Category: SISOlson17

The main, underlying issue discussed by Arendt, Jonas, and Serawitz is the divide between academic scholarship and the application of policy. Arendt and Jonas focus on the dangers of new technologies, and its potential to cause irreparable harm to society. Jonas describes how modern technologies pose a greater danger than any previous form of ethics can handle. He calls for a new ethical principle, which is most simply “in your present choices, include the future wholeness of Man among the objects of your will.” In other words, Jonas argues that our technological ability, which developed out of our increased scientific knowledge, is outpacing our knowledge of wisdom, and therefore ethical policy has to take future generations into account. Arendt takes a slightly different tack, but also warns of the dangers posed by technology. She cautions that technological advancement will lead to “the advent of automation” and the end of manual labor—a remarkably prescient observation, as this is one of the main political issues today. Unlike Jonas, Arendt does not provide an answer to the ethical problem of scientific advancements. Instead she claims that the answer to this problem is one of everyday politics, and therefore not appropriate for either “professional scientists or professional politicians.”
Serawitz agrees with Arendt that the responsibility for scientific advancement should not belong to the policymakers, suggesting that society’s understanding of the policymaking process as entirely based off of scientific advancement is wrong. Serawitz also does not suggest an answer to this problem, but instead expresses somewhat nihilistic despair about the divide between the sciences and ethical policymaking. All three of the scholars are essentially concerned with the lack of normativity in the hard sciences, and the danger that is beginning to pose to humankind. However, the practice of activist scholarship might help to bridge this divide. It is essentially science, or the pursuit of knowledge, with the express purpose of improving the world. As such it has to contend with ethical questions and requires the researcher to question both their motives of research and the ethical consequences of their research. This reduces the risk of policymakers using scientific advancements inappropriately, and also forces scholars to take responsibility for their research, minimizing the potential dangers Arendt and Jonas fear face humankind. While the divide between political action and the sciences, whether hard or social, is not completely overcome by activist scholarship, it can help unite the two spheres.

1.Hans Jonas, “Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Task of Ethics,” in Social Research 40, no. 1 (1973).
2. Ibid.
3. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958, 4.
4. Ibid, 3; 5.
5. Daniel Serawitz, “Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity,” in Earth Matters: The Earth Sciences, Philosophy, and the Claims of the Community, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000, 83.

Nietzsche and Foucault both question the methods for thinking that preceded them, although Nietzsche did so more radically. Nietzsche rejects the work of all the philosophers, claiming that they cannot separate their “truths” from their own human experiences.1 Underlying this criticism is Nietzsche’s disagreement with the concept of objective truth. While Nietzsche concedes that objective truth might exist, he does not believe humans are capable of understanding it, because every moment of our existence is experienced as human—in other words, we cannot achieve objective truth because it will always be tainted by our perspectives.2 While this perspective seemingly leads to an utterly nihilistic view of life, Nietzsche argues otherwise. Ultimately it is freeing to let go of the futile search for objective truth, because it allows the individual to pursue their own morality.3 Moreover, there are still better and worse moralities, but Nietzsche claims that no morality is exempt from humanity’s interpretation. This relates to the divide in the sciences because Nietzsche essentially posits that, as there is no true objectivity, there is no purpose to dividing the sciences between objective and subjective.
Foucault also rejects objective truth, but he is far less radical about it than Nietzsche. He outlines three main elements: refusal, curiosity, and innovation.4 Refusal refers to questioning and challenging everything “proposed to us,” curiosity to “the need to analyze and know,” and innovation to the creation of new ideas and concepts.5 Foucault’s principles do not belong to a theory as much as to what he terms a “theoretical practice,” meaning that he suggests individuals can incorporate this practice into their daily lives.6 Incidentally, this differs from Nietzsche, who calls for radical, societal level changes. Furthermore, these elements epitomize Foucault’s rejection of the divide in contemporary methods of thinking—by ‘refusing,’ the individual automatically questions the objectivity of everything, making the divide pointless, similarly to Nietzsche.
Nietzsche and Foucault are primarily related to interpretivism, which, like both of them, questions and challenges previously accepted assumptions about the world. Furthermore, like Nietzsche, interpretivism disregards the concept of universality, because the researcher cannot fully separate themselves from their research. While I am not conducting interpretivist research, and therefore am subscribing to the divide in the sciences, I agree with Nietzsche and Foucault that there is no such thing as objective truth. Consequently, while I am not including this in my research design, throughout the process I have been questioning and challenging my position and motivation in my research.

1. Frederich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, 6.
4. Michel Foucault, “An Interview with Michel Foucault,” November 3, 1980, 1.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid, 5.

Over the course of the past century, conflicts are increasingly resolved through negotiated agreements. There are movements pushing for more inclusive security, or the inclusion of more than just the warring parties at the negotiations, such as the inclusion of women or civil society organizations. Inclusive security claims to improve the durability of agreements. Women in particular are excluded from negotiations. There has been significant research documenting the positive influence of the inclusion of civil society on durability. Moreover, there is a substantial body of literature theorizing that women’s inclusion in peace negotiations contributes to the durability of the agreement. However, because of the extreme rarity of cases of women’s inclusion, there is little documentation of this theory in practice. My research seeks to demonstrate the effect of women’s inclusion in the negotiations of the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement on its durability. A careful exploration of the negotiations provides insights to the effect of women’s inclusion on durability. While a single case study is not very generalizable, the potential positive effect of women’s inclusion in the negotiations could support the inclusion of women in future peace processes and highlight some of the obstacles women face in getting to the table.

Gorski’s assertion that social science can offer genuine insights into human well-being is upsetting to the traditional order of separation between morality, ethics, and other normative worldviews, and the cold, clear, empirical methods of science. I agree with his arguments, particularly about fact-laden values and value-laden facts—Gorski essentially implies that “facts” as we commonly refer to them do not really exist. Because we cannot separate our values from our perception of the world, what we “know” as factual is inherently affected by our values. Moreover, our values are inherently founded in and “open to empirical investigation.” I think that Gorski brings to light something that is dangerously ignored by the majority of Western Civilization, which is our intrinsic attachment to our values and the level to which they influence our perceptions, and consequently our worldviews. While the progression of positivism as a reaction to the highly theological and mythical schools of thought that came before is understandable, it has developed into a willful refusal to acknowledge the role our humanity has to play in understanding and categorizing the world.
Sam Harris picks up the thread from Gorski, and touches on similar things. Both argue that the social sciences can be used normatively, but he also suggests that relativism is the confusing result of the separation between positivity and normativity. Harris uses the example of women who are forced to wear a burka, claiming that it does not contribute to human well-being. Harris acknowledges that the burka is only negative when it is forced on women, but I think that in some of his analysis, and perhaps in his choice for an example, that Harris commits the same error of blindness that so frustrates Gorski. In other words, Harris isn’t fully recognizing the values he brings to his analysis of the facts. This is where Comte comes in and argues for complete and total separation between facts and values, to the point that “no rational mind now doubts that the revolution” will inevitably continue. My pushback, in line with Harris, is that humans are inherently irrational, and that reality cannot be escaped.
I absolutely believe my research lends itself to normativity—it is entirely based on my assumption that durable peace agreements are desirable, that they should be as inclusive as possible, and that the international community should not stop working until there is complete inclusion of women in peace processes. I intend for my research to be useful to this effort by identifying the situations in which women’s inclusion in peace processes are successful, and I made the majority of my methodological choices on that intention. My research is oriented this way because I think it can help, and I hold the belief that if one can help, one ought to.

Plato and Tocqueville, though millennia apart, both critique democracy, and especially its tenet of equality. Plato claims that in a democracy, people go “along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to [them],” without any real sense of obligation. The goal of life is to enjoy the freedom afforded by equality. This carefree attitude helps to create a more diverse society because each individual is allowed to pursue their own varied interests, but it also allows for the development of a somewhat lazy relativism. The members of the society, because they (usually) only pursue their own pleasures, are not forced to make normative or ethical evaluations very often. In this way Plato outlines the danger posed by democratic government—without normative judgements, the potential to pursue ends that humanity should avoid rises.
Tocqueville makes a similar argument, although his is focused very specifically on his observations of American culture. Although he was researching in the early 19th century, much of what he says is eerily still applicable. He describes Americans as “taking their judgement only from themselves” and refusing to acknowledge external judgements. Furthermore, because of the social equality we experience, he argues, every idea is likewise judged to be equal. This contributes to the general avoidance of normative evaluations he observes in Americans; questioning the ‘ends’ humanity ought to pursue involves normative and ethical questions, and therefore is not a very large part of American culture. It would inevitably lead to valuing some ideas over others, which violates the tenet of equality members of a democracy are so partial to.
I believe that both Tocqueville and Plato touch on significant tendencies of democracies to avoid making normative or ethical arguments, but I would argue that they are really just tendencies. This predisposition against normativity was not very present in my own childhood or youth, because the schools that I attended and the general ‘activist’ culture of my hometown (Portland, OR) pushed me, and my peers, to consider ethical questions. We were taught to think critically and question the status quo, rather than accept what we were told about the world around us. My high school in particular encouraged its students to come up with our own ethical standards, but it was also an all-girls, Catholic, college-prep environment, which is not the typical setting of democracy that Plato and Tocqueville discuss. Ultimately, I would say they are right in that democratic societies are predisposed to avoid normative evaluations, but that it is not inevitable.

I got the idea for my topic when my comparative politics class visited the Council on Foreign Relations, and the woman we spoke to claimed that peace agreements lasted fifteen years longer when women were part of the negotiations. Most superficially, I am pursuing this subject because I want to know how accurate that claim is, and also why it might be the case. However, my motivations go deeper. I attended an all-girls high school, consider myself a feminist, and believe that women are excluded from political processes because their presence threatens male power, so I really cannot claim to be completely unbiased or objective about my subject. However, I think that my feminist worldview drives a lot of my interest in my project, and pushes me to stay engaged and interested even when the research process becomes difficult or overwhelming. I also believe that empowering women, and actively working to include them in political processes— such as peacemaking— contributes to the overall prosperity of society. In other words, if there is even a chance that including women in peace process makes them durable, then we should do everything within our power to bring that about for the sake of all people. In that way, my research is grounded in a specific purpose; it is not simply for my personal elucidation. Last semester, I sheepishly told my mentor that I was doing the research because I wanted to make the world a better place, but that I felt like it was such a cliché reason to undertake such a project. He told me that he has always done his own research for the same reason, which I think is also my deepest motivation. My hope is that my final project can be a justification for the inclusion of women in peace processes.
In terms of methodological choices, I decided on small-N analysis instead of an interpretivist approach because I wanted there to be some generalizability, such that my final project is useful in explaining this phenomenon in other cases. It was impossible to do a large-N analysis because there are not sufficient cases of women’s inclusion in peace processes, and also because peacemaking is extraordinarily complex and not well reduced to a couple of variables. Finally, I chose process-tracing in particular to explain, as much as possible, how women’s inclusion can contribute to the durability of a peace process.
My research rests entirely on the normative assumption that peace is good and desirable, when it is entirely fair to point out that conflict benefits a select few, and the ending of conflict can mean the ending of the livelihoods of those involved in war making. However, I am a utilitarian at heart, and I believe the consequences of peace are preferable to the consequences of war, and am willing to accept that normative assumption.

Here is the link to my final research design presentation, thank you so much for watching!

I met with my mentor, Professor Wanis-St. John, for the last time this semester on December 6, 2017, for about half an hour. We tried to meet every other week over the course of the semester, generally for about a half hour to an hour each time, but because of mutual scheduling difficulties it ended up being about every three weeks. However, we still managed to meet about 5 or 6 times, and his suggestions, advice, and questions were always incredibly helpful in shaping how I thought about my project and the decisions I ended up making. For the last minute, we mostly discussed my next steps. Both of us agreed that I would go forward with a small-n case study, using Mill’s Method of Agreement. Professor Wanis-St. John approved my cases, the Dayton Accords and the Good Friday Agreement, and also helped me clarify my justification for them, which is something I struggled with in the research design sketch. The Good Friday Agreement was fairly inclusive, while the Dayton Accords were not, which supports the comparative aspect of my choice of methodology. Furthermore, they are similar in scope- both are European agreements from around the same time, and both of them had failed during previous attempts at peacemaking. As I go forward with my final narrative paper, I will also go through the course readings in more depth to substantiate my justification for choosing these cases. Professor Wanis-St. John also approved my variables, and suggested I include international support and the use of NATO/military leverage as intervening variables as well. Finally, he suggested over the break I look for two books published by the main negotiators for both of my cases, George Mitchell for the Good Friday Agreement and Richard Holbrooke for the Dayton Accords, to use as starting points for the research I will do in 306.
We touched briefly on the progress I’ve made this semester with this research project. I started out really having no idea what kind of methodology I would choose. I only had previous experience with large-n statistical analysis, but I knew that wasn’t something I really wanted to do again, and that I didn’t think would work very well for my topic because there have been so few cases of women’s inclusion in peace processes. It’s been wonderful experience this semester to be able to come to my mentor with all of these questions about what I was finding, and what was important versus what was just interesting. We both felt pretty early on that a small-n case study would most effectively answer my puzzle of how much women’s inclusion matters, and while our conversations were steered in that direction, he also very gamely helped me with my other research designs. I don’t have really any questions about 306, but I am looking forward to finally really getting the whole process started next semester.