Exchange

Abstract

In the introduction to Geography and Ethics: Journeys in a Moral Terrain, Proctor claims that ‘there is a strong resonance among all the essays [in the edited volume] as to the geographical embeddedness of ethics, an argument made implicitly or explicitly that geography matters in finding clarifications of, or solutions to, ethical questions’. There is no doubt that geography, broadly enough construed, can function so as to clarify not only ethical questions but political, social and legal ones as well. While not denying that geographical considerations of various kinds have contributed to discussions about vagrancy, the meaning and use of public space, public welfare in relation to urban development, race and class relations and the like, I shall argue that geographical considerations by themselves have little relevance to the question of the morality of the growing legislation of what has come to be known as anti-vagrant or anti-homelessness laws. Discussions on the relationship between facts and values have advanced considerably since Hume's infamous is–ought distinction, and the interplay of facts and values has been increasingly asserted in contexts far removed from that invoked by Hume. While considerations of fact and value cannot be neatly separated in many cases, I discuss two essays in which geographers make little, if any, case for a connection and show little awareness that a case does have to be made—that facts, even when nicely described, do not by themselves speak value. Geography is then contrasted with architecture with regard to the issue of the embeddedness of ethics in these fields. It has recently been argued that in architecture there is no clear separation between ethical issues and architectural or design problems. Ethics, it is claimed, is intrinsic to (embedded in) the practice of architecture, but extrinsic to most other disciplines—including geography.

Notes

Notes

1 There is a great deal of dispute about whether Hume even held the view that he is famous for—that moves from fact to value, or ‘is’ to ‘ought’, are unjustified. I leave such issues of interpretation to the side.

2 Mitchell (2001, pp. 15–17) does give some consequentialist reasons against anti-homelessness laws, but they are so entangled with other kinds of considerations—issues of justice, liberty, citizenship and especially problematic economic theses—that their consequentialist aspect is eclipsed if not lost altogether.

3 Cf. Haldane ‘A contemporary philosopher invited to consider relevant difficulties raised by urban modern redevelopment might think to approach the issues from the direction of either … social philosophy or aesthetics. … I shall be concerned to suggest that no adequate treatment of the problems is possible unless both perspectives are adopted, or, better still, merged. Architecture being the paradigm of a public art, its philosophical examination is an exercise in social aesthetics’ (1990, p. 203).

4 See Haldane (1990, p. 205) and Fisher (2002).

5 This is how Harries (1998, p. 2) puts it. Giedion, it seems, may not have been referring to a general or universal task of architecture—which is the way Harries appears to interpret and generalize it. Instead Giedion seems to be referring only to the task of ‘contemporary’ modernist architecture at the time. Giedion thought there was ‘a certain confusion’ in direction and styles at the time that modernist architecture would eventually sort out (see Harries, 1998, pp. 2–4). See the discussion of Giedion's claim in the introduction by Michael Levine, Kristine Miller and William Taylor to The Philosophical Forum, 35(2), (2004), ‘Ethics and Architecture’.

6 See Mitchell and Staeheli (2005) for an additional example that illustrates the same problem of reading off moral implications from facts relating to social space. Ethical connections are pointed to or suggested without being articulated or established. Ultimately such unanalysed intimation or gesturing is as unsatisfactory for geography as it is for philosophy or social policy.

1 The first part of the published version of Levine's paper—the critiques—is changed in only minor ways from the draft he originally sent me. What is different is that Levine has added a section examining Lagueux's argument about architecture and ethics. I have not read Lagueux's paper and so will not say anything further about it or Levine's treatment of it.

2 References to the full articles, from which the Legal Geographies Reader (Blomley et al., 2001) abstracted Ellickson's and my articles, are not hard to find. The Reader printed that information at the front of the volume.

3 I was asked to review this paper by two other journals (but not by this one). In each case I declined. Readers should be aware that there is no loss of love between Michael Levine and me. This stems not from his critique of me, but rather from a proposed volume that was to come from the Oñati conference. In March 2005, Levine wrote to Lynn Staeheli and me, saying he and his colleagues were ‘getting the papers together’ for outside review. This was the first communication we had heard from the conference organizers since the conference in early June the previous year. Hearing nothing, Lynn and I had committed the paper to another project. I wrote to Levine and said ‘We are in something of a quandary. Since neither of us heard a word from any of you for more than seven months we had given up hope that the book project would proceed. Therefore we submitted the paper elsewhere. It has been accepted, slightly revised, and is now in the queue to be published. So we cannot give the assurance you wish for. Therefore, we can do one of two things: (1) We can write a shorter, sharper summary paper that draws on our presentation but is different from it, to contribute to the book. Neither of us will be able to do so until May. Or (2) You can proceed without us’. Levine responded with one of the most vitriolic emails I have ever received, saying (among other things) that ‘we should be ashamed of ourselves’ since we had a commitment to the Oñati volume. Presumably his own paper—the one published here—was bound to that same volume. Imagine my surprise when two weeks later, I was asked by Urban Studies to review this very paper of Michael Levine's. I declined. I little over a year later (April 2006) I was asked to review the same paper for Environment and Planning A. I declined again, saying that I had an obvious conflict of interest.

4 The ellipsis cuts out about 60 words—only a hundredth of what Levine found himself capable of cutting!

5 Which is why Lynn Staeheli and I, in an article Levine cites but does not analyze (Mitchell & Staeheli, 2005, p. 375) examine the way homeless people are policed on the Plaza of Santa Fe and conclude that the policing there, even as it is directed towards the homeless, is ‘light’, not the kind of in-your-face attitude towards the homeless we found in San Diego (Mitchell & Staeheli, 2006).