I'm working on a paper that begins with Duncan Kennedy's introspective analysis of the work process of a left-liberal judge and extends that analysis to the work of a local politician, a candidate for an academic job, and a social scientist. An issue with the paper in its current form is that it is largely descriptive and lacks a normative thesis; a possibly related issue is that the actors in the case studies can all be seen as self-absorbed and lacking in loyalty to the greater good as opposed to themselves and their partisan groups.
Some thoughts :
a) One way to frame the case studies, all of which deal with work in non-profit and government settings, is to use for-profit managerial work as a backdrop. Kennedy's judge and my politician, dean, and scientist are all driven, just as the manager impelled by the goal of seeking the best return for the firm is driven. Just as the manager's goal of firm profit-maximization is partial, so too are the judge's goal of advancing left-liberal values, the politician's goal of advancing centrism over left and right values, the dean's goal of advancing conservative values, and the scientist's goal of developing a model to support what he already believes to be true. For the manager, goal-directedness and principle converge: The principle is to follow the goal of maximizing firm welfare. For the judge, the politician, the dean, and the scientist, on the other hand, the goals must be justified in terms of principle that are different from the partial, partisan goals. The judge must speak about freedom of association, precedent, and so on rather than advancing the left; the politician must speak about a more vibrant community rather than advancing the center; the dean must speak about improving education rather than reforming tenure; the scientist must speak about truth rather than supporting his priors. In that sense, the situation of the non-profit or government goal-seeker is more ethically troubled than that of the for-profit manager from the perspective of transparency. With the manager, what you see is what you get. With the judge, the politician, the dean, and the scientist, that is not the case.
b) There are two main normative defenses of the goal-directed manager, judge, politician, dean, and scientist. First, their dedication to a partial, partisan cause stimulates higher quality work than would be generated otherwise. Assuming that they operate in a well-functioning system in which there are competing centers of power, their partisan self-interest thus turns into an engine on behalf of the general good. As long as the manager needs to tailor her profit-maximization to an economic and social system that checks misbehavior, as long as Kennedy's judge needs to tailor his leftism to the requisites of a rule of law system, as long as the politician needs to accommodate his centrism to a political system in which activist advocates on the left and the right are central, as long as the dean needs to temper his anti-tenure fervor to function well in a system in which his beliefs are heterodox, and as long as the scientist is checked by a system of peer review and publication in which his biases are disciplined, there is reason to believe that their partisanship redounds to society's benefit. Or, to put the point in the terms of this blog, value competition works. Second, the partisan manager, judge, politician, dean, and scientist who are aware of the ambivalent combination of conflict and harmony between their partiality and their commitment to the whole are finer types than their peers who are also partial but lack such awareness. That is so whether or not the partisans' self-awareness makes them more effective. Knowing the truth about oneself is intrinsically valuable. More controversially: Self-aware, conflicted partisans are also a higher type than their unconflicted peers who do not seek to advance a special interest. The manager who simply tries to manage on behalf of society, the judge who simply tries to follow the law, the politician who simply tries to help the community, the dean who simply tries to improve education, and the scientist who simply tries to advance truth are not necessarily self-deluded or hypocritical or ineffective. They may simply be saints, and effective ones at that. But in their simplicity of vision, they are limited and child-like as well as admirable. In the doubleness of the partisan but also community-oriented manager, judge, politician, dean, and scientist there is a tension that is more powerful aesthetically and that is also potentially ethically finer than the steady virtue of the saint is. The saint who naturally does the right thing is like Kant's amiable man; the conflicted partisan who does the right thing is like Kant's cold person who is charitable because of the moral law. For Kant, the cold person who is charitable is a higher type morally than the naturally charitable person. I believe Kant was right. In the conflicted partisan there is not only moral drama but also the possibility of a finer kind of ethical action than is the case with the unconflicted pursuer of the good of all. Finally, a Kierkegaardian-Nietzschean codicil: The conflicted partisan who does the right thing can be admirable when violating the conventions that govern her role as well as when overriding her partisanship to adhere to those conventions. Doing the right thing is not just a Sunday school, pietist, Kantian matter of adhering to the fused power of moral rules and social roles, though it most certainly is exactly that most of the time. Doing the right thing can also be a matter of defying general moral rules and defying the ordinary expectations associated with one's role. To take that path of defiance as a general course of action is to take the path of madness, but to deny the possibility of taking that path is to close off one important way of doing the right thing. The conflicted partisan keeps the path of right defiance open as well as the path of right compliance; in her divided, struggling consciousness she embodies an ethic as fine and perhaps finer than the unified consciousness of the saint. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling: "Everyone shall be remembered, but each became great in proportion to the greatness of that whith which he strove. For he who strove with the world became great by overcoming the world, and he who strove with himself became great by overcoming himself, but he who strove with God became greater than all." And again: "There was one who was great by reason of his power, and one who was great by reason of his wisdom, and one who was great by reason of his hope, and one who was great by reason of his love; but Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is follishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself."
