MINIMA MORALIA Is there an ethics of the open society? Sandra Pralong

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and the political establishment, along with the rest of the world, needed to make sense of events, Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies (Popper 1945/1966) enjoyed a second birth. Its new relevance, due primarily to Popper’s typology of „closed” and „open” political systems, was especially obvious in Eastern and Central Europe: the book was perhaps the only theoretical framework available in which the daunting challenge behind the unfolding events was put into proper perspective.

The collapse of communism – a closed system par excellence – is generally seen to entail the transformation of a centrally planned economy and of a repressive political apparatus into a market system and a democratic regime. From Popper’s framework, however, it is obvious that the transition between closed and open societies represents much more than structural overhaul and institutional redesign. More profoundly, it requires a change in attitude: in individuals’ perception of their universe and of their place in it.

And herein lay, in my opinion, one of the key issues related to the post- communist transitions. To the question „What do people need to change in order to build open societies?,” the usual answer is: their institutions. Popper’s more sophisticated approach however is to say: their way of thinking! They need to change their epistemological framework and their moral outlook (Popper 1945/1966, vol. 2: 232f.). Popper fully accounts for the ethical differences between what he calls Plato’s „totalitarian ethics,” in which the interests of the individual are subjected to the interests of the group (1945/1966, vol. 1: 108), and for Marx’s „historicist moral theory,” in which the ends justify the means (1945/1966, vol. 2: 208), both of which he contrasts with Socrates’ „humanitarian” project of defense of individualism (1945/1966, vol. 1: 104E). But, surprisingly, Popper fails to detail the different ethical standards embedded in each moral framework.

In this essay I will focus on identifying the criteria associated with each ethical project, Specifically, I will attempt to find, in Popper’s writings, the most appropriate criterion for making moral decisions in the open society. Even though Popper doesn’t make it explicit, I believe there is a particular ethical rule in the Open Society; it has the beauty of simplicity, it is compatible with Popper’s other values, and it dovetails with Socrates’ humanist project of inviting individuals to apply critical thinking to all domains, including morality and ethics.

Choosing between the two competing ethical projects – the „totalitarian” and the „humanitarian” – is, in my opinion, one of the keys to the transition from closed to open society: from ethics stem politics, and politics determines institutional design and socioeconomic organization. Yet Popper seems to underrate a key problem related to the existence of two different ethical paradigms, Not only does he fail to specify the different criteria for moral choice that are associated with each approach, but he also under-emphasizes the difficulty of transition from one ethical paradigm to another.

Even though I will not address here the problems involved in changing ethical standards, I will briefly outline the issue as follows: the idea of transition from closed to open society requires that we clarify the circumstances in which change is to occur, and the time-lag allowed for change to be completed. Both these elements, however, pose difficulties partly ignored by Popper, perhaps because: (a) they are somewhat implicit in his idea that change requires a moral decision between dogma and reason (1945/1966, vol. 2: 232f), and (b) because he considered change from closed to open systems to be gradual and to take generations (see especially 1945/1966: ch. 10). However, the post-communist experience points to a different expectation, namely that of rapid change – a transformation to be completed, if possible, within the span of a single lifetime. This means that, in order to switch from one ethical system to the other, thesame people ought to change their moral outlook. And what does that entail? If we extrapolate from what Popper calls the „logic of the situation” (1945/ .1966, vol. 2: 97), what is required is a change in circumstances such that it alters moral reasoning. Yet I will argue that the new circumstances of post- communism are far from providing an environment apt to induce change in moral thinking. Quite the contrary, I believe that, paradoxically, liberalism is more likely to entrench the old, discredited moral criteria, than to provide an incentive to change.

Changing moral perspectives away from „totalitarian ethics” requires that individuals abandon an instrumental ethic in which the ends justify the means, and adopt a Kantian ethic of legitimate rule obedience, along with what Popper calls „moral egalitarianism” (1945/1966, vol. 1: 265). It also requires that people agree to a procedural ethic rather than continue endorsing a substantive ethic of ultimate ends, Finally, at the collective level, this change corresponds to acceptance of the rule of law, which is the key element in the promotion of an open society.

In his account of the open society, Popper doesn’t focus on specifying the ethical standards that induce obedience to the rule of law; nor does he analyze the mechanics of transformation of a closed society into an open one. Had he done so, I believe he would have noticed that there is „a catch,” especially if one is to allow for a very short time-span for the transition from closed to open systems (i.e. the transition from an instrumental ethics, where the ends justify the means, to procedural ethics).

The catch seems to be the following: instrumental rationality

(i.e. means – ends rationality, where the ends dictate the means) is fully embedded in open institutions such as science, the market, etc. And such instrumental rationality can be mistakenly associated with instrumental ethics (where the ends justify the means). The two are analytically different of course, but confusion is not unlikely. Thus a problem arises: should the difference between instrumental reason and instrumental ethics ever be obscured, it would make it actually irrational for any given individual willingly to adopt procedural ethics. For why should the rational individual forego the idea that one is right because one has the „right” ends? Why not ignore the equal rights of others when one is convinced of having, say, the best intentions?

If my concern is correct and indeed we see instrumental rationality and instrumental ethics unwittingly mixed up in people’s minds, then there is a collective action problem (Olson 1965) involved in the transition from closed to open systems: for there seems to be no reason and no incentive for rational individuals to renounce the idea that the ends justify the means, and to adopt a different, procedural, ethics. (Hume’s answer – that rule obedience is necessary because otherwise society would perish – doesn’t seem to me to resolve the collective action problem, for it gives no reason to any one individual not to free-ride, i.e. not to count on others to obey the law while one seeks to get away with disobedience.)

But there is more: since liberal doctrine invites individuals freely to chose their own ends, and it actually encourages their self-interest, liberalism only compounds the problem. For an emphasis on self-interest makes it even more irrational for people to forego their individual ends for the sake of respecting the rights of others, or for the sake of complying with collective rule obedience (i.e, with the rule of law).

Does this mean that a secular and ethical liberal order cannot emerge sui generis, at least not in the course of one generation?² Or does this imply that absent recourse to a higher authority (such as that of religion), the only way to solve this problem is through a strong state that coerces people into rule obedience? But if that were the case, the new order would no longer be liberal or be an open society!

So, what is to be done? The short answer may be perhaps to remind our- selves that engaging in a critical discussion about ethics, complete with education in what may be called the „ethics of reason,” or the „ethics of freedom,” ought not be entirely beyond the scope of the liberal project. Popper calls this „moral intellectualism,” and reminds us that one of Socrates’ fundamental ideas was that „moral excellence can be taught, and that it does not require any particular moral faculties, apart from the universal human intelligence” (Popper 1945/ 1966, vol. 1: 128). There is no reason for ethics to remain the province of religious fundamentalism or of conservative politics, since one can engage in it critically and with an open mind.

While the issue of „liberal ethics” is too vast for me to address in this essay, I will nevertheless try to tackle two of its aspects: (a) I will first give a brief account of how this problem plays in the post-communist context, and (b) I ’ will attempt to derive from Popper’s writings a minimal ethical standard of social interaction suited to the open society.

What I will not address, however, is the collective action problem embedded in the moral transition from closed to open society; nor will I discuss here the vexing issue of ethical rule enforcement. For even assuming that there is agreement on what I will propose as a „popperian standard” for moral decision-making, ethics is, by definition, the province of self-enforced norms, and thus it eludes traditional discussions of enforcement.

I realize that by focusing on matters such as „criteria for moral decision- making,” or „rules of behavior” and „minimal standards of social interaction,” I am on the verge of heresy, or, worse yet, of putting words into Karl Popper’s mouth. For Sir Karl took particular pride in his anti-behavioristic, anti-psychological, rational approach to political philosophy, In spite of his methodological individualism, Popper was clearly reluctant to address the issue of ethics and of how individuals (should) make moral decisions. It is easy to see why: he must have thought it the height of presumption to offer rules for how one should behave, when the whole popperian project is predicated on individuals thinking freely for themselves without recourse to any authority, be it an enlightened one, such as his own.³

I will try to show, however, that what I believe to be a criterion implicit in Popper’s approach to ethics is not only compatible with his emphasis on individual critical thinking, but is actually a good illustration of it, for the rule I will extract from his writings represents a general method by which one may decide for oneself what is „good” and what is not. This criterion for ethical decision-making is derived from a well-known traditional standard, over 2,500 years old, which preserves both individual freedom and value-pluralism.

From communism to the open society: when do ends not justify the means?

Who sets the rules in an open society? Since liberal individuals represent self- originating sources of value, the rules, including ethical ones, are to be set by individuals, with no appeals to a higher authority and no coercion. As noted above, the question „according to which criteria?” most clearly distinguishes open from closed societies. Closed societies operate according to the belief that the end justifies the means. Considering how harmful is this idea if one seeks to establish an open society (which is based on obedience to the rule of law), Popper’s rather lax treatment of the difference between specific criteria is somewhat surprising. (See especially 1945/1966: ch. 9, note 6 for his discussion of means and ends.)

With the risk of’ caricaturing, I will illustrate below why a belief that the ends may justify the means is fatal to the establishment of an open society.

There is a myth in the West about the post-communist Big Bang – it circulates especially among economists dealing with reform. The idea is that in Eastern Europe, a new universe has been emerging from scratch. But not even in the economy is this an accurate perception, as many of the old private and institutional ties that preceded the collapse have remained unaltered and continue to permeate the new structures, even in the face of privatization and the transition to markets (Stark 1993).

The legacy of communism is not a moral tabula rasa on which one can build a whole new system from the ground up; the Berlin Wall did not collapse into a vacuum. On the contrary, one could say that, in certain cases, far from being the idyllic garden of Rousseau’s uncorrupted good men in the state of nature, the region starts with a considerable handicap. This is so because communism was not merely a benign, a-moral system, but, rather, it was a system that actually encouraged immorality – by necessity – as a way to survive. Think of it this way: if property belongs to all, it belongs to nobody; then what’s wrong in helping oneself since no one in particular is being harmed directly?

To focus on the problem, I will take a theoretical example and trace the moral quandary that an individual would now face if he or she had lived through, say, the last fifty years of the communist „Absurdistan” – as Vaclav Havel called it.

Imagine our friend to have been, in his youth (I’ll assume a man so it’s easier to picture him active in politics, for fewer women were militants at that time), a convinced communist, who genuinely believed in the Marxist – Leninist ideal of social justice and economic equality, and sought to establish it in, say, one of the East European countries. After the Second World War, the Soviet Army helps him and his comrades come to power. Our friend fights against the local „bourgeois reactionaries,” jails many of them and even gives orders to kill a few – the Party demands it to consolidate its power. But he can justify this to himself: it’s for a noble cause and for the common good. The end justifies the means, so his splendid intentions justify his crime! As the dominance of the Party becomes entrenched, however, idealism slackens. And as the socialist paradise seems increasingly remote, many people start to cut corners; our friend must now distort reality to avoid challenging the official dogma. He dislikes it but has no other choice, so he learns to lie about things large and small: from being an informant for the Secret Police, to cheating about fulfilling his job quota (or the Five Year Plan), to lying to his children about his ideological convictions, and so on, in a never-ending waltz of double-talk and (self)-deception. Truth becomes irrelevant, or worse – it is a nuisance one needs to cover up. In addition, economic conditions are so harsh that he accepts bribes to make ends meet, and in turn he must bribe others to get anything done.

Then communism collapses, democracy and the market economy (the system that he was trained to hate, or at least to lie about) are becoming institutionalized, and, as our friend understands it, competition is now the name of the game – meaning, he has to stay ahead of the curve, no matter what. No more protection from the Party in exchange for his loyalty and obedience, no more shelter in the state-run sector where he worked for „every- body” (meaning for nobody in particular) and got away with doing nothing. Self-interest is now the new mantra and, after decades of publicly denying he had any interests of his own, the change is welcomed by him and his (former) comrades; they’re ready to compete.

But the world that emerged from the ruins of communism is a lot more difficult to survive in than the (still) cozy West, where there is relatively low inflation, a safety net for the jobless, social security, a decent health system, banks one can trust, insurance that covers risk, justice that functions, and everything from hot running water to monthly salaries with which one can buy more than just a few loaves of bread. No such comforts are yet to be taken for granted in the wild capitalist jungle of the post-communist East. So, what’s to keep our friend from, well, finding „unorthodox ways” to survive? Like taking a bribe or two (or more) to make ends meet, like lying on occasion when it suits him, or cheating from time to time to stay ahead of the curve? For it goes without saying that, a convinced atheist, our friend has little fear of God to mitigate his zeal; besides, society puts little pressure on him to change his ways. The legal system is still full of holes, the police and the tribunals are not yet efficient – or totally fair – and when they function policemen and judges are human too and subject to the same pressures to make ends meet as everyone else … In other words, much of the system still functions with the assumption that the ends justify the means. The main difference is that now the ends are no( some lofty ideal and the „common good,” but quite simply self-interest and survival of the fittest. Since self-interest is, after all, the liberal creed, nobody can be blamed, but now the question is: what – and who – gives our friend a moral compass?

I am not suggesting, of course, that reform communists are all corrupt while everyone else is perfect – far from it. There are as many uncorrupt, decent, and law-abiding former communists as there are corrupt and lawless liberals. The point is not to label people and to assign blame, the point is to try to highlight – even with the risk of caricaturing – some of the specific moral difficulties of the post-totalitarian transition.

Also, the point is to show that the issue of ethical change has no simple answers, The guiding principle of the open society – to minimize avoidable suffering – is of no real help in this particular instance, especially given the way it is stated (i.e. as a substantive demand). First of all, it is primarily in- tended for public policy at the macro-level rather than for individuals. And second, even if it did apply to individuals, it does not give them clear guidance for how to make moral choices. What is needed is a procedure, a criterion for moral decision-making that can be used in a variety of situations, that go beyond the substantive demand of reducing suffering (while incorporating this idea in the procedure itself.) Actually, Popper’s negative utilitarianism, if taken literally, may, under certain conditions, have an adverse effect if applied in the Former communist world, as it collides with the idea of transitional justice. Transitional justice involves retribution and restitution, both of which, at first, create additional social pain. For instance, application of the Popperian principle would prevent the adoption of laws such as those for the restitution of property, because in effect they initially increase rather than diminish over- all suffering.

In other words, liberal principles – and the principles of an open society – only work once we are within a liberal order, and once we are already in an open society framework. But they are not very useful in order to create such a society from scratch. They are, as Bryan Magee (see chapter 10) put it, a methodology for problem-solving, but not a way to initiate a social agenda, or to select and evaluate moral standards.

So who can tell our disoriented friend what to do? Who can suggest a way to solve his ethical dilemmas? He is bound to be lost; now that liberalism has made him a self-originating source of value, he might as well realize it: he’s on his own! There will be little if any guidance from secular society. Quite the contrary, secular society, if anything, reinforces whatever negative inclinations he may have by encouraging him to think in terms of self-interest. And other than the moral guidance provided if, say, he joins a church (which, if fundamentalist, will re-establish a closed-society framework), there’s little if anything in the public arena that can give him the tools to solve the myriad ethical dilemmas coming his way. Ideally, what’s needed is for our friend to find a decision-making technique to solve his moral issues alone, without having somebody else’s will imposed on him, and without subordinating the means to the ends of his actions. This is what the open society should help him do: engage in critical thinking about right and wrong, decide for himself what’s „good” in accordance with what’s right for others, reason and choose without appeal to a higher power and without the state to coerce him. In other words, he needs to sort, on his own, the good from the bad, the morally permissible from the forbidden, and the ethically necessary from the accessory, by using a criterion other than „the ends justify the means.”

What tools has he got? What „technology” can he use for such (ethical) decisions? These are non-trivial matters since the institutions of the open society depend on our friend making appropriate moral choices, being law- abiding, respecting the sanctity of contracts, and so on. Without such respect for promises, contracts, and institutions, an open society cannot be implemented, and cannot survive.

The open society’s minima moralia: criteria for an „open ethics”

In this last section I will explore the possibility of extracting a specific ethical stance from Popper’s Open Society, and identifying a general rule of conduct to help resolve our moral dilemmas in a liberal environment.

While Popper devotes an entire chapter to condemning Marx’s „historicist moral theory” (1945/1966, vol. 2: 208), he nevertheless seems reluctant to spell out a criterion according to which ethical dilemmas should be resolved so that what he calls „moral egalitarianism” (1966, vol. 1: 265) can be implemented in a meaningful way. If the ends (should) no longer justify the means, then how is one to approach moral questions? And if ethics is to be procedural rather than instrumental or substantive, how are moral decisions to be made? Even though Popper doesn’t specifically address these issues, I believe that one can extrapolate from his approach to science and social engineering, and from his general discussions of ethics, to find a prudential rule that is compatible with the requirements of an open society, i.e. with value pluralism, individual autonomy, reason, freedom of thought, critical thinking, and rejection of authority.

In his insightful account of Popper’s political theory, Jeremy Shearmur mentions that Popper fails to address the differences between private and public obligations, and therefore fails to discriminate among the various moral responsibilities we have towards one another (Shearmur 1996: 56). While I agree with Shearmur’s assessment, I am not convinced that he’s correct in criticizing Popper for „putting all … things into one basket” (ibid.: 56). I think that Popper doesn’t have different criteria for public and private obligations for a reason: such difference would prevent the open society from functioning. It would either require that people be schizophrenic, and think one way in public and another in private (which is untenable), or it would require that the institutions of the open society be enforced by means other than those which private individuals would find acceptable (which is undesir- able). Hence for the open society to exist, similar principles must govern both public and private obligations. To my mind, for Popper, the necessity to help alleviate human suffering is both a matter of public policy and of individual concern. This is so not be- cause he somehow fails to distinguish between the two domains, as Shearmur maintains, but because I believe that Popper implicitly posits a moral continuum between his public „negative utilitarianism” and the resolution of private moral dilemmas. The way I see it, this continuum resides not in the substance of what needs to be addressed (i.e. the reduction of suffering) but in the procedure by which one arrives at moral decisions. In other words, I believe that when he talks about „alleviating suffering” Popper uses this as shorthand for a specific method of moral reasoning that can be applied both in private life and in public policy.

Of course, I have no way to prove that my interpretation of Popper’s implicit ethical project is correct – but all it takes is for someone to disprove it … In the meantime, I am encouraged by Shearmur’s reading of Popper as establishing a brand of „ethical objectivism in which there are close methodological analogies with his theory of knowledge” (Shearmur 1996: 94). I too believe this to be the case. I will try to make my intuition explicit by briefly reviewing some of the statements Popper makes about ethics, and then I will outline what I take to be an exercise in moral reasoning that yields a prudential rule, a specific standard for making individual moral decisions. Finally, I will show this ethical standard to be consistent with Popper’s writings.

First, a reminder that Popper’s primary concern is to protect the moral autonomy of individuals. There is no external authority that Popper recognizes as a source of ethics, and for good reason – that would rob individuals of their responsibility: „we must not accept the command of an authority, however exalted, as the basis for ethics. For whenever we are faced with a command by an authority, it is for us to judge, critically, whether it is moral or immoral to obey” (Miller 1985: 53).

Not only does Popper think that individuals should question authority, but they actually should themselves become ethical authorities: „We create our standards by proposing, discussing and adopting them,” he says in the Addendum to The Open Society, volume 2 (italics in the original), (1945/ 1966, vol. 2: 385).

Also, Popper remarks that while we may indeed seek absolute standards, we are bound never to find one: „There cannot be a criterion of absolute rightness,” he says, but adds: although we have no criterion of absolute rightness, we … can make progress in this realm. As in the realm of facts, we can make discoveries. That cruelty is always „bad,” chat it should always be avoided where possible; that the golden rule is a good standard which can perhaps even be improved, by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they would want to be done by; these are elementary and extremely important examples of discoveries in the realm of standards.

(1945/1966, vol. 2: 386; italics in the original)

The fact that there is no criterion for absolute rightness in the realm of standards mirrors Popper’s attitude toward science, where absolute truth remains elusive yet we engage in progress toward it with each conjecture (and refutation) we make.

In addition to the idea that we make discoveries regarding moral standards just as we do in science, there are two other intuitive claims one can extract from Popper’s argument, one of which is also noted by Shearmur: „[the] notion that there are absolute moral standards of which we may fall short – … suggests the possibility of the application of [Popper’s) fallibilist epistemology to ethics” (Shearmur 1996: 93). Indeed, I believe that this fallibilist (ethical) approach, which I will detail below, is Popper’s key contribution to moral theory. Furthermore, Popper’s statement that improving on the golden rule may involve foregoing our preferences for those of others intuitively points to a parallel between Popper’s negative utilitarianism in public policy and a similar approach in private matters.

If a negatively stated rule is preferable to a positive one, then the question is: what would be a (private) ethical rule equivalent to Popper’s (public) „negative utilitarianism?” Or, better yet, what is the standard Popper implicitly uses to derive his negative utilitarianism? As mentioned above, my intuition is that we can extract from Popper’s writings a rule for decision-making that can be used regardless of where in the continuum between private and public it is to be applied.

There are two requirements that any such rule must have: (a) it must be a minimal standard, so that it can allow for maximum individual autonomy and discernment (i.e. for critical thinking); and (b) it must be procedural rather than substantive, so that it can be universalizable.

An obvious candidate is Kant’s Categorical Imperative: „Act only on a maxim that you can at the same time will to become a universal law” (Kant 1994: xvii). Although Popper repeatedly praises Kant, he fails to explicitly endorse the Categorical Imperative as the standard for moral decision-making in the open society.⁴

The other „minimalist” candidate is the biblical golden rule: „Always so do unto others as you would want others to do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). For Popper, „individualism, united with altruism, has become the basis of our western civilization” (Popper, 1945I1966, vol. 1: 102). But, in chapter 24, he warns against using a rule based on love as our criterion for ethics, by stating that „of all … ideals, making people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one” (1945/1966, vol. 2: 237). Also, as mentioned before, Popper implies that there is a way to improve on the golden rule by doing to others as they would like to be done by (ibid.: 386). But the question is: how would we know? Especially when dealing with strangers or in situations where dialogue is not possible, how can we know what others would like?

I claim that even though we cannot know other people’s preferences, we can use Popper’s negative methodology to at least eliminate what we might reason- ably expect others not to like, In other words, at a minimum, our decision-making technique about moral acts should seek to ensure that others do not dislike, or find repugnant, the things we do and which affect them. Thus in the absence of dialogue, and if we are without access to information about others’ preferences, we need to try to guess what others may find offensive. However, second-guessing others is not always a sure-fire strategy to please them. Therefore we need to anchor our decision about what others may or may not like in a fixed standard that we can use to judge the various situations we find ourselves in. What we need is a minimal criterion for what other people may find offensive, a threshold beyond which we know not to go, because otherwise we may be harming them. But given that dialogue with those affected may not always be feasible, where could we possibly find such criterion?

I think that we can find it in ourselves. Quite simply, we can take ourselves – and our own dislikes – to be the measure of what not to do to others. Rather than trying to do to others as wethink they may like (as the golden rule invites us to do), we should instead try to avoid hurting them. This we can do by using our own intuition of what we may find distasteful, in order to deter- mine what we should avoid doing to others – in that way we remain respectful of what Isaiah Berlin calls their „negative liberty” (Berlin 1969).

In other words, instead of following the golden rule (to „do to others as we would like to be done by”), or Kant’s Categorical Imperative („to do only that which we could wish all others to do as well”), we turn away from what’s permissible, and focus only on what to avoid. Thus we use as a criterion a „negative” golden rule („Do NOT do to others what you would not want others to do to you”), or a negative Categorical Imperative („Do Nor act in ways which you would not deem permissible for everyone else as well”).

The question may arise if this change in enunciation, from a positive to a negative formulation, has substantive implications or is purely rhetorical. I will argue that the idea to avoid something that may be unsuitable, rather than to attempt to do what’s „good,” is as different in its implications as Popper’s negative utilitarianism (to minimize suffering) is from the classical version, which commands us to maximize general happiness. In all situations, whether individual or collective, the idea is not to impose our preferences on others, or to second-guess what would make them happy, quite simply because we may be wrong in our assumptions about what others like. As George Bernard Shaw once said: „Do not do unto others how you would like to be done by, others may have different tastes!” From this perspective, one could argue that totalitarianism is the logical (and also the pathological) conclusion of an „affirmative” ethical rule which makes it permissible to do unto others what one thinks is „good.” Had the ethical standard been to avoid doing to others what one wouldn’t like done to oneself, perhaps the face of history might have been different.

To summarize: in the absence of sufficient knowledge about how to act, „negative golden rule” states that we shouldn’t do to others what we wouldn’t want others to do unto us. Such negative standard has us engaged in a thought experiment requiring not that we please others, but that we avoid hurting them. Thus when we put ourselves in the place of those who are likely to be affected by our actions, we ask ourselves: would we find it acceptable, from that position, to be the recipient of those actions? If yes, the chances are that others might think the same and welcome our acts (unless we are a truly peculiar creature of totally bizarre inclinations.) If not, we should abstain from acting for fear we may hurt them.

I believe this method for moral decision-making to be faithful to the Popperian spirit in several ways. First, it requires critical thinking and makes use ot falsifiability – we advance in our knowledge of what’s right by trial and error. We do not claim to be an authority on what’s „good” or what „should” be done in particular cases. There is no absolute „ought” we are required to abide by, merely an „ought not” that prevents us from doing to others the harm that we would not like to see done to us.

As a way to improve ethical standards, this negative golden rule, just like Popper’s scientific methodology, calls for (ethical) conjecture and refutation. It works as follows: as we’re about to act, or to make a moral choice, we first conjecture that what we are about to do is good. But to test the validity of our claim, we attempt to refute it by applying what might be called the „acid test of self-infliction”: how would we react if we did to ourselves whatever we plan to do to others, or if someone else did that to us? If the answer fails to deter us from the action, then we may proceed, the standard holds – but only in this situation. In other cases, the appropriateness – or „truth” – of the standard needs to be tested again. Thus each new situation calls for new conjectures and new tests of their refutation.

Second, this approach to ethics adapts Popper’s idea of piecemeal engineering to the smallest possible „piece”: the level of the individual and his or her moral decisions. Popper writes: „Men believed God to rule the world. This belief limited their responsibility. The new belief that they had to rule it them- selves created for many a well nigh intolerable burden of responsibility” (1945/ 1966, vol. 2: 24). Whether they like it or not, men (and women) are thus responsible for „engineering” the world they live in. The question is: How are they to acquit themselves of this obligation? Popper writes: „It is our duty to help those who need our help, but it cannot be our duty to make others happy, since this does not depend on us, and since it would only too often mean intruding on [their] privacy …” (ibid.: 237). And also „the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. It leads to intolerance” (ibid.: 237). From this, two ideas follow: (a) that each of us is responsible, through each of our decisions and actions, for indirectly engineering the

collective fate – in other words society is shaped by the sum total of all piecemeal ethical engineering done by its members. And (b) that each of us can be responsible only for our own happiness, not for that of others. The most we can do for others is to avoid inflicting on them any pain.

Third, by using a negative methodology, the negative golden rule remains consistent with Popper’s other negative claims. Here we can observe the continuum I mentioned above between public and private: the same decision-making technique that asks us to avoid inflicting pain to others (instead of catering to what we believe to be their happiness), also requires that, in matters of public policy, we forego the greatest happiness and concentrate instead on avoiding people’s suffering. I realize that Popper is very explicit about making a moral distinction between the two, pleasure and pain. He says: „there is, from an ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure… [H]uman suffering makes a direct moral appeal, an appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway” (1945/1966, vol. 1: 284). This objection however cannot be raised against my claim that there is a continuum between public and private. The difference Popper talks about is one of kind between the effects of positive versus negative rules: increase happiness versus avoid suffering, but the continuum exists in either case, depending on which scale one evaluates one’s actions – in this case the negative one. Popper’s call to alleviate whenever we can the suffering of others is an extension of the negative golden rule because the same reasoning applies to private and to public matters: since we would not want others to allow us to suffer, we should not remain indifferent to the suffering of others either.

Does this emphasis on our own standards make the negative golden rule subjectivist? Does it trap us into moral relativism? I believe not. For one thing, even though we take our own likes and dislikes as the measure of what is „good” (of what should be avoided), this is only a „crutch,” as it were, in the absence of better information about the tastes of’ others or the likely impact of our actions on them. In the absence of appropriate knowledge, it is a way to avoid, or minimize, negative unintended consequences. If, as Protagoras suggests, man is the measure of all things, then we need a representation of that measure (1945/1966, vol. 1: 190). We can only really know ourselves, nor others, and as such, we stand in, as it were, for all those we do not know but are likely to be affected by us. Is trying to represent others presumptuous? I believe not: even though there is indeed an infinitely large variety of tastes in human nature, the things that we find truly repugnant fall, it seems, into a much narrower and more universalizable range. But I do not see how a negative criterion could be accused of subjectivism, because even though we judge each case given our own perspective for what’s acceptable and what’s not, the procedure we are embarked on at the meta-ethical level is clearly universalistic – and universalizable. The thought experiment we are invited to undertake highlights this universal idea: not only are people likely to find the same things abhorrent – violence, pain, suffering, hunger, poverty, dishonesty, etc.; but since we are all equally rational, we are equally likely to engage in the same exercise and come up with similar results. Thus, if we all apply the same rule, others are equally likely to avoid causing us the kind of pain they wouldn’t like to suffer from us. Popper stresses that we all share a common rationality, which he describes as the „rational unity of mankind” (1945/1966, vol. 2: 225). The negative golden rule as a general criterion of ethics underscores this idea.

Also, Popper highlights another aspect of rationality which, I believe, belongs to this prudential rule of conduct. The negative golden rule is predicated on the idea of (inner) dialogue. Popper writes: „Rationalism is … bound up with the idea that the other fellow has a right to be heard, and to defend his arguments. It … implies the recognition of the claim to tolerance … One does not kill a man when one adopts the attitude of first listening to his arguments” (ibid.: 238). He further adds „Kant was right when he based the Golden Rule on the idea of reason …” (ibid.: 238). Reason implies objectivity, and, as Shearmur reminds us, for Popper, objectivity „is best secured through inter-subjective testability” (Shearmur 1996: 96), which means through dialogue. Here too, the rule matches Popper’s approach.

Furthermore, the mental experiment which consists in substituting one person’s dislikes – ours – for those of others who are potentially affected by us, in effect treats others „as if they were us,” i.e. with the same respect we deem to deserve for ourselves. In other words it compels us to treat others as ends in themselves, in the same way we consider ourselves to be ends. This emphasizes the idea of „moral egalitarianism,” of which Popper is a strong defender: „I hold, with Kant, that it must be the principle of all morality that no man should consider himself more valuable than any other person. [T] his principle is the only one acceptable …” (Popper 1945/1966, vol. 1: 256).

Finally, this negative golden rule seems particularly suited to what Popper calls a „society that has lost its organic character” (ibid.: 174), in other words, an open society, For Popper such a society is an „abstract society” (ibid.: 174), and could he caricatured as a society where „men practically never meet face to face … [Where they] have no, or extremely few, intimate personal contacts, … [and they) live in anonymity and isolation” (ibid.: 174f.). A rule that is applicable equally to all, whether they are near or far away, intimate relationship with our fellows (such as love, or respect, or admiration, all of which are fickle and can one day disappear), is perhaps the most suitable standard by which to make moral decisions in an „abstract” society.

Could a negative golden rule be what Popper implicitly had in mind as a rule of conduct For the open society? I think so, but it is difficult to do more than speculate, and I do not wish to second-guess Popper more than I have already done, But I believe the following passage in the Addendum to be illuminating. He writes:

How do we learn about [moral] standards? How, in this realm, do we learn from our mistakes? First we learn to imitate others (incidentally, we do so by trial and error), and so learn to look upon standards of behavior as if they consisted of fixed, „given” rules. Later we find (also by trial and error), that we are making mistakes – for example that we may hurt people. We may thus learn the golden rule; but soon we find that we may misjudge a man’s attitude, … his aims, his standards; and we may learn from our mistakes to take care even beyond the golden rule.

(1945/1966, vol. 2: 390; emphasis added)

I believe this supports my conjecture – but perhaps someone is ready to refute it. A few things remain to be said on this subject, and the first is: even admit- ting that I may be correct and that, (a) a negative golden rule is indeed the „right” standard for the open society, and (b) that Popper himself (implicitly) thought it to be so, how does this address the moral dilemmas posed by the post-communist transition?

The honest answer is – it does not. Or, at least, not automatically or directly. A rule, in and by itself, does nothing to change people’s attitudes. This is especially the case with a rule of ethics which is valid only if self- enforced. And there is no way to oblige people to adopt it, nor should there be any, as a society that coerces ethical obedience, no matter how subtly, can no longer be open. The self-enforcement of such a rule is strictly a matter of individual choice and conscience. However, people’s choices can be educated, and their conscience developed. Open, critical discussion, and the constant questioning of fundamental moral issues is the best way to develop the individual’s faculty to be both critical, but also self-critical (1945/1966, vol. 2: 387). The education system has a key role to play in giving children early on a forum to address moral and ethical issues. Popper reminds us that one of the fundamental tenets of Socrates is his theory that moral excellence can be taught, and that it does not require any particular moral faculties, apart from the universal human intelligence (1945/1966, vol. 1: 128). Thus the negative golden rule can be discussed and practiced from an early age, starting in t-he home, and continuing in the classroom, the office, the marketplace, the public place- in short, in each and every daily interaction, whenever there’s a choice to be made which may affect others.

However, if open institutions depend on specific principles and ethical standards, if, furthermore, ethics depend on education and if education depends on political will, then the sobering thought may be that, in the absence of a concerted political effort to change not just the institutions but the ethnical criteria themselves, the post-communist transition may not necessarily lead to an open society. On the contrary, it may lead to a Hobbes’ war of all against all and to his subsequent Leviathan, rather than to Locke’s civilised, limited government.

Thus, to go back to the issue raised at the beginning of this essay, it is not a change in institutions per se which automatically results in the adoption of liberal values, but, rather, a change in individual’ way of thinking and of making moral choices which also results in different institutions.

One of the interesting features of the negative golden rule as a decision-making standard is not only its perfect reflection of the liberal doctrine and its espousal standard of individual freedom and value pluralism, but aslso the fact that t is an ethical criterion represented in every one of the world’s religions-from Zoroastrism to Confucianism to Hinduism to Judaism to Uslam. It has been implicitly preached, if not exactly practiced, around the world for over 2.500 years,⁵ (Swider 1994:55). This raises an obvious question: if versions of the negative golden rule have been around for so long in many parts of the world, why haven’t these societies become open? I believe, again, that the answer lay in education, in its willingness of open dialogue about ethics. These are political issues rather than religious concerns. Furthermore, knowing the rules of one’s religion does not also guarantee their respect. Respect and internalized rule obedience can come only from a profound awakening of one’s individual concience, and such awakening only happens when one develops the faculties of reason and critical thinking. Unfortunately, these faculties are rarely encouraged by religion, which much prefers dogma to criticism. Therefore religion, although it can be supportive of individual morality, cannot be the proper tool to teach what in effect is an ethics of reason and an ethics of freedom – including freedom from the constraints of organized religion, The open society, in order to maintain itself open, therefore has no choice but to undertake the task of articulating, for its own benefit, such moral education: it has to promote an ethic that’s simple to follow and is applicable in private as well as in public life; an ethic that maximizes the assets of liberalism (especially its respect for value pluralism), while minimizing its costs (such as atomization and lack of social cohesion). It can do that by proposing a standard, such as the one discussed, that’s both common to all individuals, yet is compatible with differing individual creeds and personal values. To paraphrase John Rawls (1996), such a moral standard will create an (ethical) „overlapping consensus,” in which various comprehensive moral doctrines can coexist peacefully.

Even a rule as simple as the negative golden rule, if consistently applied, can have enormous social consequences, for it fosters tolerance and promotes the institutions of an open society, such as freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law. Take for instance our hypothetical friend from the beginning of this essay: perhaps, in his youth, he might still have become enthralled by Marxism. But before zealously allowing his good intentions to determine what’s „good” and dictate what he could do to others, he might have wondered whether he would have welcomed the same thing done to himself. He might have thought: „Would I want others to tell me what to think or do? Would I allow them to dictate their will and to suppress my freedom, even assuming that the world might eventually benefit from my sacrifice?” On the answer to such questions may ride the fate of generations, for such piecemeal ethical engineering might have yielded, for instance, a political construction quite different from the Marxist – Leninist one.

Perhaps this criterion of ethics which all individuals in the open society can share in common, yet which puts no constraints on their ability to use their judgment, and, on the contrary, actually encourages them to exercise critical thinking, can be called a standard of „open ethics,” without this idea representing a contradiction in terms.

REFERENCES

Berlin, Isaiah. 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Holy Bible. 1985. New King James Version, Gideons International, Edinburgh: Thomas ’ Nelson, Inc.

Miller, David. 1985. Popper Selections. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press.

Popper, Karl. 1966. The Open Society and Its Enemies, volumes 1 and 2. Princeton; Princeton University Press.

Rawls, John. 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

Shearmur, Jeremy. 1996. The Political Thought of Karl Popper. London and New York: Routledge.

Stark, David. 1993. „The Great Transformation? Social Change in Eastern Europe,” Contemporary Sociology 21 (3): 299-304.

Swidler, Leonard. 1994. „Towards a Universal Declaration of a Global Ethic,” Dialogue and Hurnanism 4(4): 51-64. Center of Universalism, Warsaw University, Poland.

NOTES

1. I have borrowed the cycle from Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia (Verso, London, 1974), and from Andrei Ple?u’s similarly titled Minima Moralia (Bucharest: Editura Cartea Româneascã, 1988).

2. One is tempted to theorize that secular liberalism was possible only because society was already built on the basis of religious ethics. See also Max Horkheimer’s notion of living on borrowed ethics, in the Eclipse of Reason(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947).

3. Another reason may also be Popper’s reluctance to base decision-making an specific criteria – he devotes two important sections in the Addenda to OSIE’s second volume to refuting the need for criteria and principles.

4. One can speculate that Kant’s Caregorical Imperative may nor have fit Popper’s quest for a crirerion because Kant’s standard is formulated in the affirmative, rather than follow Popper’s negative methodology. I hat may risk making (he thought experiment proposed by Kant prone to possible illiberal applications.

5. The following religious figures explicity endorse a form of the (negative) golden rule: Zoroaster (628-551 BCE): „Do not ever do unto others that which is not good for you: (Gathas, 43.1); Confucius (551-479 BCE): „Do not to others do what you do not want done to yourself” (Analects, 12.2), and „what I do not wish others to do to me, that also I wish not to do to them” (Analects, 5.11); Mahavira, the founder of Jainism (540-468 BCE): „A man should wounder about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated” (Sutraki-tanga 1.11.33), and „One who you think should be hit is none else but you … Therefore neither does he cause violence to others nor does he make others to do so” (Acarangasutra 5.101-2); Buddha (563-483 BCE): „Do not hurt the others with what makes you suffer”; Mahabharata, the Hindu poet (third century BCE): „Do not do to others what you do not wish done to yourself; and wish fot others too what you desire and long for yourself – that is the whole of Dharma” (Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8); Rabbi Hillel (approx. first Century BCE): „Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself – this is the heart of Torah, all the rest is commentary” (Bralmud, Shabbath 31a); Jesus of Nazareth: „[W]hatever you want men to do to you, do also do to them likewise.” (Luke 6:31); Mohammed (seventh century AD): „The noblest religion is this – that you should like for others what you like for yourself; and what you feel painful for yourself, hold that as painful for others too” (Al Q’uran); all cited in Swidler (1994)