Shiffrin and Shelby Sitting in a Tree...
Reading Shiffrin's work immediately set off my Dark Ghettos alarm. Please strap in, this is going to be quite the long and convoluted blog post.
I've been wrestling with the tension between Shiffrin's absolutist view of lying and truthful communication and Shelby's nonideal theory and reflections on oppressive systems in Dark Ghettos. Let's get my initial feelings out of the way first. To me, Shiffrin's Speech Matters feels like it exists in a romanticized moral universe. She positions truth-telling as this foundation of a "cooperative and collaborative project of fostering everyone's moral agency" (2). For Shiffrin, lying destroys the very mechanisms by which moral community and growth is made possible. When we lie, we're wrongly sabotaging the infrastructure that allows us to grow as moral agents (20-21).
But here's where Shelby's work continues to hit home for me. In Dark Ghettos, he's dealing with communities where calls for conventional understandings of cooperation and collaboration have already been shredded by systemic injustice. One of his core arguments is that when institutions fail to provide basic fairness, disadvantaged groups don't owe those institutions civic compliance/obligations (DG 20). They retain only their natural duties (like the duty of justice), while acts like refusing to take degrading jobs or even petty theft become justifiable forms of protest (DG Chap. 6 and 7).
(Underlying these ideas are their understandings of moral agency and reciprocity. Here’s a quick breakdown / recap of how both philosophers are deeply concerned with these concepts yet clearly operate in different paradigms.
On Moral Agency: While both philosophers heavily value moral agency and believe people maintain their capacity to make moral choices even under oppression (what Shiffrin refers to as duress in Chapter 2 and Shelby on p. 58 of DG), their priorities couldn't be more different: Shiffrin champions communicative purity while Shelby champions a practical and justified approach to egalitarian ideals.
On Reciprocity: Shiffrin's communicative reciprocity (17-19) positions truth-telling as the bedrock of a "collaborative project" where individuals affirm moral agency through truthful communication. Shiffrin says lying is the thing that disrupts our "cooperative and collaborative project of… moral agency" (2), undermining the shared infrastructure needed for collective moral growth. From my perspective, she seems to be implying / assuming here that institutions broadly protect communicative integrity.
Following Shelby's conception of reciprocity, he argues that civic obligations dissolve when systemic injustice oppresses citizens. In his dark ghettos, oppressed individuals retain only natural duties (e.g., avoiding cruelty, help the needy, the duty of justice, etc.) while acts like voluntary joblessness or petty theft become justified tools of protest. For Shelby, reciprocity requires mutual benefit: when institutions fail to provide, disadvantaged groups owe no civic compliance (DG 20).)
Considering all these distinctions between the two philosophers, the fundamental tension that comes to mind is how to balance Shiffrin's insistence on the absolute prevention of lying against what Shelby finds to be fair to ask from the oppressed as well as the need to resist oppression. Can these ideas coexist, or do they necessarily undermine one another? Here goes my stab at figuring this out.
Here's some situations that I thought up at the intersection of these two authors:
Let's say a resident in a dark ghetto lies to police officers about a neighbor’s current location to protect them from racial profiling. Shiffrin would likely argue this lie erodes the moral functions of communication and risks broader societal distrust while wronging all parties involved (23-24). I’d think that Shelby would counter that this act aligns with the natural duty to help the vulnerable in a context where legal systems have not only lost their legitimacy, but actively work to proliferate oppression.
Here's another:
Let's say a marginalized community uses some sort of coded language known primarily by its own members to coordinate anti-police protests. Shiffrin might express worry about clouding communication in a way that obscures truthful intent. I’d think that Shelby would respond that when conventional channels of communication ignore marginalized voices, dissent through a so-called "impure" form of expression becomes justified and necessary.
Generally speaking, I suspect Shelby would refute Shiffrin's notion that avoiding lying is a necessarily absolute condition for justice similar to the way he refutes the idea that forced integration is necessary. He'd likely point out that demanding absolute truth-telling would have similar implications to forced integration in that it would place disproportionate burdens on those already disadvantaged and vulnerable. As he argues, "blacks don't have a duty to accept the burdens of integration, nor is the state justified in imposing them" (75). Similarly, he might argue that the ghetto poor don't have any duty whatsoever to maintain communicative purity at the cost of their safety or resistance to oppression.
This clash between the two REALLY gets interesting when we consider how the two might respond differently to systemic lies. Despite Shiffrin's advocating for the freedom to communicate, in Shelby's dark ghettos, systemic disenfranchisement through the suppression of voters, underfunded education systems, and mass incarceration seem to have already corroded the baseline trust and communication required for her “collaborative project”. If and when the state itself is the primary "liar" in Shiffrin's framework, how can truth-telling be an absolute duty?
Here are some other questions I derived from this discussion: Does Shiffrin's duty to preserve truthful communication require oppressed groups to prioritize the avoidance of lies over survival strategies? How do natural duties interact with the morality of truthful communication when systemic lies (racist propaganda, rampant patriarchy, etc.) have already poisoned public discourse?
I've been wrestling with the tension between Shiffrin's absolutist view of lying and truthful communication and Shelby's nonideal theory and reflections on oppressive systems in Dark Ghettos. Let's get my initial feelings out of the way first. To me, Shiffrin's Speech Matters feels like it exists in a romanticized moral universe. She positions truth-telling as this foundation of a "cooperative and collaborative project of fostering everyone's moral agency" (2). For Shiffrin, lying destroys the very mechanisms by which moral community and growth is made possible. When we lie, we're wrongly sabotaging the infrastructure that allows us to grow as moral agents (20-21).
But here's where Shelby's work continues to hit home for me. In Dark Ghettos, he's dealing with communities where calls for conventional understandings of cooperation and collaboration have already been shredded by systemic injustice. One of his core arguments is that when institutions fail to provide basic fairness, disadvantaged groups don't owe those institutions civic compliance/obligations (DG 20). They retain only their natural duties (like the duty of justice), while acts like refusing to take degrading jobs or even petty theft become justifiable forms of protest (DG Chap. 6 and 7).
(Underlying these ideas are their understandings of moral agency and reciprocity. Here’s a quick breakdown / recap of how both philosophers are deeply concerned with these concepts yet clearly operate in different paradigms.
On Moral Agency: While both philosophers heavily value moral agency and believe people maintain their capacity to make moral choices even under oppression (what Shiffrin refers to as duress in Chapter 2 and Shelby on p. 58 of DG), their priorities couldn't be more different: Shiffrin champions communicative purity while Shelby champions a practical and justified approach to egalitarian ideals.
On Reciprocity: Shiffrin's communicative reciprocity (17-19) positions truth-telling as the bedrock of a "collaborative project" where individuals affirm moral agency through truthful communication. Shiffrin says lying is the thing that disrupts our "cooperative and collaborative project of… moral agency" (2), undermining the shared infrastructure needed for collective moral growth. From my perspective, she seems to be implying / assuming here that institutions broadly protect communicative integrity.
Following Shelby's conception of reciprocity, he argues that civic obligations dissolve when systemic injustice oppresses citizens. In his dark ghettos, oppressed individuals retain only natural duties (e.g., avoiding cruelty, help the needy, the duty of justice, etc.) while acts like voluntary joblessness or petty theft become justified tools of protest. For Shelby, reciprocity requires mutual benefit: when institutions fail to provide, disadvantaged groups owe no civic compliance (DG 20).)
Considering all these distinctions between the two philosophers, the fundamental tension that comes to mind is how to balance Shiffrin's insistence on the absolute prevention of lying against what Shelby finds to be fair to ask from the oppressed as well as the need to resist oppression. Can these ideas coexist, or do they necessarily undermine one another? Here goes my stab at figuring this out.
Shiffrin insists that we must avoid subverting truthful communicative because doing so "erodes the very conditions under which justice could ever emerge" as Bika puts so elegantly. She specifically talks about preserving “an exit through which we could negotiate an end to conflict and move toward reconciliation using rational discourse…" (25). This is her fundamental concern: if we destroy truthful communication, we lose the only pathway to eventual justice. In Chapters 6 and 7 of Dark Ghettos, Shelby defends strategic defiance, including behaviors like staying jobless rather than taking exploitative work, engaging in civil disobedience, etc. To me, I don’t see how Shelby wouldn’t consider lying to be a similarly justified form of resistance / protest / reclamation of moral agency / exposition of oppression.
Here's some situations that I thought up at the intersection of these two authors:
Let's say a resident in a dark ghetto lies to police officers about a neighbor’s current location to protect them from racial profiling. Shiffrin would likely argue this lie erodes the moral functions of communication and risks broader societal distrust while wronging all parties involved (23-24). I’d think that Shelby would counter that this act aligns with the natural duty to help the vulnerable in a context where legal systems have not only lost their legitimacy, but actively work to proliferate oppression.
Here's another:
Let's say a marginalized community uses some sort of coded language known primarily by its own members to coordinate anti-police protests. Shiffrin might express worry about clouding communication in a way that obscures truthful intent. I’d think that Shelby would respond that when conventional channels of communication ignore marginalized voices, dissent through a so-called "impure" form of expression becomes justified and necessary.
Generally speaking, I suspect Shelby would refute Shiffrin's notion that avoiding lying is a necessarily absolute condition for justice similar to the way he refutes the idea that forced integration is necessary. He'd likely point out that demanding absolute truth-telling would have similar implications to forced integration in that it would place disproportionate burdens on those already disadvantaged and vulnerable. As he argues, "blacks don't have a duty to accept the burdens of integration, nor is the state justified in imposing them" (75). Similarly, he might argue that the ghetto poor don't have any duty whatsoever to maintain communicative purity at the cost of their safety or resistance to oppression.
This clash between the two REALLY gets interesting when we consider how the two might respond differently to systemic lies. Despite Shiffrin's advocating for the freedom to communicate, in Shelby's dark ghettos, systemic disenfranchisement through the suppression of voters, underfunded education systems, and mass incarceration seem to have already corroded the baseline trust and communication required for her “collaborative project”. If and when the state itself is the primary "liar" in Shiffrin's framework, how can truth-telling be an absolute duty?
Here are some other questions I derived from this discussion: Does Shiffrin's duty to preserve truthful communication require oppressed groups to prioritize the avoidance of lies over survival strategies? How do natural duties interact with the morality of truthful communication when systemic lies (racist propaganda, rampant patriarchy, etc.) have already poisoned public discourse?
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