On the political aspects of Agnes Heller’s ethical thinking

Introduction

I could say that Agnes Heller needs no special introduction. She is a prominent representative of the loose grouping of the Budapest School formed by Agnes Heller, Ferenc Fehér, György Márkus, István Mészáros and Mihály Vajda. The ideological starting point of the members of this group was the philosophy of G. Lukács, which took Marxist thought and stressed the importance of reflecting philosophically upon the active theoretical sides of the thinking of young Marx.

About 40 years ago A. Heller published two articles on a non-orthodox philosophy intrinsically influenced by Marxism, naming G. Lukács (Ontology), T. W. Adorno (Negative Dialectic), J. – P. Sartre (Critique of Dialectic Reason) and K. Kosík (Dialectic of the Concrete) as the most important philosophers of a broader stream of this philosophy.

In the Czech philosophical context, it is interesting that she sees certain apparent affinities between Kosík and Lukács. Both philosophers neglect, or let’s say underestimate, the methodological reflection of philosophizing. Consequently the kind of philosophizing they undertake in Ontology and Dialectic of the Concrete gives the impression that both philosophers have an insight into “things themselves”. However, there are other similarities between Kosík and Lukács, for instance in their relationship towards Heidegger: both consider Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) a reflection on pseudo-concreteness (Heller, 1977, pp. 134-142; Heller, 1978-1979, pp. 153-174). ^[1]

Heller, significantly, continued to maintain the interest in the moral and ethical sphere she developed during her Marxist period, going on to elaborate her autonomous ethical theory (Heller, 1956; Heller, 1966).

I will try to sketch some of the main features of her ethic (moral) and ethico-political concepts. This is not easy because both these areas are interconnected with her philosophical work. But I think the following parts of Heller’s philosophy are important here: the relationship between “ought to be” and “is”; the role of basic values and the value sphere generally; responsibility as a key ethical standpoint and behaviour; and civil/civic virtues, especially civic courage. All these areas overlap with one another.

Ethics as a quasi-sphere

The ethical sphere is not a free-standing sphere: it intersects with various aspects of interpersonal relationships, and Heller defines it as a quasi-sphere (Heller, 1987, p. 273). First, I would like to briefly characterize Heller’s basic method concerning the ethical “sphere”. Methodologically speaking, it is significant that Heller does not make deductions based on the abstract prerequisites of theoretical reflection but is concerned with facticity, we could say “empirical evidence”, observing reality. Consequently, she is able to point to the existence of decent people. The “descriptive” concept of “decent persons” as factually existing human beings then becomes the starting point of her subsequent theoretical interpretation. It must be said at this point that, for Heller, ethics is interpretative, in a description-based theory, morals are normative theory and the ethics of personality is the philosophy of proper conduct, which can be termed educational and therapeutic (Heller, 1989, p. 1; Heller, 1990a, p. XIV).

Her reconstructive interpretation of this “facticity” led Heller to formulate two principles which articulate the main normative traits of human decency. The first principle is Socratic (in other words Platonic): it is better to suffer than to do wrong. The second, and—I would argue—more important, principle is Kantian: the prohibition on the instrumentalization of human beings in important matters (Heller, 1989, 65). These two principles run throughout Heller’s work in many varying articulations. There is without a doubt a tension between the “descriptive” concept of “decent people” on the one hand, and the “normative” concept of the two principles concerning the necessary character of human action and behaviour on the other hand, despite Heller believing that decent people are an incarnation of what is postulated from a moral point of view (Heller, 1993, p. 59). Paradoxically, then facticity and normativity coincide here. This is a variant of a deeper philosophical problem: the relationship between “is” and “ought to be”. This problem will be examined separately later.

Post-traditional ethos

To be sure, the factual existence of decent people is only the first—so to say—piece of “empirical evidence”: a basic prerequisite in Heller’s conception of ethics. The second is its broader context: the post-traditional ethos as it exists in the modern and post-modern era we live in. The difference between the modern and post-modern eras is unimportant because post-modernity is the critical reflection of modernity (Heller, 1999, p. 4). Heller is one of the main representatives of philosophical thinking on the post-traditional ethos. Unlike typical scholars in “Western ethics” (and Czech ethical thinking), Heller characteristically stresses the key intrinsic differences between traditional society and post-traditional society. Here I wish to point out something I consider important within this framework: Heller’s emphasis of the key intrinsic difference between the traditionally and post-traditionally formed (“modern and post-modern”) ethos is, I think, inspired by the survival of traditional elements of Hungarian society currently undergoing a revival in “post-communist” Hungary.

The main feature of the post-traditional ethos is pluralization, conditioned by the widespread and generally accepted (though not necessarily entirely universal) feeling of human “contingency”, consisting of the absence of a fleshed-out universally shared telos and value orientations. This contingency interconnects with the broadly experienced historicity of human existence. This aspect of Heller’s thinking has been appositely characterized by K Terezakis (Terezakis, 2014, pp. 16-31): “For Heller modern and postmodern lives are characterised by an intrinsic contingency ...The modern or postmodern individual, with an array of possibilities and the absence of any sure systems of value or teleological guarantees …” (Terezakis, 2014, p. 3) And “the character of the postmodern is just one more historically conditioned event, without any special or conclusive view of history” (Terezakis, 2014, p. 17).

There is without doubt a further tension between the aforementioned facticities; between the two initial pieces of evidence; between the existence of decent persons on the one hand, and the post-traditional ethos articulating the pluralization of the moral, axiological orientation on the other hand. Heller is always striving to reconcile the persistent character of positive, morally relevant values, with the historically conditioned nature of all objectifications shaped by humans, including the value dimension of interpersonal relationships. She considered this to be of pressing relevance back in her Marxist period.

Allow me a small digression at this point: it was not just within this philosophical stream that efforts were being made to overcome the merely historically conditioned concept of ethics and axiology by introducing a normative and autonomous dimension of ethics (moral philosophy). Heller’s work bears similarities to the efforts of Austrian philosophers influenced by Marxism (V. Adler, R. Hilferding, & O. Bauer) who wanted to reconcile Marxism with Kantianism.

However, throughout her life, Heller fought against a completely relativized ethics, believing it to be a one-sided approach. Her main thought was that basic values are not entirely historically influenced. It was within this framework that she developed her concept of ethics. Heller rejected the absolutizing of the aforementioned historical conditionality of the ethical sphere, emphasizing the occurrence of “transcultural” or “transhistorical” values in various historical and cultural milieus. (Heller, 1987, p. 251; Heller, 1989, pp. 156-157).

To avoid relativism in the sphere of ethics, certain values must be accepted, and these are inevitably important for orientating human life. On this basis, Heller derived the prerequisites of a decent person.

Values, life and freedom as basic values

One important axiological context is the problem of the relationship between historicity and persistence. Heller asks, Are there certain values that could be deemed intrinsic values that are essential to all ethical theories? Her answer is yes, the values of freedom (always) and life (not always; Heller, V, 47, 251: Heller, 1989, pp. 156-165; Heller & Fehér, 1991, pp. 487-488). It is from within this framework that she developed her concept of basic values that have “transcultural”, or alternatively “transhistorical”, validity in various ways. Sometimes she included the value of equality (in subsequent writing, meaning the equality of opportunities, see Grumley, 2005). It should be pointed out that in her concept of basic values, freedom and life are not “substances”. They are always given within particular interpretations, but these have imaginary horizons (Heller, 2010, pp. 9-12). Freedom, allegedly the most important value, is always articulated in concrete shapes; incidentally, Heller discusses freedom more frequently than life. Other values can be derived from these basic ones. To be valid, they must not contradict the basic values of freedom and life.

Heller shares with Habermas the democratic spirit of his discourse ethics, but—unlike him—she is convinced certain basic values have to be accepted, at least those which are fundamental to maintaining and establishing ethical (moral) interpersonal relationships (Heller, 1990a, p. 193; Cohen, 2007, p. 3). It is important that certain intrinsic, fundamental values are accepted, and this is evident in her criticisms of the starting point of discourse ethics.

Heller could hardly accept “discourse” as the independent fundament of ethics; to make discourse rational and meaningful we must accept any independent values—at least one. And before we can engage in discourse, we must accept that the paramount meaning of value(s) must precede any discourse (Heller, 1984, pp. 101, 109-117; Heller & Fehér, 1991, pp. 482-488). Heller’s criticism of discourse ethics is similar to the standpoint taken by German philosopher R. Spaemann (1994, p. 154), which is that accepting fundamental values is crucial to human moral orientation. All other values, based on norms and moral principles, must be formulated and introduced in accordance with respect for the basic values of life and freedom.

Heller sees clearly the hidden danger of accepting the contingency and historicity of human existence, as it could lead to the relativizing of ethical consequences. Therefore she emphasizes that the intrinsic fundamental ethical values of life and freedom are superior, but that the two principles of human “decency”, especially the second one, the prohibition against the instrumentalization of human beings in important matters, are key as well.

This second principle plays a more important role in Heller’s philosophy than the first because it serves as a limiting principle preventing a lapse into unlimited moral relativism. In summary, the result of this approach is to accept the pluralization of the post-traditional ethos but only insofar as it is limited by principles underpinning human decency and recognizing the significance of the basic values of freedom and life. In this elucidation, decent people who are in fact the incarnation of the possibility of a positive life attainable by every human being, can therefore behave decently in their own way.

The “transethical” significance of freedom

The fundamental values of life and freedom are significant in that they transcend the ethical sphere only. These are two “transcultural” values that people must respect. In Agnes Heller’s philosophical work, freedom plays a more important role than life. Freedom is not only a fundamental value expressing the tenor of human existence but has a broader significance through its “function” as the connecting point between the various (quasi-) spheres of ethics, aesthetics, politics and psychology and of the theory of feelings, too. In each of these (quasi) spheres the value of freedom takes on a particular hue.

We can use feelings as our example. Feelings are “re-orchestrated” in a new, aesthetical sense. Freedom plays a key role in opening up the imagination, together with the intellectual faculties, when creating and perceiving works of art. Freedom, or more precisely, the struggle for this value, is very often the subject of artistic representations. Aesthetics and the creation of art do not have direct ethical consequences, only indirect ones (Heller, 2012, pp. 66-78). The most important of these is that the “transcultural” value of freedom links aesthetics with morality (freedom being a symbol of morality, following Kant).

The concept of “human species-being” originally developed by “the young Marx” now has a conceptual meaning approximating “authenticity” as opposed to “inauthenticity”. The philosophical motif of “human species-being” has become a “wandering theme” in Heller’s philosophy. During her intellectual development, it was transformed into the concept of the “individual” and the “particular” as contrasting kinds of human existence, (they could be conceived as Weber’s “ideal types”) shaping human life. The value idea of freedom is articulated—as we will see later—in the “logics of modernity”, where it acquires political signification. But freedom is not the sole value.

The axiological dimension penetrates both Heller’s ethical reflection and her psychological, aesthetical and political thinking.

Values as articulation of good

Values “as such” also have a historical character. They express various dimensions of the good. In the second half of 19^th century, in the philosophy of F. Brentano, Neo-Kantianism and so forth, good was divided into separate “segments” of values (“splinter – concept of the good”); Heller, 1999, p. 207). Since then we can, for the most part, talk about values as distinct entities. Heller gives various examples of values: selflessness, well-doing, modesty (Heller, 1978, p. 125). She considers gratitude to be the most “beautiful” value (Heller, 1999, p. 217). As part of accepting the pluralist post-traditional ethos, a new phenomenon has emerged: the decoupling of virtues from values (Heller, 1989, pp. 64-65). Consequently, there is no longer any correspondence between virtues and values, nor is there a fixed value system. If human beings are decent in their own specific way, they can freely choose their system of values and their own value preferences. People are able to harmonize or “homogenize” their life orientations to reflect their chosen values.

Up to now we have discussed values generally, but Heller spent many years focusing on the value problem. She distinguished between basic values. The most general primary antithetical pair of values is good/bad, while the secondary antithetical pairs are true/ false, good/evil, beautiful/ugly, right/wrong, useful/harmful, successful/unsuccessful, pleasant/unpleasant (Heller, 1984, p. 54). In the Theory of Modernity, she named the most important “traditional values” as welfare, health, love, freedom, justice, goodness, family, and redemption (!). In the modern era, she added the following values: nation, democracy, humankind, work and culture (Heller, 1999, p. 209).

We can see that some of these are important in a general sense (especially, good/evil), while others are bound to more specific worldviews, especially redemption. Yet others express the importance of politics within the modern—and post-modern—era (nation, democracy). I will come to democracy later.

Individualization of human ethos

Given that norms are based on value designations (determinations), it is no accident that Heller conceives of values as short versions of abstract norms (Heller, 1999, p. 213). Anyone seeking a positive value orientation has to choose their “own” good life orientation, to fulfil the basic condition of “decency”. There are two choices: the first is the existential choice of decency. But because the universally valid “decency maxim” is specific to the character of the person, the second choice is the individual implementation of decency. Moreover as her ethical thinking develops, Heller increasingly accentuates individual ways of being decent; the ethos becomes more individualistic. In the first two books in her “ethical trilogy” and in her preceding masterpiece Beyond Justice, Heller introduces multiple imperatives, prohibitions, recommendations and orientational maxims (Heller, 1987, p. 297). In the last part of the trilogy, An Ethics of Personality, Heller accepts the possibility there are differently shaped attitudes towards morally permissible actions and behaviours. Terezakis said, “Heller’s philosophies of history and personality, that is, meet in and are inseparable from her call to moral action, made directly to the individual, without ever prescribing any particular, positive recommendation” (Terezakis, 2014, p. 7). Within this shift, Heller sketched her concept of “spirit of our congregation”.

Spirit of our congregation

It is characteristic of Heller’s approach to the post-traditional ethos that she introduces Hegel using the inspired term of “spirit of our congregation”. She uses the term in two different basic senses. The first signifies the “consciousness of historical consciousness”, based principally on the consciousness of our contingency, which is one of the key components of Heller’s moral thinking. The “absolute spirit” according to Heller is not identical to Hegel’s; it is not a substance, unlike the one in Hegelian philosophy; the spirit is fragmentized and the consciousness of historical consciousness has assumed a basic “hermeneutic” standpoint.

The second basic meaning is more philosophical. Heller holds that philosophers (we could also say intellectuals, in the broader sense) should be aware of their “authorship” of the conceptualized “figures” they operate with. This applies to all philosophical concepts relating to the meaning of human life, the supposed telos of human history and so on.

The question is whether the concept of the “spirit of our congregation”, in the “postmodern” principle, is universally valid or generally valid, whether it is suitable for all human communities and whether its validity is limited to Euro-American civilization and its cultural sphere. We can also ask whether this attitude, expressed by the “spirit of our congregation”, has universal validity in the cultural sphere, or whether it is typical only of the consciousness of the intellectual “elites sharing a post-modern concept of the world”. Many people presumably do not share this attitude; this may be reinforced by the contemporary immigration problem. Some people think that “we”, that is Euro-Atlantic civilization, should turn to “our” intrinsic traditions so we can resist the pressures of different cultures, especially Islamic culture.

Virtues and responsibility

We have discussed virtues in relation to values and decoupling the firm relationship between them in the post-traditional ethos. Despite the pluralization of ethos, there are nevertheless some elements which are relatively stable. Just as in the value quasi-sphere, where some ethically relevant human standpoints and orientations remain in historical flux and the ethos changes, human character contains features that stay in principle fixed, which Heller entitles “virtues”.

Heller distinguishes various virtues: radical tolerance, civic courage, justice, phronesis and the virtue of participating in rational discourse. Civic courage tops this scale of virtues and is important to human beings in general to be able to work together with other people in “res publica” (“the common thing”; Heller & Fehér, 1988, pp. 75-88; Heller, 1990a, p. 147). Virtues are also subject to historical change and turbulence, with certain virtues being actualized and others suppressed. The virtue of tolerance for example is implicitly actualized whenever it is mentioned in connection with the post-modern ethos (Heller, 1996). On the other hand, Heller gives humility as an example of a virtue that is being suppressed (Heller, 1987, p. 287; 1988, p. 79). We can apply this to values: Heller links the acceptance of historicity to the avoidance of consequent relativism. Virtues are often newly actualized and thus relativized, but only partly.

In Heller’s analyses of virtues, it is her grasp of virtues in “limit situations” (in the Jaspersian sense), especially under totalitarianism, which is particularly interesting. In these circumstances, “normal” social virtues, particularly the virtue of civic courage, become “military” (“martial”) ones, and “normal conduct” assumes the form of “supererogatory” behaviour. People acting this way, mobilizing virtue capacities and often in the position of lone fighter, face obstacles and difficulties, but also the real possibility of the loss of the basic values of freedom and life. Heller’s life experiences, especially of two totalitarian regimes, have no doubt been incorporated into her analysis, (Heller, 1990a, pp. 141-143; Heller, Fehér & Márkus, 1983a, p. 248).

But I would like to add that merely mobilizing the physical resources of civic virtues and admitting they are important is not sufficient. Every human being has predispositions so both the mental and physical prerequisites of human nature are also very important. All human beings should know which situations are appropriate for them (Heller, 1989, p. 75).

In the context of ethics and axiology, I should mention Heller’s view concerning responsibility, a morally important phenomenon expressed in the most urgent of terms. We can view a responsible attitude as a concretization of human decency (and eo ipso of the Kantian principle of the prohibition of instrumentalization and the Socratic principle that it is better to suffer than to do wrong). Heller analyses virtues and responsibility separately. But I think they are intrinsically related. Responsibility is essential in actualizing virtues. Heller analyses this ethical phenomenon from various perspectives, dealing with the problem of responsibility both explicitly and implicitly; indeed all her work on ethics and morals is implicit.

She pays attention to the various contexts in which responsibility might emerge, looking first of all at taking responsibility for consequences, which is a common theme among philosophers and in philosophy; all philosophers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their philosophy (Heller, 1990b, p. 103; 1983b, p. 179). Heller abandoned future-oriented Marxism and shifted to “sober” liberal democracy, latterly preferring to take responsibility “in and for the present” (Terezakis, 2009, p. 251).

Heller should be valued for engaging personally in her analyses on various aspects of responsibility, latterly for her ability to apply universal moral principles to the limit situations of people living in totalitarian regimes, who are objectified and not respected as human beings. We have discussed supererogatory behaviour as the expression of civic courage. When it comes to responsibility, the mirror image of this virtue is “supererogatory responsibility”.

This is clear in totalitarian circumstances as I have indicated with reference to “military virtues”. But this problem does not disappear even in environments where a particular range of opinions predominates, as in “post-communist” societies. People can be banned from “good society” (or in Czechia, from the “Prague café” ^[2]), and they ostracize “themselves” for expressing unsuitable opinions—as defined by the de facto “controllers” of the mass media or those with dominant positions in the public sphere. In the post-communist milieu, it is considered desirable to criticize certain themes: US politics and the restitution efforts of the Catholic Church, for example.

The transformation of Heller’s social ontology

Certain ethically relevant topics have corresponding equivalents in the political sphere. The relationship between “is” and “ought to be”, which is an “old” philosophical topic has, since Kant at least, played a key role in the philosophical thinking underlying other more specific topics. Generally this relationship plays a very important role in the ethical field: “ought” is incorporated into the most relevant ethical principles and into other principles which have more concrete meanings. I think all the ethical or moral principles we have covered so far in this article are a particular articulation of (stronger or weaker) normativity in the form of imperative, prohibitive or recommendational maxims (Heller, 1987, p. 297; Heller, 1990a, pp. 44-48); they incorporate normativity by appealing to actual human attitudes and behaviours to transform “is” into “ought to be” or at least to lead “is” in the direction of “ought to be”. This tension plays an important role in so-called closer (P. Ricoeur: “short”) relationships, but in “long” (social and political) ones it is stronger in essence. (Ricoeur, 1993, p. 105).

In her earlier philosophical development, Heller took the relationship between “is” and “ought to be” and established its relevance to each philosophical conception, at least implicitly. Each philosophical conception incorporates ipso facto this basic relationship. But in her own conception, the relationship between “is” and “ought to be” is conceived explicitly as part of “rational utopia”. Agnes Heller elaborated this in her “radical philosophy” (Heller, 1984, p. 13). In “long” human relationships, both social and political ones, this tension between “is” and “ought to be” assumes another, more concrete meaning.

However, Heller’s main interest is the social and political context of the aforementioned problem. It is only within socio-political philosophy that the relationship between “is” and “ought to be” assumes eminently important and most interesting consequences, not only for the conception of “radical philosophy” but for Heller’s world–view development as well. I have named this problem—alluding to J. Searle’s term—“social ontology”.

In short, in Heller’s “social ontology” “is” represents the common basic structures of contemporary societies (when Heller was working on this aspect)—liberal democracies and “realized socialism” (actual existing socialism)—in which domination and subordination are the typical traits (Heller, 1984, pp. 132, 138,141-143). ^[3]

Nevertheless, in liberal democracies and realized socialism, the relationships of domination and subordination are conditioned differently: liberal democracies have their foundations in capitalist production, while in “realized socialism”, the relationships of domination and subordination result from the political supremacy and monopolistic power exercised by the communist party. In realized socialism, Leninist principles exist within its concept of a professional group of revolutionaries—representing the most distinctively elitist and therefore anti-egalitarian theory springing from Jacobinism—which incorporates “abstract enthusiasm” (Heller, Fehér & Márkus, 1983a, pp. 260-276).

What “ought to be” will be accomplished in an egalitarian society which does not have relationships of domination and subordination, and in which inequality can only exist in “expert knowledge”—on different areas of social life (Heller, 1984, p. 157). Heller, I think, conceives of this relationship as a contrasting one, still strongly by the Marxism-influenced stage in her thinking.

When she wrote A Philosophy of Morals, the value of democracy represented the political incarnation of the fundamental “transcultural” values of life, especially freedom (Heller, 1990a, pp. 192-193). In her later thinking, after her turn to liberal democracy allied with capitalism, Heller claims the only available path to the ideal, “formerly” denoted as “ought to be” is through transformation from within the existing institutions of liberal democratic society, whereby they are changed in line with the universalization of the “transcultural” values of freedom and justice. As we can see, Heller had abandoned her previous use of terminology. The ideal of all-compassing equality becomes the ideal of “equality of opportunities” (Heller, 1999, pp. 83-95; Heller, 1987, p. 190). She no longer considers justice a simple topic: despite declaring, “… there is zero elitism in my moral philosophy”, she does not appeal for a fully egalitarian and “just” society in the sense expressed in “radical philosophy”. She adds, “... an entirely just society is not just impossible but also undesirable” (Terezakis, 2009, pp. 246-250).

“Starting points” play an important role in socio-political analyses of human problems. Every human being has two a prioris: the biological and the social. We cannot do anything about the first. But according to Heller, the social starting point, that is to say “the social a priori”, does not unconditionally determine a person’s allocated social position in society. All human beings are capable of transforming their life path from “fate” to “destiny” (Heller & Fehér, 1988; Heller, 1999, pp. 56, 87). The relationship between “is” and “ought to be” becomes a continual one. My own thinking is that she underestimates the starting point conditions, especially in relation to the “restoration” and “restitution” processes in post-communist countries. These processes had a powerful effect on the starting points of human lives: the social a priori, that had been removed or weakened during “realized socialism”, once again began to exert a strong influence on the possibilities in human life.

Heller abandoned her previous philosophical standpoints more radically than leftist philosophers belonging to the variously structured stream of “critical theory”. ^[4] Having approached the relationship between “ought to be” and “is” in terms of contrasts, she came to see it as a continual relationship. Liberal democracy, the dominant form of social-political relationship should not be replaced, radically transformed but “merely” reformed, such that it exploits its own intrinsic ameliorative potential to universalize basic fundamental values (such as freedom, justice, equality—previously true equality, then equality of opportunities (Heller, 1999, p. 92). In this respect, we can contrast Heller with Kosík, who would maintain his—very critical—standpoint on liberal capitalist society until his death.

As her thinking developed, Heller also criticized Marx, above all for underestimating the emancipatory potential of democracy. Heller, one-sidedly I think, thought the emancipation of the proletariat had in fact begun during Marx’s lifetime, but he failed to see it. It is an opinion that may provoke much criticism, given that for example in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and in many European countries, universal suffrage was not achieved during Marx’s lifetime, and it was key to political emancipation; but in principle I share her opinion that political emancipation must precede other means of emancipating the non-privileged classes (Heller, 2015, pp. 325-338). ^[5]

I think we should recognize the value of Heller’s analyses of primarily theoretical axiological themes and interpretations of the moral dimensions of socio-political problems, especially those relating to limit situations in non-standard societies, particularly totalitarian ones. I also think it desirable to adopt a similar approach in investigating the new issues that have emerged with the restoration of capitalism in so-called post-communist countries, focusing on the moral and ethical consequences of restoring capitalism.