification seemed to be, “is the Spirit at work in your life?’

This Friend speaks my mind!

So we should focus on our experience of the Spirit, not the complexities of doctrine and theology. But in writing this post, I do feel led to be fairly specific about my beliefs and experience, in the hope that this might clarify where I am coming from, and respond to the false dichotomy I mentioned in my introduction. I prefer ‘experience’ to ‘belief’, since my spiritual journey has been much more about experiencing God and the Inward Christ in my heart, rather than an intellectual process of assenting to propositions. This seems an odd position for an analytic philosopher to be in. I have tried to make sense of it on this blog before.

So, first of all, what is my experience of God and Christ? I blogged about this several years ago. So I won’t rewrite that piece in its entirety. In summary, my primary experience of God is through a real, present, inward Christ. I experience this saving grace in my life and am thankful for it. Christ is the most meaningful aspect of God for me, because he became human, suffered and died for us. Experiencing God through Christ helps me understand that God is loving, tender and graceful. I don’t feel that it is important to get into a complex debate about trinitarianism vs. unitarianism. For me, the key point is that the Spirit of Christ is real, present, and is available to all of us. By attending to the Spirit of Christ we can access grace, insight and strength which takes us beyond our human capacity. Also, we don’t need to have read or heard the Bible story to access this Spirit of Christ.

Where does my experience and understanding of God and Christ come from? Is God only in the Bible? In my experience, inward, immediate revelation comes directly from the Spirit. The Bible is useful, but is not the primary source. In this I follow Robert Barclay. He points out that:

• The Bible itself doesn’t claim to be the primary source
• The Bible is a divinely-inspired human endeavour, so not perfect
• The Bible was inspired by the Spirit, which we can also access directly

So there is no need to place the Bible above the Spirit as a source of guidance from God. ‘The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life’ (2 Corinthians 3). Drawing on Barclay again, I agree with his distinction between ‘mystery’ and ‘history’. Barclay says we are moved primarily by the mystery of the Spirit; the history as told in the Bible is important but secondary. If we profess the history but have no experience of the mystery, Barclay says, we are not Christians.

What do I understand by sin and redemption? I see sin as doing things which make us distance ourselves from God. Lots of human activity, trivial and serious, can block us from experiencing God. So sometimes we have to work hard to stay on the right track. But this isn’t our work alone: we rely on the grace of Christ to help us find the right path. So it’s bad news and good news. The bad news is that our human experience and capacity is insufficient to follow God’s path – we can, and do, get it wrong. The good news is that help is at hand. The especially good news is that this help is unconditional and universal. Wherever we are at, Christ is ready to meet us.

Like all Quakers, I believe we are all ministers: we don’t need a separate priesthood to access the Spirit. Also, we are all capable of speaking God’s truth to one another. I agree with the quote from Nate above, that the key question for ministers is: ‘is the Spirit at work in your life?’ I have experienced powerful ministry from Friends who have prayerfully prepared, searched their hearts and ministered from the Bible. I have experienced equally powerful ministry which simply consisted of an act of kindness, or words or reflections which had no obvious connection to the Bible. I was once led to give ministry in a meeting which drew largely on a comedy sketch by the Two Ronnies. Unsurprisingly, I believe that worship can take many forms and doesn’t have to happen in a special place. The important thing is accessing the Spirit which is the root of our experience of God.

Prayer is an important part of my life. It can be silent waiting prayer in Quaker meeting. It can be a time alone to share what is on my heart with God. I think of prayer as a way to realign myself with God and the universe. We often end up praying when we feel hurt, frustrated or afraid. I sometimes pray about quite specific things, but I don’t find that prayer magically ‘fixes’ everything. Instead, the act of praying reminds me that the Spirit of Christ is there, ready to give me peace, strength and reassurance. So I find that prayer transforms me, rather than the world outside me.

Though this post is long, I have not covered every point of ‘traditional’ Christian doctrine. But the briefest glance at Quaker experience and theology from the beginning will show why experience of the living inward Christ is the main thing, not fine points of doctrine.

A final question remains: how do my beliefs and experiences square with being part of a liberal Quaker community? I think this depends on what you mean by ‘liberal’. Here are three possible interpretations:

1. ‘Liberal’ means being ready to be moved by ministry from anyone, regardless of language or experience
2. ‘Liberal’ means censoring your language, and avoiding sharing anything which might challenge or change anyone
3. ‘Liberal’ means to reject Christianity as unQuakerly

I’m fully signed up for the first definition of ‘liberal’, and I think it’s easy to see that this definition is unthreatened by Quaker Christianity. Clearly, the third definition of ‘liberal’ is false! The second definition is bad, too. In my view, a faith community where people hold back from sharing what the Spirit has given them is a dead community. So I believe that being a Christian is perfectly compatible with the important sense of liberal Quakerism.

A fair bit of what I have written draws on Barclay’s Theses Theologicae and his Apology for the True Christian Divinity. If you’re not familiar with these texts, they are a classic statement of Quaker beliefs, and definitely worth a read. A quick note: I also agree with Barclay that outward sacraments (baptism, communion) are not a necessary part of the Christian experience.

I was at the Sixth World Conference. So what did I experience? What made it special for me? This was not my first international Quaker conference, nor my first Quaker event in Kenya. However, I found the Sixth World Conference was special and profound: I believe it will have a lasting effect on my spiritual life. And not just because of its size!

Powerful messages

We began each day with worship on the theme. Much of this worship was ‘programmed’, in that it was prepared in advance. This is slightly different from unprogrammed Quaker worship as practised in my home meeting, but it is common enough at larger Quaker events. I was really grateful for the care and faithful work which speakers had given to their message: almost all of the 7 or 8 speakers gave me food for thought.

There are a few points which really stood out for me. First, many speakers reminded us of the need to stay ‘salty’ – to preserve our God-given flavour even when this might be uncomfortable or challenging. I think this is a special challenge for liberal and unprogrammed Quakers. We are rightly concerned to foster an open atmosphere, so we can include a diverse community. But we should not lose our distinctive flavours as we do this: a bland faith community is of little use.

Noah Baker-Merril shared a powerful message with an existential theme. I was really struck by his retelling of the story of Anne Wilson, an early Friend who challenged young Samuel Bownas:

…she with a great zeal pointed her finger at me uttering these words with much power, viz: ‘A traditional Quaker; thou comest to meeting as thou went from it, and goes from it as thou came to it but art no better for thy coming; what wilt thou do in the end?’

[Quaker faith & practice, 19.60]

I was really struck by this reminder that Quaker worship is supposed to be transformative. How ready am I to be transformed?

Jocelyn Burnell spoke about community and brokenness. She encouraged us to be honest about pain and difficulty we’d experienced in our lives. Jocelyn pointed out that often there is no ‘quick fix’ for brokenness – sometimes we just have to live with it for a while. She also reminded us that we can be called to ministry, even when we feel ‘broken’. And that a community doesn’t need to be perfect to be prophetic. I found this very thought-provoking. Often within the Quaker tradition, we can expend a lot of energy ‘putting our house in order’. Perhaps feeling that we need a little more time to perfect ourselves before we are ready to go out and answer God’s call. And yet it is clear that we can minister and be faithful to God’s call just as we are. Indeed, ministry from a ‘broken’ (or imperfect) place can be more authentic, more real, than supposedly ‘perfect’ ministry.

Transforming each other

But the conference wasn’t just about wise words spoken in a plenary session. We also spent time in small home groups. This was where I felt we put some of the wise words into practice. We were very honest with one another, sharing deeply from our spiritual experience. We didn’t hold back out of fear of causing offence, but we were respectful and listened carefully. I was really struck by this powerful mix of honesty and openness. It felt like God was using us to teach one another. I was also impressed at how gathered our times of worship felt. Often at conferences where diverse forms of Quaker worship are practised, we can get ‘trapped in the form’. By this I mean that we are so struck by the novelty or unfamiliarity of a different form of worship, that we find it hard to experience God through it. At Kabarak, I could see Friends experiencing God through many different practices.

Another time where I felt God was using us to teach each other was during a series of Young Friends meetings. We met several times late in the evening, as the main programme was full. We were asked if we would like to share a message with the main conference. So we spent a session in open worship, with people sharing as the spirit led from the body of the meeting. Two Friends were clerking, trying to come up with something which faithfully conveyed our experience to the wider conference. It became clear that we didn’t want to settle for a bland ‘minute of record’ – a bare statement explaining that we met and what we did together. So we tried for something more like an epistle, something which shared the content of our experience. Sadly, though we got close, we did not find unity on a shared message to the wider conference, even though we met for a second late-night session. Perhaps we tried to do too much in too little time? Perhaps we lacked a shared understanding of what we were trying to do? There certainly wasn’t a specific ‘issue’ which blocked us from agreement. However, I know that when we realised we were not going to find unity in a shared message, that felt painful. We felt like we had failed somehow. I felt bruised and humbled, since I had encouraged Young Friends to come together and try a minute. But after some prayer and reflection, I came to realise that our time together had not been fruitless. We might not have agreed a formal message, but God had used us to teach one another. Out of a place of worship, we had written an epistle on our hearts. So perhaps a living example of how ministry can come from brokenness.

There were many other powerful experiences at Kabarak. Just living in such a large, cross-cultural community for over a week was transformative in itself. I felt blessed to see old friends again (especially my roommate Ben, who I hadn’t seen since 2005), and to meet many new friends for the first time.

Overall, I think some of the key messages from the Sixth World Conference were:

• An emphasis on listening to God
• Being ready to be transformed
• Being ready to speak to one another’s condition
• Also, being honest about where Quakers worldwide are at: we have some divisions, some brokenness.
• Accepting that brokenness as a gift and not an obstacle

How might I change?

I come away from the conference with several challenges. I should be more ready to be transformed by what I experience in meeting. I want to challenge liberal Quakers to preserve their flavour and avoid blandness. I am reminded that sometimes, when parts of our lives or the world around us feel ‘broken’, we should resist the temptation to find a human fix. Sometimes our calling is to persevere as we are, to grow from that imperfect place.

How might Quakers change?

I feel that our home group was a metaphor for the whole conference. In our time together, we had a space of real honesty, learning from and teaching each other. We were hearing one another, and were ready to be changed by one another. I feel that this experience was shared across the wider conference, too. My prayer is that in the wider Quaker community, God can use us to teach and transform each other, and be taught and transformed by one another.

Now, I think weather warnings are probably a good thing. I ended up listening to local radio during the January storm to hear what was happening. Not so much, as it happened – mostly property damage and lost power, since people were sensibly staying indoors. I gather an aircraft at Edinburgh airport was damaged by a flying bus shelter. (Fear not: an investigation was launched!)

The radio show had the Scottish transport minister on the line. With not much else to do, they hauled him over the coals because he had not made it to his ‘Resilience Room’ before the winds hit. I don’t often sympathise with politicians, but this line of attack struck me as bizarre. It seems risible that ministers should scramble to bunker-like command centres when a weather warning appears, and that if they do not, they are somehow letting us down. We all know what happened in King Canute’s command centre.

Suppose a minister makes it to their ‘Resilience Room’ in good time, what are they to do? The weather, being a natural phenomenon known for its capriciousness, is unlikely to yield to ministerial pressure. And those trained to respond to weather emergencies (power company employees, firefighters etc) are known for their ability to get on with the job without having politicians breathing down their necks. And yet the questioning went on and on.

So I wondered, what would happen if the weather did obey politicians?

Well, you can imagine the vote-getting ploys. ‘Vote Labour, and we’ll ensure that it only rains at night and never at weekends.’ Our current worries about global warming would pale into insignificance as politicians tried to out-sunshine each other. With the ability to wield weather systems at will, it would be a slow-witted politician who didn’t contemplate taxing sunshine.

So in listening to the sub-Paxmanesque interrogation of the minister, I felt glad that some things stay outside the remit of politicians. Sometimes, I think that the media view the government as some kind of ‘primum movens’ – the ultimate cause of everything. I’ll tell you this, if we expected such powers from the government, our tax bills would be astronomical (in fact they’d be cosmological). But I suppose you can’t get a hurricane into a radio studio, without causing a lot of mess.

1. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger: Retaining Moral Responsibility Without Free Will’

In holding someone morally responsible, and blaming them, it seems we have two linked thoughts. Firstly, we feel that something regrettable or bad has happened. Secondly, we assign responsibility for that event to a particular agent – a wrongdoer who has done wrong. As Smart puts it, blame involves “a grading plus an ascription of responsibility” (Smart, 2003, p70). And in Smart’s view, such non-judgemental ‘grading’ is justifiable, even when we have the belief that our actions are not fully under our own control. I will return to Smart’s point on grading later in this essay. In a recent paper, David Shoemaker has argued that any effective theory of moral responsibility must “incorporate and explain three distinct conceptions of responsibility – attributability, answerability, and accountability.” (Shoemaker, 2011). I will not go into the detail of Shoemaker’s distinction. Suffice to say that my account accommodates the strongest reading of Shoemaker’s definition of moral responsibility (i.e. all three conditions), even when agents are fully determined.

Click here for the full essay [PDF]

2. Can one be a good citizen and conscientiously object?

In this paper, I will define ‘good citizen’ as someone who follows the laws and promotes the interests of their state. And the particular type of conscientious objection I will focus on is selective refusal to serve in the military. This kind of conscientious objection is more in tension with citizenship than other forms of conscientious objection (eg refusal by doctors to perform certain medical procedures), since military service is often seen as a key to the protection of the state, and is an obligation which could be performed by most able-bodied citizens, if the circumstances demand it.

Click here for the full essay [PDF]

3. Does the Lockean Proviso undermine Nozick’s account of distributive justice?

Nozick’s account of distributive justice depends on some interpretation of the Lockean proviso concerning initial acquisition. Therefore, in this paper, I will examine exactly which interpretation of the Lockean proviso is compatible with Nozick’s overall account, and whether an interpretation can be found which satisfies the conditions of justice (note that ‘justice’ is a matter of controversy between egalitarians and libertarians).

Click here for the full essay [PDF]

So what do I read when I’ve packed the philosophy away for a while? Even after being discombobulated by some hardcore philosophy, I can always enjoy Tintin and PG Wodehouse. Both of these are pure escapism for me. So perhaps I’d better get back to some PG Wodehouse before I get stuck into the next round of philosophy.

I usually find that I cram in some extra light reading during the holidays, though the definition of light reading can be stretched a bit – one Christmas I read War & Peace while staying at my Grandmother’s. And this year I’ve been reading Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, along with Debt: the First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. These latter two are very interesting, but they fall into a dangerous third category. Not directly applicable to my philosophical interests, and not quite ‘light reading’, either. I’m finding the Graeber book fascinating, but of course it is non-fiction…

I wonder what other philosophers read when recovering from the density they encounter in philosophical writing?

Therefore,
A candle is brighter than the sun.

Spot the problem here? ‘nothing’ in the first premise means nothing in the sense of absence of light. In the second premise, ‘nothing’ means ‘no thing’, ie, there is no thing brighter than the sun. In this case, the absurdity of the conclusion sets alarm bells ringing. But equivocation happens all the time, and can often be harder to detect.

I heard a good example on Radio 4 last week.

The Today Programme was reporting on research which suggested that obesity could reach crisis levels within a few decades. In the spirit of ‘something must be done’ the programme was canvassing experts as to how to combat obesity — better advice, labelling, perhaps even controls on fatty foods?

At this point, a spokesperson for food manufacturers was brought in to fight their corner. As you might imagine, he was sceptical of restrictions on foods.

The presenter asked Jones ‘why not bring in a tax on fatty processed foods? That might change people’s behaviour.’

The spokesperson’s response was robust — ‘All the evidence suggests that levying a tax on foods does nothing to change people’s behaviour.’

This was quite a strong claim, and the presenter picked up on it. ‘Can you tell us more about this evidence?’

The spokesperson responded — ‘Ahem, I’ve not seen any evidence that shows that tax on food leads to a change in behaviour’.

I laughed out loud at such a blatant equivocation. But the presenter moved on without challenging the spokesperson.

Can you see the problem with changing from ‘all the evidence suggests this is a bad idea…’ to ‘I’ve not seen any evidence which suggest this is a good idea…’? There is a not-so-subtle shift from assurance (‘all the evidence’) to ignorance (‘I’ve not seen any evidence’). Perhaps this is such a frequent move for those on the spot in the media that it would be tedious to challenge it.

Watch out for equivocation folks. It will, as Hume might put it ‘involve you in absurdities’.

PS – in equivocating to his ‘I’ve seen no evidence’ claim, our spokesperson commits a further fallacy, that of ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’. This involves equating lack of evidence with a decisive proof against a claim. Not the same thing!

Check out some of our latest photos on Flickr. We spent just under two weeks in the Hebrides, taking in Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris, Lewis and Skye. Lots of breathtaking views and stormy squalls!

Note: updates on our Bongo travels are on our blog over at <a href=”http://fitzgeraldfreewheel.wordpress.com></a>

First, some background. I’m at a Quaker conference in Switzerland. I’ve been uplifted by meeting lots of Quakers, and generally reminded of why I value my Quaker faith so much. This got me thinking about how I have drifted in my Quaker faith a bit. Not in the sense of losing certain beliefs – this is not really a Quaker difficulty – but I have not been to Quaker meeting much, and my spiritual life has become a bit stagnant. So I went on a solitary walk up a hill to think and pray about it. I ended up praying a bit about my fears about faith and philosophy, and my sadness at abandoning my Quaker life to some extent. I ended up thinking something along the lines of: God, help me see how to flourish as a Quaker and a philosopher without compromising either path. I felt better for having opened my heart in this way, and felt OK with the fact that an answer might take some time to arrive.

Later yesterday evening, I bumped into a Quaker from France who is a philosopher of religion, just finishing a book on belief and atheism, though not an atheist himself. It felt a bit like bumping into a God-given signpost which said: does that answer your question?!

So now a bit more on my thinking and recent clearness on how to be a philosopher and a Quaker.

The simplistic view which worried me in the past is that analytic philosophy, with its fondness for logic, tends to brush aside unknowable truths, and works to reduce the world to small-scale certainties. This would seem to leave little room for faith. I am learning that this simplistic view is false.

For me, being a Quaker is about being part of a community which is committed to seeking truth and and acting faithfully. At out best, Quakers are keenly and constantly listening for new insights from the Spirit. Our individual spiritual paths can make for a confusing mosaic of beliefs. But one thing we do agree on is that no single person can have all the answers.

We aspire to be humble in our claims to truth – not to the point of crippling doubt or silence, but because the truths we seek are so profound and far-reaching, Quakers are rightly suspicious of neatly packaged answers. We are content for our faith picture to remain incomplete, and don’t expect to stop learning from God. Evolving insights and changes of view do not shake our faith. Instead, such updates encourage us to keep listening for and testing new insights as we find them. Our conversation with God continues. By listening carefully to each other, and being open about what we have found, we keep this conversation alive and grow together.

What of philosophy?

Notoriously, in the popular mind, philosophy asks daft questions and offers baffling answers. Or, perhaps, it demands narrowly defined logical proof, thus excluding many important parts of human experience – meaning, morality and faith to name a few. Having read a lot of philosophy, I can see where this pessimistic view comes from. I disagree with this view, however.

Philosophy doesn’t shrink from asking the big questions, and why should it? Our human nature drives us to look for meaning, purpose, and insights into the biggest questions. I see no problem with a discipline dedicated to grappling with these questions. All of what we now call science has grown out of philosophical impulses. It’s true that some philosophical ‘answers’ can be complex and unsatisfactory. But they are arrived at in good faith (most of the time) from a commitment to truth and consistency.

At our best, philosophers are a community of truth-seekers working together, listening to each other in our efforts to increase human wisdom and happiness. A good philosopher makes a cautious claim to knowledge, aware that some of our most famous philosophical arguments are later found to be false or confused. But we also know that even the humblest good-faith attempt to examine a meaningful question is time well spent. Neatly packaged ‘final’ knowledge and watertight proof may be elusive, but the basic process of questioning and arguing can give us understanding and wisdom. This happens as we make our questions more precise, and dismiss commonly-held bad answers. So good work is done even when answers are not final.

So what are the parallels? Are my faith and my passion for philosophy compatible?

I am increasingly confident that they are complementary. Perhaps not in the content of the beliefs I derive from them, but certainly in form. Both aim at enlightenment. Both are wide in scope and accommodate diverse attempts to answer the biggest questions. But both are careful in sifting – some questions are not meaningful for Quakers, just as some questions have little value for philosophers.

Both Quakers and philosophers are cautious about answers, too – we don’t try to claim too much. And we are always mindful that later insights will expose gaps in our current picture. I guess that will happen with this blog post!

(in writing this post, I realised that it was very short on examples of Quaker-philosophical questions and answers. Here are a few:
- how are we to live?
- what models can we draw on, and why are they helpful?
- what makes our humanity valuable?
- how can we make society better?
- where can we find meaning in the world?
- what are the most reliable ways of seeking the truth?
- how can we share and test our truths together in a loving way?

Some answers
- be a pattern, an example
- love each other
- all of humanity is precious
- simple moral judgements are often wrong
- questioning is good

Before causing too much confusion myself, I ought to explain exactly why I feel being confused can be a good thing.

Aporia is an important experience to have now and then, because it means you end up considering things from a new angle, perhaps seeing a new way around a previously insurmountable paradox. If you haven’t felt the pull or puzzlement of a paradox, you won’t be inspired down a new path.That is, provided you get beyond the confusion eventually.

One way to make sure you get past confusion and onto wisdom is by allowing yourself to get confused in the first place. So often these days we hear the injunction ‘just Google it’, where typing a search query is preferred to asking someone, or, heaven forbid, trying to work it out yourself.

In my BA studies, I found that the ‘instant answer’ nature of online resources has crept into academic work, too. With JSTOR and other resources, I could chase up a reference without stepping away from my desk. An impressive development, but not without its dangers. Unless you are careful, you can fall into the trap of piling up unread secondary literature without adequately reflecting on the main piece you set out to read in the first place.

Another pitfall I encounter when studying is the temptation to begin writing too soon. Getting words on the page feels helpful, but it can be a mistake to pull the plug on your ἀπορία bath too soon, before you really have a grip on the problem. Stay confused a bit longer – you might learn something.