"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.

Asymmetrical agency

Following the Israel-Palestine conflict, I've noticed a tendency to sometimes shift agency--and therefore, the implication of moral culpitude--from one faction to the other. For example, consider the following two, undoubtedly true propositions:

(1) Israel's attacks of Gaza had the effect of further radicalizing the Palestinians, diminishing the chances for peace.

(2) Hamas' sporadic attacks of Israel had the effect of provoking them to attack, diminishing the chances for peace.

In (1), we imbue Israel with what I'm calling agency--which is not only the capacity to but the expectation that a person or group will make rational and moral decisions. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are treated as a fact of the naturalistic world--as something that can be scientifically studied, understood, and mastered, and that will react to stimuli in a consistent and reliable way (if you attack them they will be radicalized, just as surely as adding Na+ to Cl- will form salt). In (2), it is just the opposite--we are treating Hamas as the rational, morally accountable decision-maker, and it is the easy-to-provoke Israelis that are the facts of nature.

So what is going on here? I think it's pretty clear that ascribing agency to one side has a very specific use, which is when you are trying to dispense practical wisdom to a particular side. For example, the proper context for (1) would be if I were advising Israel strategically--if I were pointing out the objective effects of Israel's actions. Similarly, the proper context for (2) would be if I were advising Hamas strategically.

In these kinds of strategic contexts, the question of moral culpability is not at issue--however, in normal language a sentence like (1) nevertheless strongly implies the moral culpability of Israel but not Hamas (with the reverse being true for (2)), which can lead to all sorts of confusion, since it sounds like suddenly one side is not being held morally culpable at all.

Specifically, one confusion I saw during the Gaza action would be that bloggers like Ezra Klein or Matt Yglesias would keep making claims similar to (1) in the context of advising Israel on what it should do to accomplish its strategic goals, and right-wing Israel backers would accuse them of disproportionately blaming Israel or failing to acknowledge the immorality of Hamas' actions. But of course, that's just confusing a case of asymmetrical agency with asymmetrical culpability. The other confusion is one that I think subtlely pops up from time to time, which is that someone will try to shirk moral culpability for their side by framing things such that their side does not have agency. For example, if the debate is whether Israel's actions in Gaza were immoral, it would be neither here nor there if the person defending Israel pointed out that Hamas had to expect Israel to respond forcefully to its provokations since that is what any country would do.

Moreover, I think the thing to keep in mind is that when the context is moral culpability, it is a "both and" situation: both Israel and Hamas must be held morally culpable for their actions as judged against a universal set of principles.

Off by infinity

From the AP:

The leader of Hamas says his Palestinian militant group is offering Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 war.

Uh, how about an infinity-year truce?