Steven Lukes

The category of the person : anthropology, philosophy, history

Preface 1. A category of the human mind: the notion of person the notion of self Marcel Mauss (translated by W.D. Halls) 2. The category of the person: a reading of Mausss last essay N. J. Allen 3. Categories, concepts or predicaments? Remarks on Mausss use of philosophical terminology Steven Collins 4. Marcel Mauss and the quest for the person in Greek biography and autobiography A. Momigliano 5. A modified view of our origins: the Christian beginnings of modern individualism Louis Dumont 6. Person and individual: some anthropological reflections J. S. La Fontaine 7. Self: public, provate. Some African representations Godfrey Lienhardt 8. Between the earth and heaven: conceptions of the self in China Mark Elvin 9. Purity and power among the Brahmans of Kashmir Alexis Sanderson 10. Of masks and men Martin Hollis 11. An alternative social history of the self Michael Carrithers 12 The person Charles Taylor Conclusion Steven Lukes Bibliography Index.

Methodological Individualism Reconsidered

In what follows I discuss and (hopefully) render harmless a doctrine which has a very long ancestry, has constantly reappeared in the history of sociology and still appears to haunt the scene. It was, we might say, conceived by Hobbes, who held that ‘it is necessary that we know the things that are to be compounded before we can know the whole compound’ for ‘everything is best understood by its constitutive causes’, the causes of the social compound residing in ‘men as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity, without all kinds of engagement to each other’.’ It was begat by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, among whom, with a few important exceptions (such as Vico and Montesquieu) an individualist mode of explanation became pre-eminent, though with wide divergences as to what was included, in the characterisation of the explanatory elements. It was confronted by a wide range of thinkers in the early nineteenth century, who brought to the understanding of social life a new perspective, in which collective phenomena were accorded priority in explanation.

Some Problems about Rationality

In what follows I shall discuss a philosophical problem arising out of the practice of anthropologists and sociologists which may be stated, in a general and unanalysed form, as follows: when I come across a set of beliefs which appear prima facie irrational, what should be my attitude towards them? Should I adopt a critical attitude, taking it as a fact about the beliefs that they are irrational, and seek to explain how they came to be held, how they manage to survive unprofaned by rational criticism, what their consequences are, etc? Or should I treat such beliefs charitably: should I begin from the assumption that what appears to me to be irrational may be interpreted as rational when fully understood in its context? More briefly, the problem comes down to whether or not there are alternative standards of rationality.

Nobody to shoot? Power, structure, and agency: A dialogue

In this dialogue, Clarissa Hayward and Steven Lukes debate the relation among power, social structure, and human agency. The authors converge on the view that not only moral responsibility, but also political responsibility is relevant to the study of power. They disagree about how to analyze difficult cases in which some agents are clearly subject to social constraints on freedom, but no powerful actors seem responsible for their constraint.

Liberal Democratic Torture

Liberal democracies have long practised torture, but should they ever permit their officials to torture (and, if so, when?), how should their citizens think and talk about it, and how should the law treat it? Is it just another instance of ‘dirty hands’ in politics? If it averts some terrible harm, can resorting to it be seen as choosing the ‘lesser evil’? What, then, is torture? The ‘torture memos’ of the Bush administrations legal advisers are reviewed and their attempt to narrow its definition criticized, as is Judge Posners attempt to confine it to physical coercion. Attempts to evade the questions above (on the grounds that torture is never effective in averting disaster) are rejected. It is suggested that torture, unlike other cases of dirty hands considered, cannot be rendered liberal-democratically accountable, in the sense that it will sometimes be legitimate and, when not, punished, because its practice cannot be publicly recognized without undermining both the democratic and liberal components of liberal democracy. This suggestion is supported by adducing a ‘Durkheimian argument’ to the effect that our institutions and customs have been so penetrated by core elements of an egalitarian ‘religion of individualism’ that violating them threatens a kind of ‘moral disintegration’. This, it is argued, requires liberal democracies to reject the very idea of a scale that can allow comparison of the benefits against the costs of torturing. The absolute prohibition serves to maintain inhibitions, though these are currently being eroded by the fear of terrorism.

Different cultures, different rationalities?

Winch’s ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’ addressed the question of how to interpret apparently irrational alien beliefs and practices. Criticizing Evans-Pritchard’s study of Zande witchcraft, Winch argued that across cultures there are divergent conceptions of what is rational and real and that, where they diverge, it is mistaken to apply ‘our’ standards and conceptions to ‘their’ beliefs. Winch’s position is here re-examined in the light of the current debate about whether the Hawaiians thought Captain Cook was divine. Sahlins holds that they did, asserting that different cultures have different rationalities. Obeyesekere disagrees, holding that these views are just further evidence of European myth-making about the natives’ savage mentality, and that ‘practical rationality’ is common to all cultures. In conclusion it is argued that Sahlins’s ‘Maussian’ interpretative strategy is preferable to Obeyesekere’s ‘Davidsonian’ approach, that Sahlins cannot sustain his Winchean claim about rationality and that denying it is a precondition for understanding a practice central to all cultures: that of trying to get the world right.

Searle and his critics

The ensuing articles pose various challenges to Searles thesis concerning social reality. Some exhibit misunderstandings; others identify inadequacies in the formulation of his thesis and failures to address issues within the limits of his project, notably his inattention to unintended consequences. Searles project is to distinguish social from biological and physical reality, but that, it is argued, offers a restrictive account of what social scientists study, which extends well beyond linguistically-constituted institutions to include the ‘brute realities’ of social life and, most significantly, the interactions between the ‘institutional’ and the ‘brute’, for example between ‘institutional’ and ‘brute’ power. Searles critique of Durkheims social ontology is, in part, endorsed but also criticized for focusing on the latters methodological pronouncements rather than on the ontology implicit in his substantive work. What bearing, in general, does getting social ontology right have on substantive social scientific work? Some suggestions are offered concerning the substantive implications of Searles theory.

Social justice: The Hayekian challenge

Abstract Hayeks argument that social justice is a mirage consists of six claims: that the very idea of social justice is meaningless, religious, self‐contradictory, and ideological; that realizing any degree of social justice is unfeasible; and that aiming to do so must destroy all liberty. These claims are examined in the light of contemporary theories and debates concerning social justice in order to assess whether the arguments persuasive power is due to sound reasoning, and to what extent contemporary theories of justice meet or escape the Hayekian challenge.

Toleration and Recognition

The author asks: Is there a case for redefining toleration as the recognition of excluded identities? He is inclined to answer no. Liberal democratic states, should of course recognise disfavoured groups by registering the normality of their members and the justice of their claims but must resist recognition in any stronger sense. Appropriate recognition consists in confronting the live contemporary issues of exclusion and of ethnic and national injustice by compensatory policies and constitutional innovations.

Prolegomena to the Interpretation of Durkheim

Durkheims manner of thought and his style of expression have certain peculiar features the recognition of which can only clarify the interpretation of his ideas. First, there are certain concepts crucial to the understanding of his thought which need to be elucidated, either because they are ambiguous or because they are unfamiliar to a modern reader. Second, underlying these concepts, there are a number of sharp dichotomies, or “binary oppositions”, on which his thought rests, which need to be made explicit and related to one another. Third, there are a number of characteristic, and often bad, arguments, which likewise need to be brought to the surface and identified. And finally, Durkheims style often tends to caricature his thought. He often expressed his ideas in an extreme or figurative manner, which distorted their meaning and concealed their significance: hence the relation between his style and his thought must be considered. It is to these matters that this article is devoted.