The Parable of the Dishonored Madagascan
Question Three: After some thought I think “maximization of opportunity” is a pretty good working definition of political “good.” So then if someone lacks opportunity, that’s “bad.” However, that raises the question of whether in your worldview dishonor is bad principally because it is dishonor, or because it lowered economic opportunities? I would say the second, how about you?
Here we part ways. Suppose a man, let us say from Madagascar, found that his economic opportunities were greatly increased if he not merely allowed, but actively cooperated and encouraged Arab slavers from across the sea to insult and humiliate himself, his family, and his race.
This is not a farfetched or unfeasible scenario. Suppose he is offered a job in a Jim Crow Minstrel Show, where the main humor is exposing the foibles and shortcomings of his race to mockery. He dresses in an absurd costume, dons a monkey tail, and plays the banjo while doing a jig, inviting members of the audience to kick him in the buttocks for their general amusement, or children to throw offal. He was rewarded not just with applause and money, but with a license to travel out of his district, or he is given permission to marry or own his own home once he does these humiliating things.
Or suppose the only way to prevent a general massacre by Arab Slavers is to sell other members of his race into slavery, perhaps accompanied by the most humiliating forms of posture and dress and address needed to show submission to the proud conqueror.
Suppose he finds that the more he cooperates with the conqueror, the greater his privileges and economic opportunities, and that if he enthusiastically heaps shame upon himself, the indulgent master race will at last grant him manumission and the ability to live as a second class citizen (or dhimmi) rather than as chattel.
Now if you tell me that these signs of dishonor decrease the economic opportunities of his race but not of himself, all I need ask is why you are analyzing the actions of a race rather than those of a man. The race does not do good or evil aside from what the individuals composing the race do or fail to do.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
