Stefano Biancu Archives - Contemporary Humanism

Fraternity and Supererogation (Stefano Biancu)

Pope Francis’ encyclical “Fratelli tutti” proposes the so-called parable of the Good Samaritan[1] as the paradigm of a fraternity understood as a social friendship (see Fratelli tutti, n. 56-86). This proposal is of interest to the moral philosopher for at least a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that the Samaritan’s attitude is presented as a moral example which is not only valid for Christians, but for everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs. The second reason is that that attitude is considered valid, not only in the private sphere of interpersonal relationships, but also as a paradigm of a new form of citizenship.

These statements are not obvious at all. The Samaritan’s attitude is traditionally considered the emblem of “supererogation”. This is a technical term which indicates those actions and attitudes which, while being morally good, are however not strictly required. This area of actions and attitudes has long been considered beyond ethics and beyond the call of duty which is typical of modern citizenship.

The notion of Supererogation

The history of the concept of supererogation[2] has its origins precisely in the parable of the Good Samaritan and, in particular, in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Christian Bible dating back to the 4^th century. In the instructions the Samaritan gives the innkeeper so that he takes care, in his absence, of the unfortunate pilgrim, the Vulgata reads: “Curam illius habe, et, quodcumque supererogaveris, ego, cum rediero, reddam tibi” (Lk 10:35). The Latin verb “supererogaveris” is translated, in the current versions of the biblical text, by the periphrasis “whatever more you spend”. Supererogation has therefore to do with a “surplus” and, in particular, with an additional cost, an extra expense. This is why the attitude of the Samaritan has traditionally become the emblem of supererogation.

Starting from the Gospel, the Fathers of the Church have introduced the term into the technical language of theology, referring it to actions recommended by spiritual tradition, but contrary to natural inclinations, such as fast and chastity.[3] But it is only with Thomas Aquinas that the term became relevant.[4] According to Aquinas, a good moral action can be either commanded or advised. That is, it can be the object of either an obligation (the sphere of “praecepta”) or a recommendation (the sphere of “consilia”, such as chastity, poverty, obedience). This second category includes supererogatory actions, i.e. actions which, while being morally positive, are beyond the call of duty. According to Aquinas, counsels are morally superior to commandments. If the latter concern what is good, the former concern a better good. Aquinas’ perspective on supererogation became canonical, remaining substantially unchanged for a few centuries, at least until Luther and the other Reformers.[5] In their eyes, supererogatory actions took the shape of human claims to obtain salvation thanks to one’s own merits.

In the following centuries, the notion of supererogation lost its relevance and centrality, both in theology and philosophy, at least until 1958, when the British philosopher James Urmson published his short essay Saints and Heroes.[6] Urmson’s thesis goes as follows: moral philosophy has traditionally disregarded two types of actions, the saintly and the heroic ones. Such actions would not fall in the commonly accepted classification, according to which moral actions would be divided into (1) morally right obligatory actions, (2) morally wrong prohibited actions, (3) morally neutral permitted actions. Saintly and heroic actions do not fit in this classification as long as they are morally good actions which are not obligatory, not due nor demandable. More precisely, although they may be perceived as mandatory from a first person perspective (i.e. by the subject at the moment of deliberation), they are not so from a third person perspective (i.e. from the point of view of an external observer). According to Urmson, compared to the “basic moral duties”, those actions would represent “the higher flights of morality”. Following Urmson’s pioneering article, a huge debate has opened up in Anglo-Saxon moral philosophy about the concept of supererogation: about its definition, about the taxonomy of supererogatory actions and attitudes, about the paradoxes inherent in the notion.[7]

What is interesting for us is that the encyclical “Fratelli tutti” places supererogatory attitudes and acts – of which the Good Samaritan is a moral example – as a paradigm not only of ethics, but of a new form of citizenship. What can the moral philosopher say about this claim?

Rethinking the notion of duty

As I have tried to show elsewhere,[8] taking the notion of supererogation seriously requires to rethink the notion of duty. In particular, I think it is necessary to distinguish at least three different levels of the experience of duty.

A first experience of duty is situated at a legal level: my duty corresponds either to the respect of the right of another person or to what is established by a law. This kind of duty is intended to protect freedom and human rights, which are supposed to be an original human feature, as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights puts it, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (article 1). By setting boundaries and limitations, legal duties aim at protecting everybody’s original freedom and rights.

A second experience of duty is situated at an ethical level. A form of responsibility comes up at each encounter between humans. Not only I am responsible for my own actions (which I might be asked to justify), but I am someway responsible for the other’s life and destiny.[9] An implicit call for love is present in each human encounter and I have to respond as suitably as possible to this call.

A third experience of duty is situated at an anthropological level. At this level, the idea according to which all human beings are born free is an abstraction.[10] Humans are born able to be free, but they actually need to become free. Freedom has its own genealogy and conditions, and love is one of these conditions. Not only I need to be free in order to love someone, but I also need to receive and give love in order to become free. Only if I act out of love – love for myself and for others – I can truly be free.

Supererogation is beyond the call of duty at a legal level, i.e. beyond what the moral agent might be required to do by either a law or the respect of a third person’s rights. At this level, no one has the right to bother me by asking me to love them (i.e. to forgive, to be generous, to give my life for someone…).

But supererogation is not beyond the call of duty at an ethical level: I have to respond as suitably as I can to the call for love of my neighbour, since both their and my destiny depends on my response. This is what Jaspers called a “metaphysical” responsibility, based on an original solidarity among humans.[11]

Supererogation is not beyond the call of duty on an anthropological level either. At this level, duty is what I actually need in order to become free, to actually become a subject. Something is due to the extent that it is a condition of my subjectivity and liberty. I become subject by freely and suitably responding to someone who in some way bothers me by asking me for love.

According to a very traditional view, supererogation is beyond the call of duty and (therefore) beyond ethics. The implicit presupposition of this view is that duty has in itself a legal shape: it corresponds to the respect of a third person’s right or to what is established by a law. But we need to enlarge our understanding of duty, by seeing it also as a necessary condition of possibility (of freedom, of subjectivity, of humanity…). Being one of these conditions of possibility, supererogation exceeds the mere legal understanding of duty, but not duty itself. It therefore becomes in all respects, an ethical phenomenon.

In other words: supererogation can be considered as a “maximum” if compared to the “minimum” which cannot and must not be missing – i.e. the area of what is demanded either by a law or by the respect of a third person’s rights. Since it is one of the conditions of freedom and subjectivity, this “maximum” is nevertheless someway “necessary” – the liberal State needs citizens who are truly free human subjects.

By contributing to create truly human and free subjects, the supererogatory attitude of the Good Samaritan – a fraternity understood as a social friendship – fulfils those premises on which the liberal State lives without being able to guarantee them by itself.[12] With good reason, it can be thus considered an ethical phenomenon and the core of a new form of citizenship.

[1] Lk 10:25-37.

[2] See. D. Heyd, Supererogation. Its Status in Ethical Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, part 1 (The view of some major ethical theories); J. Janiaud, Au-delà du devoir. L’acte surérogatoire, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Rennes 2007, ch. III (Petit parcours historique).

[3] See. D. Dentsoras, The Birth of Supererogation, «Epoché. A Journal for the History of Philosophy», Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2014, pp. 351-372.

[4] See. D. Witschen, Zur Bestimmung supererogatorischer Handlungen: der Beitrag des Thomas von Aquin, «Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie», 1-3, 51 (2004), pp. 27-40.

[5] See M. Konrad, Precetti e consigli: studi sull’etica di san Tommaso d’Aquino a confronto con Lutero e Kant, Lateran University Press, Roma 2005, pp. 119-140.

[6] See J.O. Urmson, Saints and Heroes (1958), in J. Feinberg (ed.), Moral Concepts, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1969, pp. 60-73.

[7] See A. Archer, Supererogation, «Philosophy Compass», Vol. 13, Issue 3 (March 2018); C. Cowley, Introduction: The Agents, Acts and Attitudes of Supererogation, in Id. (ed), Supererogation, (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, Volume 77 – October 2015), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2015, pp. 1-23; D. Heyd, Supererogation, in E.N. Zalta (ed), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2016 Edition (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/supererogation).

[8] See S. Biancu, Il massimo necessario. L’etica alla prova dell’amore, Mimesis, Milano 2020; Id., Héros et saints : un autre (trans)humanisme, «Transversalités», 153, 2020, pp. 25-39.

[9] See E. Levinas, Totalité et Infini, Nijhoff, La Haye 1961; B. Waldenfelds, Topographie des Fremden. Studien zur Phänomenologie des Fremden 1, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 1997; Id., Bruchlinien der Erfahrung, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 2002.

[10] See J.-M. Ferry, Les Grammaires de l’intelligence, Cerf, Paris, 2004, p. 201.

[11] See K. Jaspers, Die Schuldfrage. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Frage, Artemis, Zürich 1946, p. 11.

[12] See E.-W. Böckenförde, Die Entstehung des Staates als Vorgang der Säkularisation [1967], in Id., Recht, Staat, Freiheit. Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie, Staatstheorie und Verfassungsgeschichte, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 2006, pp. 92-114: 112 («Der freiheitliche, säkularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann»).

Originally published on Educa. International Catholic Journal of Education. Download here this article.

Fundamental Freedoms and the Problem of Freedom (Stefano Biancu)

For more than a year now, we have been witnessing the biggest limitation of fundamental freedoms since the Second World War, at least in Europe and in many democratic countries. Limitations on social life, on traveling, on worship have become daily life for us. An unprecedented limitation of freedoms (in the plural) urges us to question ourselves about the nature of freedom (in the singular): what does it mean to be free?

The Ideal and the Concept of Freedom

When you lose something, you often learn the hard way how important it was what you had taken for granted. Today, in the midst of a long health emergency, being confined and limited in many ways, we perceive how essential freedom is. At the same time, we find it hard to say what is this freedom that we miss so much. The ideal of freedom is clear: we all agree on how important freedom is. But the concept of freedom is complex and someway mysterious: it is not easy to say what freedom really is.

Freedom is certainly a set of simple things: gathering with family and friends, traveling, going to the cinema or to an art exhibition, having a coffee sitting at a bar table, eating a pizza with friends, moving around, taking a walk under the stars in the middle of the night, not being forced to wear a mask. We understand all this very well: it is what we miss. But we are aware that freedom is not just that.

To try to understand what freedom is, let’s start with a distinction that has become a classic: the distinction between negative and positive freedom. It is a distinction already proposed by Immanuel Kant,[1] but which has become a classic after the famous inaugural lecture on “Two Concepts of Liberty” that sir Isaiah Berlin gave at Oxford University in 1958.[2]

Negative and Positive Freedom

Negative freedom is the mere absence of external limits or interference. It is therefore a freedom that has to do with society and which concerns the action of the agent. It corresponds to what is lawful and allowed. Negative freedom – to which Berlin gives a preference in the political sphere – can be easily understood in the plural (in the sense of the fundamental freedoms). As the absence of external constraints, negative freedom is now vastly more limited than it was before the pandemic.

Instead, positive freedom can be understood in terms of self-control and self-determination. It concerns the will of the agent and it corresponds to autonomy, in the sense of the power of the subject to give norms to themselves.

Positive freedom is complex. It is certainly to be understood as free will, that is, the ability to choose between different options. In this sense, it is an innate capacity of the human being. This capacity is very much discussed today in the debate on determinism raised by the neurosciences. For now, there is no philosophical or scientific evidence that allows us to deny this fundamental human ability. In the absence of this evidence, I firmly believe that we must assume this capacity exists. Especially in that the possibility of moral, legal and political responsibility is based on this same capacity.

Love and then do what you want

But positive freedom is not just free will, that is, the formal and innate possibility of choosing between different options, of doing what you want. Positive freedom is also an ability of autonomy which develops over time. It is not the mere possibility for the agent to do what they want, but it is the ability for the subject to truly want to do what they do, to fully own their actions. In this sense, freedom is being one with yourself, fulfilling your own humanity.

Let’s think about Saint Augustine’s iconic formulation of freedom – “Dilige et quod vis fac” (Love and then do what you want).[3] Only superficially freedom is the empty possibility of loving or not loving (or even hating).

Only if you act motivated by love, you are truly free. When you act out of fear, resentment, envy, vice, you may act within a space of non-constraint and free choice between different options, but you don’t feel like you are really free, you don’t feel like you are one with yourself. You don’t feel like you really want to do what you do. You are truly free only if you act motivated by love – love for yourself and love for your neighbour.

The first article of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. This statement is to be understood as a regulative ideal and not as a matter of fact.[4] It is not true at all the human beings are born free and equal.

From a legal and political point of view, freedom must be understood as an innate right to be protected. Negative freedom must protect the innate free will of the human being. Human beings are born capable of free will, but freedom understood as being one with yourself is an achievement for them. Freedom is also a path to take.

Neoliberal Freedom

Today we are facing a neoliberal and very pervasive idea of freedom. A freedom which presents itself as the opposite of constraint, but which actually generates constraint itself. In 2014 Korean philosopher based in Germany Byung-Chul Han published his book “Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power”.[5] In this book, Byung-Chul Han states that the neoliberal subject sees themselves as a project which is free from obligations and constraints imposed by others.

Nevertheless, being in competition with all their fellow humans, this subject forces themselves to efficiency and ends up submitting to internal obligations and self-imposed constraints. Believing themselves to be free, the individual is in reality a servant who exploits themselves. As Byung-Chul Han points out, “Neoliberalism represents a highly efficient, indeed an intelligent, system for exploiting freedom”. “People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as a responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning society or the system”.

With respect to the neoliberal project, it is evident that a purely negative freedom – which aims to limit as much as possible the external constraints of freedom – does not guarantee in itself the quality and the strength of freedom. Freedom is not only the possibility to do what you want. As Byung-Chul Han shows it, this kind of freedom can put the subject against themselves.

More deeply, freedom should be understood as the ability for the subject to want to do what they do, to be one with their own will and action. Freedom is the capacity for the subject to fully own themselves, and therefore to completely realize themselves. Only this way we will all be equal because we will all be enabled to completely fulfil our own humanity. Only love – love for ourselves and love for our neighbours – allows us to reach our humanity and autonomy.

This means that we should teach our children how to be truly free, how to be happy, not how to be successful.

Democracy and Freedom

Even on a political level, freedom cannot be understood as mere indifference, as mere possibility to think or not to think. Democracy not only guarantees freedom of action and thought, but presupposes and needs citizens that are truly capable of free action and thought. The democratic form of sovereignty can only be achieved if citizens are fully in control of themselves, of their wishes and needs – if they are truly free.[6]

A people incapable of controlling their wishes and needs produces a democracy of slaves. Otherwise, the free and active democratic participation is reduced to a list of complaints. The citizen is transformed into a passive consumer.[7]

In these times, when negative freedom is much more limited than it used to be before the pandemic, we can take the opportunity to work towards the development of a more positive freedom. A kind of freedom which is the ability for the subject to truly become themselves, to be one with themselves. A kind of freedom which is not mere indifference, not a mere possibility either to love or not to love, either to think or not to think.

Negative freedom is a precondition of love, but love is a precondition of positive freedom. “Love and then do what you want”.

References

Biancu (2020), Il massimo necessario. L’etica alla prova dell’amore, Mimesis, Milano 2020

Biancu (2021a), “Libertà”, in Dizionarietto di politica. Le nuove parole, Morcelliana, Brescia 2021

Biancu (2021b), “Libertà, invenzione (e manutenzione) di un concetto”, Munera. Rivista europea di cultura, 2/2021

[1] See Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785).

[2] See I. Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958), in Id., Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, London 1967, n. ed. in Liberty, H. Hardy (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002; I. Carter, Positive and Negative Liberty, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2019 Ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/liberty-positive-negative/.

[3] See Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos, tractatus 7, sect. 8; PL 35, 2033.

[4] See J.-M. Ferry, Les Grammaires de l’intelligence, Cerf, Paris 2004, p. 201.

[5] See B.-C. Han, Psychopolitik. Neoliberalismus und die neuen Machttechniken, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2014.

[6] See E.-W. Böckenförde, Die Entstehung des Staates als Vorgang der Säkularisation (1967), in Id., Recht, Staat, Freiheit. Studien zur Rechtsphilosophie, Staatstheorie und Verfassungsgeschichte, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 2006, pp. 92-114.

[7] See B.-C. Han, Psychopolitik. Neoliberalismus und die neuen Machttechniken, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2014.

(Presentation at the SIIAEC online Conference 2021 on “Ethical Action: COVID Affecting Human Rights and Democracy”, April 30 – May 1, 2021)

Intergenerational Justice and the Pandemic

A webinar on the pandemic and its challenges to intergenerational justice took place on 4 December.

Stefano Biancu, Caterina Fiorilli, Fabio Macioce, Ferdinando Menga, Laura Palazzani, Matteo Rizzolli, Vincenzo Schirripa, and all the doctoral students discussed this this challenging topic from an interdisciplinary point of view.

The program.

The poster.

The video.

The Pandemic – an Intellectual Challenge

At least at our latitudes, the Covid-19 pandemic represented an absolute and radical novelty. Not even the most elderly among us, who have witnessed immense tragedies such as war, have ever experienced anything like this. In a short period of time everything changed under the threat of a terrible and invisible enemy: lifestyles, educational systems, the labor market, public policies, and international relations. Nothing seems to be the same as before: a new normal, still characterized by many uncertainties, has imposed itself on a global level. The whole world has been touched by it. In this sense, the pandemic represents a testing ground for intellectuals, who have posited novel interpretations of a radically new phenomenon based on pre-existing paradigms which have not always proven adequate. The round table – resulting from the collaboration between the University of Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway and the international PhD program “Contemporary Humanism” at LUMSA University – aims at drawing an early assessment of those intellectual attempts. In the awareness that the pandemic represents, in all respects, a challenge also for thought.

Time: Fri Sep 11, 2020, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Location: Webinar and In-Person Event – Notre Dame University Rome Global Gateway

PANELISTS:

Vittorio G. Hosle – University of Notre Dame

Ferdinando Menga – Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli

Francesco Valerio Tommasi – La Sapienza Università di Roma

MODERATOR:

Stefano Biancu – LUMSA Università di Roma – Doctoral Program in Contemporary Humanism

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

What Ethics after Covid-19? (Stefano Biancu)

“What can I know?” “What must I do?” “What may I hope?” are the three questions that, since Kant’s time, are recognized as essential in every attempt to think about human existence and reality. Three questions to which the experience of the pandemic has taken away any simple answer.

What is in our control and what is not.

Many times, during the pandemic, the situation appeared out of control. The Kantian question on what we can know could be translated as follows: what is in our control and what is not? You control what you know, what you do not know controls you.

The virus has forced us to grieve over the illusion that we can have everything under our control. It has also unfolded right before our eyes the necessity to do all the possible good things that are in our power. The virus – in other words – has made evident to us our condition of both vulnerable and responsible beings.

We are vulnerable: something we do not control can, at any time, hurt and even destroy us. No life insurance can protect us from that. On the other hand, the vain attempt to immunize ourselves from any risk brings more disadvantages than the expected benefits. If you avoid every risk in order to protect life, you end up destroying the life you want to protect and preserve.

An accepted vulnerability is also what gives us access to the greatest experiences of our humanity. Investing your energy in a project that – despite everything – may fail; expressing your convictions freely, even if they may not be accepted and later you will have to pay for them; declaring your love to a person who may not return it; choosing to share your life with a person who may one day hurt you; trusting a friend who may not understand you or even betray you; being generous with someone who may take advantage of it. These are all experiences of an accepted vulnerability that exposes us to the risk of suffering and failure, but which also opens up the only gateway to our humanity, making us truly alive. At the end of our existence, we will know that we have lived inasmuch as we have accepted our vulnerability. Missed opportunities are as many sacrifices on the altar of the pretension of not exposing us to the risk of suffering and failure.

If the fact that we cannot control everything makes us vulnerable, the fact that we can control something makes us responsible to ourselves and to others. We are not almighty and yet, for our part, we are responsible.

The choice to quarantine entire countries around the world, putting at risks the world economy, was a choice of responsibility for the benefit of all, and in particular the most vulnerable. In the near future, we will have to be as much responsible towards those made vulnerable by the economic crisis.

From here, ethics will have to start again: from accepting that not everything is under our control and that the pretension of protecting ourselves against all risks kills life. But also from accepting the responsibility of doing all the good which is in our power to do: in favour of all and in particular the most vulnerable.

What we must do.

We have called them heroes – doctors, nurses and healthcare workers who, in the dark days of the pandemic, have put their lives at risk to save others’. Proportionally, similar risks were taken by many other workers. None of that was included in their employment contracts and yet none of these heroes have ever claimed – and presumably ever even thought – that they did something beyond the call of duty.

What we have experienced will urge us to radically change our understanding of duty. We need to recognise that duty is broader than what is required by a rule or by the rights of a third party. Up to now we have considered solidarity, fraternity, love as supererogatory attitudes: i.e. good, but not strictly due. The experience of the pandemic has shown us that, beside the “minimum necessary” of what is due (what someone can demand from me), there is also a “maximum” that is just as necessary. No one – individual or institution – can demand it from me and yet I know that it is somehow due. I must do it.

No one can demand love from me, but if I do not love – and do not act accordingly – I do not respond adequately to the appeal that comes to me from the other. Nor do I live. It is not only for believers that love is a commandment – it is to live as humans. It is from here, from a broader understanding of duty, that ethics should restart after the Covid-19.

What we may hope.

“It’s gonna be okay”, we have repeated ourselves like a mantra. But we have ended up repeating it with less and less conviction. A column of military trucks taking away the coffins of the dead ones has also taken away our illusions. By the end, not everything will have gone well, at least not for everyone.

Yet the experience of the virus, which has left a huge pile of human rubble, has shown us that – despite everything – we can hope, and therefore we must do so. At the condition that we do not understand “it’s gonna be okay” as “nothing bad will happen to us”. Hope is not the illusion of not being vulnerable, i.e. immune from evil and pain. Rather, it means hoping that all this immense pain will have a meaning – that bad things do not happen in vain. A meaning, perhaps not immediately evident, must be there. And it is up to us to act so that it will be there.

For this hope, which does not illusorily remove vulnerability but accepts it, we are all responsible. It will depend largely on us if all this will make sense – if from this rubble we will be able to rebuild a different and better human world. In the name of a love which is certainly a “maximum”, but a “necessary” one.

Learn more.

L’etica che verrà (Stefano Biancu)

Che cosa possiamo conoscere, che cosa dobbiamo fare, che cosa possiamo sperare sono le tre domande che, fin dai tempi di Kant, riconosciamo come essenziali per ogni tentativo umano di pensare l’esistenza e il reale: tre domande rispetto alle quali l’esperienza della pandemia ci ha sottratto ogni facile risposta.

Ciò che è in nostro controllo e ciò che non lo è

Molte volte, durante la pandemia, la situazione ci è apparsa fuori controllo. Proprio così potrebbe essere tradotta la domanda kantiana intorno a ciò che possiamo conoscere: che cosa è in nostro controllo e che cosa non lo è? Ciò che conosci lo domini, ciò che non conosci ti domina.

Il virus ci ha imposto di fare il lutto della illusione di poter avere tutto sotto controllo. Ma ci ha anche messo davanti agli occhi l’esigenza di fare tutto ciò che di buono è in nostro potere. Il virus – in altri termini – ci ha con forza ricondotti alla nostra condizione di esseri vulnerabili e responsabili.

Siamo vulnerabili: qualcosa che non controlliamo può, in ogni momento, ferirci e finanche annientarci. Non c’è assicurazione sulla vita che tenga. D’altra parte, il tentativo vano di immunizzarci da ogni rischio produce un danno maggiore del beneficio atteso. Se per salvaguardare la vita eviti ogni rischio, finisci per annientare quella vita che vorresti proteggere e preservare.

Una vulnerabilità accettata è anche ciò che ci permette di accedere alle esperienze più grandi della nostra umanità. Investire energie in un progetto che – nonostante tutto – potrebbe fallire, esprimere liberamente ciò di cui si è convinti anche se magari non sarà accettato e dovremo pagare per questo, dichiarare il proprio amore a una persona che forse non lo ricambierà, scegliere di condividere la vita con una persona che forse un giorno ci ferirà, confidarsi con un amico che potrebbe non comprenderci o che magari ci tradirà, essere generosi con qualcuno che forse se ne approfitterà: sono tutte esperienze di una vulnerabilità accettata che ci espone al rischio della ferita e del fallimento, ma che anche costituisce l’unica porta di accesso per la nostra umanità, rendendoci vivi. Alla fine della nostra esistenza, sapremo di aver vissuto nella misura in cui avremo accettato la nostra vulnerabilità: le occasioni perse saranno altrettanti sacrifici sull’altare della pretesa di metterci al riparo dal rischio della ferita e del fallimento.

Se il fatto di non poter controllare tutto ci rende vulnerabili, il fatto di poter controllare qualcosa ci rende responsabili, di fronte a noi stessi e agli altri. Non siamo onnipotenti e tuttavia, per la parte che ci compete, siamo responsabili.

La scelta di mettere in quarantena interi Paesi del mondo, con gravi rischi per l’economia mondiale, è stata una scelta di responsabilità a favore di tutti, e in particolare dei più vulnerabili. Nel prossimo futuro altrettanta responsabilità dovremo esercitarla verso coloro che la crisi economica avrà reso vulnerabili.

Da qui l’etica dovrà ripartire: dall’accettare che non tutto è in nostro controllo e che la pretesa di assicurarci da ogni rischio uccide la vita; ma anche dall’accettare la responsabilità di fare tutto ciò che di buono è in nostro potere fare: per il bene di tutti e in particolare dei più vulnerabili.

Ciò che dobbiamo fare

Li abbiamo chiamati eroi: medici, infermieri e personale sanitario che, nei giorni bui della pandemia, hanno messo a rischio le loro vite per salvare altre vite umane. Proporzionalmente, rischi simili li hanno assunti molti altri lavoratori. Niente di tutto questo era previsto nei loro contratti di lavoro eppure nessuno di questi eroi ha mai dichiarato – e presumibilmente neppure pensato – di aver fatto più del proprio dovere.

Ciò che abbiamo vissuto ci imporrà di cambiare radicalmente la nostra comprensione del dovere. Dovremo riconoscere che il dovere è più ampio di ciò che è esigibile rispetto a una norma o ai diritti di un terzo. Finora abbiamo considerato la solidarietà, la fraternità, l’amore come attitudini supererogatorie: buone, ma non strettamente dovute. L’esperienza della pandemia ci ha dimostrato che, accanto al minimo necessario di ciò che è esigibile (ciò che qualcuno può pretendere da me), esiste anche un massimo che è altrettanto necessario: nessuno – singolo o istituzione – potrà esigerlo da me, eppure so che è in qualche modo dovuto. Lo devo fare.

Nessuno può esigere da me amore, ma se non amo – e non agisco di conseguenza – non rispondo adeguatamente all’appello che dall’altro mi giunge. E neppure vivo. Non è soltanto per i credenti che l’amore è un comandamento: è per vivere da umani. E da qui, da una comprensione più ampia del dovere, dovrà ripartire l’etica che verrà.

Ciò che possiamo sperare

Andrà tutto bene, ci siamo ripetuti come un mantra. Ma abbiamo finito per crederci sempre di meno e abbiamo iniziato a ripetercelo con sempre minore convinzione. Una colonna di camion militari che portano via le bare dei caduti si è portata via anche le nostre troppo facili illusioni: alla fine non tutto sarà andato bene, perlomeno non per tutti.

Eppure l’esperienza del virus, che ha lasciato dietro di sé una immensa montagna di macerie umane, ci ha dimostrato che – nonostante tutto – possiamo sperare, e che dunque dobbiamo farlo. A patto di non intendere quel “tutto andrà bene” come un “non ci accadrà nulla di male”. Sperare non significa illudersi di non essere vulnerabili, di essere immuni dal male e dal dolore. Piuttosto significa sperare che tutto quell’immenso dolore avrà un senso: che ciò che di male accade, non accada invano. Un senso, forse non immediatamente evidente, ci deve essere. E a noi spetta di agire perché ci sia.

Di questa speranza, che non rimuove illusoriamente la vulnerabilità ma la accetta, siamo tutti responsabili. Da noi dipenderà in buona parte se tutto questo avrà avuto un senso: se da queste macerie sapremo ricostruire un mondo umano diverso e migliore. All’insegna di un amore che sa di essere un massimo, ma un massimo necessario.

Per approfondire clicca qui.

Vulnerability and Responsibility (Stefano Biancu)

I am a Professor, I work with words. I know how to fill in any kind of space or time gap with words. I know how to catch the attention of an audience through funny words or emotional phrases. I know how to skirt issues smartly when I do not have all the answers. I have learned all of that, these are the tricks of my job.

But now I have no more words. The words I used to have are not enough to express what I am witnessing, what we are going through. They are not enough and they even bother me. I would like to escape from all this, but I do not know where to go, for we are all in the same boat: the neighbour next door and the faraway neighbour who lives in the other hemisphere.

The only word still left in my mind is “why?”. Why all this? Why in these proportions? I have no answer to this question, and this time I cannot skirt the issue smartly.

Who is responsible for that? To my students I always explain that an action is not a “mere fact”. It presumes a free and responsible agent, someone I can hold responsible for their action, someone I could ask to justify their action, to make it fair to my eyes.

But today there is no one we can hold responsible for what is happening to us. All attempts to find a culprit – someone who can answer for what is happening – seem to be vain. The virus is not even a living creature. It kills and destroys even lacking the motivation – questionable but understandable – of having to survive: mors tua, vita mea.

We have tried to find some culprits: pollution, some kinds of husbandry practices with animals, the lies of the Chinese government, the inefficient organisation of our country, the cuts in the healthcare system budget, and even the runners. At some point, it looked like it was them – the runners – the cause of the catastrophe. If you run while people are dying, you must be the one to blame. I must confess that, as long as it was permitted, I was one of the runners, too. I used to run to feel alive and I did it without putting anybody’s life at risk. Because of this, I know runners are not the ones to blame. We are very mean to each other, desperately searching for a culprit. Let’s find that someone and the problem will be solved!

Here lies the tragedy: this time there is no one to blame. There is no one who can answer for all this. Some choices – wrong or delayed – may have made the situation worse, or may not have sufficiently limited the damage, but no one is really guilty of all this death and destruction. And in lack of a response, we do not even have words anymore. And yet we need words as much as we need the air that the virus takes away from those who are attacked by it.

It is not true that everything will be fine. This time the cure will inevitably have some very serious side effects. We are saving lives by putting others’ at risk. The choice between pandemic and famine is an unsolvable dilemma, just as it is having to decide who must live and who must die. At the moment the most important principle is to concentrate on the most urgent threat, but this argument will not be valid forever. Very soon hunger and solitude could start killing just like the virus. We do not know what to say, everything is so uncertain.

Everything will be fine, this is what we have been saying to ourselves repeatedly like a mantra. But now we know that not everything will be fine, at least not for everyone. The human cost of this sad event will be very high for many, and for some it will be even higher. Also in this case the motto we were holding on to – “everything will be fine” – collapsed, dragged away from a trail of military trucks crammed with coffins.

What will ever give words back to us in the midst of this void of answers? In this situation in which it seems that, whatever we do, we are mistaken or at least we do not solve anything? In this continuous killing of illusions for which every day it becomes more and more obvious that not everything will eventually be fine?

Now more than ever, it has become clear that hope is not a passion, not just a feeling. It is the result of a decision, a choice. Today we can choose hope. In what we are experiencing, we are more vulnerable than responsible. There are more things beyond our control than in our control. And yet there is one thing we are responsible for: our hope.

Hope is not the illusion that evil will not strike us, the illusion that we are not vulnerable. It is the confidence that this immense nonsense can make sense. Words will come back to us. But for this sense and for these words we will be responsible.

All of this will make sense if we do not waste this extreme time of isolation and quarantine. It will make sense if we use it to work on ourselves, now that the situation requires that we face our real selves without any social filter. The manager, the worker, the janitor, the top model are alone, confronting themselves the same way. This time will make sense if we use it to build up on our human relationships, now that the social relations have thinned out. It will make sense if each of us, according to our possibilities, contributes to dream and design a different world. Different politics, different economy, a different Europe, even a different ethics.

A kind of ethics that will have measure up with those impassably vulnerable and responsible beings which the virus has revealed we are. A kind of ethics for beings who do not have everything in their control but who must do the good they can, far beyond what the rights of a third party or the obligations of a law may require.

Everything that in the past we considered supererogatory – that is to say, good but not required – has now become a daily duty. That is the necessary response to the appeal of the most vulnerable ones, and the essential condition to live as humans. The commandment of love – the supererogatory par excellence –, that something that nobody can demand from you – has always been considered valid only for the believers. Today, it has imposed itself as the living core of ethics. Sine amore non possumus.

Perhaps the happy ending will not be what we imagined while saying to ourselves that everything would be fine. We are vulnerable. But another happy ending is still possible and it is within our reach. And for that, we are responsible.

Vulnerabilité et responsabilité (Stefano Biancu)

Je suis professeur : je travaille avec des paroles. Je sais comment remplir de paroles toute espèce d’espace ou de temps. Je sais comment captiver l’attention d’un auditoire avec une parole amusante ou une autre émouvante. Je sais comment m’en tirer avec élégance lorsqu’on n’a pas réponse à toutes les demandes. Cela, je l’ai appris, ce sont les ficelles du métier.

Mais voilà que maintenant je n’ai plus de paroles. Les paroles dont je disposais ne suffisent pas pour dire ce à quoi j’assiste, ce que nous sommes en train de vivre. Je voudrais bien échapper à tout cela, mais je ne sais où aller, car nous sommes tous dans le même bateau : le voisin de la porte à côté, l’éloigné qui habite dans l’autre hémisphère.

La seule parole qui me soit restée est « pourquoi ? ». Pourquoi tout cela ? Pourquoi dans ces proportions ? A cette demande, je n’ai pas de réponse, et, cette fois, je ne peux pas m’en tirer avec élégance.

A mes étudiants j’explique qu’une action n’est pas un « simple fait » : elle suppose un agent libre et responsable, quelqu’un à qui je puisse demander de rendre compte de son agir, de le justifier, de le rendre juste à mes yeux.

Mais aujourd’hui, il n’y a personne à qui nous puissions demander des comptes. Toutes les tentatives de trouver un responsable – quelqu’un qui puisse répondre de ce qui arrive – apparaissent vaines. Le virus n’est même pas un être vivant. Il tue et détruit sans même la motivation – discutable mais compréhensible – de devoir assurer sa propre subsistance. Mors tua, vita mea.

Des responsables, nous avons essayé d’en trouver : la pollution, certaines pratiques de zootechnie, les mensonges du gouvernement chinois, la désorganisation de notre pays, les coupures dans le budget de la santé, et jusqu’aux adeptes du jogging. Ne serait-ce pas eux les responsables de la catastrophe : si tu coures alors que les gens meurent, c’est toi qui dois être le coupable. Je le confesse : tant que cela a été possible, j’ai été l’un d’eux. Je courais pour vivre et je le faisais sans risquer la vie de personne, et je sais bien que ce n’est pas là qu’il faut chercher le responsable. Nous sommes devenus mauvais les uns à l’égard des autres dans notre recherche désespérée d’un responsable : trouvons-le et le problème sera réglé !

Voilà bien le drame : un responsable, cette fois-ci, il n’y en a pas. Il n’y a personne qui puisse répondre de tout cela. Certains choix – erronés ou en retard – ont pu aggraver la situation, ou ne pas limiter suffisamment les dégâts, mais un véritable responsable à qui demander des comptes de cette mort, de cette destruction, il n’y en a pas. Et dans cette absence de réponse, il n’y a plus de parole. Et pourtant nous avons besoin de paroles, autant que nous avons besoin de cet air que le virus soustrait à ceux qu’il frappe.

Les traitements cette fois-ci auront inévitablement de très lourds effets collatéraux. En sauvant des vies, nous en risquons d’autres. Le choix entre pandémie et famine est un dilemme indécidable comme l’est tout choix entre qui vit et qui meurt. Sur le moment, vaut le principe de se concentrer sur le péril le plus imminent, mais l’argument ne sera pas indéfiniment valide : rapidement la faim et la solitude pourraient bien tuer, autant que le virus. Nous ne savons pas quoi dire, tout est si incertain.

Tout ira bien, répétons-nous comme une mantra. Aujourd’hui pourtant, nous savons que tout n’ira pas bien, en tout cas pas pour tous. Le coût humain de cette mésaventure sera très élevé pour beaucoup, davantage encore pour certains. Ici encore, disparaît la parole « tout ira bien » à laquelle on s’agrippait, supprimée par une colonne de camions militaires remplie de cercueils.

Qui pourra nous redonner une parole au milieu de ce vide de réponses ? dans cette situation dans laquelle il semble que, quoi qu’on fasse, on se trompe ou du moins on ne résout rien ? Dans cette tragédie continue d’illusions au travers desquelles il devient chaque jour plus évident que tout, en fin de compte, ne sera pas allé bien ?

Aujourd’hui comme jamais, il devient clair que l’espérance n’est pas une passion, non plus qu’un sentiment. C’est le résultat d’une décision, d’un choix. Aujourd’hui, nous pouvons choisir l’espérance. En ce qui concerne ce que nous sommes en train de vivre, nous sommes plus vulnérables que responsables. Il y a davantage de choses qui échappent à notre contrôle que de choses sous contrôle. Et pourtant, il y a une chose dont nous sommes responsables : notre espérance.

L’espérance n’est pas l’illusion que le mal ne nous frappera pas, l’illusion de ne pas être vulnérables. C’est la confiance dans le fait que cet immense non-sens peut avoir un sens. Nous pourrons recommencer à avoir des paroles, mais de ce sens et de ces paroles, nous serons, nous, les responsables.

La condition sera de ne pas gâcher ce temps extrême de l’isolement, de la quarantaine. Il aura du sens si nous l’employons à travailler sur nous-mêmes, alors que la situation nous impose de faire face à la réalité que nous sommes nous-mêmes, sans les filtres sociaux. L’entrepreneur, l’ouvrier, le domestique, le modèle sont ici à la même enseigne : en face d’eux-mêmes. Ce temps aura du sens si nous l’employons à travailler sur nos relations humaines, maintenant que les sociales se sont espacées. Il aura du sens si chacun, à la mesure de ses possibilités, contribue à rêver un monde différent, à en faire le projet : une autre politique, une autre économie, une autre Europe et jusqu’à une autre éthique.

Une éthique qui devra être à la hauteur de ces êtres inséparablement vulnérables et responsables que le virus nous a fait découvrir en nous-mêmes. Une éthique pour des êtres qui n’ont pas tout sous contrôle mais qui doivent faire le bien qu’ils peuvent, bien au-delà de ce que peuvent exiger les droits d’un tiers ou les préceptes d’une loi.

Tout ce que naguère, nous considérions comme surérogatoire – c’est-à-dire bon mais non requis – est aujourd’hui devenu devoir quotidien, réponse nécessaire à la clameur des plus vulnérables, condition même pour vivre en hommes. Le commandement de l’amour – le surérogatoire par excellence – ce qu’on ne peut pas exiger de toi, depuis toujours considéré comme valide seulement pour des croyants, s’impose aujourd’hui comme le centre vivant de l’éthique. Sine amore non possumus.

L’heureuse fin ne sera peut-être pas celle que nous nous étions imaginée lorsque nous répétions que tout ira bien : nous sommes vulnérables. Mais une autre heureuse fin est encore possible, est dans notre possible, et de celle-là nous sommes responsables.

(Traduit de l’italien par Ghislain Lafont)

Vulnerabilità e responsabilità (Stefano Biancu)

Sono un professore, lavoro con le parole. So come si può riempire di parole ogni spazio e ogni tempo, come si cattura l’attenzione di un uditorio con una parola divertente o con una commovente, come cavarsela elegantemente quando non si hanno le risposte a tutte le domande. L’ho imparato: sono i segreti del mestiere.

Eppure ora non ho più parole. Perché le parole di cui disponevo non bastano a dire ciò a cui sto assistendo e che stiamo vivendo: non mi bastano e anzi mi disturbano. Vorrei scappare da tutto questo e non so dove andare, perché siamo tutti sulla stessa barca: il vicino della porta accanto e il lontano che abita nell’altro emisfero.

L’unica parola che mi è rimasta è “perché”. Perché tutto questo? Perché in queste proporzioni? A questa domanda non ho risposta, e questa volta non riesco a cavarmela elegantemente.

Ai miei studenti spiego che un’azione non è un semplice fatto, perché suppone un agente libero e responsabile: qualcuno a cui potrò chiedere conto del suo agire, potrò chiedere di giustificarlo, di renderlo giusto ai miei occhi.

Ma oggi non c’è nessuno a cui possiamo chiedere conto di quanto ci accade. Tutti i tentativi di trovare un responsabile – qualcuno che possa rispondere di ciò che ci sta accadendo – appaiono vani. Il virus non è neppure un essere vivente. Uccide e distrugge senza neanche la motivazione – discutibile ma comprensibile – di dover assicurare la propria sussistenza: mors tua vita mea.

Ci abbiamo provato a cercare dei responsabili: l’inquinamento, certe presunte pratiche zootecniche, le menzogne governative cinesi, la disorganizzazione del nostro Paese, i tagli alla sanità, fino ad arrivare ai runner. A un certo punto sembravano loro – i runner – le cause della catastrofe: se tu corri mentre la gente muore devi essere tu il colpevole. Lo confesso: fino a che è stato possibile, ero uno di loro. Correvo per vivere e lo facevo senza mettere a rischio la vita di nessuno: so dunque che non è lì che va cercato il responsabile. Ci siamo incattiviti gli uni contro gli altri nella disperata ricerca di un responsabile: troviamolo e il problema sarà risolto.

Il dramma è questo: il responsabile questa volta non c’è, non c’è chi possa rispondere di tutto questo. Alcune scelte – sbagliate o tardive – possono aver aggravato la situazione o non limitato sufficientemente i danni, ma un vero responsabile a cui chiedere conto di tutta questa morte e distruzione non c’è. E in assenza di risposte anche le parole vengono meno. Eppure abbiamo bisogno di parole almeno quanto abbiamo bisogno di quell’aria che il virus toglie a coloro che colpisce.

La cura questa volta avrà inevitabilmente effetti collaterali pesantissimi: stiamo salvando vite mettendone a rischio altre. La scelta tra pandemia e carestia è un dilemma indecidibile, come lo è ogni scelta tra chi vive e chi muore. Al momento vige il principio di concentrarsi sul pericolo maggiormente imminente, ma non è un argomento che sarà valido ancora a lungo: presto la fame e la solitudine potrebbero uccidere quanto il virus. Non sappiamo che cosa dire: tutto appare incerto.

Tutto andrà bene, ci siamo ripetuti come un mantra. Ma ora sappiamo che non tutto andrà bene, perlomeno non per tutti. Il costo umano di questa vicenda sarà altissimo per molti, ma per alcuni ancora di più. Anche qui è venuta meno la parola a cui ci eravamo aggrappati – “tutto andrà bene” – portata via da una colonna di camion militari carichi di bare.

Che cosa potrà restituirci la parola in questo vuoto di risposte? In questa condizione in cui ci sembra che qualsiasi cosa facciamo la sbagliamo o comunque non sarà risolutiva? In questa strage continua di illusioni per cui ogni giorno è sempre più evidente che non tutto, alla fine, sarà andato bene?

Oggi più che mai ci appare chiaro che la speranza non è una passione e neppure un sentimento. È l’esito di una decisione: di una scelta. Oggi possiamo scegliere la speranza. Rispetto a ciò che stiamo vivendo siamo più vulnerabili che responsabili: ci sono più cose fuori dal nostro controllo che in nostro controllo. E tuttavia di una cosa siamo responsabili: della nostra speranza.

La speranza non è l’illusione che il male non ci colpirà: l’illusione di non essere vulnerabili. È la fiducia nel fatto che questo immenso non senso può avere un senso: potremo tornare ad avere parole. Ma di questo senso e di queste parole saremo noi i responsabili.

Tutto questo avrà un senso se non manderemo sprecato il tempo, estremo, dell’isolamento e della quarantena.

Avrà senso se lo impiegheremo per lavorare su di noi, ora che le condizioni ci impongono di fare i conti con la realtà di noi stessi senza nessun filtro sociale: la manager, l’operaia, il bidello e il modello sono egualmente soli davanti a sé stessi.

Avrà senso se lo impiegheremo per lavorare sulle nostre relazioni umane, ora che quelle sociali si sono diradate.

Avrà senso se, ciascuno per quello che può, contribuiremo a sognare e progettare un mondo diverso: una politica diversa, un’economia diversa, un’Europa diversa, finanche un’etica diversa.

Un’etica che dovrà essere all’altezza di quegli esseri insuperabilmente vulnerabili e responsabili che il virus ci ha fatto riscoprire di essere. Un’etica per esseri che non hanno tutto in loro controllo, ma che quello che di buono possono fare, lo devono fare: ben oltre ciò che i diritti di un terzo o i dettami di una norma possono esigere.

Quello che fino a ieri consideravamo supererogatorio – buono ma non esigibile – è oggi diventato ai nostri occhi dovere quotidiano: risposta necessaria all’appello dei più vulnerabili e condizione stessa per vivere da umani. Il comandamento dell’amore – il supererogatorio per eccellenza: ciò che nessuno può esigere da te – da sempre considerato valido solo per i credenti, si è oggi imposto quale centro vivo dell’etica: sine amore non possumus.

Il lieto fine non sarà forse quello che ci eravamo immaginati mentre ci ripetevamo che tutto andrà bene: siamo vulnerabili. Ma un altro lieto fine è ancora possibile ed è nelle nostre possibilità: di questo siamo responsabili.

originally published here

Webinar on COVID 19 in Italy, Hong Hong and USA (Stefano Biancu)

A discussion on the impact of the COVID 19 virus in Hong Kong, Italy, France and the United States. The panel reflects on the different ways the virus is impacting life around the world.