5.4.4 |
DEPENDENCE ON INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL NONRELEVANCE |
It is high time to have a further look at the principle
which has made us interested in the phenomenon of relevancy in
the first place. Most generally speaking it is expressed in the
idea that relevance is something good (more technically speaking,
normatively superior) and irrelevance something bad (normatively
inferior). At this point one may wonder whether the existence
of a distinction is not yet presupposed then, or that the
idea is only concerned with distinctions which do already exist
(are already made or on the verge of being made). Only in the
former case are sins of omission as bad as sins of commission.
Another question is that of the generality of the idea. Does
it express a personal or a universal principle of relevance? If
we confine ourselves to the relevancy of distinctions, the
formulations of these two versions of the same principle differ
as follows:
- personal version of the principle of discriminational
relevance: one should not make a distinction which is not
relevant (and one should make a distinction which is relevant);
- universal version of the principle of discriminational
relevance: one should not make a distinction which is not
relevant or the relevance of which depends on a nonrelevant
distinction made (or on the not making of a relevant distinction,
and one should make a distinction which is relevant unless
this relevance depends on a nonrelevant distinction made, or on
the not making of a relevant distinction).
Now, universal adoption of either the personal or the
universal version of the principle would make no difference, but
the difference may be enormous if neither version is adopted
by all people. Someone adopting the personal instead of the
universal version might reason that one can only decide about
what one shall do or not do oneself, and that one must take the
decisions of other people as givens (as 'imposed relevances' in
phenomenological terms).
'E might say "even
tho other people's
attitudes and
practises are a
flagrant violation of the requirement of relevance, i cannot help
it, and those attitudes and practises may be most relevant in respect of
a genuine objective of myself, altho personally i do not approve of them".
Granted that this person really could not change other people's attitudes
and practises —an assumption which can be challenged—, 'e
still has not provided a reason to adopt the personal instead of
universal version of the principle of relevance.
Also the universal version presupposes personal freedom, the freedom to
decide oneself what distinction to draw, and what distinction
not to draw. It only provides an additional criterion to base
that freely taken decision upon, namely that it should not
depend on nonrelevance.
Where causality plays a significant part, those adopting the
universal version take the situation or the conditions to be
considered in the widest perspective possible. They take care
that the causal connection on which the relevance of a distinction
depends, does not involve a (discriminatory) attitude or
practise of making a nonrelevant distinction on the basis of the
same or another factor. Where this discriminatory attitude or
practise is found in the person or group itself, the relevancy
is dependent on internal nonrelevance. A criterion to do away
with internal nonrelevance must even be accepted by someone
espousing the personal version of the relevance principle. For
example, if someone dislikes members of a certain group and this
dislike rests on fake and pseudofactual relevancy (and/or false
belief), then the exclusion of members of that group by
'imself and for 'imself
may be 'relevant', if the focus is
'er own
happiness or well-being. Yet, such relevancy depends on a
dislike which is based on internal nonrelevance (and/or falsehood),
a dislike which may be the result of a discriminatory
upbringing or milieu. The past and present nonrelevant distinctions
underlying the person's dislike of members of the group in
question should itself already have been abstained from in the
first place, even according to the personal version of the
principle of discriminational relevance.
A person rejecting the universal version of the principle of
relevance will actually reject every criterion doing away with
external nonrelevance. Thus 'e may not only assign relevance to
other people's discriminatory attitudes and practises but also
perpetuate (knowingly or not) these very attitudes and practises
by making 'relevant' distinctions which take them into account.
Some theorists call this "rational discrimination": a form of
discrimination which is the result of rational deliberation,
rather than of mere prejudice. In comparison to the latter,
'irrational' form of discrimination it would be easy to combat,
they say, by legislation imposing heavy fines on discriminators.
The mere possibility of such a fine would already tip the scale
of the 'rational thinker' in favor of nondiscrimination. But
our present concern is not whether a certain kind of making
distinctions may and should be forbidden by law or not; our
present concern is whether this kind of making distinctions is a
form of 'discrimination' to be condemned from the point of view
of the relevance principle regardless of whether the distinctions
in question happen to be legal or not in a particular
country. By suggesting that 'rational discrimination' would be
relatively easy to combat it is already assessed and condemned
as something immoral or bad. Such a condemnation makes implicit
use of the universal version of the discriminational relevance
principle, according to which not only dependence on internal
but also on external nonrelevance is indicative of imperfection
or normative inferiority.
5.4.4.0
THE WORLD, ONE AND UNIFORM
In no respect
the world is one and uniform.*
In every irrelevant respect
the world remains one and uniform.
In a relevant respect
at least one distinction can be made,
which only then makes it biform,
which only then makes it multiform.
In infinitely many other respects
the world is one and uniform.
[*: if the world is not considered at all, not any
distinction is drawn with respect to this world,
that is, neither relevant nor irrelevant]
