CrimePsych

Atomism was always used as a very broad term, unfortunately though it was usually used by people attacking the theory rather than supporting it, which lead to a lot of philosophers referring to atomism by other names such as individualism. Hence when it comes to defining what atomism is in the eyes of Taylor, a lot of clarification is needed to establish exactly what it is he is referring to.

Atomism refers to theories such as those under the social contract heading, as well as later theories that, although not entirely encompassed within the boundaries of social contract theory, do still have an underlying message along the lines of; doctrines from individuals whose ultimate goals and desires are purely individually motivated.

Social contract theory is a diverse subject with many different versions of it being considered over the years, all with their own purpose in mind; some were designed to protect the individual from oppression from a sovereign, while others were used to justify the power that the sovereign had. Atomism is also used to describe those theories or doctrines that portray a purely instrumental view of society or more contemporary doctrines such as those that defend individuals and their rights first, rather than societies. This is where primacy of rights emerges, where we can finally give a solid definition, in Taylor’s eyes, of what he believes atomism to be and ultimately examine the grounds behind him disagreeing with it.

Political and moral atomism in Taylor’s terms were those doctrines first outlined by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, at approximately the same time as the revolution, in terms of normative discourse, occurred. This was a period of time when philosophical norms were established through orderly conversation. Hobbes was always considered a psychological hedonist, as his views that all of mans voluntary actions are motivated by the desire for self-pleasure or selfpreservation shocked many a person. Locke on the other hand rejected metaphysics completely and was firmly of the belief that knowledge can only be obtained through experience and reflection on experience. It was for this reason he thoroughly despised the Scholastic philosophers. However when it came to finding a consistent moral theory in Locke’s writings it becomes impossible as he slides around from hedonist theories to the possibility of morality being like a mathematical science.

The characteristics of the aforementioned political and moral doctrines were all centralised around one core idea, the idea of primacy of rights. To put it in simple terms it states that certain rights should be granted to individuals but those same rights should not be granted to a society or a group. Primacy of rights theories such as these bind such rights unconditionally to men and take these rights as their fundamental principle, or at least as one of their fundamental principles. More precisely, what is meant by this is that the rights of the individual are of first concern and that our obligation to belong to a society or group, or to obey an authority that has been put in place, is seen as derivative i.e. it is laid on us conditionally and we need only consent to and accept it if it is to our advantage (as an individual). Atomism is a view about human nature, in that it affirms the self-sufficiency of man, even when he is outside a society.

One of the things that puzzled Taylor, and provided him with a reason to question political and moral atomism as a whole (if not even disagree with it) was that he found it hard to understand how such a doctrine can be started with an assertion of individuals rights over a societies, and on top of that to give them primacy. As he and most others against political and moral atomism conclude, this isn’t a good argument to start with. If someone was to come to you and say “The Prime Minister of Australia is actually a supernatural being from the core of the universe” any sane person would find this difficult to believe. They might do a better job of convincing you of this if they started somewhere a lot further down the line and gave you reasons why it is true, slowly working up to dropping this line on you.

In saying that man is self-sufficient on his own, it may have already been evident to some that political and moral atomism affirms this, but the primacy of rights doctrine needs to be giving this sort of background as there are a lot of philosophers, usually proponents of it, who will vigorously deny such statements. They attempt to maintain that the assertion of rights is not dependent on any particular view about man’s nature.

To put it another way, it is impossible to ascribe the natural right of an individual doing or enjoying something without manifesting a certain property or properties as it is an essential part of said rights i.e. if A has a natural, not just legal right to do or enjoy X, it is impossible for us to deny it E, as X is essentially a part of manifesting E (X is a causally necessary condition of manifesting E and E is essentially a part of the manifestation of X, X is doing or enjoying a given freedom based on the fact that all individuals are E’s; rational life-forms exhibiting essentially human capacities).

Thus asserting a right has a much wider range of issues falling under its belt, other than the aforementioned ones. Based on this it is hard to comprehend why any doctrines that assert the rights of an individual while denying those same rights to society can be believed. Taylor knew that asserting these rights needed a certain conceptual background outlining the worth of certain moral properties and capacities. As such, if all individuals have said property E in them (rational life forms exhibiting human capacities), it is an inescapable conclusion that these capacities and properties should be fostered and supported in appropriate ways and hence developed.

The atomist on the other hand would have you believe that we should simply leave individuals to their own devices and not interfere in any way. This is a difficult thing to comprehend, as we shall discuss shortly, the human capacity for choice is something that needs to be developed, it may be a natural right of a person to choose their mode of life or to decide what to do with their property but without development the capacity of choice can go askew. However those that support the ultra liberal view feel that the central consideration in their view is that of freedom of choice, and as such no choice can be judged morally better or worse.

Taylor wonders how then can we assert rights outside of a context of affirming the worth of certain capacities? Unless people can come to accept the utterly facile moral psychology of modern empiricism, ultra liberalism can never appear completely unconnected with any affirmation of the worth of these human capacities i.e. unless people accept that the capacity of choice is a skill that we are born with, rather than as a potential that needs to be developed and nurtured over time it can never be unconnected with such affirmations.

On the contrary, the proponents of this ultra liberal view are wary of agreeing that any assertion of rights involves an affirmation about realising certain human capacities as they fear that any affirmation of this sort offers a reason for restricting freedom.

Given that all this is true, it becomes blatantly obvious to Taylor that we can’t ascribe natural rights without affirming the worth of certain human capacities. As a result other consequences arise; the entire atomist doctrine can be undermined simply by showing that man is not self sufficient and that his human capacities cannot be developed outside of a society. There are so many easily noticed examples of why this is true, the most obvious having to be that of children growing up, their ability to make choices and come to independent moral convictions would never be fully developed if there was no society in which to develop them.

Based on this aspect alone it would appear that an atomist view built solely around the primacy of rights is fatally flawed, as to assert the primacy of rights one must affirm the capacities. This cannot be achieved by this particular atomist view as it denies the obligation to belong to a society.

Taylor uses a very good example to show the enormous contradiction of terms that emerges if the primacy of rights is asserted in the face of such a social thesis; For arguments sake let us say that men cannot develop the fullness of moral autonomy outside of a society where it can be developed. It is a contradiction on a grand scale to assert the right to your own independent moral convictions yet go on to assert the primacy of rights. The reason why this is a contradiction is because it pulls us both ways, if we are to undermine the society in which we developed our own independent moral convictions we are denying that same right of development to all those that come after us, and as such we cannot be justified in our convictions as the considerations that justify the first condemn the second. It does not matter from what this conflict arises, it is a moral dilemma for us, similar to the ‘free rider’ problem associated with other social contract theories in that we cannot justify doing away with the society we have been developing in simply because our capacity for choice and independent moral conviction is now considered whole.

Another appropriate way that Taylor shows the contradiction is to take the approach of a person that is currently living in said society but their capacity for choice and independent moral conviction is not yet fully developed. By asserting primacy of rights one condemns the society to ultimate destruction and therefore denying myself the ability to fully develop my human capacity for choice, and ultimately freedom.

We can judge a life to be either full or truncated based upon the assertion of certain rights which in turn involve affirming the worth of certain capacities, it is thereby impossible to claim the morality of a truncated form of life in defence of such rights. As Taylor says: Would I be respecting your right to life if I agreed to leave you alive in a hospital bed, in an irreversible coma, hooked up to life support machines? The answer is neither yes or no, as in situations such as these the human aspect of life and the capacities and faculties that make such a life human have been reduced to zero. It is difficult to believe that anybody could assert a right to life as simply breathing, without such things as free movement. Obviously the situation is slightly different when it comes to forensic medicine but in cases such as these an assertion of rights is also an affirmation of worth, an hence such claims become incomprehensible as the life of this person is now a mere shadow of what it used to be.

Most supporters of the primacy of rights will deny these arguments a they are quite different to what they believe, however for arguments such as Nozick’s, whose writings from , to be considered acceptable one needs to establish a valid argument from the primacy of rights thus defending social atomism. Nozick seems to think that he can start from our intuitions that people have certain rights and that we can then build a society that does not infringe on these rights from the ground up, but the one thing he fails to recognize is that any assertion of these rights alone breeds an obligation to belong.

But for atomists another factor that they tend to throw onto the field is that of sentience, which in short means ‘capable of feeling’. Although such things can be impaired it is commonly known to be a capacity held by living things such as humans and animals that does not need to be developed like the capacity to become a morally autonomous person. But if such a capacity does not need development then no social theses about its development can be a valid one. We are capable of sentience whether we are part of a society or not. In this particular regard we would be considered to be self sufficient.

However Taylor argues that not even this is true, as Hobbes states that our attachment to life is such that we desire to continue being agents of desire and consequently we are not guaranteed a properly human life simply by living, even this aspect of our life needs to be developed within a group or society.

It has been found though that those that assert the right to be able to do what you want with your possessions are citing such arguments in affirming capacities that can fail to be developed. One is inclined to believe that the capacity of ownership of property or possessions is not your typical capacity that can fail to be developed. All adults, even teenagers and sometimes younger are capable of owning things, of knowing what they own and making decisions as to what to do with or use said possessions for, yet proponents of primacy of rights put forward such capacities for asserting such rights.

From Locke comes one of the standard answers provided and that is that the right to property is an essential underpinning in life, however to Taylor this is blatantly not true. For thousands of years people have survived quite reasonably and easily in communal societies, be it Aboriginal tribes or native American Indians, these are just two, among hundreds if not thousands of different scenarios going all the way back to the Palaeolithic period.

The atomist may attempt to respond by rephrasing the question, citing that the issue at hand has been misinterpreted, such that what they mean is under what conditions is one independent enough of society as to not be at its mercy for ones life. It is hard to deny that if the motive for ownership of personal property is one that you may be secure in your life then it is again obvious that you are less likely to come to harm living in a communal society then you would if you were not.

Unfortunately for supporters of primacy of rights though they are still unlikely to accept such statements as a major sacrifice is still being made. He is sacrificing more than just his right to possessions; he is sacrificing his right to a life in freedom, a much direr problem.

Another consideration that the atomist may claim is that a persons development of their ability to make decisions and independent moral convictions can be completely developed within an operational family and that this does not leave any obligations. If in fact obligations still arose, they would be out of gratitude for your mother and father than out of a sense of moral responsibility. The only obligations you would in fact have are those to your children and even these can be cut once they have fully developed these capacities.

But Taylor disputes this as he finds it dubious that such capacities can ever be fully developed within the confines of one family group, surely these are the type of things that can only be completely developed in an entire society? If it took an entire civilisation for the genesis of freedom to be realised how could future generations discover what it is to be an autonomous agent without said civilization In closing, Taylor states a number of very strong arguments for disagreeing with political and moral atomism. Although our families do bring us to what we are today our capacities to be fully developed only come by virtue of the society and civilization in which our families are placed, without such the likelihood of us realizing and obtaining our full potential seems grim. All of this puts significant obligation on us to belong as an assertion of rights based on the affirmation of certain freedoms. An individual can only maintain his identity within a society of a certain kind and as such he must be ultimately concerned about the society as a whole, including things like nature and moral overtone.