Self and Others

Francis Pike writes in the Sepector about the end of the Second World War with the defeat of Japan.  The view from the West was that the terrible act of death and destruction was necessary to bring the abomination of war to an end. This is the Utilitarian view that 'the ends justify the means'.  Pike points out that it was more complicated than that.  As with most wars, (and the board game 'Risk) war comes to an end largely through exaustion. Many more thousand people died after the dropping of the bomb.  The effect on the enemy was not straightforward. The effects of this atrocity continue, though of course, it was one of many committed by both sides. 

Elizabeth Anscombe and  the philosophy of 'Intention' was recently discussed on Radio 4's 'In Our Time'. The programme starts with Anscombe's vastly 'countercultural' and principled opposition to President Truman receiving a honorary degree from Oxford, following the 'end of war adulation of the victors'.  Anscombe felt that the ends did not justify the means.  The intention may have ultimately been to bring the killing to an end, but the murdering of civilians was committed with deliberate intent, and this did not deserve to be honoured.

How would the British or American's view a similar act being committed by the enemy on us?  The morality of intent is very much defined by perspective.  

Intention is a fascinating topic.

In the programme the contributors spoke about the issues associated with intention.  Often actions have unintended consequences or side effects.  An example given was when an engineer builds a motorway, the intention is to improve communication and travel.  However, motorways also risk death through accidents.  However this was never the intention.  What if the risk of death on the motorways was considerably higher that it is?  At some point motorways would cease to be an acceptable form of transport.  

My thoughts took me to...

What are the other (perhaps taboo) intentions people and societies have?  Google provides amazing maps and travel aides for free, but we also knows that by using this 'gift' we inadvertently also secure Googles place as the dominant IT giant in the world.  Charity also may intent to be a force of good.  But charity also has the consequence of creating dependency and control.

What are the intentions other see in me, that I may not recognise (in both senses of the phrase)?  I see the NHS struggling with long waiting lists.  No one would see this as deliberate, but waiting lists support a thriving private sector and mean that politicians can change the NHS to suit their purposes, with less resistance from the public.  

Some intention may be subconscious.  This may be recognised or interpreted by others, or may go completely unnoticed.  (This fits with the model provided by Johari's windows.)  The bullying act may be seen by the bully as caring or protective.  Many bullying motivations can be understood to link to the deep and subconscious need to address insecurities going back to early childhood.

I also thought about the link that was alluded to in the programme with the taking up of Anscombe work by Donald Davison.  The programme indicated that Anscombe's work, though embraced by Davison, was also reinterpreted and used in different ways.  My understanding was that Davison introduced the link with the concept of mindfulness, and Action Theory.

Intention is vital to understand the morality of action.  Two very similar actions may stem from completely different intentions, and therefore have opposite consequences.  An example is the use of anonymity and loss of self in the buddhist  context, and the same perpetrated against slaves in the Atlantic slave trade.

In some communities young monks join a monastery and are given no name.  They are not referred to by a name, and they live, 'as a drop of water flowing in a vast ocean'.  The idea is that they let go of the power of self identity, and move into a shared communal identity.  They begin to think as an organism, like community of bees.  Western society would view this with horror.  Our culture is based on the centrality of the individual, and the importance of freewill and personal volition.

It was for this reason that slaves were stripped of names, culture, religion, and language, and made 'a mass of bodies'.  This stripping away of the self intended to crush the soul, rather than strengthen it.  Two similar acts with opposite intention.

So what about the Rabbit/Duck paradigm illustrated at the beginning of this piece?  Anscombe worked as a student and then colleague of Wittgenstein in Cambridge.  My understanding of this picture is 'One picture- two meanings'.  It is symbolic of the relationship between action and intention.  

Wittgenstein worked in England during the Second World War at a time when many famous women came as philosophers to work with him.  The men had left to fight.  This changed the face of Philosophy completely.  Wittgenstein was a non-practicing Catholic from Jewish Austrian heritage.   Anscombe was at his bedside on the day of his death, and Wittgenstein is buried in Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.  That is also where you will find the bodies of Elizabeth Anscombe and her husband Peter Geach.