How We Get Along

by J. David Velleman

In How We Get Along, philosopher David Velleman compares our social interactions to the interactions among improvisational actors on stage. He argues that we play ourselves―not artificially but authentically, by doing what would make sense coming from us as we really are. And like improvisational actors, we deal with one another in dual both as characters within the social drama and as players contributing to the shared performance. In this conception of social intercourse, Velleman finds rational grounds for morality, though not a rational guarantee. He maps a middle course between skepticism and rationalism, arguing that practical reasoning is "pro-moral' without requiring moral action. The result is what he calls a "Kinda Kantian metaethics". Written in an accessible and engaging style, How We Get Along is the summation of Velleman's thinking to date, incorporating and unifying previous work on agency, the self, the emotions, narrative, and Kantian moral theory.

Genres: Philosophy

232 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Velleman gives a compelling naturalistic or pragmatist framework for thinking about ethics. He points out that most moral philosophers proceed by either looking for some fundamental moral principles that ground all ethical phenomena, or by committing to moral relativism. Velleman strikes a different path. He understands ethics to not be any particular phenomenon in the world, but to rather refer to a network of aspects of social phenomena that are similar only by family resemblances. Particularly, when we reflect on how one's action in a social setting coheres with or violates the status quo or social expectations regarding how one should act in that setting, then we use moral vocabulary -- and then, philosophers come around, point to this kind of speech, and try to find systematizing principles behind it; this gets to be called ethics. When ethics is understood in this way, we can see that there are no foundational or necessary ethical principles. For whatever ethical norms we have, things could've turned out differently.

Velleman grounds his framework in his theory of action and practical reasoning. Action is essentially behavior motivated by a reason. We arrive at these reasons through practical reasoning. The overarching criterion that determines which goals, motives, or considerations are more or less reasonable is the criterion of intelligibility. We need to make sense to ourselves and to one another. Each of us has a stable character and self-understanding; we are motivated to make sure that our actions are "in character," and the criterion that any action ought to be "in character" (or intelligible) guides our decision making. So we can think about there being two sources of motivation for our actions: there's our first-order dispositions or habits which actually make up our character and drive our actions, and then there's our second-order motive to be intelligible to ourselves by enacting those dispositions.

Velleman emphasizes that this isn't a matter of simply conforming to our dispositions or understanding of them. He uses the metaphor of improv theater; improv actors do not have a pre-written script, but their actions are truly spontaneous and creative, although still being guided by the concern to stay "in character." (I'll return to the concern later whether Velleman is successful at distinguishing his position from a conservation, conformity-to-the-status-quo view).

Now, we can think about what this entails at the social level. We are each driven to be intelligible to ourselves, and we treat one another as also driven to do this. So in order for me to understand you and thus fluently interact with you, I need to know how you understand yourself; and you need to do the same with respect to me. In order to achieve correct mutual understandings of our characters, we need to be able to coordinate and cooperate. This incentivizes us to converge on a shared practical vocabulary, or a set of kinds of actions and social situations that we agree upon as normal and that each of us will conform to. Only in such commonly held, typified situations are each of us guaranteed to be understood by the other person; we are all familiar with these situations and the social roles involved in them. We can call these social "scripts" or scenarios. For example, there are scripts for birthday parties, visiting relatives, philosophical debating, etc.

Moreover, we are shaped by others' understandings of who we are, which shape how they perceive and treat us. We can't help but become the person that others take us to be. So our lives are held hostage by these social scripts and the common ways of life that those constitute. When we strive to be intelligible to ourselves, we also need to be intelligible to other people, so that they can recognize us for who we are and allow us to be so. Injustice often happens when there are social scripts that lead to people from certain social groups being given roles that are deemed as negative or that receive abuse in some way.

These social scripts and common ways of life are revisable. None of them are metaphysically determined, but they are socially contingent through and through. The revision of these common ways of life should adhere to two criteria: (1) Any revisions should be tractable -- people should be able to perform the roles that are specified, and these people should be able to find these roles intelligible or integratabtle into their current characters, and (2) Revisions should aim at allowing for the greatest consistency and generalizability of social scripts. To elaborate on the latter, a script would be restricted in generalizability if it said something along the lines "shake hands when you greet a person" but included the qualifications that this should not happen if the other person is from a certain racial background.

According to Velleman, social and moral progress tends to look like the removal of distinctions among people that were previously thought of as natural or necessary. It turns out that those distinctions could be removed, and the intelligibility of each person to herself and to one another could hold just as well. Some distinctions might hold out to be necessary (as a silly but metaphoric example: only six foot tall people can reach shelves that are six feet high without using any additional tools). The question of which distinctions are necessary v. dispensable can rarely be settled beforehand. Velleman calls for experimentation; it is a trial-and-error process to see which revisions to our social scripts can be made and can promote intelligibility, thereby enhancing our autonomy and agency.

Overall, this series of lectures is written very clearly. It is easy and enjoyable to read. I really like Velleman's naturalism or pragmatism. After one takes Nietzsche seriously, that 'God is dead' or there are no metaphysical or absolute grounds for morality, it might be tempting to become a moral relativist or nihilist. Velleman shows that there is still moral objectivity, but it is a functional matter -- there is no single moral prescription that can be absolute, but at any given moment in society, there are certain social practices that would, objectively, enable greater intelligibility of ourselves to ourselves and to each other. Moreover, Nietzsche's answer was to ask us to constantly re-invent or create ourselves. Velleman's account also asks us to do this, but with the additional constraints that any personal reinvention should be motivated with an eye towards our collective human pursuit for more intelligible and rational shared ways of life.

My only quibble with Velleman's theory is that I find myself confused about how to reconcile his criterion of intelligibility for agency, and his normative calling for experimentation. Velleman states that we are the most autonomous or free when we are the most intelligible to ourselves and to each other. Maximizing intelligibility seems incompatible with experimenting, or deviating from the current status-quo. I guess this concern ties back to the ancient question of how learning is possible; in order for something to be intelligible, we must already know it; but then whatever we learn isn't new, but is a continuation of what we've already known. I'm pretty sure this is a false paradox, that the contradictoriness depends on an overly simplified formulation of the matters at hand. Nonetheless, it'd be nice to receive from pointers from Velleman on how to make sense of this apparent tension.

[Abdallah Moh · Rating 1 out of 5]

محاور الطرح تدور حول ان العلاقات الاجتماعية والتواصل الشخصي والعواطف المتبادلة تبنى على المنافع المادية او تغير المواقف من الاشخاص . حسب ما استطعت ان افهمه

**

لم استوعب الا الشيء البسيط جدا

إما لصعوبة الطرح
او سوء ترجمة
او ان الكتاب موجه للمختصين والباحثين
او ان الموضوع نفسه غير مفهوم

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a soon-to-be-published manuscript. You can get it here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf...

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine that you have just walked into a room. It is a normal room, with people occupying space; though, the only thing that separates it from being "normal," per se, is that it's a stage. In this insightful philosophical work, Professor Velleman takes readers along to explore the dynamics of human interaction and communication. Drawing largely upon the theme of theatricality, this incisive glimpse into literally "How We Get Along" offers readers a chance to remove themselves from the scenes of life so that they may gain a better understanding of why we react and interact with one another as we do.
*May be of great interest to awkward people and theatre artists

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read, Velleman argues very well for ethics as something objective, but not in defense of the usual view of ethics as something firm and common for everyone, but as something subjective which is based on objective virtues most human share. Absolutely recommended if you struggle with pessimism due to nihilism conserning ethics, which I did before I encountered Velleman, and his modern point of view on moral.

[Ft. Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethics as social improvisation; I don't think I necessarily agree with his constructivist orientation, but there's really cool stuff in hurr.