Veiled Disrespect?

As I hope you might have noticed, The New York Times has new articles on a wide array of subjects every day, from politics and business, to arts and entertainment. And in amongst the scandals, the gossip, the business reports and sporting thrills, it also has regular articles that directly address philosophical issues. It's probably no surprise then that "Veiled Threats?" by Martha Nussbaum made my reading list today. I didn't realise that Nussbaum, one of the greatest living philosophers, was the author until I'd finished reading it and decided to blog it because it was such a great piece of writing; had I noticed Nussbaum's name before I started reading, I would have expected her usual high standard both in critical thinking and clear writing.

In "Veiled Threats?" Nussbaum takes aim against an alarming trend to make up laws against the wearing of the burqa, that black cover-all for women that symbolizes Islam for many people, and which is generally loathed as  being symbolic of oppression, ignorance and the worst aspects of religious belief. As Nussbaum reminds us, some European countries have already banned the burqa, and others are trying to. As well as contrasting such laws with the constitutionally enshrined history of tolerance of the US, she also takes on and effectively rebuts the most common arguments in favour of such bans on this symbol of Islam.

I won't repeat Nussbaum's arguments against the usual arguments for banning the burqa, except to note that it reminded me of Stephen Law's equally strong arguments against the usual arguments for eating meat (2003). One thing that I liked about her article is that it shows again that philosophy is not some distant academic ivory tower of irrelevance, but that philosophy deals very directly with issues that matter very much to all of us: questions about moral right and wrong do, and should, matter to us; issues concerning religious freedom and freedom of expression do, and should, matter to us; debates on the truth and falsity of cherished beliefs do, and should, matter to us. It is in these sorts of areas that philosophy can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of what is involved in such questions, issues and debates, and so help us move forward, if not to a final, absolute answer, at least in the right direction.

I also like the fact that this is not a one off article. It is published in "The Stone" (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-stone/ ), a regular section of The New York Times that publishes articles by leading philosophers on a range of topics of philosophical interest, from metaphysics, to epistemology, to aesthetics and ethics. There haven't been any on logic yet, but perhaps not a lot of even The NY Times's readers are likely to enjoy the symbolic formalizations of modern logic. But I haven't given up hope.

One thing I like about Nussbaum generally, but this article specifically, is that it makes clear the importance of taking a side, rather than adopting the too common practice of disrespectfully dismissing other people's most important beliefs as nothing more than cultural accidents or personal preferences. That sort of  easy and unchallenging "respect" for the opinions of others seems to me extremely disrespectful, since it says to people that you think their most valued ideas, ideals, traditions and moral values are so unimportant that they are not worth taking seriously in a real debate. In case you have not yet made the inference, I do not agree with the notion that other people's beliefs should not be taken seriously and judged true or false, right or wrong, according to the support for and against. Even worse is the idea sometimes heard that every belief, value, ideal or tradition is equally true or right for those who accept it. Again, that seems to me an extreme form of disrespect that effectively makes every belief, value, ideal and tradition equally worthless and nothing more than an accidental preference.

Whether Moslem women should be allowed to wear the burqa or not is a moral question, and one that Muslim women, and men, think matters a lot, and not just because it happens to be what they prefer due to an accident of birth. Equally, those who use moral arguments to ban it think it matters. Showing respect to such strongly felt beliefs requires taking both sides seriously and acknowledging that one side is right and the other side is wrong. And then trying to work out where the truth and justice really lie.

This grew and grew as I was writing it. And it isn't at all like the response I had in mind when I started. It's also a rushed job, so I welcome criticism pointing out weaknesses.

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References

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files: The Philosophy of Christmas, (pp. 124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Nussbaum, M. (2010, July 11). Veiled threats? The New York Times. Retrieved July 12, 2010 from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/veiled-threats/?ref=global-home