An Introduction to Political Theory and
Political Philosophy (2011-2012)
“Theory” is
from a Greek word (Greek, θεωρέω;
Latin, theoria)
meaning “a looking at, a viewing; contemplation, speculation.” Theory is a type
of human action: the inspection, examination, or consideration of something. Political theory is the examination of political things. In this classical
sense, theory is part of any scientific undertaking, for “science” generally
refers to a comprehensive effort to understand something by examining it
thoroughly.
Today, because of the influence of
modern physical science, the word “theory” is often used to refer to the
articulated results of theoretical efforts—the theories. A theory in the sense of a “scientific
theory” is an extended hypothetical argument. A modern scientific theory or
“construct” proposes an explanation of an observable event, the term for which
is “phenomenon,” another word derived from the Greek.[1] A
scientific theory ties a particular phenomenon to other phenomena in
predictable, causal ways. The term “theory” is also used popularly to indicate
a hypothesis—a proposed explanation of something (“my theory is that the explosion
resulted from a gas leak”). In the following introduction, we shall use
“theory” in the classical sense of comprehensive examination rather than in the
modern senses of a hypothetical argument or an explanation of observable
events.
“Philosophy”
also carries the fundamental meaning of thorough examination.[2]
Leo Strauss highlighted this connection when he said, “In the expression
‘political philosophy,’ ‘philosophy’ indicates the manner of treatment: a
treatment which both goes to the roots and is comprehensive.”[3]
Philosophy is distinguished from other studies by its breadth and its focus on
wisdom. In ancient times, philosophy was primarily understood to be not an
academic subject but a way of living, a life devoted to the pursuit of wisdom
and truth: both philosophy and theory were originally understood to be types of
human action.
"Wisdom" in turn is
understood to be knowledge of the most important things in life, the permanent
things—the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the ultimate standards
of right and wrong. Strauss said that “philosophy’s quest for wisdom is a quest
for universal knowledge, for knowledge of the whole.”[4] In
the ancient words of
Those who pursue wisdom have earned the
title “philosophers,” and philosophy is nothing more or less, if you translate
the word, than the “devotion to wisdom.” This is how some older philosophers
define wisdom: it is the knowledge of everything about both gods and men and
what causes underlie nature.[5]
Socrates, the man for whom the term "philosopher"
was coined, made a similar point in Plato’s Republic:
"For you know, [this] consideration is about the greatest thing, a good
life and a bad one."[6]
Philosophy has come to be known not
only as a life-long pursuit of wisdom but as a subject of academic study that
often yields writings—“philosophies”—that reflect that pursuit. Even the
writings of Plato that argue for philosophy as a way of life are now studied as
part of the material that makes up the academic subject.[7] In
this introduction, we must use “philosophy” in both of these ways: philosophy
as the comprehensive examination of a subject with the purpose of obtaining
wisdom and philosophy as particular works reflecting that examination.[8]
Because of the closeness between the classical meanings of philosophy and
theory, we will use the two terms synonymously throughout.
The purpose of this introductory
essay is to explain that though philosophy is the love of wisdom, you need not
be in love with philosophy to be able to analyze the philosophic or theoretical
writings that will be assigned in the course, to acquire a basic understanding
of the different writers that we will study, and to form coherent opinions
about their ideas and about political things. After all, as Socrates said, "The
argument is not about just any question, but about the way one should
live," and there is no subject that should be of more interest to
intelligent people, especially today.
The Components of
Philosophy
Philosophy, in its pursuit of
knowledge of the whole, breaks the whole down into several intellectually
distinguishable, component subjects or questions: “ontology” is the study of being, of reality, of what really and
truly exists and how it exists; "cosmology" is the related but
narrower study of the nature of the observable universe;
"epistemology" refers to questions about what we can know and how we
can know it; "anthropology" (or “philosophical anthropology”) is the
study of human nature, the nature of man; "ethics" is the study of
what is right and wrong, good and evil, for individual human beings; and
"politics" is the study of the right order and government of an
organized community. There are other subjects of philosophic study (such as
logic and aesthetics), and the bumper-sticker definitions given here do not
even scratch the surface in explaining the studies just listed, but this list
gives us an idea of the content that a course in political philosophy might
contain. Wisdom as “knowledge of the whole,” as knowledge of all things, is
understood to comprehend these particular studies in an effort to see their
relationships to each other.
Each of these subjects is described
in more detail below, but actually, we talk about these things all the time
when we question whether government should really be doing this or that,
whether this or that is truly “right” or “good,” whether people are basically
honest or dishonest, sheep or selfish wolves, whether we can actually know the
answers to the questions just asked or whether it is all a matter of personal
opinions, and even “Is there meaning in life?” or “Is this all there is?” This
class assumes that you are interested in politics. If want to think seriously
about politics and not simply follow one leader or party or ideology blindly in
whatever direction that leader, party, or ideology herds you, your thinking and questioning will take you in these five
directions.
Very few
philosophical works include every one of these studies. Most philosophical works—articles,
essays, and books—focus on one subject or another. A thorough study of human
nature, or of right and wrong, or of political order, however, leads to and
must rest on considerations of cosmology, ontology, and epistemology, and it
must be internally consistent as well as accurate in its description of the
subject matter. Political philosophy, in particular, depends on considerations
of the other five subjects just mentioned—cosmology, ontology, epistemology,
anthropology, and ethics—leading some philosophers to call it the highest or
most comprehensive philosophic study.
Aristotle made this claim when, in
his most famous work on ethics, not
politics, he called politics, not
ethics, the “master science”:
Will
not then a knowledge of this Supreme Good be also of
great practical importance for the conduct of life? Will it not better enable
us to attain what is fitting, like archers having a target to aim at? If this
be so, we ought to make an attempt to determine at all events in outline what exactly
this Supreme Good is, and of which of the theoretical or practical sciences it
is the object. Now it would be agreed that it must be the object of the most
authoritative of the sciences—some science which is pre-eminently a
master-craft. But such is manifestly the science of Politics.[9]
Earlier, Plato, speaking through Socrates, suggested much the
same thing in the passages we cited from the Republic and the Gorgias.
Nor are statements of this kind
confined to the thinkers of ancient
Philosophical writings come to us in
many different forms—Plato’s dramatic dialogues, Aristotle's lecture notes,
Lucretius’s poem, Gnostic "gospels," St. Augustine's letters and
essays, St. Thomas's scholastic demonstrations, and Hobbes's, Locke’s, and
Rousseau’s treatises or book-length studies of politics. Regardless of the
form, the content of these writings is ideas—“speculative thought" as
Henri Frankfort calls it—that attempt to make sense of a complex and
multi-faceted part of life by placing it within the context of the whole of
reality. For most students, getting a handle on ideas and abstract thought
takes practice and requires some getting used to. It is important to remember
when reading the assigned works that the writers were intelligent individuals
who had definite things to say and that each said what he had to say in an
orderly way that has stood the test of time. This is why these works are called
"classics." The writers did not compose stream-of-consciousness
monologues or "first-thing-that-pops-into-my-mind" mixtures of hot
air and other gases. The writings are
purposefully structured and can be systematically analyzed. Using a dictionary
and the tools provided in this essay, you should read the assigned works
sympathetically first in order to understand their structure and detail before
turning to criticize them. Make sure that you understand the writings before
you attempt to evaluate them.
But even more important to remember
is that these writers are not necessarily correct in what they say; indeed,
since most of the assigned writers contradict at least one other writer that
you will read, they cannot all be correct. What follows from this is that you,
the lowly college student, after analyzing the readings must then evaluate them
and make your own judgment about them. You must
do this, or else you will be simply swept downstream by arguments that may not
be sound or by leaders who make or follow such arguments themselves. If these
arguments and leaders use your willing support to achieve bad ends, you are
complicit, and complicity is itself blameworthy.[12]
If you can come to terms with the writers that are assigned in this course, you
will be well positioned to evaluate the arguments of the legion of lesser
writers who, although they are intelligent and may have sound ideas, are not of
the same caliber as the "greats" that we will read.
All of the
writers we study during the first semester of this course wrote comprehensively
on politics; in fact, we will read material from most of the great contributors
to Western political philosophy who lived during the two millennia from the
fifth century B.C. to the seventeenth century A.D.: Plato, Aristotle,
During the
second semester, when the assigned writings begin in the late seventeenth
century and end in the present day, many of the writers are not and never will
be considered among the "greats," in part because their writings do
not cover the full range of philosophical subjects. Many of the works we read
in the second semester focus on particular aspects of politics and say little
or nothing about ontology, epistemology, and so on. Still, once you have become
familiar with the classics, you should be able to make an educated guess about
a writer’s likely views regarding the nature of the universe and the nature of
man and so forth. You will be able to fill in the ontological and the other
blanks.
A second
point to consider is that the cosmological and other ideas played different
roles in the thought of different thinkers. I once labeled these five ideas the
fundamental assumptions of the
philosophers, but the term “assumptions” falsely conveys the idea that their
positions on cosmology, anthropology, and so on are their starting points and
not conclusions of reasoned observation and speculation. In some writers, the
idea of the nature of the universe—cosmology—seems to have been the foundation
of their thought, the starting point for their speculation about man and
politics. In others, their experience and conception of human nature or,
perhaps, their understanding of what we can know—their epistemology—came first,
and the other aspects of their philosophy followed from those assumptions. It
is better to refer to all these ideas as "fundamental conceptions."
Whether one’s conception of reality is based on an irreducible personal
experience or whether one reasons toward it critically or from other positions,
the subjects listed here are essential to a comprehensive political philosophy
or theory.
Finally, we
will find that there seem to be only so many distinct alternatives regarding
each of the fundamental conceptions. Sure, there are infinite gradations and
variations of expression, but the fundamental positions on the nature of the
universe, of knowledge, of human nature, of the ultimate standard of right and
wrong, and of the function of government begin to settle into a few familiar
groups that enable you to rationally compare and contrast one writer to
another. The material in the course provides evidence of the five fundamental
conceptions in four broad traditions: (1) the Classical tradition, (2) the
Christian or Classical-Christian, (3) the Gnostic and the Hermetic, and (4) the
Epicurean. The Epicurean tradition strongly influenced modern political
philosophy, especially modern English political philosophy, so we also use the
term “Epicurean-modern” to refer to Hobbes and Locke. This semester, we will
also look at the influence of the Hermetic or esoteric tradition, as it is
often called, because of the increasing evidence of its influence on modern and
contemporary political thought. Thus, you might want to make up a grid with
five rows or columns representing the five fundamental conceptions and with
four or five intersecting rows or columns representing the four (five if you
include Hermeticism as a distinct approach)
traditions we will be studying. The following notes will help you to recognize
the different fundamental conceptions and will get you started on your way.
Fundamental
Concepts: Ontology and Cosmology
Ontology is
the study of being, of what truly is. Ontology poses a cluster of
questions about reality, about what really exists: does reality have a
structure? What is the structure of reality, or, to say the same thing, the
order of being? How is being or reality constituted? Cosmology is the narrower
study of the cosmos (yes, it’s
another Greek word: this one means good order, good behavior; or, from its
perfect order, the world or the universe); cosmogony is the study of the origin
of the universe (cosmos-genesis). Often, if a writer discusses one of these
studies, he discusses the other, but sometimes only one of these subjects is
explored.
Cosmology and ontology are closely
related inquiries. Cosmology focuses on the world in which we live, the world
that we experience—including space and the universe—and cosmogony asks where
all of this came from. Ontology includes these studies of the cosmos, but also
pursues the broader and often puzzling questions of appearance and reality such
as “What is real?” “Is only matter real?” “Is only what we can observe with our
senses real?” “What is the true nature of this?” “What is the essence of that?”
Eric Voegelin
has said that reality consists of the natural, the human, and the divine. If we
refer to “nature” as that which is not man-made, might it not also include
gods? Or might it have been made by God? For most of man’s recorded history, it
went without saying that reality included both divine and non-divine,
super-natural and natural: recall Cicero’s definition of “wisdom” quoted above:
“it is knowledge of everything about both gods and men and what causes underlie
nature.” The tradition of natural theology reflects this essential bond between
the natural and the divine. But these two dimensions of reality are distinct.
In describing early man’s fundamental experiences of the sacred in the midst of
the profane, every-day world, Mircea Eliade says, “The sacred always manifests itself as a
reality of a wholly different order from ‘natural’ realities.”[13] Primitive man experienced the sacred as more
real than the natural order, as “the only real
and real-ly
existing space” and time.[14] Voegelin’s and Eliade’s remarks
reflect ontological observations.
And what about human products or
“artifacts”? Just
as are the mountains, trees, and stars, so also is man a part of nature, but
human creations are fundamentally different from natural products and are often
of more interest to us and especially to students of politics. One of man’s
principal creations is ideas: are ideas—the very ideas that we have about the
natural and the supernatural—real? What
is their nature? Plato, the founder of political science, argued that ideas of
things are more real than the substance of those ideas that we grasp through
perception; Karl Marx argued that they were less real.
These questions, primary in the sense
that they all ask simply about the reality of things, are followed by questions
about the structure of what is real. What is the relationship between ideas and
the fundamental experiences that the ideas articulate? What are the
relationships between various parts of being? Why do we call certain articles
of furniture, though of multiple shapes and sizes, all “chairs”? Is this
general idea or “universal” of “chair” real and independent of man’s thought,
or is it merely a construct, a mentally created tool, less real than the
objects we perceive? Is the world in which we live imbued with divine purpose
and intention? Are some parts of nature intended to be the means for achieving
further natural ends? And if so, who intended them? Do aspects of the structure
of reality serve as standards for proper human action: is there a natural moral order?
Different writers have answered these
questions in fundamentally different ways. What kinds of arguments and ideas
have they offered? What clues to their positions should you look for? One
question you might ask is whether the philosopher says, or whether what he says
implicitly assumes, that the world is an orderly place or that it has no
apparent order? If there is a natural
order—an order not imposed on nature by man, remember, but that exists
independently of human will—what kind of an order is it?
Aristotle,
for example, said that there was a natural order to the world based on the
purposes or functions that characterized each natural thing, including man and
the polis in which he lived. God, the source of these purposes, was part of
nature itself. The Epicureans and Hobbes, in contrast, said that there is no
discoverable natural order in the world or in man or society (though Epicurus
said that gods were part of nature while Hobbes maintained that God was outside
of nature). The only order we can find in the world according to Hobbes is that
which is imposed upon it by us human animals. As we shall see, different
conclusions about anthropology, ethics, and politics follow reasonably from
these different positions.
Cosmogonically, we cannot draw any hard and fast inferences
from particular cosmologies to particular arguments about the origins of the
universe. Hobbes, for example, affirmed the existence of the Christian God as
Creator and denied that he was himself an atheist or that his cosmology was
consistent only with an atheistic position, but he also denied the existence of
a discernible cosmic order. Orthodox Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers, on
the other hand, understand the world as an orderly
place because it was coherently created by God the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
God exists beyond his creation: he transcends nature and is super-natural.
Aristotle's conception of the Supreme Being was not that of a creator that
created the universe and thus made it an orderly structure; indeed, Aristotle's
god was not a supernatural being at all—the Prime Mover was part of the natural
universe. The Gnostics viewed the world as governed by a natural order created
by a supernatural god; indeed, the Gnostics conceived of this order as more
rigorous and systematic than either the classical or the Christian thinkers.
For Gnostics, the world order is “systematic,” but it is systematically bad
because it was created by a bad god, an inferior god: the “true” God is super-supernatural. For Hermetic
thinkers, man stands as a co-creator of a continually developing cosmos, a
god-in-waiting—the magus. Clearly, these writers present a broad range of
cosmological alternatives.
These
speculations about what is real and what reality consists of are ontological
speculations. They can be tied closely to cosmological speculation, but they can
also be understood independently from their cosmological foundations. In the
political writings that we shall be reading, there will be explicit and
implicit references to both cosmology and ontology: if the discussions are
explicit, note them; if the writings do not make any explicit references to
cosmology or ontology, try to infer what positions the author takes on these
issues from what he says about other matters. Of all the fundamental concepts
we need to know, ontology is probably the most difficult to master because it
is the most abstract subject, yet we confront questions about reality and
appearance in our lives every day. Like all of the fundamental conceptions, the
concepts of ontology and cosmology are familiar to us in very common sense ways;
what we must do in this course is get a handle not on concrete examples of
reality and appearance, but on the very concepts of “reality” and “appearance.”
Epistemology
To assert
that something exists is to claim that we can know that it exists. If reality consists of natural, supernatural,
and human elements, how can we know or understand nature, the divine, and the
human? Through reason and faith and self-knowledge, perhaps; at least these
three modes of understanding have often been suggested as the ways that we know
the three modes of being.
When we said above that Hobbes argued
that there was no discoverable natural order, our statement was a bit
misleading. Though we made the statement in the discussion of ontology,
Hobbes’s statement is more correctly an epistemological, not an ontological,
statement: “There is no discoverable
order,” not “there is no order.” Hobbes’s statement is about what we can know,
not about what there is. Even if there is a natural, divine, or social order—and
there may well be—we might not be able to discover it, says Hobbes.
Epistemology
asks what we can know and how we can know it. Epistemology is sometimes
referred to as the theory of knowledge. Psychologists study it in terms of
modes of cognition. Like ontology, this esoteric subject is perhaps new to you,
but it is surprisingly important for political philosophy because it concerns
what we can know about the world and about standards of behavior. Hobbes, for
example, began his major work on politics with a dozen chapters on
epistemology, and the core of the greatest work of political theory, Plato’s Republic, is a discussion of
epistemology and ontology, for these two studies are opposite sides of the same
coin.
The assigned
readings will expose us to a range of epistemological positions. For some
writers, human beings possess an intellectual ability to discern the structure
of reality, both natural and man-made, through careful examination and
thinking. This ability is often called rationality
or reason, and this conception of
reason is the basis for the classical concepts of philosophy and theory, as we
have defined them. Classical philosophers thought that reason allowed man to
plug into the world, so to speak, and discern order in an immediate, intuitive
way. These fundamental experiences had to be pondered and figured out, but the
logical reasoning needed for this was based on such fundamental human
experiences, and the human mind was our connection with the order of being.
Other writers focus on the logic
component of reason and identify reason exclusively with the ability to think
logically: “reason in this sense is nothing but reckoning (that is, adding and
subtracting) of the consequences of general names agreed upon for marking and signifying
our thoughts.”[15] The
connection of our thoughts with reality—our ability to discern the order of
reality through perception—is missing here. We must hypothesize and experiment
in order to gain a working understanding of the world in which we live. This is
the conception of reason that underlies positivism and modern science, but it
was present in the ancient world as well.
For some, our intellect allows us to
discern only part of the order of being; faith is necessary to enlarge or
complete the picture. That which is known by faith is said to be known by
revelation—truth that is and must be revealed to us by others because we cannot
reason it out on our own. The relationship between reason and revelation poses
a whole battery of difficult questions. If reason and faith are fundamentally
incompatible ways of obtaining wisdom, then the two, unless carefully kept
within their appropriate respective bounds, are antithetical. Depending on the
breadth of knowledge one attributes to faith, for instance, the breadth of
rationality is expanded or constricted. Thus the view that reason is identical
with logic, which we outlined above, is as consistent with the deeply religious
outlook of a Tertullian as it is with the more obscure religious attitude of a
Hobbes. An atheist’s conception of reason and wisdom might leave little room
for faith and divine revelation.
Alternatively, reason and faith may
be understood to complement one another—not “either-or” but “both-and”—and
again Cicero’s statement is relevant: philosophy is devotion to wisdom, and
wisdom is the knowledge of everything about gods and men and what causes
underlie nature. The knowledge of gods might be within the scope of reason,
classically understood, but the knowledge might require revelation. In Plato’s
mystical experience of the Good, for example, reason and revelation merge to
the point of indistinguishability. In
Therefore,
it is particularly important to focus on the writers’ conceptions of reason in
the assigned readings. Look for the writers’ discussions of what rationality is
and whether it enables us to obtain ontological and ethical knowledge or
whether the nature of the universe and the nature of right and wrong are
unknowable and matters for human convention or divine revelation.
Philosophical
Anthropology: the Nature of Man v. Human Nature
The
broadest, most indeterminate subject that we will come across in the readings
is the subject of human nature: what is the nature of man? Anyone who has given this any thought—and all
of us have from a very early age—knows that there are an infinite number of
responses that can be given to this question. In the readings, look for the
aspects of human nature that the writers think to be most important from a
political point of view. Politics looks at man from the perspective of ordering
his individual behavior as one among many people living together: if there is
no human society, there is no need for government and politics is irrelevant.
Therefore,
we want to know if people naturally want or need to live in groups. If the
philosopher maintains that there is an order to reality, and if man is part of
reality, then the norms appropriate to man are basically like the norms
applying to other parts of reality, and man can be understood fundamentally as
having a natural order—a nature—himself. If no natural order is maintained,
then man obviously cannot be part of one, and human nature—man’s essence or being—is
radically independent of the world in which he lives. This independence may
also be true if the natural order in which man lives is understood to be
fundamentally bad or if man’s true nature is to participate in the creation of
the cosmos. When the focus of the discussion is on the nature of man and his
place in reality, we call this discussion “philosophical anthropology.”
On another level, political theorists
also question how people actually behave. Are people naturally peaceful or
naturally warlike? Is group living naturally peaceful or is it full of
conflict? Can people be trained or educated to adopt peaceful—or
violent—approaches to life? How would people learn these behaviors? Are human
beings essentially rational or irrational? Good or bad? Weak-willed or
strong-willed? None of the above? This type of
discussion based on observations of human behavior is called “empirical
anthropology.” Most political science courses—international relations,
political parties and interest groups, voting behavior, and the like—focus on
this aspect of anthropology. Try to determine what aspects of human nature are
important for each writer based on that writer’s ultimate conception of
politics.
Politics is
a human inquiry, and the writers that we will study are some of the greatest
students of human nature in history. All of them will have something to say
about human nature even if they say little about cosmology or epistemology in
the writings that we will study. But all
of us have our own ideas about human nature, too. This is one area in which our
own ideas can serve as standards for our evaluation of the “great” philosophers
that we will read.
Ethics
As
understood by Aristotle, ethics is the study of what conduct is right and wrong
for individuals. In this sense, ethics is synonymous with morals or morality,
though recent academic usage of the term “moral” has extended its meaning to
the general question of the very nature of goodness itself. As an analytical
tool for political philosophy, we shall use “ethics” in its original, more
limited, Aristotelian meaning.
Despite the
many opinions on the question of right and wrong conduct, there seem to be a
few general approaches into which the different opinions and theories fit. For
one thing, the ultimate standards or principles of right and wrong may be
traced back to nature or back to God or merely back to man. The Greek sophists
first made this distinction in their discussions of physis and nomos—of nature versus
“convention,” which means the product of human agreement. If the ultimate
principles are by physis,
then their truth and authority is independent of human will and opinion. All of
us might be wrong on what is truly right or wrong in a particular instance—or
even wrong all the time. Because God or the divine is also independent of human
will, we may provisionally include divine sources under the category of physis here. If
the ultimate principles are conventional, then their “truth” depends on
decisions and opinions of human beings, and opinions may
change over time. Thus, moral principles might be authoritatively determined by
a majority of the people, or by an elected leader, or by a wise man, or by a
bully. This distinction also gives rise to the popular opposition of “absolute”
standards to “relative” standards. In this sense, natural standards are
absolute—they are independent of human opinion and always the same everywhere;
conventional standards are relative—they depend on different cultures and
societies.
Ethical
theories are thus tied closely to ontological and epistemological concepts. If
the world in which we live has no discernible order, we say that it has no
“natural order,” and the whole basis for accepting ethical norms because they
are “by nature” is destroyed. Certainly, some have inferred a natural “survival
of the fittest” or “kill or be killed” principle of ethics; in fact, this was
essentially the idea first identified with the term “natural law” by Plato in
the Gorgias.
But the idea that the natural order provides authoritative norms for human
action is usually identified with the belief that nature is good, that nature
provides man with purposes and goals appropriate to being human, and that man’s
duty in life is to fulfill these natural purposes as best he can. If nature is bad,
then the true source of norms (assuming here that the very meaning of ethical
norm is good norm) must be man via
convention or God by revelation.
The idea
that all norms are conventional is usually, but not always, identified with the
ontological position that reality—nature—does not provide man with norms to
live by and that man must devise his own norms. Often these norms are
deontological: laws, customs, rules of etiquette and propriety. Sometimes they
are teleological: anything that furthers the revolution or advances us toward
some Summum Bonum is
right and good, anything that hampers such progress is bad. Divine commands or
rules may also be the highest authority, whether or not there is a discernible
order of being. Indeed, the order of nature might be bad and only the commands
of God can provide sound standards of action.
And with the
word “discernible” we are brought to the equally relevant consideration of
epistemology: is a natural moral order discernible? By “discernible” we mean
discoverable or cognizable by reason. Can we rationally figure out what is
right and wrong? If the sole source of ethical norms is conventional or divine,
and thus probably articulated in the form of rules and customs, then how can we
discern them and determine what they are? Usually, we must be told what they
are either by the human legislator or by God; and if by God, then
we usually learn them by His revealing them: that is, we learn by revelation,
not by reason. The norms will be essentially arbitrary, not subject to rational
inquiry, and the source of the norms may be something powerful, revered, or
good, or some combination of these three. Both reason and revelation or reason
and faith together may be the means of discernment if we hold that ethical
truth can be determined by human wisdom or practical wisdom.
Ethical
questions also pose the question of “authority,” sometimes redundantly referred
to as the question of “legitimate authority.” Here it is useful to distinguish
relationships of “authority and obligation” from those of “coercion and
obedience.” Authority is usually said to create obligation or duty: we are
obligated to act in accordance with authority; moral duties define good acts.
Coercion or force, while it can certainly stimulate obedience, cannot create
obligation or duty. Some of the things we are forced to do are bad or wrong: we
cannot be said to have a duty to do them, and we should not be held morally
responsible for them. Thus, participating at gunpoint in a robbery or
participating in a crime because our loved ones are held threatened with death
is understandable and not in itself morally bad: we plead duress and hope that
we are not adjudged morally responsible for our actions.
Behind the questions of authority and
obligation, and intertwined with the problem of ethical norms in a world devoid
of a natural order, is the question of the moral value of human life, the
importance or goodness of survival: when we are “forced” to do something bad,
we usually have a chance to resist, but perhaps at the cost of considerable
pain or even death. If the world holds no natural purpose or norms for us, is
it not good by default to do those things that preserve our life and avoid
those that threaten it? Or is the choice morally indifferent?
The physis-nomos or “nature-nurture”
distinction is also closely related to today’s “fact-value” distinction, the
notion that all ethical norms are purely conventional values or “value
judgments” because their truth cannot be discerned using our prized method of
discovering the order of nature: the scientific method. Though the fact-value
distinction is historically a product of the nineteenth century, its roots can
be clearly seen in the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, and before them, Lucretius
and the Epicureans.
Politics
Finally we
arrive at the subject matter of this course: politics. What are the questions
and issues peculiar to political inquiry or theory? It is useful again to begin
by referring to Aristotle’s view: politics is the study of the political or
social unit and of the order that is appropriate to it. The Greeks at the time
of Plato and Aristotle—that is, at the time political
science originated—lived in communities called poleis (singular, polis).
Greek society in the sense of a
nation or organized community of all Greeks did not exist. Thus the polis was
at once the “political” and the “social” unit of order, as we would understand
these terms today. Following Aristotle’s
division, politics is the study of what is right and wrong for the organized community, ethics studies what is right and wrong for the
individual. Politics necessarily focuses on political and social order, on the
relationships between the individuals that make up the political and social
unit. For Plato and Aristotle, ethics also studied order—the right and wrong
order of the various parts of the individual’s soul. Modern political theorists
often do not posit an ordered soul, and some do not even posit the existence of
a human soul, but the general meaning of politics as the study of order
continues to be quite useful.
One’s view
of the order appropriate to the political unit is closely related to one’s view
of the purpose or proper function of the political unit. If we reject the
notion of a natural order and the idea that behavioral norms can and should be
grounded in either nature or God, then the purpose of political government is
pretty much up to us. It does appear, however, that some functions of
government are reasonably consistent with human nature and human capabilities.
It would be folly, perhaps, to give to government a function that is
objectively impossible to achieve, and since politics and government are
basically spheres of human action, it would be equally folly to attempt to require
or expect people to live a life or to have them order their actions in a manner
that is not consistent with their nature. If human beings are basically
self-interested, aggressively desirous animals, then any social goal would
probably require some order imposed on men from without: part, and perhaps the
main part, of government’s function would be to provide law and order. If only
a small minority of the population is so aggressively self-interested, and most
human beings are capable of spontaneously peaceful, cooperative action, then
perhaps government can aim at more ambitious ends: the securing of a
comfortable life, the development of human virtue, perhaps, or even a
religiously salvific life on earth.
If we accept
the ontological idea that an order of being or reality exists and that it
provides norms to men, who are part of that structure of reality, then the
proper purpose of government can perhaps be discerned by rational inquiry. If
man has a natural end or purpose, then politics may be part of the means to
achieve that purpose.
Thus, our
inquiry into politics and government is informed by our inquiries into the
other subjects: ontology and cosmology, epistemology, anthropology, and ethics.
It is the purpose of this course to help you find your way through these
subjects in order to arrive at some coherent, if only temporary, outlook
relating to politics. You will find, I believe, that once you begin to see the
connections between these subjects, you will not be content to look at
politics—domestic or international relations—in the same way again. As you
inquire into political philosophy, you will find, as Herakleitos
said 2500 years ago, “I searched out myself.”
Footnote on History
For most
political theorists after Augustine, a concept of history is an essential part
of their speculation. History, like most of the key terms that we have referred
to thus far, is a Greek word (ίstoria or historia) that
means “an inquiry or account of an inquiry.” As such it has no immediate
connection to the past or to human actions (the
Another
meaning has attached to the idea of “history” by virtue of this association
with human events. History examines human actions, and human actions are
characterized essentially by human choice and free will. We do not normally
think of studies of chemical reactions or animal migrations as “history,”
except metaphorically. Such events certainly take place in space and involve a
certain amount of time, but an investigation of what some natural object is or
how an organic being grew and developed into its present state is generally not
referred to as a “history.”[16] Historians examine events involving human
choices and responses, particularly those that have taken place long enough ago
so that a more comprehensive understanding of the necessary conditions and
events and their inter-relationships is available to the investigator.
It
is the reasons for studying human events that account for the controversial
nature of history. The histories of Herodotus and Thucydides were studies
intended to give true accounts of what actually happened in particular places
and times with a view toward providing lessons or examples of how individuals
behaved in difficult circumstances for the instruction of the reader. They were
not inquiries into the “meaning of it all.” Judaism and Christianity, however,
had a different understanding of the ultimate meaning of human events. Human
life on earth—all human actions—had a beginning and will have an end. The
events of mankind have a direction, and that direction gives life its
fundamental meaning. The examination of human events in an effort to determine
the ultimate meaning of individual events—and of all human events—depends on
this idea of a discernible direction and complete course of human history. Such
study is referred to as “philosophy of history” or “world history.” The belief
that history has an ultimate direction—that life has a dramatic meaning—has
been an important factor in the thought of many political theorists.
As
you read different writers, see if you can identify such an assumption or
express position. Does the writer believe that God in the form of Divine
Providence is directing or significantly influencing events? Or that the
condition of mankind is getting continually worse or better? Particularly in
the writings of the past three centuries, these historical assumptions have
played an important part in the philosophical speculation of many writers.
[1] “Phenomenon” is derived from phainomenon (φαίνομένων), which means “to appear.”
[2] "Philosophy" —from yet another Greek word: philosophia (φιλοσοφέω) which means "to love knowledge or wisdom, to pursue it."
[3] “What is Political Philosophy,” in Political Philosophy, ed. H. Gildin (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), 4.
[4] Ibid.
[5] On Duties, II.5. The connection between philosophy and the causes that underlie nature is still evident in the term “natural philosophy,” meaning generally natural science, that survives here and there on old buildings. The same meaning is carried in the old expression “natural history,” which recalls the original Greek meaning of the term “history” (Greek, ίστορέω; Latin, historia): to inquire into or about something. Discussion about the gods is literally “theology”: θεός λόγος.
[6] Republic, 578c. See similar statements at Republic 344e, 352d, 358d, and Gorgias, 500c.
[7] The term “philosophy” is also popularly used to mean “policy” or a characteristic approach or rationale for particular actions.
[8] In the “Seventh Letter,” which is generally acknowledged by scholars to be the work of Plato, Plato said that his philosophy “does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself.” 341c-d.
[9] Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a20-1094b4.
[10] New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 2.
[11] Political Philosophy, supra, 12, 4; see also Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 34 ("Originally, philosophy had been the humanizing quest for the eternal order, and hence it had been a pure source of humane inspiration and aspiration."). This conception of philosophy should be contrasted with the model put forward by John Locke and accepted by many today who see the philosopher’s proper vocation as “an under-labourer [employed] in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.” “Epistle to the Reader,” in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ( New York: Dover Publications, 1959), Volume I, p. 14.
[12] See, for example, Hitler and the Germans by Eric Voegelin or The Rebel by Albert Camus.
[13] The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), 10.
[14] Ibid., 20, 28.
[15] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 5.
[16] Unless it is metaphorically. Questions about how something got to where it is today or where something has been in the past leading up to the present may be asked in the form of “what is the history of this mountain or storm system or murder weapon,” but this question simply attests to the focus of history on the past and on temporal changes. Investigators of such subjects are not called “historians”; they are professionals of some other label.