...तुम यह सब भूल जाना मेरे दोस्त

यह हैं पाश। अवतार सिंह संधू 'पाश'। आज से बीस साल पहले (23 मार्च 1988 को) खालिस्तानी आतंकवादियों ने इनकी हत्या कर दी थी। इस पंजाबी कवि का अपराध (?) यही था कि यह इस जंगलतंत्र के जाल में फंसी सारी चिड़ियों को लू-शुन की तरह समझाना चाह रहे थे। चिड़ियों को भी इनकी बात समझ आने लगी थी। और वे एकजुट होकर बंदूकवाले हाथों पर हमला करने ही वाली थीं कि किसिम-किसिम के चिड़ियों का हितैषी मारा गया। उस वक्त पाश महज 37 बरस के थे।

वैसे, यह बेहद साफ़ है कि कोई भी किसी की हत्या तभी करता है, जब उसे सामनेवाले से अपने अस्तित्व पर संकट नज़र आता है। यानी, कोई भी हत्या डर का परिणाम है। पाश की क़लम से डरे हुए आतंकवादियों ने उनकी हत्या कर दी। पाश बेशक ज़िंदादिल इनसान थे। उनकी जिंदादिली की पहचान हैं उनकी बोलती-बतियाती कविताएं। पाश की कविताएं महज कविताएं नहीं हैं, बल्कि वे विचार हैं। उनका साहित्य पूरी दृष्टि है। ज़िंदगी को क़रीब से देखने का तरीका है। कुल मिलाकर वह ऐसी दूरबीन है जिससे आप दोस्तों की खाल में छुपे दुश्मनों को भी पहचान सकते हैं।


पाश की पहली कविता 1967 में छपी थी। इसी वक़्त वे भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी से जुड़े और बाद में नागा रेड्डी गुट से भी। पर ख़ुद को हिंसा से हमेशा दूर रखा। 1970 में वह जेल में थे और वहीं से उन्होंने कविता संकलन 'लौह कथा' छपने के लिए भेजा। इस संकलन में उनकी कुल 36 कविताएं थीं। इस संकलन के आने के साथ ही अवतार सिंह संधू 'पाश' पंजाबी कवियों में 'लाल तारा' बन गये। 1971 में पाश जेल से छूटे। इस बीच जेल में ही उन्होंने ढेर सारी कविताएं लिखीं और हस्तलिखित पत्रिका 'हाक' का संपादन किया। 1974 में पाश के 'उड्डदे बाजां मगर', 1978 में 'साडे समियां विच' और 1988 में 'लड़ांगे साथी' कविता संकलन छपकर आये। अपने 21 वर्षों की काव्य-यात्रा में पाश ने कविता के पुराने पड़ रहे कई प्रतिमानों को तोड़ा और अपने लिए एक नयी शैली तलाशी। संभवतः अपने इसी परंपराभंजक तेवर के कारण पाश ने लिखा है :

तुम्हें पता नहीं
मैं शायरी में किस तरह जाना जाता हूं
जैसे किसी उत्तेजित मुजरे में
कोई आवारा कुत्ता आ जाये
तुम्हें पता नहीं
मैं कविता के पास कैसे जाता हूं
कोई ग्रामीण यौवना घिस चुके फैशन का नया सूट पहने
जैसे चकराई हुई शहर की दुकानों पर चढ़ती है।

पाश की कविताओं में विषय-वैविध्य भरपूर है, किंतु उनके केंद्रीय भाव हमेशा एक हैं। इसकी एक बड़ी वजह यह रही है कि पाश ने जिंदगी को बहुत करीब से देखा। तहजीब की आड़ में छूरे के इस्तेमाल को उन्होंने हमेशा दुत्कारा, साथ ही मानवता और उसकी सच्चाई को उन्होंने गहरे आत्मसात किया। पाश के लिए ये पंक्तियां लिखते हुए उनकी कविता 'प्रतिबद्धता' याद आती है, जिसका करारा सच प्रतिबद्धता के नाम पर लिखी ढेर सारी कविताओं को मुंह चिढ़ाता है :

हम चाहते हैं अपनी हथेली पर कोई इस तरह का सच
जैसे गुड़ की चाशनी में कण होता है
जैसे हुक्के में निकोटिन होती है
जैसे मिलन के समय महबूब के होठों पर
कोई मलाई जैसी चीज होती है।

गुड़ की चाशनी, हुक्के की निकोटिन और महबूब के होठों की मलाई - ये बिंब पाश जैसे कवि को ही सूझ सकते हैं। यह अलग बात है कि कविता के नासमझ आलोचक इसे बेमेल बिंबों की अंतर्योजना कह कर खारिज करना चाहें। पाश ने खेतों-खलिहानों में दौड़ते-गाते, बोलते बतियाते हुए हाथों की भूमिका भी सीखी :
हाथ अगर हों तो
जोड़ने के लिए ही नहीं होते
न दुश्मन के सामने खड़े करने के लिए ही होते हैं
यह गर्दनें मरोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं
हाथ अगर हों तो
'हीर' के हाथों से 'चूरी' पकड़ने के लिए ही नहीं होते
'सैदे' की बारात रोकने के लिए भी होते हैं
'कैदो' की कमर तोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं
हाथ श्रम करने के लिए ही नहीं होते
लुटेरे हाथों को तोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं।

इस अंदाज में अपनी बात वही कवि रख सकता है जिसे पता हो कि वह कहां खड़ा है और सामनेवाला कितने पानी में है :

जा, तू शिकायत के काबिल होकर आ
अभी तो मेरी हर शिकायत से
तेरा कद बहुत छोटा है।

मनुष्य और उसके सपने, उसकी ज़िंदादिली और इन सबसे भी पहले अपने आसपास की चीजों के प्रति उसकी सजगता पाश को बहुत प्यारी थी :

मेहनत की लूट सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
पुलिस की मार सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
लोभ और गद्दारी की मुट्ठी सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
बैठे-बिठाये पकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
सहमी सी चुप्पी में जकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
किसी जुगनू की लौ में पढ़ना बुरा तो है
कपट के शोर में सही होते हुए भी दब जाना बुरा तो है
पर सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होता।
सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है
मुर्दा शांति से भर जाना
न होना तड़प का, सब कुछ सहन कर लेना
घर से निकलना काम पर और काम से घर लौट जाना
सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है हमारे सपनों का मर जाना...।

पाश के लिए कविता प्रेम-पत्र नहीं है और जीवन का अर्थ शारीरिक और भौतिक सुख भर नहीं। बल्कि इन सबसे परे पाश की दृष्टि एक ऐसे कोने पर टिकती है, जिसे आज के भौतिकतावादी समाज ने नकारने की कोशिश की है - वह है उसकी आज़ादी के सपने। आज़ादी सिर्फ तीन थके रंगों का नाम नहीं और देश का मतलब भौगोलिक सीमाओं में बंधा क्षेत्र विशेष नहीं। आज़ादी शिद्दत से महसूसने की चीज़ है और देश, जिसकी नब्ज भूखी जनता है, उसके भीतर भी एक दिल धड़कता है। इसलिए पाश हमेशा इसी सर्वहारा के पक्ष में खड़े दिखते हैं।

वैसे तो पाश की राजनीतिक गतिविधियां काफी तेज रही हैं। विभिन्न पार्टियों से जुड़कर आमजन के लिए लड़ना उनका धर्म रहा है। पर उनकी मुख्य पहचान किसी राजनीतिक कार्यकर्ता के रूप में नहीं बनी, बल्कि एक क्रांतिकारी और जुझारू कवि के रूप में बनी। पार्टियों के बदलते स्टैंड और वहां पैठी अवसरवादिता पाश को कचोटती थी। यह पाश की खीज ही थी जो हमारे समय में पूरे चरम पर दिखती है :

यह शर्मनाक हादसा हमारे साथ ही होना था
कि दुनिया के सबसे पवित्र शब्द ने
बन जाना था सिंहासन की खड़ाऊं
मार्क्स का सिंह जैसा सिर
दिल्ली के भूलभुलैयों में मिमियाता फिरता
हमें ही देखना था
मेरे यारो, यह कुफ्र हमारे समयों में होना था...

पाश ने अपने पहले काव्य संग्रह का नाम रखा था - लौहकथा। इस नाम को सार्थक करनेवाली उनकी कविता है लोहा। कवि ने इस कविता में लोहे को इस क़दर पेश किया है कि समाज के दोनों वर्ग सामने खड़े दिखते हैं। एक के पास लोहे की कार है तो दूसरे के पास लोहे की कुदाल। कुदाल लिये हुए हाथ आक्रोश से भरे हैं, जबकि कारवाले की आंखों में पैसे का मद है। लेकिन इन दोनों में पाश को जो अर्थपूर्ण अंतर दिखता है, वह यह है कि :

आप लोहे की चमक में चुंधियाकर
अपनी बेटी को बीवी समझ सकते हैं
लेकिन) मैं लोहे की आंख से
दोस्तों के मुखौटे पहने दुश्मन
भी पहचान सकता हूं
क्योंकि मैंने लोहा खाया है
आप लोहे की बात करते हो।

पाश की कविताओं से गुज़रते हुए एक खास बात यह लगती है कि उनकी कविता की बगल से गुज़रना पाठकों के लिए मुश्किल है। इन कविताओं की बुनावट ऐसी है, भाव ऐसे हैं कि पाठक बाध्य होकर इनके बीच से गुज़रते हैं और जहां कविता ख़त्म होती है, वहां आशा की एक नई रोशनी के साथ पाठक खड़े होते हैं। यानी, तमाम खिलाफ़ हवाओं के बीच भी कवि का भरोसा इतना मुखर है, उसका यकीन इतना गहरा है कि वह पाठक को युयुत्सु तो बनाता ही है, उसकी जिजीविषा को बल भी देता है।

मैं किसी सफ़ेदपोश कुर्सी का बेटा नहीं
बल्कि इस अभागे देश की भावी को गढ़ते
धूल में लथपथ हज़ारों चेहरों में से एक हूं
मेरे माथे पर बहती पसीने की धारों से
मेरे देश की कोई भी नदी बेहद छोटी है।
किसी भी धर्म का कोई ग्रंथ
मेरे जख्मी होठों की चुप से अधिक पवित्र नहीं है।
तू जिस झंडे को एड़ियां जोड़कर देता है सलामी
हम लुटे हुओं के दर्द का इतिहास
उसके तीन रंगों से ज्यादा गाढ़ा है
और हमारी रूह का हर एक जख़्म
उसके बीच वाले चक्र से बहुत बड़ा है
मेरे दोस्त, मैं मसला पड़ा भी
तेरे कीलों वाले बूटों तले
माउंट एवरेस्ट से बहुत ऊंचा हूं
मेरे बारे में ग़लत बताया तेरे कायर अफसरों ने
कि मैं इस राज्य का सबसे खतरनाक महादुश्मन हूं
अभी तो मैंने दुश्मनी की शुरुआत भी नहीं की
अभी तो हार जाता हूं मैं
घर की मुश्किलों के आगे
अभी मैं कर्म के गड्ढे
कलम से आट लेता हूं
अभी मैं कर्मियों और किसानों के बीच
छटपटाती कड़ी हूं
अभी तो मेरा दाहिना हाथ तू भी
मुझसे बेगाना फिरता है।
अभी मैंने उस्तरे नाइयों के
खंज़रों में बदलने हैं
अभी राजों की करंडियों पर
मैंने लिखनी है वार चंडी की।

उन्होंने अपनी लंबी कविता 'पुलिस के सिपाही से' में स्पष्ट कहा है :

मैं जिस दिन रंग सातों जोड़कर
इंद्रधनुष बना
मेरा कोई भी वार दुश्मनों पर
कभी ख़ाली नहीं जाएगा।
तब फिर झंडीवाले कार के
बदबू भरे थूक के छींटे
मेरी ज़िंदगी के घाव भरे मुंह पर
न चमकेंगे...

और इसके लिए बेहद ज़रूरी है :

मैं उस रोशनी के बुर्जी तक
अकेला पहुंच नहीं सकता
तुम्हारी भी जरूरत है
तुम्हें भी वहां पहुंचना पड़ेगा...

1974 में प्रकाशित 'उड्डदे बाजां मगर' में पाश की निगाह बेहद पैनी हो गयी है और शब्द उतने ही मारक। इसी संकलन की कविता है - हम लड़ेंगे साथी ।

हम लड़ेंगे साथी उदास मौसम से
हम लड़ेंगे साथी गुलाम इच्छाओं से
हम चुनेंगे साथी ज़िंदगी के सपने

पाश ने देश के प्रति अपनी कोमल भावना का इज़हार पहले काव्य संग्रह की पहली कविता में किया है

भारत
मेरे सम्मान का सबसे महान शब्द
जहां कहीं भी इस्तेमाल होता है
बाकी सभी शब्द अर्थहीन हो जाते हैं...

पर पाश इस भारत को किसी सामंत पुत्र का भारत नहीं मानते। वह मानते हैं कि भारत वंचक पुत्रों का देश है। और भारत को अपने लिए सम्मान मानने वाले पाश कहते हैं :

इस शब्द के अर्थ
किसी दुष्यंत से संबंधित नहीं
वरन खेतों में दायर है
जहां अनाज उगता है
जहां सेंध लगती है...


नवंबर '84 के सिख विरोधी दंगों से सात्विक क्रोध में भर कर पाश ने 'बेदखली के लिए विनयपत्र' जैसी रचना भी की। इस कविता में मारे गये निर्दोष सिखों के प्रति गहरी सहानुभूति थी, तो दूसरी तरफ सत्ता की गलत नीतियों के प्रति विद्रोह भी।

मैंने उम्रभर उसके खिलाफ़ सोचा और लिखा है
अगर उसके अफ़सोस में पूरा देश ही शामिल है
तो इस देश से मेरा नाम खारिज कर दें ...
... इसका जो भी नाम है - गुंडों की सल्तनत का
मैं इसका नागरिक होने पर थूकता हूं
मैं उस पायलट की चालाक आंखों में
चुभता हुआ भारत हूं
हां, मैं भारत हूं चुभता हुआ उसकी आंखों में
अगर उसका अपना कोई खानदानी भारत है
तो मेरा नाम उसमें से अभी खारिज कर दो।

पाश की हत्या ने उनकी एक कविता की तरफ लोगों का ध्यान विशेष रूप से आकर्षित किया। 'मैं अब विदा लेता हूं' शीर्षक इस कविता में पाश ने अपनी सामाजिक भूमिका का उल्लेख करते हुए मृत्यु से 10 साल पहले ही अपनी अंतिम परिणति का ज़िक्र किया था :

...तुम यह सब भूल जाना मेरे दोस्त
सिवाय इसके
कि मुझे जीने की बहुत लालसा थी
कि मैं गले तक ज़िंदगी में डूबना चाहता था
मेरे हिस्से का भी जी लेना मेरे दोस्त
मेरे भी हिस्से का जी लेना।

संभवतः यही एक ऐसी कविता थी, जिसमें पाश अपने व्यक्तिगत जीवन से संबोधित थे और अपने आसपास के निकटस्थों के लिए लिखा था। सचमुच, उनके भीतर जिंदगी को उसके गले तक जीने की बलवती इच्छा थी।

A Clockwork Orange

I've always admired this movie. Like most Kubrick films (particularly his later films, beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey), it is completely unlike any other film ever made. But no matter how many time I see it, I still struggle with it. I've never been convinced that I really get it. Of course, I could certainly say the same thing about 2001, but I don't mind it so much in that case. Here, there is a strong narrative that isn't particularly difficult to follow. The story presents itself to viewers in the way we normally expect in film.

Of course, the content of that story is striking, because we're being presented with a main character who is so utterly despicable. Here is a man, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), who is not only completely without conscience in his pursuit of rape and pointless violence, but also intelligent, charming, and ultimately sympathetic. He is perhaps the most extraordinary monster ever depicted on film. He makes Hannibal Lecter look like a cheap schlock merchant (which is precisely what Lecter ultimately became).

The first act of the film establishes the true depth of Alex's villainy. The visuals are all off-putting and garish, and the performances are completely over-the-top. There's nothing realistic about the presentation, and although that does create a certain distance between the film and its audience, it doesn't lessen the power of the relentless procession of brutality that comprises the first act. The violence is completely senseless. There are a few lines where Alex and his droogs talk about making money from beating people and robbing them, and there's a brief shot of Alex putting his money and stolen goods into a drawer full of similar items. But nothing is ever made of this, and there's never any sense that Alex is actually motivated by personal gain. Quite the opposite. What makes Alex such an effective and disturbing character is that he simply enjoys violence for its own sake.

The second act of the film finds Alex in prison for murder, where he manipulates his way into being a test subject for an experimental procedure guaranteed to get him out much earlier than his sentence would normally allow. The Ludovico treatment is a kind of aversion therapy, whereby Alex is made to feel sick while watching scenes of violence, rape, and brutality. The section sets up the essential moral and philosophical question of the film: whether morality lies in the absence of evil deeds, or rather in the presence of good intentions. The Ludovico process does nothing to change Alex's nature. He remains as monstrous as ever he was. But it makes him physically incapable of violence and brutality.

The final act of the film plays as a kind of repeat of the first, only in reverse. Now, released back into the world, Alex happens to meet all of his old victims again, and this time he is victimized by them. His parents don't want him back, his old droogs assault him and nearly kill him, and eventually he is found out by Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), the old writer who was forced to watch as Alex raped his wife (Adrienne Corri).

It seems that without free will, which in this context can be defined as the power to do evil, Alex is completely helpless. First of all, he is not truly reformed. He is simply rendered incapable of pursuing his own wicked desires. But moreover, he is not even able to defend himself. His various attackers in this third act are all motivated by vengeance, and they are all every bit as brutal to him as he had previously been to them. Violence is portrayed in all three segments of the film as a dehumanizing influence, regardless of whether one is the aggressor, recipient, or even simply an observer.

The film ends on a disturbingly ambiguous note, as the status quo has been returned. What this means, of course, is that Alex is once again free to pursue his campaign of senseless violence. What was in act one an intolerable situation which needed to be addressed becomes, at the end of the film, the closest thing we get to a happy ending.

As disturbing as the film is in its presentation of violence, it is also darkly funny. Malcolm McDowell brings so much charm and charisma to the role that it is impossible not to enjoy his antics, as repulsive as they are. There is a playful, mischievous quality to his attacks, which is best demonstrated by his response to Bible study while in prison. Even as the prison chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) is praising and encouraging his apparent change of heart, Alex imagines torturing Christ and being catered to by beautiful, topless handmaidens. McDowell also plays Alex with a kind of quiet innocence that marks a darkly comic counterpoint to his theatrical bursts of violence.

While there are certainly elements of the film that date it fairly specifically to the early 1970s (such as the gaudy costuming and design), it nevertheless maintains a timeless quality precisely because the presentation is so wildly over-the-top. Because it's unlike any other film ever made, it is less liable to be pigeon-holed into a specific era.

The Blu-Ray DVD is packed with special features, including a commentary featuring Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman, a making-of featurette, a documentary on the return of the film to British screens (after having been banned at the request of Stanley Kubrick), and a fascinating career profile of Malcolm McDowell. This last feature is particularly interesting, and features extensive interviews with McDowell discussing his career highlights (and lowlights... like Caligula). It also gives a very interesting view of McDowell. On the surface, he seems like a very charming person, and yet, the more you watch, the more he comes across like a self-aggrandizing little git. If you watch a lot of these documentaries and listen to a lot of commentaries, you'll find that most actors who worked with him speak of Stanley Kubrick with a kind of awe. McDowell doesn't. Oh, he's effusive in his praise of Kubrick's genius, but all of his stories about the making of the film focus on his own contributions. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but while the career retrospective definitely made me want to watch some of his other films, I didn't come away with a very favorable opinion of McDowell himself.

Going Gödel-ian - II

Since Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem was first published, its significance with regards to the possibility of a complete base of knowledge has been debated. On the one hand, philosophers such as Patrick Grim have argued that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem proves that there is no possibility of a complete body of knowledge, since any body of knowledge can be modeled on a formal system, subject to Gödelian incompleteness. John Lucas argues that omniscience, or at least a transcendence of incompleteness, is possible, and that knowledge is generated beyond mere mechanical manipulations. Some, such as Gödel and me, have interpreted the theorem to mean that mathematics contains truths that are objective. In this section, I shall present these three interpretations of the theorem.

One of the easiest conclusions that can be drawn from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is that, since any formal system must necessarily be incomplete, no body of knowledge or knowledgeable entity can be complete, and therefore omniscience is impossible. Essentially, if the entity attempting to be omniscient starts from a priori truths, the way Kant or Descartes would require, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem means that no set of a priori truths (mathematically, axioms) can lead to a comprehensive knowledge of the world, since there must always be statements that cannot be “known” by someone working entirely from a priori precepts. This may seem unusual, since the human mode of thinking is not restricted to working entirely within a system; our thought process is capable of taking a posteriori facts—observations—and incorporating them into our body of knowledge, as well as using logic on propositions that are not within a given system, as Gödel himself did to demonstrate that G must be true. However, our ability to think outside the box, as it were, is only granted when we artificially impose a box on ourselves in the first place. We are not capable of lifting ourselves beyond the hardware of our brains and thinking in ways that are not dependent on our initial configuration of neurons (the axioms) and their patterns of firing (the rules of inference)—at least, not yet. Humans are capable of thinking outside some boxes, but ultimately, we are still bound to something analogous to a rigid formal system, and therefore we will eventually reach a box outside of which we cannot think. This view specifically depends on humans or other knowledge-holding entities using a model of thinking and truth-acquisition that is analogous to a formal system, but so far no thinker has been discovered which does not learn according to the same mechanistic rules that imply incompleteness. Omniscience, in this view, is therefore impossible, since it is impossible for any being with a finite amount of knowledge and pre-defined methods of learning to achieve knowledge of everything around them.

This view takes for granted that human thought in particular and all thought in general is analogous to a formal system, and that it will therefore be subject to incompleteness. John Lucas, however, takes the Incompleteness Theorem as proof that the human mind is not analogous to a formal system, since it is capable of indefinitely thinking outside its box and using reasoning that is not strictly formal to derive conclusions that are, in terms of truth, just as legitimate as ones derived (that is, we can know that G is true, even though we cannot prove it, and therefore we can still know all the facts that are true). In particular, humans are capable not just of finding a posteriori pieces of knowledge that can be known, but are also capable of developing entirely new rules of inference based on these findings. Due to human pattern-recognition and extrapolation capabilities, Lucas says that human thought is not necessarily limited to the formal derivation of proofs from first principles, and therefore omniscience, or at least a capacity to think outside the box, is capable.

My personal views on the matter tend to be more related to the ultimate significance of mathematics and not the possibilities of omniscience as such. I believe that the Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that truth in mathematics is something that surpasses artificial creations. Since a statement being true and a statement being derived from axioms and rules of inference are not synonymous, it means that it is meaningful to talk about statements having objective truth that is not dependent on the standards of human interpretation or the fallacies of artificial systems. In terms of omniscience, I do think that the human mind is highly analogous to a formal system, and is therefore subject to the Incompleteness Theorem’s restrictions, although a posteriori knowledge and direct experience do allow us to “know” things that aren’t “proved,” although not necessarily in a way that transcends logical derivations. However, this does not prohibit omniscience in general, since one of the assumptions of the Incompleteness Theorem is that the formal system has a finite number of axioms. If, say, a divine being began with an infinite number of axioms, or an infinitely extensible number of axioms, then a complete knowledge that formal system might be possible.

The common theme in these interpretations of the Incompleteness Theorem is that it implies that anything sufficiently similar to a formal system can never achieve a full cognizance of the possible knowledge. While I believe that this does restrict human knowledge and its ultimate expansion, I do not believe that it applies to omniscience in general, and I believe that the expressive nature of these formal system analogues means that knowledge can be conveyed from a successfully omniscient entity to beings, such as humans, that are restricted by the nature of their thought process.

Going Gödel-ian - I

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is one of the most surprising results to come out of twentieth-century mathematical logic. In its most basic form, the theorem states that there exist mathematical statements that are true, but cannot be proven by the mathematical framework the statements are a part of. In this section of my essay, I intend to describe its history, since the context of mathematical formalism is important to understand its significance, and the basics of its derivation and meaning.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem first appeared in 1931, at a time when the dominant drive in mathematics was the consolidation of mathematics to the most self-evident axioms and immediately apparent axioms; the idea was to avoid even the possibility of internally inconsistent systems and to prevent mathematics from being infected with shortcuts peculiar to human thought. One of the most famous attempts to create a strictly formal mathematical system—that is, a system with clearly defined axioms (statements accepted as true without proof) and clearly defined rules to go from axioms to theorems, that would then lead to a complete expression of all conceivable mathematics—was that of Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead, in their Principia Mathematica. Their system was intended not just to express all mathematics, but also to eliminate self-reference, which they believed were the cause of paradoxes. Also relevant at the time was the attempt to solve Hilbert’s Second Problem: to show that arithmetic was consistent (that is, to show that it was impossible to prove both a statement and its opposite within a mathematical framework that expressed arithmetic). In this context, Gödel was looking into strictly formal systems and the idea of proving consistency and its close relative, completeness (a complete system is one in which all true statements can be proven from its axioms and rules of inference.), and it was in this search that he proved that a system cannot be both complete and consistent.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that in any system with enough expressive power to express every truth about arithmetic (that is, its syntax is rich enough that statements as simple as “2 + 2 = 4” and as complex as “every even number greater than 4 is a sum of two prime numbers” can all be written using the same, unambiguous notation) can also express statements that, while indisputably true, can only be shown to be true through means of a logic external to the system itself. The specific statement he identifies may help clarify what I mean: Gödel himself offers the statement G, which roughly means “G is not provable within this formal system, G0” If G is false, then it can be proved, and is therefore true, which is a logical impossibility; if G is true, then it cannot be proven, and therefore the system, G0 is incomplete.

This statement on its own is not particularly compelling for demonstrating that G0 in particular and any candidate for a formal system in general are necessarily incomplete. There are two refutations to the Theorem: One that the formal system can be expanded to include G, and therefore be incomplete, and one that denies that G is even expressible, and is therefore irrelevant.

The first refutation to G, therefore, is to simply add it to G0 as an axiom, so that in addition to the premises already included, G would be true. Therefore, G would be provable within the context of that system, since it was one of the axioms. However, this approach fails, since the formal system in this case is no longer G0, but G0 + G, which I’ll refer to as G1. Though G, the statement itself, is no longer true and unprovable, a sort of sequel to G, which I’ll call G´ (pronounced “gee prime”) is true and unprovable. If G can be read as “G is unprovable within G0,” then G´ can be read as “G´ is unprovable within G1.” G´ can be added as an axiom, but this only creates the new formal system G2, and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem still applies: No matter how cleverly one attempts to incorporate G into a system, it will always be vulnerable to the creation of a new true but unprovable statement.

Or will it? The second refutation denies that G is, in fact, expressible at all, and that it is not an arithmetic truth, and therefore G0, a candidate for a complete formal system, still is complete, because it does not contain true statements that cannot be proven. This objection requires a more serious appraisal, and it is in fact the entire basis of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem itself: the Theorem consists of demonstrating that provability can be expressed using purely arithmetical rules.

The basic premise upon which the Theorem is developed is that statements within a formal system (such as “there is no such number as the greatest prime number” or “231 – 1 is a prime”) can be interpreted, via an isomorphism, into statements about the formal system (such as “this system is incomplete” or “0 = 0 is an axiom of this system”). An isomorphism is a relationship between two groups of objects that links one entity from one group, uniquely and reversibly, to one entity in the other group. For example, one possible isomorphism is from the group of positive integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on) to the group of prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and so on). One isomorphism could be the number 1 corresponds to the first prime, the number 2 corresponds to the second prime, and so on, and vice versa—the first prime corresponds to the first number.

The particular isomorphism Gödel set up was one between three-digit numbers and the syntax of a formal system: = could be assigned 101, the + sign could be assigned 202, the number 1 could be assigned the number 052, and so on until all the syntax is accounted for. Statements such as “1 + 1 = 2” could then be written by converting the assigned numbers into a prime factorization—that is, it would equal 2^52 • 3^202 • 5^52 • 7^101 • 1^153. One of the theorems in arithmetic is that every number can be uniquely factored into a product of primes, so any number can be converted into symbols: the isomorphism works both ways.

Gödel then showed that this isomorphism of numbers to symbols could be taken one step further: The rules of inference that characterized the system could be expressed as numerical rules. Since the formal systems of the day used typographical rules of inference that were essentially rules for transforming one legal statement into another by manipulating symbols. Since the rules were purely mechanical and typographical in nature, the isomorphism Gödel set up allowed them to be expressed as numerical transformations. From there, Gödel demonstrated that the provability of a number’s coded arithmetical statement is an intrinsic trait, just like whether or not it is even, a perfect square, or a prime, and furthermore that it could be determined in a finite amount of time. Provability is therefore expressible within the syntax of a formal system, and the statement G is inevitable—a true but unprovable statement must appear.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem shows that for any meaningfully complex and useful mathematical system, it must either contain contradictions, or include statements that are true, but not simply the result of the rules of inference provided at the outset of the system. To show this, Gödel showed that a seemingly paradoxical and definitely self-referential statement could be expressed in a mathematical system, and that it can only be shown to be true by thinking in terms outside the realm of the system itself.

consequentialism and friends

Are Act-Consequentialism and Friendship Incompatible?

I

Recent critics of Act Consequentialism, hereafter referred to simply as AC, have sought to argue that because the theory’s structure is committed solely to maximizing the good the Act Consequentialist, hereafter referred to simply as the AC-ist, cannot have true friendships. To be explicit, the “…objection advanced by the new friendship critics is not based on the claim that consequentialists should not be true friends, but instead, they argue that for various reasons, sophisticated consequentialists cannot be true friends…” (Card, 2004)
These critics highly value true friendship and claim that this relationship is extremely important to human life. If a moral theory cannot permit its agents to have these highly valued and special relationships, they believe it undermines the theory’s plausibility. One such critic, Neera Kapur, writes the following about true friendships:

“End friendship (hereafter, simply “friendship”) is a cardinal human value. Aristotle declared that no one would choose to live without friends…Through such sharing, friendship serves both to confirm and to shape our sense of things, of the important and the unimportant, and to fuel our interests in our activities. And because it involves mutual pleasure and enjoyment, friendship is also an intrinsic part of our happiness. Thus friendship plays a constitutive role in our happiness and the constitution of our selves – our identity.” (Kapur, 1991)

Shortly after she also writes the following:

“Nor is it to say that friendship is the most important value: an individual might justifiably choose to do without friendship if friendship conflicts with some other highly prized and morally praiseworthy value, such as a life of dedication to art or alleviation of human suffering. But if she lacks the character necessary for friendship, she is seriously deficient.” (Kapur, 1991)

So friendship is essential to the development of our characters. Friendships help us shape how we view the world, they give us motivation to pursue certain interests, and they also contribute to our happiness. One might wonder how a human being would develop that is not capable of true friendships and what kind of life they would live. AC broadly understood is a theory of maximization. Its construction picks out some goal and states that a given act is permissible if and only if it maximizes that goal. Because the AC-ist is committed to this construction Kapur believes the AC-ist, as a consequence, lacks the character necessary for true friendship because she will be ready to sacrifice the friendship as soon as it becomes sub-optimal. Kapur also thinks that the AC-ist commitment to this construction does not allow for friendships to be intrinsically justified. Instead they are justified instrumentally as a mere means to promote some further goal. Quoting Kapur again, she expresses this criticism when she writes:

“Hence, if I accept C, the moral justification I must give to my friendship is instrumental. And acceptance of an instrumental justification of friendship, whether of particular acts of friendship or of the dispositions of friendship, is logically inconsistent with the attitudes and motivations of end friendship, and so with regarding friendship as an intrinsic value.” (Kapur, 1991)

Thus Kapur believes that by committing to AC the friendships of AC-ist can only be justified instrumentally. She thinks instrumental justification yields instrumental motivation to act and hold the dispositions of true friendship, and that the AC-ist will value the friendship instrumentally instead of intrinsically. In this paper I will argue that those who claim the AC-ist cannot have true friendships for motivational, logical, and psychological reasons merely misunderstand the theory and therefore do not threaten its plausibility. I will conclude this paper by showing what I believe to be a further flaw in one of the objections the new friendship critics put forth.
The main ambiguity lies in understanding what a “true”, “genuine”, “non-instrumental” or “end” friendships consist of. Unless noted, I will use the term true friendship(s). In Section II I will illuminate on what condition(s) are necessary for true friendships, in Section III I will argue against the three objections, motivational, logical, and psychological, advanced by critics of AC, and finally in Section IV I will continue to argue against one of their objections revealing further flaw.

II

What condition(s) are required for a relationship between two people for it to qualify as a “true friendship”? In this section I will construct a clear and concise picture of what a true friendship is composed of by looking to Neera Kapur’s recent paper, Why It Is Wrong to be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship. At the beginning of her paper she defines true friendship in the following way:

“In an end friendship, one loves the friend as an essential part of one's system of ends and not solely, or even primarily, as a means…In such love, one loves the friend for the person she is, that is, for her essential rather than incidental features. These include both her character traits-the fundamental intellectual, psychological, moral, and aesthetic qualities that constitute an individual's personality-and her unique perspective on herself and others…” (Kapur, 1991)

She also writes that it is the “necessary irreplaceability” (Kapur, 1991) of the friend herself that clearly distinguishes a true friendship from an instrumental friendship. In an instrumental friendship the friend can be replaced for the sake of better achieving some end external to the friendship. This is contrary to true friendship where,

“…the friend cannot be replaced by another, for no other can have her essential features. Nor can she be replaced by a more efficient means to one’s end or abandoned on their achievement, for it is not as a means that one loves her…Hence, to love a friend as an end is to place a special value on her–to believe that her value is not outweighed, say, simply by the greater needs of others or the needs of a greater number of others…” (Kapur, 1991)

Moreover she claims that true friendship requires certain virtues. I am reinterpreting this claim as implying that certain dispositions must be present in true friendships, e.g. benevolence, justice, integrity and autonomy. At the end of the road true friendships must have no further goal than the friend itself and the agent must hold the required dispositions. The AC-ist is thought to have only instrumental friendships, only holding these dispositions and placing value on the relationship and the friend herself when it contributes to the maximization of the good.
On this account true friendship is composed of the following pieces: 1) the agent must value the friend as an end in herself, not as a mere means, she must be valued intrinsically, and 2) the agent must hold certain dispositions that are required by true friendship. If the AC-ist can satisfy these two conditions and still maintain her commitment to AC, then the objection that the she cannot have true friendships arises from a mere misunderstanding of her theory.

III

I understand AC to make the following claim: An act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes the good, and if an act is morally permissible, then what makes it so is ultimately the fact that it maximizes the good.

Motivational Objection:

The first strike against AC is the Original Objection (OO):

“While consequentialists always aim at maximizing the good irrespective of who may benefit, friendship requires that one regularly aim at the good of the friend herself.” (Card, 2004)

OO claims that the AC-ist and true friendship are incompatible on purely motivational grounds. It claims that the AC-ist it only motivated to act in ways that will maximize the good for everyone, and as we have seen true friendship requires that one aim at the good of the friend herself. If this objection is true:

“…then a consequentialist world, stripped of the deep caring and intimacy which characterizes friendship, would contain less happiness than a world in which persons were motivated in ways consistent with loving relationships.” (Card, 2004)

So following the advice of AC seems to lead to devastating consequences, almost to the point of becoming self-defeating. But in response the AC-ist can draw a distinction between her criterion of rightness and her decision procedure.
A criterion of rightness specifies what the fundamental right and wrong making features of acts are. To illustrate, AC determines the rightness of an act entirely on whether or not it maximizes the good. By contrast, Rule Consequentialism (RC) defines the rightness of an act in terms of whether or not it is in accordance with a certain code of rule selected for their good consequences. A moral theory’s decision procedure refers not only to the process used to decide what one ought to do in a given situation, but also what dispositions and beliefs the moral agent ought to hold. While AC and RC differ in how they define what makes an act right, they both generally agree on the same decision procedure. This decision procedure reads something like this (DP1): Agents should decide what to do by following certain tried and tested rules, and by holding certain dispositions and beliefs, e.g. “Don’t harm others,” “Be truthful,” “Keep your promises,” “Act justly,” etc. Included with these rules and dispositions is a further rule that says, “If following one of these rules will lead to drastically bad consequences, violate the rule.” It is these rules that if followed by everyone everywhere will produce the best consequences. They both reject the following decision procedure (DP2): In all situations, an agent should decide what to do by attempting to calculate which outcome out of all the acts available to her will maximize the good.
Several reasons for rejecting DP2 include: a) the cost of obtaining all the information more than likely outweighs the benefit of doing so, b) often times there is insufficient evidence available, such that long tested rules would prove to be more effective and c) people’s expectations would be better met if people followed DP1 as opposed to DP2, that is to say, people would trust others to not kill them as soon as it would maximize the good. Also, not only do AC and RC agree that agents ought to follow the same decision procedure, they also agree that agents should internalize these rules, dispositions, and beliefs instead of merely complying with them.
Why internalize a given set of rules, dispositions, and beliefs? One reason is that internalization can have benefits that compliance doesn’t have. For example, suppose you have internalized the rule “If attacked, retaliate in self-defense”. Let us also assume that you live in a world where people can “see” your dispositions just by looking at you. Because you have internalized this rule of retaliation, and others can see that you have internalized this rule, future attacks may now be deterred without you having to first retaliate. Undoubtedly internalizing this rule along with others will lead to better consequences as opposed to some other decision procedure. We can even postulate that the best decision procedure is the one where people internalize the belief that friendships are valuable independently of their contribution to maximizing the good, and that they should stick by their friend even when doing so would not maximize the good.
As I have illustrated, supporters of AC do not advocate that the AC-ist ought to decide what to do by attempting to calculate which act of all those available to her will maximize the good. Instead, the AC-ist should follow tried and tested rules, hold certain dispositions, and beliefs such as: “Don’t lie,” “Be just,” “Be truthful,” etc. Hence the AC-ist can aim at the good of the friend herself, and by making this distinction OO is pushed aside and so is the supposed motivational obstacle. This viewpoint will be referred to as “sophisticated act-consequentialism”, and I will change the acronyms to SAC and SAC-ist.
By making this clarification one of the two conditions for true friendship has been satisfied, the condition that the SAC-ist must hold certain dispositions. With this important distinction made apparent the SAC-ist can consistently hold the dispositions of benevolence, justice, integrity and autonomy. However over time the Original Objection has become more refined and new challenges face supporters of SAC.

Logical Objection:

The next objection comes directly from Kapur commonly called the Incompatibility Argument, and it claims that the SAC-ist and true friendship are logically incompatible. Quoting directly:

“She might think that this moral devaluation of friendship vis-a-vis the overall good is logically compatible with a personal commitment to end friendship. But the two commitments would have to be expressed in the following kind of thought: "As your friend, I place a special value on you out of friendship and not out of consequentialist considerations-but as a consequentialist agent I do so only so long as, all things considered, valuing you thus promotes the overall good."…And the two thoughts are logically incompatible. To be consistent she must think, "As a consequentialist friend, I place a special value on you so long, but only so long, as valuing you thus promotes the overall good."” (Kapur, 1991)

The objection hinges on the idea that the SAC-ist must provide instrumental justification for the value of her friendship with another because she cannot value it as an end. Following Card , Kapur’s term “instrumental” is composed of the following two components: (1) treating the friend as a means to some further good, e.g. maximization of the good, and (2) attributing to the friendship a reductionist account of value. Putting it together then, the term “instrumental”, I think, can be read as saying: if having the friendship contributes to the maximization of the good it will hold some value, V. If for some reason continuing to hold this friendship contributes only sub-optimally compared to some other state, e.g. the discontinuation of the friendship, then the value of the friendship is reduced to V-x, where x is the difference between the current sub-optimal and the counterfactual optimal. It is not implausible at first glance to be persuaded by Kapur’s reasoning. The SAC-ist is committed to maximizing the good, and what it is right to do is that, and only that, which contributes maximally to the maximization. There is no room for anything to have more than mere instrumental worth under this construction. But this is not the only construction available to the SAC-ist.
The SAC-ist need not endorse the “traditional” teleological structure where “the good” has been reduced to some non-moral property such as pleasure. Instead she can create a new teleological structure for herself where “the good” refers to other intrinsically moral properties such as justice, fairness and friendship. This construction permits the SAC-ist to value friendship intrinsically independent of its contribution to the maximization of the good, and it is still teleological because it says that what is right is the maximization of this good. She does not need to ascribe everything outside of “the good” a merely instrumental value. Instead, she can make a list of intrinsically valuable goods, still value them intrinsically, and argue that what it is right to do is to bring about the best consequences with respect to these intrinsic goods. This structure does not erect a barricade between friendship and the consequences of the friendship, but instead it allows friendship to be part of the outcomes that is valued. I will call this structure “friendship teleology” (FT).
This modification permits the SAC-ist to bestow friendship a moral worth independent of her criterion of rightness. She can still define rightness in terms of maximal goodness, but she does not have to reduce “the good” to something that is independent of what is right, meaning, some non-moral property or sensation. Therefore, the claim that the SAC-ist must justify the value of friendship in merely instrumental terms is incorrect. By adopting FT where friendship holds an intrinsic moral value that aids in determining right action, the SAC-ist can justify her commitment to friendship independent of its contribution to the maximization of “the good”. Merely adopting FT, while it doesn’t defeat the Incompatibility Argument completely, does satisfy the first condition for true friendship. The SAC-ist can now value her friend intrinsically and not as mere means. Both conditions for true friendship have been satisfied, and the motivational and logical obstacles have been shown to be misunderstandings of SAC. Yet critics may still appeal to a further claim in hopes of showing the SAC¬-ist moral theory to be implausible.

Psychological Objection:

By making the move to FT the SAC-ist has weakened the Incompatibility Argument. Even if one can dodge the logical incompatibility, critics still claim the SAC-ist and true friendship are psychologically incompatible. They claim that the impersonal point of view endorsed is incompatible with friendship itself, the core of this objection centers on the “realm of concerns” (Kapur, 1991) under which friendships may be formed and terminated. To be explicit:

“When friendship is justified by its intrinsic moral goodness, its moral value remains intact even when it is right to sacrifice it. For by this justification, the conflict between the reasons for pursuing the friendship and the agent’s own good, on the one hand, and the reasons for their renunciation, on the other, is a conflict between the same realm of concerns.” (Kapur, 1991)

Kapur claims that in order for friendship to be intrinsically moral one must adopt the personal point of view as the primary moral point of view. She must be claiming that the “…impersonalist consequentialist must utilize an “external” standard to evaluate friendships, which illustrates their wrong-headed conception of friendship.” (Card, 2004) In response the SAC-ist is able to say that friendship is intrinsically good independent of its contribution to the maximization of the good by adopting FT, however friendships are still vulnerable to termination if they fail to contribute to the maximization of the good. So I reinterpret the objection raised to the SAC-ist as saying: While you may form a friendship from the personal point of view, if it comes time to terminate the friendship because it sub-optimally contributes to the maximization of the good, the termination will not come from the personal point of view, but from the impersonal point of view to which you ascribe, and true friendship is incompatible with the impersonal point of view.
Once again I appeal to the distinction made at the beginning of this paper, the difference between the SAC-ist criterion of rightness and her decision procedure. While the SAC-ist is committed to the maximization of the good, she is not committed to walking around with her calculator, calculating which action would maximize the good, and prior to that calculating if calculating would be optimal, continuing ad infinitum. Instead she believes that she should internalize certain tried and tested rules, hold certain dispositions and beliefs, that will more often than not produce the best consequences overall. I think it appropriate to say that the termination of a friendship, if necessary, need not come from the impersonal point of view but can, and more often than not will, from the personal point of view of the SAC-ist.

IV

So far I have disarmed the three objections (motivational, logical, and psychological) that have been thrown at SAC. Each objection claims that for some reason or another the SAC-ist cannot have true friendships. Also, I have satisfied both of the conditions necessary for true friendship. That 1) the agent must value the friend as an end in herself and not merely as a means, she must be valued intrinsically, 2) the agent must hold certain dispositions that are required by true friendship. Now I wish to further examine the Incompatibility Argument.
At first glace the Incompatibility Argument discussed in Section III seems peculiar to me compared to the other two objections waged against the SAC-ist. The initial drive is a logical incompatibility with an underlying psychological incompatibility, and as noted earlier in this paper the SAC-ist need not think like a SAC-ist at all times in all places. While the two former objections (motivational and logical) target grounds that I consider central to her, e.g. her supposed solely instrumental justification for her friendships, the Psychological Objection targets something different. Claiming that the personal point of view must be the primary point of view in order for the friendship’s intrinsic value to remain “intact” if and when it comes time to terminate it is an extremely confining and restrictive position. Why must true friendship require this position?
Kapur writes the following:

“…some of the reasons for renouncing friendship that we would usually label “moral” are also internal to friendship…some of the reasons for not renouncing it that we would usually label “reasons of friendship” are also internal to morality…The conflict between them is only a partial conflict, because their requirements are, in part, internally connected. ” (Kapur, 1991)

So to illustrate, friendships could be renounced for “reasons of justice”. Suppose I am a friend of Phil Knight, the owner of Nike. And suppose I discover that Phil has outsourced his company’s product production to China in order to cut down on production expenses by employing Chinese children to increase profits. Justice may deem the exploitation of children for purely corporate gain to be unjust and associating with unjust beings is wrong, therefore I should relinquish my friendship with him. While my reasons for relinquishing the friendship fall under the realm of “reasons of justice”, Justice is also a necessary true friendship disposition. Because justice is both part of friendship and part of morality broadly understood, the intrinsic value of the friend remains intact because the reasons for doing so apply to the same “realm of concerns” (Kapur, 1991). So why is the SAC-ist commitment to the impersonal point of view excluded?
Perhaps the reason rests upon the initially plausible point that our SAC-ist is committed a moral theory of maximization taking into consideration all things. As a result moral reasons external to the friendship may conflict with the friendship itself. Surely though the SAC-ist isn’t the only moral agent that allows impersonal reasons to play a role in his or her motivations, or in assessing the value of a particular relationship. The agent of virtue may choose to revalue and relinquish his friendship with another for external moral reasons, to sacrifice his life for his country for example. Kapur even alludes to this explicitly when she writes:

“Friendship may have to be renounced for moral reasons that are external to friendship. For example, it might be the case that honor or courage as a soldier requires the betrayal of friend over country…” (Kapur, 1991)

So just because moral reasons are external to friendship doesn’t seem to be Kapur’s aim either. The agent of virtue may assess his situation from the impersonal point of view and thereby revalue his friendship with another in light of honor and his commitment to his country. If moral reasons external to friendship can qualify as reasons for relinquishment Kapur must ultimately be driving at the SAC-ist reason being: the friendship does not maximize the good. So it seems that this is the reason she objects to. However I agree with Card that:

“Sophisticated consequentialists should renounce certain friendships at times because they are suboptimal, since they ought to shuttle between the immediate and long term perspectives. (c.f. Mill 1979, pp. 17-19)” (Card, 2004)

If I choose to relinquish my friendship with another on sub-optimal grounds, how does this violate the two conditions necessary for true friendship?
Kapur must think that if one chooses the personal point of view as the primary point of view, one will be immune to relinquishing friendships because they are sub-optimal. I have already pointed out that even if one accepts the impersonal point of view, this will not be a regular occurrence because the SAC-ist will think and act on various internalized rules, dispositions, and beliefs. But if I have enough evidence to believe that remaining in a friendship with murderer could lead to devastatingly bad consequences, I ought to end that friendship! While I have written that the SAC-ist should not always base what she ought to do by calculating which outcome of all those available to her will produce the best consequences, in certain scenarios she ought to engage in consequentialist deliberation explicitly. The SAC-ist ought to “monitor” her surroundings. One might worry if allowing for the SAC-ist to move freely between a consistent, stable character and an obsessive calculator pushes SAC back into a self-defeating corner. It does not.
While many of us act in a consistent manner we also keep ourselves attentive to our surroundings just in case there is a special situation to be taken advantage of. For example, you might be fairly conservative with your grocery budget because you are a poor graduate student who is living paycheck to paycheck with a notorious caffeine and nicotine addiction. During your routine grocery shopping you stumble upon a sale of Diet Coke 12-packs, 10 for 100 Rs, and you choose to buy 30 12-packs. Because you were attentive to your surroundings you were able to pick up on an easy opportunity to benefit yourself by minimizing your overall grocery costs in the future. One could object to the idea of “monitoring” because the world is in a perpetual state of need as thousands every day go without clean food, water, and basic medical supplies. They may say the SAC-ist ought to always be engaging in explicit consequentialist deliberation because of this ongoing state of need. Hence they concluded that the SAC-ist has no room for true friendships in our world. Notice however the question I am answering is not, should the SAC-ist be a true friend? The question I am answering is, can the SAC-ist be a true friend?
So is relinquishing a friendship because it is sub-optimal really inconsistent with true friendship? I think not. Suppose I am friends with an individual whom I have known since childhood, we grew up playing baseball, attended the same university where we were roommates. Then I discover that he is a murderer and decide to relinquish our friendship because it is sub-optimal. Continuing to befriend a murder may result in me being considered an accomplice to his murders or even worse I may get murdered myself. My reasoning does not violate either of the two conditions necessary for true friendship. I can still value him intrinsically and I can still hold the dispositions necessary for true friendship, but in realizing this relationship would not be best overall I choose to relinquish it. I fail to see how this reason for relinquishing a friendship would remove its intrinsic value or deprive me of my required dispositions.
In this paper I have shown that the objections advanced by the new friendship critics, specifically Kapur, against the SAC-ist merely misunderstand her theory and are therefore not a threat to the theory’s plausibility. The SAC-ist, by making several adjustments to her moral theory is able to satisfy the conditions necessary for true friendships. Further I have taken a closer look at the Incompatibility Argument, specifically its psychological objection to the SAC-ist and revealed an important flaw in its reasoning. The Incompatibility Argument objects to relinquishing friendships because they are sub-optimal but this reason is perfectly consistent with true friendship because it violates neither necessary condition. This reason for relinquishment will not be a regular occurrence as the SAC-ist will “monitor” her surroundings and more often than not will not need to engage in explicit consequentialist deliberation. Whether or not SAC-ist should be true friends is a different question that requires a different paper. However, given that certain critics have placed such a high prize on true friendship and attempted to undermine SAC by claiming that its agents cannot have these special types of relationships when they can leads me to think that if one were to take up the question, “Should the Sophisticated Act-Consequentialist be a true friend?” the answer would be yes.


References:

Card, R. F. (2004). Consequentialism, Teleology, and the New Friendship Critique. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85, 149-172.

Kapur, N. B. (1991). Why It Is Wrong to be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship. Ethics, 101 (3), 483-504.

Portmore, D. W. (2008, Spring). Consequentialism. PHI420/591: Arizona State University.

Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye tau kya hai?

"He couldn't digest failure," says close friend and one-time confidant, Dev Anand.
"He was engulfed by depression because he always felt he wasn't able to give enough to his relationships and to his films," says Nadira, once his neighbour and friend.

An air of loss and mystery continues to shroud the talented but troubled Guru Dutt's premature death in 1964 --- he was 39 when he died. A keen look at the director's classics shows a recurring appearance of a death wish.
Even if one were to desist from reading too deeply between the frames, one conclusion leaps to the eye. Dutt's films are a testimonial to the popular belief: great art comes from great suffering.

Guru Dutta Padukone's childhood would have confounded Freud --- there were no signs of a tortured soul. Born on July 9, 1925, near Banglore, to erudite, middle-class parents, Guru Dutt was enamoured by dancing. After a stint at Uday Shankar's Dance Academy in Almora, Guru Dutt wired home to say he had got the job of a telephone operator in Kolkata. But he disengaged himself from the job soon and bagged his first film assignment as choreographer, in Lakhrani (1945).
The second half of the Forties were a period of struggle. Dutt played a small role in Prabhat's Hum Ek Hain (1946) which brought him in close contact with fellow newcomer Dev Anand. Dev and Guru Dutt double dated, swapped shirts, and also shared a pact: if Dev ever produced a film, Guru Dutt would direct it. If Guru Dutt ever made a film, Dev would star in it. Dev made it first and gave Guru Dutt the promised break as director with Navketan's Baazi (1951).
Baazi [Dev Anand, Kalpana Karthik and Geeta Bali] had shades of the Film Noir movement of Forties' Hollywood --- the morally ambiguous hero, the transgressing siren, shadowy lighting. Baazi created a major buzz and Dutt followed it with a more noirish thriller Jaal (with Geeta Bali trying hard to resist bad boy Dev's illicit charms).
The director graduated to hero opposite Geeta Bali in Baaz (1953), an eminently forgettable fare. On a brighter note, he married singer Geeta Roy in the same year. Geeta sang some unforgettable songs in his films for years to come.


Guru Dutt's breakthrough as actor-producer-director came with Aar Paar (1954). This entertaining crime thriller was a gutsy venture with a music director (O P Nayaar) who had yet to give a hit film and two heroines who were hardly major stars (Shyama and Shakila).
Interestingly, one running theme in most of his films was the other woman. In Baazi, Kalpana was the conventional heroine and Geeta Bali the moll in love with Dev. In Aar Paar, Shyama was the one he loves while Shakila was the second lead. Shakila was promoted to heroine in C I D while newcomer Waheeda played the vamp. Pyaasa starred both Mala Sinha and Waheeda Rehman.


By a strange coincidence, Waheeda and more profound concerns entered Dutt's films with Pyaasa (1957). This sombre, nihilistic film was a marked departure from Dutt's light-hearted romantic entertainer Mr And Mrs 55 (1955). Pyaasa (which Dutt had originally planned with the heart-stopping combination of Dilip Kumar-Nargis-Madhubala) was about a poet betrayed by his lover, disowned by his brother and short-changed by his publisher. In the finale, the poet forsakes all of them and fame, seeking solace in the arms of a social outcaste, the streetwalker Gulab (Waheeda Rehman).


Replete with symbols, Pyaasa lamented the inability of a prosecuting world to understand the purity of a genuine soul. In the Sahir Ludhianvi gem, Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai, Dutt posed as though at a crucifixion. Those who missed Dutt’s obvious allusions to the Son of God were still enraptured by Dutt's engrossing storytelling, his flair for song picturisations and his inherent ability to extract the best from four talented actors --- Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Rehman and Dutt himself.


After its success, Guru Dutt braved one more film on the transient nature of stardom and fame, Kagaz Ke Phool. With V K Murthy's still-admired cinematography, Dutt created some unforgettable visuals in the film: the image of filmstar Waheeda running after her mentor Dutt only to be held back by autograph hunters still finds an echo in films like Hum.
Kagaz Ke Phool won raves for Dutt but set him back by Rs 17 lakh --- a huge sum those days. Dutt produced a Muslim social Chaudhvi Ka Chaand (1960) with an eye on the box office. The title song became a rage and the film filled Dutt's coffers.


Devastated and disillusioned by Kagaz Ke Phool's failure, Dutt never signed a film with his name again. His next was the wonderfully atmospheric Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (1962). To date, the controversy rages on: did Guru Dutt ghost direct the film or did Abrar Alvi, whose name appears as director in the credits, really call the shots?
Set in a crumbling 19th century haveli, symbolic of the slow decay of feudalism, the film told the tale of the lovely yet unloved chhoti bahu (Meena Kumari). Spurned by her husband yet desperately in love with him, she seeks support from her ghulam, Bhootnath (Guru Dutt), and increasingly from alcohol.
Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam couldn't stop Dutt's life from falling apart: his parting with Waheeda when she sought to establish her own identity outside his films hurt Dutt. A last ditch effort to reunite with estranged wife Geeta also failed.
Dutt was addicted to paan (he had an ornate spitoon at his Peddar Road house in Mumbai), also began drowning his woes in alcohol. A few days before he died on October 10, 1964, Dutt met Dev, expressing a desire to cast him in his next film. Dev agreed, and asked to hear the script. Dutt, now a pale shadow of himself, didn't return, succumbing instead to an overdose of sleeping pills.
Picnic with upcoming star Sadhana remained incomplete. As did K Asif's Love And God costarring Nimmi (Sanjeev Kumar replaced Dutt and it was released two decades later). Brother Atma Ram completed Dutt's own venture Baharein Phir Bhi Aayengi (with Mala Sinha and Tanuja), after reshooting Dutt's portions with Dharmendra.
If only Dutt had heeded the life-affirming title song from Baharein Phir Bhi Aaayegi: Badal jaaye agar mali, chaman hota nahi khali [Even if the gardener changes, the garden will not stop sprouting flowers].