Life is Hard by Keiran Setiya, Ch5 Injustice:

Nate Griffin-007

Setiya opens this chapter with the topic of doomscrolling, identifying a way in which most of us deal with the broader subject of injustice in our day to day lives. He punctuates this with a somber quote from Theodor Adorno which reads “What would happiness be that was not measured by the immeasurable grief at what is? For the world is deeply ailing”. 

                                    Theodor Adorno pictured here ^ 

After this, he identifies Simone Weil as someone incapable of ignoring the suffering in the world. Her entire life from age 9, she ate only rations that allowed to the citizens of occupied France during World War One. This and actions like it led to her being regarded as “the living embodiment of Kant’s Categorical Imperative” and, unfortunately, her self-imposed dietary restrictions may have contributed to her death in 1943 after she contracted Tuberculosis. 

                                     Photograph of Simone Weil ^

Setiya then begins analyzing the feelings stirred by injustice. He begins by acknowledging that no moral argument could convince an egomaniac to care about others and to this end says, “If justice doesn’t cry out to you, reading Kant is unlikely to help” (126). This leads to the logical conclusion that the origin of ethical thought is an appreciation for what is already there. 

                                Immanuel Kant^

These conclusions are then weaved together to say that to recognize another’s suffering is to acknowledge their humanity; therefore, someone who is deeply bothered by an upsetting headline has empathy for the individuals affected. He encourages this empathy by urging the reader to not view these headlines as mere empty words. 

He then pivots to the subject of love, reasoning that because any human can be loved, the same must be true of every human. After this, he quotes Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch on their views around love being the acknowledgement of another’s humanity. This is punctuated by his rather profound statement, “The value we seek out in love is the value that injustice violates” (130). 

                            Image of Iris Murdoch^ 

Next, Setiya begins to examine ideology and its distorting effect on what we perceive as humanly possible. He uses the example of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace, identifying the fear of human obsolescence as a possible downstream effect of the direct linkage between one’s employment and their self-esteem. This, he argues, is a widely adopted ideology that may be a form of justification for our current economic system. 

This leads to an analysis of structural injustice. He begins by addressing the concept of a utopia and ruling it out entirely. Instead saying the course of action we all must take is to identify the current problems in our world and begin by fixing those. Part of his prescribed solution is to take responsibility for the structure of your society. By this he means though you may not be personally responsible for inequity in your society, you should still conduct yourself in a manner that relieves the inherent injustice. 

He then gives an example of his own contribution to the alleviation of structural injustice in the form of combatting climate change through Fossil Free MIT. The major point he makes through his account is that structural injustice can be fought most effectively in a collective. Had he not found Fossil Free MIT, he likely would not have been sufficiently empowered, or motivated, to combat structural injustice on his own. 

Theodor Adorno takes center stage again as Setiya uses his story to paint a picture of what it looks like to resign the struggle against the injustice of the world. Adorno was very aware of injustice. However, instead of actively contributing to any attempts at its abatement, he chose to rescind from society and write about its shortcomings. Adorno still taught at university during this time, but Setiya argues this is a chief example of what it looks like to not do enough. This leads to him point out that almost no one can really do enough, but that doing anything is better than doing nothing. 

After the relatively bleak line of reasoning throughout the chapter, Setiya introduces the notion that solving the problems of the world isn’t the only thing that matters. This is because there are things in the world which have positive existential value. Things that Zena Hitz would call “the little human things” like telling funny stories, swimming, playing games with friends and family, and the like. 

He closes the chapter with a rhetorical question which I take to mean that no matter our intent, if we focus to much on the suffering of the world, we may lose sight of the value of life.