Reframing Our Responsibility towards the Emerging Field of ‘Practical Philosophy’: A Defense of the need for Somatic Dignity and Related Synthesis of Abstract Theory with Contemporary Crises
‘Practical philosophy,’ or the application of philosophical theory and pedagogical techniques to everyday problems, has been identified as school of thought since the Ancient era. Aristotle explicitly identifies this branch of philosophy in the first book of the Metaphysics, but it is certainly also captured in the spirit of the Platonic dialogues and Thucydides’ reflections on political psychology, as well as Eastern conceptions of moral duty towards one’s community. In recent years, however, particularly with the decline of employment prospects within the academy, ‘practical philosophy’ has been transformed from a thing of theoretical speculations to a serious, emerging field of its own. Political philosophers, such as Daniel Allen and Yuval Levin, have used philosophical frameworks to support specific policy initiatives in civics education and electoral institutions through initiatives like the Our Common Purpose Report. Political philosophy, while containing an inherent bridge with the interests of public service, has colloquially often been regarded as too abstract for the fast-paced, white-paper world of policy. Allen has remarked the difficulty that one faces on an individual level trying to persuade leaders in both politics and the academy that such a collaboration is a worthwhile venture. However, efforts have clearly expanded in the last couple of decades particularly with high level officials taking seriously these studies produced by philosophical minds as deeper, wiser, characterizations of and solutions to contemporary political crises.
Outside the classically relevant political philosophy, there has been a simultaneous surge of new applications for practical philosophy. Philosophers are being increasingly employed as consultants on bioethics within medical environments, business ethics (as we see in a growing number of ethics certificates for corporate leadership learning programs within universities), and legal consulting. Within education grows a new pedagogical tradition of Philosophy for Children, now being taken up by large organizations such as the National High School Ethics Bowl as a way to cultivate sustainable, healthier modes of civic dialogue. Gone are the days where philosophy acts as a mere abstract inspiration or rationale for psychotherapy- today, we see clinical studies developed around embodied behavioral techniques to support psychological integration that were formerly disregarded as only spiritual or religious practices.
While all of these examples illustrate pragmatic applications of philosophy to earthly problems, some philosophers have now ventured toward a more radical argument, not of ‘Practical Philosophy’ as something to be explored only for the sake of comparative causal efficacy with other problem-solving disciplines, but out of a moral obligation on the part of the philosopher. In his recent book, A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy After Narco-Culture, Carlos Alberto Sánchez takes practical philosophy, and rather than merely bestowing a sort of promise or persuasion of its benefit, asserts the responsibility philosophers have to employ their reflections on human nature to understanding and solving violent or otherwise destructive conflicts (Alberto-Sánchez, 2020, 2). He argues that this responsibility has been demonstratively felt by philosophers during events such as 9/11, where literature exploded in an effort to unpack the causes of terrorism and prevent hate attacks in the future. He then identifies narcoculture, or the culture of violence associated with the surge of drug trafficking throughout the Americas, as another crisis which philosophers hold a duty to help solve. He substantiates this not only with the precedent of 9/11, but the marked more than a quarter of a million lives that have been loss since 2006 at the hands of narcoculture.
Having substantiated his argument for the responsibility philosophers hold to participate in ‘practical philosophy’ through a quantification of the devastation posed by these particular violent conflicts, Alberto-Sánchez seems to see the origin of this duty from a sort of utilitarian ethical lens. To spend such time both noting statistics of lives lost or severity of brutality as a reason for feeling a moral imperative, and particularly do so through a comparative discussion of two conflicts implies that these examples are being chosen “as opposed to” others, relative to the degree of the danger or destruction they pose. I would argue that while the scale of a conflict and the consequences it leaves in its path are relevant to the decision of philosophers to get involved, there is a deeper, stronger root of our obligation. This source can be best generalized as philosophy’s unique capacity to unpack broad historical patterns of conflict, and particularly identity-based, cultural or ideological conflict, as in both of the examples offered by Alberto-Sánchez.
Where other social science methodologies are confined to the consideration of just a few causal variables per theory, philosophy is naturally oriented towards generating more complex, authentic narratives that consider relationships between institutions and psychology over historical fluctuations, rather than discrete moments in time. While philosophy too can ask particular questions about individuals and their circumstances, its central focus has often been a more general conception of human nature and the consequences that follow from those passions or tendencies. In the case of many similarly natured divisions arising in communication around the globe, but each within different particular circumstances, philosophizing thus seems a uniquely appropriate tool.
In this series of articles, I will make a case for the responsibility to engage in ‘practical philosophy’ as a particular result of this unique capacity philosophy holds for generating meaningful frameworks that unpack broader historical causes of our most existentially debilitating or destructive. I will do this by applying the framework of Somatic Dignity to Alberto-Sánchez’s selected case study of Narcoculture, as I argue this framework’s historical character will clearly illuminate the deeper source of our moral responsibility to engage in ‘practical philosophy’ as a result of its unique power to overcome systemic conflicts. If the framework can place Narcoculture in conversation with other conflicts that, while embedded in different environments, might all relate to the same natural human and institutional tendencies, it may also be able to find that they respond to similar solutions. This could scale the positive impact of a philosophical solution to movement of the historical needle, demonstrating a power unseen by most particular social studies.
Crisis as Clarity: Iterative Historical Brutal Conflicts as Indicators of the Deprivation of Somatic Dignity
As introduced a previous article, Somatic Dignity: The Bridge Beyond the Global Communication Crisis, philosophical literature around radical questions of the construction of human identity has unfolded alongside the evolution of communications technology, such that each time institutional shifts lead to an alteration of social dynamics, and particularly, more abstract communication behaviors, we have encountered an existential crisis, and subsequent return to the question of what is human dignity? In political or institutional assertions of dignity, however, Kant has typically been the source of its ontology as he discusses it most explicitly through his conception of moral law, which aligns very well with the idea of drafting “rules” within human rights law. I argue, however, that the Hegelian notion of dignity is more useful for understanding dignity in a way that relates to contemporary conflicts, such as narco-culture, as he articulates the consciousness of dignity as something that we don’t have full access to, but which unfolds across history alongside the reform of institutions. When our consciousness of our dignity no longer matches that recognized by institutions, we go through an existential crisis from the contradiction, reform institutions, and move forward. This is done, as will be detailed later, through an embodied consciousness, such as that supported by Eastern philosophical practices of mindfulness and integration, and used by critical theorists to raise consciousness for social justice and generate institutional change. I label this conception of dignity uncovered through somatic practices “Somatic Dignity,” and declare it is the deprivation of this, and instead assertion of shallow notions of dignity from abstract authorities that leads to violence, as it usually happens through a process of othering or dehumanization, as we again will come to later.
This series of articles will use the Hegelian understanding of moments of contradiction in institutional recognition and individual consciousness of dignity, or conflict, as a model by which to understand narcoculture as a crisis resultant from a deprivation of dignity- and thus, one of a larger historical process, not a mere discrete conflict to understand through simple social science methodologies. Similarly, having shown an alignment of the Hegelian crisis model and narcoculture, it will offer solutions that fit that conflict by alleviating the deprivation causing the conflict. Finally, it will explore the limitations inherent to such methods, and assert why practical philosophy is the uniquely suited, and therefore ethically obligatory pathway by which we should work to generate solutions to these existential crises.