Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(Dr. Veltman). In fact, there is a certain
flourishing tradition in some forms of philosophy
that has us celebrating the labor of the oppressed in order
to reclaim their dignity or their true human worth.
The idea is that, for instance, the work that women do is often
seen as less valuable than more exciting work
in the public realm and then a feminist theorist might
come along and say well what we need to do is to revalue
this labor so as to show the world the important
contribution that women are in fact making.
Now, I would argue that that kind of strain is fundamentally
wrong headed in the respect that and here's the important idea.
The oppressed person has a dignity that transcends their
labor and it's not quite right to for instance celebrate
the labor of hoeing fields or cotton picking in order to say
that the oppressed person does in fact truly have dignity.
Rather, their dignity transcends their labor which fails
to actualize their human worth and the problem is with
a kind of informal social distribution of work that mires
some people in forms of work that are less fulfilling
than others and thereby allows other people
to have more freedom or leisure.
So, in short that's a great question
but obviously not quite what I think.
Yes, in the back.
(male speaker). [unclear audio].
He writes about this stuff and certainly he has a lot
of self-respect and autonomy because he is more literate
than all of the non-slaves [unclear audio].
But at certain points he's actually just [unclear audio].
In fact, he uses slave as a metaphor.
It says I was slaving at this point.
Yeah, you're a slave, but what I am saying is even at that point
he sees this as this whole book is supposed to be about how
bad slavery is and he keeps forgetting that
and he's telling us the greatness of his story.
Even at that point, he's getting, this is meaningful work
because I was doing stuff that had to be done
and so on and [unclear audio].
For him it is, so I was just wondering how [unclear audio].
(Dr. Veltman). Right, indeed.
If we work with this subjectivist account
of meaningful work in which your work is meaningful for you
just in the event that you find it meaningful.
Then philosophers like me are really at a loss to say that
there is any fundamentally morally wrong with the social
arrangement in which some people are relegated to or mired within
certain forms of labor that are tedious, taxing, stultifying,
not self-expressive and so forth and that's really sort of what
led me to develop an objective although multifaceted account
of several facets of meaningful work.
So that one can critique a social arrangement where some
people are in fact not achieving self-realization through work.
So, indeed, you might have a subjectivist account of
meaningful work but it's not going to have a lot of normative
teeth in it to allow us to critique social arrangements.
Although there might be some intuitive pole behind the idea
that we can't really argue with what you find
to be meaningful for you.
As a matter of fact, an implication of that
is that it becomes less possible for us to critique those social
arrangements from an ethical and political point of view.
Yes, Professor Otto.
(Professor Otto). It's justified [unclear audio]
but as Americans we're certainly uncomfortable with
philosophy as a society very religious.
You didn't comment, I'd like you to comment
on the Judeo-Christian areas.
The primordial commitments were free from the obligation to work
and it's a curse because of their sin that the women
has pain in reproduction and the man has to work.
At least in the Christian scenario, the goal is once again
to reach that paradise where one will live eternally
and not have to do any work.
I think that plays itself out in American society
with the constant [unclear audio] in recruiting people
and life safety professions 20 years and out you can retire.
Everybody's cranking down, trying to push down how many
years you have to work which means that there are scenarios
with our extended longevity if you go to a university,
you begin work at 25 and you retire at 55 and live until 85,
you've spent most of your life not working.
That seems to fit the sort of desires that are intrinsic
in a Judeo-Christian religious perspective,
which is pretty popular in our society.
(Dr. Veltman). Well, perhaps there isn't a kind
of single coherent religious ideology about work
because I do find in the Christian tradition that
there is an emphasis upon not only the necessity
but also the human value of work.
Now no doubt there are also competing ideals of achieving
a work-free paradise.
No one's inclined to think well what do you do you actually do
in a paradise to avoid boredom.
You need some type of activity, some kind of way of leaving your
mark, constructing something, helping out in some way.
You can't just spend your entire 30 years of retirement
[unclear audio] eventually you'll become too bored.
But let me give a quote from Pope John Paul II who writes
in a book called "On Human Work."
"Man is made to be in the visible universe an image
and likeness of God himself."
This is familiar enough idea.
"And he has placed in the world in order to subdue the Earth."
"From the beginning he is called to work."
In fact, I find that in Genesis also, the idea that
part of the purpose of man is to work.
Pope John Paul II writes further, "only man is capable
of work and only man works."
As though what the animals do when a beaver builds a dam
for instance that's not quite work
because it does not involve the intentional activity
of setting out to transform nature into an artiface.
So, the Pope writes, "only man is capable of work
and only man works."
"At the same time, by work occupying his existence
on the Earth, thus work bears a particular mark of man
and of humanity and the mark of a person operating
within a community of persons."
So you find in this quote some of the ideas that on my account
are important for our understanding of living
well as a human being.
Particularly, one might appreciate this idea that
to work is an expression of one's humanity
in the respect that only man work, only man is capable
of work as the Pope writes.
If work is distinctively and characteristically human
and part of the human essence if you will,
then one is expressing one's humanity in one's work.
Yes.
(female speaker). I think that in the
Judeo-Christian area, the curse isn't the work,
it's that it's going to be hard.
It's going to be the sweat of the brow and then it's going
to be hard to reap the fruit of whatever they do
which I think [unclear audio].
The other thing that occurred to me was and maybe this was
subjectivist but I don't know if you're familiar with the work of
Brother Lawrence and the practice in the presence of God.
But he talks about the turning the most meaningless labor,
dishwashing as he did in the monastery and all these things
to the glory of God and I was wondering what you.
Can't our perspective make work meaningful and conversely?
What do you do with burnout, the idea when work that techincally
should be meaningful and is agreed upon socially
to be meaningful becomes unpleasant?
[unclear audio].