مایکل سندل[۱]Michael J. Sandel درسِ «عدالت»[۲]Justice را با دادن هشداری مهم به مخاطبانش آغاز می‌کند. درست است که این هشدار دربارهٔ خواندنِ فلسفهٔ اخلاق و فلسفهٔ سیاسی است، اما به نظر من گسترهٔ وسیع‌تری را در بر می‌گیرد[۳]Sandel, Michael J. 2009. “Justice (Lecture Series for an Introductory Course).” Course, Harvard University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY. و به مخاطرهٔ درونی هر نوع «دانستنِ اندیشیده» اشاره می‌کند.[آ]این بخش از سخنان سندل را من از ویدئوی سخنرانی تایپ کرده‌ام (با کمی تلخیص ولی بدون ویرایش و نقطه‌گذاری کامل و نهایی) که می‌توانید در این‌جا بخوانید: Here I have to issue a warning. And the warning is this. To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, to read them in this way carries certain risks, risks that are both personal and political, risks that every student of political philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know. There’s an irony. The difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and make it strange. That’s how those examples work [referring to the fat man moral dillema], the hypotheticals with which we began with their mix of playfulness and sobriety. It’s also how these philosophical books work. Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing. But, and here is the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it’s never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence. However unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also riveting, is that moral and political philosophy is a story, and you don’t know where this story will lead, but what you do know is that the story is about you. Those are the personal risks. Now what about the political risks. One way of introducing a course like this would be to promise you that by reading these books and debating these issues you will become a better, more responsible citizen. You will examine the presuppositions of public policy, you will hone your political judgement, you’ll become a more effective participant in public affairs. But this would be a partial and misleading promise. Political philosophy for the most part hasn’t worked that way. You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen rather than a better one or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one. And that’s because philosophy is a distancing even debilitating activity… [here MS recites a few lines from a dialogue, the Gorgias, a conversation between Calicles and Socrates in which Calicles tries to talk Socrates out of philosophizing, and ask him to get real] … Philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions, and from settled beliefs. Those are the risks, personal and political. And in the face of these risks there is a characteristic evasion. The name of the evasion is skepticism. It’s the idea, well it goes something like this, we didn’t resolve, once and for all, either the cases or the principles we were arguing when we began, and if Aristotle, and Locke and Kand and Mill haven’t solved these questions after all those years, who are we to think that we hear in Sanders Theatre over a course of a semester can resolve them. And so maybe it’s just a matter of each person having his or her own principles and there’s nothing more to be said about it, no way of reasoning. That’s the evasion. The evasion of skepticism. To which I will offer the following reply: It’s true. These questions have been debated for a very long time, but the very fact that they have re-occurred and persisted may suggest that though they are impossible in one sense, they’re unavoidable in another. And the reason they are unavoidable, the reasons they are inescapable is that we live some answer to these questions every day. So skepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection, is no solution.
سندل می‌گوید این درست که خواندن کتاب‌ها و مطالب ارائه شده در این درس باعث افزایش معرفتِ فردی شما می‌شود، اما این معرفت با مخاطراتی فردی و سیاسی همراه است. ریشهٔ این مخاطرات در ذاتِ فلسفه است که از طریق مواجه ساختن ما با آن‌چه از پیش می‌دانیم به ما می‌آموزد، ولی در عین حال ما را آشفته می‌سازد. فلسفه دانسته‌هایی که بی‌قیدوشرط و در شرایط آشنا پذیرفته‌ایم را از ما می‌گیرد و آن‌ها را با ما بیگانه می‌کند. این بیگانه‌سازیِ امرِ آشنا، از طریقِ ارائهٔ اطلاعات جدید صورت نمی‌گیرد بلکه محصولِ فراخواندن و برانگیختن ما به دیگرگونه نگریستن است. اما امرِ آشنا پس از این‌که از طریق فلسفه‌ورزی به امرِ بیگانه بدل شد، دیگر هرگز مثل قبل نخواهد بود. آگاهی فردی همچون معصومیت از دست رفته است: تا نمی‌دانی بیگناهی و چون بدانی دیگر هرگز بیگناه نخواهی بود. معرفت، هر چقدر هم که اضطراب‌آفرین و نامطلوب باشد، قادر به پاک شدن نیست. امرِ دانسته هرگز نادانسته نمی‌شود؛ همان‌طور که امرِ اندیشیده را نمی‌توان نااندیشید. آن‌چه خواندنِ فلسفه را دشوار و جذاب می‌سازد این است که فلسفه داستانی است که نمی‌دانید به کجا می‌انجامد، اما می‌دانید دربارهٔ خودِ شماست. خطر فردی در این‌جا نهفته است.
سندل در ادامه از خطرِ سیاسیِ خواندن فلسفه می‌گوید:
«در معرفی این درس من می‌توانستم به شما قول دهم که خواندن این کتاب‌ها و مشارکت در این مباحثات شما را به شهروند بهتر و مسئول‌تری بدل خواهد کرد. می‌توانستم به شما بگویم که مطالعهٔ پیش‌فرض‌های اصلی سیاست‌گذاری عمومی باعث خواهد شد که درک و بینش و شعور سیاسیِ شما نیز افزایش یابد و شما خواهید توانست به شکل مسئولانه و موثری در امورات جامعه مشارکت کنید. اما این وعده‌ای جانبدارانه و فریب‌کارانه می‌بود. شما باید این احتمال را در نظر بگیرید که خواندن فلسفهٔ سیاسی، شاید، شما را به شهروند بدتر—و نه بهتری—تبدیل کند. دستِ کم باید انتظارش را داشته باشید که این معرفتِ جدید مدتی شما را شهروندِ بدتری کند، پیش از آن‌که به شهروندِ بهتری بدل گردید.»
آیا راهی برای پرهیز از این مخاطرات وجود دارد؟ شاید به جای رویارویی با پرسش‌های کلیدی فلسفه بتوان به شکاکیت[۴]skepticism پناه برد و وانمود کرد اصولاً مسأله‌ای برای حل کردن وجود ندارد. اگر هیچ‌کس تاکنون نتوانسته پاسخی نهایی و قطعی برای پرسش‌های اصلی سیاست و اخلاق بیابد، ما نیز نخواهیم توانست. اصلاً فرض کنیم هر کسی اصول و عقاید خودش را دارد و جایی برای بحث کردن نیست. پاسخ سندل به این شکاکیون این است که درست که این مسائل قرن‌هاست که مورد بحث هستند، ولی سرسختی و ماندگاری‌شان به ما می‌گوید که آن ها اگر چه دشوار—و چه بسا لاینحل—هستند، اما در عین حال غیرقابل اجتنابند. از آن‌ها هیچ گریزی نیست، چون ما—چه بخواهیم و چه نخواهیم—هر روز پاسخی برای آن‌ها می‌یابیم و آن پاسخ را زندگی می‌کنیم. بنابراین، شکاکیت و ترک مخاطره نیز راه حل نیست.
Michael J. Sandel ↩
Justice ↩
Sandel, Michael J. 2009. “Justice (Lecture Series for an Introductory Course).” Course, Harvard University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY. ↩
skepticism ↩
آ) این بخش از سخنان سندل را من از ویدئوی سخنرانی تایپ کرده‌ام (با کمی تلخیص ولی بدون ویرایش و نقطه‌گذاری کامل و نهایی) که می‌توانید در این‌جا بخوانید:
Here I have to issue a warning. And the warning is this. To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, to read them in this way carries certain risks, risks that are both personal and political, risks that every student of political philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know. There’s an irony. The difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and make it strange. That’s how those examples work [referring to the fat man moral dillema], the hypotheticals with which we began with their mix of playfulness and sobriety. It’s also how these philosophical books work. Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing. But, and here is the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it’s never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence. However unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also riveting, is that moral and political philosophy is a story, and you don’t know where this story will lead, but what you do know is that the story is about you. Those are the personal risks. Now what about the political risks. One way of introducing a course like this would be to promise you that by reading these books and debating these issues you will become a better, more responsible citizen. You will examine the presuppositions of public policy, you will hone your political judgement, you’ll become a more effective participant in public affairs. But this would be a partial and misleading promise. Political philosophy for the most part hasn’t worked that way. You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen rather than a better one or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one. And that’s because philosophy is a distancing even debilitating activity… [here MS recites a few lines from a dialogue, the Gorgias, a conversation between Calicles and Socrates in which Calicles tries to talk Socrates out of philosophizing, and ask him to get real] … Philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions, and from settled beliefs. Those are the risks, personal and political. And in the face of these risks there is a characteristic evasion. The name of the evasion is skepticism. It’s the idea, well it goes something like this, we didn’t resolve, once and for all, either the cases or the principles we were arguing when we began, and if Aristotle, and Locke and Kand and Mill haven’t solved these questions after all those years, who are we to think that we hear in Sanders Theatre over a course of a semester can resolve them. And so maybe it’s just a matter of each person having his or her own principles and there’s nothing more to be said about it, no way of reasoning. That’s the evasion. The evasion of skepticism. To which I will offer the following reply: It’s true. These questions have been debated for a very long time, but the very fact that they have re-occurred and persisted may suggest that though they are impossible in one sense, they’re unavoidable in another. And the reason they are unavoidable, the reasons they are inescapable is that we live some answer to these questions every day. So skepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection, is no solution. ↩