Dr. Seuss and Philosophy
Page 33
2. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 81.
3. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiii.
4. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 635 [A805/B833].
5. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 29, xxx.
6. You now know more about Kant than 99.9 percent of the population including, unfortunately, my students.
7. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed. H. M. Parshley (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 301.
8. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990).
9. Jean-François Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thebaud, Just Gaming, trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 43.
10. Lyotard and Thebaud, Just Gaming, 100.
Chapter 8
1. See Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967).
2. Richard H. Minear, “Yertle, Hitler, and Dr. Seuss” in Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker’s Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss, ed. Janet Schulman and Cathy Goldsmith (New York: Random House, 2004), 190.
3. See Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Touchstone-Simon and Shuster, 1970).
4. Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege,” in Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance: Theoretical Perspectives on Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism, ed. Lisa Heldke and Peg O’Connor (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 320.
5. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, xiv–xv.
6. Sandra Bartky, “On Psychological Oppression” in Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance: Theoretical Perspectives on Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism,” ed. Lisa Heldke and Peg O’Connor (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 31.
7. Bartky, “On Psychological Oppression,” 26.
8. Joyce Mitchell Cook, quoted in Bartky, “On Psychological Oppression,” 24.
9. Bartky, “On Psychological Oppression,” 24.
10. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition (New York: Continuum, 2000), 44.
11. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 44.
12. This inability to be heard is an example of what Jean-François Lyotard refers to as the Differend, a direct result of one’s voice not being communicable or audible in the authoritative or grand narrative. See Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, trans. Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988). For a discussion of this issue in the present volume see Jacob M. Held, “On Beyond Modernity, or Conrad and a Postmodern Alphabet.”
13. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1986), 290.
14. King, “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” 290.
15. Emma Lazarus, “New Colossus,” in Favorite Poems, Old and New, ed. Helen Ferris (New York: Doubleday-Delacorte, 1957), 448.
16. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does receive criticism as being too Western due to its emphasis upon individual autonomy. For a detailed discussion, see Sor-Hoon Tan’s Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (New York: SUNY Press, 2004).
17. John Dewey, “Creative Democracy: The Task before Us” in The Essential Dewey, Vol. 1: Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, ed. Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 341.
18. Dewey, “Creative Democracy: The Task before Us,” 342.
19. Anthony Weston, A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 29.
Chapter 9
1. Mary Midgley, “Trying Out One’s New Sword,” in Contemporary Moral Problems, 9th ed., ed. James E. White (Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth, 2009), 38.
2. For an interesting discussion on relativism, especially the notion that moral truths are only “true for me,” as well as relativism being a cowardly response to ethical inquiry, see Norman Melchert, Who’s to Say? A Dialogue on Relativism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994).
3. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 53 [4:448].
4. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 26–27 [5:29–30].
5. Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, eds. Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind, trans. Peter Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 246 [29:631].
6. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 42 [4:435–36].
7. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 209 [6:462].
8. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 229 [29:605].
9. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. T. K. Abbott (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1987), 49.
10. Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, 58.
11. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Ontario: Broadview Press, 2000), 14.
12. Mill, Utilitarianism, 18.
13. For a good discussion of the Good Life and Dr. Seuss, see Benjamin Rider, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The Examined, Happy Life,” in the present volume.
14. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1743 [1103b24].
15. Thanks to Ron Novy for offering helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
Chapter 10
Thanks go to Jacob Held for offering insightful commentary on an earlier draft of this essay.
1. A similar interpretation of Kant’s basic ethical ideas can be found in Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977). Furthermore, it is not uncommon for philosophers to offer revisions to the theories of other philosophers; this is so even for philosophers of Kant’s stature. The idea is that by refining theories that are already quite plausible, philosophers move closer and closer to the truth (which is out there).
2. Horton does, however, utter this sentence in the 2007 motion picture adaption of Horton Hears a Who!
3. Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, 2nd ed., trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Library of the Liberal Arts, 1990), 38.
4. Kant believed that, from this formulation, he could also derive obligations against suicide, to develop one’s latent but natural talents, and to offer aid to those in need. Regarding the last, see Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, 40. Scholars are divided about whether Kant’s derivations are completely successful.
5. Immanuel Kant, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives,” in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, ed. and trans. Lewis White Beck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 348.
6. This sort of dilemma is sometimes expressed via an actual historical situation. Dutch fishermen attempted to smuggle Jews to England during World War II. Sometimes Dutch fishing boats would be stopped by a Nazi patrol boat. A Nazi officer would inquire of the Dutch fisherman where he was headed and who was on board. If you were the fisherman (and assuming no third alternative), what would you do? Should you lie to the officer to protect the life of innocent people or answer the question honestly, knowing that the innocents in your cargo hold will undoubtedly die a horrible death at Auschwitz?
7. For example, Russ Shafer-Landau comments: “Kant does not need to defend the existence of absolute moral duties. His philosophy can, for instance, justify lying to the inquiring murder. Kant’s hatred of lying made him overlook a crucial element of his own view—namely, that the morality of action depends on one’s maxim.” The Fundamentals of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 157. See also James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 122–27.
8. Kant, Founda
tions of the Metaphysics of Morals, 46.
9. There is also a sense in which persons, by willfully choosing to not uphold their ethical obligations, fail to respect their own inherent dignity. This entails that we have moral duties to ourselves and not merely to other persons, which (some argue) is another controversial feature of Kant’s view.
Chapter 11
1. For an account of relativism, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and Aristotle’s virtue ethics see Jacob M. Held and Eric N. Wilson, “What Would You Do If Your Mother Asked You? A Brief Introduction to Ethics,” in the present volume. For a different assessment of Kant’s ethics see Dean Kowalski, “Horton Hears You, Too! Seuss and Kant on Respecting Persons,” in the present volume.
2. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct in The Middle Works of John Dewey, Vol. 14, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), 150.
3. See Sartre’s famous monograph Existentialism Is a Humanism; it is included in many anthologies.
4. Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, 194.
5. John Dewey with James Tufts, Ethics in The Later Works of John Dewey, Vol. 7, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 285.
6. Dewey, Ethics, 295.
Chapter 12
1. Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals, ed. and trans. Allen Wood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 46.
2. Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 1984), 462.
3. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 463.
Chapter 13
1. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 287–89.
2. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 290–92.
3. For example, in James Buchanan and Richard Wagner, Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000), 105–6. Buchanan is referring here to democratically mandated deficit spending in particular, but the insight applies to any other government policy—see James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), esp. 131–45.
4. I am grateful to Jacob Held for helpful comments on this essay, and to Daniel Schmutter for prompting me to read Thidwick from a public-choice perspective.
Chapter 14
1. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 96.
2. Hobbes, Leviathan, 88.
3. Hobbes, Leviathan, 89.
4. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C. B. Macpherson (Cambridge: Hackett, 1980), 52.
5. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 8.
6. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 9.
7. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 9.
8. For an additional account of Locke’s theory of property and distributive justice generally, see Henry Cribbs, “Whose Egg Is It, Really? Property Rights and Distributive Justice” in the present volume.
9. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 13.
10. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 111.
11. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 30.
12. Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 24.
13. Immanuel Kant, “On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It Is of No Use in Practice,” in Practical Philosophy, ed.
and trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 297.
14. Kant, “On the Common Saying,” 297.
15. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 16.
16. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 16.
17. “Women’s Earnings Fall: U.S. Census Bureau Finds Rising Gender Wage Gap,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, media release, August 27, 2004, retrieved October 2010.
18. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 53.
19. Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 40.
20. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 39, 40.
21. The Declaration of Independence of the United States.
22. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/mlkjail.html. (November 1, 2010).
23. King, “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”
Chapter 15
1. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government in Classics of Moral and Political Theory, 2nd ed., ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), 748.
2. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 748.
3. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 748.
4. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 749.
5. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 748, my emphasis.
6. Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in Science (December 13, 1968).
7. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 751.
8. Cyril Mychalejko, “Ecuador’s Constitution Gives Rights to Nature” in OpEdNews (September 26, 2008).
9. Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons.”
10. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 749.
11. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 749.
12. For further discussion of Thidwick and property rights, especially the right over one’s own body, see Aeon J. Skoble, “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Bearer of Property Rights,” in the present volume.
13. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 751.
14. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Methuen & Co., 1776), bk. 1, ch. 5, para. 1.
15. Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. 4, ch. 2, para. 9.
16. For a more in-depth discussion of the responsibilities of business toward other people’s interests, see Matthew F. Pierlott, “It’s Not Personal . . . It’s Just Bizzyneuss: Business Ethics, the Company, and Its Stakeholders,” and Johann A. Klaassen and Mari-Gretta G. Klaassen, “Speaking for Business, Speaking for Trees: Business and Environment in The Lorax,” in the present volume.
17. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 98–137.
18. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, ed. C. P. Dutt (New York: International Publishers, 1966), 10.
19. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 10.
20. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 11.
Chapter 16
1. See Mackey’s contribution to the debate, subtitled “Putting Customers Ahead of Investors” in “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” Reason 37, no. 5 (October 2005), 28–32.
2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.6, trans. W. D. Ross, classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html (May 20, 2010).
3. For the condensed and oft-anthologized expression of this view, see: Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” New York Times Magazine (September 13, 1970), 122–26.
4. For further discussions of property see Aeon J. Skoble, “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Bearer of Property Rights,” and Henry Cribbs, “Whose Egg Is It, Really? Property Rights and Distributive Justice” in the present volume.
5. In order to keep these thinkers and their theories straight, I offer this Seussian pneumonic device: “While Freeman is free to take stock of the stakeholders, for Friedman, it’s freedom that’s at stake for the stockholders.”
6. For an articulation of Freeman’s standard version, see E. Freeman and D. Reed, “Stockholders and Stakeholders: A New Perspective on Corporate Governance,” in Corporate Governance: A Definitive Exploration of the Issues, ed. G. Huizinga (Los Angeles: UCLA Extension Press, 1983). For an articulation of differing contexts in which it’s invoked, see T. M. Jones and A. C. Wicks, “Convergent Stakeholder
Theory,” Academy of Management Review 24, no. 2 (April 1999), 206–21. For a nice overview of the historical development of the debate see H. Jeff Smith, “The Shareholders vs. Stakeholders Debate,” MIT Sloan Management Review (Summer 2002), 85–90.
7. See Friedman’s contribution to the debate, subtitled “Making Philanthropy Out of Obscenity,” in which he sees talking about other stakeholders’ interests as mere rhetoric, where acting on them must always contribute to the bottom line or be avoided: “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” in Reason, vol. 37, no. 5 (October 2005), 28–32.
8. Friedman, “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” 28–32, 30.
9. For a perfect example in business ethics literature, arguing that deception in business negotiations is moral because it is conventionally expected, see: Albert Carr, “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?,” Harvard Business Review 46 (1968), 143–53.
10. For a more in-depth treatment of Kantian ethics see Dean A. Kowalski, “Horton Hears You, Too! Seuss and Kant on Respecting Persons,” in the present volume.
11. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 38.
12. Jim Puzzanghera, “Retailers Fined over Digital TV,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2008, articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/11/business/fi-tv11 (May 20, 2010).
13. Directive 2007/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007, Official Journal of the European Union L 332/27-45, 40. www.ivir.nl/legislation/eu/2007_65_EC.pdf (May 20, 2010).
14. U.S. GAO Report, GAO/HRD-88-130BR: “Sweatshops” in the U.S.: Opinions on Their Extent and Possible Enforcement Options (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1988), /archive.gao.gov/d17t6/136973.pdf (May 20, 2010).
15. Steven Greenhouse, “Apparel Factory Workers Were Cheated, State Says,” New York Times, July 24, 2008, N.Y./Region section, www.nytimes
.com/2008/07/24/nyregion/24pay.html (May 20, 2010).
16. See Horace Fairlamb, “Adam Smith’s Other Hand: A Capitalist Theory of Exploitation,” Social Theory and Practice 22, no. 2 (1996), 193–223.