Solidarity, Care and Permanent Crisis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the review and comments. I have corrected the errors pointed out

Reviewer 2 Report

Journal Philosophies

Article:  Solidarity, care, and permanent crises

Review:

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, this essay is an important and timely reflection on the ideas of solidarity and an ethics of care.  It calls attention to historical linkages between the way solidarity was understood and embodied in the 19^th and 20^th century before confronting us with its validity in a context of capitalist societies that exalt individualism.  In presenting their argument the author uses categories such as “vulnerability,” “the indifference that permeates many”—man-made inequalities and injustices, “complexity of the world,” “everything is related,” “ethics of presence,” “precarity,” to name some of the most salient.  

Before proceeding, two caveats are in order.   First, the author seems to be well-versed in the literature they are presenting, and I do not want this evaluation to be construed as a critique or harsh treatment of this scholar’s erudition.  Second, the author partakes of a form of theorizing that is completely different to mine.  I expect arguments through concepts clearly defined as well as discussions of specific positions, supported with a least some textual references, by authors under examination.  

Guided by the way I conceive political theorizing and philosophizing, I see several problems with this essay.  First, though solidarity is one of this essay’s central concepts, it is never defined.  It is just asserted.  But how should we understand it?  Solidarity can be seen as a willingness to pay one’s taxes to the state in full knowledge that they will be used to invest in education, health services, rent subsidies, food stamps, ecological protection, etc.  This is the Rawlsian view of justice and the welfare state.  By paying taxes we show our commitment to cooperation and support the least fortunate members of our society.

I suspect that this view will strike the author as insufficient. Should solidarity, then, be seen as an ethical imperative to help all human beings in more robust ways than merely paying taxes? What would these more robust ways be?  Leaving aside that helping and caring could be seen as two different actions and commitments, should we expand this view and claim that all human beings (refugees, for example) must be accepted into a society (ours), if that is their wish?  

Or should this view be qualified by the material and cultural resources available to a society to transform the plight of the disadvantaged living among us and do the same with the “foreigners” whom we decide to help? To put it differently, should solidarity be determined by the existing material and cultural resources of society?  Of course, when talking about “available resources” I refer to the real ones, and not an inventory concocted by oligarchies and advocates of xenophobia.

Should we consider the political consequences of helping or caring for refugees by opening our society’s national borders? Some citizens may be afraid of fascist and nationalist tendencies, not even dormant, in a given society, tendencies that will be exacerbated by an influx of refugees. (Germany, Spain, the United States, for example). 

With a working definition of solidarity, which is lacking in the present essay, we may say that helping and caring for others are a human imperative to protect life and to furnish to all human bodies the necessary conditions to live and pursue a good life.  But this imposes on us the obligation to say something, at least, about resources and to add that political consequences will not be part of the analysis.  They will be dealt with through the conflicts concomitant to political processes in democratic societies.  All these issues involve a more nuanced position and, to be more precise, an acknowledgment of a tragic sensibility, one infused with the conviction that many ethical decisions carry a loss, not to mention dangers.

The essay eschews these issues in favor of a form of arguing that trikes this reviewer more as ruminations in a manifesto like style than as a sustained philosophical discussion.  The result is a well-intentioned preaching about wishes and valid goals.  The following examples illustrate this: 

p. 3. “Care as souci de l'autre, concern for others, responsibility, is a true ethos, an ethic of being present. At this intersection, these two semantics meet again. Healing for not being ill and care to ensure a "good life", both individual and collective.

p. 4. we are inexorably confronted with the question of the indifference that permeates many, if not all, strata of our Western societies. It is indifference in the face of socio-economic inequalities and injustices that are not natural to the human species, nor ontological, but the fruit of political decisions and actions, of choices, of societal projects. The welfare state, supposedly responsible for guaranteeing all people the satisfaction of basic needs (which we can define in relation to a state of global "good health" or, philosophically, of "good life") is currently suffocated and drowned by indifference.

p. 5. “Indifference is the most radical enemy of both care and solidarity. Returning to the field of education, today's formal education systems, mostly and traditionally based on individual success, individual performance and competition, forge more indifference than compassion, otherness, solicitude or souci de l'autre ... indifference could be explained as the absence of sensitivity that leads to tolerate and "normalize" injustice, inequality, violence and suffering. Indifference among humans structures a common grammar, in which lives cannot have the same value.”  (p.5)

The entire p. 5 sounds like preaching.

Claims on page 9 are also presented in this style of preaching and pleas. 

Second, the stages of solidarity that the author sees in the 19^th and 20^th century are reduced to three claims taking less than half a page (p. 2).

Third, on my count, the author mentions 18 authors, but there is no a consistent discussion of any of them.  The first direct citation appears on p. 7 referring to Joan Tronton.  Jean-Marie Guyau is one of the author’s major impetuses and I would have expected direct engagement with Guyau’s arguments.  But that is not the case.  By direct engagement, I refer to an argument, supported by at least some textual references.  In Guyau’s case, he is not even listed among the references.

Fourth, the author asserts that policies which called for seclusion and isolation meant that “we had to abandon the practices of friendship in order to seclude ourselves, and without being able to choose with whom to do so.”  At least in the United States context, this claim would not be accurate. People were required to practice social distance, wear masks, and isolate themselves if found to have suspicious symptoms.  In official messages, these sanitary measures were presented as necessary to preserve life and avoid the spread of contagion at a moment when the virus was not well known and no vaccine was available.  Federal and some state governments forced some workers to wear masks and to be vaccinated, once this option was available.  Right-wing politicians and many individuals claimed that their “individual freedoms” suffered violation at the hands of an out of control state.  

How should isolation in the name of life preservation be understood as an abandonment of friendship?  The further claim, that people were not able “to choose with whom” to practice seclusion is equally problematic.  If this means that people were under a state prohibition to invite friends or relatives and go through the pandemic in one place, it does not represent what occurred in the United States.  

Very likely, the author refers to very restrictive measures is their country.  Since different countries had different levels of control, it is advisable for the author to list the measures and the countries they have in mind.  Generalizations would not be enough. 

Both claims, anteceding a major point in the next paragraph, weaken it.  As the author right states, the pandemic made most of us aware (excluding right-wing and so-called “libertarians” in the United States whose view of liberty did not include the health of others and even less the needs of an overwhelmed health section) that health care workers are indispensable.  

Fifth, it is necessary to show how the last claim (p. 8) about humanity’s consistent proclivity to replace hypotheses with dogmas is connected to the main argument of the essay, i.e., the need of solidarity and care.

Recommendations:

The essay would benefit from a different structure along the following lines:

(1)  Introduction (first page and a half is good)

(2)  Spell out the stages of solidarity

(3)  Define solidarity as well as care.

(4)  Present Guyau’s major arguments with some textual support.

(5)  Move then to Joan Tronto’s arguments with some textual support.

(6)  Explain how these arguments connect with solidarity and care against the depredations of neoliberalism.

(7)  How does the human tendency to construct and dwell in dogmas relate to solidarity and care?

I recommend that the author consult Amartya Sen, “Capability and well-being.”  In The Quality of Life.  Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, editors.  Oxford, 1993:  pp. 30-55; as well as Richard Rorty’s view of solidarity in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge University Press, 1989.  I am sure that these texts will strengthen the author’s arguments.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive comments on my paper. Thanks also for the suggestions noted. I have madethe suggested changesas far as possible

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an erudite article on the notion of solidarity and the way in which, despite the instrumentalizations and deviations to which it may have been subjected, solidarity remains a valid principle in times of health and social crisis. The article is written in a very clear and convincing way. It is based on a thorough knowledge of the history of the notion (since Guyau and the Solidarise), as well as on a fascinating discussion of contemporary discourses, in particular those stemming from the ethics of care. I do not see any real weakness.

Two suggestions though: 1) better explain the links and/or the difference between solidarity and the welfare state; 2) work more on the relation between solidarity and conflict, which is mentioned at the beginning, but left aside a bit later.

Author Response

Thank you for the review and comments. I have made the suggested changes as far as possible

Reviewer 4 Report

I don't have suggestion

Author Response

Thank you

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Re:  Essay Solidarity, Care, and Permanent Crisis

I read the revised version and approve it for publication.  

This version is clearer and better organized than the first one.  The author(s) uses relevant textual citations to illustrate their argument. 

It is an important and timely reflection.

A few edits:

The title should be Solidarity, Care, and Permanent Crisis

The word “Permanently” (p. 7; line 350) should not have a capital letter.

I look forward to seeing this essay published.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions and corrections