There are two kinds of belief. Belief in factual statements, and belief in normative statements.
“Insect suffering matters” is a normative statement, “people dying of preventable diseases could be saved by my donations” is a factual one. A restatement of the preventable disease statement in normative terms would look like: “If I can prevent people dying of preventable diseases by my donations at not greater cost to myself, I ought to do it.”
I think tragic beliefs derive their force from being normative. “Metastatic cancer is terminal” is not tragic because of its factual nature, but because we think it sad that the patient dies with prolonged suffering before they’ve lived a full life.
Normative statements are not true in the same way as factual statements; the is-ought gap is wide. For them to be true assumes a meta-ethical position. If someone’s meta-ethics disregards or de-emphasizes suffering, even suffering for which they are directly responsible, then “insect suffering matters” carries no tragic force.
The real force of tragic beliefs comes earlier. For insects, it is a consequence of another, more general belief: “suffering matters regardless of the species experiencing it”, combined with a likely factual statement about the capacity for insects to suffer, and a factual statement about our complicity. In fact, if one assumes the more general belief, and takes the factual statements as true, it is hard to avoid the conclusion “insect suffering matters” without exploding principles. At that point avoidance is more about personal approaches to cognitive dissonance.
I’m inclined to reserve the tragic label for unavoidable horrors for which we are responsible. Think Oedipus, Hamlet, or demodex mites. But I understand there is a tragic element to believing unpopular things, especially normative ones, given the personal costs from social friction.
Given the differentiation between normative and factual beliefs, I’m having a hard time parsing the last sentence in the post:
“It is hard to maintain tragic beliefs. On the face of it, it makes the world worse to believe them. But in order to actually do as much good as we can, we need to be open to them, while finding ways to keep a healthy relationship with tragedy.”
Is the “worseness” a general worseness for the world, or specific to the believer? Does doing the most good (normative claim) necessarily require tragic beliefs (factual claim)? What is a “healthy relationship with tragedy”? Where does the normative claim that we should have only healthy relationships with tragedy derive its force? If we can’t have a “joyful” flavor of righteousness, does that mean we ought not hold tragic beliefs?
Personal feelings about tragic beliefs are incidental; for someone with righteous beliefs, whether or not they feel joy or pain for having them seems irrelevant. Though we can’t say with any certitude, I doubt Benjamin Lay had his personal happiness and health in the forefront of his mind in his abolitionist work. Perhaps instrumentally.
Should Benjamin Lay ought to not have lived in a cave, even if that meant compromising on acting out his tragic beliefs?
These are really valuable comments and I’m sure they’ll result in an edit (for one thing I’d like better examples of tragic beliefs, and making them explicitly normative might help.) I’ll respond properly when I have time, thanks!
There are two kinds of belief. Belief in factual statements, and belief in normative statements.
“Insect suffering matters” is a normative statement, “people dying of preventable diseases could be saved by my donations” is a factual one. A restatement of the preventable disease statement in normative terms would look like: “If I can prevent people dying of preventable diseases by my donations at not greater cost to myself, I ought to do it.”
I think tragic beliefs derive their force from being normative. “Metastatic cancer is terminal” is not tragic because of its factual nature, but because we think it sad that the patient dies with prolonged suffering before they’ve lived a full life.
Normative statements are not true in the same way as factual statements; the is-ought gap is wide. For them to be true assumes a meta-ethical position. If someone’s meta-ethics disregards or de-emphasizes suffering, even suffering for which they are directly responsible, then “insect suffering matters” carries no tragic force.
The real force of tragic beliefs comes earlier. For insects, it is a consequence of another, more general belief: “suffering matters regardless of the species experiencing it”, combined with a likely factual statement about the capacity for insects to suffer, and a factual statement about our complicity. In fact, if one assumes the more general belief, and takes the factual statements as true, it is hard to avoid the conclusion “insect suffering matters” without exploding principles. At that point avoidance is more about personal approaches to cognitive dissonance.
I’m inclined to reserve the tragic label for unavoidable horrors for which we are responsible. Think Oedipus, Hamlet, or demodex mites. But I understand there is a tragic element to believing unpopular things, especially normative ones, given the personal costs from social friction.
Given the differentiation between normative and factual beliefs, I’m having a hard time parsing the last sentence in the post: “It is hard to maintain tragic beliefs. On the face of it, it makes the world worse to believe them. But in order to actually do as much good as we can, we need to be open to them, while finding ways to keep a healthy relationship with tragedy.”
Is the “worseness” a general worseness for the world, or specific to the believer? Does doing the most good (normative claim) necessarily require tragic beliefs (factual claim)? What is a “healthy relationship with tragedy”? Where does the normative claim that we should have only healthy relationships with tragedy derive its force? If we can’t have a “joyful” flavor of righteousness, does that mean we ought not hold tragic beliefs?
Personal feelings about tragic beliefs are incidental; for someone with righteous beliefs, whether or not they feel joy or pain for having them seems irrelevant. Though we can’t say with any certitude, I doubt Benjamin Lay had his personal happiness and health in the forefront of his mind in his abolitionist work. Perhaps instrumentally.
Should Benjamin Lay ought to not have lived in a cave, even if that meant compromising on acting out his tragic beliefs?
These are really valuable comments and I’m sure they’ll result in an edit (for one thing I’d like better examples of tragic beliefs, and making them explicitly normative might help.)
I’ll respond properly when I have time, thanks!