Meet Tony. He's my student. He's about my age, and he's in San Quentin State Prison. When Tony was 16 years old, one day, one moment, "It was mom's gun. Just flash it, scare the guy. He's a punk. He took some money; we'll take his money. That'll teach him. Then last minute, I'm thinking, 'Can't do this. This is wrong.' My buddy says, 'C'mon, let's do this.' I say, 'Let's do this.'" And those three words, Tony's going to remember, because the next thing he knows, he hears the pop. There's the punk on the ground, puddle of blood. And that's felony murder -- 25 to life, parole at 50 if you're lucky, and Tony's not feeling very lucky.
Spoznajte Tonyja. Moj študent je. Približno enake starosti sva, le da je on zapornik v San Quentinu. Ko je bil Tony star 16 let, nekega dne, v nekem trenutku: "Mamina pištola je bila. Samo pokaži jo. Prestraši tipa. Bedak je. Vzel je nekaj denarja, mi bomo vzeli njegovega. To ga bo izučilo. Potem, v zadnjem trenutku, razmišljam: 'Tega ne morem narediti. To je narobe.' Moj kolega reče: 'Daj že, napravimo to.' Odvrnem: 'Dajmo, storimo to.'" In te tri besede si bo Tony zapomnil, saj v naslednjem trenutku zasliši pok. Tip je na tleh, poleg njega mlaka krvi. In to je zločinski umor -- od petindvajset let do dosmrtne ječe, pomilostitev pri 50, če imate srečo, in Tonyju se ni zdelo, da ima posebno srečo.
So when we meet in my philosophy class in his prison and I say, "In this class, we will discuss the foundations of ethics," Tony interrupts me. "What are you going to teach me about right and wrong? I know what is wrong. I have done wrong. I am told every day, by every face I see, every wall I face, that I am wrong. If I ever get out of here, there will always be a mark by my name. I'm a convict; I am branded 'wrong.' What are you going to tell me about right and wrong?"
Ko se srečava na mojem predavanju filozofije v njegovem zaporu in ko rečem: "Pri tem predmetu bomo razpravljali o osnovah etike," me Tony prekine. "Kaj boš to mene naučil o tem, kaj je prav in kaj narobe? Vem, kaj je narobe. Napravil sem take stvari. Vsak dan mi vsak obraz, ki ga vidim, vsak zid okoli mene, pove, da nimam prav. Če bom kdajkoli odšel od tu, bo poleg mojega imena vedno oznaka. Sem obsojenec, označen sem kot "napačen". Kaj boš ti meni govoril o prav in narobe?"
So I say to Tony, "Sorry, but it's worse than you think. You think you know right and wrong? Then can you tell me what wrong is? No, don't just give me an example. I want to know about wrongness itself, the idea of wrong. What is that idea? What makes something wrong? How do we know that it's wrong? Maybe you and I disagree. Maybe one of us is wrong about the wrong. Maybe it's you, maybe it's me -- but we're not here to trade opinions; everyone's got an opinion. We are here for knowledge. Our enemy is thoughtlessness. This is philosophy."
Zato mu rečem: "Oprosti, huje je, kot misliš. Misliš, da veš, kaj je prav in kaj narobe? Mi lahko poveš, kaj je narobe? Ne, ne daj mi samo primera. Vedeti hočem o "narobe" samem, o ideji tega. Kaj je ta ideja? Kaj povzroči, da je nekaj narobe? Kako vemo, da je narobe? Morda se midva v tem ne strinjava. Morda se nekdo od naju moti o tem, kaj je narobe. Morda se ti, morda se jaz -- a nisva tu, da bi izmenjala mnenji; vsak ima svoje mnenje. Tu sva zaradi znanja. Ne-razmišljanje je naš sovražnik. Tole je filozofija."
And something changes for Tony. "Could be I'm wrong. I'm tired of being wrong. I want to know what is wrong. I want to know what I know." What Tony sees in that moment is the project of philosophy, the project that begins in wonder -- what Kant called "admiration and awe at the starry sky above and the moral law within." What can creatures like us know of such things? It is the project that always takes us back to the condition of existence -- what Heidegger called "the always already there." It is the project of questioning what we believe and why we believe it -- what Socrates called "the examined life." Socrates, a man wise enough to know that he knows nothing. Socrates died in prison, his philosophy intact.
In za Tonyja se nekaj spremeni. "Morda se motim. Dovolj mi je tega, da se motim. Hočem vedeti, kaj je narobe. Hočem vedeti, kaj vem." Kar Tony v tem trenutku vidi, je filozofski projekt, projekt, ki se začne z začudenjem -- kar je Kant označil kot "čudenje in spoštovanje zvezdnega neba nad mano in moralnega zakona v meni." Kaj lahko bitja, kot smo mi, vemo o takih stvareh? Ta projekt nas vedno vodi nazaj k pogojem obstoja -- kar je Heidegger imenoval "vedno že tam". Ta projekt preizprašuje to, v kar verjamemo in zaradi česar verjamemo -- po Sokratu je to "preizprašano življenje". Sokrat, možak, ki je bil dovolj moder, da je vedel, da nič ne ve. Sokrat je umrl v zaporu, njegova filozofija je ostala nedotaknjena.
So Tony starts doing his homework. He learns his whys and wherefores, his causes and correlations, his logic, his fallacies. Turns out, Tony's got the philosophy muscle. His body is in prison, but his mind is free. Tony learns about the ontologically promiscuous, the epistemologically anxious, the ethically dubious, the metaphysically ridiculous. That's Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche and Bill Clinton.
Tony začne delati domačo nalogo. Nauči se o "zakaj" in "čemu", o vzrokih in povezavah, logiki in zmotah. Izkaže se, da ima Tony mišice za filozofijo. Njegovo telo je v zaporu, njegov um pa je svoboden. Tony se nauči o ontološki promiskuiteti, o epistemološkem strahu, o etičnem dvomu, metafizičnem nesmislu. To so Platon, Descartes, Nietzsche in Bill Clinton.
So when he gives me his final paper, in which he argues that the categorical imperative is perhaps too uncompromising to deal with the conflict that affects our everyday and challenges me to tell him whether therefore we are condemned to moral failure, I say, "I don't know. Let us think about that." Because in that moment, there's no mark by Tony's name; it's just the two of us standing there. It is not professor and convict, it is just two minds ready to do philosophy. And I say to Tony, "Let's do this."
Ko mi torej izroči svoj končni esej, v katerem trdi, da je kategorični imperativ morda preveč brezkompromisen, da bi rešil konflikte, ki vplivajo na naš vsakdan, in me izzove, naj mu povem, ali smo zato vsi obsojeni na moralni propad, odgovorim: "Ne vem. Razmisliva o tem." Kajti v tem trenutku poleg Tonyjevega imena ni nobene oznake, samo midva sva, ki stojiva tam. Nisva profesor in obsojenec, samo dva uma, pripravljena na filozofijo. In takrat Tonyju rečem: "Dajva, storiva to."
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)