An Application of Utilitarian Moral Theory to the Well-being of Future People

“… I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
 … Ignorance is bliss.”

Cypher, The Matrix.[1]

At the twilight of the twentieth century The Wachowski Brothers sparked our philosophical imagination by positing a terrible future that involved a virtual reality that was imposed on humanity by a self-aware system of complex machinery. Their film, The Matrix, challenged us to think about what we want our future to be like and whether is it morally acceptable for us to impose a morally dubious world on those in the distant future. The Wachowski Brothers’ film also challenges to think about our obligations to future people and if we have any. One of our greatest present moral challenges, anthropogenic climate change, is a moral issue that questions our obligations to future people and their well-being. In determining our obligations to future people, especially with regards to large scale and far reaching public and economic policy that affects the environmental scale of climate change, it can be difficult to see what these obligations are with respect to their well-being. This essay however, is not an epistemological argument regarding the validity of anthropogenic climate change theories.[2] A myriad of peer-reviewed scientific evidence has proven beyond doubt the causes and consequences of climate change.[3] Rather, this essay will focus on our moral responsibility to responding to the human consequences of climate change. This will be done by linking the future well-being of people with our moral obligations to climate change. Obligations aside, it is firstly difficult to define what exactly constitutes as well-being for humans. A substantive and conclusive moral understanding of what well-being is would be a key component in understanding our obligations to future generations thus highlighting the morally correct public policy choices that will safeguard their future well-being.

Defining well-being has been a difficult exercise for philosophers for thousands of years; from Aristotle's concept of Eudaimonia to Jeremy Bentham's unit of pleasure, the hedon. Tim Mulgan has argued that well-being can not be easily linked exclusively to either happiness or welfare as this gives rise to objections and intuitively negative implications.[4] Happiness has the implication being linked to pleasure; but not all pleasures are empirically constitutive of what could be regarded as well-being. The consumption of drugs or alcohol may bring temporary pleasure but overuse will create negative health effects that most would agree would be detrimental to well-being. Welfare is unnecessarily tied to material wealth. Monetary value, although easily measurable, is not explicitly an indicator of well-being either. A person on a modest income could be a picture of health whereas a multi-millionaire could over-indulge in fatty foods or suffer from a lack of meaningful personal social relationships. These do not capture what our intuition tells us what well-being is. What is constituent of well-being is what is regarded as intrinsically valuable; a value that is not merely instrumental for human lives but valuable in itself.[5] This essay will approach theories of well-being from an rule-utilitarian perspective. Utilitarianism posits that the correct moral choices are those that create the greatest happiness for the greatest number, whereas rule-utilitarianism argues that the correct moral choices are the creation of institutional rules (or in our case public policy choices) that bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number.[6]

Classical utilitarianism regards hedonism, the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain, as the only intrinsically valuable constituent of human well-being.[7] A hedonist public policy would seek to ensure the augmentation of pleasure for the greatest number. The difficulties hedonism faces are its subjectivity as well as its phenomenological implications. John Stuart Mill refined Bentham's original concept of pleasure with higher and lower pleasures.[8] Mill sought to define higher and lower pleasures with competent judges, something that immediately manifests thoughts of subjectivity as well as paternalism. Robert Nozick has argued against a hedonistic view of well-being by saying pleasure is not the only intrinsically valuable aspect of human lives. Nozick proposed a thought experiment that speaks to our intuition and challenges us to reject hedonism. His "Experience Machine", which one had the choice to plug into or not, consisted of a kind of virtual reality that was phenomenologically indifferent from reality. Its user could choose any experience possible from being a successful athlete to completing a great novel. But the intuitions of those who reject the Experience Machine suggest that there are more valuable aspects to human experience than purely sensuous experience. A rejection of the Experience Machine suggests that we need a greater connection with reality; we want our experiences to be genuine.[9] Another possible objection to hedonism is similar to the aforementioned objection to a welfarist, or monetary, conception of well-being. Not all pleasures are positive: consumption of certain foods, alcohol, or drugs bring temporally brief sensuous pleasures but in excess would detrimentally affect a person’s health and therefore well-being. The same could be said of sadistic pleasures one might acquire from morally objectionable activities such as torture or rape—psychologically these would be detrimental if they were regarded to be constituent of well-being.

Nozick, however, is not rejecting an individual's right to choose the Experience Machine, but is deferring to an individual the choice rather than insisting the machine as a hedonist would. This leads us to the second utilitarian conception of well-being, preference theory, which regards an individual's right to choose what they prefer as the only intrinsically valuable aspect of human well-being.[10] The utilitarian approach to preference theory would seek to maximise the opportunities for preferential moral decisions for the greatest number. This theory posits that the only morally acceptable way for people to decide well-being is have them decide for themselves. The theory is popular with libertarians such as Nozick, because of the emphasis of individual free choice, as well as economists because it is easily measured—a stronger preference for a resource or commodity will elicit a higher price therefore show that that particular item is more preferred for an individual's well-being.[11] Public policy choices in this regard would cater to an individual's preferences and thus avoid any accusations of paternalism. Preference theory however faces similar problems to hedonism: preference is also subjective and can be based on uninformed choices or ignorance of consequences. Preference theory can also unfortunately be linked with monetary power and therefore return the measure of well-being to mere monetary terms rather than something with objective moral significance; the implication that the preferences of affluent European or North American choices have more moral worth than those of Latin American or African choices seems, intuitively, to not grasp the concept of well-being. The aggressive commodification of all aspects of life in capitalist economies would have more worth to well-being within preference theory than the self-sustainability of communal pre-industrial economies because of mere monetary value—something itself which is instinctively Eurocentric.

The final theory to be addressed, objective-list, takes a different approach to well-being than the subjectivism of hedonism and preference theory. Objective-list theory presupposes a list of items that are intrinsically, as well as objectively, valuable to human well-being.[12] These items are based on the independent value of each item rather than a preference for each item; this creates a desire based on value rather than value based on desire.[13] The list might include items such as: healthy food and water; appropriate clothing and shelter from the elements; positive family and social relationships; opportunities for education and knowledge; opportunities for exercise and physical activity; freedom from fear and intimidation; the right to personal expression. These are just some of the basics that might be included on a list. Many objectivists might also encompass the above theories by including positive pleasures and the ability to exercise preferences, however, these are not the only intrinsically valuable constituents of what well-being is.

Objective-list theory relies on empirically measurable proxies for constituent items.[14] For example, a comprehensive analysis of health would include, but not be limited to, data concerning rates of disease, mortality, obesity, or mental illness. A utilitarian approach to objective-list would attempt to augment the positive aspects in subsequent data for the greatest number, such as lowering rates of disease or increasing access to healthy food. An advantage objective-list offers over hedonist and preference theories are that it is less risk-averse at both an individual and societal level. An adherence to an objectively measurable standard of well-being is less likely to encounter the shortcomings of hedonism and preference theory; individuals and societies are no longer subject to an arbitrary blissful ignorance when it comes to moral choices concerning their needs. This is especially critical in determining our moral obligations to future people, more of which will be outlined below.

The obvious objection objective-list theory immediately faces is accusations of paternalism. Why should I be told what is good for me? This makes individuals subject to somebody else’s, often elitist, concept of what well-being is. Certain individuals might not feel an obligation to adhere to a preconceived notion of what is good for them; it takes away individuals’ faculties to rationally choose for themselves what they determine to be adequate for the well-being of their own lives. Why should an individual not choose Nozick’s Experience Machine if for them it would make them better off? Objective-list seems to trample on individual freedoms; something most, if not all, people value intrinsically, even if some choices may be detrimental. The idea of being coerced into living a certain way we have been told that it is for our own good seems, intuitively, to make us anxious. There is also difficulty in determining what exactly goes on the list and where the list stops; any preconceived list is inevitably arbitrarily subject to its author’s bias. It might also be less palatable if the author’s list reflects affluent conceptions of well-being. Objective-list is just as at risk of accusations of subjectivity as hedonism or preference theories.

Despite these objections to an objective conception of well-being it is a more suitable moral theory for determining our obligations to future people. Subjective theories breakdown and produce undesirable consequences temporally, especially when present moral choices drastically affect the well-being of future people. Mulgan has given more impetus to Nozick’s Experience Machine to demonstrate this; a further thought experiment called the Virtual Future. Mulgan’s thought experiment is similar to Nozick’s in the sense that a virtual reality phenomenologically indifferent to an actual reality is projected onto its user. Where it differs, is that the Virtual Future is an alternative to a broken world: a world so damaged by the effects of human activity that it becomes almost uninhabitable; it is a simultaneously shared user experience within the virtual world (Mulgan does not mention what portion of the population is engaged in the Virtual Future machine but it is likely that its use would elicit a significant expense); every user is aware the reality projected on them is false but they are also aware that it is preferable to their actual reality; finally, this is not a reality chosen by its users but imposed on them by a past generation of people.[15]

To demonstrate that objective-list theory is the best moral theory regarding both our obligations of future people as well as our obligations to responses to climate change Mulgan’s Virtual Future thought experiment could be approached both literally and metaphorically. Each well-being theory and its implications must be tested to provoke our intuitive response. A literal interpretation of the Virtual Future that is not unlike the aforementioned film The Matrix, in the sense that it presupposes that humanity in the future has indeed somehow destroyed their natural environment beyond repair, that the technology exists to create (or more disturbingly, impose) an artificial reality for humanity, and the virtual reality appears to be better for humanity than the reality of their actual world. The choice faced by a present generation of people is to decide not for themselves but for their descendants whether or not to impose this virtual reality on them: a choice between a broken reality and blissful ignorance. Hedonist and preference theories would no doubt be useful in providing a better, albeit false, reality for future generations but distorts what we value phenomenologically. It is forcing us to make a difficult choice where either option makes us uncomfortable. Our imposition of a Virtual Future is an easy option to avoid obligations as well as a disturbing manipulation of the intrinsic values of future generations.[16]

It is another, metaphorical, interpretation of the Virtual Future thought experiment that evokes our intuitive reaction to outright dismiss subjective moral theories regarding obligations to future generations. Mulgan’s thought experiment teases our train of thought back to the reality of the actual situation humanity faces: a choice between the imposition of the chaotic effects of climate change on humanity or a mitigation of these effects to a liveable environment—a decision that its recipients have to live with but have absolutely no say in effecting. This is where subjective moral theories break down. There is an unbridgeable gap between the desires of present people and the desires future people (it becomes more apparent when subsequent generations no longer overlap the present generation and as the effects of climate change become increasingly drastic). If the present generation desires to defer costly responses to environmental disaster for the sake of economic growth they fail, temporally, to meet the desires of future generations. Future generations would desire the same natural environment and all its benefits we enjoy here in the present (or past) over a destroyed environment especially if they had been given the choice. It is this imposition where better choices could have been made that seems morally disturbing in the sense that present choices are both arbitrary and naïvely authoritarian across time as well as space. Unfortunately, future people cannot make present decisions and this forces us to rethink our moral responsibilities in the present to objectively capture what is intrinsically valuable to well-being across time as well as space. If we think about our list of objectively valuable items, many of which preference theorists would agree would contribute to their well-being, it is almost certain that an irrevocably damaged environment would fail to provide many of these items or a the very least make them very difficult to provide. Only an application of objective-list theory is congruent in transmitting what is intrinsically valuable across time. If we are genuinely concerned about fulfilling the well-being of future people we must abandon temporally myopic subjective moral theories that are imposing with regard to our responses to anthropogenic climate change.

The subjective-objective dichotomy is often contentious in moral philosophy, and subjective moral theories can certainty accommodate individuality in many circumstances in the present where present people are affected. But it is this subjectivity that has dangerous implications when applied to moral decisions for future people. Subjective moral theories exponentially fail to be conductive across time. The idea that our moral subjectivity can impose drastic consequences for future generations is deeply unnerving. Anybody who was born into undesirable conditions where the decisions regarding those circumstances were self-regarding (inter-generational rather than inter-personal) expresses some regret towards their ancestors. If we genuinely believe that it is our moral obligation to leave future generations better off than the present generation it is imperative that we adopt an objective account of what human well-being is. Only then can our present decisions regarding climate change policy aim to meet the well-being of our descendants without being bogged down in the myopia of trivial present pursuits.

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[1]  Joe Pantoliano, The Matrix. Motion picture. Directed by The Wachowski Brothers. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999.

[2] For the purpose of this essay any mention of climate change can be regarded as anthropogenic i.e. caused by human activity.

[3] Jim Salinger, ed. Living in a Warmer World: How a Changing Climate Will Affect Our Lives, (Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing, 2013), 10-2.

[4] Tim Mulgan, Ethics for a Broken World: Imagining Philosophy After Catastrophe (Montreal, Québec: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), 100.

[5] ibid., 101.

[6] Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 388.

[7] Roger Crisp. "Well-Being," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Accessed April 11, 2014, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/.

[8] John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, (London, UK: Everyman's Library, 1984), 10-1.

[9] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 42-5.

[10] Mulgan, Ethics for a Broken World, 104.

[11] ibid., 111.

[12] Crisp, “Well-being”.

[13] Mulgan, Ethics for a Broken World, 108.

[14] ibid., 111.

[15] Tim Mulgan, "Ethics for Possible Futures," in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, (London: The Aristotelian Society, 2014), 7-9.

[16] ibid., 10.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

Quote of the Week: Immanuel Kant

"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

A (Somewhat Brief) Critique of Historical Materialism

If one surveys the political landscape of the Anglosphere (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand) one thing become apparent: all these governments operate from some form of capitalist, and indeed fiscally conservative, ideology. Even the Obama Administration in the United States is just capitalism-lite (or naïvely labeled socialism by far-right decriers) in contrast to its Republican critics. Nevertheless, any interventionist economic policy during the remaining years of Obama’s Presidency have been hampered by the Republican Party gaining control of the legislature in the 2014 mid-term elections. This turn in history could not surely be put down to mere coincidence? Despite what Karl Marx argued, capitalism seems destined to stay for the foreseeable future. Regardless of a brief Keynesian respite between the 1930s and 1960s, capitalism has become cemented as our mode of political economy. Even centrist labour parties have conformed to capitalism such as Britain under Tony Blair by adopting the acquiescent Third Way. So was Marx wrong about emergence of socialism and in turn communism? To answer this it is pertinent to understand historical materialism, Marx’s theoretical exposition of how we came to be in our present circumstances.

Marx developed his materialist conception of history not in a single work but gradually over several works, which makes it difficult to understand, and it can seemingly appear to be lacking coherence.[1] To find Marx’s roots for historical materialism we need to consider one of his forebears, Georg Hegel. In the Phenomenology of Spirit (as well as other works) Hegel developed a speculative logical system that served as the basis for his metaphysical and political thinking.[2] Hegel’s thinking was based on a dialectical methodology whereby successive categories are implicitly self-contradictory and give rise to a hierarchical evolution of categories: an initial thesis is contrary to its antithesis, and the two are united in a synthesis by the positive outcomes of each by avoiding both their self-contradictions.[3] Marx uses Hegel’s dialectical methodology but uses it within the circumstances of material conditions, not as an agent for history, but as a story of class struggle as defined by those material conditions. Marx’s history is therefore regarded as “materialist” in contrast to Hegel’s “idealist” history guided by the human spirit (Geist) that is directed towards freedom. In The German Ideology Marx elucidates how stages of material and productive development give rise to certain social arrangements related to division of labour and ownership of the means of production.[4] Certain antagonisms between modes of production have brought us from hunter-gatherer societies to primitive communal ownership, to feudal societies, and finally to capitalism. Capitalism however, has simplified class antagonism into two simple camps: the owners of production, the bourgeoisie, and those who must sell their labour to subsist, the proletariat.[5] When class is reduced to this definition it clarifies any grey areas that might suggest a fluidity between classes that is often the cornerstone of liberalism. This antagonism is still axiomatic in the same sense that aristocratic privilege was the defining feature of pre-revolutionary France. The repulsive aspects of capitalism’s contradictions would eventually create its collapse and give birth by way of revolution to a socialist society where the proletariat retain common ownership of the means of production.[6]

Class conflict because of material circumstances is inevitable; one class will always attempt to dominate the other whatever the historical circumstances.[7] Marx recognises this, however, the desire to overcome this relationship is tentative, especially in a world dominated by capital's hegemony. Marx's interpretation of class conflict suggests to the casual reader it is aimed at a specific end point: communism, or, a classless society. While idealistic, there is nothing to suggest that one system will triumph over another, and history will be drawn to an ideological terminus. Ideas will always arise from present material circumstances. But understanding Marx is more about the possible rather than the inevitable. Historical materialism is often misinterpreted or misappropriated as a historiographical methodology, as pointed out by Terry Eagleton, to explain the unfolding of history, especially in terms of class conflict.[8] What should be taken from Marx is a general theory of social change. Marx is not suggesting an internal determinist mechanism for history’s unfolding as well as its future, but putting forward an economic and well as technological argument for historical development of social formations. Humans are conditioned to execute a development in their productive relationships.[9]

The picture Marx paints however is not exempt from criticism: while Marx's explanation of the transition from primitive societies, to feudalism, and then to capitalism is plausible and well understood, his theory seems hollow when contrasted with the history of the twentieth century. The establishment of the Soviet Union after the 1917 Russian Revolution failed to follow the development of socialism according to historical materialism because it was a largely feudal society (in the loosest sense, especially in contrast to the industrialised capitalist economies of Germany, Britain, and the United States). The Soviet Union only heavily industrialised after transition to socialism, undermining Marx's logical development of communism. The collectivisation of agriculture and the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin cost millions of lives and failed to produce the means to create a classless society. Even China’s ruling communist party is gradually reforming its economy to what appears to be more capitalistic. This has led some commentators such as Francis Fukuyama, to suggest the inevitability of liberal democracy (and implicitly capitalism). Fukuyama has suggested the collapse of the Soviet Union has proved capitalism as the natural condition of human affairs and therefore the end of history.[10] Fukuyama is very much influenced in this regard by Hegel in an explanation for the unfolding of History. Marx also could not have foreseen to ideological power of the fusion of capital and technology to exacerbate what Fredrich Engles described as a false consciousness in the proletariat.[11] The ability of media corporations to distract and disseminate ideas that work in favour of capital is incredibly powerful.

Postmodern interpretations of history are dismissive of grand historical narratives whether they be materialist or otherwise.[12] However, the scepticism expressed by postmodernism towards any form of teleological inevitability need not undermine the theoretical basis for socialism or even the impetus to make all human lives better. A critique of Marx's historical materialism does not necessarily mean an outright rejection of all Marxist theory or socialism as a viable economic alternative to capitalism, but this also does not mean embracing Fukuyama's End of History thesis, which is teleological in itself being a derivative of Hegel.[13] There is nothing to suggest the present ideological epoch will not be undermined by some catastrophic event—say, anthropogenic climate change, or a dramatic financial collapse worse than the Great Depression, or a nuclear war—that will cause some regressive state of affairs to arise: one of the many flavours of anarchism or potentially a totalitarian government that derives its power from control of what little post-apocalyptic resources exist. So that leaves us with the question: if the historical march to communism is not inevitable, how does society overcome the vicissitudinous nature of capitalism? One can either wallow in the nihilism that Marx was wrong and we are all doomed to capitalism’s negativities, or we can use Marx as a theoretical impetus to critique capitalism without being locked into the dogmatism of inevitability. To quote Marx himself, "philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it".[14]

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[1]  Terrence Ball, "History: Critique and irony," in The Cambridge Companion to Marx, ed. Terrell Carver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

[2] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and J. N. Findlay, Phenomenology of spirit, trans. Arnold V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Allen Wood, "Hegel and Marxism," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick  C. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

[3] Hegel and Findlay, Phenomenology of Spirit; Michael Forster, "Hegel's dialectical method," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick  C. Beiser (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 131-3.

[4]  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970).

[5] Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London: Penguin Books, 2002).

[6] ibid.

[7] ibid.

[8] Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011).

[9] Marx and Engles, The German Ideology, 47.

[10] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

[11]  Fredrich Engles, "Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1893," accessed March 27, 2015, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm.

[12]  Jean-François Lyotard et al., The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984).

[13] Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man.

[14] Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," in Early Writings. Introduced by Lucio Colletti. trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton, ed. Lucio Colletti. translated by Gregor Benton and Rodney L. Livingstone (Harmondsworth: Penguin, in association with New Left Review, 1975), 423.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

Colonisation of the Lifeworld: The Tragic Consequences of the Bureaucratisation of Social Welfare in New Zealand

On August 2nd 2014 the Ashburton Guardian published an article about local man Russell John Tully's desperate plight to find domestic accommodation despite an overwhelming number of physical, economic, and political factors stacked against him.[1] A month later, on September 1st, he walked into Ashburton's Work and Income New Zealand branch, killed two workers with a shotgun and critically injured a third. He was apprehended later in the day and subsequently charged with the murders.[2] As of writing this essay Tully's defendants are still waiting a psychiatric assessment on his mental state while he is remanded in custody.  However, given the desperate circumstances that led to this event, it would not be implausible to hypothesise they contributed to, or exacerbated existing, psychopathologies. Tully is suffering from a skin disease which has rendered him unable to work, and had "come home to die", so was seeking assistance to live out his untimely fate.[3] In engaging with this event on a deeper level is not an apologist stance towards Tully's actions, but attempting to understand the broader social, political, and economic contexts of why such a tragedy could occur through the lens of what Jürgen Habermas refers to as the colonisation of the lifeworld. I will attempt to discern to what extent Habermas' theory is valid in this specific circumstance. Firstly, I will offer an explanation of Habermas’ work in his Theory of Communicative Action and how this relates to the concept of the lifeworld. Secondly, I will trace the concept of social evolution through to what Habermas refers to as rationalisation of the lifeworld. Thirdly, I will discuss Habermas’ adaptation of systems theory to provide an account for how the lifeworld becomes colonised. Finally, for the remainder of the essay I will provide an application of Habermas’ theory to the circumstances surrounding Tully’s actions within the context of the modernisation and rationalisation of societies.

Habermas' interpretation of critical social theory is grounded in his theory of communicative action: communication between two or more people with the intention of establishing meaningful social relationships.[4] Communicative action, Habermas argues, is a form of action that transcends other instrumental forms of social action in that "actors seek to reach an understanding about the action and their plans of action in order to coordinate their actions by way of agreement".[5] Participants, through language, intersubjectively test each other's claims for validity in order to reach understanding as opposed to reaching success.[6] The process of communicative action "takes place against the background of a culturally ingrained preunderstanding".[7] This background, the lifeworld, a theory initially developed by Edmund Husserl in the phenomenological tradition, and sociologically developed by Alfred Schütz, is what Habermas draws upon for his account of how societies create and sustain themselves.[8] The lifeworld is a background of skills, knowledge, and competences that serves to maintain social relationships, and communicative action is what serves to reproduce the lifeworld "by way of the continuation of valid knowledge, stabilisation of group solidarity, and socialisation of responsible actors".[9]

Habermas has drawn upon Niklaus Luhmann's systems theory of sociology to develop a social evolutionary explanation of the rationalisation of the lifeworld (which I will discuss below). As societies evolve they become increasingly complex, however, Habermas is not claiming this is an inevitable process by way of differentiating institutional sub-systems out from the lifeworld, but that humans within societies bring about these changes themselves.[10] What Habermas is attempting to do is engage with, and form a symbiosis of, two different theoretical perspectives to form a more comprehensive analysis of modern societies: systems theory developed by Luhmann and Talcott Parsons, which discerns societies from the outside as a series of component systems, including the lifeworld; and a participant perspective that encompasses a "hermeneutic approach that picks up on members' pre-theoretical knowledge".[11] Habermas is not casting off systems theory but merely advocating it with an understanding that "what [fundametally] binds sociated individuals to one another and secures the integration of society is a web of communicative actions".[12] It becomes important to conceptualise the rationalisation, and subsequent colonisation, of the lifeworld in terms of both the social integration of societies and the systems integration of societies.[13] Social integration conceives of societies as "normatively guaranteed or communicatively achieved", whereas systematically integrated societies use "nonnormative steering of individual decisions [that are] not subjectively coordinated".[14]

Max Weber referred to rationalisation as "the pillar of both the modern State and of the economic life in the West", which has differentiated societal systems so far that they have taken on an autonomy that is no longer grounded in normative moral principles but their own inner workings.[15] These autonomous institutions, although rooted in the lifeworld, "steer a social intercourse that has been largely disconnected from norms and values".[16] This process is referred to by Habermas as the "uncoupling of the system and lifeworld".[17] Because of the increasing demands placed on language in complex societies an overburden occurs that has the effect of differentiating out various modes of exchange between systems: what Habermas refers to as "delinguistified media"—specifically money and power.[18] These institutional economic, bureaucratic, and political systems place demands on society so much so that it becomes almost impossible to avoid conforming to their dictates. This penetration of dehumanised systems, initially a product of humanity's modernisation, into the process of social integration is what Habermas argues is the colonisation of the lifeworld.

I will now turn to an application of Habermas’ theory to the surrounding circumstances of Russell John Tully’s actions on September 1st 2014. Closer inspection of modern society’s rationalistion reveals how institutions have differentiated from the lifeworld what was once the domain of charitable groups and communitarian concern.[19] This is not to say poverty or unfortunate circumstances such as Tully’s did not occur before the modernisation and industrialisation of society, but the channels to ameliorate these circumstances were less institutionalised and relied on the communicative action Harbermas suggests is integral for a socially integrated society. Because of globalisation, increase in complex technological communication, and population growth of the modern era, especially later half of the twentieth century, the role of the socially integrated community has vastly diminished and has been handed over to larger political structures. Almost every facet of modern life adheres in some way or another to larger systems that are devoid of communicative action. In a hypothetical scenario of a socially integrated society one could place Tully in, he might see his plight addressed by family members, friends, local charitable organisations, church groups, even local community political authorities (at least to some extent). With a modest amount of social resources at hand and through a process of communicative action Tully’s needs could be addressed more readily. Where appeals are dealt with through a smaller number of channels that are socially integrated, the face-to-face deliberation would yield at the very least tangible results.

While the emergence of the modern welfare state in New Zealand has meant a greater and more equitable access to social assistance—and this has waxed and waned depending on the ideological perspective of successive governments—it has passed over this to institutions whereby communication is instrumentally orientated rather than orientated toward mutual understanding. Applications for unemployment, disability, or accommodation benefits have to adhere to a strict set of criteria that has the result of very little impetus for providing assistance, empathy, or discretion. Every social welfare client’s needs are complex, yet the system treats them as a number, and fails to address pressing concerns such as health issues or need for affordable accommodation—or even the ability to discern potentially dangerous mental health issues. Social workers at the coalface such as those murdered by Tully no doubt personally share some psychological empathy towards their clients, yet they are ultimately bound by guidelines dictated to them by the machinations of the bureaucracy that stands above them. In the despondent eyes of Work and Income’s clients they are just another part of a dehumanising system that they have no other choice but to adhere to. These extraordinary pathologies may be indicative of a system so far removed from the lifeworld that it is failing to engage and address its needs in a meaningful and socially integrated manner.

The modern welfare state is just one of a myriad of systems “in which the demands of communicative action are relaxed … within legally specified limits”.[20] This characteristic of bureaucracy is also shared by capitalist monetary system, which Harbermas argues not only has the effect of regulating social environments, but also absorbs the state apparatus so that “power becomes assimilated to money”.[21] This is the delinguistified media that Habermas argues has become the new standard of exchange between systems. The state’s bureaucracies become steered by markets as does every day social systems that we interact with. Evidence of this can be seen when we analyse Tully’s circumstances in relation to the market and state bureaucracies. The market determines if his labour will be purchased by capital—which negatively affects the value of labour of those disabled such as his—as well as directing the market-accepted value of welfare assistance. Welfare policy is not determined by a mutual understanding of what is a socially accepted level of socio-economic subsistence, but by autonomously driven market forces (as well as hegemonically prevailing ideological perspectives). Tully was also forced to orientate his actions towards the autonomous real estate market in searching for accommodation; the quality and availability of this was limited by his low income as dictated by the labour market. This penetration and reification of the market system and bureaucracy so far into determining every facet of our lives—both negatively and positively—rather than communicative action is the concern Habermas shows towards the colonisation of the lifeword thesis. In this warning he argues that the rationalisation of the lifeworld “becomes so hypertrophied that it unleashes system imperatives that burst the capacity of the lifeword they instrumentalise”.[22]

Russell John Tully's story is not unfamiliar in our present society and there are numerous examples where a desperate, and often mentally unstable, individual irrationally and violently vents their anger at what they perceive is the system that is the source of their trouble. The vicissitudinous nature of modern institutions are no longer orientated to deal with these negative social pathologies in a holistically constructive manner. Modernity has pulled our social systems so far beyond our grasp we no longer recognise the humanity in them. They have become faceless and alien to our innermost and fundamental needs. It would appear because of our markets and bureaucracies, New Zealand is not exempt from the colonisation of the lifeworld.

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[1] Otago Daily Times Online News, "Interview reveals suspect's desperation," Allied Press Limited, last modified September 1, 2014, http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/314429/interview-reveals-suspects-desperation.

[2] Sophie Ryan et al., "Ashburton Work and Income shooting: Suspect arrested," APN New Zealand Limited, last modified September 1, 2014, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11317243.

[3] Otago Daily Times Online News, "Interview reveals suspect's desperation."

[4] Andrew Edgar, Habermas: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2006), 21.

[5] Jürgen Habermas, "Social Action and Rationality." In On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidman (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 143.

[6] ibid., 153-7.

[7] ibid., 154.

[8] Ian Buchanan, Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 294.

[9] Jürgen Habermas, " The Concept of the Lifeworld and Hermeneutic Idealism." In On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidman (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 173.

[10] Edgar, 139.

[11] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 184-7; Habermas, "The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld." in On Society and Politics, ed. Steven Seidmam (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 188; For Habermas a hermeneutical approach encompasses an interpretation of the whole social, historical, and psychological world.

[12] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 184.

[13] James Bohman, and William Regh. "Jürgen Habermas." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified 2014. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/.

[14] Habermas, “The Concept of the Lifeworld.” 185.

[15] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons, 2nd ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1976), 16; Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 189.

[16] Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 189.

[17] ibid.

[18] ibid., 190, 205.

[19] John Scott and Gordon Marshall, Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 630-1, 803.

[20] Bohman and Regh.

[21] Habermas, “The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld.” 205.

[22] ibid., 190.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.