Misinformation from Rev. Dr. Betancourt

Our First Principle Has an Evil Source

At a recent event held by the UU Women’s Federation, the Rev. Dr. Sofia Bentancourt, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, responding to a question about the role of the UUA in the current controversies over abortion, used the occasion to condemn our first principle with misinformation about its source. With the minor exception of asserting that the first principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”, has little to do with personhood and embryos, she did not, as one might expect of a theologian, address how the first principle applies to the issue of abortion. Instead, she disparaged the first principle by misinterpreting and attacking Immanuel Kant.

“Um, I will say. Oh, I struggle with our first principle, I do. Um, you know, if you will forgive me briefly, [the the] language of the inherent worth and dignity of every person comes from Immanuel Kant, the literal father of modern racism.”

Neither of these remarks are true. First, while there is overlap in some of the language in Kant’s moral philosophy and the UU first principle, there is no direct evidence that the first principle came from Kant. The idea that undergirds the first principle, the eternal value of the human soul, originated in Platonic/Christian thought centuries before Kant. Secondly, and more importantly, Immanuel Kant is not the father of modern racism. There is no scholarly support for this accusation. Racism has deep historical roots that extend far before and beyond Kant. It has been perpetuated by various cultural, social, and economic factors throughout history. And while it is true that Kants views on race largely reflected the unfortunate attitudes of his time, something critical to understand, it is also according to some scholars true that his racist premises are more likely those of his interlocutors, to whom he addresses his counterarguments. Kant, in contrast, argues in favor of the unity of humanity. This fact runs completely counter to Betancourt’s insistence that Kant’s moral universalism was intended only for “landed, educated, wealthy German cis men.”  As the philosopher Susan Neiman wrote in her recent article in the NYTimes on Kant, “Some of his remarks are undeniably offensive to 21st-century ears. But it’s fatal to forget that his work gave us the tools to fight racism and sexism, by providing the metaphysical basis of every claim to human rights.” One would think that someone with Betancourt’s academic background should know this.

Misinterpretation

Her evidence for disparaging our first principle through attacking Kant consists in her misinterpretation of two of his works, both written in the same year. One is “On the Beautiful and Sublime,” which is primarily concerned with aesthetics and the nature of our subjective experiences of beauty and awe. Betancourt believes that this book is “literally” the source of our first principle. It is not. The other work is his “Anthropology,” which delves into the study of human nature, behavior, and the diversity of cultures. She hyperbolically insists that this book contains “the defining point of some of the worst racist stereotypes in modern Western history.”  What it contains, according to most scholars, are racial views common to the period. Kant’s racial classifications in “Anthropology” reflect the racial attitudes prevalent in 18th-century Europe. These attitudes were characterized by hierarchical classifications of races and the belief in the superiority of certain races over others.

Our First Principle is Racist

What Rev. Betancourt does is to judge the value and verity of “Sublime” by the worst of “Anthropology”. This is in order to judge the value and verity of our first principle in the same manner. “But I think that actually our, our first principle came originally from a source that could not be more flawed”. Briefly put, according to Rev. Betancourt, our first principle is racist. She further insists that since both of these works were written in the same year, then two things follow. One, no argument can be made that Kant evolved in his views and two, the value the world has put on his moral philosophy is a mistake.

“And he wrote them in the same year. So you can’t even argue that he, like, I don’t know, you know, evolved and had a new value set like they’re, they’re it’s evil. Um, and so the, the, the positive expression over time, the way people have read him is different from what he meant.”

But again, her notions here are questionable, to put it charitably. As argued by some scholars, Kant’s thought on these matters did evolve  (See for example “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race,” by Prof. Pauline Kleingeld).  Moreover, scholars have both severely criticized Kant’s views on race while being perfectly capable of appreciating the contribution he made to moral thought and ethical practice in the West.

Our First Principle is a Mistake

Of course, if Rev. Betancourt’s views here are accepted, then our first principle is also a mistake, and should be discarded, which is the point she is driving at, all on the basis of some exceedingly dubious notions about the source and real intent of our first principle. These views are a reflection of the UUA’s willingness to consider suspect anything of merit uttered by a white person, particularly white males, which is the basis of their wholesale rejection of Enlightenment thought in the re-write of A2. We can in response paraphrase a question asked by Prof. Neiman in her NYTimes article. Should we discard our Enlightenment legacy because it has never been fully realized? Or would we rather celebrate the fact that we can and have made moral progress, an idea which Kant and all the Enlightenment figures would wholeheartedly applaud.

Our Heritage is a Mistake

With this it is worthy to touch upon a disturbing assumption or consequence of Betancourt’s views,  and by implication that of the UUA. If embracing Kant, and by association the entire Enlightenment, was a mistake, then the entire rights based political culture we have developed from it is also a mistake. If we listen to Bentacourt and the UUA then our rights based political culture is really nothing more than a method to maintain the privileged position of white people. In short, we’ve been living in a collective delusion. We can consider this to be among the fundamental realizations the UUA seeks to ignite in all UU’s through the “spiritual discipline of love,” as they call it.

Martin Luther King was very fond of saying that the moral arch of the Universe is long, but it bends toward Justice. He was quoting or paraphrasing the transcendentalist Theodore Parker, among the most famous of UU theologians who was himself, by some accounts, every bit a racist, despite his commitment to Abolitionism. But did MLK suggest that Parker’s quote was itself racist because he was white? No. I think MLK is far and away a better guide here than Rev. Betancourt will ever be.

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