Liberatory virtue: a sketch

Liberatory virtues are, at minimum, dispositions to respond appropriately to conditions of oppression. But, not every disposition to respond appropriately to conditions of oppression is a specifically liberatory virtue.The category needs narrowing.This section attempts to home in on an analysis of liberatory virtue by exploring four main questions.

(1) What is Iiberatory about Iiberatory virtue?

(2) What is virtuous about Iiberatory virtue?

(3) Whose virtues are the Iiberatory virtues—are they restricted to oppressed persons?

(4) Can liberatory virtues be traits that also count among the traditional virtues?

15.1.1 What is liberatory about liberatory virtue?

In her groundbreaking book, Burdened Virtues (2005), Lisa Tessman argues that some dispositions to respond appropriately to conditions of oppression will contribute to resisting it, while others will not. For instance, on Tessman's view, hardened rage against one's oppressors is an appropri­ate response to oppression that contributes to resisting it. But, there will be other appropriate responses to oppression that either help us survive it, or help us choose options that are the least bad, without motivating us to resist it. Here, compartmentalization comes to mind (2005: 166), as does the aptly named virtue of ‘sensitivity to others' suffering in moderation' (2005: 90). Tessman argues that nearly all virtues in conditions of oppression—including hardened rage, compartmentalization, and moderate sensitivity to suffering—are ‘burdened': they are “traits that while practically necessitated for surviving oppression or morally necessitated for opposing it, are also costly to the selves who bear them” (2005: 107). But, only some virtues in conditions of oppression contribute to resisting it. I suggest that we restrict the category of ‘liberatory' virtues to those that contribute to resisting oppression and achieving liberation.

What kind of oppression do liberatory virtues resist—for instance, do they resist social oppression, or epistemic oppression? And, further, what kind of change do liberatory virtues engender? Do they engender changes in unjust structures (in laws, policies, and other institu­tions) or changes in unjust individuals (in actions, motives, and awareness)? I will assume that ‘liberatory virtue' is a broad category in these respects. It can include traits that contribute to resisting either social oppression or epistemic oppression (or both), and that engender either structural or individual changes (or both).The aim of this chapter is to explore whether humility could be a liberatory virtue for oppressed persons, whose oppression is primarily (though not exclusively) social. Accordingly, this chapter will focus on liberatory virtues that contribute to resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation. Note that, even if humility is one such virtue for oppressed persons, it won't be the most important—we can expect justice to be para­mount. Nor will humility engender changes on its own, though it can, as limitations-owning, be an initial spark for change in individuals, and can support virtues like justice in engendering structural changes.

15.1.2 What is virtuous about liberatory virtue?

Thus far, we have narrowed our focus to virtues that contribute to resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation. In other words, we have sketched what makes them liberatory. Let's now sketch what makes them virtues. Will every trait that contributes to resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation be a virtue? If not, why not, and what further restric­tions are needed? Moreover, what does it mean for a trait to ‘contribute' to an end?

Let's begin with some distinctions from traditional virtue theory.

How do these traditional distinctions help us home in on liberatory virtues? Do they even translate to conditions of oppression? In some ways, they do not, since excellence may be out of reach in conditions of oppression.Tessman has argued that oppression produces ‘dirty hands' cases and tragic dilemmas “in which there are no good choices” (2005: 108). If this is correct, liberatory virtues won't be traits that make one excellent, so much as they will be traits that make “the best of bad circumstances” (2005: 30). In other words, they won't be traits that pro­duce good effects, or involve good motives. Rather, when the only effects and motives on offer are bad, they will be traits that produce or involve the least bad.

But, in other ways, these traditional distinctions do translate to conditions of oppression.

Whichever analysis of‘contribute' one adopts, a trait won't be a liberatory virtue unless it con­tributes to a liberatory end that is appropriate (the least bad even if not good). Under-specifying this end can cause us to count too many traits as virtues, to misidentify some vices as virtues. With this in mind, we can ask whether the end of resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation is still too broad. Will every trait that contributes to this end be a virtue? Or, will some traits that contribute to it be vices? Consider, for instance, traits that facilitate the kill­ing of oppressors or taking revenge. Such traits might contribute to the end of resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation for oppressed persons. But we shouldn't count them as virtues.As Tessman observes:“There is a danger... of glorifying traits that, while purportedly aimed at liberation, facilitate morally horrifying actions” (2005: 165). In an effort to exclude such traits, she defines the virtues of resistance as aiming not just at liberation, but at human flourish­ing.¹ On her view, such virtues aim at “eventually making flourishing lives more possible overall” (2005: 165)—at eventually making flourishing more possible for the person who is resisting, for oppressed persons, and (as she sometimes puts it) for all members of our “inclusive social collec­tivity” (2005: 76).Though Silvermint and Tessman disagree over the details, he likewise defines virtues of resistance in terms of human flourishing.² In Silvermints words (2017: 475):

There's nothing inherently virtuous about simply seizing power from those that have abused it previously, if doing so harms one's fellow victims and partially complicit allies, or if retribution for oppression spirals into the kind of revenge or future mistreat­ment that preserves barriers to flourishing in society.

To be a virtue of resistance, a trait must resist oppression in ways that facilitate “flourishing-apt societies,” those characterized by “an absence of systematic social barriers to everyone’s flourish­ing, not just an absence of barriers for the beneficiaries of resistance” (2017: 475). In a similar spirit, the Black Lives Matter movement lists as one of its guiding principles:“work[ing] vigor­ously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.”³

In short, the end of resisting social oppression and achieving social liberation is too broad to ground an analysis of liberatory virtues, since it ‘lets in’ traits that are vices. To exclude such traits, we can follow Tessman, Silvermint, and BLM in refining this end.We can understand lib­eratory virtues to be traits that contribute not just to resisting social oppression and achieving liberation, but also to making flourishing more possible for all persons, formerly oppressed and former oppressors alike.We have left the analysis of ‘contribute’ open, acknowledging that there is room for debate on this score.

15.1.3 Whose virtues are the liberatory virtues?

Who can possess the liberatory virtues? Is the possession of liberatory virtues restricted to oppressed persons? Or can privileged persons also have liberatory virtues?⁴ Readers should note that my language here oversimplifies—due to intersectionality, people are rarely ‘oppressed’ or ‘privileged’ simpliciter. Many persons will be oppressed along one axis of their social identity but privileged along others. Keeping this qualification in mind, let’s return to brass tacks for a moment: liberatory virtues are, at minimum, supposed to help persons who are oppressed along some axis resist oppression and make progress toward liberation.Thus, at a fundamental level, it is assumed that liberatory virtues are the sorts of traits that can be possessed by oppressed persons. What is at issue here is whether liberatory virtues extend to persons who are privileged.

There are several reasons to think that liberatory virtues can and should extend to the privi- leged.⁵ First, the burden of resisting oppression, achieving liberation, and making flourishing more possible for all shouldn’t fall solely on oppressed persons. Indeed, since oppressors are the ones in the wrong, and privileged persons have benefitted from oppression, one might argue that the burden of change should fall predominantly on them. Second, if Miranda Fricker (2007) is correct, we are all at risk of possessing qualities like testimonial injustice, whether we are oppressed or privileged. Accordingly, we can all benefit from the liberatory virtue of testimonial justice—it would be absurd to suggest that only oppressed persons should have this liberatory virtue! Finally, if the trait of humility turns out to be a liberatory virtue, then liberatory virtues had better be the sorts of traits that can be possessed by the privileged. Privileged persons need the liberatory virtue of humility, and need it badly.

15.1.4 Can liberatory virtues be traits that also count among the traditional virtues?

Relatedly, if the trait of humility is to be a liberatory virtue, traditional virtues and liberatory virtues cannot be mutually exclusive. So, we need to ask: will some of the same traits count as both liberatory virtues and traditional virtues? In other words, will these two categories inter­sect? And, will humility be one of the traits in their intersection?

Let’s first consider an argument for answering in the negative. Why might one think that liberatory virtues won't be traditional virtues? For starters, traditional virtues are identified and analyzed with ideal conditions in mind. Case in point: neo-Aristotelians often argue that the virtues of the phronimos are ideals that we can get closer to achieving if we put in the work. But, oppressive conditions are ‘non-ideal’ (Norlock 2018; Mills 2018). Indeed, oppressive conditions may be so starkly different from ideal conditions that we are “forced to recommend different character traits, dispositions, and aims for each.”⁶ To put the argument differently, when we analyze virtues with oppressive conditions in mind, we should expect to home in on an entirely different set of traits: traits that do not count as virtues in ideal conditions, and might even count as vices.Tessman (2005: 165) argues that some virtues of resistance, such as hardened rage, fit this description.⁷ But, do all liberatory virtues fit this description? Does this argument for a stark separation between liberatory and traditional virtues succeed? Does it show that these categories are mutually exclusive?

We can say this much. Beginning with oppressive conditions allows for the possibility of expanding beyond the traditional virtues—it allows for the possibility that a trait might be a liberatory virtue even if it isn't a traditional one. But, there is a problem with the argument above. On its own, beginning with oppressive conditions doesn't guarantee mutual exclusivity. It doesn't preclude the possibility that some traits will be both liberatory and traditional virtues. Indeed, it's hard to see how it could, since the trait of justice seems to contribute to resisting social oppression, achieving liberation, and making flourishing more possible for all, while also being a paradigm of traditional virtue. Silvermint acknowledges this much and more. In arguing for a “unified account of political agency” (2017: 462), he contends that the very same traits will be political virtues in ideal and oppressive conditions.The claim under consideration here—that at least some of the same traits will be virtues in ideal and oppressive conditions—is weaker than Silvermint's contention that all of the same traits will be (political) virtues in ideal and oppres­sive conditions.

15.2