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Abstract
This essay offers a conceptual framework for thinking about failure—a type of falling short with respect to some normatively characterized activity, task or expectation. It brings this discussion to bear on the complexities of therapeutic failure, noting how attributions of such failure may make controversial assumptions about the normative status of ends and the match between means and ends, as well as the more common location of responsibility in the therapeutic subject. In many cases, failure should be seen as a learning prelude to success, rather than as its exclusion.
THE AUTHORS
John Kleinig, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and in the Ph.D. Programs in Philosophy and Criminal Justice, Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York. He is also Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Professional Ethics (Canberra, Australia). Educated in Australia, he taught philosophy at Macquarie University (Sydney) before coming to John Jay College in 1986. His philosophical interests are in the areas of ethics and social philosophy, with a focus on professional and practical ethics, particularly in the fields of education, bioethics, law, and criminal justice. He is the author or editor of 20 books and a member of the Editorial Board of Substance Use and Misuse.
Notes
2 I say “for the most part,” because we sometimes use the language of failure, even if the failure is attributable to impersonal objects, when a normative expectation is not met: the cattle failed to survive the drought. But these are not paradigmatic cases and reflect a common conceptual phenomenon in which complex terms develop in different ways as those who use them highlight one or other of their features.
3 Where telic ends are negatively valued, then failure is positively valued (except, perhaps, by those seeking to bring about the particular end). See n. 2 supra.
4 Failure to rob a bank represents a normative failure but, qua failure, hardly reflects badly on moral character.
5 This may be seen as less tendentious if we remind ourselves that “we” are part of that fabric and do not stand outside it.
6 Gallie's important paper has generated a large literature. However, the following two discussions may be usefully consulted: see Mason (1990) and Swanton (1985).
7 Although stated categorically, these statements might have different meanings and foci depending on who makes them. Moreover, as we will briefly see, the conditions underlying such statements may be contested or contestable.
8 One may consult the orthodox Jewish web site Jonah—http://www. jonahweb.org/index.php—to see one of the ways in which this debate plays out. There, what appears to have primarily religious roots is cashed out in terms of a psychological disorder that can be therapeutically rectified: “Anything that the Torah forbids, the human being is able to control” (Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky).
9 As noted above, who makes the assessment may bear on what is being attempted. The reference to “we” masks this diversity (Foster, 1957).
10 Wellness has primary regard to disorder, whereas well-being is a holistic assessment that has regard to overall or general flourishing.
11 Other harm reduction measures such as injecting rooms and heroin prescription may be viewed in similar ways.
12 Given, for example, that the longer one is abstinent the greater one's control over temptation becomes, a point can be presumably reached at which the exercise of control does not require superhuman effort or extraordinary social support. That will be one consideration influencing a judgment of therapeutic success.
13 One sees the problematic conventionality underlying such determinations in the variations between jurisdictions (Anonymous, n.d.-a).
14 Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, reputedly India's richest self-made woman, quoted in Levy (2012).
15 It should be noted that Petroski often focuses on impersonal rather than personal failures, underplaying, perhaps the psychological effects that the latter are more likely to have.
16 I wish to thank Tziporah Kasachkoff and Stanley Einstein for their assistance.
