"Asymmetrical agency" in action

In a recent post I talked about the idea of people in the Israel-Palestine debate employing "asymmetrical agency" to defend their position. Here's an example of what I was talking about, from a pro-Israel Sullivan reader:

You're probably right that Avigdor Lieberman is going to be a major headache. But at least acknowledge one thing regarding the advancement of Lieberman into Israeli politics. The intifadeh and the incessant rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza are what laid the groundwork for Lieberman's success and also had the not insignificant result of effectively killed off the liberal peace camp within Israeli society. It wasn't a triumph of Israeli neo-conservatism or innate Jewish racism against Arabs or what have you. It was the fact that the Palestinians, or at least the groups who represent the Palestinians, through their intransigence and the willful malice of characters like Yassir Arafat wiped out the political credibility of anyone in Israel who wanted a final and peaceful settlement for both peoples.

So what the reader does here is admit the badness of Avigdor Lieberman, but turn things around by ascribing agency to the Palestinians only: suddenly, in this discussion of "who is to blame", Sullivan's reader gives us a (naturalistic) causal account of how Lieberman came to power as a consequence of the actions of the Palestinians. The subtle shift in perspective renders Israelis into not fully-formed individuals with free will and moral duties, but sociological subjects to which moral blame is not applicable. Arafat is all-too-human, capable of "willful malice"--but Lieberman is an inhuman empirical fact, a spinning cog in the machine that Arafat decides how to operate.

Of course, Sullivan's reader is not saying anything untrue (I don't think): it's pretty clear that Hamas' various attacks and rhetoric have radicalized Israel and ushered in the current hawkish, right-wing government, elevating certain extreme factions to power. But what does this true causal fact have to do with assessing moral blame? If elevating someone like Lieberman to power is blameworthy, then it is for reasons independent of the moral standing of the Palestinians or the causal chain of events that led to Lieberman's rise. Hamas being evil doesn't justify illiberalism any more than, say, the destruction of the World Trade Center justifies illiberalism.

So Sullivan's reader isn't uttering falsehoods so much as making an argument that never gets off the ground. Sure, Arafat "made" Lieberman; but you could argue back that some Israeli politican or action in the past "made" Arafat. Wherever you choose to pin the first instance of agency is arbitrary and can always be moved one step further back. Neither side can use this method of argument to make any headway in attributing blame to the other side.

So how can we sort out this dialog? There are a couple of different conversations that can be had. The first is a conversation about moral blame, and in this you attribute agency to everyone and judge everyone according to universal moral principles.* The second is a conversation where you try to gain a scientific understanding of the situation, and in this you attribute agency to no one--every actor is treated as the subject of naturalistic enquiry, and normative concepts like moral blame are left out of the picture. The third is a conversation about practical wisdom, where you try to dispense advice to one side as to what actions that side can take to achieve its strategic goals--in this case, you ascribe agency to your audience only (the faction you're advising), properly framing them as moral agents in a naturalistic world that they must carefully navigate in order to survive.


*It is usually in these conversations--about who is to blame--that the dreaded question "Are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestine?" crops up. The correct answer is that no one who embraces modernity is "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestine", but rather pro-X, where X is some set of universal principles. Now, if I determine that Israel adheres more faithfully to X than Palestine, then I suppose that, as it happens, I am in a sense "pro-Israel"--but it must be understood that this support is contingent on Israel's behavior vis-a-vis X. So one very real possible outcome could be that one is neither "pro-Israel" nor "pro-Palestine", if it happens to be the case that neither side adheres to X. This whole thing of "choosing a side" obscures this "pox on both houses" possibility and turns the attribution of moral blame into a zero sum game--as if somehow if Israel does something wrong, then that means that Palestine has done something right.