Logic, Validity, Truth, Verifiability, Rationality
and the implications for justice
I have been pondering for some time the connection between materiality and rationality. That has been prompted by my claim to have developed an approach to justice that is “strictly rational” because the whole of it (i.e., both its determinant and its referents) is contained within “(perceived) material existence.” That is to say, unlike any approach to justice ever proffered before this one, it does not involve even one subjective truth.
In an exceptional article here in Medium (“How Formal Logic Can Make You A Better Thinker”), Diana Cariun wrote an introduction to formal logic as a branch of philosophy. Upon reflection, the distinction she makes there between “valid” and “true” provided me the understanding I sought.
As Cariun explained, “valid” means that there is a logically sound chain of reasoning from a premise to a conclusion. It is important that the premise itself is irrelevant as far as an argument’s being valid is concerned. All that matters for validity is the logical soundness of the argument itself. Whether the result of a chain of reasoning is true or not depends on, in addition to logical soundness, the truth of the premise.
[I thank Cariun for her contribution to my understanding of these matters; for better or worse the rest of this essay is my own thinking. I do not claim to be the first person to have any of the following thoughts, and I manifestly acknowledge that I have been influenced by my extensive reading and conversations with other people, cited or not, including philosophy and philosophical concerns. I am merely relating here my own thinking on these matters.]
So, the issue becomes what can count as ‘true’ and how that relates to rationality — and justice.
There are two kinds of truths. They used to be referred to as “subjective” and “objective.” Postmodernists, led by Jacques Derrida, have (as far as I am concerned) rendered ‘objective truths’ obsolete. They have successfully made the case that no person can engage in any path of reasoning that is uninfluenced, if unconsciously, by subjective factors.
“Subjective” truths still exist. Those can be consciously delineated or not. Such truths can be unconscious — unrecognized — prejudices and biases (for or against) of which we are completely unaware. Still, subjective truths can also be consciously delineated — or occupy a vague space between those two mental states. In their vaguer form such truths can be intuitions, ‘feelings’, a ‘sense of things’, etc. In their most ‘concrete’ form such truths are beliefs. (Besides subjective truths, other — usually entangled —subjective factors that influence us include sheer egoism/egotism, lust for power, sexual desire, desire for ‘status’, greed, fear, aesthetics, a desire to ‘do good’ — itself subjectively determined — etc.)
So a belief is a concretely formed subjective truth. In my experience, the implications of such a truth might not be thought all the way through (usually will not be — perhaps cannot be). Still, that truth is there to be applied at any time, in any place, regarding any matter (deemed by the believer to be) related to it.
Beliefs can be sacral or secular. An example of the former is a belief in God (a belief of mine). An example of the latter is a (non-sacral) belief in ‘human equality’ (also a belief of mine) — as is a (non-sacral) belief that there are groups of humans who are inherently superior(/inferior) beings, such that merely being a member of such a group makes a person a superior(/inferior) being, no matter what. Whether sacral or secular, all beliefs are the same thing: concretely formed subjective truths.
Beliefs are a form of knowledge. Indeed, they are the most certain form of knowledge it is possible for a person to obtain. That’s because our beliefs become knowledge when we accept them as truths. It is our acceptance of them that makes our beliefs ‘true knowledge’.
None of that makes beliefs in any way illegitimate. It does render them non-rational and purely personal.
As Soren Kierkegaard put it, a belief (though he referred specifically to sacral beliefs) is a “leap of faith.” That applies as well to secular beliefs because it denotes the non-rational process involved in accepting any belief (or not?). We can logically reason our way to a belief, but committing to any belief cannot be a rational decision. Even if we accept a belief after we have thought about it for some time, that can still only be, at the very end, an extra-rational subjective act. We do not rationally decide to accept a belief; we find that we have accepted it. [We can rationally reject a belief because it is non-rational, but since we all have beliefs (must all, for one thing, believe in either equality or inherent, intrinsic superiority/inferiority among human beings), that is a blatantly — stupidly — illogical thing to do.]
So here’s a thing: conclusions that have subjective truths as premises can be not only valid, but true for those who accept the truth of the premise — yet must always be non-rational. A non-rational premise cannot produce a rational conclusion. It can be logically valid, but it can’t be rational. Consider, ‘God exists, so . . .’ or, ‘People are equal, so . . .’ . The status of the conclusion as rational or not is irrevocably tied to the status of the premise in that regard. No amount or degree of logic between a premise and a conclusion can sever that tie, transform an argument following from a non-rational premise into something rational.
That has vast implications for justice. Not only Liberalism, but the whole of the ‘Enlightenment project’ (late 1700’s) as it pertained to how society should be governed — ideology itself — was based on the presumption that non-rational subjective truths (if secular) could be a source of rational conclusions. For the thinkers involved in that “project,” ‘secular’ was equated with ‘rational’ (and ‘sacral’ with non-rational, at best). [Karl Marx (middle 1800’s) famously insisted that his ideology was strictly rational, that it did follow from an ‘objective’ premise, but I insist that he was the penultimate equalitarian, dressing that premise in the garb of ‘scientific’: without a belief in equality, how can “exploitation” be ‘wrong’? (Besides that, there are other arguments against the supposedly ‘scientificness’ of Marx’s ideology).]
To invoke postmodernists’ favorite word, it is ironic that postmodernists have perpetuated that fundamental error. As far as I am aware, no postmodernist has recognized that ideologies are the products of reasoning from (secular) non-rational premises. All of them continue to insist that ideologies are a huge part of ‘the rational’ that has ‘de-humanized’ our existence. No religious fundamentalist can surpass a postmodernist in equating our human capacity for rationality with ingrained evil.
While, as noted above, objective truths, as conclusions following from a chain of reasoning, are not possible, I perceive that I exist in a material reality: an objective — physical — “phenomenal,” as Immanuel Kant put it — realm. I have a material existence that transpires within an ‘objectscape’ — one that includes other beings similar enough to me that I perceive us to be ‘of the same kind’: human beings. What follows is addressed as conveying any truth only to those who share that same perception.
The perceived objective realm is not a product of the subjective self. The existence of printed words — including texts we cannot even begin to understand but that other people can— proves that things are perceived that are not the product of the subjective self. For that matter, since people act on the basis of our perceptions, to include a material existence external to us (which includes other human beings) that acts upon us and is acted upon by us with ‘real’ effects, whether or not the objective realm we perceive is in fact external to our subjective selves is in the end beside the point.
Statements about that objective realm can be true or false. They are true if they coincide with what is experienced in that realm. In that more limited sense, then, objective truths still exist.
Even then, our subjective selves can influence what we even perceive. If we start reasoning from those truths to their implications, the influence of subjective factors increases with every argumentative step we take. That is especially significant regarding their implications for other people, and most especially significant regarding their implications for justice — how we humans ought to treat one another.
Still, such objective truths have something no subjective truth can ever have: verifiability. Verifiability comes from an experience of a truth that comes from outside our subjective selves. So verifiability ties rationality to materiality.
That tells us that we can only be truly rational when we are referencing objective truths (in that narrower sense). We learn of such a truth by experiencing it for ourselves or accepting an account of an experience of it of some other person(s).
Such verifiability comes from our senses. It is those shared capacities for experiencing materiality that allow us to hold truths in common. We can know how another person knows an objective truth. Most importantly for justice, it allows us to identify truths that are common to all human beings.
No subjective truth can be verified in that way. Regarding any and every subjective truth, we only have a believer’s ‘word’ to ‘take’ for it. Any number of people can hold the same subjective truth, but for every one of them accepting it is as a truth is a unique, personal event. All subjective truths exist as a separate, personal truth for each and every person who accepts one of them. They lack the commonality that learning through the senses we have in common about a realm of existence that we all perceive we share in common provides.
A subjective truth can also originate outside a person’s consciousness. (I have had an experience of such a truth myself.*) Such truths can even relate to material existence. Yet, the truths themselves are irrevocably subjective — profoundly personal.
Objective truths can be of a kind that verifying them requires particular education/training and/or equipment. Yet, there are objective truths that are universally verifiable among human beings.
Verifiability is most important when it comes to proffering an ethic: a rule to govern relations among people. If such a rule is — or follows from — a subjective truth, then people can reasonably or rationally reject it for any reason or no reason. No one can reasonably or rationally expect anyone who does reject any subjective truth to abide by it or any implications of it. No matter how vociferously any number of people might insist on such a truth, anyone can still reject it without being the least bit unreasonable, much less irrational. To reject a (sufficiently verified) objective truth (in that narrower sense) on the other hand, is not only unreasonable, not just non-rational, but is irrational: crazy: insane: lunacy.
[Of course, in the end each individual has the power to pronounce any proposed objective truth to be sufficiently verified or not. We are considering, however, a real material existence that has real affects on people. To act in ways that are contrary to truths about that reality is to court real harm — for oneself and others, including the unborn. It would surely be reasonable to apply ‘Pascal’s bet’ to matters pertaining to that existence: the greater the potential threat, the more reasonable it is to err on the side of precaution.]
We do experience that part of our material existence involves living in a group with other people. Keeping in mind that an ethic can be any kind of rule, some ethic will necessarily inform how any society will be governed — will govern the governance of society (often referred to as an ‘organizing principle’). Over the course of human history, and especially since the emergence of civilizations, ‘rule by the most ruthless’ has often been the ethic — rule — governing the governance of society. It might even be considered to be the ‘default value’ to which human societies revert in the absence of any other organizing principle.
Why that should be the rule for governing governance is no more verifiable than a rule based on equality is. To govern governance on the basis of any subjective truth means that it must be imposed on those who do not accept it as a truth. That puts coercion at the very core of any such society — including one that bases governance (in whole or in part) on ‘equality’.
All of that gets us to ‘arbitrariness’. A long, long time ago (1689) John Locke published Two Treatises of Government. In it he had equality as a kind of precondition for a just society — one that would maximize liberty consistent with upholding equality (such that “one [person’s] liberty” famously “ends at the person or property of any other [person]”). Most importantly for this effort, he famously defined injustice as “being subject to the arbitrary will” of any other person(s).
In all the reading I have done on the topic of ethics/justice, I have never encountered anyone disputing that definition. I definitely would not. Indeed, I would go further: in human relations, arbitrariness is injustice.
All of the preceding disputation leads to the conclusion that every person’s subjective truths are arbitrary from the point of view of any other person. Therefore, to make any subjective truth the foundation for governing the governance of a society is to introduce arbitrariness into that governance at the very start. Yet again, that includes the subjective truth of ‘equality’.
To arrive at an ethic to govern the governance of society that avoids such arbitrariness can only be accomplished by having an observation within material existence — an objective truth (in the narrower sense noted previously) — as a starting point for it. To reject a sufficiently verified objective truth is every bit as arbitrary as accepting a subjective truth is (from the point of any other person). To reject a universally verifiable objective truth is the apotheosis of (mental/intellectual) arbitrariness.
Yet, the place of arbitrariness in injustice followed, for Locke, from a belief in equality. As noted above, he had that as a precondition for a just society. To start from there to work towards what justice must be is no more free of arbitrariness than to start with equality itself and go to any conceptual construct of justice would be. Still, arbitrariness can stand as a reasonable standard for assessing injustice/justice — as long as it is not the starting point, the premise from which any valuations of just/unjust follow. It can’t be the starting point for justly governing governance, but it can serve as a handy corollary.
As Locke accurately emphasized, we humans are by our nature “separate and independent” beings. As noted above, though, we are also at the same time social beings: we live together in groups. That makes governance integral to being human: we have no choice but to accept that governance must be part of our existence as humans (except for those extremely rare individuals who choose to live outside society in any form, as isolated individuals). For any and all human beings living with others in a group, we only have one fundamental choice: either governance will be governed by some arbitrary subjective truth or it will be governed by an objective truth (in the narrower sense noted previously). If it is universally verifiable, can be verified by any human being, such a truth cannot be at all arbitrary.
The ‘utilitarians’ (Jeremy Bentham, et al., who were a part of the ‘Enlightenment project’) thought they had arrived at such an ethic: do whatever accomplishes the greatest happiness/good for people. Their approach, however, depended on the subjective truths of ‘good’ or ‘happiness’ (or any equivalent term anyone might substitute for those).
Here is an observation within material existence that is a ‘pure’ objective truth: human beings have no choice but to effect choices. That is, we cannot avoid choosing from among perceived alternatives and taking action to bring that choice to fruition. Those choices can range from the trivial, such as when/what to eat, or what to do for entertainment, etc., to the life-defining, such as whether/whom to marry, whether to have children, what to do about education or a career, etc. [I got that from Warren J. Samuels in “Welfare Economics, Property, and Power,” his contribution to a compilation of scholarly essays in Perspectives of Property, edited by Gene Wunderlich and W. L. Gibson (1972): for economists, “welfare economics” refers to ‘externalities’, factors not taken into account in the classic ‘free market’ economic model, such as pollution and, yes, poverty — among others, such as, Samuels argued, ‘power’ as it applies to the economy (producing/acquiring goods/services), which is always nothing but effecting choices and in which property is, to say the least, a major source of power.]
The thing is, to be a human being is to be required to effect choices. If we are conscious, we are always effecting a choice: doing what we are doing rather than anything else we could be doing. Even when we are asleep, we have (usually) chosen to (try to) go to sleep — and designated a time to be awakened.
We all face constraints on the choices we can effect. Those constraints can be greater or lesser from person to person and from time to time, and in all manner of ways, especially regarding any particular choice one person or another might seek to effect. That part of all this was Samuels’s focus.
For me, the very fact that we have no choice but to effect choices stood out as a starting point for an ethic. As part of that process, we all have a capacity to choose. Again, we all face constraints on the choices we can effect, but a capacity to choose among perceived alternatives is something all human beings have. That is to say, a capacity to choose is part of what it is to be a human being: it is integral to being human.
So, to recognize one another as fellow humans we must respect one another’s capacity to choose. To act otherwise is to assert by our actions that some difference in status exists: superiority/inferiority — or even whether the other being is (fully) human. To justify any such conduct can only be done with reference to some subjective truth.
A person might think that what we have here is a rational justification of equality, but regarding justice that would be a categorical mistake. For justice, equality is an unnecessary complication. All that matters for justice is that the beings involved are humans.
That is why justice is tied inextricably to recognizing one another as fellow humans. It can be expressed as the predicate of justice: to act justly is to recognize one another as fellow humans (by recognizing one another’s capacity to choose) and to recognize one another as fellow humans (in that way) is to act justly. (Compare with ‘justice is liberty’: is liberty — people doing what they want — justice?) [Here in Medium Dr. Douglas Giles, Ph.D., has written about the work of Axel Honneth and Cillian McBride, who also have “recognizing one another” as the centerpiece of ethical conduct, but ultimately tracing back to a belief in equality.]
Others’ being as humans is an objective truth. It cannot be rationally — or even reasonably — rejected (or ignored). No one can deny the applicability of this ethic of justice (a requirement to respect the capacity of all people to choose) to any human being, including oneself: either its obligations or its protections.
Of course, before now human beings have not had the option of an ethic to govern governance that follows from a universally verifiable observation within (perceived) material existence. While this approach to justice is in that most meaningful way a departure from all previous attempts at justice, it shares a basic value that is common in them: mutual respect. [I have written elsewhere (in Medium) on the place of mutual respect in preceding conceptions of justice, in its broadest sense: how we should treat one another.]
In all previous cases a ‘requirement’ of mutual respect has followed from a subjective truth (whether sacral or secular). Here — one more time — a requirement of respect is bound up in the objective truth that we humans have no choice but to effect choices. No ethic following from a subjective truth can bring true, rational — real — justice to any society. Only an ethic following from a (narrower) objective truth can accomplish that.
[I have written elsewhere (in Medium) on the implications of this approach to justice for the governance of society. It is worth noting here and now that for Liberal nations society would ‘look’ the same. Equality would be rendered superfluous, but liberty would be maximized — as the product of justice, however, not its source, or foundation, or predicate, etc. ‘Individualism’, recognizing that we are by our nature separate and independent beings, would still be a large part of the governance of society, but it would not be the grossly self-centered individualism of Liberalism as we have known it. Those nations would retain their existing institutional structure, even in the economy, but the functioning of those institutions — their affects on people — would be transformed, especially in the economy.]
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*For readers who are curious, I experienced a ‘visitation’ by spirit-beings. As a result of that experience I was given to understand three things. Two of them related to purely personal matters. The third related, strangely enough (because it was not a matter I had ever debated subjectively), to equality as it pertains to men and women: I was given to understand that there is no hierarchical arrangement between the two as far as God is concerned, but both are equal in their relation to God. Whether that is something new or has always been the case was not a part of what I was given to understand.