Intentions vs functions: when a desire not to offend is insufficient and largely irrelevant

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Intentions matter for personal ethics, less so for social ethics. When we're considering a particular belief, act or behaviour pattern in an individual, then the conscious intentions held by the individual play a significant (though not exhaustive) role in the ethical evaluation of the belief, act or behaviour. If my six year old knocks her brother to the ground, the question of whether she accidentally struck him in the heat of a game or deliberately struck him in anger with a desire to hurt him is an important one.

But in the sphere of social ethics, where we are evaluating policies, cultural dynamics or systemic realities, then the beliefs, motives and intentions of particular agents fade into the distant background. Whether or not a policy was well-intentioned is largely irrelevant in comparison to how that policy actually functions. A slavery that the slavers conceive of as a form of enlightened benevolence is still slavery, and if the realities on the ground are no different, then it is no better or worse (for instance) than a slavery undertaken on the basis of explicit doctrines of racial subjugation (even if the two examples may lead to somewhat different strategies by emancipationists).

This distinction is crucial when it comes to social and political critique. When a policy or system is attacked, it will not do simply to point to the good nature of the policymakers, or the lack of enmity on the part of those in a privileged position. Such considerations may be important if the personal virtue of the individuals concerned is under discussion, but not for the policy, cultural dynamic or system.

President Obama may harbour no personal conscious anti-Muslim sentiment, but if the foreign policy of his administration includes support for dictators in Muslim-majority nations, the invasion of Muslim-majority nations, the extra-judicial killing of predominantly Muslims, the deliberate stoking of sectarian tensions to provoke intra-Muslim violence, and the upholding of an apartheid regime that oppresses mainly Muslims (for instance), then it may still be accurate to describe US foreign policy as significantly anti-Muslim in effect.

Tony Abbott may have a genuine concern for the plight of Australia's first peoples, but if his administration's policies included opposition to a treaty, the forced clearance of remote communities, the approval of mining licenses allowing for the destruction of sacred sites and degradation of indigenous land, the cutting of services to indigenous communities and the upholding of a colonialist narrative, then it may be still be accurate to describe the Abbott years as significantly anti-Aboriginal in effect. (And PM Turnbull may shed real tears as he speaks of the importance of upholding indigenous culture...)

The CEO of BP may have a genuine desire to see an orderly transition to a lower carbon economy in order to limit climate change in the most sensible low-cost way possible...

George Pell may have genuine compassion for the victims and survivors of institutional child abuse...
The CEO of Woolies may really want to see an end to problem gambling...

Premier Baird may lose sleep over the rates of domestic violence...

In short, the critique of bad policy needn't imply any criminal or otherwise deficient intent on the part of its crafters, nor is the upholding of their benevolence either necessary or particularly relevant in the evaluation of its effects. And this has implications not just for policymakers, but for all of us as we inhabit cultural spaces and social systems.

I may have strong commitment to fight racism, but if I am amongst the beneficiaries of a history of colonialism and white supremacy, I am not thereby immune from the need to check my privilege or at liberty to innocently assume race is irrelevant in my social interactions (nor do I get to put on blackface and claim that it's all good fun).

I may have a firm belief in the universality of human dignity and equality before God and an unswerving desire to honour women, but if I live in a society shot through with ongoing patriarchal logic, in which women are not in fact treated equally in all kinds of ways, then I do not get a free pass to (for instance) select an all-male discussion panel and hide behind a claim of meritocracy.

Wealthy capitalist philanthropists may have every good motive in wanting to alleviate poverty, but if their wealth accumulation was through a system that reduces labour and ecology to tradable value through the absolutising of instrumental reason and sacrifices lives and a liveable planet in pursuit of endless growth, then the people they may manage to save from capitalism's own ills do not thereby justify it.

In each case, the innocence of heart or otherwise of the agents is not what matters. What matters is the function of the system, policy or cultural norm in the lives of those affected by it. That is rarely straightforward. In each of the cases above, there are also positive functions. And so it is often a difficult responsibility to weigh the complex contributions of this or that cultural element, political agenda or economic model.

Indeed, part of the attraction of doing social or political evaluation through intentions is that we are all very familiar with the task of determining whether we believe an individual is trustworthy, a decent bloke/lady, a good egg, and so on. This is the attraction of working to put "good people in charge" and of all personality politics in which we obsess over the personal lives of elected representatives, and thus in which politicians are (generally) carefully stage managed to avoid perceived gaffes. But the temptation of such shortcuts must be resisted.

The good intentions behind bad policy make for might impressive pavement, but it's the destination that matters.

Reform vs revolution: visions of social change

There is a dispute or tension at the heart of most attempts at addressing injustice: should we seek achievable incremental change to make a broken system slightly less damaging to those who are victims of its injustice or risk more ambitious change that attempts to shift some of the fundamental reasons for that injustice?

For instance, the recent Paris Agreement, viewed through the incrementalist model was an outstanding semi-miraculous success, yet viewed through the lens of justice, was a further entrenching of the power of the systems that have caused the problem and which show little inclination of doing anything like what is necessary to avoid suffering on a grand scale.

Expressing the latter perspective, Slavoj Zizek says (and I've never managed to discover if he is quoting someone else at this point), "the worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves", that is, some attempts at incremental improvements to the worst aspects of an unjust system can simply be part of maintaining that system by making it more palatable to the consciences of those who are the system's beneficiaries.

Yet a similar charge gets levelled against the idealists: by demanding more, the possibility of making real tangible improvements to the lives of suffering people is sometimes lost. Oliver O'Donovan praises the virtue of compromise, which means being willing to do "the best that it is actually possible to do", that is, to avoid making the best the enemy of the good.

But the tension here is not always destructive. We are not always necessarily faced with a choice between token improvements that inoculate against further change or demands for impossible systemic change that suck the energy from incremental reforms. Sometimes, strategic piecemeal reforms can help to express, build and solidify public opinion regarding values that ultimately lead to more ambitious changes. And sometimes, demands based directly in ideals reveal the truth of an injustice with a clarity that enables much-needed reforms to occur.

But the reason that this tension is perennial in all movements for change is that this dispute between reformers and revolutionaries cannot be decided a priori. In O'Donovan's language, "what is possible" is itself highly contested. Who is to say that what currently seems impossible might not become thinkable under the pressure of a sustained radical social movement?

Such judgements about what is indeed possible must be made according to close attention to the particulars of the situation, while also being informed by a vision of divine providence being capable of doing more than we ask or imagine; hard-nosed assessments of political openings must be combined with a strong sense of historical contingency, cultural malleability and the omnipresent possibility of repentance.

Put another way, reformers ought to be strategic in seeking reforms that will heighten rather than lessen the visible tension between reality and justice. Where there is a choice between improvements that tend to make the powerful feel more comfortable and improvements that help to further reveal the injustice of the present order, then pick the latter. And revolutionaries ought to articulate visions and select strategies based on a credible (if ambitious) path towards change, where the next step is comprehensible as movement on a journey towards justice.

Of course, this doesn't mean antagonism between reformers and revolutionaries will cease, or that all will agree on where the convergence between competing strategies might lie, but hopefully it can help in avoiding some of the more egregious dead ends.

So was the Paris Agreement a miraculous unprecedented step towards international cooperation or a woefully inadequate further betrayal of future generations and vulnerable lives everywhere that further reinforces the power of the perpetrators?

Your perspective probably reveals where you lie on the spectrum between reformer or revolutionary. For me: it is both.
Image credit unknown.

Don't watch this video...

...if you want to sleep tonight.

Very appropriate for the season. H/T Frank.