Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 30

For episode 29, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The moderns

XXX. Liberalism Modernized
 A. "Collectivism" as a spontaneous defense against social
     destructiveness of industrial revolution began to replace
     economic liberalism.
 B. Liberal theory had to meet realities of industrialization.  
 C. John Stuart Mill on Liberty
         1. Mill's philosophy, in a broad sense, is an effort to modify
           the empiricism in which he was bred by taking into
           account Kantian philosophy.
       2. Granted differing degrees of pleasure in moral qualities,
           thus departing from greatest happiness standard.
       3. Abandoned egoism and saw moral goods as good in
           themselves apart from contribution to greatest good.
       4. Argued for popular government and liberty not as merely
           efficient means but as producing and giving scope to a
           a high moral character.
       5. Saw that behind liberal government there must be a 
           liberal society.
       6. But while arguing for individual freedom, the area for such
           freedom -- must have no effect on others -- is reduced to
           insignificance.
       7. Mill never clarified what the individual ought to decide for
           himself and could not appeal to a notion of natural rights.
       8. Abandoned laissez faire in economics.
       9. Mill's liberalism:
           i. added respect for human beings to utility
           ii. accepted political and social freedom as good in themselves
           iii. liberty is a social good as well as an individual good
           iv. the function of a liberal state in a free society is positive
               not negative
 D. Mill saw that Bentham had neglected role that institutions play
     between individual psychology and concrete elements of given
     time and place and did not recognize historical development.
 E. Auguste Comte hoped to make concept of society not speculation
     but science. 
       1. Proposed existence of general law of "development" of
           societies.
       2. The "comparative method" of examining societies became
           "science".
 F. Mill tried to incorporate Comte into utilitarian tradition enlarging
     "empirical" from basis in individual psychology to include the
     study of social institutions and especially their growth.
 G. Herbert Spencer
       1. Also came from philosophical radicalism tradition.
       2. Blended utilitarianism ethical and political ideas with the
           new conception of organic evolution.
       3. While Mill went back to Bentham's empiricism, Spencer
           went back to rationalist tradition of classical economics
           using evolution to reconstruct system of natural society
           with natural boundaries between economics and politics.
       4. In his Synthetic Philosophy, he tried to set up a rationalistic
           system spanning whole range of human knowledge with
           progression from energy to life, from life to mind, from mind
           to society, from society to ever more complex civilizations. 
       5. Saw moral improvement of social well-being achieved through
           the survival of the fittest. 
       6. The state would wither away as society grew more complex 
           through an extension of laissez faire.
       7. Legislation mars this move towards perfection that nature
           itself tends toward via survival of the fittest.
 H. In response to the growing claim of labor to more than subsistence
     existence, and public support for this claim, liberalism needed
     revision to give positive role to government.
 I. Oxford idealists -- T.H.Green, Josiah Royce and John Dewey --
     provided this revision in the late 19th Century.
       1.With Hegel, they shared the general idea that human nature
           is fundamentally social.
       2. Brought to liberalism the problem of the mutual dependence
           between the structure of personality and the cultural
           structure of its social milieu. 
       3. Green saw deprivation as not only economic but also moral.
           i. with the Greeks, saw politics as essentially an agency
              for creating social conditions that make moral
              developmemt possible.
           ii. posited concept of positive freedom to enjoy something
              worth doing or enjoying -- as opposed to Bentham's
              negative freedom from legal restraint -- as freedom must
              include actual possibility of developing human capacities
           iii. requires a genuinely increased individual ability to
               share in goods produced by society and a greater ability
               to contribute to the common good
           iv. consistent with the core of liberal philosophy, the idea of
                a general good capable of being shared by everyone and
                providing a standard for legislation
       4. Green's two elements of rights:
           i. claim to freedom of action in acquiring subsistence as
              part of an individual's impulse to realize his own inner
              powers and capabilities
           ii. general social recognition that this claim is warranted
               and that the individual's freedom really does contribute
               to the general good 

"A moral community from Green's point of view, therefore, is one in
 which the individual responsibly limits his claims to freedom in the
 light of general social interests and in which the community itself
 supports his claims because the general well-being can be realized
 only through his initiative and freedom." 732

 J. Green accepted the state as a positive agency to be used where
    legislation could contribute to positive freedom.
 K. Problems arose in dispute between two of Green's disciples,
     Bernard Bosanquet and  Leonard Hobhouse.
       1. Centered around two ethical relationships:
           i. between individual and community, and 
           ii. between society and state
       2. Bosanquet argued the more Hegelian view of a "social
           self" as what a person would be if fully moral and fully
           intelligent when not impeded by one-sided give-and-take
           with society in charge. 
       3. Hobhouse attacked metaphysical usage of the term "state,"
           introduced to English usage by idealists because it could be
           used to justify illiberal political regimentation or social
           stratification.
 L. Green was also compatible with liberal socialism such as the 
     Fabians.
       1. The Fabians seek to regulate the economy because of the
           bad effects of unregulated ones, not because of class
           struggle.
       2. Extended the critique of economic rent to the accumulation
           of capital.
 M. Liberalism has two usages now, both with valid historical
      background.
       1. As a midpoint between conservatism and socialism, 
           favorable to reform but opposed to radicalism. 
       2. As equivalent to what is popularly called democracy as
           opposed to communism and fascism.
           i. liberalism in this sense means the preservation of
              democratic institutions
           ii. can be identified with whole Western civilization while
               the first meaning can be identified with the middle class 
 N. In the aftermath of WWI, fascism and communism set up
     transcendent collective entity based on race, nation or community.
      1. Conflicted with core elements of liberalism: individualism
          and the moral nature of the relationships between individuals
          in a community.
      2. The moral nature of society inevitably came to be expressed
          as some version of natural rights.
       

Next week:  Marx and Dialectical Materialism            
      

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 28

For episode 27, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVIII. Hegel: Dialectic and Nationalism
 A. The typical conclusions of the Enlightenment:
       1. Hume showed ambiguities of "reason."
       2. Rousseau set up reasons of the heart (sentiment) against reasons
           of the head.
       3. Immanuel Kant sharpened contrast of science and morals (and between
           theoretical and practical reason) to preserve both.
       4. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sought unifying synthesis through
           transcending analytic logic of science. 
 B. Hegel proposed dialectic to demonstrate logical relationship between
      fact and value.
 C. Revolution seen by many, including Hegel, as destructive, doctrinaire
      attempt to remake society and human nature.
       1. Therefore necessity of reconstruction of continuity of national
           institutions.
       2. But was to be reconstruction of stability by the creative forces
           of the nation.
 D. The nation, not the individual, is the significant unit of history via the 
      genius or spirit of the nation -- Volksgeist.
 E. Hegel's political philosophy built around the dialectic and the theory
      of the nation state as the embodiment of political power.  (These two
      did not necessarily entail each other.)
 F. The historical method:
       1. Method of studying history also could be applicable to other
           social studies.
       2. Mode of deriving from the order of historical events standards
           of valuation with which to access significance of particular
           stages in evolution (a philosophy of history).   
       3. Assumed single pattern or law of development that can be 
           exhibited by a proper arrangement of subject matter.
       4. Order is not imposed but immanent.
       5. Standards progressively revealed in evolution of morals, 
           law, etc., provides historically objective standard of values
           to fill vacant place of natural law.
        6. Hegel sought to show necessary stages by which reason 
           approximates the Absolute.
       7. Understanding and reason were faculties of analysis and 
           synthesis respectively and dialectic unites the two.
       8. Understand "breaks up" organic wholes, it is the philosophic 
           basis of indivualism.
           i. fosters illusion that men can remake society
           ii. misses organic creative continuous growth
       9. Only reason can see below historical detail to perceive forces
           that really control events and thus understand that the process
           should be as it is.
 G. In study of religion, following Herder and Lessing, saw succession of
      world religions as progressive revelation of religious truth.
 H. Thought Western civilization product of Greek free intelligence and
      deeper moral and religious insights of Christianity.
 I.  The process of development of the spirit of a people:
       1. Period of "natural" happy but largely unconscious spontaneity
           (thesis).
       2. Period of painful frustration and self-consciousness in which
           the spirit is "turned inward" and loses its spontaneous 
           creativeness (antithesis).
       3. Period in which spirit " returns to itself" at a higher level
           embodying insight gained from frustration (synthesis).
       4. The total process is "thought."
 J. Hegel saw freedom as existing only within bounds of a nation state.
       1. The state is the expression (de facto power) of national unity and
           a national aspiration to self-government.
       2. The state is consistent with any lack of uniformity which does not
           prevent effectively unified government (such as class differences).
       3. With Machiavelli saw no higher duty for the state than its own 
           strengthening and preservation.
       4. The state is the realm in which the Idea of Reason materializes 
           itself (The German Constitution, 1802).
 K. Realization of national spirit contributes to progressive realization of
      the world spirit and is the source of dignity and worth that attaches
      to private concerns of individuals. 
       1. Freedom is voluntary dedication to that realization.
       2. National monarchy is the highest form of constitutional government.
 L. Dialectic and historical necessity (The Philosophy of Right, 1821). 
       1. Dialectic is the new method.
       2. History of a people records the growth of a single national
           mentality that expresses itself in all phases of its culture.

"The individual is for the most part only an accidental variant of the culture
  that created him and insofar as he is different his individuality is more
  likely to be capricious than signficant."

       3. Dialectic is the opposition of forces moving in orderly equilibrium
           and emerging in a pattern of progressive, logical development.
       4. Contradiction means fruitful opposition between systems that 
           constitutes an objective criticism of each and leads continually to
           a more inclusive and coherent system. (Dialectic could manifest as 
           evolution or revolution.) 
 M. Hegel claimed dialectic as logic of reason to supersede logic of
       understanding.
       1. Dialectic both moral judgement and causal law of historical
           development.
       2. Unites relativism with the absolutism.
 N. Dialectic offered no criterion of rightness except success of outcome.
 O. Hegel: individualism and theory of the state.
       1. Individualism had no hold in Hegel's Germany and the same with
           sense of national unity.
       2. Hegel's Philosophy of Right deals with the relationships between
           individual and the social and economic institutions.
       3. Placed state as on a level of political evolution above civil
           society (the result of the end of feudal law and institutions).
       4. Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality made state a mere 
           matter of private interest, a utilitarian device for satisfying private
           needs elevating abstract individualism over society and state.
       5. The individual's best interest lies in being a member of society and 
           the state.
       6. Individualism indifferent to moral and spiritual development of 
           personality by falsifying the nature of social institutions through
           regarding them only as accidental and mere utilitarian devices to 
           satisfy irrational needs
       7. Hegel shared the "Greek notion" of citizenship not in terms of private
           rights but of social functions. 
 P. Hegel saw individual motives as capricious and sentimental, with civil
     civil society as a realm of mechanical necessity, a result of irrational 
     forces of a society.
       1. Society, apart from the state, is governed by non-moral causal laws
           and hence ethically anarchical.
       2. Only the state embodied ethical values and ought therefore to be
           absolute.
       3. Individual attains moral dignity only as he devotes himself to
           the state.
       4. Hegel's theory of freedom implied nothing definite in the way of
           civil or political liberties but he did not reject them in practice. 
       5. The state depends on civil society as the means of accomplishing
            the moral purpose it embodies.
       6. The state is absolute but not arbitrary, it must rule through law and
           law is "rational."
       7. Civil society consists of corporations and the legislature is where
           they meet the state.
       8. The legislature only advisory to the ministry of the governing class
           or "universal class."
 Q. Hegel's constitutionalism not liberal (i.e., democratic procedures)
      but based on orderly bureaucratic administration not subject to
      to public opinion but to the public spirit of an official class that
      stands above conflicts of economic and social interests.
 R. Hegel united Rousseau's general will (the manifestation of the 
      spiritual force forming the core of reality) and Burke's religious
      vision of history as a "divine tactic." 
 S. Replaced eternal system of unchangeable natural law with a
      rational unfolding of the Absolute in History.
       1. Reason manifested itself in social groups not individuals.
       2. Society seen as system of forces rather than community of 
           individuals.
       3. Highlighted importance of historical study of institutions but
           left individual actions as merely a "reflection" of social forces.
       4. Can be seen as giving rise to Marxism (a direct link), the English
           liberalism of Oxford idealists and the Italian fascists. 

Next week:  Liberalism -- Philosophical Radicalism
 
 
 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 27

For episode 26, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVII. Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke
 A. Natural Law hung on in France as revolutionary solvent of an antiquated
      system.
 B. In defense of revolution in England, natural law had no immediate 
     practical utility.
       1. Idea of deductive ethics and philosophy slowly rejected.
       2. Empirical philosophy stressing natural history of ideas and their
           derivation from the senses developed (as Locke suggested).
 C. David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-40)  
       1. Presented analysis that exposed pretensions of natural law to
           scientific validity.
       2. Use of reason had uncritically combined and confused three factors.
           i. Had effect of describing as necessary truths propositions that can
              make no such claim.
           ii. Can be things rightly called reasonable in the sense of being
               necessary and inevitable, e.g., formal implications where a
               conclusion follows if a premise is taken for granted--> deduction. (1)
           iii. No "comparison of ideas" can prove a matter of fact, and 
               relationships between matters of fact are never necessary in a strict
               sense but simply empirically correlated.(2)
           iv. Reason cannot dictate ways of acting, good or bad but can only
               guide us to know how to achieve desired ends and how to avoid 
               undesired ones.(3)

 Hume: "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can
 never pretend to any other office than to save and obey them."

       3. The attacked the three branches of natural law system.
           i. Natural or rational religion -- a rational metaphysics showing the
              necessary existence of anything -- is impossible.
           ii. Rational ethics also since values depend on human propensity
               to action and reason cannot itself create any obligation. 
               Virtue is just a quality of mind that is generally approved. 
           iii. Contractual, consensual theories of politics also as government
                doesn't really ask subjects to consent. Loyalty towards
                government is as common as feeling that agreements should
                be kept; purposes of political allegiance is to keep order and
                preserve peace and security while contract creates mutual trust
                between private persons.  Both are binding because stable
                society is not possible without them.
       4. Hume didn't find man to be as calculating of his self interest as
           did Bentham and the French utilitarians.
       5. Common interest exists as body of conventions shown by experience
           to serve human needs in a general way.  Rules provide stability as
           men need to know what they can rely on:
           i. Conventions regulating property --> justice
           ii. Those that legitimate political authority 
           iii. Utility includes self interest and social stability
 D. Hume's conclusions largely accepted but branded as merely negative.
       1. Logical result was empirical positivism.
       2. Metaphysics, religion and ethics went on, however, in more or less
           traditional forms.
           i. Kant and Hegel attempted to reunite reason, fact and value
           ii. tendency to either depreciate logic as compared to sentiment or
               to hope to combine the two (Carlyle)
           iii. respect for sentiment led to new estimate of custom and tradition,
               as unfolding of reason rather than its antithesis (Burke)
           iv. view of history as gradual unfolding of the absolute 
 E. Edmund Burke accepted Hume and saw a society's standards as
      conventions based on propensities.
       1. Saw conventions as repository of achievements of the species.
       2. Saw society and propensities as human nature.
       3. Consequently, traditions of a nation's life have utility above their
           contribution to individual utility.
       4. Therefore, tradition of constitution, and of society at large, ought to be
           object of almost religious reverence.
       5. The species is wiser that the individual or any movement.
       6. Supported Whigs because the particular outcome of the English
           revolution they represented was by that time tradition. 
           i. Consequently, his theory of representation looked back to the
              17th Century
           ii. Denied representation being of individuals or territories
           iii. Parliament was meeting place of dominant interests where they
               could be held accountable
           iv. did, however, see positive benefits of parties as groups of men
               pursuing their natural interests upon some shared principle.
       7. A people was a "true politic personality" -- a community held together
           by sense of membership and duty and not calculated self interest.
       8. Man could not live on private stock of reason.
       9. Statesman consulted spirit of the constitution to gain clues for its
           development; statesmanship is an art. 
       10. Rejected French Revolution as destruction of society through
             destruction of government.
           i. For Sabine, Burke confused state, government and society by
              interchanging them.
           ii. Resulted in transferring reverence toward society to reverence
               to the state.
           iii. Practically made politics religion and saw unfolding immanence
               of God.
       11. Rousseau and Burke shared reverence for community.
       12. Hegel systematized Burke, though no direct link.

Next week: Hegel -- Dialectic and Nationalism




   
  

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 11

For episode 10 see here

 The Theory of the Universal Community

 XI. The Folk and Its Law
    A. Between 6th and 9th Centuries, Roman Empire (and antiquity) broke.
       Europe came under Germanic invaders
    B. Repeated invasions in 10th and 11th Centuries, little philosophical or 
       theoretical activity
    C. Authority of Fathers Cicero unbounded
    D. Early Middle Ages political thought
       1. Germanics saw Law as belonging to the folk as if it were an
          attribute of the group
       2. there was great diversity of laws
       3. Law seen to be externally valid and to some degree sacred, pervaded
          all of life
       4. Law seen to be discovered not made

"The belief that law belongs to the people and is applied or modified with their
  approval and consent was therefore universally accepted.... Historically the
  apparatus was later than the idea that the people was a corporate body which
  expressed its corporate mind through its magistrates and natural leaders."(206) 

       5. King bound to follow Law as it could be ascertained by consulting
          immemorial practice
       6. each enjoyed protection of Law according to rank and order as his fathers
          had
       7. limits on the king were therefore vague
    F. Three sorts of claims to royal power were combined
       1. Kings inherited throne
       2. Election by the people
       3. Ruled by grace of God
       4. first two became more distinguished as constitutional practices became
          regularized and clearly defined
       5. Monarchy and Papacy became elective (in the Empire)
    G. Feudal relations and ideas
       1. large political and economic units not practical
       2. agricultural practices and conditions made the village community and
          farm lands almost self-sufficient
       3. System of land tenure and vested rights
          i. land was wealth
          ii. obligations were contractual, mutually binding
       4. King was titular representative of the public interest, his rule stood on
          res publica as a continuation of the commonwealth tradition with king
          as chief magistrate
       5. King was not absolute, acted through his court or council
       6. John of Salisbury recognized the ancient tradition

Next week: The Investiture Controversy