Description

Thick and thin concepts have been introduced to the philosopher’s range of instruments by Bernard Williams when he made a distinction between thick and thin ethical concepts, although the words themselves had been in use for a long time. Julian Baggini writes in The Philosopher’s Toolkit that thin ethical concepts leave open as to what precisely constitutes them and their contents can still be decided. A thick ethical concept is a concept which does tell you more about the contents. –  e.g. good and bad are thin, happiness and unhappiness are examples of thicker concepts that might be construed as good or bad, whereas gratitude and deceit are concepts which are even thicker.

One can easily recognize that there is a distinction, but it is quite hard for philosophers to concretely pinpoint the specific definition of a thick and a thin. More often than not, the dichotomy is showcased using examples, like I did above. This gives the reader a feel for the thick and the thin. This is quite an intuitive distinction.

A philosopher who took a more elegant approach was Pekka Väyrynen. He wrote in his book Why Thick Concepts Matter that thick concepts hold together both evaluative and non-evaluative descriptions. Consider arrogance, a state of being excessively sure of oneself, sometimes at the cost of another. The description tells us both what is happening as well as what evaluative judgement accompanies it. A thick description therefore binds them together.

For the remainder of this article, I’ll use a more elaborate version of Väyrynen’s concept of thickness, where I’ll consider the thickness of a concept to relate to the different aspects it represents. These aspects could be considered dimensions. A concept which merely contains an evaluative judgement has less dimensions than a concept that contains an additional description. It is out of the scope of this publication to demarcate between possible other aspects that may make up other separate dimensions of a concept. That is the responsibility of future philosophers who attempt to utilise thick and thin concepts.

Application to Integration

In this section, I shall discuss how the thick and thin distinction can provide a different perspective on the practical complications that arise when migration results in issues, particularly the issue of integration. When it comes to integration, there are several cultural components that play a role, but it is too easy to say that integration is problematic whenever two different cultures clash. It is, after all, not always the case that people who migrate necessarily clash with their new local norms. Still, there are movements in several ‘developed’ countries that claim that it is harmful to their culture to let in migrants. The thick/thin distinction helps us illuminate when there is this clash in culture.

Even though initially the thick and thin distinction is mainly used in meta-discussions, it is not limited to this field of philosophy. It has also been used to point out cultural patterns and differences. In a sense, this started with Geertz when he observed cultural descriptions, but it was Seth Kaplan who used the distinction to make an observation when he looked at universality of universal rights. In his book Human Rights in Thick and Thin Societies, Kaplan extensively discusses what he believes makes up thick and thin societies.

He observed that one can make a distinction between thick and thin societies. Even though the basis is still a moral one, the distinction tells us a lot about the extent to which a government is involved in the behaviour of their citizens. According to Kaplan, a thick society puts more emphasis on the health of a group than the health of an individual. Conversely, a thin society has more focus on individual freedoms. Even though Kaplan seems to prefer thick societies over thin ones, he acknowledges the shortcomings of thick societies and the abuse of thick culture by self-enriching warlords and dictators. The distinction he makes is a valid one. Generally, Kaplan considers the liberal countries to be the thinnest, but he talks about Western Europe and North America as being more individualistic and thereby thinner than religious countries like Saudi Arabia. Additionally, countries with strong traditions of hierarchy and customs, like China or India, can also be considered thicker. Generally, a thin country might be described as an individualistic one and a thick country could be considered sociocentric.

However, Kaplan has used them to accentuate differences in moral frameworks between cultures. His account considers there to be thick societies and thin societies. Thick societies are thick because their moral framework is highly specified. Within such a society, social behaviour is controlled and there are a lot of rules about what one ought to do. A thin society, however, leaves social behaviour more open. The influence of social institutes like the Church is therefore a lot less prominent. He comes to the conclusion that thin societies are more focused on individualism whereas thicker societies relate more to the health of groups.

It may seem that the thick/thin description above is unrelated to thick and thin concepts but for the fact that morals are involved. I consider them to be related however. Thickness, in this sense, can be understood as the broadness of their application. Remember that describing something as ‘good’ is a one-dimensional statement, whereas ‘piety’ has at least one more dimension (it is evaluative in the first dimension but additionally describes a state of being, devotion). Altruism could be considered even thicker, as it does not only make an evaluative judgement and describe a state of being. It also describes more precisely what that state of being is. Putting someone else’s needs before your own is something that could be a part of the behaviour of a pious person, but that requires additional information about the piety the person shows.

I use the word ‘dimensions’ here quite intuitively, but one can see that problems arise when one attempts to specifically pinpoint those dimensions. In the example above, it may be hard to decide what the difference in dimensions is between piety and altruism. But notice that there is a difference in the amount of specifics we can ascertain from the two concepts. The pious man is devout to the rules of their religion, but we don’t know what those rules exactly are. We have a general idea, but have to accept that there is no exact way it is filled in. For an altruistic man, it is more clear what he does. He is altruistic because he goes out of his way to help others. We now have a more specific idea about the description, although there is still room for interpretation. In a sense, it is more descriptive, more specific, more narrowed down.

Thus, thickness of ethical concepts may be seen as the dimensions the concepts contain and their descriptiveness. Even though this pattern is not immediately clear in thick and thin societies, I consider the distinction to be the parallel. Thickness of society is decided by the descriptiveness of their cultural norms. A thin society has no rules about behaviour you ought or oughtn’t show, it tells you to do good, but leaves room for interpretation. It is good to enter a same-sex marriage, but similarly, you can enter a heterosexual marriage. Thick societies have more concrete rules. There is a clear hierarchical structure and communities may be enforced to respect their elderly. It is important to note that the role social institutions play in deciding behaviour is far larger. Thus, a thin society tells you to behave and a thick society

It seems to me that the distinction Kaplan makes is rooted in the amount of behavioural rules a given society has. One can easily spot that the thicker moral concepts are also more descriptive in the way one should behave. If one’s culture tells them that they should not eat pork because it is wrong, one could see this as ‘thick’. It is worth noticing that it is not necessarily the amount of rules a given society has, it is the type of rules. This is why Kaplan focuses on how influential social institutes are within their community and what this means for their views on human rights.

Integration of Migrants of ‘Thick’ Origin in ‘Thin Cultures’

Keeping in mind the distinction between thick and thin culture, we now return to the problem of integration. When the right-wing political parties of Western European countries point out the  dangers of allowing too many foreigners or religious groups to settle, they may refer to the way women are treated, or the freedom of speech is threatened. Whereas the religious groups do not consider those rules to be hurtful to the general health of the group dynamics, but also don’t consider our critique to be relevant. This has much to do with the fact that European cultures have recently developed a much thinner system than southern/eastern cultures.

Particularly, the problems that arise from a ‘clash of cultures’. The terminology of a melting pot is somewhat misleading, as increased immigration often only leads to melting of cultures at the edges. It is far more common for an area to form a mosaic of different cultures. Both geologically and socially, similar cultures attract each other and this makes it harder for them to branch out.

Because integration is a very personal process, it doesn’t rely on the interaction of different nations, it relies on interactions between different cultures. That being, the culture of the one that is integrating in a new environment as well as the culture that makes up this environment. In Kaplan’s inquiry, he focuses on nations and their attitude towards human rights. In this case, the attitude is more informal and relies on moral individual psychology.

In countries where individuality is the focal point, there is an apparent freedom of religion. Everybody is allowed to have their own beliefs. But when a religion inhibits individual freedom of choice, it often has to make way in the West. Whether or not either of them is ‘good’ is beyond the scope of this chapter.

It is this very friction between thick and thin culture which makes either side less likely to give in. The assumption whether or not individual freedoms lie at the core of human thriving or societies should be built upon social institutions is controversial, to say the least. However, distinguishing between thick and thin cultures allows one to lay bare the difficulties of either side when it comes to living peacefully along the other. Therefore, this may be a good starting point to further examine our differences and thereby philosophise about ways to depolarize.

Further Reading