Lawrence Becker, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of William & Mary and fellow of Hollins University, has died.
Professor Becker was known for his work in ethics, especially regarding disability and health, political philosophy, particularly in regard to property rights, and stoicism. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1965. He taught at Hollins until 1989, and then became William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary, retiring in 2001.
Professor Becker was impressed by the ubiquity of pluralism in moral philosophy and the challenges pluralism held for political philosophy. For example, in “Reciprocity, Justice, and Disability,” he writes that political philosophers who have hoped to justify government on the basis of agreement face what he calls the “tough-crowd” problem:
the problem of persistent, life-and-death conflicts between people who are politically engaged and willing to deal with each other—rather than fight as a first resort—but who have irreconcilable views about human good and the good life. The aim has been to find common ground that yields agreement on a substantive theory of justice…
If we cannot solve this Tough-Crowd Problem, if we cannot build robust and sustainable commitments to justice between ourselves and those whom we regard as powerful but evil, powerful but amoral, powerful but unreasonable, or powerful but badly wrong in their conception of the good life, then we have little chance, short of perpetual warfare, of protecting the disabled or anyone else. Whatever else we do, surely we must continue the struggle to find a theory of justice that will get the reflective endorsement of hard-boiled political realists, opportunistic free riders, enthusiastic anarchists, resourceful skeptics, cultural relativists, ideologues of all stripes, members of militant religions, relentless advocates for special interests…
He believed that help in this struggle was to be found in an expansive conception of reciprocity.
You can learn more about Professor Becker’s work here, and watch a video of him sharing his philosophical views and personal reflections on living with a disability here.
(via Nickolas Pappas)
Larry was one of my philosophy profs at W&M and really the reason I went into philosophy: I was a physics major, but started taking his ethics classes my junior year.
I never got enough for the degree, but spent a lot of time talking to him about philosophy as a profession and which graduate schools to look at. Great teacher, and really great person. Anyway, I bet a lot of us have “the” person that we’d think led us into philosophy; was always happy it was him and someone I liked and admired so much personally, particularly given the adversity he overcame.
I am a full time graduate student in Liberty’ s Master of Public Health program and also work in healthcare. I have had to watch many lecture videos since my program is online, but this was certainly the most most profound I have viewed all semester and perhaps the the most valuable life advice. I am reading the book Habilitation, Health, and Agency which I ordered months ago and would much rather continue to read than what has been assigned for this week; but most of all I will miss the talks on art, literature, politics, and other random topics. Dt. Becker, I am honored to have met you. Godspeed.
Margaret Manuel (Margo)
J’ai bien connu Lawrence C. Becker qui m’a aidé généreusement pour mon travail de thèse de doctorat en philosophie. Un homme très disponible doté d’une grande ouverture d’esprit, qui m’a confié avoir été attiré par la philosophie après avoir lu les existentialistes français. Nous avons aussi beaucoup échangé sur les rapports entre le handicap et le mode de vie stoïcien.
Une rencontre marquante et un grand honneur d’avoir connu cette personnalité hors du commun.
Pierre Haese
I am so sorry that I did not know of Professor Becker’s passing until just recently. I would have wanted to share the following eulogy.
This great THINKING man literally changed my whole life in every positive way possible.Not a single week goes by that I don’t think about him and credit him, specifically, with every single success, both personal and professional, I have thus far had in life.
I met him “accidentally” as a freshman at Hollins College. I was going to be a theater major and I had resisted the idea of even going to college at all. It was actually my mother who quietly “applied” on my behalf for admission to Hollins based on my standardized test scores, while I was busy rebelling against my father’s declaration that theater was no “real”profession.
I needed a class that didn’t start at 8am (way too early for a college kid) and his class, “Critical Thinking” fit the bill. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. A quadriplegic professor ? A 40 page paper due every Thursday ??? All kinds of different types of writing ?? “98% of us would FLUNK the first five weeks of this course” according to Becker. Say WHAAAAAAT ???!! OMG, What have I done to myself ??
As I slogged through that first year, I somehow miraculously managed to be in the 2% that didn’t “flunk”. In fact, inexplicably, I got an ‘A’ on my very first paper. Who knew ? It was the very first time I ever felt seen and rewarded for ANYTHING that was randomly happening in my brain. That feeling stuck.
I then began to gradually share more of what was occurring to me, and what I was considering concerning what I was observing in the world around me. Instead of being dismissed, told to “shut up” or to “go away”, Mr. Becker encouraged me to share more and seemed genuinely interested not only in what he could teach me, but what I could teach him. It was truly life changing on every level.
I then took every thing he taught or suggested because the class discussions made me feel more alive and engaged than I had ever felt. Turned out, I had muscles and gears I had never really used before. Often my head would literally hurt from trying to grapple with difficult concepts and ideas into the wee hours of the morning.
Meanwhile, the man who headed the theater department looked more and more narcissistic and small. His seeming need for constant affirmation from his female students got tiresome, and that infected (but thankfully didn’t kill) my love of the theater for decades to come.
What a contrast of manhood. What a contrast between far reaching curiosity and unrelenting self-absorption. What a sharp portrait between the different kinds of human experience we can choose to have, the impacts we can choose to create, and the different kinds of relationships we can choose to foster. I have never forgotten that unexpected lesson and I use it every day.
Professor Becker was a living case study in endurance, grace, perseverance, stoicism, intellectual brilliance, commitment, endless curiosity, fierce expectations and generous encouragement.
I had absolutely no interest in “thinking” at all (much less “critically” thinking) when I met Dr. Becker, preferring as so many do, to simply skip through life, alternately escaping (into the theater) or distracting myself with the antics and entanglements of others, never focusing too long on either.
I don’t remember now if I even knew HOW to think, before I met Becker. I just know that after Becker, EVERYTHING changed. It is like THAT is the moment I was born, and I don’t recall at all how I used to be before that. There is simply before Becker and after Becker.
The mechanical skills he imparted more than taught, are now so much much a part of me as to be a true second nature. I cannot tell where they end and “I” begin.They have been my only armor in this runaway age of disinformation, propaganda, and “fake” “news”.
Since leaving Hollins, in addition to performing in community theater and going on tour, I became among other things, a lawyer, prosecutor, member of my state house, and Circuit Judge.
At every juncture, I have USED the philosophical inquiries and investigations that Professor Becker introduced me to. His was always an invitation, NOT a sermon.
Why he put up with me, someone who initially was so obviously not intrigued by and unsuited to serious intellectual, moral or philosophical study, is still a mystery. I am just so very lucky that he somehow saw in a scatterbrained theater wannabe what a mirror never showed me… my capacity to be completely transformed by my untapped ability to THINK.
Everyone should have a Larry Becker in their life, I’m so fortunate that I actually did !
Professor Becker left me with three enduring and invaluable gifts and one inescapable warning :
Larry Becker did that.
The warning, which is more urgent now than ever, is that no matter what conclusions we commit ourselves and our world to, we must never lose the skill and process of knowing HOW to think.
Otherwise, we abandon humanity’s hard earned sovereign role in that world and can only by-stand while “gut reactions”, emotions, and contagious whim bulldoze our futures.
We can never “gut react” our way out of existential crisis. Thinking is required.
In honor of Dr. Larry Becker, let’s NEVER forget HOW to do that.