The Trouble with Principle [Hardcover]

Stanley Fish (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674910125 | ISBN-13: 978-0674910126 | Publication Date: December 17, 1999

Stanley Fish is an equal opportunity antagonist. A theorist who has taken on theorists, an academician who has riled the academy, a legal scholar and political pundit who has ruffled feathers left and right, Fish here turns with customary gusto to the trouble with principle. Specifically, Fish has a quarrel with neutral principles. The trouble? They operate by sacrificing everything people care about to their own purity. And they are deployed with equal highmindedness and equally absurd results by liberals and conservatives alike.

In this bracing book, Fish argues that there is no realm of higher order impartiality--no neutral or fair territory on which to stake a claim--and that those who invoke one are always making a rhetorical and political gesture. In the end, it is history and context, the very substance against which a purportedly abstract principle defines itself, that determines a principle's content and power. In the course of making this argument, Fish takes up questions about academic freedom and hate speech, affirmative action and multiculturalism, the boundaries between church and state, and much more. Sparing no one, he shows how our notions of intellectual and religious liberty--cherished by those at both ends of the political spectrum--are artifacts of the very partisan politics they supposedly transcend. The Trouble with Principle offers a provocative challenge to the debates of our day that no intellectually honest citizen can afford to ignore.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

American democracy rests its freedoms and legal procedures on principles that are impersonal and universal (e.g., freedom, equality). A good idea? No, says Fish. He argues vigorously that universal principles actually impede democracy. Counterintuitive as his claim may appear, Fish makes a strong and lucid case. The trouble with principle, he explains, is this: it disregards history, tradition and contexts of every sort that shape understanding. According to FishAa controversial literary scholar and theorist who has applied his theories of interpretation to the study of lawAwe can never find a neutral position that will fully transcend our prejudices, commitments and beliefs. And worse yet, high-minded abstractions can be used to mask undemocratic privilege. He offers the current controversy over affirmative action and reverse discrimination as a case in point. Those who agitate for an end to affirmative action usually do so on the principled grounds that it ignores "merit." But what is merit? It describes, says Fish, "whatever qualifications are deemed desirable for the performance of a particular task, and there is nothing fixed about those qualifications." Fish supports affirmative action because he believes we must take into account the history of oppression suffered by the groups that affirmative action is meant to benefit. Yet Fish is no liberal. In fact, he devotes most of his book to the problems entailed in the liberal understanding of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Liberals, he says, duck behind the comforting fictionAor "principle"Athat we are all the same underneath. FishAhard-nosed, unflinching and persuasiveAmaintains that differences are real and must be faced squarely without recourse to timeless, abstract principles. His cautiously reasoned argument, not easily dismissed, will excite controversy. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

By turns ludicrous and shrewd, a polemic against ``neutral'' principles like free speech, freedom of religion, and nondiscrimination. Continuing his pilgrimage away from his origins as a literary critic, Fish (Dean/College of Liberal Arts and Sciences/Univ. of Illinois, Chicago; There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing Too, 1993, etc.) plays political philosopher here, applying his own brew of postmodern pragmatism to analyses of current public issues. He wants to expose as a sham what he calls ``neutral principle''''abstractions like fairness, impartiality, mutual respect.'' These, he says, are inherently empty of meaning, which they acquire only when invoked in the service of a ``partisan agenda,'' at which point they are no longer neutral. Fish doesn't mind using these principles when they serve the agenda he favorsleft-centrist concerns like enhanced opportunities for minorities and womenbut is annoyed when they are used to support causes he opposes, such as the repeal of affirmative- action laws. Largely to discredit the ``hijacking'' of these principles by right-wingers and other foes, he deconstructs neutral principles in many forms: First Amendment law, multiculturalism, religious tolerance, foundationalist philosophies. Many chapters have previously been published as separate articles, and their presentation here is sometimes repetitive. Fish is, nonetheless, an entertaining writer, adept at close reading and handy with a barb (the ACLU, ``that curious organization whose mission it is to find things it hates and then to grow them''). Still, his neo-Machiavellianism will repel anyone who does believe in principle, and his arguments are rife with muddy concepts and self-contradiction. How, exactly, do you tell the difference between ``neutral principle'' (bad) and ``moral principle'' (good)? And how can Fish deny the existence of a neutral point of view while insisting he does so from a neutral point of view? Fish likes to think of himself as appealingly ``provocative'' and ``perverse,'' but the appeal may escape some readers, leaving him merely perverse. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (December 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674910125
• ISBN-13: 978-0674910126
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,576,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University. He has previously taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He has received many honors and awards, including being named the Chicagoan of the Year for Culture. He is the author of twelve books and is now a weekly columnist for the New York Times. He resides in Andes, New York; New York City; and Delray Beach, Florida; with his wife, Jane Tompkins.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If this book didn't make you think...what are you thinking?!, January 13, 2004

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Trouble with Principle (Hardcover)

It has been about three months since I've read this book and I am still calling it to mind on a regular basis. Like some reviewers below, I give this book a high rating while admitting that Fish's views are unpalatable, infuriating, and troubling, as often as not.

Fish's central thesis here is that there are no such things as neutral principles - those completely objective, a priori dicta, formula, and abstract ideas to base our 'neutral' theories on. From my experience with this book (and I think you will have the same experience), not only was Fish saying something quite differnt (less radical?!) than what his critics pretend he was saying, but I found myself in more agreement with Fish than I thought I would (or wanted to be!).

To make it brief: Fish is saying that whereas intellectuals like to think that we derive theories from neutral principles ("We value freedom, liberty and individual autonomy; therefore we shall create a policy of free-markets."), it is usually the opposite that takes place: we figure out what our ideology is and THEN we quest for the 'neutral principles' that will justify it. ("I believe in the free-market; the free-market emphasises liberty, freedom, and individual autonomy, so I will use those to justify my preferences.") More directly, the neutral principles, Fish writes, are not _a priori_ but _a posteriori_. Actually his most revealing example (towards the end of the book, as I recall) was that of christians struggling to 'justify' creation science by using, of all things, the postmodern criticism that science (or evolution, at least) is simply ideology masked as empiricism. These christian thinkers even CITE POSTMODERN THEORIESTS AS AUTHORITIES. This is fishy (excuse the pun) becuase, as Fish writes, there is no way these christian thinkers would have aligned themselves with the post-modern argument (that they usually criticize) unless they found the argument, not true, but useful. That is, whereas christians might believe in objectivity of facts as a general principle, they don't really mean that. They'll gladly switch to the postmodern 'relativist' argument if it suits their needs.

He's not ONLY bashing the christins or the right wing in this book (his criticism is dispersed over all ideology). Rather, through 'deconstruction', he is trying to show that ALL general principles are constructed in the service of conclusions ALREADY REACHED. I do not take it that far as I think that in science and law, for instance, where the rules are already somewhat 'set', one can reach conclusions not ideological by nature, therefore I found myself disagreeing with Fish's assessment of the first amendment as ideologically laden.

Still, I found the book a warm antidote to some of the problems in this petty world I sometimes call crackademia. Particularly, I can vividly recall not being able to control my laughter (signifying agreement with Fish) in, of all places, my university library, during a chapter where Fish criticizes academic philosophers. Philosophers, he says, think that in order for morality, epistemology, of what have us, to work, there needs to be a coherent, internally consistent system or theory (and it is the philosophers job to argue for one). Therefore, moral philosophers are baffled because morality (as it is in the real world) doesn't seem to follow one system, any system. The philosopher wants a sound argument for a cogent system, looking at human action as somehow extracted from this system. The philosopehr wants first principles (without those, we can't act). Fish's response? "Open your eyes, look at the world, and realize, dear philosopher, that people survive without your philosophic systems and first principles." The philosophers job, then, is not to concoct general principles or argue for systems that nobody will use anyway, but to actually look at behavior, action, and things as they are in the real world, not the fake one philosophers gleefully construct for themselves. The chapter is the last one called "On Truth and Toilets" and is alone worth the price of the book!

To end, while I do not agree with Fish's ideas as applied as extremely as he applies them, I think there is much more truth to what Fish says than critics let on. Fish does not say that judgment is impossible; he only says that neutral judgment (an oxymoron) is impossible. We judge from where we are; our first person subjective viewpoint. Nor is Fish a nihilist. If the world is not objective, FIsh is not saying it is nihililstic, but _intersubjective_. Basically, may the best first-person argument win. Whether Fish seems like your cup of tea or makes your stomach churn, you will not come away from this book unchanged or unscathed.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compelling, Challenging Read, August 20, 2001

By 

Victor McCracken (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Trouble with Principle (Paperback)

As always, Fish's gadfly polemic will compel and madden at the same time. Fish is a stringent anti-foundationalist, challenging the ethical presumption that we can base our public policy and discourse on neutral principals upon which every person can agree. No, says Fish, these principles are little more than obfuscations of deeper, unstated agendas. Fish explores his thesis in creative deconstructions of such unquestioned notions as "academic freedom," "freedom of speech," and the "cultural canon."

The book suffers somewhat from the repetitive nature of the study (after all, Fish is basically restating the same thesis over and over again). It is as if Fish is playing a rhetorical fugue, creating new variations in each chapter on the same theme. The song doesn't always sound as compelling from chapter to chapter, but the balance of the book is worthwhile and provocative. The best chapter of the book, chapter 1, explores multi-culturalism and affirmative action in compelling fashion. Fish does well to reorient the debate so as to demonstrate how the very concept of principal robs Fish (and I presume, others who agree with Fish's politics) of the ability to include historical particularity as a factor in public policy. Thus, even Fish's deconstruction of principals is a political act, Fish's way of removing an obstacle to the furtherance of his undeniable agenda.

The implication of Fish's thesis is that western culture consists of a complex mixture of competing agendas, stories, and ethical values that cannot cohere through simple appeals to foundational principles ("freedom of individual self-expression," "speech," "religion," ad nauseaum). Even if we give up the notion that there are neutral principals, this only underlines the communally-conditioned principals that distinguish Christian, secularist, Muslim, and Jew. What we have now is not a principal-less society but a society of competing principals rooted in competing conceptions of reality. Fish is much more descriptive than prescriptive in his assessment. In the end, Fish seems to imply that there is no real prescription, only the mushrooming of rhetoric as agendas clash in the public sphere.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not as original as Fish thinks it is, May 9, 2001

By 

"jess_carter" (columbus, ohio United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Trouble with Principle (Hardcover)

There's no question but that reading Stanley Fish is always an enjoyable experience. Just as in _There's No Such Thing as Free Speech (And It's A Good Thing Too)_, Fish's skills as a polemicist are, as most of the reviewers here have noted, considerable: he possesses wit, insight, a grasp of history, a command of details, clear and incisive logic, and a gift for demolishing bad arguments.

To a certain extent, _The Trouble With Principle_ repeats the arguments of _There's No Such Thing as Free Speech_, particularly Fish's critique of free-speech absolutism and of the conservative critique of affirmative action. Both these books are less sustained arguments than collections of individual pieces dealing with common concerns and taking a common approach.

This approach is, I must add, somewhat less original that Fish seems to think it is. His argument has two basic points:

1. Ethical principles like "fairness" and "equality" are not self-sufficient, but are used in specific contexts in order to gain certain ends, and skillful rhetoricians pick them up and put them down depending on whether or not they will be likely to obtain those desired ends in a given context;

2. What ends one seeks emerge, ultimately, from some desire or motivation that is not subject to rational argument because it is not held for rational reasons.

Now, this is really nothing except consequentialism; if we desire, for example, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, then sometimes treating everybody equally is going to do that and sometimes making special allowances for particular groups is going to do that.

Whether or not one seeks the greatest happiness of the greatest number is not, of course, up for debate, or, if it is - as Fish points out - then it is only up for debate because something else is not. You can't make an argument without at least one premise and at least one procedural rule. This isn't consequentialism but simply a restatement of the is-ought problem - ethical positions have to start, not even with axioms, but with intuitions that are not, themselves, in discourse.

The paradox of Fish is that he makes this argument very clearly, understanding its implications, and also argues that articulating this changes nothing; we will all continue to do our rhetorical work the same way. Yet the thrust of the particular arguments that Fish makes seem to deny this. He argues that the conservative critique of affirmative action as discriminatory elevates "non-discrimination" from a sometimes useful tool to a deontological (my word) principle that prevents desirable consequences from coming about. Yet why make this argument except as a means of convincing readers to fix their attention _on_ consequences rather than on principles? Unless "we should bring about good consequences" is itself an instrumental and only contextually useful principle - and then the question is, in what contexts would it _not_ be useful?

My biggest disappointment was Fish's slight account of moral change, in which he seems to imply that people only change their minds as a result of a total re-orientation of the personality, an event that is unpredictable. Maybe this applies to the absolute fundamental moral intuitions we hold, but people change their minds in discourse - that is, as a result of arguments and evidence - all the time. It would be interesting to have a more thorough account of that sort of change, which, admittedly, might (or might not) only be possible when important emotional interests are not at stake (I am, for example, willing to be talked into supporting this or that tax policy). In fact, Fish's whole project seems to presuppose the idea that people will change their minds as a result of something as ordinary as, say, reading a book. Wayne Booth's _Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent_ is very interesting on this issue.

But you should definitely read Fish's book, mainly because it is a peach. The introduction, in which Fish bemusedly surveys the rhetoric of the modern right (caught, as always, between the assumption that basically everybody agrees and the claiming of underdog status against a fearsome array of college professors and federal judges) is particularly clever.