Rational Philosophy

“Today, I am not the person I was ten years ago.” Karl Svensson, a convicted murderer, told his Swedish classmates at medical school when his past caught up with him. The prestigious Karolinska Institute eventually side-stepped the unprecedented question of whether to expel Mr. Svensson simply because of his past criminal acts — once a neo-Nazi, apparently, Svensson’s crime had been deemed a hate crime. Instead, the institute expelled him on a technicality — he had falsified his high school records by substituting his assumed name for his birth name of Hellekant.  The story raises two very interesting questions: 1. Can we change? and 2. Should a person who has committed this kind of crime be allowed to practice medicine (or another similar profession)?

The New York Times editorial board has endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate. Its opinions supporting the endorsement of Clinton for the Democratic and McCain for the Republican vote make fascinatingly candid reading. The Times’ opinion of Clinton again raises the question of whether someone, fundamentally, can change. It left me wondering whether Clinton has changed, and, if so, whether she has changed enough to overcome the disadvantages in her character that have revealed themselves so often in the past — her divisiveness and “I know best” intellectual hardness. The Times uses the example of her “famously disastrous foray” into trying to solve the healthcare issue to support its premise that she has changed and now displays a new understanding of what’s to be done.

I’ve written before about our capacity to change as it relates to the concept of free will and personal development. Being conscious allows us to choose between options, and to select options that may be difficult, unattractive or counter to our immediate instinct. Through this reasoning we can see that it is possible to develop new levels of awareness and new patterns of behavior, to make choices different from those we would have made in the past.

But if we examine the concept of behavioral change we find a composite concept. And we tend to conflate and confuse its constituent parts: When I ask, “can we change?” I could really be asking two separate questions. The first: “Can someone become altered such that the same impulses will lead to different immediate responses?” And the second: “Can someone become altered such that the same impulses will lead to different eventual responses?”

Ten years go, in an angry confrontation, Svensson reacted violently. His immediate response was to be urged to violence. And he acted on this immediate response by lashing out.

To say that Svensson’s immediate response may have changed, we would have to believe that he would not feel urged to violence if faced with a similar confrontation ten years on. I would say that we have very little reason to believe that Svensson or anyone could change in this way simply through reflection and remorse. Our immediate, instinctual response is pre-conscious, and therefore isn’t subject to conscious influence.

On the other hand, to say that Svenssion’s eventual response may have changed seems a much more reasonable and rational conclusion. Svensson, still feeling a violent urge, could now have a modified conscious response and resist the desire to lash out.

Svensson’s classmates were split over whether he should be allowed to stay on. Those that supported him said that he’d paid his debt and, by inference, should be trusted to have changed his conscious response to confrontation. But we can infer that those of his classmates who still distrusted him understood and feared that his immediate response to confrontation (or other stress) could and indeed would still be violent.

Should a violent killer, rehabilitated in his conscious actions, be trusted in the medical profession? To answer that question we would need to understand the degree and range of provocation that Svensson may react violently to, and the strength of his newfound ability to keep his emotions in check. In the absence of reliable ways and means to measure these variables, it would seem reasonable for society not to want Svensson providing medical care. Svensson has rights of freedom, but it also seems reasonable for society to say that he has forgone some of those rights (such as an unfettered choice of career) by his past actions.

So to Hillary Clinton: Although the circumstances are very different, we are confronted with the same logical argument. As I understand it, the instinctual fervor of Clinton’s liberal ideological passion inspired and limited her original approach to tackling the healthcare issue. Her newfound understanding means that she’s better able to consciously override her immediate divisive response. But the concern remains that she would encounter similar instinctual responses in a broad range of political situations.

As we’ve seen with Bush and as tends to happen to those in high office, the stresses and demands of the job certainly don’t make it easier to overcome one’s immediate responses. As the Times’ opinion points out, Clinton has been succumbing to these impulses during her campaigning, underscoring the perspective that we have reason to doubt that she has truly learned to keep her immediate responses in check.

Obama, on the other hand, reveals a more promising character for non-devisive leadership. This then narrows the gap between the candidates that the Times claims to exist, and perhaps even makes Obama the more logical choice. It becomes a matter of character versus experience. I for one would choose character every time.

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In an odd but apparently cleverly orchestrated sequence of events, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has tightened his grip on his rule by dispensing with the Supreme Court and scrapping the constitution. This only a few weeks after the return to Pakistan of the self-exiled former leader Banazir Bhutto (whose jubilant welcome-home parade was marred by a deadly bomb attack). And only months after Musharraf promised to relinquish his military post if elected president.

Apart from the obvious questions about how these distressing events will affect the future of Pakistan and the region, they pose another question that calls upon the current US administration to decide whether it will denounce Musharraf’s dismantling of democracy, or whether it will decide that it needs a friend in Pakistan more than it needs to stand by the principles of global freedom.

Surprising some, Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder, has endorsed Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani for president. Roberston feels that Giuliani’s qualities as a leader outweigh his shortcomings as someone who supports abortion and gay rights.

And house Republicans have joined Democrats to overturn the President’s veto of the water resources development act, just one a several funding bills that seem set to pit Republicans against their leader.

To quote American Theologian Tryon Edwards “Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both.” But is this the case? What is the philosophy of compromise?

If Bush continues to court Musharraf’s favor by going easy on him in the face of his anti-democratic measures he will discredit the very ideal he says he seeks to promote — global democracy. Now, there are some who think (I’m one of them) that Bush may even believe that he supports global democracy, when what he really wants is to feel safer and to make his friends and allies wealthier. In which case, compromise would seem to be the most attractive strategy; a slap on the wrist for Musharraf so that America can continue to rely on his support.

Reading Pat Robertson’s comments, his goal in compromise seems to be that he hopes to have a strong leader in the White House, one sympathetic to a broad swath of Christian concerns, even if not all of them.

And house Republicans seek to approve funding they feel their constituents support, even if it weakens the overall coherence of their party and its goals. The long term result of which may be that they hurt Republican chances in the next election and thereby risk not getting what their constituents want in the long term.

From a purely conceptual perspective, Tryon Edwards definition of compromise seems quite good: “the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another.” But what Edwards’ sobering analysis doesn’t account for is whether, if one were not to compromise, one would forgo a greater right or good. What’s the alternative? in other words.

Therefore, in considering any specific instance of a compromise, we need to evaluate three things:

1. What do we give up by the compromise?
2. What do we gain by the compromise?
3. What options do we have if we don’t compromise?

Bush’s task at hand will be made more difficult if he denounces Musharraf’s actions and isolates Pakistan. But it won’t be made impossible. From a practical perspective, even without Pakistan’s support Bush can continue to fight the war on terror, albeit less adeptly (if that’s the right word). As a matter of principle, not denouncing Musharraf’s actions would undermine Bush’s declared objectives and make a further global mockery of his rhetoric of freedom.

It’s hard to know what Robertson expects to gain from his endorsment of Giuliani, and it’s hard to imagine that he will lose a great deal by endorsing him, but he did have alternatives (McCain, for instance) who would have provided a safer bet. Perhaps then his endorsement of Giuliani reflects a more principled choice than it might first appear. Perhaps he really does believe that Giuliani will make a strong leader and that this is more important than having a president who doesn’t support abortion and gay rights.

And for the house Republicans, voting with the president would have meant voting, symbolically at least, in favor of fiscal responsibility. This would have been a greater good, perhaps, than achieving some short-lived favor with their constituents. But perhaps the chance to distance themselves from Bush was just too appealing to pass up.

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