Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Unabhängigkeitserklärung, Declaration of Independence; Geistige Situation: Deutschland - USA

Kurzinhalt: At about the same time a German scholar could still describe the difference between German thought and that of Western Europe and the United States by saying that the West still attached decisive importance to natural right, ...

Textausschnitt: 1a IT IS proper for more reasons than the most obvious one that I should open this series of Charles R. Walgreen Lectures by quoting a passage from the Declaration of Independence. The passage has frequently been quoted, but, by its weight and its elevation, it is made immune to the degrading effects of the excessive familiarity which breeds contempt and of misuse which breeds disgust. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." The nation dedicated to this proposition has now become, no doubt partly as a consequence of this dedication, the most powerful and prosperous of the nations of the earth. Does this nation in its maturity still cherish the faith in which it was conceived and raised? Does it still hold those "truths to be self-evident"? About a generation ago, an American diplomat could still say that "the natural and the divine foundation of the rights of man [...] is self-evident to all Americans." At about the same time a German scholar could still describe the difference between German thought and that of Western Europe and the United States by saying that the West still attached decisive importance to natural right, while in Germany the very terms "natural right" and "humanity" "have now become almost incomprehensible [...] and have lost altogether their original life and color." While abandoning the idea of natural right and through abandoning it, he continued, German thought has "created the historical sense," and thus was led eventually to unqualified relativism.1 What was a tolerably accurate description of German thought twenty-seven years ago would now appear to be true of Western thought in general. It would not be the first time that a nation, defeated on the battlefield and, as it were, annihilated as a political being, has deprived its conquerors of the most sublime fruit of victory by imposing on them the yoke of its own thought. Whatever might be true of the thought of the American people, certainly American social science has adopted the very attitude toward natural right which, a generation ago, could still be described, with some plausibility, as characteristic of German thought. The majority among the learned who still adhere to the principles of the Declaration of Independence interpret these principles not as expressions of natural right but as an ideal, if not as an ideology or a myth. Present-day American social science, as far as it is not Roman Catholic social science, is dedicated to the proposition that all men are endowed by the evolutionary process or by a mysterious fate with many kinds of urges and aspirations, but certainly with no natural right. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Alternative: Naturrecht (natural richt) - Intoleranz, Nihilismus

Kurzinhalt: To reject natural right is tantamount to saying that all right is positive right, ...

Textausschnitt: 2a Nevertheless, the need for natural right is as evident today as it has been for centuries and even millennia. To reject natural right is tantamount to saying that all right is positive right, and this means that what is right is determined exclusively by the legislators and the courts of the various countries. Now it is obviously meaningful, and sometimes even necessary, to speak of "unjust" laws or "unjust" decisions. In passing such judgments we imply that there is a standard of right and wrong independent of positive right and higher than positive right: a standard with reference to which we are able to judge of positive right. Many people today hold the view that the standard in question is in the best case nothing but the ideal adopted by our society or our "civilization" and embodied in its way of life or its institutions. But, according to the same view, all societies have their ideals, cannibal societies no less than civilized ones. If principles are sufficiently justified by the fact that they are accepted by a society, the principles of cannibalism are as defensible or sound as those of civilized life. From this point of view,
[...]
3a It would seem, then, that the rejection of natural right is bound to lead to disastrous consequences. [...] According to our social science, we can be or become wise in all matters of secondary importance, but we have to be resigned to utter ignorance in the most important respect: we cannot have any knowledge regarding the ultimate principles of our choices, i.e., regarding their soundness or unsoundness; our ultimate principles have no other support than our arbitrary and hence blind preferences.
[...]

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus: Reaktion auf die französische Revolution; Opposition gegen Naturrecht; universale Prinzipien - Entfremdung

Kurzinhalt: The historical school emerged in reaction to the French Revolution and to the natural right doctrines that ... The recognition of universal principles thus tends to prevent men from wholeheartedly identifying themselves with ... the sozial order

Textausschnitt: 12b Historicism emerged in the nineteenth century under the protection of the belief that knowledge, or at least divination, of the eternal is possible. But it gradually undermined the belief which had sheltered it in its infancy. It suddenly appeared within our lifetime in its mature form. The genesis of historicism is inadequately understood. In the present state of our knowledge, it is difficult to say at what point in the modern development the decisive break occurred with the "unhistorical" approach that prevailed in all earlier philosophy. For the purpose of a summary orientation it is convenient to start with the moment when the previously subterraneous movement came to the surface and began to dominate the social sciences in broad daylight. That moment was the emergence of the historical school. (Fs)

13a The thoughts that guided the historical school were very far from being of a purely theoretical character. The historical school emerged in reaction to the French Revolution and to the natural right doctrines that had prepared that cataclysm. In opposing the violent break with the past, the historical school insisted on the wisdom and on the need of preserving or continuing the traditional order. This could have been done without a critique of natural right as such. Certainly, pre-modern natural right did not sanction reckless appeal from the established order, or from what was actual here and now, to the natural or rational order. Yet the founders of the historical school seemed to have realized somehow that the acceptance of any universal or abstract principles has necessarily a revolutionary, disturbing, unsettling effect as far as thought is concerned and that this effect is wholly independent of whether the principles in question sanction, generally speaking, a conservative or a revolutionary course of action. For the recognition of universal principles forces man to judge the established order, or what is actual here and now, in the light of the natural or rational order; and what is actual here and now is more likely than not to fall short of the universal and unchangeable norm.1 The recognition of universal principles thus tends to prevent men from wholeheartedly identifying themselves with, or accepting, the social order that fate has allotted to them. It tends to alienate them from their place on the earth. It tends to make them strangers, and even strangers on the earth. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Wissenschaftlicher Materialismus - Skeptizismus; Insel der Gewissheit -> Mensch als Ursache; metaphysischer, methodischer Materialismus

Kurzinhalt: "Scientific materialism"; Generally stated, we have absolutely certain or scientific knowledge only of those subjects of which we are the causes, or whose construction is in our own power ...

Textausschnitt: 171b The experiment with extreme skepticism was then guided by the anticipation of a new type of dogmatism. Of all known scientific pursuits, mathematics alone had been successful. The new dogmatic philosophy must therefore be constructed on the pattern of mathematics. The mere fact that the only certain knowledge which was available is not concerned with ends but "consists in comparing figures and motions only" created a prejudice against any teleological view or a prejudice in favor of a mechanistic view.1 It is perhaps more accurate to say that it strengthened a prejudice already in existence. For it is probable that what was foremost in Hobbes's mind was the vision, not of a new type of philosophy or science, but of a universe that is nothing but bodies and their aimless motions. The failure of the predominant philosophic tradition could be traced directly to the difficulty with which every teleological physics is beset, and the suspicion arose quite naturally that, owing to social pressures of various kinds, the mechanistic view had never been given a fair chance to show its virtues. But precisely if Hobbes was primarily interested in a mechanistic view, he was inevitably led, as matters stood, to the notion of a dogmatic philosophy based on extreme skepticism. For he had learned from Plato or Aristotle that if the universe has the character ascribed to it by Democritean-Epicurean physics, it excludes the possibility of any physics, of any science, or, in other words, that consistent materialism necessarily culminates in skepticism. "Scientific materialism" could not become possible if one did not first succeed in guaranteeing the possibility of science against the skepticism engendered by materialism. Only the anticipatory revolt against a materialistically understood universe could make possible a science of such a universe. One had to discover or to invent an island that would be exempt from the flux of mechanical causation. Hobbes had to consider the possibility of a natural island. An incorporeal mind was out of the question. On the other hand, what he had learned from Plato and Aristotle made him realize somehow that the corporeal mind, composed of very smooth and round particles with which Epicurus remained satisfied, was an inadequate solution. He was forced to wonder whether the universe did not leave room for an artificial island, for an island to be created by science. (Fs)

172a The solution was suggested by the fact that mathematics, the model of the new philosophy, was itself exposed to skeptical attack and proved capable of resisting it by undergoing a specific transformation or interpretation. To "avoid the cavils of the skeptics" at "that so much renowned evidence of geometry [...] I thought it necessary in my definitions to express those motions by which lines, superficies, solids, and figures, were drawn and described." Generally stated, we have absolutely certain or scientific knowledge only of those subjects of which we are the causes, or whose construction is in our own power or depends on our arbitrary will. The construction would not be fully in our power if there were a single step of the construction that is not fully exposed to our supervision. The construction must be conscious construction; it is impossible to know a scientific truth without knowing at the same time that we have made it. The construction would not be fully in our power if it made use of any matter, i.e., of anything that is not itself our construct. The world of our constructs is wholly unenigmatic because we are its sole cause and hence we have perfect knowledge of its cause. The cause of the world of our constructs does not have a further cause, a cause that is not, or not fully, within our power; the world of our constructs has an absolute beginning or is a creation in the strict sense. The world of our constructs is therefore the desired island that is exempt from the flux of blind and aimless causation.1 The discovery or invention of that island seemed to guarantee the possibility of a materialistic and mechanistic philosophy or science, without forcing one to assume a soul or mind that is irreducible to moved matter. That discovery or invention eventually permitted an attitude of neutrality or indifference toward the secular conflict between materialism and spiritualism. Hobbes had the earnest desire to be a "metaphysical" materialist. But he was forced to rest satisfied with a "methodical" materialism. (Fs)

174a We understand only what we make. Since we do not make the natural beings, they are, strictly speaking, unintelligible. According to Hobbes, this fact is perfectly compatible with the possibility of natural science. But it leads to the consequence that natural science is and will always remain fundamentally hypothetical. Yet this is all we need in order to make ourselves masters and owners of nature. Still, however much man may succeed in his conquest of nature, he will never be able to understand nature. The universe will always remain wholly enigmatic. It is this fact that ultimately accounts for the persistence of skepticism and justifies skepticism to a certain extent. Skepticism is the inevitable outcome of the unintelligible character of the universe or of the unfounded belief in its intelligibility. In other words, since natural things are, as such, mysterious, the knowledge or certainty engendered by nature necessarily lacks evidence. Knowledge based on the natural working of the human mind is necessarily exposed to doubt. For this reason Hobbes parts company with premodern nominalism in particular. Premodern nominalism had faith in the natural working of the human mind. It showed this faith especially by teaching that natura occulte operatur in universalibus, or that the "anticipations" by virtue of which we take our bearings in ordinary life and in science are products of nature. For Hobbes, the natural origin of the universals or of the anticipations was a compelling reason for abandoning them in favor of artificial "intellectual tools." There is no natural harmony between the human mind and the universe. (Fs)

175a Man can guarantee the actualization of wisdom, since wisdom is identical with free construction. But wisdom cannot be free construction if the universe is intelligible. Man can guarantee the actualization of wisdom, not in spite of, but because of, the fact that the universe is unintelligible. Man can be sovereign only because there is no cosmic support for his humanity. He can be sovereign only because he is absolutely a stranger in the universe. He can be sovereign only because he is forced to be sovereign. Since the universe is unintelligible and since control of nature does not require understanding of nature, there are no knowable limits to his conquest of nature. He has nothing to lose but his chains, and, for all he knows, he may have everything to gain. Still, what is certain is that man's natural state is misery; the vision of the City of Man to be erected on the ruins of the City of God is an unsupported hope. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Konstruktion - Geschichte; Weisheit als Konstruktion

Kurzinhalt: ... "History" limits our vision in exactly the same way in which the conscious constructs limited the vision of Hobbes: ...

Textausschnitt: 175b It is hard for us to understand how Hobbes could be so hopeful where there was so much cause for despair. Somehow the experience, as well as the legitimate anticipation, of unheard-of progress within the sphere which is subject to human control must have made him insensitive to "the eternal silence of those infinite spaces" or to the crackings of the moenia mundi. In fairness to him, one must add that the long series of disappointments which subsequent generations experienced have not yet succeeded in extinguishing the hope which he, together with his most illustrious contemporaries, kindled. Still less have they succeeded in breaking down the walls which he erected as if in order to limit his vision. The conscious constructs have indeed been replaced by the unplanned workings of "History." But "History" limits our vision in exactly the same way in which the conscious constructs limited the vision of Hobbes: "History," too, fulfils the function of enhancing the status of man and of his "world" by making him oblivious of the whole or of eternity.1 In its final stage the typically modern limitation expresses itself in the suggestion that the highest principle, which, as such, has no relation to any possible cause or causes of the whole, is the mysterious ground of "History" and, being wedded to man and to man alone, is so far from being eternal that it is coeval with human history. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Unmöglichkeit einer kosmischen Teleologie; Intelligibilität: Bedürfnis der Menschen -> Primat der politischen Wissenschaft; Machiavelli

Kurzinhalt: But if the human good becomes the highest principle, political science or social science becomes the most important kind of knowledge, as Aristotle had predicted.

Textausschnitt: 176a To return to Hobbes, his notion of philosophy or science has its root in the conviction that a teleological cosmology is impossible and in the feeling that a mechanistic cosmology fails to satisfy the requirement of intelligibility. His solution is that the end or the ends without which no phenomenon can be understood need not be inherent in the phenomena; the end inherent in the concern with knowledge suffices. Knowledge as the end supplies the indispensable teleological principle. Not the new mechanistic cosmology but what later on came to be called "epistemology" becomes the substitute for teleological cosmology. But knowledge cannot remain the end if the whole is simply unintelligible: Scientia propter potentiam.1 All intelligibility or all meaning has its ultimate root in human needs. The end, or the most compelling end posited by human desire, is the highest principle, the organizing principle. But if the human good becomes the highest principle, political science or social science becomes the most important kind of knowledge, as Aristotle had predicted. In the words of Hobbes, Dignissima certe scientiarum haec ipsa est, quae ad Principes pertinet, hominesque in regendo genere humano occupatos.2 One cannot leave it, then, at saying that Hobbes agrees with the idealistic tradition in regard to the function and scope of political philosophy. His expectation from political philosophy is incomparably greater than the expectation of the classics. No Scipionic dream illumined by a true vision of the whole reminds his readers of the ultimate futility of all that men can do. Of political philosophy thus understood, Hobbes is indeed the founder. (Fs) (notabene)

177a It was Machiavelli, that greater Columbus, who had discovered the continent on which Hobbes could erect his structure. When trying to understand the thought of Machiavelli, one does well to remember the saying that Marlowe was inspired to ascribe to him: "I [...] hold there is no sin but ignorance." This is almost a definition of the philosopher. Besides, no one of consequence ever doubted that Machiavelli's study of political matters was public spirited. Being a public spirited philosopher, he continued the tradition of political idealism. But he combined the idealistic view of the intrinsic nobility of statesmanship with an anti-idealistic view, if not of the whole, at any rate of the origins of mankind or of civil society. (Fs)
178a Machiavelli's admiration for the political practice of classical antiquity and especially of republican Rome is only the reverse side of his rejection of classical political philosophy. He rejected classical political philosophy, and therewith the whole tradition of political philosophy in the full sense of the term, as useless: Classical political philosophy had taken its bearings by how man ought to live; the correct way of answering the question of the right order of society consists in taking one's bearings by how men actually do live. Machiavelli's "realistic" revolt against tradition led to the substitution of patriotism or merely political virtue for human excellence or, more particularly, for moral virtue and the contemplative life. It entailed a deliberate lowering of the ultimate goal. The goal was lowered in order to increase the probability of its attainment. Just as Hobbes later on abandoned the original meaning of wisdom in order to guarantee the actualization of wisdom, Machiavelli abandoned the original meaning of the good society or of the good life. What would happen to those natural inclinations of man or of the human soul whose demands simply transcend the lowered goal was of no concern to Machiavelli. He disregarded those inclinations. He limited his horizon in order to get results. And as for the power of chance, Fortuna appeared to him in the shape of a woman who can be forced by the right kind of men: chance can be conquered. (Fs)

178b Machiavelli justified his demand for a "realistic" political philosophy by reflections on the foundations of civil society, and this means ultimately by reflections on the whole within which man lives. There is no superhuman, no natural, support for justice. All human things fluctuate too much to permit their subjection to stable principles of justice. Necessity rather than moral purpose determines what is in each case the sensible course of action. Therefore, civil society cannot even aspire to be simply just. All legitimacy has its root in illegitimacy; all social or moral orders have been established with the help of morally questionable means; civil society has its root not in justice but in injustice. The founder of the most renowned of all commonwealths was a fratricide. Justice in any sense is possible only after a social order has been established; justice in any sense is possible only within a man-made order. Yet the founding of civil society, the supreme case in politics, is imitated, within civil society, in all extreme cases. Machiavelli takes his bearings not so much by how men live as by the extreme case. He believes that the extreme case is more revealing of the roots of civil society and therefore of its true character than is the normal case.1 The root or the efficient cause takes the place of the end or of the purpose. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Machiavelli; Hobbes, Naturgesetz (lex naturalis): nicht mehr Ziel, telos - Anfang, Furcht vor gewaltsamen Tod

Kurzinhalt: The complete basis of natural law must be sought, not in the end of man, but in his beginnings; Death takes the place of the telos.

Textausschnitt: 179a It was the difficulty implied in the substitution of merely political virtue for moral virtue or the difficulty implied in Machiavelli's admiration for the lupine policies of republican Rome1 that induced Hobbes to attempt the restoration of the moral principles of politics, i.e., of natural law, on the plane of Machiavelli's "realism." In making this attempt he was mindful of the fact that man cannot guarantee the actualization of the right social order if he does not have certain or exact or scientific knowledge of both the right social order and the conditions of its actualization. He attempted, therefore, in the first place a rigorous deduction of the natural or moral law. To "avoid the cavils of the skeptics," natural law had to be made independent of any natural "anticipations" and therefore of the consensus gentium.2 The predominant tradition had defined natural law with a view to the end or the perfection of man as a rational and social animal. What Hobbes attempted to do on the basis of Machiavelli's fundamental objection to the Utopian teaching of the tradition, although in opposition to Machiavelli's own solution, was to maintain the idea of natural law but to divorce it from the idea of man's perfection; only if natural law can be deduced from how men actually live, from the most powerful force that actually determines all men, or most men most of the time, can it be effectual or of practical value. The complete basis of natural law must be sought, not in the end of man, but in his beginnings,3 in the prima naturae or, rather, in the primum naturae. What is most powerful in most men most of the time is not reason but passion. Natural law will not be effectual if its principles are distrusted by passion or are not agreeable to passion.4 Natural law must be deduced from the most powerful of all passions. But the most powerful of all passions will be a natural fact, and we are not to assume that there is a natural support for justice or for what is human in man. Or is there a passion, or an object of passion, which is in a sense antinatural, which marks the point of indifference between the natural and the nonnatural, which is, as it were, the status evanescendi of nature and therefore a possible origin for the conquest of nature or for freedom? The most powerful of all passions is the fear of death and, more particularly, the fear of violent death at the hands of others: not nature but "that terrible enemy of nature, death," yet death insofar as man can do something about it, i.e., death insofar as it can be avoided or avenged, supplies the ultimate guidance.5 Death takes the place of the telos. Or, to preserve the ambiguity of Hobbes's thought, let us say that the fear of violent death expresses most forcefully the most powerful and the most fundamental of all natural desires, the initial desire, the desire for self-preservation. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Selbsterhaltung: Grundlage von Gerechtigkeit u. Moral; Pflicht -> Recht; Gründer des Liberalismus u. d. modernen Naturrechtslehre

Kurzinhalt: ... the desire for self-preservation is the sole root of all justice and morality, the fundamental moral fact is not a duty but a right ...

Textausschnitt: 181a If, then, natural law must be deduced from the desire for self-preservation, if, in other words, the desire for self-preservation is the sole root of all justice and morality, the fundamental moral fact is not a duty but a right; all duties are derivative from the fundamental and inalienable right of self-preservation. There are, then, no absolute or unconditional duties; duties are binding only to the extent to which their performance does not endanger our self-preservation. Only the right of self-preservation is unconditional or absolute. By nature, there exists only a perfect right and no perfect duty. The law of nature, which formulates man's natural duties, is not a law, properly speaking. Since the fundamental and absolute moral fact is a right and not a duty, the function as well as the limits of civil society must be defined in terms of man's natural right and not in terms of his natural duty. The state has the function, not of producing or promoting a virtuous life, but of safeguarding the natural right of each. And the power of the state finds its absolute limit in that natural right and in no other moral fact.1 If we may call liberalism that political doctrine which regards as the fundamental political fact the rights, as distinguished from the duties, of man and which identifies the function of the state with the protection or the safeguarding of those rights, we must say that the founder of liberalism was Hobbes. (Fs)

182a By transplanting natural law on the plane of Machiavelli, Hobbes certainly originated an entirely new type of political doctrine. The premodern natural law doctrines taught the duties of man; if they paid any attention at all to his rights, they conceived of them as essentially derivative from his duties. As has frequently been observed, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a much greater emphasis was put on rights than ever had been done before. One may speak of a shift of emphasis from natural duties to natural rights.1 But quantitative changes of this character become intelligible only when they are seen against the background of a qualitative and fundamental change, not to say that such quantitative changes always become possible only by virtue of a qualitative and fundamental change. The fundamental change from an orientation by natural duties to an orientation by natural rights finds its clearest and most telling expression in the teaching of Hobbes, who squarely made an unconditional natural right the basis of all natural duties, the duties being therefore only conditional. He is the classic and the founder of the specifically modern natural law doctrine. The profound change under consideration can be traced directly to Hobbes's concern with a human guaranty for the actualization of the right social order or to his "realistic" intention. The actualization of a social order that is defined in terms of man's duties is necessarily uncertain and even improbable; such an order may well appear to be Utopian. Quite different is the case of a social order that is defined in terms of the rights of man. For the rights in question express, and are meant to express, something that everyone actually desires anyway; they hallow everyone's self-interest as everyone sees it or can easily be brought to see it. Men can more safely be depended upon to fight for their rights than to fulfil their duties. In the words of Burke: "The little catechism of the rights of men is soon learned; and the inferences are in the passions."2 With regard to Hobbes's classic formulation, we add that the premises already are in the passions. What is required to make modern natural right effective is enlightenment or propaganda rather than moral appeal. From this we may understand the frequently observed fact that during the modern period natural law became much more of a revolutionary force than it had been in the past. This fact is a direct consequence of the fundamental change in the character of the natural law doctrine itself. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Naturrecht - Gnade - Regierung; Naturzustand vor jeder sozialen Ordnung;

Kurzinhalt: The individual ... had to be conceived of as essentially complete independently of civil society; Hobbes ... replaced the state of grace by the state of civil society.

Textausschnitt: 183a The tradition which Hobbes opposed had assumed that man cannot reach the perfection of his nature except in and through civil society and, therefore, that civil society is prior to the individual. It was this assumption which led to the view that the primary moral fact is duty and not rights. One could not assert the primacy of natural rights without asserting that the individual is in every respect prior to civil society: all rights of civil society or of the sovereign are derivative from rights which originally belonged to the individual.1 The individual as such, the individual regardless of his qualities--and not merely, as Aristotle had contended, the man who surpasses humanity--had to be conceived of as essentially complete independently of civil society. This conception is implied in the contention that there is a state of nature which antedates civil society. According to Rousseau, "the philosophers who have examined the foundations of civil society have all of them felt the necessity to go back to the state of nature." It is true that the quest for the right social order is inseparable from reflection on the origins of civil society or on the prepolitical life of man. But the identification of the prepolitical life of man with "the state of nature" is a particular view, a view by no means held by "all" political philosophers. The state of nature became an essential topic of political philosophy only with Hobbes, who still almost apologized for employing that term. It is only since Hobbes that the philosophic doctrine of natural law has been essentially a doctrine of the state of nature. Prior to him, the term "state of nature" was at home in Christian theology rather than in political philosophy. The state of nature was distinguished especially from the state of grace, and it was subdivided into the state of pure nature and the state of fallen nature. Hobbes dropped the subdivision and replaced the state of grace by the state of civil society. He thus denied, if not the fact, at any rate the importance of the Fall and accordingly asserted that what is needed for remedying the deficiencies or the "inconveniences" of the state of nature is, not divine grace, but the right kind of human government. This antitheological implication of "the state of nature" can only with difficulty be separated from its intra-philosophic meaning, which is to make intelligible the primacy of rights as distinguished from duties: the state of nature is originally characterized by the fact that in it there are perfect rights but no perfect duties.2 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus: universale Rechte, Menschenrechte - das Lokale, Konventionelle (Rousseau); Transzendenz (Plato, Aristoteles) - Fortschritt; der frühe Historismus (Volk usw.)

Kurzinhalt: ... the historical school asserted that the local and the temporal have a higher value than the universal ... y denying the significance, if not the existence, of universal norms, the historical school destroyed ...

Textausschnitt: 14a By denying the significance, if not the existence, of universal norms, the eminent conservatives who founded the historical school were, in fact, continuing and even sharpening the revolutionary effort of their adversaries. That effort was inspired by a specific notion of the natural. It was directed against both the unnatural or conventional and the supra-natural or otherworldly. The revolutionists assumed, we may say, that the natural is always individual and that therefore the uniform is unnatural or conventional. The human individual was to be liberated or to liberate himself so that he could pursue not just his happiness but his own version of happiness. This meant, however, that one universal and uniform goal was set up for all men: the natural right of each individual was a right uniformly belonging to every man as man. But uniformity was said to be unnatural and hence bad. It was evidently impossible to individualize rights in full accordance with the natural diversity of individuals. The only kinds of rights that were neither incompatible with social life nor uniform were "historical" rights: rights of Englishmen, for example, in contradistinction to the rights of man. Local and temporal variety seemed to supply a safe and solid middle ground between antisocial individualism and unnatural universality. The historical school did not discover the local and temporal variety of notions of justice: the obvious does not have to be discovered. The utmost one could say is that it discovered the value, the charm, the inwardness of the local and temporal or that it discovered the superiority of the local and temporal to the universal. It would be more cautious to say that, radicalizing the tendency of men like Rousseau, the historical school asserted that the local and the temporal have a higher value than the universal. As a consequence, what claimed to be universal appeared eventually as derivative from something locally and temporally confined, as the local and temporal in statu evanescendi. The natural law teaching of the Stoics, for example, was likely to appear as a mere reflex of a particular temporal state of a particular local society-of the dissolution of the Greek city. (Fs)

15a The effort of the revolutionists was directed against all otherworldliness1 or transcendence. Transcendence is not a preserve of revealed religion. In a very important sense it was implied in the original meaning of political philosophy as the quest for the natural or best political order. The best regime, as Plato and Aristotle understood it, is, and is meant to be, for the most part, different from what is actual here and now or beyond all actual orders. This view of the transcendence of the best political order was profoundly modified by the way in which "progress" was understood in the eighteenth century, but it was still preserved in that eighteenth-century notion. Otherwise, the theorists of the French Revolution could not have condemned all or almost all social orders which had ever been in existence. By denying the significance, if not the existence, of universal norms, the historical school destroyed the only solid basis of all efforts to transcend the actual. Historicism can therefore be described as a much more extreme form of modern this-worldliness than the French radicalism of the eighteenth century had been. It certainly acted as if it intended to make men absolutely at home in "this world." Since any universal principles make at least most men potentially homeless, it depreciated universal principles in favor of historical principles. It believed that, by understanding their past, their heritage, their historical situation, men could arrive at principles that would be as objective as those of the older, prehistoricist political philosophy had claimed to be and, in addition, would not be abstract or universal and hence harmful to wise action or to a truly human life, but concrete or particular--principles fitting the particular age or particular nation, principles relative to the particular age or particular nation. (Fs) (notabene)

16a In trying to discover standards which, while being objective, were relative to particular historical situations, the historical school assigned to historical studies a much greater importance than they had ever possessed. Its notion of what one could expect from historical studies was, however, not the outcome of historical studies but of assumptions that stemmed directly or indirectly from the natural right doctrine of the eighteenth century. The historical school assumed the existence of folk minds, that is, it assumed that nations or ethnic groups are natural units, or it assumed the existence of general laws of historical evolution, or it combined both assumptions. It soon appeared that there was a conflict between the assumptions that had given the decisive impetus to historical studies and the results, as well as the requirements, of genuine historical understanding. In the moment these assumptions were abandoned, the infancy of historicism came to its end. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Positivismus; Geschichte als höchste Autorität; Scheitern dieses Anspruchs -> Nihilismus

Kurzinhalt: Historicism now appeared as a particular form of positivism, ... Thus history was thought to supply the only empirical, and hence the only solid, knowledge of what is truly human ...

Textausschnitt: 16b Historicism now appeared as a particular form of positivism, that is, of the school which held that theology and metaphysics had been superseded once and for all by positive science or which identified genuine knowledge of reality with the knowledge supplied by the empirical sciences. Positivism proper had defined "empirical" in terms of the procedures of the natural sciences. But there was a glaring contrast between the manner in which historical subjects were treated by positivism proper and the manner in which they were treated by the historians who really proceeded empirically. Precisely in the interests of empirical knowledge it became necessary to insist that the methods of natural science be not considered authoritative for historical studies. In addition, what "scientific" psychology and sociology had to say about man proved to be trivial and poor if compared with what could be learned from the great historians. Thus history was thought to supply the only empirical, and hence the only solid, knowledge of what is truly human, of man as man: of his greatness and misery. Since all human pursuits start from and return to man, the empirical study of humanity could seem to be justified in claiming a higher dignity than all other studies of reality. History--history divorced from all dubious or metaphysical assumptions--became the highest authority. (Fs)

17a But history proved utterly unable to keep the promise that had been held out by the historical school. The historical school had succeeded in discrediting universal or abstract principles; it had thought that historical studies would reveal particular or concrete standards. Yet the unbiased historian had to confess his inability to derive any norms from history: no objective norms remained. The historical school had obscured the fact that particular or historical standards can become authoritative only on the basis of a universal principle which imposes an obligation on the individual to accept, or to bow to, the standards suggested by the tradition or the situation which has molded him. Yet no universal principle will ever sanction the acceptance of every historical standard or of every victorious cause: to conform with tradition or to jump on "the wave of the future" is not obviously better, and it is certainly not always better than to burn what one has worshiped or to resist the "trend of history." Thus all standards suggested by history as such proved to be fundamentally ambiguous and therefore unfit to be considered standards. To the unbiased historian, "the historical process" revealed itself as the meaningless web spun by what men did, produced, and thought, no more than by unmitigated chance--a tale told by an idiot. The historical standards, the standards thrown up by this meaningless process, could no longer claim to be hallowed by sacred powers behind that process. The only standards that remained were of a purely subjective character, standards that had no other support than the free choice of the individual. No objective criterion henceforth allowed the distinction between good and bad choices. Historicism culminated in nihilism. The attempt to make man absolutely at home in this world ended in man's becoming absolutely homeless. (Fs) (notabene)

18a The view that "the historical process" is a meaningless web or that there is no such thing as the "historical process" was not novel. It was fundamentally the classical view. In spite of considerable opposition from different quarters, it was still powerful in the eighteenth century. The nihilistic consequence of historicism could have suggested a return to the older, pre-historicist view. But the manifest failure of the practical claim of historicism, that it could supply life with a better, a more solid, guidance than the prehistoricist thought of the past had done, did not destroy the prestige of the alleged theoretical insight due to historicism. The mood created by historicism and its practical failure was interpreted as the unheard-of experience of the true situation of man as man--of a situation which earlier man had concealed from himself by believing in universal and unchangeable principles. In opposition to the earlier view, the historicists continued to ascribe decisive importance to that view of man that arises out of historical studies, which as such are particularly and primarily concerned not with the permanent and universal but with the variable and unique. History as history seems to present to us the depressing spectacle of a disgraceful variety of thoughts and beliefs and, above all, of the passing-away of every thought and belief ever held by men. It seems to show that all human thought is dependent on unique historical contexts that are preceded by more or less different contexts and that emerge out of their antecedents in a fundamentally unpredictable way: the foundations of human thought are laid by unpredictable experiences or decisions. Since all human thought belongs to specific historical situations, all human thought is bound to perish with the situation to which it belongs and to be superseded by new, unpredictable thoughts. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus, fehlende philosophisches Begründung; Unterschied: Skeptizismus - Historismus

Kurzinhalt: But skepticism and historicism are two entirely different things. Skepticism regards itself as, in principle, coeval with human thought; historicism regards itself ...

Textausschnitt: 19a The historicist contention presents itself today as amply supported by historical evidence, or even as expressing an obvious fact. But if the fact is so obvious, it is hard to see how it could have escaped the notice of the most thoughtful men of the past. As regards the historical evidence, it is clearly insufficient to support the historicist contention. History teaches us that a given view has been abandoned in favor of another view by all men, or by all competent men, or perhaps only by the most vocal men; it does not teach us whether the change was sound or whether the rejected view deserved to be rejected. Only an impartial analysis of the view in question--an analysis that is not dazzled by the victory or stunned by the defeat of the adherents of the view concerned--could teach us anything regarding the worth of the view and hence regarding the meaning of the historical change. If the historicist contention is to have any solidity, it must be based not on history but on philosophy: on a philosophic analysis proving that all human thought depends ultimately on fickle and dark fate and not on evident principles accessible to man as man. The basic stratum of that philosophic analysis is a "critique of reason" that allegedly proves the impossibility of theoretical metaphysics and of philosophic ethics or natural right. Once all metaphysical and ethical views can be assumed to be, strictly speaking, untenable, that is, untenable as regards their claim to be simply true, their historical fate necessarily appears to be deserved. It then becomes a plausible, although not very important, task to trace the prevalence, at different times, of different metaphysical and ethical views, to the times at which they prevailed. But this leaves still intact the authority of the positive sciences. The second stratum of the philosophical analysis underlying historicism is the proof that the positive sciences rest on metaphysical foundations. (Fs)

20a Taken by itself, this philosophic critique of philosophic and scientific thought--a continuation of the efforts of Hume and of Kant--would lead to skepticism. But skepticism and historicism are two entirely different things. Skepticism regards itself as, in principle, coeval with human thought; historicism regards itself as belonging to a specific historical situation. For the skeptic, all assertions are uncertain and therefore essentially arbitrary; for the historicist, the assertions that prevail at different times and in different civilizations are very far from being arbitrary. Historicism stems from a nonskeptical tradition--from that modern tradition which tried to define the limits of human knowledge and which therefore admitted that, within certain limits, genuine knowledge is possible. In contradistinction to all skepticism, historicism rests at least partly on such a critique of human thought as claims to articulate what is called "the experience of history." (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Widerspruch in sich; trans-historischer Rahmen, Naturrecht; Aristoteles, Sklaverei, Weltstaat

Kurzinhalt: ... history seems rather to prove that all human thought, and certainly all philosophic thought, is concerned with the same fundamental themes or the same fundamental problems, ...

Textausschnitt: 22a When speaking of the "experience" of history, people imply that this "experience" is a comprehensive insight which arises out of historical knowledge but which cannot be reduced to historical knowledge. For historical knowledge is always extremely fragmentary and frequently very uncertain, whereas the alleged experience is supposedly global and certain. Yet it can hardly be doubted that the alleged experience ultimately rests on a number of historical observations. The question, then, is whether these observations entitle one to assert that the acquisition of new important insights necessarily leads to the forgetting of earlier important insights and that the earlier thinkers could not possibly have thought of fundamental possibilities which came to the center of attention in later ages. It is obviously untrue to say, for instance, that Aristotle could not have conceived of the injustice of slavery, for he did conceive of it. One may say, however, that he could not have conceived of a world state. But why? The world state presupposes such a development of technology as Aristotle could never have dreamed of. That technological development, in its turn, required that science be regarded as essentially in the service of the "conquest of nature" and that technology be emancipated from any moral and political supervision. Aristotle did not conceive of a world state because he was absolutely certain that science is essentially theoretical and that the liberation of technology from moral and political control would lead to disastrous consequences: the fusion of science and the arts together with the unlimited or uncontrolled progress of technology has made universal and perpetual tyranny a serious possibility. Only a rash man would say that Aristotle's view--that is, his answers to the questions of whether or not science is essentially theoretical and whether or not technological progress is in need of strict moral or political control--has been refuted. But whatever one might think of his answers, certainly the fundamental questions to which they are the answers are identical with the fundamental questions that are of immediate concern to us today. Realizing this, we realize at the same time that the epoch which regar23a Far from legitimizing the historicist inference, history seems rather to prove that all human thought, and certainly all philosophic thought, is concerned with the same fundamental themes or the same fundamental problems, and therefore that there exists an unchanging framework which persists in all changes of human knowledge of both facts and principles. This inference is obviously compatible with the fact that clarity about these problems, the approach to them, and the suggested solutions to them differ more or less from thinker to thinker or from age to age. If the fundamental problems persist in all historical change, human thought is capable of transcending its historical limitation or of grasping something trans-historical. This would be the case even if it were true that all attempts to solve these problems are doomed to fail and that they are doomed to fail on account of the "historicity" of "all" human thought. (Fs)ded Aristotle's fundamental questions as obsolete completely lacked clarity about what the fundamental issues are. (Fs)

23a Far from legitimizing the historicist inference, history seems rather to prove that all human thought, and certainly all philosophic thought, is concerned with the same fundamental themes or the same fundamental problems, and therefore that there exists an unchanging framework which persists in all changes of human knowledge of both facts and principles. This inference is obviously compatible with the fact that clarity about these problems, the approach to them, and the suggested solutions to them differ more or less from thinker to thinker or from age to age. If the fundamental problems persist in all historical change, human thought is capable of transcending its historical limitation or of grasping something trans-historical. This would be the case even if it were true that all attempts to solve these problems are doomed to fail and that they are doomed to fail on account of the "historicity" of "all" human thought. (Fs)

24a To leave it at this would amount to regarding the cause of natural right as hopeless. There cannot be natural right if all that man could know about right were the problem of right, or if the question of the principles of justice would admit of a variety of mutually exclusive answers, none of which could be proved to be superior to the others. There cannot be natural right if human thought, in spite of its essential incompleteness, is not capable of solving the problem of the principles of justice in a genuine and hence universally valid manner. More generally expressed, there cannot be natural right if human thought is not capable of acquiring genuine, universally valid, final knowledge within a limited sphere or genuine knowledge of specific subjects. Historicism cannot deny this possibility. For its own contention implies the admission of this possibility. By asserting that all human thought, or at least all relevant human thought, is historical, historicism admits that human thought is capable of acquiring a most important insight that is universally valid and that will in no way be affected by any future surprises. The historicist thesis is not an isolated assertion: it is inseparable from a view of the essential structure of human life. This view has the same trans-historical character or pretension as any natural right doctrine. (Fs) (notabene)

24b The historicist thesis is then exposed to a very obvious difficulty which cannot be solved but only evaded or obscured by considerations of a more subtle character. Historicism asserts that all human thoughts or beliefs are historical, and hence deservedly destined to perish; but historicism itself is a human thought; hence historicism can be of only temporary validity, or it cannot be simply true. To assert the historicist thesis means to doubt it and thus to transcend it. As a matter of fact, historicism claims to have brought to light a truth which has come to stay, a truth valid for all thought, for all time: however much thought has changed and will change, it will always remain historical. As regards the decisive insight into the essential character of all human thought and therewith into the essential character or limitation of humanity, history has reached its end. The historicist is not impressed by the prospect that historicism may be superseded in due time by the denial of historicism. He is certain that such a change would amount to a relapse of human thought into its most powerful delusion. Historicism thrives on the fact that it inconsistently exempts itself from its own verdict about all human thought. The historicist thesis is self-contradictory or absurd. We cannot see the historical character of "all" thought--that is, of all thought with the exception of the historicist insight and its implications--without transcending history, without grasping something trans-historical. (Fs) (notabene)

25a If we call all thought that is radically historical a "comprehensive world view" or a part of such a view, we must say: historicism is not itself a comprehensive world view but an analysis of all comprehensive world views, an exposition of the essential character of all such views. Thought that recognizes the relativity of all comprehensive views has a different character from thought which is under the spell of, or which adopts, a comprehensive view. The former is absolute and neutral; the latter is relative and committed. The former is a theoretical insight that transcends history; the latter is the outcome of a fateful dispensation. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Radikaler Historismus: These; Nietzsche; Schicksal, Zusage

Kurzinhalt: The thesis of radical historicism can be stated as follows. ... the horizon within which all our understanding and orientation take place is produced by the fate of the individual or of his society.

Textausschnitt: 26a The radical historicist refuses to admit the trans-historical character of the historicist thesis. At the same time he recognizes the absurdity of unqualified historicism as a theoretical thesis. He denies, therefore, the possibility of a theoretical or objective analysis, which as such would be trans-historical, of the various comprehensive views or "historical worlds" or "cultures." This denial was decisively prepared by Nietzsche's attack on nineteenth-century historicism, which claimed to be a theoretical view. According to Nietzsche, the theoretical analysis of human life that realizes the relativity of all comprehensive views and thus depreciates them would make human life itself impossible, for it would destroy the protecting atmosphere within which life or culture or action is alone possible. Moreover, since the theoretical analysis has its basis outside of life, it will never be able to understand life. The theoretical analysis of life is noncommittal and fatal to commitment, but life means commitment. To avert the danger to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life--that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion--or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate. If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors adopted the second alternative.1 (Fs)

26b The thesis of radical historicism can be stated as follows. All understanding, all knowledge, however limited and "scientific," presupposes a frame of reference; it presupposes a horizon, a comprehensive view within which understanding and knowing take place. Only such a comprehensive vision makes possible any seeing, any observation, any orientation. The comprehensive view of the whole cannot be validated by reasoning, since it is the basis of all reasoning. Accordingly, there is a variety of such comprehensive views, each as legitimate as any other: we have to choose such a view without any rational guidance. It is absolutely necessary to choose one; neutrality or suspension of judgment is impossible. Our choice has no support but itself; it is not supported by any objective or theoretical certainty; it is separated from nothingness, the complete absence of meaning, by nothing but our choice of it. Strictly speaking, we cannot choose among different views. A single comprehensive view is imposed on us by fate: the horizon within which all our understanding and orientation take place is produced by the fate of the individual or of his society. All human thought depends on fate, on something that thought cannot master and whose workings it cannot anticipate. Yet the support of the horizon produced by fate is ultimately the choice of the individual, since that fate has to be accepted by the individual. We are free in the sense that we are free either to choose in anguish the world view and the standards imposed on us by fate or else to lose ourselves in illusory security or in despair. (Fs) (notabene)

27a The radical historicist asserts, then, that only to thought that is itself committed or "historical" does other committed or "historical" thought disclose itself, and, above all, that only to thought that is itself committed or "historical" does the true meaning of the "historicity" of all genuine thought disclose itself. The historicist thesis expresses a fundamental experience which, by its nature, is incapable of adequate expression on the level of noncommitted or detached thought. The evidence of that experience may indeed be blurred, but it cannot be destroyed by the inevitable logical difficulties from which all expressions of such experiences suffer. With a view to his fundamental experience, the radical historicist denies that the final and, in this sense, trans-historical character of the historicist thesis makes doubtful the content of that thesis. The final and irrevocable insight into the historical character of all thought would transcend history only if that insight were accessible to man as man and hence, in principle, at all times; but it does not transcend history if it essentially belongs to a specific historic situation. It belongs to a specific historic situation: that situation is not merely the condition of the historicist insight but its source.1 (Fs) (notabene)

28a All natural right doctrines claim that the fundamentals of justice are, in principle, accessible to man as man. They presuppose, therefore, that a most important truth can, in principle, be accessible to man as man. Denying this presupposition, radical historicism asserts that the basic insight into the essential limitation of all human thought is not accessible to man as man, or that it is not the result of the progress or the labor of human thought, but that it is an unforeseeable gift of unfathomable fate. It is due to fate that the essential dependence of thought on fate is realized now, and was not realized in earlier times. Historicism has this in common with all other thought, that it depends on fate. It differs from all other thought in this, that, thanks to fate, it has been given to realize the radical dependence of thought on fate. We are absolutely ignorant of the surprises which fate may have in store for later generations, and fate may in the future again conceal what it has revealed to us; but this does not impair the truth of that revelation. One does not have to transcend history in order to see the historical character of all thought: there is a privileged moment, an absolute moment in the historical process, a moment in which the essential character of all thought becomes transparent. In exempting itself from its own verdict, historicism claims merely to mirror the character of historical reality or to be true to the facts; the self-contradictory character of the historicist thesis should be charged not to historicism but to reality. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Absolutheit; Hegel; Skeptizismus

Kurzinhalt: The assumption of an absolute moment in history is essential to historicism. In this, historicism surreptitiously follows the precedent set in a classic manner by Hegel.

Textausschnitt: 29a The assumption of an absolute moment in history is essential to historicism. In this, historicism surreptitiously follows the precedent set in a classic manner by Hegel. Hegel had taught that every philosophy is the conceptual expression of the spirit of its time, and yet he maintained the absolute truth of his own system of philosophy by ascribing absolute character to his own time; he assumed that his own time was the end of history and hence the absolute moment. Historicism explicitly denies that the end of history has come, but it implicitly asserts the opposite: no possible future change of orientation can legitimately make doubtful the decisive insight into the inescapable dependence of thought on fate, and therewith into the essential character of human life; in the decisive respect the end of history, that is, of the history of thought, has come. But one cannot simply assume that one lives or thinks in the absolute moment; one must show, somehow, how the absolute moment can be recognized as such. According to Hegel, the absolute moment is the one in which philosophy, or quest for wisdom, has been transformed into wisdom, that is, the moment in which the fundamental riddles have been fully solved. Historicism, however, stands or falls by the denial of the possibility of theoretical metaphysics and of philosophic ethics or natural right; it stands or falls by the denial of the solubility of the fundamental riddles. According to historicism, therefore, the absolute moment must be the moment in which the insoluble character of the fundamental riddles has become fully manifest or in which the fundamental delusion of the human mind has been dispelled. (Fs)

29b But one might realize the insoluble character of the fundamental riddles and still continue to see in the understanding of these riddles the task of philosophy; one would thus merely replace a nonhistoricist and dogmatic philosophy by a non-historicist and skeptical philosophy. Historicism goes beyond skepticism. It assumes that philosophy, in the full and original sense of the term, namely, the attempt to replace opinions about the whole by knowledge of the whole, is not only incapable of reaching its goal but absurd, because the very idea of philosophy rests on dogmatic, that is, arbitrary, premises or, more specifically, on premises that are only "historical and relative." For clearly, if philosophy, or the attempt to replace opinions by knowledge, itself rests on mere opinions, philosophy is absurd. (Fs)

30a The most influential attempts to establish the dogmatic and hence arbitrary or historically relative character of philosophy proper proceed along the following lines. Philosophy or the attempt to replace opinions about the whole by knowledge of the whole, presupposes that the whole is knowable, that is, intelligible. This presupposition leads to the consequence that the whole as it is in itself is identified with the whole in so far as it is intelligible or in so far as it can become an object; it leads to the identification of "being" with "intelligible" or "object"; it leads to the dogmatic disregard of everything that cannot become an object, that is, an object for the knowing subject, or the dogmatic disregard of everything that cannot be mastered by the subject. Furthermore, to say that the whole is knowable or intelligible is tantamount to saying that the whole has a permanent structure or that the whole as such is unchangeable or always the same. If this is the case, it is, in principle, possible to predict how the whole will be at any future time: the future of the whole can be anticipated by thought. The presupposition mentioned is said to have its root in the dogmatic identification of "to be" in the highest sense with "to be always," or in the fact that philosophy understands "to be" in such a sense that "to be" in the highest sense must mean "to be always." The dogmatic character of the basic premise of philosophy is said to have been revealed by the discovery of history or of the "historicity" of human life. The meaning of that discovery can be expressed in theses like these: what is called the whole is actually always incomplete and therefore not truly a whole; the whole is essentially changing in such a manner that its future cannot be predicted; the whole as it is in itself can never be grasped, or it is not intelligible; human thought essentially depends on something that cannot be anticipated or that can never be an object or that can never be mastered by the subject; "to be" in the highest sense cannot mean--or, at any rate, it does not necessarily mean-"to be always." (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus (theoretisch, existentialistisch) - keine Analyse der "Erfahrung der Geschichte", Aufweis: Möglichkeit der Philosophie (Sokrates)

Kurzinhalt: ... the very idea of natural right presupposes the possibility of philosophy in the full and original meaning of the term. ... the "experience of history" does not make doubtful the view that the fundamental problems, such as ...

Textausschnitt: 31a We cannot even attempt to discuss these theses. We must leave them with the following observation. Radical historicism compels us to realize the bearing of the fact that the very idea of natural right presupposes the possibility of philosophy in the full and original meaning of the term. It compels us at the same time to realize the need for unbiased reconsideration of the most elementary premises whose validity is presupposed by philosophy. The question of the validity of these premises cannot be disposed of by adopting or clinging to a more or less persistent tradition of philosophy, for it is of the essence of traditions that they cover or conceal their humble foundations by erecting impressive edifices on them. Nothing ought to be said or done which could create the impression that unbiased reconsideration of the most elementary premises of philosophy is a merely academic or historical affair. Prior to such reconsideration, however, the issue of natural right can only remain an open question. (Fs)

31b For we cannot assume that the issue has been finally settled by historicism. The "experience of history" and the less ambiguous experience of the complexity of human affairs may blur, but they cannot extinguish, the evidence of those simple experiences regarding right and wrong which are at the bottom of the philosophic contention that there is a natural right. Historicism either ignores or else distorts these experiences. Furthermore, the most thoroughgoing attempt to establish historicism culminated in the assertion that if and when there are no human beings, there may be entia, but there cannot be esse, that is, that there can be entia while there is no esse. There is an obvious connection between this assertion and the rejection of the view that "to be" in the highest sense means "to be always." Besides, there has always been a glaring contrast between the way in which historicism understands the thought of the past and genuine understanding of the thought of the past; the undeniable possibility of historical objectivity is explicitly or implicitly denied by historicism in all its forms. Above all, in the transition from early (theoretical) to radical ("existentialist") historicism, the "experience of history" was never submitted to critical analysis. It was taken for granted that it is a genuine experience and not a questionable interpretation of experience. The question was not raised whether what is really experienced does not allow of an entirely different and possibly more adequate interpretation. In particular, the "experience of history" does not make doubtful the view that the fundamental problems, such as the problems of justice, persist or retain their identity in all historical change, however much they may be obscured by the temporary denial of their relevance and however variable or provisional all human solutions to these problems may be. In grasping these problems as problems, the human mind liberates itself from its historical limitations. No more is needed to legitimize philosophy in its original, Socratic sense: philosophy is knowledge that one does not know; that is to say, it is knowledge of what one does not know, or awareness of the fundamental problems and, therewith, of the fundamental alternatives regarding their solution that are coeval with human thought. (Fs) (notabene)

33a If the existence and even the possibility of natural right must remain an open question as long as the issue between historicism and nonhistoricist philosophy is not settled, our most urgent need is to understand that issue. The issue is not understood if it is seen merely in the way in which it presents itself from the point of view of historicism; it must also be seen in the way in which it presents itself from the point of view of nonhistoricist philosophy. This means, for all practical purposes, that the problem of historicism must first be considered from the point of view of classical philosophy, which is nonhistoricist thought in its pure form. Our most urgent need can then be satisfied only by means of historical studies which would enable us to understand classical philosophy exactly as it understood itself, and not in the way in which it presents itself on the basis of historicism. We need, in the first place, a nonhistoricist understanding of nonhistoricist philosophy. But we need no less urgently a nonhistoricist understanding of historicism, that is, an understanding of the genesis of historicism that does not take for granted the soundness of historicism. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus: Folge der Krise des modernen Verständnis (18. Jhdt.) von Naturrecht; klassische Philosophie; Unterschied: Intellektueller, Sophist, gentleman - Philosoph

Kurzinhalt: Historicism is the ultimate outcome of the crisis of modern natural right.

Textausschnitt: 33b Historicism assumes that modern man's turn toward history implied the divination and eventually the discovery of a dimension of reality that had escaped classical thought, namely, of the historical dimension. If this is granted, one will be forced in the end into extreme historicism. But if historicism cannot be taken for granted, the question becomes inevitable whether what was hailed in the nineteenth century as a discovery was not, in fact, an invention, that is, an arbitrary interpretation of phenomena which had always been known and which had been interpreted much more adequately prior to the emergence of "the historical consciousness" than afterward. We have to raise the question whether what is called the "discovery" of history is not, in fact, an artificial and makeshift solution to a problem that could arise only on the basis of very questionable premises. (Fs) (notabene)

34a I suggest this line of approach. "History" meant throughout the ages primarily political history. Accordingly, what is called the "discovery" of history is the work, not of philosophy in general, but of political philosophy. It was a predicament peculiar to eighteenth-century political philosophy that led to the emergence of the historical school. The political philosophy of the eighteenth century was a doctrine of natural right. It consisted in a peculiar interpretation of natural right, namely, the specifically modern interpretation. Historicism is the ultimate outcome of the crisis of modern natural right. The crisis of modern natural right or of modern political philosophy could become a crisis of philosophy as such only because in the modern centuries philosophy as such had become thoroughly politicized. Originally, philosophy had been the humanizing quest for the eternal order, and hence it had been a pure source of humane inspiration and aspiration. Since the seventeenth century, philosophy has become a weapon, and hence an instrument. It was this politicization of philosophy that was discerned as the root of our troubles by an intellectual who denounced the treason of the intellectuals. He committed the fatal mistake, however, of ignoring the essential difference between intellectuals and philosophers. In this he remained the dupe of the delusion which he denounced. For the politicization of philosophy consists precisely in this, that the difference between intellectuals and philosophers--a difference formerly known as the difference between gentlemen and philosophers, on the one hand, and the difference between sophists or rhetoricians and philosophers, on the other--becomes blurred and finally disappears. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Max Weber; Wertvorstellung, zeitloser Wert - Fakten

Kurzinhalt: ... what is trans-historical is the validity of these findings; but the importance or significance of any findings depends on value ideas

Textausschnitt: II NATURAL RIGHT AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN FACTS AND VALUES

35a The historicist contention can be reduced to the assertion that natural right is impossible because philosophy in the full sense of the term is impossible. Philosophy is possible only if there is an absolute horizon or a natural horizon in contradistinction to the historically changing horizons or the caves. In other words, philosophy is possible only if man, while incapable of acquiring wisdom or full understanding of the whole, is capable of knowing what he does not know, that is to say, of grasping the fundamental problems and therewith the fundamental alternatives, which are, in principle, coeval with human thought. But the possibility of philosophy is only the necessary and not the sufficient condition of natural right. The possibility of philosophy does not require more than that the fundamental problems always be the same; but there cannot be natural right if the fundamental problem of political philosophy cannot be solved in a final manner. (Fs)

35b If philosophy in general is possible, political philosophy in particular is possible. Political philosophy is possible if man is capable of understanding the fundamental political alternative which is at the bottom of the ephemeral or accidental alternatives. Yet if political philosophy is limited to understanding the fundamental political alternative, it is of no practical value. It would be unable to answer the question of what the ultimate goal of wise action is. It would have to delegate the crucial decision to blind choice. The whole galaxy of political philosophers from Plato to Hegel, and certainly all adherents of natural right, assumed that the fundamental political problem is susceptible of a final solution. This assumption ultimately rested on the Socratic answer to the question of how man ought to live. By realizing that we are ignorant of the most important things, we realize at the same time that the most important thing for us, or the one thing needful, is quest for knowledge of the most important things or quest for wisdom. That this conclusion is not barren of political consequences is known to every reader of Plato's Republic or of Aristotle's Politics. It is true that the successful quest for wisdom might lead to the result that wisdom is not the one thing needful. But this result would owe its relevance to the fact that it is the result of the quest for wisdom: the very disavowal of reason must be reasonable disavowal. Regardless of whether this possibility affects the validity of the Socratic answer, the perennial conflict between the Socratic and the anti-Socratic answer creates the impression that the Socratic answer is as arbitrary as its opposite, or that the perennial conflict is insoluble. Accordingly, many present-day social scientists who are not historicists or who do admit the existence of fundamental and unchanging alternatives deny that human reason is capable of solving the conflict between these alternatives. Natural right is then rejected today not only because all human thought is held to be historical but likewise because it is thought that there is a variety of unchangeable principles of right or of goodness which conflict with one another, and none of which can be proved to be superior to the others. (Fs)

36a Substantially, this is the position taken by Max Weber. Our discussion will be limited to a critical analysis of Weber's view. No one since Weber has devoted a comparable amount of intelligence, assiduity, and almost fanatical devotion to the basic problem of the social sciences. Whatever may have been his errors, he is the greatest social scientist of our century. (Fs)

36b Weber, who regarded himself as a disciple of the historical school1 came very close to historicism, and a strong case can be made for the view that his reservations against historicism were halfhearted and inconsistent with the broad tendency of his thinking. He parted company with the historical school, not because it had rejected natural norms, i.e., norms that are both universal and objective, but because it had tried to establish standards that were particular and historical indeed, but still objective. He objected to the historical school not because it had blurred the idea of natural right but because it had preserved natural right in a historical guise, instead of rejecting it altogether. The historical school had given natural right a historical character by insisting on the ethnic character of all genuine right or by tracing all genuine right to unique folk minds, as well as by assuming that the history of mankind is a meaningful process or a process ruled by intelligible necessity. Weber rejected both assumptions as metaphysical, i.e., as based on the dogmatic premise that reality is rational. Since Weber assumed that the real is always individual, he could state the premise of the historical school also in these terms: the individual is an emanation from the general or from the whole. According to Weber, however, individual or partial phenomena can be understood only as effects of other individual or partial phenomena, and never as effects of wholes such as folk minds. To try to explain historical or unique phenomena by tracing them to general laws or to unique wholes means to assume gratuitously that there are mysterious or unanalyzable forces which move the historical actors.2 There is no "meaning" of history apart from the "subjective" meaning or the intentions which animate the historical actors. But these intentions are of such limited power that the actual outcome is in most cases wholly unintended. Yet the actual outcome--historical fate--which is not planned by God or man, molds not only our way of life but our very thoughts, and especially does it determine our ideals.3 Weber was, however, still too much impressed by the idea of science to accept historicism without qualification. In fact, one is tempted to suggest that the primary motive of his opposition to the historical school and to historicism in general was devotion to the idea of empirical science as it prevailed in his generation. The idea of science forced him to insist on the fact that all science as such is independent of Weltanschauung: both natural and social science claim to be equally valid for Westerners and for Chinese, i.e., for people whose "world views" are radically different. The historical genesis of modern science--the fact that it is of Western origin--is wholly irrelevant as regards its validity. Nor did Weber have any doubt that modern science is absolutely superior to any earlier form of thinking orientation in the world of nature and society. That superiority can be established objectively, by reference to the rules of logic.4 There arose, however, in Weber's mind this difficulty in regard to the social sciences in particular. He insisted on the objective and universal validity of social science in so far as it is a body of true propositions. Yet these propositions are only a part of social science. They are the results of scientific investigation or the answers to questions. The questions which we address to social phenomena depend on the direction of our interest or on our point of view, and these on our value ideas. But the value ideas are historically relative. Hence the substance of social science is radically historical; for it is the value ideas and the direction of interest which determine the whole conceptual framework of the social sciences. Accordingly, it does not make sense to speak of a "natural frame of reference" or to expect a final system of the basic concepts: all frames of reference are ephemeral. Every conceptual scheme used by social science articulates the basic problems, and these problems change with the change of the social and cultural situation. Social science is necessarily the understanding of society from the point of view of the present. What is trans-historical are merely the findings regarding the facts and their causes. More precisely, what is trans-historical is the validity of these findings; but the importance or significance of any findings depends on value ideas and hence on historically changeable principles. Ultimately, this applies to every science. All science presupposes that science is valuable, but this presupposition is the product of certain cultures, and hence historically relative.5 However, the concrete and historical value ideas, of which there is an indefinitely large variety, contain elements of a trans-historical character: the ultimate values are as timeless as the principles of logic. It is the recognition of timeless values that distinguishes Weber's position most significantly from historicism. Not so much historicism as a peculiar notion of timeless values is the basis of his rejection of natural right.6 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Max Weber; Dichotomie: Werte - Tatsachen; Sozialwissenschaft: wertfrei; Referenz zu Werten - Werturteil - Sozialphilosophie; Sein - Sollen (nicht rational)

Kurzinhalt: Weber never explained what he understood by "values." He was primarily concerned with the relations of values to facts. ... The true reason why Weber insisted on the ethically neutral character of social science as well as of social philosophy was, ...

Textausschnitt: 39a Weber never explained what he understood by "values." He was primarily concerned with the relations of values to facts. Facts and values are absolutely heterogeneous, as is shown directly by the absolute heterogeneity of questions of fact and questions of value. No conclusion can be drawn from any fact as to its valuable character, nor can we infer the factual character of something from its being valuable or desirable. Neither time-serving nor wishful thinking is supported by reason. By proving that a given social order is the goal of the historical process, one does not say anything as to the value or desirable character of that order. By showing that certain religious or ethical ideas had a very great effect or no effect, one does not say anything about the value of those ideas. To understand a factual or possible evaluation is something entirely different from approving or forgiving that evaluation. Weber contended that the absolute heterogeneity of facts and values necessitates the ethically neutral character of social science: social science can answer questions of facts and their causes; it is not competent to answer questions of value. He insisted very strongly on the role played by values in social science: the objects of social science are constituted by "reference to values." Without such "reference," there would be no focus of interest, no reasonable selection of themes, no principles of distinction between relevant and irrelevant facts. Through "reference to values" the objects of the social sciences emerge out of the ocean or morass of facts. But Weber insisted no less strongly on the fundamental difference between "reference to values'' and "value judgments'': by saying that something is relevant with regard to political freedom, for example, one does not take a stand for or against political freedom. The social scientist does not evaluate the objects constituted by "reference to values"; he merely explains them by tracing them to their causes. The values to which social science refers and among which acting man chooses are in need of clarification. This clarification is the function of social philosophy. But even social philosophy cannot solve the crucial value problems. It cannot criticize value judgments that are not self-contradictory.1 (Fs)

40a Weber contended that his notion of a "value-free" or ethically neutral social science is fully justified by what he regarded as the most fundamental of all oppositions, namely, the opposition of the Is and the Ought, or the opposition of reality and norm or value.1 But the conclusion from the radical heterogeneity of the Is and the Ought to the impossibility of an evaluating social science is obviously not valid. Let us assume that we had genuine knowledge of right and wrong, or of the Ought, or of the true value system. That knowledge, while not derived from empirical science, would legitimately direct all empirical social science; it would be the foundation of all empirical social science. For social science is meant to be of practical value. It tries to find means for given ends. For this purpose it has to understand the ends. Regardless of whether the ends are "given" in a different manner from the means, the end and the means belong together; therefore, "the end belongs to the same science as the means."2 If there were genuine knowledge of the ends, that knowledge would naturally guide all search for means. There would be no reason to delegate knowledge of the ends to social philosophy and the search for the means to an independent social science. Based on genuine knowledge of the true ends, social science would search for the proper means to those ends; it would lead up to objective and specific value judgments regarding policies. Social science would be a truly policy-making, not to say architectonic, science rather than a mere supplier of data for the real policymakers. The true reason why Weber insisted on the ethically neutral character of social science as well as of social philosophy was, then, not his belief in the fundamental opposition of the Is and the Ought but his belief that there cannot be any genuine knowledge of the Ought. He denied to man any science, empirical or rational, any knowledge, scientific or philosophic, of the true value system: the true value system does not exist; there is a variety of values which are of the same rank, whose demands conflict with one another, and whose conflict cannot be solved by human reason. Social science or social philosophy can do no more than clarify that conflict and all its implications; the solution has to be left to the free, non-rational decision of each individual. (Fs)

42a I contend that Weber's thesis necessarily leads to nihilism or to the view that every preference, however evil, base, or insane, has to be judged before the tribunal of reason to be as legitimate as any other preference. An unmistakable sign of this necessity is supplied by a statement of Weber about the prospects of Western civilization. He saw this alternative: either a spiritual renewal ("wholly new prophets or a powerful renaissance of old thoughts and ideals") or else "mechanized petrifaction, varnished by a kind of convulsive sense of self-importance," i.e., the extinction of every human possibility but that of "specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart." Confronted with this alternative, Weber felt that the decision in favor of either possibility would be a judgment of value or of faith, and hence beyond the competence of reason.1 This amounts to an admission that the way of life of "specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart" is as defensible as the ways of life recommended by Amos or by Socrates. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Historismus - Max Weber; Ausgang: Kant - historische Schule; ethischer Imperativ - kulturelle Werte; Freiheit

Kurzinhalt: What he really thought was that ethical imperatives are as subjective as cultural values. ... The dignity of man consists in his autonomy, i.e., in the individual's freely choosing his own values or his own ideals ...

Textausschnitt: 42b To see this more clearly and to see at the same time why Weber could conceal from himself the nihilistic consequence of his doctrine of values, we have to follow his thought step by step. In following this movement toward its end we shall inevitably reach a point beyond which the scene is darkened by the shadow of Hitler. Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is notv refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler. (Fs)

43a Weber started out from a combination of the views of Kant as they were understood by certain neo-Kantians and of the views of the historical school. From neo-Kantianism he took over his general notion of the character of science, as well as of "individual" ethics. Accordingly, he rejected utilitarianism and every form of eudemonism. From the historical school he took over the view that there is no possible social or cultural order which can be said to be the right or rational order. He combined the two positions by means of the distinction between moral commands (or ethical imperatives) and cultural values. Moral commands appeal to our conscience, whereas cultural values appeal to our feelings: the individual ought to fulfil his moral duties, whereas it depends entirely on his arbitrary will whether he wishes to realize cultural ideals or not. Cultural ideals or values lack the specific obligatory character of the moral imperatives. These imperatives have a dignity of their own, with whose recognition Weber seemed to be greatly concerned. But, precisely because of the fundamental difference between moral commands and cultural values, ethics proper is silent in regard to cultural and social questions. Whereas gentlemen, or honest men, necessarily agree as to things moral, they legitimately disagree in regard to such things as Gothic architecture, private property, monogamy, democracy, and so on.1 (Fs)

43b One is thus led to think that Weber admitted the existence of absolutely binding rational norms, namely, the moral imperatives. Yet one sees immediately afterward that what he said about the moral commands is not much more than the residue of a tradition in which he was brought up and which, indeed, never ceased to determine him as a human being. What he really thought was that ethical imperatives are as subjective as cultural values. According to him, it is as legitimate to reject ethics in the name of cultural values as it is to reject cultural values in the name of ethics, or to adopt any combination of both types of norm which is not self-contradictory.1 This decision was the inevitable consequence of his notion of ethics. He could not reconcile his view that ethics is silent about the right social order with the undeniable ethical relevance of social questions, except by "relativizing" ethics. It was on this basis that he developed his concept of "personality" or of the dignity of man. The true meaning of "personality" depends on the true meaning of "freedom." Provisionally, one may say that human action is free to the extent to which it is not affected by external compulsion or irresistible emotions but is guided by rational consideration of means and ends. Yet true freedom requires ends of a certain kind, and these ends have to be adopted in a certain manner. The ends must be anchored in ultimate values. Man's dignity, his being exalted far above everything merely natural or above all brutes, consists in his setting up autonomously his ultimate values, in making these values his constant ends, and in rationally choosing the means to these ends. The dignity of man consists in his autonomy, i.e., in the individual's freely choosing his own values or his own ideals or in obeying the injunction: "Become what thou art."2 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Max Weber: impliziter Kern seiner These

Kurzinhalt: It seems, then, that what Weber really meant by his rejection of value judgments would have to be expressed as follows: The objects of the social sciences are constituted by reference to values. Reference ..

Textausschnitt: 62a Almost all that we have said up to this point was necessary in order to clear away the most important obstacles to an understanding of Weber's central thesis. Only now are we able to grasp its precise meaning. Let us reconsider our last example. What Weber should have said was that the corruption of Calvinist theology led to the emergence of the capitalist spirit. This would have implied an objective value judgment on vulgar Calvinism: the epigones unwittingly destroyed what they intended to preserve. Yet this implied value judgment is of very limited significance. It does not prejudge the real issue in any way. For, assuming that Calvinist theology were a bad thing, its corruption was a good thing. What Calvin would have considered a "carnal" understanding could, from another point of view, be approved as a "this-worldly" understanding, leading to such good things as secularist individualism and secularist democracy. Even from the latter point of view, vulgar Calvinism would appear as an impossible position, a halfway house, but preferable to Calvinism proper for the same reason that Sancho Panza may be said to be preferable to Don Quixote. The rejection of vulgar Calvinism is then inevitable from every point of view. But this merely means that only after having rejected vulgar Calvinism is one faced with the real issue: the issue of religion versus irreligion, i.e., of genuine religion versus noble irreligion, as distinguished from the issue of mere sorcery, or mechanical ritualism versus the irreligion of specialists without vision and voluptuaries without heart. It is this real issue which, according to Weber, cannot be settled by human reason, just as the conflict between different genuine religions of the highest rank (e.g., the conflict between Deutero-Isaiah, Jesus, and Buddha) cannot be settled by human reason. Thus, in spite of the fact that social science stands or falls by value judgments, social science or social philosophy cannot settle the decisive value conflicts. It is indeed true that one has already passed a value judgment when speaking of Gretchen and a prostitute. But this value judgment proves to be merely provisional the moment one comes face to face with a radically ascetic position which condemns all sexuality. From this point of view, the open degradation of sexuality through prostitution may appear to be a cleaner thing than the disguise of the true nature of sexuality through sentiment and poetry. It is indeed true that one cannot speak of human affairs without praising the intellectual and moral virtues and blaming the intellectual and moral vices. But this does not dispose of the possibility that all human virtues would ultimately have to be judged to be no more than splendid vices. It would be absurd to deny that there is an objective difference between a blundering general and a strategic genius. But if war is absolutely evil, the difference between the blundering general and the strategic genius will be on the same level as the difference between a blundering thief and a genius in thievery. (Fs) (notabene)

63a It seems, then, that what Weber really meant by his rejection of value judgments would have to be expressed as follows: The objects of the social sciences are constituted by reference to values. Reference to values presupposes appreciation of values. Such appreciation enables and forces the social scientist to evaluate the social phenomena, i.e., to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious and between the higher and the lower: between genuine religion and spurious religion, between genuine leaders and charlatans, between knowledge and mere lore or sophistry, between virtue and vice, between moral sensitivity and moral obtuseness, between art and trash, between vitality and degeneracy, etc. Reference to values is incompatible with neutrality; it can never be "purely theoretical." But nonneutrality does not necessarily mean approval; it may also mean rejection. In fact, since the various values are incompatible with one another, the approval of any one value necessarily implies the rejection of some other value or values. Only on the basis of such acceptance or rejection of values, of "ultimate values," do the objects of the social sciences come to sight. For all further work, for the causal analysis of these objects, it must be a matter of indifference whether the student has accepted or rejected the value in question.1 (Fs) (notabene) (notabene)

64a At any rate, Weber's whole notion of the scope and function of the social sciences rests on the allegedly demonstrable premise that the conflict between ultimate values cannot be resolved by human reason. The question is whether that premise has really been demonstrated, or whether it has merely been postulated under the impulse of a specific moral preference. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Mx Weber; unlösbarer Konflikt zw. Ethik und Politik; Machtpolitik

Kurzinhalt: Weber's whole notion of the scope and function of the social sciences rests on the allegedly demonstrable premise that the conflict between ultimate values cannot be resolved by human reason.

Textausschnitt: 64a At any rate, Weber's whole notion of the scope and function of the social sciences rests on the allegedly demonstrable premise that the conflict between ultimate values cannot be resolved by human reason. The question is whether that premise has really been demonstrated, or whether it has merely been postulated under the impulse of a specific moral preference. (Fs)

64b At the threshold of Weber's attempt to demonstrate his basic premise, we encounter two striking facts. The first is that Weber, who wrote thousands of pages, devoted hardly more than thirty of them to a thematic discussion of the basis of his whole position. Why was that basis so little in need of proof? Why was it self-evident to him? A provisional answer is supplied by the second observation we can make prior to any analysis of his arguments. As he indicated at the beginning of his discussion of the subject, his thesis was only the generalized version of an older and more common view, namely, that the conflict between ethics and politics is insoluble: political action is sometimes impossible without incurring moral guilt. It seems, then, that it was the spirit of "power politics" that begot Weber's position. Nothing is more revealing than the fact that, in a related context when speaking of conflict and peace, Weber put "peace" in quotation marks, whereas he did not take this precautionary measure when speaking of conflict. Conflict was for Weber an unambiguous thing, but peace was not: peace is phony, but war is real.1 (Fs)

65a Weber's thesis that there is no solution to the conflict between values was then a part, or a consequence, of the comprehensive view according to which human life is essentially an inescapable conflict. For this reason, "peace and universal happiness" appeared to him to be an illegitimate or fantastic goal. Even if that goal could be reached, he thought, it would not be desirable; it would be the condition of "the last men who have invented happiness," against whom Nietzsche had directed his "devastating criticism." If peace is incompatible with human life or with a truly human life, the moral problem would seem to allow of a clear solution: the nature of things requires a warrior ethics as the basis of a "power politics" that is guided exclusively by considerations of the national interest; or "the most naked Machiavellianism [would have to be] regarded as a matter of course in every respect, and as wholly unobjectionable from an ethical point of view." But we would then be confronted with the paradoxical situation that the individual is at peace with himself while the world is ruled by war. The strife-torn world demands a strife-torn individual. The strife would not go to the root of the individual, if he were not forced to negate the very principle of war: he must negate the war from which he cannot escape and to which he must dedicate himself, as evil or sinful. Lest there be peace anywhere, peace must not be simply rejected. It is not sufficient to recognize peace as the necessary breathing time between wars. There must be an absolute duty directing us toward universal peace or universal brotherhood, a duty conflicting with the equally high duty that directs us to participate in "the eternal struggle" for "elbow room" for our nation. Conflict would not be supreme if guilt could be escaped. The question of whether one can speak of guilt, if man is forced to become guilty, was no longer discussed by Weber: he needed the necessity of guilt. He had to combine the anguish bred by atheism (the absence of any redemption, of any solace) with the anguish bred by revealed religion (the oppressive sense of guilt). Without that combination, life would cease to be tragic and thus lose its depth.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Max Weber; Beispiel: Gerechtigkeit; '''Verantwortungsethik - Gesinnungsethik

Kurzinhalt: ... what justice in society requires cannot be decided, according to Weber, by any ethics ... insoluble conflict between what he calls the "ethics of responsibility" and the "ethics of intention."

Textausschnitt: 67a But we can no longer delay turning to Weber's attempts to prove his contention that the ultimate values are simply in conflict with one another. We shall have to limit ourselves to a discussion of two or three specimens of his proofs.1 The first one is the example that he used in order to illustrate the character of most issues of social policy. Social policy is concerned with justice; but what justice in society requires cannot be decided, according to Weber, by any ethics. Two opposed views are equally legitimate or defensible. According to the first view, one owes much to him who achieves or contributes much; according to the second view, one should demand much from him who can achieve or contribute much. If one adopts the first view, one would have to grant great opportunities to great talent. If one adopts the second view, one would have to prevent the talented individual from exploiting his superior opportunities. We shall not complain about the loose way in which Weber stated what he considered, rather strangely, an insuperable difficulty. We merely note that he did not think it necessary to indicate any reason by which the first view can be supported. The second view, however, seemed to require an explicit argument. According to Weber, one may argue, as Babeuf did, in the following way: the injustice of the unequal distribution of mental gifts and the gratifying feeling of prestige which attends the mere possession of superior gifts have to be compensated by social measures destined to prevent the talented individual from exploiting his great opportunities. Before one could say that this view is tenable, one would have to know whether it makes sense to say that nature committed an injustice by distributing her gifts unequally, whether it is a duty of society to remedy that injustice, and whether envy has a right to be heard. But even if one would grant that Babeuf's view, as stated by Weber, is as defensible as the first view, what would follow? That we have to make a blind choice? That we have to incite the adherents of the two opposed views to insist on their opinions with all the obstinacy that they can muster? If, as Weber contends, no solution is morally superior to the other, the reasonable consequence would be that the decision has to be transferred from the tribunal of ethics to that of convenience or expediency. Weber emphatically excluded considerations of expediency from the discussion of this issue. If demands are made in the name of justice, he declared, consideration of which solution would supply the best "incentives" is out of place. But is there no connection between justice and the good of society, and between the good of society and incentives to socially valuable activity? Precisely if Weber were right in asserting that the two opposite views are equally defensible, would social science as an objective science have to stigmatize as a crackpot any man who insisted that only one of the views is in accordance with justice.2 (Fs)

69a Our second example is Weber's alleged proof that there is an insoluble conflict between what he calls the "ethics of responsibility" and the "ethics of intention." According to the former, man's responsibility extends to the foreseeable consequences of his actions, whereas, according to the latter, man's responsibility is limited to the intrinsic rightness of his actions. Weber illustrated the ethics of intention by the example of syndicalism: the syndicalist is concerned not with the consequences or the success of his revolutionary activity but with his own integrity, with preserving in himself and awakening in others a certain moral attitude and nothing else. Even a conclusive proof that in a given situation his revolutionary activity would be destructive, for all the foreseeable future, of the very existence of revolutionary workers would not be a valid argument against a convinced syndicalist. Weber's convinced syndicalist is an ad hoc construction, as is shown by his remark that if the syndicalist is consistent, his kingdom is not of this world. In other words, if he were consistent, he would cease to be a syndicalist, i.e., a man who is concerned with the liberation of the working class in this world, and by means belonging to this world. The ethics of intention, which Weber imputed to syndicalism, is, in reality, an ethics alien to all this-worldly social or political movements. As he stated on another occasion, within the dimension of social action proper "the ethics of intention and the ethics of responsibility are not absolute opposites, but supplement each other: both united constitute the genuine human being." That ethics of intention that is incompatible with what Weber once called the ethics of a genuine human being is a certain interpretation of Christian ethics or, more generally expressed, a strictly otherworldly ethics. What Weber really meant when speaking of the insoluble conflict between the ethics of intention and the ethics of responsibility was, then, that the conflict between this-worldly ethics and otherworldly ethics is insoluble by human reason.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Max Weber . Offenbarung; Normen: nicht diesseitig begründbar; Baum der Erkenntnis (keine Illusionen mehr) - Historismus; Gründung der Werte nur im Glauben

Kurzinhalt: ... science or philosophy rests, in the last analysis, not on evident premises ...; But he was certain that all devotion to causes or ideals has its roots in religious faith ...

Textausschnitt: 70a Weber was convinced that, on the basis of a strictly this-worldly orientation, no objective norms are possible: there cannot be "absolutely valid" and, at the same time, specific norms except on the basis of revelation. Yet he never proved that the unassisted human mind is incapable of arriving at objective norms or that the conflict between different this-worldly ethical doctrines is insoluble by human reason. He merely proved that otherworldly ethics, or rather a certain type of otherworldly ethics, is incompatible with those standards of human excellence or of human dignity which the unassisted human mind discerns. One could say, without in the least becoming guilty of irreverence, that the conflict between this-worldly and otherworldly ethics need not be of serious concern to social science. As Weber himself pointed out, social science attempts to understand social life from a this-worldly point of view. Social science is human knowledge of human life. Its light is the natural light. It tries to find rational or reasonable solutions to social problems. The insights and solutions at which it arrives might be questioned on the basis of superhuman knowledge or of divine revelation. But, as Weber indicated, social science as such cannot take notice of such questionings, because they are based on presuppositions which can never be evident to unassisted human reason. By accepting presuppositions of this character, social science would transform itself into either Jewish or Christian or Islamic or Buddhistic or some other "denominational" social science. In addition, if genuine insights of social science can be questioned on the basis of revelation, revelation is not merely above reason but against reason. Weber had no compunction in saying that every belief in revelation is ultimately belief in the absurd. Whether this view of Weber, who, after all, was not a theological authority, is compatible with an intelligent belief in revelation need not concern us here.1 (Fs)

71a Once it is granted that social science, or this-worldly understanding of human life, is evidently legitimate, the difficulty raised by Weber appears to be irrelevant. But he refused to grant that premise. He contended that science or philosophy rests, in the last analysis, not on evident premises that are at the disposal of man as man but on faith. Granting that only science or philosophy can lead to the truth which man can know, he raised the question of whether the search for know-able truth is good, and he decided that this question can no longer be answered by science or philosophy. Science or philosophy is unable to give a clear or certain account of its own basis. The goodness of science or philosophy was no problem as long as one could think that it is "the way to true being" or to "true nature" or to "true happiness." But these expectations have proved to be illusory. Henceforth, science or philosophy can have no other goal than to ascertain that very limited truth which is accessible to man. Yet, in spite of this amazing change in the character of science or philosophy, the quest for truth continues to be regarded as valuable in itself, and not merely with a view to its practical results-which, in their turn, are of questionable value: to increase man's power means to increase his power for evil as well as for good. By regarding the quest for truth as valuable in itself, one admits that one is making a preference which no longer has a good or sufficient reason. One recognizes therewith the principle that preferences do not need good or sufficient reasons. Accordingly, those who regard the quest for truth as valuable in itself may regard such activities as the understanding of the genesis of a doctrine, or the editing of a text-nay, the conjectural correction of any corrupt reading in any manuscript-as ends in themselves: the quest for truth has the same dignity as stamp collecting. Every pursuit, every whim, becomes as defensible or as legitimate as any other. But Weber did not always go so far. He also said that the goal of science is clarity, i.e., clarity about the great issues, and this means ultimately clarity not indeed about the whole but about the situation of man as man. Science or philosophy is then the way toward freedom from delusion; it is the foundation of a free life, of a life that refuses to bring the sacrifice of the intellect and dares to look reality in its stern face. It is concerned with the know-able truth, which is valid regardless of whether we like it or not. Weber went up to this point. But he refused to say that science or philosophy is concerned with the truth which is valid for all men regardless of whether they desire to know it or not. What stopped him? Why did he deny to the knowable truth its inescapable power?2 (Fs)

73a He was inclined to believe that twentieth-century man has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or can be free from the delusions which blinded all earlier men: we see the situation of man without delusions; we are disenchanted. But under the influence of historicism, he became doubtful whether one can speak of the situation of man as man or, if one can, whether this situation is not seen differently in different ages in such a manner that, in principle, the view of any age is as legitimate or as illegitimate as that of any other. He wondered, therefore, whether what appeared to be the situation of man as man was more than the situation of present-day man, or "the inescapable datum of our historical situation." Hence what originally appeared as freedom from delusions presented itself eventually as hardly more than the questionable premise of our age or as an attitude that will be superseded, in due time, by an attitude that will be in conformity with the next epoch. The thought of the present age is characterized by disenchantment or unqualified "this-worldliness," or irreligion. What claims to be freedom from delusions is as much and as little delusion as the faiths which prevailed in the past and which may prevail in the future. We are irreligious because fate forces us to be irreligious and for no other reason. Weber refused to bring the sacrifice of the intellect; he did not wait for a religious revival or for prophets or saviors; and he was not at all certain whether a religious revival would follow the present age. But he was certain that all devotion to causes or ideals has its roots in religious faith and, therefore, that the decline of religious faith will ultimately lead to the extinction of all causes or ideals. He tended to see before him the alternative of either complete spiritual emptiness or religious revival. He despaired of the modern this-worldly irreligious experiment, and yet he remained attached to it because he was fated to believe in science as he understood it. The result of this conflict, which he could not resolve, was his belief that the conflict between values cannot be resolved by human reason.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Max Weber; Wissen um das Gute: Philosophie - Offenbarung; Opfer des Intellekts: Wurzel jeder Wissenschaft

Kurzinhalt: No alternative is more fundamental than this: human guidance or divine guidance. The first possibility is characteristic of philosophy ...

Textausschnitt: 74a Yet the crisis of modern life and of modern science does not necessarily make doubtful the idea of science. We must therefore try to state in more precise terms what Weber had in mind when he said that science seemed to be unable to give a clear or certain account of itself. (Fs)

74b Man cannot live without light, guidance, knowledge; only through knowledge of the good can he find the good that he needs. The fundamental question, therefore, is whether men can acquire that knowledge of the good without which they cannot guide their lives individually or collectively by the unaided efforts of their natural powers, or whether they are dependent for that knowledge on Divine Revelation. No alternative is more fundamental than this: human guidance or divine guidance. The first possibility is characteristic of philosophy or science in the original sense of the term, the second is presented in the Bible. The dilemma cannot be evaded by any harmonization or synthesis. For both philosophy and the Bible proclaim something as the one thing needful, as the only thing that ultimately counts, and the one thing needful proclaimed by the Bible is the opposite of that proclaimed by philosophy: a life of obedient love versus a life of free insight. In every attempt at harmonization, in every synthesis however impressive, one of the two opposed elements is sacrificed, more or less subtly but in any event surely, to the other: philosophy, which means to be the queen, must be made the handmaid of revelation or vice versa. (Fs)

75a If we take a bird's-eye view of the secular struggle between philosophy and theology, we can hardly avoid the impression that neither of the two antagonists has ever succeeded in really refuting the other. All arguments in favor of revelation seem to be valid only if belief in revelation is presupposed; and all arguments against revelation seem to be valid only if unbelief is presupposed. This state of things would appear to be but natural. Revelation is always so uncertain to unassisted reason that it can never compel the assent of unassisted reason, and man is so built that he can find his satisfaction, his bliss, in free investigation, in articulating the riddle of being. But, on the other hand, he yearns so much for a solution of that riddle and human knowledge is always so limited that the need for divine illumination cannot be denied and the possibility of revelation cannot be refuted. Now it is this state of things that seems to decide irrevocably against philosophy and in favor of revelation. Philosophy has to grant that revelation is possible. But to grant that revelation is possible means to grant that philosophy is perhaps not the one thing needful, that philosophy is perhaps something infinitely unimportant. To grant that revelation is possible means to grant that the philosophic life is not necessarily, not evidently, the right life. Philosophy, the life devoted to the quest for evident knowledge available to man as man, would itself rest on an unevident, arbitrary, or blind decision. This would merely confirm the thesis of faith, that there is no possibility of consistency, of a consistent and thoroughly sincere life, without belief in revelation. The mere fact that philosophy and revelation cannot refute each other would constitute the refutation of philosophy by revelation. (Fs)

1.Kommentar (08/05/08): Sobald es um das Verhältnis von Offenbarung zu Vernunft geht, wird Strauss schwach.

75b It was the conflict between revelation and philosophy or science in the full sense of the term and the implications of that conflict that led Weber to assert that the idea of science or philosophy suffers from a fatal weakness. He tried to remain faithful to the cause of autonomous insight, but he despaired when he felt that the sacrifice of the intellect, which is abhorred by science or philosophy, is at the bottom of science or philosophy. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Max Weber: Methode, Auffassung von Realität (Neo-Kantianismus)

Kurzinhalt: According to him, reality is an infinite and meaningless sequence, or a chaos, of unique and infinitely divisible events, which in themselves are meaningless: all meaning, all articulation, originates in the activity of the knowing or evaluating subject.

Textausschnitt: 76a But let us hasten back from these awful depths to a superficiality which, while not exactly gay, promises at least a quiet sleep. Having come up to the surface again, we are welcomed by about six hundred large pages covered with the smallest possible number of sentences, as well as with the largest possible number of footnotes, and devoted to the methodology of the social sciences. Yet we notice very soon that we have not escaped trouble. For Weber's methodology is something different from what methodology usually is. All intelligent students of Weber's methodology have felt that it is philosophic. It is possible to articulate that feeling. Methodology, as reflection on the correct procedure of science, is necessarily reflection on the limitations of science. If science is indeed the highest form of human knowledge, it is reflection on the limitations of human knowledge. And if it is knowledge that constitutes the specific character of man among all earthly beings, methodology is reflection on the limitations of humanity or on the situation of man as man. Weber's methodology comes very close to meeting this demand. (Fs)

76b To remain somewhat nearer to what he himself thought of his methodology, we shall say that his notion of science, both natural and social, is based on a specific view of reality. For, according to him, scientific understanding consists in a peculiar transformation of reality. It is therefore impossible to clarify the meaning of science without a previous analysis of reality as it is in itself, i.e., prior to its transformation by science. Weber did not say much about this subject. He was less concerned with the character of reality than with the different ways in which reality is transformed by the different types of science. For his primary concern was with preserving the integrity of the historical or cultural sciences against two apparent dangers: against the attempt to shape these sciences on the pattern of the natural sciences and against the attempt to interpret the dualism of natural and historical-cultural sciences in terms of a metaphysical dualism ("body-mind" or "necessity-freedom"). But his methodological theses remain unintelligible, or at any rate irrelevant, if one does not translate them into theses regarding the character of reality. When he demanded, for example, that interpretive understanding be subservient to causal explanation, he was guided by the observation that the intelligible is frequently overpowered by what is no longer intelligible or that the lower is mostly stronger than the higher. In addition, his preoccupations left him time to indicate his view of what reality is prior to its transformation by science. According to him, reality is an infinite and meaningless sequence, or a chaos, of unique and infinitely divisible events, which in themselves are meaningless: all meaning, all articulation, originates in the activity of the knowing or evaluating subject. Very few people today will be satisfied with this view of reality, which Weber had taken over from neo-Kantianism and which he modified merely by adding one or two emotional touches. It is sufficient to remark that he himself was unable to adhere consistently to that view. He certainly could not deny that there is an articulation of reality that precedes all scientific articulation: that articulation, that wealth of meaning, which we have in mind when speaking of the world of common experience or of the natural understanding of the world.1 But he did not even attempt a coherent analysis of the social world as it is known to "common sense", or of social reality as it is known in social life or in action. The place of such an analysis is occupied in his work by definitions of ideal types, of artificial constructs which are not even meant to correspond to the intrinsic articulation of social reality and which, in addition, are meant to be of a strictly ephemeral character. Only a comprehensive analysis of social reality as we know it in actual life, and as men always have known it since there have been civil societies, would permit an adequate discussion of the possibility of an evaluating social science. Such an analysis would make intelligible the fundamental alternatives which essentially belong to social life and would therewith supply a basis for responsible judgment on whether the conflict between these alternatives is, in principle, susceptible of a solution. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Natur (unbekannt in AT) - Philosophie;

Kurzinhalt: The idea of natural right must be unknown as long as the idea of nature is unknown. The discovery of nature is the work of philosophy.

Textausschnitt: 81a TO UNDERSTAND the problem of natural right, one must start, not from the "scientific" understanding of political things but from their "natural" understanding, i.e., from the way in which they present themselves in political life, in action, when they are our business, when we have to make decisions. This does not mean that political life necessarily knows of natural right. Natural right had to be discovered, and there was political life prior to that discovery. It means merely that political life in all its forms necessarily points toward natural right as an inevitable problem. Awareness of this problem is not older than political science but coeval with it. Hence a political life that does not know of the idea of natural right is necessarily unaware of the possibility of political science and, indeed, of the possibility of science as such, just as a political life that is aware of the possibility of science necessarily knows natural right as a problem. (Fs)

81b The idea of natural right must be unknown as long as the idea of nature is unknown. The discovery of nature is the work of philosophy. Where there is no philosophy, there is no knowledge of natural right as such. The Old Testament, whose basic premise may be said to be the implicit rejection of philosophy, does not know "nature": the Hebrew term for "nature" is unknown to the Hebrew Bible. It goes without saying that "heaven and earth," for example, is not the same thing as "nature." There is, then, no knowledge of natural right as such in the Old Testament. The discovery of nature necessarily precedes the discovery of natural right. Philosophy is older than political philosophy. (Fs) (notabene)

82a Philosophy is the quest for the "principles" of all things, and this means primarily the quest for the "beginnings" of all things or for "the first things." In this, philosophy is at one with myth. But the philosophos ("lover of wisdom") is not identical with the philomythos ("lover of myth"). Aristotle calls the first philosophers simply "men who discoursed on nature" and distinguishes them from the men who preceded them and "who discoursed on gods."1 Philosophy as distinguished from myth came into being when nature was discovered, or the first philosopher was the first man who discovered nature. The whole history of philosophy is nothing but the record of the ever repeated attempts to grasp fully what was implied in that crucial discovery which was made by some Greek twenty-six hundred years ago or before. To understand the meaning of that discovery in however provisional a manner, one must return from the idea of nature to its prephilo-sophic equivalent. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Natur (Begriff der Unterscheidung) - Brauch, Sitten, Konvention; der rechte Weg (Vorfahren); Naturrecht - Autorität

Kurzinhalt: Prior to the discovery of nature, the characteristic behavior of any thing or any class of things was conceived of as its custom or its way... The emergence of the idea of natural right presupposes, therefore, the doubt of authority.

Textausschnitt: 82b The purport of the discovery of nature cannot be grasped if one understands by nature "the totality of phenomena." For the discovery of nature consists precisely in the splitting-up of that totality into phenomena which are natural and phenomena which are not natural: "nature" is a term of distinction. Prior to the discovery of nature, the characteristic behavior of any thing or any class of things was conceived of as its custom or its way. That is to say, no fundamental distinction was made between customs or ways which are always and everywhere the same and customs or ways which differ from tribe to tribe. Barking and wagging the tail is the way of dogs, menstruation is the way of women, the crazy things done by madmen are the way of madmen, just as not eating pork is the way of Jews and not drinking wine is the way of Moslems. "Custom" or "way" is the prephilosophic equivalent of "nature." (Fs)

83a While every thing or every class of things has its custom or way, there is a particular custom or way which is of paramount importance: "our" way, the way of "us" living "here," the way of life of the independent group to which a man belongs. We may call it the "paramount" custom or way. Not all members of the group remain always in that way, but they mostly return to it if they are properly reminded of it: the paramount way is the right path. Its rightness is guaranteed by its oldness: "There is a sort of presumption against novelty, drawn out of a deep consideration of human nature and human affairs; and the maxim of jurisprudence is well laid down, Vetustas pro lege semper habetur." But not everything old everywhere is right. "Our" way is the right way because it is both old and "our own" or because it is both "home-bred and prescriptive."1 Just as "old and one's own" originally was identical with right or good, so "new and strange" originally stood for bad. The notion connecting "old" and "one's own" is "ancestral." Prephilosophic life is characterized by the primeval identification of the good with the ancestral. Therefore, the right way necessarily implies thoughts about the ancestors and hence about the first things simply.2 (Fs)

83b For one cannot reasonably identify the good with the ancestral if one does not assume that the ancestors were absolutely superior to "us," and this means that they were superior to all ordinary mortals; one is driven to believe that the ancestors, or those who established the ancestral way, were gods or sons of gods or at least "dwelling near the gods." The identification of the good with the ancestral leads to the view that the right way was established by gods or sons of gods or pupils of gods: the right way must be a divine law. Seeing that the ancestors are ancestors of a distinct group, one is led to believe that there is a variety of divine laws or codes, each of which is the work of a divine or semidivine being.1 (Fs)

84a Originally, the questions concerning the first things and the right way are answered before they are raised. They are answered by authority. For authority as the right of human beings to be obeyed is essentially derivative from law, and law is originally nothing other than the way of life of the community. The first things and the right way cannot become questionable or the object of a quest, or philosophy cannot emerge, or nature cannot be discovered, if authority as such is not doubted or as long as at least any general statement of any being whatsoever is accepted on trust.1 The emergence of the idea of natural right presupposes, therefore, the doubt of authority. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Plato: Gesetz, Staat; Philosophie - Höhle Zeus'; Krise der Autorität: das Gute - das Alte;

Kurzinhalt: The end of the Laws is devoted to the central theme of the Republic: natural right, or political philosophy and the culmination of political philosophy, replace the cave of Zeus

Textausschnitt: 84b Plato has indicated by the conversational settings of his Republic and his Laws rather than by explicit statements how indispensable doubt of authority or freedom from authority is for the discovery of natural right. In the Republic the discussion of natural right starts long after the aged Cephalus, the father, the head of the house, has left to take care of the sacred offerings to the gods: the absence of Cephalus, or of what he stands for, is indispensable for the quest for natural right. Or, if you wish, men like Cephalus do not need to know of natural right. Besides, the discussion makes the participants wholly oblivious of a torch race in honor of a goddess which they were supposed to watch--the quest for natural right replaces that torch race. The discussion recorded in the Laws takes place while the participants, treading in the footsteps of Minos, who, being the son and pupil of Zeus, had brought the Cretans their divine laws, are walking from a Cretan city to the cave of Zeus. Whereas their conversation is recorded in its entirety, nothing is said of whether they arrived at their initial goal. The end of the Laws is devoted to the central theme of the Republic: natural right, or political philosophy and the culmination of political philosophy, replace the cave of Zeus. If we take Socrates as the representative of the quest for natural right, we may illustrate the relation of that quest to authority as follows: in a community governed by divine laws, it is strictly forbidden to subject these laws to genuine discussion, i.e., to critical examination, in the presence of young men; Socrates, however, discusses natural right--a subject whose discovery presupposes doubt of the ancestral or divine code--not only in the presence of young men but in conversation with them. Some time before Plato, Herodotus had indicated this state of things by the place of the only debate which he recorded concerning the principles of politics: he tells us that that free discussion took place in truth-loving Persia after the slaughter of the Magi.1 This is not to deny that, once the idea of natural right has emerged and become a matter of course, it can easily be adjusted to the belief in the existence of divinely revealed law. We merely contend that the predominance of that belief prevents the emergence of the idea of natural right or makes the quest for natural right infinitely unimportant: if man knows by divine revelation what the right path is, he does not have to discover that path by his unassisted efforts. (Fs)

86a The original form of the doubt of authority and therefore the direction which philosophy originally took or the perspective in which nature was discovered were determined by the original character of authority. The assumption that there is a variety of divine codes leads to difficulties, since the various codes contradict one another. One code absolutely praises actions which another code absolutely condemns. One code demands the sacrifice of one's first-born son, whereas another code forbids all human sacrifices as an abomination. The burial rites of one tribe provoke the horror of another. But what is decisive is the fact that the various codes contradict one another in what they suggest regarding the first things. The view that the gods were born of the earth cannot be reconciled with the view that the earth was made by the gods. Thus the question arises as to which code is the right code and which account of the first things is the true account. The right way is now no longer guaranteed by authority; it becomes a question or the object of a quest. The primeval identification of the good with the ancestral is replaced by the fundamental distinction between the good and the ancestral; the quest for the right way or for the first things is the quest for the good as distinguished from the ancestral.1 It will prove to be the quest for what is good by nature as distinguished from what is good merely by convention. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Hörensagen - eigene Vergewisserung; Entdeckung der Natur

Kurzinhalt: As regards the most weighty matters ... the only source of knowledge was hearsay ... the discovery of nature is identical with the actualization of a human possibility which ...

Textausschnitt: 86b The quest for the first things is guided by two fundamental distinctions which antedate the distinction between the good and the ancestral. Men must always have distinguished (e.g., in judicial matters) between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes and have preferred what one has seen to what he has merely heard from others. But the use of this distinction was originally limited to particular or subordinate matters. As regards the most weighty matters--the first things and the right way--the only source of knowledge was hearsay. Confronted with the contradiction between the many sacred codes, someone--a traveler, a man who had seen the cities of many men and recognized the diversity of their thoughts and customs-- suggested that one apply the distinction between seeing with one's own eyes and hearsay to all matters, and especially to the most weighty matters. Judgment on, or assent to, the divine or venerable character of any code or account is suspended until the facts upon which the claims are based have been made manifest or demonstrated. They must be made manifest--manifest to all, in broad daylight. Thus man becomes alive to the crucial difference between what his group considers unquestionable and what he himself observes; it is thus that the I is enabled to oppose itself to the We without any sense of guilt. But it is not the I as I that acquires that right. Dreams and visions had been of decisive importance for establishing the claims of the divine code or of the sacred account of the first things. By virtue of the universal application of the distinction between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes, a distinction is now made between the one true and common world perceived in waking and the many untrue and private worlds of dreams and visions. Thus it appears that neither the We of any particular group nor a unique I, but man as man, is the measure of truth and untruth, of the being or nonbeing of all things. Finally, man thus learns to distinguish between the names of things which he knows through hearsay and which differ from group to group and the things themselves which he, as well as any other human being, can see with his own eyes. He thus can start to replace the arbitrary distinctions of things which differ from group to group by their "natural" distinctions. (Fs)

87a The divine codes and the sacred accounts of the first things were said to be known not from hearsay but by way of superhuman information. When it was demanded that the distinction between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes be applied to the most weighty matters, it was demanded that the superhuman origin of all alleged superhuman information must be proved by examination in the light, not, for example, of traditional criteria used for distinguishing between true and false oracles, but of such criteria as ultimately derive in an evident manner from the rules which guide us in matters fully accessible to human knowledge. The highest kind of human knowledge that existed prior to the emergence of philosophy or science was the arts. The second prephilosophic distinction that originally guided the quest for the first things was the distinction between artificial or man-made things and things that are not man-made. Nature was discovered when man embarked on the quest for the first things in the light of the fundamental distinctions between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes, on the one hand, and between things made by man and things not made by man, on the other. The first of these two distinctions motivated the demand that the first things must be brought to light by starting from what all men can see now. But not all visible things are an equally adequate starting point for the discovery of the first things. The man-made things lead to no other first things than man, who certainly is not the first thing simply. The artificial things are seen to be inferior in every respect to, or to be later than, the things that are not made but found or discovered by man. The artificial things are seen to owe their being to human contrivance or to forethought. If one suspends one's judgment regarding the truth of the sacred accounts of the first things, one does not know whether the things that are not man-made owe their being to forethought of any kind, i.e., whether the first things originate all other things by way of forethought, or otherwise. Thus one realizes the possibility that the first things originate all other things in a manner fundamentally different from all origination by way of forethought. The assertion that all visible things have been produced by thinking beings or that there are any superhuman thinking beings requires henceforth a demonstration: a demonstration that starts from what all can see now.1 (Fs)

89a In brief, then, it can be said that the discovery of nature is identical with the actualization of a human possibility which, at least according to its own interpretation, is trans-historical, trans-social, trans-moral, and trans-religious.1 (Fs) (notabene)
89a In brief, then, it can be said that the discovery of nature is identical with the actualization of a human possibility which, at least according to its own interpretation, is trans-historical, trans-social, trans-moral, and trans-religious.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Philosophie; Unterschied: Natur - Konvention, physis - nomos; Verborgenheit der Natur - Authorität - Gesetz; ens reale - ens fictum

Kurzinhalt: These presuppositions follow from the fundamental premise that no being emerges without a cause or that it is impossible that "at first Chaos came to be," i.e. ... The distinction between nature and convention implies that nature is essentially hidden ...

Textausschnitt: 89b The philosophic quest for the first things presupposes not merely that there are first things but that the first things are always and that things which are always or are imperishable are more truly beings than the things which are not always. These presuppositions follow from the fundamental premise that no being emerges without a cause or that it is impossible that "at first Chaos came to be," i.e., that the first things jumped into being out of nothing and through nothing. In other words, the manifest changes would be impossible if there did not exist something permanent or eternal, or the manifest contingent beings require the existence of something necessary and therefore eternal. Beings that are always are of higher dignity than beings that are not always, because only the former can be the ultimate cause of the latter, of the being of the latter, or because what is not always finds its place within the order constituted by what is always. Beings that are not always, are less truly beings than beings that are always, because to be perishable means to be in between being and not-being. One may express the same fundamental premise also by saying that "omnipotence" means power limited by knowledge of "natures,"1 that is to say, of unchangeable and knowable necessity; all freedom and indeterminacy presuppose a more fundamental necessity. (Fs)

90a Once nature is discovered, it becomes impossible to understand equally as customs or ways the characteristic or normal behavior of natural groups and of the different human tribes; the "customs" of natural beings are recognized as their natures, and the "customs" of the different human tribes are recognized as their conventions. The primeval notion of "custom" or "way" is split up into the notions of "nature," on the one hand, and "convention," on the other. The distinction between nature and convention, between physis and nomos, is therefore coeval with the discovery of nature and hence with philosophy.2 (Fs)

90b Nature would not have to be discovered if it were not hidden. Hence "nature" is necessarily understood in contradistinction to something else, namely, to that which hides nature in so far as it hides nature. There are scholars who refuse to take "nature" as a term of distinction, because they believe that everything which is, is natural. But they tacitly assume that man knows by nature that there is such a thing as nature or that "nature" is as unproblematic or as obvious as, say, "red." Besides, they are forced to distinguish between natural or existent things and illusory things or things which pretend to exist without existing; but they leave unarticulated the manner of being of the most important things which pretend to exist without existing. The distinction between nature and convention implies that nature is essentially hidden by authoritative decisions. Man cannot live without having thoughts about the first things, and, it was presumed, he cannot live well without being united with his fellows by identical thoughts about the first things, i.e., without being subject to authoritative decisions concerning the first things: it is the law that claims to make manifest the first things or "what is." The law, in its turn, appeared to be a rule that derives its binding force from the agreement or the convention of the members of the group. The law or the convention has the tendency, or the function, to hide nature; it succeeds to such an extent that nature is, to begin with, experienced or "given" only as "custom." Hence the philosophic quest for the first things is guided by that understanding of "being" or "to be" according to which the most fundamental distinction of manners of being is that between "to be in truth" and "to be by virtue of law or convention"--a distinction that survived in a barely recognizable form in the scholastic distinction between ens reale and ens fictum.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Philosophie - Natur als Maßstab; Vernunft - Autorität;

Kurzinhalt: ... philosophy appeals from the ancestral to the good, to that which is good intrinsically, to that which is good by nature.

Textausschnitt: 91a The emergence of philosophy radically affects man's attitude toward political things in general and toward laws in particular, because it radically affects his understanding of these things. Originally, the authority par excellence or the root of all authority was the ancestral. Through the discovery of nature, the claim of the ancestral is uprooted; philosophy appeals from the ancestral to the good, to that which is good intrinsically, to that which is good by nature. Yet philosophy uproots the claim of the ancestral in such a manner as to preserve an essential element of it. For, when speaking of nature, the first philosophers meant the first things, i.e., the oldest things; philosophy appeals from the ancestral to something older than the ancestral. Nature is the ancestor of all ancestors or the mother of all mothers. Nature is older than any tradition; hence it is more venerable than any tradition. The view that natural things have a higher dignity than things produced by men is based not on any surreptitious or unconscious borrowings from myth, or on residues of myth, but on the discovery of nature itself. Art presupposes nature, whereas nature does not presuppose art. Man's "creative" abilities, which are more admirable than any of his products, are not themselves produced by man: the genius of Shakespeare was not the work of Shakespeare. Nature supplies not only the materials but also the models for all arts; "the greatest and fairest things" are the work of nature as distinguished from art. By uprooting the authority of the ancestral, philosophy recognizes that nature is the authority.1 (Fs)

92a It would be less misleading, however, to say that, by uprooting authority, philosophy recognizes nature as the standard. For the human faculty that, with the help of sense-perception, discovers nature is reason or understanding, and the relation of reason or understanding to its objects is fundamentally different from that obedience without reasoning why that corresponds to authority proper. By calling nature the highest authority, one would blur the distinction by which philosophy stands or falls, the distinction between reason and authority. By submitting to authority, philosophy, in particular political philosophy, would lose its character; it would degenerate into ideology, i.e., apologetics for a given or emerging social order, or it would undergo a transformation into theology or legal learning. With regard to the situation in the eighteenth century, Charles Beard has said: "The clergy and the monarchists claimed special rights as divine right. The revolutionists resorted to nature."1 What is true of the eighteenth-century revolutionists is true, mutatis mutandis, of all philosophers qua philosophers. The classical philosophers did full justice to the great truth underlying the identification of the good with the ancestral. Yet they could not have laid bare the underlying truth if they had not rejected that identification itself in the first place. Socrates, in particular, was a very conservative man as far as the ultimate practical conclusions of his political philosophy were concerned. Yet Aristophanes pointed to the truth by suggesting that Socrates' fundamental premise could induce a son to beat up his own father, i.e., to repudiate in practice the most natural authority. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Analyse: Konventionalismus, Hauptargument gegen Naturecht; Gerechtigkeit - Gesetz

Kurzinhalt: But the facts to which conventionalism refers do not seem to prove that the principles of right are changeable. They merely seem to prove that different societies have different notions of justice ...

Textausschnitt: 97a For our present purpose it is sufficient to give an analysis of the standard argument used by conventionalism. That argument is to the effect that there cannot be natural right because "the just things" differ from society to society. This argument has shown an amazing vitality throughout the ages, a vitality which seems to contrast with its intrinsic worth. As usually presented, the argument consists of a simple enumeration of the different notions of justice that prevail or prevailed in different nations or at different times within the same nation. As we have indicated before, the mere fact of variety or mutability of "the just things" or of the notions of justice does not warrant the rejection of natural right except if one makes certain assumptions, and these assumptions are in most cases not even stated. We are therefore compelled to reconstruct the conventionalist argument out of scattered and fragmentary remarks. (Fs) (notabene)

97b It is granted on all sides that there cannot be natural right if the principles of right are not unchangeable.1 But the facts to which conventionalism refers do not seem to prove that the principles of right are changeable. They merely seem to prove that different societies have different notions of justice or of the principles of justice. As little as man's varying notions of the universe prove that there is no universe or that there cannot be the true account of the universe or that man can never arrive at true and final knowledge of the universe, so little seem man's varying notions of justice to prove that there is no natural right or that natural right is unknowable. The variety of notions of justice can be understood as the variety of errors, which variety does not contradict, but presupposes, the existence of the one truth regarding justice. This objection to conventionalism would hold if the existence of natural right were compatible with the fact that all men or most men were or are ignorant of natural right. But when speaking of natural right, one implies that justice is of vital importance to man or that man cannot live or live well without justice; and life in accordance with justice requires knowledge of the principles of justice. If man has such a nature that he cannot live, or live well, without justice, he must have by nature knowledge of the principles of justice. But if this were the case, all men would agree as regards the principles of justice, just as they agree as regards the sensible qualities.2 (Fs)

98a Yet this demand seems to be unreasonable; there is not even universal agreement as regards the sensible qualities. Not all men, but only all normal men, agree as regards sounds, colors, and the like. Accordingly, the existence of natural right requires merely that all normal men should agree as regards the principles of justice. The lack of universal agreement can be explained by a corruption of human nature in those who ignore the true principles, a corruption which, for obvious reasons, is more frequent and more effective than the corresponding corruption in regard to the perception of sensible qualities.3 But if it is true that the notions of justice differ from society to society or from age to age, this view of natural right will lead to the hard consequence that the members of one particular society or perhaps even only one generation in one particular society or, at the most, the members of some particular societies must be regarded as the only normal human beings in existence. For all practical purposes, this means that the natural right teacher will identify natural right with those notions of justice that are cherished by his own society or by his own "civilization." By speaking of natural right, he will do nothing else than claim universal validity for the prejudices of his group. If it is asserted that, as a matter of fact, many societies agree in regard to the principles of justice, it is at least as plausible to rejoin that this agreement is due to accidental causes (such as similarity of conditions of life or mutual influence) than to say that these particular societies alone have preserved human nature intact. If it is asserted that all civilized nations agree in regard to the principles of justice, one would first have to know what is meant by "civilization." If the natural right teacher identifies civilization with recognition of natural right or an equivalent, he says, in effect, that all men who accept the principles of natural right accept the principles of natural right. If he understands by "civilization" a high development of the arts or sciences, his contention is refuted by the fact that conventionalists are frequently civilized men; and believers in natural right or in the principles which are said to constitute the essence of natural right are frequently very little civilized.4 (Fs)

99a This argument against natural right presupposes that all knowledge which men need in order to live well is natural in the sense in which the perception of sensible qualities and other kinds of effortless perception are natural. It loses its force, therefore, once one assumes that knowledge of natural right must be acquired by human effort or that knowledge of natural right has the character of science. This would explain why knowledge of natural right is not always available. It would lead to the consequence that there is no possibility of a good or just life or no possibility of "the cessation of evil" before such knowledge has become available. But science has as its object what is always or what is unchangeable or what is truly. Therefore, natural right, or justice, must truly exist, and therefore it must "have everywhere the same power."1 Thus it seems that it must have an effect that is always the same and that never ceases at least on human thought on justice. Yet, in fact, we see that human thoughts on justice are in a state of disagreement and fluctuation. (Fs)

100a But this very fluctuation and disagreement would seem to prove the effectiveness of natural right. As regards such things as are unquestionably conventional--weights, measures money, and the like--one can hardly speak of disagreement between the various societies. Different societies make different arrangements in regard to weights, measures, and money; these arrangements do not contradict one another. But if different societies hold different views regarding the principles of justice, their views contradict one another. Differences regarding things which are unquestionably conventional do not arouse serious perplexities, whereas differences regarding the principles of right and wrong necessarily do. The disagreement regarding the principles of justice thus seems to reveal a genuine perplexity aroused by a divination or insufficient grasp of natural right--a perplexity caused by something self-subsistent or natural that eludes human grasp. This suspicion could be thought to be confirmed by a fact which, at first glance, seems to speak decisively in favor of conventionalism. Everywhere it is said that it is just to do what the law commands or that the just is identical with the legal, i.e., with what human beings establish as legal or agree to regard as legal. Yet does this not imply that there is a measure of universal agreement in regard to justice? It is true that, on reflection, people deny that the just is simply identical with the legal, for they speak of "unjust" laws. But does not the unreflective universal agreement point to the workings of nature? And does not the untenable character of the universal belief in the identity of the just with the legal indicate that the legal, while not being identical with the just, reflects natural right more or less dimly? The evidence adduced by conventionalism is perfectly compatible with the possibility that natural right exists and, as it were, solicits the indefinite variety of notions of justice or the indefinite variety of laws, or is at the bottom of all laws.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Analyse: Gesetz - Gemeinwohl (common good); Konventionalismus

Kurzinhalt: ... analysis of law. Law reveals itself as something self-contradictory ... But if the just is identical with the common good, the just or right cannot be conventional: ...

Textausschnitt: 101a The decision depends now on the result of the analysis of law. Law reveals itself as something self-contradictory. On the one hand, it claims to be something essentially good or noble: it is the law that saves the cities and everything else. On the other hand, the law presents itself as the common opinion or decision of the city, i.e., of the multitude of citizens. As such, it is by no means essentially good or noble. It may very well be the work of folly and baseness. There is certainly no reason to assume that the makers of laws are as a rule wiser than "you and I"; why, then, should "you and I" submit to their decision? The mere fact that the same laws which were solemnly enacted by the city are repealed by the same city with equal solemnity would seem to show the doubtful character of the wisdom that went into their making.1 The question, then, is whether the claim of the law to be something good or noble can be simply dismissed as altogether unfounded or whether it contains an element of truth. (Fs)

101b The law claims that it saves the cities and everything else. It claims to secure the common good. But the common good is exactly what we mean by "the just." Laws are just to the extent that they are conducive to the common good. But if the just is identical with the common good, the just or right cannot be conventional: the conventions of a city cannot make good for the city what is, in fact, fatal for it and vice versa. The nature of things and not convention then determines in each case what is just. This implies that what is just may very well differ from city to city and from period to period: the variety of just things is not only compatible with, but a consequence of, the principle of justice, namely, that the just is identical with the common good. Knowledge of what is just here and now, which is knowledge of what is by nature, or intrinsically, good for this city now, cannot be scientific knowledge. Still less can it be knowledge of the type of sense-perception. To establish what is just in each case is the function of the political art or skill. That art or skill is comparable to the art of the physician, who establishes what is in each case healthy or good for the human body.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Konventionalismus: Argument gegen Gerechtigkeit als Gemeinwohl

Kurzinhalt: If the city is conventional, the common good is conventional, and therewith it is proved that right or justice is conventional.

Textausschnitt: 102a Conventionalism avoids this consequence by denying that there is in truth a common good. What is called the "common good" is, in fact, in each case the good, not of the whole, but of a part. The laws which claim to be directed toward the common good claim indeed to be the decision of the city. But the city owes such unity as it possesses, and therewith its being, to its "constitution" or to its regime: the city is always either a democracy or an oligarchy or a monarchy and so on. The difference of regimes has its root in the difference of the parts or sections out of which the city is composed. Therefore, every regime is the rule of a section of the city. Hence the laws are, in fact, the work not of the city but of that section of the city which happens to be in control. It is needless to say that democracy, which claims to be the rule of all, is, in fact, the rule of a part; for democracy is at the most the rule of the majority of all adults who inhabit the territory of the city; but the majority are the poor; and the poor are a section, however numerous, which has an interest distinct from the interests of the other sections. The ruling section is, of course, concerned exclusively with its own interest. But it pretends for an obvious reason that the laws which it lays down with a view to its own interest are good for the city as a whole.1 (Fs)

103a Yet may there not be mixed regimes, i.e., regimes which more or less successfully try to establish a fair balance between the conflicting interests of the essential sections of the city? Or is it not possible that the true interest of one particular section (of the poor or of the gentlemen, for example) coincides with the common interest? Objections of this kind presuppose that the city is a genuine whole or, more precisely, that the city exists by nature. But the city would seem to be a conventional or fictitious unity. For what is natural comes into being and exists without violence. All violence applied to a being makes that being do something which goes against its grain, i.e., against its nature. But the city stands or falls by violence, compulsion, or coercion. There is, then, no essential difference between political rule and the rule of a master over his slaves. But the unnatural character of slavery seems to be obvious: it goes against any man's grain to be made a slave or to be treated as a slave.2 (Fs)

103b Furthermore, the city is a multitude of citizens. A citizen appears to be the offspring, the natural product, of born citizens, of a citizen father and a citizen mother. Yet he is a citizen only if the citizen father and the citizen mother who generated him are lawfully wedded to each other, or rather if his presumed father is the husband of his mother. Otherwise, he is only a "natural" child and not a "legitimate" child. And what a legitimate child is depends not on nature but on law or convention. For the family in general, and the monogamous family in particular, is not a natural group, as even Plato was forced to admit. There is also the fact called "naturalization," by virtue of which a "natural" foreigner is artificially transformed into a "natural" citizen. In a word, who is or who is not a citizen depends on the law, and on the law alone. The difference between citizens and noncitizens is not natural but conventional. Therefore, all citizens are, in fact, "made" and not "born." It is convention that arbitrarily cuts off one segment of the human race and sets it off against the rest. One might think for a moment that the civil society which is truly natural, or the genuine civil society, would coincide with the group that embraces all those, and only those, who speak the same language. But languages are admittedly conventional. Accordingly, the distinction between Greeks and barbarians is merely conventional. It is as arbitrary as the division of all numbers into two groups, one consisting of the number 10,000 and the other consisting of all other numbers. The same applies to the distinction between free men and slaves. This distinction is based on the convention that people taken prisoner in war and not ransomed are to be made slaves; not nature but convention makes slaves, and therewith freemen as distinguished from slaves. To conclude, the city is a multitude of human beings who are united not by nature but solely by convention. They have united or banded together in order to take care of their common interest-over against other human beings who are not by nature distinguished from them: over against foreigners and slaves. Hence what claims to be the common good is, in fact, the interest of a part which claims to be a whole, or a part which forms a unity only by virtue of this claim, this pretense, this convention. If the city is conventional, the common good is conventional, and therewith it is proved that right or justice is conventional.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Räuberstaat; Konventionalismus (Argument: Stadt); Gerechtigkeit - Eigennutz

Kurzinhalt: The so-called "justice" of robbers is in the service of manifest injustice. But is not exactly the same true of the city? ... By nature everyone seeks his own good and nothing but his own good. Justice, however, ...

Textausschnitt: 105a How adequate this account of justice is, is said to appear from the fact that it "saves the phenomena" of justice; it is said to make intelligible those simple experiences regarding right and wrong which are at the bottom of the natural right doctrines. In those experiences, justice is understood as the habit of refraining from hurting others or as the habit of helping others or as the habit of subordinating the good of a part (the good of the individual or of a section) to the good of the whole. Justice thus understood is indeed necessary for the preservation of the city. But it is unfortunate for the defenders of justice that it is also required for the preservation of a gang of robbers: the gang could not last a single day if its members did not refrain from hurting one another, if they did not help one another, or if each member did not subordinate his own good to the good of the gang. To this the objection is made that the justice practiced by robbers is not genuine justice or that it is precisely justice which distinguishes the city from a gang of robbers. The so-called "justice" of robbers is in the service of manifest injustice. But is not exactly the same true of the city? If the city is not a genuine whole, what is called the "good of the whole," or the just, in opposition to the unjust or selfish, is, in fact, merely the demand of collective selfishness; and there is no reason why collective selfishness should claim to be more respectable than the selfishness of the individual. In other words, the robbers are said to practice justice only among themselves, whereas the city is said to practice justice also toward those who do not belong to the city or toward other cities. But is this true? Are the maxims of foreign policy essentially different from the maxims on which gangs of robbers act? Can they be different? Are cities not compelled to use force and fraud or to take away from other cities what belong to the latter, if they are to prosper? Do they not come into being by usurping a part of the earth's surface which by nature belongs equally to all others?1 (Fs) (notabene)

106a It is, of course, possible for the city to refrain from hurting other cities or to be resigned to poverty, just as the individual can live justly if he wants to. But the question is whether in acting thus men would live according to nature or merely follow convention. Experience shows that only few individuals and hardly any cities act justly except when they are compelled to do so. Experience shows that justice by itself is ineffectual. This merely confirms what was shown before, that justice has no basis in nature. The common good proved to be the selfish interest of a collective. The selfish interest of the collective is derived from the selfish interest of the only natural elements of the collective, namely, of the individuals. By nature everyone seeks his own good and nothing but his own good. Justice, however, tells us to seek other men's good. What justice demands from us is then against nature. The natural good, the good which does not depend on the whims and follies of man, this substantial good appears to be the very opposite of that shadowy good called "right" or "justice." It is the natural good which is one's own good toward which everyone is drawn by nature, whereas right or justice becomes attractive only through compulsion and ultimately through convention. Even those who assert that right is natural have to admit that justice consists in a kind of reciprocity; men are bidden to do to others what they desire to have done to themselves. Men are compelled to benefit others because they desire to be benefited by others: in order to receive kindness, one must show kindness. Justice appears to be derivative from selfishness and subservient to it. This amounts to an admission that by nature everyone seeks only his own good. To be good at seeking one's own good is prudence or wisdom. Prudence or wisdom is therefore incompatible with justice proper. The man who is truly just is unwise or a fool-a man duped by convention.1 (Fs)

107a Conventionalism claims, then, to be perfectly compatible with the admission that the city and right are useful for the individual: the individual is too weak to live, or to live well, without the assistance of others. Everyone is better off in civil society than in a condition of solitude and savagery. Yet the fact that something is useful does not prove that it is natural. Crutches are useful for a man who has lost a leg; is wearing crutches according to nature? Or, to express this more adequately, can things that exist exclusively because calculation has found out that they would be useful be said to be natural to man? Can one say of things which are desired exclusively on the basis of calculation or which are not desired spontaneously or for their own sake that they are natural to man? The city and right are no doubt advantageous; but are they free from great disadvantages? Therefore, the conflict between the self-interest of the individual and the demands of the city or of right is inevitable. The city cannot settle this conflict except by declaring that the city or right is of higher dignity than the self-interest of the individual or that it is sacred. But this claim, which is of the essence of the city and of right, is essentially fictitious.1 (Fs)

107b The nerve of the conventionalist argument, then, is this: right is conventional because right belongs essentially to the city1 and the city is conventional. Contrary to our first impression, conventionalism does not assert that the meaning of right or justice is altogether arbitrary or that there is no universal agreement of any kind in regard to right or justice. On the contrary, conventionalism presupposes that all men understand by justice fundamentally the same thing: to be just means not to hurt others, or it means to help others or to be concerned with the common good. Conventionalism rejects natural right on these grounds: (1) justice stands in an inescapable tension with everyone's natural desire, which is directed solely toward his own good; (2) as far as justice has a foundation in nature--as far as it is, generally speaking, advantageous to the individual--its demands are limited to the members of the city, i.e., of a conventional unit; what is called "natural right" consists of certain rough rules of social expediency which are valid only for the members of the particular group and which, in addition, lack universal validity even in intra-group relations; (3) what is universally meant by "right" or "justice" leaves wholly undetermined the precise meaning of "helping" or "hurting" or "the common good"; it is only through specification that these terms become truly meaningful, and every specification is conventional. The variety of notions of justice confirms rather than proves the conventional character of justice. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Lust als neues Prinzip (Epikuräer, Lukrez/Lucretius); Plato: Materialismus als Wurzel des Konventionalismus; Unterschied: Gerechtigkeit - andere Tugenden

Kurzinhalt: The natural good thus appears to be pleasure. Orientation by pleasure becomes the first substitute for the orientation by the ancestral ... Epicureanism is certainly that form of conventionalism which has exercised the greatest influence ...

Textausschnitt: 108a When Plato attempts to establish the existence of natural right, he reduces the conventionalist thesis to the premise that the good is identical with the pleasant. Conversely, we see that classical hedonism led to the most uncompromising depreciation of the whole political sphere. It would not be surprising if the primeval equation of the good with the ancestral had been replaced, first of all, by the equation of the good with the pleasant. For when the primeval equation is rejected on the basis of the distinction between nature and convention, the things forbidden by ancestral custom or the divine law present themselves as emphatically natural and hence intrinsically good. The things forbidden by ancestral custom are forbidden because they are desired; and the fact that they are forbidden by convention shows that they are not desired on the basis of convention; they are then desired by nature. Now what induces man to deviate from the narrow path of ancestral custom or divine law appears to be the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain. The natural good thus appears to be pleasure. Orientation by pleasure becomes the first substitute for the orientation by the ancestral.1 (Fs) (notabene)

109a The most developed form of classical hedonism is Epicureanism. Epicureanism is certainly that form of conventionalism which has exercised the greatest influence throughout the ages. Epicureanism is unambiguously materialistic. And it was in materialism that Plato found the root of conventionalism.1 The Epicurean argument runs as follows: To find what is by nature good, we have to see what kind of thing it is whose goodness is guaranteed by nature or whose goodness is felt independently of any opinion, and hence, in particular, independently of any convention. What is good by nature shows itself in what we seek from the moment of birth, prior to all reasoning, calculation, discipline, restraint, or compulsion. Good, in this sense, is only the pleasant. Pleasure is the only good that is immediately felt or sensibly perceived as good. Therefore, the primary pleasure is the pleasure of the body, and this means, of course, the pleasure of one's own body; everyone seeks by nature only his own good; all concern with other people's good is derivative. Opinion, which comprises both right and wrong reasoning, leads men toward three kinds of objects of choice: toward the greatest pleasure, toward the useful, and toward the noble. As for the first, since we observe that various kinds of pleasure are connected with pain, we are induced to distinguish between more or less preferable pleasures. Thus we notice the difference between those natural pleasures which are necessary and those which are not necessary. Furthermore, we realize that there are pleasures which are free of any admixture of pain, and others which are not. Finally, we are led to see that there is a term of pleasure, a complete pleasure, and this pleasure proves to be the end toward which we are tending by nature and to be accessible only through philosophy. As for the useful, it is not in itself pleasant, but is conducive to pleasure, to genuine pleasure. The noble, on the other hand, is neither genuinely pleasant nor conducive to genuine pleasure. The noble is that which is praised, which is pleasant only because it is praised or because it is regarded as honorable; the noble is good only because people call it good or say that it is good; it is good only by convention. The noble reflects in a distorted manner the substantial good for the sake of which men made the fundamental convention or the social compact. Virtue belongs to the class of the useful things. Virtue is, indeed, desirable, but it is not desirable for its own sake. It becomes desirable only on the basis of calculation, and it contains an element of compulsion and therefore of pain. It is, however, productive of pleasure.2 Yet there is a crucial difference between justice and the other virtues. Prudence, temperance, and courage bring about pleasure through their natural consequences, whereas justice produces the pleasure which is expected from it--a sense of security--only on the basis of convention. The other virtues have a salutary effect regardless of whether or not other people know of one's being prudent, temperate, or courageous. But one's justice has a salutary effect only if one is thought to be just. The other vices are evils independently of whether they are detected or detectable by others or not. But injustice is an evil only with a view to the hardly avoidable danger of detection. The tension between justice and what is by nature good comes out most clearly if one compares justice with friendship. Both justice and friendship originate in calculation, but friendship comes to be intrinsically pleasant or desirable for its own sake. Friendship is at any rate incompatible with compulsion. But justice and the association that is concerned with justice--the city--stand or fall by compulsion. And compulsion is unpleasant.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Epikuräer, Lukrez/Lucretius: Dokument des Konventionalismus (Über die Natur der Dinge); Zweck der Götter

Kurzinhalt: The greatest document of philosophic conventionalism and, in fact, its only document available to us that is both authentic and comprehensive is the poem ...

Textausschnitt: 111a The greatest document of philosophic conventionalism and, in fact, its only document available to us that is both authentic and comprehensive is the poem On the Nature of Things by the Epicurean Lucretius. According to Lucretius, men roamed originally in forests, without social bonds of any kind or without any conventional restraint. Their weakness and their fear of the dangers threatening them from wild beasts induced them to unite for the sake of protection or for the sake of the pleasure deriving from security. After they entered society, the savage life of the beginning gave way to habits of kindness and fidelity. This early society, the society antedating by far the foundation of cities, was the best and most happy society that ever was. Right would be natural if the life of the early society were the life according to nature. But the life according to nature is the life of the philosopher. And philosophy is impossible in early society. Philosophy has its home in cities, and the destruction, or at least the impairment, of the way of life characteristic of early society is characteristic of the life in cities. The happiness of the philosopher, the only true happiness, belongs to an entirely different epoch than the happiness of society. There is, then, a disproportion between the requirements of philosophy or of the life according to nature and the requirements of society as society. It is owing to this necessary disproportion that right cannot be natural. The disproportion is necessary for the following reason. The happiness of early, noncoercive society was ultimately due to the reign of a salutary delusion. The members of early society lived within a finite world or a closed horizon; they trusted in the eternity of the visible universe or in the protection afforded to them by "the walls of the world." It was this trust which made them innocent, kind, and willing to devote themselves to the good of others; for it is fear which makes men savage. The trust in the firmness of "the walls of the world" was not yet shaken by reasoning about natural catastrophes. Once this trust was shaken, men lost their innocence, they became savage; and thus the need for coercive society arose. Once this trust was shaken, men had no choice but to seek support and consolation in the belief in active gods; the free will of the gods should guarantee the firmness of "the walls of the world" which had been seen to lack intrinsic or natural firmness; the goodness of the gods should be a substitute for the lack of intrinsic firmness of "the walls of the world." The belief in active gods then grows out of fear for our world and attachment to our world--the world of sun and moon and stars, and the earth covering itself with fresh green every spring, the world of life as distinguished from the lifeless but eternal elements (the atoms and the void) out of which our world has come into being and into which it will perish again. Yet, however comforting the belief in active gods may be, it has engendered unspeakable evils. The only remedy lies in breaking through "the walls of the world" at which religion stops and in becoming reconciled to the fact that we live in every respect in an unwalled city, in an infinite universe in which nothing that man can love can be eternal. The only remedy lies in philosophizing, which alone affords the most solid pleasure. Yet philosophy is repulsive to the people because philosophy requires freedom from attachment to "our world". On the other hand, the people cannot return to the happy simplicity of early society. They must therefore continue the wholly unnatural life that is characterized by the co-operation of coercive society and religion. The good life, the life according to nature, is the retired life of the philosopher who lives at the fringes of civil society. The life devoted to civil society and to the service of others is not the life according to nature.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Sophist, Sophisten - Plato; vulgärer, philosophischer Konventionalismus; Hobbes

Kurzinhalt: We must make a distinction between philosophic conventionalism and vulgar conventionalism. Vulgar conventionalism is presented most clearly in "the unjust speech" which Plato intrusted to Thrasymachus ...

Textausschnitt: 114a We must make a distinction between philosophic conventionalism and vulgar conventionalism. Vulgar conventionalism is presented most clearly in "the unjust speech" which Plato intrusted to Thrasymachus and to Glaucon and Adeimantus. According to it, the greatest good, or the most pleasant thing, is to have more than the others or to rule others. But the city and right necessarily impose some restraint on the desire for the greatest pleasure; they are incompatible with the greatest pleasure or with what is the greatest good by nature; they are against nature; they originate in convention. Hobbes would say that the city and right originate in the desire for life and that the desire for life is at least as natural as the desire for ruling others. To this objection the representative of vulgar conventionalism would reply that mere life is misery and that a miserable life is not a life which our nature seeks. The city and right are against nature because they sacrifice the greater good to the lesser good. It is true that the desire for superiority to others can come into its own only within the city. But this merely means that the life according to nature consists in cleverly exploiting the opportunities created by convention or in taking advantage of the good-natured trust which the many put in convention. Such exploitation requires that one be not hampered by sincere respect for city and right. The life according to nature requires such perfect inner freedom from the power of convention as is combined with the appearance of conventional behavior. The appearance of justice combined with actual injustice will lead one to the summit of happiness. One must indeed be clever to hide one's injustice successfully while practicing it on a large scale; but this merely means that the life according to nature is the preserve of a small minority, of the natural elite, of those who are truly men and not born to be slaves. To be more precise, the summit of happiness is the life of the tyrant, of the man who has successfully committed the greatest crime by subordinating the city as a whole to his private good and who can afford to drop the appearance of justice or legality.1 (Fs)

115a Vulgar conventionalism is the vulgarized version of philosophic conventionalism. Philosophic and vulgar conventionalism agree as to this: that by nature everyone seeks only his own good or that it is according to nature that one does not pay any regard to other people's good or that the regard for others arises only out of convention. Yet philosophic conventionalism denies that to pay no regard to others means to desire to have more than others or to be superior to others. Philosophic conventionalism is so far from regarding the desire for superiority as natural that it regards it as vain or opinion-bred. Philosophers, who as such have tasted more solid pleasures than those deriving from wealth, power, and the like, could not possibly identify the life according to nature with the life of the tyrant. Vulgar conventionalism owes its origin to a corruption of philosophic conventionalism. It makes sense to trace that corruption to "the sophists." The sophists may be said to have "published" and therewith debased the conventionalist teaching of pre-Socratic philosophers. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Sophist, Sophisten: Vertreter des vulgären Konventionalismus, Weisheit als Zweck, Ggs. Philosoph

Kurzinhalt: The sophist in the precise sense is a teacher of sham wisdom ... What is characteristic of the sophist is unconcern with the truth, i.e., with the truth about the whole.

Textausschnitt: 115b "Sophist" is a term which has many meanings. Among other things it may mean a philosopher, or a philosopher who holds unpopular views, or a man who shows his lack of good taste by teaching noble subjects for pay. At least since Plato, "sophist" is normally used in contradistinction to "philosopher" and therewith in a derogatory sense. "The Sophists" in the historical sense are certain fifth-century Greeks who are presented by Plato and other philosophers as sophists in the precise sense, i.e., as nonphilosophers of a certain type. The sophist in the precise sense is a teacher of sham wisdom. Sham wisdom is not identical with untrue doctrine. Otherwise Plato would have been a sophist in the eyes of Aristotle, and vice versa. An erring philosopher is something entirely different from a sophist. Nothing prevents a sophist from occasionally and perhaps habitually teaching the truth. What is characteristic of the sophist is unconcern with the truth, i.e., with the truth about the whole. The sophist, in contradistinction to the philosopher, is not set in motion and kept in motion by the sting of the awareness of the fundamental difference between conviction or belief and genuine insight. But this is clearly too general, for unconcern with the truth about the whole is not a preserve of the sophist. The sophist is a man who is unconcerned with the truth, or does not love wisdom, although he knows better than most other men that wisdom or science is the highest excellence of man. Being aware of the unique character of wisdom, he knows that the honor deriving from wisdom is the highest honor. He is concerned with wisdom, not for its own sake, not because he hates the lie in the soul more than anything else, but for the sake of the honor or the prestige that attends wisdom. He lives or acts on the principle that prestige or superiority to others or having more than others is the highest good. He acts on the principle of vulgar conventionalism. Since he accepts the teaching of philosophic conventionalism and thus is more articulate than the many who act on the same principle on which he acts, he can be regarded as the most fitting representative of vulgar conventionalism. There arises, however, this difficulty. The sophist's highest good is the prestige deriving from wisdom. To achieve his highest good, he must display his wisdom. Displaying his wisdom means teaching the view that the life according to nature or the life of the wise man consists in combining actual injustice with the appearance of justice. Yet admitting that one is, in fact, unjust is incompatible with successfully preserving the appearance of justice. It is incompatible with wisdom, and it therefore makes impossible the honor deriving from wisdom. Sooner or later the sophist is therefore forced to conceal his wisdom or to bow to views which he regards as merely conventional. He must become resigned to deriving his prestige from propagating more or less respectable views. It is for this reason that one cannot speak of the teaching, i.e., of the explicit teaching, of the sophists. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Sophist, Sophisten: Protagoras, Mythos: Natur, Kunst, Konvention; Epimetheus, Prometheus, Zeus

Kurzinhalt: The myth of the Protagoras is based on the distinction between nature, art, and convention.

Textausschnitt: 117a As regards the most famous sophist, Protagoras, Plato imputes to him a myth which adumbrates the conventionalist thesis. The myth of the Protagoras is based on the distinction between nature, art, and convention. Nature is represented by the subterraneous work of certain gods and by the work of Epimetheus. Epimetheus, the being in whom thought follows production, represents nature in the sense of materialism, according to which thought comes later than thoughtless bodies and their thoughtless motions. The subterraneous work of the gods is work without light, without understanding, and has therefore fundamentally the same meaning as the work of Epimetheus. Art is represented by Prometheus, by Prometheus' theft, by his rebellion against the will of the gods above. Convention is represented by Zeus's gift of justice to "all": that "gift" becomes effective only through the punitive activity of civil society, and its requirements are perfectly fulfilled by the mere semblance of justice.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; vor-sokratisches Naturrecht; Egalitarismus; Gleichheit und Freiheit von Natur aus - Konventionalismus

Kurzinhalt: ... thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. Natural freedom and natural equality are inseparable from each other. If all men are by nature free, no one is by nature the superior of any other ...

Textausschnitt: 118a I conclude this chapter with a brief remark about pre-Socratic natural right. I shall not speak of those types of natural right doctrine which were fully developed by Socrates and his followers. I shall limit myself to a sketch of that type which was rejected by the classics: egalitarian natural right. (Fs)

118b The doubt of the natural character of both slavery and the division of the human race into distinct political or ethnic groups finds its most simple expression in the thesis that all men are by nature free and equal. Natural freedom and natural equality are inseparable from each other. If all men are by nature free, no one is by nature the superior of any other, and hence by nature all men are equal to each other. If all men are by nature free and equal, it is against nature to treat any man as unfree or unequal; the preservation or restoration of natural freedom or equality is required by natural right. Thus the city appears to be against natural right, for the city stands or falls by inequality or subordination and by the restriction of freedom. The effective denial of natural freedom and equality by the city must be traced to violence and ultimately to wrong opinion or the corruption of nature. This means that natural freedom and equality will be thought to have been fully effective at the beginning, when nature was not yet corrupted by opinion. The doctrine of natural freedom and equality thus allies itself with the doctrine of a golden age. Yet one may assume that original innocence is not irretrievably lost and that, in spite of the natural character of freedom and equality, civil society is indispensable. In that case one must look for a way in which civil society can be brought into some degree of harmony with natural freedom and equality. The only way in which this can be done is to assume that civil society, to the extent to which it is in agreement with natural right, is based on the consent or, more precisely, on the contract of the free and equal individuals. (Fs) (notabene)

119a It is doubtful whether the doctrines of natural freedom and equality, as well as of the social compact, were originally meant as political theses and not rather as theoretical theses setting forth the questionable character of civil society as such. As long as nature was regarded as the standard, the contractualist doctrine, regardless of whether it was based on the egalitarian or the nonegalitarian premise, necessarily implied a depreciation of civil society, because it implied that civil society is not natural but conventional.1 This must be borne in mind if one wants to understand the specific character and the tremendous political effect of the contractualist doctrines of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For in the modern era the notion that nature is the standard was abandoned, and therewith the stigma on whatever is conventional or contractual was taken away. As for premodern times, it is safe to assume that all contractualist doctrines implied the depreciation of whatever owed its origin to contract. (Fs) (notabene)

119b In a passage of Plato's Crito, Socrates is presented as deriving his duty of obedience to the city of Athens and her laws from a tacit contract. To understand this passage, one has to compare it with its parallel in the Republic. In the Republic the philosopher's duty of obedience to the city is not derived from any contract. The reason is obvious. The city of the Republic is the best city, the city according to nature. But the city of Athens, that democracy, was from Plato's point of view a most imperfect city.1 Only the allegiance to an inferior community can be derivative from contract, for an honest man keeps his promises to everyone regardless of the worth of him to whom he made the promise. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: klassisch; Sokrates, ratio rerum humanarum; eidos: das erste für uns, Meinung: Fragment der Wahrheit; Dialektik

Kurzinhalt: ... "the universal doubt" of all opinions would lead us, not into the heart of the truth, but into a void. Philosophy consists, therefore, in the ascent from opinions to knowledge or to the truth ...

Textausschnitt: 121a Let us then see what is implied by Socrates' turning to the study of human things. His study of human things consisted in raising the question "What is?" in regard to those things- for instance, the question "What is courage?" or "What is the city?" But it was not limited to raising the question "What is?" in regard to specific human things, such as the various virtues. Socrates was forced to raise the question as to what the human things as such are, or what the ratio rerum humanarum is.1 But it is impossible to grasp the distinctive character of human things as such without grasping the essential difference between human things and the things which are not human, i.e., the divine or natural things. This, in turn, presupposes some understanding of the divine or natural things as such. Socrates' study of the human things was then based on the comprehensive study of "all things." Like every other philosopher, he identified wisdom, or the goal of philosophy, with the science of all the beings: he never ceased considering "what each of the beings is."2 (Fs)

122a Contrary to appearances, Socrates' turn to the study of human things was based, not upon disregard of the divine or natural things, but upon a new approach to the understanding of all things. That approach was indeed of such a character that it permitted, and favored, the study of human things as such, i.e., of the human things in so far as they are not reducible to the divine or natural things. Socrates deviated from his predecessors by identifying the science of the whole, or of everything that is, with the understanding of "what each of the beings is." For "to be" means "to be something" and hence to be different from things which are "something else"; "to be" means therefore "to be a part." Hence the whole cannot "be" in the same sense in which everything that is "something" "is"; the whole must be "beyond being." And yet the whole is the totality of the parts. To understand the whole then means to understand all the parts of the whole or the articulation of the whole. If "to be" is "to be something," the being of a thing, or the nature of a thing, is primarily its What, its "shape" or "form" or "character," as distinguished in particular from that out of which it has come into being. The thing itself, the completed thing, cannot be understood as a product of the process leading up to it, but, on the contrary, the process cannot be understood except in the light of the completed thing or of the end of the process. The What is, as such, the character of a class of things or of a "tribe" of things-of things which by nature belong together or form a natural group. The whole has a natural articulation. To understand the whole, therefore, means no longer primarily to discover the roots out of which the completed whole, the articulated whole, the whole consisting of distinct groups of things, the intelligible whole, the cosmos, has grown, or to discover the cause which has transformed the chaos into a cosmos, or to perceive the unity which is hidden behind the variety of things or appearances, but to understand the unity that is revealed in the manifest articulation of the completed whole. This view supplies the basis for the distinction between the various sciences: the distinction between the various sciences corresponds to the natural articulation of the whole. This view makes possible, and it favors in particular, the study of the human things as such. (Fs) (notabene)

123a Socrates seems to have regarded the change which he brought about as a return to "sobriety" and "moderation" from the "madness" of his predecessors. In contradistinction to his predecessors, he did not separate wisdom from moderation. In present-day parlance one can describe the change in question as a return to "common sense" or to "the world of common sense." That to which the question "What is?" points is the eidos of a thing, the shape or form or character or "idea" of a thing. It is no accident that the term eidos signifies primarily that which is visible to all without any particular effort or what one might call the "surface" of the things. Socrates started not from what is first in itself or first by nature but from what is first for us, from what comes to sight first, from the phenomena. But the being of things, their What, comes first to sight, not in what we see of them, but in what is said about them or in opinions about them. Accordingly, Socrates started in his understanding of the natures of things from the opinions about their natures. For every opinion is based on some awareness, on some perception with the mind's eye, of something. Socrates implied that disregarding the opinions about the natures of things would amount to abandoning the most important access to reality which we have, or the most important vestiges of the truth which are within our reach. He implied that "the universal doubt" of all opinions would lead us, not into the heart of the truth, but into a void. Philosophy consists, therefore, in the ascent from opinions to knowledge or to the truth, in an ascent that may be said to be guided by opinions. It is this ascent which Socrates had primarily in mind when he called philosophy "dialectics." Dialectics is the art of conversation or of friendly dispute. The friendly dispute which leads toward the truth is made possible or necessary by the fact that opinions about what things are, or what some very important groups of things are, contradict one another. Recognizing the contradiction, one is forced to go beyond opinions toward the consistent view of the nature of the thing concerned. That consistent view makes visible the relative truth of the contradictory opinions; the consistent view proves to be the comprehensive or total view. The opinions are thus seen to be fragments of the truth, soiled fragments of the pure truth. In other words, the opinions prove to be solicited by the self-subsisting truth, and the ascent to the truth proves to be guided by the self-subsistent truth which all men always divine. (Fs) (notabene)

124a On this basis it becomes possible to understand why the variety of opinions about right or justice not only is compatible with the existence of natural right or the idea of justice but is required by it. The variety of notions of justice could be said to refute the contention that there is natural right, if the existence of natural right required actual consent of all men in regard to the principles of right. But we learn from Socrates, or from Plato, that what is required is not more than potential consent. Plato, as it were, says: Take any opinion about right, however fantastic or "primitive," that you please; you can be certain prior to having investigated it that it points beyond itself, that the people who cherish the opinion in question contradict that very opinion somehow and thus are forced to go beyond it in the direction of the one true view of justice, provided that a philosopher arises among them. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Konventionalismus - Meinung - Hedonismus (das Gute = das Angenehme); Sokrates, klassisches Naturrecht: Kritik an Hedonismus (Ordnung der Neigungen)

Kurzinhalt: The thesis of the classics is that the good is essentially different from the pleasant, that the good is more fundamental than the pleasant ... The good life is the life that is in accordance with the natural order of man's being, ...

Textausschnitt: 126a Conventionalism disregards the understanding embodied in opinion and appeals from opinion to nature. For this reason, to say nothing of others, Socrates and his successors were forced to prove the existence of natural right on the ground chosen by conventionalism. They had to prove it by appeal to the "facts" as distinguished from the "speeches."1 As will appear presently, this seemingly more direct appeal to being merely confirms the fundamental Socratic thesis. (Fs)

126b The basic premise of conventionalism appeared to be the identification of the good with the pleasant. Accordingly, the basic part of the classic natural right teaching is the critique of hedonism. The thesis of the classics is that the good is essentially different from the pleasant, that the good is more fundamental than the pleasant. The most common pleasures are connected with the satisfaction of wants; the wants precede the pleasures; the wants supply, as it were, the channels within which pleasure can move; they determine what can possibly be pleasant. The primary fact is not pleasure, or the desire for pleasure, but rather the wants and the striving for their satisfaction. It is the variety of wants that accounts for the variety of pleasures; the difference of kinds of pleasures cannot be understood in terms of pleasure but only by reference to the wants which make possible the various kinds of pleasures. The different kinds of wants are not a bundle of urges; there is a natural order of the wants. Different kinds of beings seek or enjoy different kinds of pleasure: the pleasures of an ass differ from the pleasures of a human being. The order of the wants of a being points back to the natural constitution, to the What, of the being concerned; it is that constitution which determines the order, the hierarchy, of the various wants or of the various inclinations of a being. To the specific constitution there corresponds a specific operation, a specific work. A being is good, it is "in order," if it does its proper work well. Hence man will be good if he does well the proper work of man, the work corresponding to the nature of man and required by it. To determine what is by nature good for man or the natural human good, one must determine what the nature of man, or man's natural constitution, is. It is the hierarchic order of man's natural constitution which supplies the basis for natural right as the classics understood it. In one way or another everyone distinguishes between the body and the soul; and everyone can be forced to admit that he cannot, without contradicting himself, deny that the soul stands higher than the body. That which distinguishes the human soul from the souls of the brutes, that which distinguishes man from the brutes, is speech or reason or understanding. Therefore, the proper work of man consists in living thoughtfully, in understanding, and in thoughtful action. The good life is the life that is in accordance with the natural order of man's being, the life that flows from a well-ordered or healthy soul. The good life simply, is the life in which the requirements of man's natural inclinations are fulfilled in the proper order to the highest possible degree, the life of a man who is awake to the highest possible degree, the life of a man in whose soul nothing lies waste. The good life is the perfection of man's nature. It is the life according to nature. One may therefore call the rules circumscribing the general character of the good life "the natural law." The life according to nature is the life of human excellence or virtue, the life of a "high-class person," and not the life of pleasure as pleasure.1 (Fs)

128a The thesis that the life according to nature is the life of human excellence can be defended on hedonistic grounds. Yet the classics protested against this manner of understanding the good life. For, from the point of view of hedonism, nobility of character is good because it is conducive to a life of pleasure or even indispensable for it: nobility of character is the handmaid of pleasure; it is not good for its own sake. According to the classics, this interpretation distorts the phenomena as they are known from experience to every unbiased and competent, i.e., not morally obtuse, man. We admire excellence without any regard to our pleasures or to our benefits. No one understands by a good man or man of excellence a man who leads a pleasant life. We distinguish between better and worse men. The difference between them is indeed reflected in the difference in the kinds of pleasure which they prefer. But one cannot understand this difference in the level of pleasures in terms of pleasure; for that level is determined not by pleasure but by the rank of human beings. We know that it is a vulgar error to identify the man of excellence with one's benefactor. We admire, for example, a strategic genius at the head of the victorious army of our enemies. There are things which are admirable, or noble, by nature, intrinsically. It is characteristic of all or most of them that they contain no reference to one's selfish interests or that they imply a freedom from calculation. The various human things which are by nature noble or admirable are essentially the parts of human nobility in its completion, or are related to it; they all point toward the well-ordered soul, incomparably the most admirable human phenomenon. The phenomenon of admiration of human excellence cannot be explained on hedonistic or utilitarian grounds, except by means of ad hoc hypotheses. These hypotheses lead to the assertion that all admiration is, at best, a kind of telescoped calculation of benefits for ourselves. They are the outcome of a materialistic or crypto-materialistic view, which forces its holders to understand the higher as nothing but the effect of the lower, or which prevents them from considering the possibility that there are phenomena which are simply irreducible to their conditions, that there are phenomena that form a class by themselves. The hypotheses in question are not conceived in the spirit of an empirical science of man.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht; Gleichheit, Egalitarismus; Plato, Cicero; politeia - Gesetz, Seele; das beste Regime

Kurzinhalt: Since men are then unequal in regard to human perfection, i.e., in the decisive respect, equal rights for all appeared to the classics as most unjust

Textausschnitt: 134a Since the classics viewed moral and political matters in the light of man's perfection, they were not egalitarians. Not all men are equally equipped by nature for progress toward perfection, or not all "natures" are "good natures." While all men, i.e., all normal men, have the capacity for virtue, some need guidance by others, whereas others do not at all or to a much lesser degree. Besides, regardless of differences of natural capacity, not all men strive for virtue with equal earnestness. However great an influence must be ascribed to the way in which men are brought up, the difference between good and bad upbringing is partly due to the difference between a favorable and an unfavorable natural "environment." Since men are then unequal in regard to human perfection, i.e., in the decisive respect, equal rights for all appeared to the classics as most unjust. They contended that some men are by nature superior to others and therefore, according to natural right, the rulers of others. It is sometimes suggested that the view of the classics was rejected by the Stoics and especially by Cicero and that this change marks an epoch in the development of natural right doctrine or a radical break with the natural right doctrine of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But Cicero himself, who must be supposed to have known what he was talking about, was wholly unaware of a radical difference between Plato's teaching and his own. The crucial passage in Cicero's Laws, which according to a common view is meant to establish egalitarian natural right, is, in fact, meant to prove man's natural sociality. In order to prove man's natural sociality, Cicero speaks of all men being similar to one another, i.e., akin to one another. He presents the similarity in question as the natural basis of man's benevolence to man: simile simili gaudet. It is a comparatively unimportant question whether an expression used by Cicero in this context might not be indicative of a slight bias in favor of egalitarian conceptions. It suffices to remark that Cicero's writings abound with statements which reaffirm the classical view that men are unequal in the decisive respect and which reaffirm the political implications of that view.1 (Fs)


135a In order to reach his highest stature, man must live in the best kind of society, in the kind of society that is most conducive to human excellence. The classics called the best society the best politeia. By this expression they indicated, first of all, that, in order to be good, society must be civil or political society, a society in which there exists government of men and not merely administration of things. Politeia is ordinarily translated by "constitution." But when using the term "constitution" in a political context, modern men almost inevitably mean a legal phenomenon, something like the fundamental law of the land, and not something like the constitution of the body or of the soul. Yet politeia is not a legal phenomenon. The classics used politeia in contradistinction to "laws." The politeia is more fundamental than any laws; it is the source of all laws. The politeia is rather the factual distribution of power within the community than what constitutional law stipulates in regard to political power. The politeia may be defined by laws, but it need not be. The laws regarding a politeia may be deceptive, unintentionally and even intentionally, as to the true character of the politeia. No law, and hence no constitution, can be the fundamental political fact, because all laws depend on human beings. Laws have to be adopted, preserved, and administered by men. The human beings making up a political community may be "arranged" in greatly different ways in regard to the control of communal affairs. It is primarily the factual "arrangement" of human beings in regard to political power that is meant by politeia. The American Constitution is not the same thing as the American way of life. Politeia means the way of life of a society rather than its constitution. Yet it is no accident that the unsatisfactory translation "constitution" is generally preferred to the translation "way of life of a society." When speaking of constitution, we think of government; we do not necessarily think of government when speaking of the way of life of a community. When speaking of politeia, the classics thought of the way of life of a community as essentially determined by its "form of government." We shall translate politeia by "regime," taking regime in the broad sense in which we sometimes take it when speaking, e.g., of the Ancien Regime of France. The thought connecting "way of life of a society" and "form of government" can provisionally be stated as follows: The character, or tone, of a society depends on what the society regards as most respectable or most worthy of admiration. But by regarding certain habits or attitudes as most respectable, a society admits the superiority, the superior dignity, of those human beings who most perfectly embody the habits or attitudes in question. That is to say, every society regards a specific human type (or a specific mixture of human types) as authoritative. When the authoritative type is the common man, everything has to justify itself before the tribunal of the common man; everything which cannot be justified before that tribunal becomes, at best, merely tolerated, if not despised or suspect. And even those who do not recognize that tribunal are, willy-nilly, molded by its verdicts. What is true of the society ruled by the common man applies also to societies ruled by the priest, the wealthy merchant, the war lord, the gentleman, and so on. In order to be truly authoritative, the human beings who embody the admired habits or attitudes must have the decisive say within the community in broad daylight: they must form the regime. When the classics were chiefly concerned with the different regimes, and especially with the best regime, they implied that the paramount social phenomenon, or that social phenomenon than which only the natural phenomena are more fundamental, is the regime.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht; Zivilisation; Unterschied: das beste Regime - das legitime;

Kurzinhalt: ... while the best regime is possible, its actualization is by no means necessary. Its actualization is very difficult, ... The distinction between the best regime and legitimate regimes has its root in the distinction between the noble and the just!

Textausschnitt: 138a The central significance of the phenomena called "regimes" has become somewhat blurred. The reasons for this change are the same as those responsible for the fact that political history has ceded its former pre-eminence to social, cultural, economic, etc., history. The emergence of these new branches of history finds its culmination--and its legitimation--in the concept of "civilizations" (or "cultures"). We are in the habit of speaking of "civilizations," where the classics spoke of "regimes." "Civilization" is the modern substitute for "regime." It is difficult to find out what a civilization is. A civilization is said to be a large society, but we are not told clearly what kind of society it is. If we inquire how one can tell one civilization from another, we are informed that the most obvious and least misleading mark is the difference in artistic styles. This means that civilizations are societies which are characterized by something which is never in the focus of interest of large societies as such: societies do not go to war with one another on account of differences of artistic styles. Our orientation by civilizations, instead of by regimes, would seem to be due to a peculiar estrangement from those life-and-death issues which move and animate societies and keep them together. (Fs)

138b The best regime would today be called an "ideal regime" or simply an "ideal." The modern term "ideal" carries with it a host of connotations which obviate the understanding of what the classics meant by the best regime. Modern translators sometimes use "ideal" for rendering what the classics call "according to wish" or "according to prayer." The best regime is that for which one would wish or pray. Closer examination would show that the best regime is the object of the wish or prayer of all good men or of all gentlemen: the best regime, as presented by classical political philosophy, is the object of the wish or prayer of gentlemen as that object is interpreted by the philosopher. But the best regime, as the classics understand it, is not only most desirable; it is also meant to be feasible or possible, i.e., possible on earth. It is both desirable and possible because it is according to nature. Since it is according to nature, no miraculous or nonmiraculous change in human nature is required for its actualization; it does not require the abolition or extirpation of that evil or imperfection which is essential to man and to human life; it is therefore possible. And, since it is in accordance with the requirements of the excellence or perfection of human nature, it is most desirable. Yet, while the best regime is possible, its actualization is by no means necessary. Its actualization is very difficult, hence improbable, even extremely improbable. For man does not control the conditions under which it could become actual. Its actualization depends on chance. The best regime, which is according to nature, was perhaps never actual; there is no reason to assume that it is actual at present; and it may never become actual. It is of its essence to exist in speech as distinguished from deed. In a word, the best regime is, in itself--to use a term coined by one of the profoundest students of Plato's Republic--a "utopia."1 (Fs)

139a The best regime is possible only under the most favorable conditions. It is therefore just or legitimate only under the most favorable conditions. Under more or less unfavorable conditions, only more or less imperfect regimes are possible and therefore legitimate. There is only one best regime, but there is a variety of legitimate regimes. The variety of legitimate regimes corresponds to the variety of types of relevant circumstances. Whereas the best regime is possible only under the most favorable conditions, legitimate or just regimes are possible and morally necessary at all times and in all places. The distinction between the best regime and legitimate regimes has its root in the distinction between the noble and the just! Everything noble is just, but not everything just is noble. To pay one's debts is just, but not noble. Deserved punishment is just, but not noble. The farmers and artisans in Plato's best polity lead just lives, but they do not lead noble lives: they lack the opportunity for acting nobly. What a man does under duress is just in the sense that he cannot be blamed for it; but it can never be noble. Noble actions require, as Aristotle says, a certain equipment; without such equipment they are not possible. But we are obliged to act justly under all circumstances. A very imperfect regime may supply the only just solution to the problem of a given community; but, since such a regime cannot be effectively directed toward man's full perfection, it can never be noble.2 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Das beste (gemischte) Regime; der Weise - Gentleman (Gesetz);

Kurzinhalt: ... the simply best regime would be the absolute rule of the wise; the practically best regime is the rule, under law, of gentlemen, or the mixed regime.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Textausschnitt: 140a To avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to say a few words about the answer, characteristic of the classics, to the question of the best regime. The best regime is that in which the best men habitually rule, or aristocracy. Goodness is, if not identical with wisdom, at any rate dependent on wisdom: the best regime would seem to be the rule of the wise. In fact, wisdom appeared to the classics as that title to rule which is highest according to nature. It would be absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by any regulations; hence the rule of the wise must be absolute rule. It would be equally absurd to hamper the free flow of wisdom by consideration of the unwise wishes of the unwise; hence the wise rulers ought not to be responsible to their unwise subjects. To make the rule of the wise dependent on election by the unwise or consent of the unwise would mean to subject what is by nature higher to control by what is by nature lower, i.e., to act against nature. Yet this solution, which at first glance seems to be the only just solution for a society in which there are wise men, is, as a rule, impracticable. The few wise cannot rule the many unwise by force. The unwise multitude must recognize the wise as wise and obey them freely because of their wisdom. But the ability of the wise to persuade the unwise is extremely limited: Socrates, who lived what he taught, failed in his attempt to govern Xanthippe. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that the conditions required for the rule of the wise will ever be met. What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise. This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. The political problem consists in reconciling the requirement for wisdom with the requirement for consent. But whereas, from the point of view of egalitarian natural right, consent takes precedence over wisdom, from the point of view of classic natural right, wisdom takes precedence over consent. According to the classics, the best way of meeting these two entirely different requirements--that for wisdom and that for consent or for freedom--would be that a wise legislator frame a code which the citizen body, duly persuaded, freely adopts. That code, which is, as it were, the embodiment of wisdom, must be as little subject to alteration as possible; the rule of law is to take the place of the rule of men, however wise. The administration of the law must be intrusted to a type of man who is most likely to administer it equitably, i.e., in the spirit of the wise legislator, or to "complete" the law according to the requirements of circumstances which the legislator could not have foreseen. The classics held that this type of man is the gentleman. The gentleman is not identical with the wise man. He is the political reflection, or imitation, of the wise man. Gentlemen have this in common with the wise man, that they "look down" on many things which are highly esteemed by the vulgar or that they are experienced in things noble and beautiful. They differ from the wise because they have a noble contempt for precision, because they refuse to take cognizance of certain aspects of life, and because, in order to live as gentlemen, they must be well off. The gentleman will be a man of not too great inherited wealth, chiefly landed, but whose way of life is urban. He will be an urban patrician who derives his income from agriculture. The best regime will then be a republic in which the landed gentry, which is at the same time the urban patriciate, well-bred and public spirited, obeying the laws and completing them, ruling and being ruled in turn, predominates and gives society its character. The classics devised or recommended various institutions which appeared to be conducive to the rule of the best. Probably the most influential suggestion was the mixed regime, mixed of kingship, aristocracy, and democracy. In the mixed regime the aristocratic element--the gravity of the senate--occupies the intermediate, i.e., the central or key position. The mixed regime is, in fact--and it is meant to be--an aristocracy which is strengthened and protected by the admixture of monarchic and democratic institutions. To summarize, one may say that it is characteristic of the classic natural right teaching to culminate in a twofold answer to the question of the best regime: the simply best regime would be the absolute rule of the wise; the practically best regime is the rule, under law, of gentlemen, or the mixed regime.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Zusammenhang: Naturrecht - das beste Regime; Gegensatz: die Stadt Gottes (Bibel); Transformation des Naturrechts durch Offenbarung: das letzte Ziel als trans-politisch; Natur - Tugend = Potenz - Akt

Kurzinhalt: The classic natural right doctrine in its original form, if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine of the best regime ... The political character of natural right became blurred ... and the biblical faith.

Textausschnitt: 144a The classic natural right doctrine in its original form, if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine of the best regime. For the question as to what is by nature right or as to what is justice finds its complete answer only through the construction, in speech, of the best regime. The essentially political character of the classic natural right doctrine appears most clearly in Plato's Republic. Hardly less revealing is the fact that Aristotle's discussion of natural right is a part of his discussion of political right, especially if one contrasts the opening of Aristotle's statement with the statement of Ulpian in which natural right is introduced as a part of private right.1 The political character of natural right became blurred, or ceased to be essential, under the influence of both ancient egalitarian natural right and the biblical faith. On the basis of the biblical faith, the best regime simply is the City of God; therefore, the best regime is coeval with Creation and hence always actual; and the cessation of evil, or Redemption, is brought about by God's supernatural action. The question of the best regime thus loses its crucial significance. The best regime as the classics understood it ceases to be identical with the perfect moral order. The end of civil society is no longer "virtuous life as such" but only a certain segment of the virtuous life. The notion of God as lawgiver takes on a certainty and definiteness which it never possessed in classical philosophy. Therefore natural right or, rather, natural law becomes independent of the best regime and takes precedence over it. The Second Table of the Decalogue and the principles embodied in it are of infinitely higher dignity than the best regime.2 It is classic natural right in this profoundly modified form that has exercised the most powerful influence on Western thought almost since the beginnings of the Christian Era. Still, even this crucial modification of the classical teaching was in a way anticipated by the classics. According to the classics, political life as such is essentially inferior in dignity to the philosophic life. (Fs) (notabene)

145a This observation leads to a new difficulty, or rather it leads us back to the same difficulty with which we have been confronted throughout--e.g., when we used terms like "gentlemen." If man's ultimate end is trans-political, natural right would seem to have a trans-political root. Yet can natural right be adequately understood if it is directly referred to this root? Can natural right be deduced from man's natural end? Can it be deduced from anything? (Fs)

145b Human nature is one thing, virtue or the perfection of human nature is another. The definite character of the virtues and, in particular, of justice cannot be deduced from human nature. In the language of Plato, the idea of man is indeed compatible with the idea of justice, but it is a different idea. The idea of justice even seems to belong to a different kind of ideas than the idea of man, since the idea of man is not in the same way problematic as the idea of justice; there is hardly any disagreement as to whether a given being is a man, whereas there is habitual disagreement in regard to things just and noble. In the language of Aristotle, one could say that the relation of virtue to human nature is comparable to that of act and potency, and the act cannot be determined by starting from the potency, but, on the contrary, the potency becomes known by looking back to it from the act.1 Human nature "is" in a different manner than its perfection or virtue. Virtue exists in most cases, if not in all cases, as an object of aspiration and not as fulfilment. Therefore, it exists in speech rather than in deed. Whatever may be the proper starting point for studying human nature, the proper starting point for studying the perfection of human nature, and hence, in particular, natural right, is what is said about these subjects or the opinions about them. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Sokratisch-Platonisch-Stoisch; Gerechtigkeit - Weltstaat

Kurzinhalt: In order to be truly just, civil society would have to drop this qualification; civil society must be transformed into the "world-state." ... This solution to the problem of justice obviously transcends the limits of political life ...

Textausschnitt: 146a Very roughly speaking, we may distinguish three types of classic natural right teachings, or three different manners in which the classics understood natural right. These three types are the Socratic-Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Thomistic. As regards the Stoics, it seems to me that their natural right teaching belongs to the Socratic-Platonic type. According to a view which today is fairly common, the Stoics originated an entirely new type of natural right teaching. But, to say nothing here of other considerations, this opinion is based on neglect of the close connection between stoicism and cynicism,1 and cynicism was originated by a Socratic. (Fs)

146b To describe, then, as concisely as we can the character of what we shall venture to call the "Socratic-Platonic-Stoic natural right teaching," we start from the conflict between the two most common opinions regarding justice: that justice is good and that justice consists in giving to everyone what is due to him. What is due to a man is defined by law, i.e., by the law of the city. But the law of the city may be foolish and hence harmful or bad. Therefore, the justice that consists in giving to everyone what is due to him may be bad. If justice is to remain good, we must conceive of it as essentially independent of law. We shall then define justice as the habit of giving to everyone what is due to him according to nature. A hint as to what is due to others according to nature is supplied by the generally accepted opinion according to which it is unjust to return a dangerous weapon to its lawful owner if he is insane or bent on the destruction of the city. This implies that nothing can be just which is harmful to others, or that justice is the habit of not harming others. This definition fails, however, to account for the frequent cases where we blame as unjust such men who, indeed, never harm another but scrupulously refrain from ever helping another by deed or by speech. Justice will then be the habit of benefiting others. The just man is he who gives to everyone, not what a possibly foolish law prescribes, but what is good for the other, i.e., what is by nature good for the other. Yet not everyone knows what is good for man in general, and for every individual in particular. Just as only the physician truly knows what is in each case good for the body, only the wise man truly knows what is good in each case for the soul. This being the case, there cannot be justice, i.e., giving to everyone what is by nature good for him, except in a society in which wise men are in absolute control. (Fs)

147a Let us take the example of the big boy who has a small coat and the small boy who has a big coat. The big boy is the lawful owner of the small coat because he, or his father, has bought it. But it is not good for him; it does not fit him. The wise ruler will therefore take the big coat away from the small boy and give it to the big boy without any regard to legal ownership. The least we have to say is that just ownership is something entirely different from legal ownership. If there is to be justice, the wise rulers must assign to everyone what is truly due to him or what is by nature good for him. They will give to everyone only what he can use well, and they will take away from everyone what he cannot use well. Justice is then incompatible with what is generally understood by private ownership. All using is ultimately for the sake of action or doing; justice requires, therefore, above all, that everyone be assigned such a function or such a job as he can perform well. But everyone does best that for which he is best fitted by nature. Justice exists, then, only in a society in which everyone does what he can do well and in which everyone has what he can use well. Justice is identical with membership in such a society and devotion to such a society-a society according to nature.1 (Fs)

148a We must go further. The justice of the city may be said to consist in acting according to the principle "from everyone according to his capacity and to everyone according to his merits." A society is just if its living principle is "equality of opportunity," i.e., if every human being belonging to it has the opportunity, corresponding to his capacities, of deserving well of the whole and receiving the proper reward for his deserts. Since there is no good reason for assuming that the capacity for meritorious action is bound up with sex, beauty, and so on, "discrimination" on account of sex, ugliness, and so on is unjust. The only proper reward for service is honor, and therefore the only proper reward for outstanding service is great authority. In a just society the social hierarchy will correspond strictly to the hierarchy of merit and of merit alone. Now, as a rule, civil society regards as an indispensable condition for holding high office that the individual concerned be a born citizen, a son of a citizen father and a citizen mother. That is to say, civil society in one way or another qualifies the principle of merit, i.e., the principle par excellence of justice, by the wholly unconnected principle of indigenousness. In order to be truly just, civil society would have to drop this qualification; civil society must be transformed into the "world-state." That this is necessary is said to appear also from the following consideration: Civil society as closed society necessarily implies that there is more than one civil society, and therewith that war is possible. Civil society must therefore foster warlike habits. But these habits are at variance with the requirements of justice. If people are engaged in war, they are concerned with victory and not with assigning to the enemy what an impartial and discerning judge would consider beneficial to the enemy. They are concerned with harming others, and the just man appeared to be a man who does not harm anyone. Civil society is therefore forced to make a distinction: the just man is he who does not harm, but loves, his friends or neighbors, i.e., his fellow-citizens, but who does harm or who hates his enemies, i.e., the foreigners who as such are at least potential enemies of his city. We may call this type of justice "citizen-morality," and we shall say that the city necessarily requires citizen-morality in this sense. But citizen-morality suffers from an inevitable self-contradiction. It asserts that different rules of conduct apply in war than in peace, but it cannot help regarding at least some relevant rules, which are said to apply to peace only, as universally valid. The city cannot leave it at saying, for instance, that deception, and especially deception to the detriment of others, is bad in peace but praiseworthy in war. It cannot help viewing with suspicion the man who is good at deceiving, or it cannot help regarding the devious or disingenuous ways which are required for any successful deception as simply mean or distasteful. Yet the city must command, and even praise, such ways if they are used against the enemy. To avoid this self-contradiction, the city must transform itself into the "world-state." But no human being and no group of human beings can rule the whole human race justly. Therefore, what is divined in speaking of the "world-state" as an all-comprehensive human society subject to one human government is in truth the cosmos ruled by God, which is then the only true city, or the city that is simply according to nature because it is the only city which is simply just. Men are citizens of this city, or freemen in it, only if they are wise; their obedience to the law which orders the natural city, to the natural law, is the same thing as prudence.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Sokratisch-Platonisch-Stoisch; Transformation des Guten aus Natur zum politisch Guten; Kompromiss: Weisheit - Dummheit; Unterscheidung: erstes, zweites Naturrecht

Kurzinhalt: Civil life requires a fundamental compromise between wisdom and folly, and this means a compromise between the natural right that is discerned by reason or understanding and the right that is based on opinion alone.

Textausschnitt: 151a This solution to the problem of justice obviously transcends the limits of political life.1 It implies that the justice which is possible within the city, can be only imperfect or cannot be unquestionably good. There are still other reasons which force men to seek beyond the political sphere for perfect justice or, more generally, for the life that is truly according to nature. It is not possible here to do more than barely to indicate these reasons. In the first place, the wise do not desire to rule; they must therefore be compelled to rule. They must be compelled because their whole life is devoted to the pursuit of something which is absolutely higher in dignity than any human things-the unchangeable truth. And it appears to be against nature that the lower should be preferred to the higher. If striving for knowledge of the eternal truth is the ultimate end of man, justice and moral virtue in general can be fully legitimated only by the fact that they are required for the sake of that ultimate end or that they are conditions of the philosophic life. From this point of view the man who is merely just or moral without being a philosopher appears as a mutilated human being. It thus becomes a question whether the moral or just man who is not a philosopher is simply superior to the nonphilosophic "erotic" man. It likewise becomes a question whether justice and morality in general, in so far as they are required for the sake of the philosophic life, are identical, as regards both their meaning and their extension, with justice and morality as they are commonly understood, or whether morality does not have two entirely different roots, or whether what Aristotle calls moral virtue is not, in fact, merely political or vulgar virtue. The latter question can also be expressed by asking whether, by transforming opinion about morality into knowledge of morality, one does not transcend the dimension of morality in the politically relevant sense of the term.2 (Fs)

152a However this may be, both the obvious dependence of the philosophic life on the city and the natural affection which men have for men, and especially for their kin, regardless of whether or not these men have "good natures" or are potential philosophers, make it necessary for the philosopher to descend again into the cave, i.e., to take care of the affairs of the city, whether in a direct or more remote manner. In descending into the cave, the philosopher admits that what is intrinsically or by nature the highest is not the most urgent for man, who is essentially an "in-between" being--between the brutes and the gods. When attempting to guide the city, he knows then in advance that, in order to be useful or good for the city, the requirements of wisdom must be qualified or diluted. If these requirements are identical with natural right or with natural law, natural right or natural law must be diluted in order to become compatible with the requirements of the city. The city requires that wisdom be reconciled with consent. But to admit the necessity of consent, i.e., of the consent of the unwise, amounts to admitting a right of unwisdom, i.e., an irrational, if inevitable, right. Civil life requires a fundamental compromise between wisdom and folly, and this means a compromise between the natural right that is discerned by reason or understanding and the right that is based on opinion alone. Civil life requires the dilution of natural right by merely conventional right. Natural right would act as dynamite for civil society. In other words, the simply good, which is what is good by nature and which is radically distinct from the ancestral, must be transformed into the politically good, which is, as it were, the quotient of the simply good and the ancestral: the politically good is what "removes a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice." It is in this necessity that the need for inexactness in political or moral matters is partly founded.3 (Fs)

153a The notion that natural right must be diluted in order to become compatible with civil society is the philosophic root of the later distinction between the primeval natural right and the secondary natural right.1 This distinction was linked with the view that the primeval natural right, which excludes private property and other characteristic features of civil society, belonged to man's original state of innocence, whereas the secondary natural right is needed after man has become corrupted, as a remedy for his corruption. We must not overlook, however, the difference between the notion that natural right must be diluted and the notion of a secondary natural right. If the principles valid in civil society are diluted natural right, they are much less venerable than if they are regarded as secondary natural right, i.e., as divinely established and involving an absolute duty for fallen man. Only in the latter case is justice, as it is commonly understood, unquestionably good. Only in the latter case does natural right in the strict sense or the primary natural right cease to be dynamite for civil society. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Aristoteles (Unterschied zu Plato); synderesis; Averroes; Marsilius von Padua: Naturrecht = konventionelles Recht

Kurzinhalt: A right which necessarily transcends political society, he gives us to understand, cannot be the right natural to man, who is by nature a political animal ... Aristotle says explicitly that all right--hence also all natural right--is changeable ...

Textausschnitt: 156a To turn now to the Aristotelian natural right teaching, we have to note first that the only thematic treatment of natural right which is certainly by Aristotle and which certainly expresses Aristotle's own view covers barely one page of the Nicomachean Ethics. In addition, the passage is singularly elusive; it is not illumined by a single example of what is by nature right. This much, however, can safely be said: according to Aristotle, there is no fundamental disproportion between natural right and the requirements of political society, or there is no essential need for the dilution of natural right. In this, as well as in many other respects, Aristotle opposes the divine madness of Plato and, by anticipation, the paradoxes of the Stoics, in the spirit of his unrivaled sobriety. A right which necessarily transcends political society, he gives us to understand, cannot be the right natural to man, who is by nature a political animal. Plato never discusses any subject--be it the city or the heavens or numbers--without keeping in view the elementary Socratic question, "What is the right way of life?" And the simply right way of life proves to be the philosophic life. Plato eventually defines natural right with direct reference to the fact that the only life which is simply just is the life of the philosopher. Aristotle, on the other hand, treats each of the various levels of beings, and hence especially every level of human life, on its own terms. When he discusses justice, he discusses justice as everyone knows it and as it is understood in political life, and he refuses to be drawn into the dialectical whirlpool that carries us far beyond justice in the ordinary sense of the term toward the philosophic life. Not that he denies the ultimate right of that dialectical process or the tension between the requirements of philosophy and those of the city; he knows that the simply best regime belongs to an entirely different epoch than fully developed philosophy. But he implies that the intermediate stages of that process, while not absolutely consistent, are sufficiently consistent for all practical purposes. It is true that those stages can exist only in a twilight, but this is a sufficient reason for the analyst--and especially for the analyst whose primary concern is with guiding human actions--to leave them in that twilight. In the twilight which is essential to human life as merely human, the justice which may be available in the cities appears to be perfect justice and unquestionably good; there is no need for the dilution of natural right. Aristotle says, then, simply that natural right is a part of political right. This does not mean that there is no natural right outside the city or prior to the city. To say nothing of the relations between parents and children, the relation of justice that obtains between two complete strangers who meet on a desert island is not one of political justice and is nevertheless determined by nature. What Aristotle suggests is that the most fully developed form of natural right is that which obtains among fellow-citizens; only among fellow-citizens do the relations which are the subject matter of right or justice reach their greatest density and, indeed, their full growth. (Fs)

157a The second assertion regarding natural right which Aristotle makes--an assertion much more surprising than the first--is that all natural right is changeable. According to Thomas Aquinas, this statement must be understood with a qualification: the principles of natural right, the axioms from which the more specific rules of natural right are derived, are universally valid and immutable; what are mutable are only the more specific rules (e.g., the rule to return deposits). The Thomistic interpretation is connected with the view that there is a habitus of practical principles, a habitus which he calls "conscience" or, more precisely, synderesis. The very terms show that this view is alien to Aristotle; it is of Patristic origin. In addition, Aristotle says explicitly that all right--hence also all natural right--is changeable; he does not qualify that statement in any way. There exists an alternative medieval interpretation of Aristotle's doctrine, namely, the Averroistic view or, more adequately stated, the view characteristic of the falasifa (i.e., of the Islamic Aristotelians) as well as of the Jewish Aristotelians. This view was set forth within the Christian world by Marsilius of Padua and presumably by other Christian or Latin Averroists. According to Averroes, Aristotle understands by natural right "legal natural right." Or, as Marsilius puts it, natural right is only quasi-natural; actually, it depends on human institution or convention; but it is distinguished from merely positive right by the fact that it is based on ubiquitous convention. In all civil societies the same broad rules of what constitutes justice necessarily grow up. They specify the minimum requirements of society; they correspond roughly to the Second Table of the Decalogue but include the command of divine worship. In spite of the fact that they seem to be evidently necessary and are universally recognized, they are conventional for this reason: Civil society is incompatible with any immutable rules, however basic; for in certain conditions the disregard of these rules may be needed for the preservation of society; but, for pedagogic reasons, society must present as universally valid certain rules which are generally valid. Since the rules in question obtain normally, all social teachings proclaim these rules and not the rare exceptions. The effectiveness of the general rules depends on their being taught without qualifications, without ifs and buts. But the omission of the qualifications which makes the rules more effective, makes them at the same time untrue. The unqualified rules are not natural right but conventional right.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Kommentar (24/06/08): Cf. Voegelin, Anamnesis VEAN_32_6

160a There is a meaning of justice which is not exhausted by the principles of commutative and distributive justice in particular. Prior to being the commutatively and distributively just, the just is the common good. The common good consists normally in what is required by commutative and distributive justice or by other moral principles of this kind or in what is compatible with these requirements. But the common good also comprises, of course, the mere existence, the mere survival, the mere independence, of the political community in question. Let us call an extreme situation a situation in which the very existence or independence of a society is at stake. In extreme situations there may be conflicts between what the self-preservation of society requires and the requirements of commutative and distributive justice. In such situations, and only in such situations, it can justly be said that the public safety is the highest law. A decent society will not go to war except for a just cause. But what it will do during a war will depend to a certain extent on what the enemy--possibly an absolutely unscrupulous and savage enemy--forces it to do. There are no limits which can be defined in advance, there are no assignable limits to what might become just reprisals. But war casts its shadow on peace. The most just society cannot survive without "intelligence," i.e., espionage. Espionage is impossible without a suspension of certain rules of natural right. But societies are not only threatened from without. Considerations which apply to foreign enemies may well apply to subversive elements within society. Let us leave these sad exigencies covered with the veil with which they are justly covered. It suffices to repeat that in extreme situations the normally valid rules of natural right are justly changed, or changed in accordance with natural right; the exceptions are as just as the rules. And Aristotle seems to suggest that there is not a single rule, however basic, which is not subject to exception. One could say that in all cases the common good must be preferred to the private good and that this rule suffers no exception. But this rule does not say more than that justice must be observed, and we are anxious to know what it is that is required by justice or the common good. By saying that in extreme situations the public safety is the highest law, one implies that the public safety is not the highest law in normal situations; in normal situations the highest laws are the common rules of justice. Justice has two different principles or sets of principles: the requirements of public safety, or what is necessary in extreme situations to preserve the mere existence or independence of society, on the one hand, and the rules of justice in the more precise sense, on the other. And there is no principle which defines clearly in what type of cases the public safety, and in what type of cases the precise rules of justice, have priority. For it is not possible to define precisely what constitutes an extreme situation in contradistinction to a normal situation. Every dangerous external or internal enemy is inventive to the extent that he is capable of transforming what, on the basis of previous experience, could reasonably be regarded as a normal situation into an extreme situation. Natural right must be mutable in order to be able to cope with the inventiveness of wickedness. What cannot be decided in advance by universal rules, what can be decided in the critical moment by the most competent and most conscientious statesman on the spot, can be made visible as just, in retrospect, to all; the objective discrimination between extreme actions which were just and extreme actions which were unjust is one of the noblest duties of the historian.1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Aristoteles - Machiavelli; Plato, Aristoteles: Weg zw. moralischem "Absolutismus" und Relativismus

Kurzinhalt: Machiavelli denies natural right, because he takes his bearings by the extreme situations ... and not by the normal situations in which the demands of justice in the strict sense are the highest law.

Textausschnitt: 161a It is important that the difference between the Aristotelian view of natural right and Machiavellianism be clearly understood. Machiavelli denies natural right, because he takes his bearings by the extreme situations in which the demands of justice are reduced to the requirements of necessity, and not by the normal situations in which the demands of justice in the strict sense are the highest law. Furthermore, he does not have to overcome a reluctance as regards the deviations from what is normally right. On the contrary, he seems to derive no small enjoyment from contemplating these deviations, and he is not concerned with the punctilious investigation of whether any particular deviation is really necessary or not. The true statesman in the Aristotelian sense, on the other hand, takes his bearings by the normal situation and by what is normally right, and he reluctantly deviates from what is normally right only in order to save the cause of justice and humanity itself. No legal expression of this difference can be found. Its political importance is obvious. The two opposite extremes, which at present are called "cynicism" and "idealism," combine in order to blur this difference. And, as everyone can see, they have not been unsuccessful. (Fs)

162a The variability of the demands of that justice which men can practice was recognized not only by Aristotle but by Plato as well. Both avoided the Scylla of "absolutism" and the Charybdis of "relativism" by holding a view which one may venture to express as follows: There is a universally valid hierarchy of ends, but there are no universally valid rules of action. Not to repeat what has been indicated before, when deciding what ought to be done, i.e., what ought to be done by this individual (or this individual group) here and now, one has to consider not only which of the various competing objectives is higher in rank but also which is most urgent in the circumstances. What is most urgent is legitimately preferred to what is less urgent, and the most urgent is in many cases lower in rank than the less urgent. But one cannot make a universal rule that urgency is a higher consideration than rank. For it is our duty to make the highest activity, as much as we can, the most urgent or the most needful thing. And the maximum of effort which can be expected necessarily varies from individual to individual. The only universally valid standard is the hierarchy of ends. This standard is sufficient for passing judgment on the level of nobility of individuals and groups and of actions and institutions. But it is insufficient for guiding our actions. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Thomas von Aquin; das Naturrecht weist über sich hinaus

Kurzinhalt: ... the natural end of man is insufficient, or points beyond itself or, more precisely, that the end of man cannot consist in philosophic investigation, to say nothing of political activity.

Textausschnitt: 163a The Thomistic doctrine of natural right or, more generally expressed, of natural law is free from the hesitations and ambiguities which are characteristic of the teachings, not only of Plato and Cicero, but of Aristotle as well. In definiteness and noble simplicity it even surpasses the mitigated Stoic natural law teaching. No doubt is left, not only regarding the basic harmony between natural right and civil society, but likewise regarding the immutable character of the fundamental propositions of natural law; the principles of the moral law, especially as formulated in the Second Table of the Decalogue, suffer no exception, unless possibly by divine intervention. The doctrine of synderesis or of the conscience explains why the natural law can always be duly promulgated to all men and hence be universally obligatory. It is reasonable to assume that these profound changes were due to the influence of the belief in biblical revelation. If this assumption should prove to be correct, one would be forced to wonder, however, whether the natural law as Thomas Aquinas understands it is natural law strictly speaking, i.e., a law knowable to the unassisted human mind, to the human mind which is not illumined by divine revelation. This doubt is strengthened by the following consideration: The natural law which is knowable to the unassisted human mind and which prescribes chiefly actions in the strict sense is related to, or founded upon, the natural end of man; that end is twofold: moral perfection and intellectual perfection; intellectual perfection is higher in dignity than moral perfection; but intellectual perfection or wisdom, as unassisted human reason knows it, does not require moral virtue. Thomas solves this difficulty by virtually contending that, according to natural reason, the natural end of man is insufficient, or points beyond itself or, more precisely, that the end of man cannot consist in philosophic investigation, to say nothing of political activity. Thus natural reason itself creates a presumption in favor of the divine law, which completes or perfects the natural law. At any rate, the ultimate consequence of the Thomistic view of natural law is that natural law is practically inseparable not only from natural theology--i.e., from a natural theology which is, in fact, based on belief in biblical revelation--but even from revealed theology. Modern natural law was partly a reaction to this absorption of natural law by theology. The modern efforts were partly based on the premise, which would have been acceptable to the classics, that the moral principles have a greater evidence than the teachings even of natural theology and, therefore, that natural law or natural right should be kept independent of theology and its controversies. The second important respect in which modern political thought returned to the classics by opposing the Thomistic view is illustrated by such issues as the indissolubility of marriage and birth control. A work like Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws is misunderstood if one disregards the fact that it is directed against the Thomistic view of natural right. Montesquieu tried to recover for statesmanship a latitude which had been considerably restricted by the Thomistic teaching. What Montesquieu's private thoughts were will always remain controversial. But it is safe to say that what he explicitly teaches, as a student of politics and as politically sound and right, is nearer in spirit to the classics than to Thomas. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Verwerfung der Tradtion und Abhängigkeit von ihr; der Mensch als a-politisches Wesen; Gründer des politischen Hedonismus; Kombination: politischer Idealismus mit materialistischer Naturphilosophie

Kurzinhalt: Hobbes rejects the idealistic tradition on the basis of a fundamental agreement with it ... He traces the failure of the idealistic tradition to one fundamental mistake:

Textausschnitt: 166a Thomas Hobbes regarded himself as the founder of political philosophy or political science. He knew, of course, that the great honor which he claimed for himself was awarded, by almost universal consent, to Socrates. Nor was he allowed to forget the notorious fact that the tradition which Socrates had originated was still powerful in his own age. But he was certain that traditional political philosophy "was rather a dream than science."1 (Fs)

166b Present-day scholars are not impressed by Hobbes's claim. They note that he was deeply indebted to the tradition which he scorned. Some of them come close to suggesting that he was one of the last Schoolmen. Lest we overlook the wood for the trees, we shall reduce for a while the significant results of present-day polymathy into the compass of one sentence. Hobbes was indebted to tradition for a single, but momentous, idea: he accepted on trust the view that political philosophy or political science is possible or necessary. (Fs)

167a To understand Hobbes's astonishing claim means to pay proportionate attention to his emphatic rejection of the tradition, on the one hand, and to his almost silent agreement with it, on the other. For this purpose one must first identify the tradition. More precisely, one must first see the tradition as Hobbes saw it and forget for a moment how it presents itself to the present-day historian. Hobbes mentions the following representatives of the tradition by name: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, and Plutarch.2 He then tacitly identifies the tradition of political philosophy with a particular tradition. He identifies it with that tradition whose basic premises may be stated as follows: the noble and the just are fundamentally distinguished from the pleasant and are by nature preferable to it; or, there is a natural right that is wholly independent of any human compact or convention; or, there is a best political order which is best because it is according to nature. He identifies traditional political philosophy with the quest for the best regime or for the simply just social order, and therefore with a pursuit that is political not merely because it deals with political matters but, above all, because it is animated by a political spirit. He identifies traditional political philosophy with that particular tradition that was public spirited or--to employ a term which is loose indeed but at present still easily intelligible--that was "idealistic." (Fs)

167b When speaking of earlier political philosophers, Hobbes does not mention that tradition whose most famous representatives might be thought to be "the sophists," Epicurus and Carneades. The anti-idealistic tradition simply did not exist for him--as a tradition of political philosophy. For it was ignorant of the very idea of political philosophy as Hobbes understood it. It was indeed concerned with the nature of political things and especially of justice. It was also concerned with the question of the right life of the individual and therefore with the question of whether or how the individual could use civil society for his private, nonpolitical purposes: for his ease or for his glory. But it was not political. It was not public spirited. It did not preserve the orientation of statesmen while enlarging their views. It was not dedicated to the concern with the right order of society as with something that is choiceworthy for its own sake. (Fs)

168a By tacitly identifying traditional political philosophy with the idealistic tradition, Hobbes expresses, then, his tacit agreement with the idealistic view of the function or the scope of political philosophy. Like Cicero before him, he sides with Cato against Carneades. He presents his novel doctrine as the first truly scientific or philosophic treatment of natural law; he agrees with the Socratic tradition in holding the view that political philosophy is concerned with natural right. He intends to show "what is law, as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and divers others have done"; he does not refer to Protagoras, Epicurus, or Carneades. He fears that his Leviathan might remind his readers of Plato's Republic; no one could dream of comparing the Leviathan to Lucretius' De rerum natura. 1 (Fs)

168b Hobbes rejects the idealistic tradition on the basis of a fundamental agreement with it. He means to do adequately what the Socratic tradition did in a wholly inadequate manner. He means to succeed where the Socratic tradition had failed. He traces the failure of the idealistic tradition to one fundamental mistake: traditional political philosophy assumed that man is by nature a political or social animal. By rejecting this assumption, Hobbes joins the Epicurean tradition. He accepts its view that man is by nature or originally an a-political and even an a-social animal, as well as its premise that the good is fundamentally identical with the pleasant.1 But he uses that a-political view for a political purpose. He gives that a-political view a political meaning. He tries to instil the spirit of political idealism into the hedonistic tradition. He thus became the creator of political hedonism, a doctrine which has revolutionized human life everywhere on a scale never yet approached by any other teaching. (Fs) (notabene)

169a The epoch-making change which we are forced to trace to Hobbes was well understood by Edmund Burke: "Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious."1 Political atheism is a distinctly modern phenomenon. No pre-modern atheist doubted that social life required belief in, and worship of, God or gods. If we do not permit ourselves to be deceived by ephemeral phenomena, we realize that political atheism and political hedonism belong together. They arose together in the same moment and in the same mind. (Fs)

169b For in trying to understand Hobbes's political philosophy we must not lose sight of his natural philosophy. His natural philosophy is of the type classically represented by Democritean-Epicurean physics. Yet he regarded, not Epicurus or Democritus, but Plato, as "the best of the ancient philosophers." What he learned from Plato's natural philosophy was not that the universe cannot be understood if it is not ruled by divine intelligence. Whatever may have been Hobbes's private thoughts, his natural philosophy is as atheistic as Epicurean physics. What he learned from Plato's natural philosophy was that mathematics is "the mother of all natural science."2 By being both mathematical and materialistic-mechanistic, Hobbes's natural philosophy is a combination of Platonic physics and Epicurean physics. From his point of view, pre-modern philosophy or science as a whole was "rather a dream than science" precisely because it did not think of that combination. His philosophy as a whole may be said to be the classic example of the typically modern combination of political idealism with a materialistic and atheistic view of the whole. (Fs)

170a Positions that are originally incompatible with one another can be combined in two ways. The first way is the eclectic compromise which remains on the same plane as the original positions. The other way is the synthesis which becomes possible through the transition of thought from the plane of the original positions to an entirely different plane. The combination effected by Hobbes is a synthesis. He may or may not have been aware that he was, in fact, combining two opposed traditions. He was fully aware that his thought presupposed a radical break with all traditional thought, or the abandonment of the plane on which "Platonism" and "Epicureanism" had carried on their secular struggle. (Fs)

170b Hobbes, as well as his most illustrious contemporaries, was overwhelmed or elated by a sense of the complete failure of traditional philosophy. A glance at present and past controversies sufficed to convince them that philosophy, or the quest for wisdom, had not succeeded in transforming itself into wisdom. This overdue transformation was now to be effected. To succeed where tradition had failed, one has to start with reflections on the conditions which have to be fulfilled if wisdom is to become actual: one has to start with reflections on the right method. The purpose of these reflections was to guarantee the actualization of wisdom. (Fs)

171a The failure of traditional philosophy showed itself most clearly in the fact that dogmatic philosophy had always been accompanied, as by its shadow, by skeptical philosophy. Dogmatism had never yet succeeded in overcoming skepticism once and for all. To guarantee the actualization of wisdom means to eradicate skepticism by doing justice to the truth' embodied in skepticism. For this purpose, one must first give free rein to extreme skepticism: what survives the onslaught of extreme skepticism is the absolutely safe basis of wisdom. The actualization of wisdom is identical with the erection of an absolutely dependable dogmatic edifice on the foundation of extreme skepticism.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Problem: Beurteilung des Selbsterhaltes; das Naturrecht des Toren -> Konsens statt Weisheit -> Autorität der Macht; Simplifizierung der Moral -> Tugend der Friedfertigkeit

Kurzinhalt: ... the question arises as to who is to be the judge of what means are required for a man's self-preservation

Textausschnitt: 185a If everyone has by nature the right to preserve himself, he necessarily has the right to the means required for his self-preservation. At this point the question arises as to who is to be the judge of what means are required for a man's self-preservation or as to which means are proper or right. The classics would have answered that the natural judge is the man of practical wisdom, and this answer would finally lead back to the view that the simply best regime is the absolute rule of the wise and the best practicable regime is the rule of gentlemen. According to Hobbes, however, everyone is by nature the judge of what are the right means to his self-preservation. For, even granting that the wise man is, in principle, a better judge, he is much less concerned with the self-preservation of a given fool than is the fool himself. But if everyone, however foolish, is by nature the judge of what is required for his self-preservation, everything may legitimately be regarded as required for self-preservation: everything is by nature just.1 We may speak of a natural right of folly. Furthermore, if everyone is by nature the judge of what is conducive to his self-preservation, consent takes precedence over wisdom. But consent is not effective if it does not transform itself into subjection to the sovereign. For the reason indicated, the sovereign is sovereign not because of his wisdom but because he has been made sovereign by the fundamental compact. This leads to the further conclusion that command or will, and not deliberation or reasoning, is the core of sovereignty or that laws are laws by virtue, not of truth or reasonableness, but of authority alone.2 In Hobbes's teaching, the supremacy of authority as distinguished from reason follows from an extraordinary extension of the natural right of the individual. (Fs)

186a The attempt to deduce the natural law or the moral law from the natural right of self-preservation or from the inescapable power of the fear of violent death led to far-reaching modifications of the content of the moral law. The modification amounted, in the first place, to a considerable simplification. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century thought in general tended toward a simplification of moral doctrine. To say the least, that tendency easily lent itself to absorption in the broader concern with the guaranty for the actualization of the right social order. One tried to replace the "unsystematic" multiplicity of irreducible virtues by a single virtue, or by a single basic virtue from which all other virtues could be deduced. There existed two well-paved ways in which this reduction could be achieved. In the moral teaching of Aristotle, "whose opinions are at this day, and in these parts of greater authority than any other human writings" (Hobbes), there occur two virtues which comprise all other virtues or, as we may say, two "general" virtues: magnanimity, which comprises all other virtues in so far as they contribute to the excellence of the individual, and justice, which comprises all other virtues in so far as they contribute to man's serving others. Accordingly, one could simplify moral philosophy by reducing morality either to magnanimity or else to justice. The first was done by Descartes, the second by Hobbes. The latter's choice had the particular advantage that it was favorable to a further simplification of moral doctrine: the unqualified identification of the doctrine of virtues with the doctrine of the moral or natural law. The moral law, in its turn, was to be greatly simplified by being deduced from the natural right of self-preservation. Self-preservation requires peace. The moral law became, therefore, the sum of rules which have to be obeyed if there is to be peace. Just as Machiavelli reduced virtue to the political virtue of patriotism, Hobbes reduced virtue to the social virtue of peaceableness. Those forms of human excellence which have no direct or unambiguous relation to peaceableness-courage, temperance, magnanimity, liberality, to say nothing of wisdom-cease to be virtues in the strict sense. Justice (in conjunction with equity and charity) does remain a virtue, but its meaning undergoes a radical change. If the only unconditional moral fact is the natural right of each to his self-preservation, and therefore all obligations to others arise from contract, justice becomes identical with the habit of fulfilling one's contracts. Justice no longer consists in complying with standards that are independent of human will. All material principles of justice-the rules of commutative and distributive justice or of the Second Table of the Decalogue- cease to have intrinsic validity. All material obligations arise from the agreement of the contractors, and therefore in practice from the will of the sovereign.1 For the contract that makes possible all other contracts is the social contract or the contract of subjection to the sovereign. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Reduktion auf soziale Tugenden -> politischer Hedonismus (Burke); Epikur (Epicurus);

Kurzinhalt: ... if virtue is reduced to social virtue or to benevolence or kindness or "the liberal virtues," ... This substitution is the core of what we have called "political hedonism."

Textausschnitt: 188a If virtue is identified with peaceableness, vice will become identical with that habit or that passion which is per se incompatible with peace because it essentially and, as it were, of set purpose issues in offending others; vice becomes identical for all practical purposes with pride or vanity or amour-propre rather than with dissoluteness or weakness of the soul. In other words, if virtue is reduced to social virtue or to benevolence or kindness or "the liberal virtues," "the severe virtues" of self-restraint will lose their standing.1 Here again we must have recourse to Burke's analysis of the spirit of the French Revolution; for Burke's polemical overstatements were and are indispensable for tearing away the disguises, both intentional and unintentional, in which "the new morality" introduced itself: "The Parisian philosophers ... explode or render odious or contemptible, that class of virtues which restrain the appetite. ... In the place of all this, they substitute a virtue which they call humanity or benevolence."2 This substitution is the core of what we have called "political hedonism." (Fs)


188b To establish the meaning of political hedonism in somewhat more precise terms, we must contrast Hobbes's teaching with the nonpolitical hedonism of Epicurus. The points in which Hobbes could agree with Epicurus, were these: the good is fundamentally identical with the pleasant; virtue is therefore not choiceworthy for its own sake but only with a view to the attainment of pleasure or the avoidance of pain; the desire for honor and glory is utterly vain, i.e., sensual pleasures are, as such, preferable to honor or glory. Hobbes had to oppose Epicurus in two crucial points in order to make possible political hedonism. In the first place, he had to reject Epicurus' implicit denial of a state of nature in the strict sense, i.e., of a prepolitical condition of life in which man enjoys natural rights; for Hobbes agreed with the idealistic tradition in thinking that the claim of civil society stands or falls with the existence of natural right. Besides, he could not accept the implication of Epicurus' distinction between natural desires which are necessary and natural desires which are not necessary; for that distinction implied that happiness requires an "ascetic" style of life and that happiness consists in a state of repose. Epicurus' high demands on self-restraint were bound to be Utopian as far as most men are concerned; they had therefore to be discarded by a "realistic" political teaching. The "realistic" approach to politics forced Hobbes to lift all restrictions on the striving for unnecessary sensual pleasures or, more precisely, for the commoda hujus vitae, or for power, with the exception of those restrictions that are required for the sake of peace. Since, as Epicurus said, "Nature has made [only] the necessary things easy to supply," the emancipation of the desire for comfort required that science be put into the service of the satisfaction of that desire. It required, above all, that the function of civil society be radically redefined: "the good life," for the sake of which men enter civil society, is no longer the life of human excellence but "commodious living" as the reward of hard work. And the sacred duty of the rulers is no longer "to make the citizens good and doers of noble things" but to "study, as much as by laws can be effected, to furnish the citizens abundantly with all good things ... which are conducive to delectation."1 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Souveränität, "öffentliches" Naturrecht - Weisheit des Staatsmanns; bestes Regime - legitimes Regime

Kurzinhalt: The "reason of state" school replaced "the best regime" by "efficient government." The "natural public law" school replaced "the best regime" by "legitimate government."

Textausschnitt: 190a It is not necessary for our purpose to follow Hobbes's thought on its way from the natural right of everyone, or from the state of nature, to the establishment of civil society. This part of his doctrine is not meant to be more than the strict consequence from his premises. It culminates in the doctrine of sovereignty, of which he is generally recognized to be the classic exponent. The doctrine of sovereignty is a legal doctrine. Its gist is not that it is expedient to assign plenitude of power to the ruling authority but that that plenitude belongs to the ruling authority as of right. The rights of sovereignty are assigned to the supreme power on the basis not of positive law or of general custom but of natural law. The doctrine of sovereignty formulates natural public law.1 Natural public law--jus publicum universale seu naturale--is a new discipline that emerged in the seventeenth century. It emerged in consequence of that radical change of orientation which we are trying to understand. Natural public law represents one of the two characteristically modern forms of political philosophy, the other form being "politics" in the sense of Machiavellian "reason of state." Both are fundamentally distinguished from classical political philosophy. In spite of their opposition to each other, they are motivated by fundamentally the same spirit.2 Their origin is the concern with a right or sound order of society whose actualization is probable, if not certain, or does not depend on chance. Accordingly, they deliberately lower the goal of politics; they are no longer concerned with having a clear view of the highest political possibility with regard to which all actual political orders can be judged in a responsible manner. The "reason of state" school replaced "the best regime" by "efficient government." The "natural public law" school replaced "the best regime" by "legitimate government." (Fs)

191a Classical political philosophy had recognized the difference between the best regime and legitimate regimes. It asserted, therefore, a variety of types of legitimate regimes; that is, what type of regime is legitimate in given circumstances depends on the circumstances. Natural public law, on the other hand, is concerned with that right social order whose actualization is possible under all circumstances. It therefore tries to delineate that social order that can claim to be legitimate or just in all cases, regardless of the circumstances. Natural public law, we may say, replaces the idea of the best regime, which does not supply, and is not meant to supply, an answer to the question of what is the just order here and now, by the idea of the just social order which answers the basic practical question once and for all, i.e., regardless of place and time.1 Natural public law intends to give such a universally valid solution to the political problem as is meant to be universally applicable in practice. In other words, whereas, according to the classics, political theory proper is essentially in need of being supplemented by the practical wisdom of the statesman on the spot, the new type of political theory solves, as such, the crucial practical problem: the problem of what order is just here and now. In the decisive respect, then, there is no longer any need for statesmanship as distinguished from political theory. We may call this type of thinking "doctrinairism," and we shall say that doctrinairism made its first appearance within political philosophy--for lawyers are altogether in a class by themselves--in the seventeenth century. At that time the sensible flexibility of classical political philosophy gave way to fanatical rigidity. The political philosopher became more and more indistinguishable from the partisan. The historical thought of the nineteenth century tried to recover for statesmanship that latitude which natural public law had so severely restricted. But since that historical thought was absolutely under the spell of modern "realism," it succeeded in destroying natural public law only by destroying in the process all moral principles of politics. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes, Souveränität; Institutionen - Erziehung (Tugend); Staat: Engel, Teufel (Kant); Garantie der Gerechtigkeit durch Beherrschung der Leidenschaften; Demokratie: einzige legitimes Regime

Kurzinhalt: As regards Hobbes's teaching on sovereignty in particular ... It implies the denial of the possibility of distinguishing between good and bad regimes ... Man can guarantee the actualization of the right social order because ...

Textausschnitt: 192a As regards Hobbes's teaching on sovereignty in particular, its doctrinaire character is shown most clearly by the denials which it implies. It implies the denial of the possibility of distinguishing between good and bad regimes (kingship and tyranny, aristocracy and oligarchy, democracy and ochlocracy) as well as of the possibility of mixed regimes and of "rule of law."1 Since these denials are at variance with observed facts, the doctrine of sovereignty amounts in practice to a denial not of the existence, but of the legitimacy, of the possibilities mentioned: Hobbes's doctrine of sovereignty ascribes to the sovereign prince or to the sovereign people an unqualified right to disregard all legal and constitutional limitations according to their pleasure,2 and it imposes even on sensible men a natural law prohibition against censuring the sovereign and his actions. But it would be wrong to overlook the fact that the basic deficiency of the doctrine of sovereignty is shared, if to different degrees, by all other forms of natural public law doctrines as well. We merely have to remind ourselves of the practical meaning of the doctrine that the only legitimate regime is democracy. (Fs)

193a The classics had conceived of regimes (politeiai) not so much in terms of institutions as in terms of the aims actually pursued by the community or its authoritative part. Accordingly, they regarded the best regime as that regime whose aim is virtue, and they held that the right kind of institutions are indeed indispensable for establishing and securing the rule of the virtuous, but of only secondary importance in comparison with "education," i.e., the formation of character. From the point of view of natural public law, on the other hand, what is needed in order to establish the right social order is not so much the formation of character as the devising of the right kind of institutions. As Kant put it in rejecting the view that the establishment of the right social order requires a nation of angels: "Hard as it may sound, the problem of establishing the state [i.e., the just social order] is soluble even for a nation of devils, provided they have sense," i.e., provided that they are guided by enlightened selfishness; the fundamental political problem is simply one of "a good organization of the state, of which man is indeed capable." In the words of Hobbes, "when [commonwealths] come to be dissolved, not by external violence, but intestine disorder, the fault is not in men, as they are the matter, but as they are the makers, and orderers of them."1 Man as the maker of civil society can solve once and for all the problem inherent in man as the matter of civil society. Man can guarantee the actualization of the right social order because he is able to conquer human nature by understanding and manipulating the mechanism of the passions. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Philosophie der Macht; Macht; potentia - potestas; Nietzsche;

Kurzinhalt: ... one may call Hobbes's whole philosophy the first philosophy of power ...Power, as distinguished from the end for which power is used or ought to be used, becomes the central theme of political reflections ...

Textausschnitt: 194a There is a term that expresses in the most condensed form the result of the change which Hobbes has effected. That term is "power." It is in Hobbes's political doctrine that power becomes for the first time eo nomine a central theme. Considering the fact that, according to Hobbes, science as such exists for the sake of power, one may call Hobbes's whole philosophy the first philosophy of power. "Power" is an ambiguous term. It stands for potentia, on the one hand, and for potestas (or jus or dominium), on the other.1 It means both "physical" power and "legal" power. The ambiguity is essential: only if potentia and potestas essentially belong together, can there be a guaranty of the actualization of the right social order. The state, as such, is both the greatest human force and the highest human authority. Legal power is irresistible force.2 The necessary coincidence of the greatest human force and the highest human authority corresponds strictly to the necessary coincidence of the most powerful passion (fear of violent death) and the most sacred right (the right of self-preservation). Potentia and potestas have this in common, that they are both intelligible only in contradistinction, and in relation, to the actus: the potentia of a man is what a man can do, and the potestas or, more generally expressed, the right of a man, is what a man may do. The predominance of the concern with "power" is therefore only the reverse of a relative indifference to the actus, and this means to the purposes for which man's "physical" as well as his "legal" power is or ought to be used. This indifference can be traced directly to Hobbes's concern with an exact or scientific political teaching. The sound use of "physical" power as well as the sound exercise of rights depends on prudentia, and whatever falls within the province of prudentia is not susceptible of exactness. There are two kinds of exactness : mathematical and legal. From the point of view of mathematical exactness, the study of the actus and therewith of the ends is replaced by the study of potentia. "Physical" power as distinguished from the purposes for which it is used is morally neutral and therefore more amenable to mathematical strictness than is its use: power can be measured. This explains why Nietzsche, who went much beyond Hobbes and declared the will to power to be the essence of reality, conceived of power in terms of "quanta of power." From the point of view of legal exactness, the study of the ends is replaced by the study of potestas. The rights of the sovereign, as distinguished from the exercise of these rights, permit of an exact definition without any regard to any unforeseeable circumstances, and this kind of exactness is again inseparable from moral neutrality: right declares what is permitted, as distinguished from what is honorable.3 Power, as distinguished from the end for which power is used or ought to be used, becomes the central theme of political reflections by virtue of that limitation of horizon which is needed if there is to be a guaranty of the actualization of the right social order. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; 2 Argumente gegen das Dogma der Furcht vor dem Tod: Kriegsdienst, Todesstrafe; Todesangst - Angst vor der Hölle -> Forderung: "aufgeklärte", a-religiösen Gesellschaft (Pierre Bayle); Ggs. Plato

Kurzinhalt: Yet Hobbes was forced to concede that the fear of violent death is only "commonly" or in most cases the most powerful force ... In many cases the fear of violent death proved to be a weaker force than the fear of hell fire or the fear of God ...

Textausschnitt: 196a Hobbes's political doctrine is meant to be universally applicable and hence to be applicable also and especially in extreme cases. This indeed may be said to be the boast of the classic doctrine of sovereignty: that it gives its due to the extreme case, to what holds good in emergency situations, whereas those who question that doctrine are accused of not looking beyond the pale of normality. Accordingly, Hobbes built his whole moral and political doctrine on observations regarding the extreme case; for the experience on which his doctrine of the state of nature is based is the experience of civil war. It is in the extreme situation, when the social fabric has completely broken down, that there comes to sight the solid foundation on which every social order must ultimately rest: the fear of violent death, which is the strongest force in human life. Yet Hobbes was forced to concede that the fear of violent death is only "commonly" or in most cases the most powerful force. The principle which was supposed to make possible a political doctrine of universal applicability, then, is not universally valid and therefore is useless in what, from Hobbes's point of view, is the most important case--the extreme case. For how can one exclude the possibility that precisely in the extreme situation the exception will prevail?1 (Fs)

197a To speak in more specific terms, there are two politically important phenomena which would seem to show with particular clarity the limited validity of Hobbes's contention regarding the overwhelming power of the fear of violent death. In the first place, if the only unconditional moral fact is the individual's right of self-preservation, civil society can hardly demand from the individual that he resign that right both by going to war and by submitting to capital punishment. As regards capital punishment, Hobbes was consistent enough to grant that, by being justly and legally condemned to death, a man does not lose the right to defend his life by resisting "those that assault him": a justly condemned murderer retains--nay, he acquires--the right to kill his guards and everyone else who stands in his way to escape, in order to save dear life.1 But, by granting this, Hobbes in fact admitted that there exists an insoluble conflict between the rights of the government and the natural right of the individual to self-preservation. This conflict was solved in the spirit, if against the letter, of Hobbes by Beccaria, who inferred from the absolute primacy of the right of self-preservation the necessity of abolishing capital punishment. As regards war, Hobbes, who proudly declared that he was "the first of all that fled" at the outbreak of the Civil War, was consistent enough to grant that "there is allowance to be made for natural timorousness." And as if he desired to make it perfectly clear to what lengths he was prepared to go in opposing the lupine spirit of Rome, he continues as follows: "When armies fight, there is on one side, or both, a running away: yet when they do it not out of treachery, but fear, they are not esteemed to do it unjustly, but dishonourably."2 But, by granting this, he destroyed the moral basis of national defense. The only solution to this difficulty which preserves the spirit of Hobbes's political philosophy is the outlawry of war or the establishment of a world state. (Fs)

198a There was only one fundamental objection to Hobbes's basic assumption which he felt very keenly and which he made every effort to overcome. In many cases the fear of violent death proved to be a weaker force than the fear of hell fire or the fear of God. The difficulty is well illustrated by two widely separated passages of the Leviathan. In the first passage Hobbes says that the fear of the power of men (i.e., the fear of violent death) is "commonly" greater than the fear of the power of "spirits invisible," i.e., than religion. In the second passage he says that "the fear of darkness and ghosts is greater than other fears."1 Hobbes saw his way to solve this contradiction: the fear of invisible powers is stronger than the fear of violent death as long as people believe in invisible powers, i.e., as long as they are under the spell of delusions about the true character of reality; the fear of violent death comes fully into its own as soon as people have become enlightened. This implies that the whole scheme suggested by Hobbes requires for its operation the weakening or, rather, the elimination of the fear of invisible powers. It requires such a radical change of orientation as can be brought about only by the disenchantment of the world, by the diffusion of scientific knowledge, or by popular enlightenment. Hobbes's is the first doctrine that necessarily and unmistakably points to a thoroughly "enlightened," i.e., a-religious or atheistic society as the solution of the social or political problem. This most important implication of Hobbes's doctrine was made explicit not many years after his death by Pierre Bayle, who attempted to prove that an atheistic society is possible.2 (Fs)

199a It is, then, only through the prospect of popular enlightenment that Hobbes's doctrine acquired such consistency as it possesses. The virtues which he ascribed to enlightenment are indeed extraordinary. The power of ambition and avarice, he says, rests on the false opinions of the vulgar regarding right and wrong; therefore, once the principles of justice are known with mathematical certainty, ambition and avarice will become powerless and the human race will enjoy lasting peace. For, obviously, mathematical knowledge of the principles of justice (i.e., the new doctrine of natural right and the new natural public law that is built on it) cannot destroy the wrong opinions of the vulgar, if the vulgar are not apprised of the results of that mathematical knowledge. Plato had said that evils will not cease from the cities if the philosophers do not become kings or if philosophy and political power do not coincide. He had expected such salvation for mortal nature as can reasonably be expected, from a coincidence over which philosophy has no control but for which one can only wish or pray. Hobbes, on the other hand, was certain that philosophy itself can bring about the coincidence of philosophy and political power by becoming popularized philosophy and thus public opinion. Chance will be conquered by systematic philosophy issuing in systematic enlightenment: Paulatim eruditur vulgus.1 By devising the right kind of institutions and by enlightening the citizen body, philosophy guarantees the solution of the social problem, whose solution cannot be guaranteed by man if it is thought to depend on moral discipline. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Naturrecht - Notwendigkeit: Leviathan, Wealth of Nations; Unintelligibilität der Natur

Kurzinhalt: But the very fact that the universe is unintelligible permits reason to rest satisfied with its free constructs, ... Reason is impotent against passion, but it can become omnipotent if it co-operates with the strongest passion

Textausschnitt: 200a Opposing the "utopianism" of the classics, Hobbes was concerned with a social order whose actualization is probable and even certain. The guaranty of its actualization might seem to be supplied by the fact that the sound social order is based on the most powerful passion and therewith on the most powerful force in man. But if the fear of violent death is truly the strongest force in man, one should expect the desired social order always, or almost always, to be in existence, because it will be produced by natural necessity, by the natural order. Hobbes overcomes this difficulty by assuming that men in their stupidity interfere with the natural order. The right social order does not normally come about by natural necessity on account of man's ignorance of that order. The "invisible hand" remains ineffectual if it is not supported by the Leviathan or, if you wish, by the Wealth of Nations. (Fs) (notabene)

201a There is a remarkable parallelism and an even more remarkable discrepancy between Hobbes's theoretical philosophy and his practical philosophy. In both parts of his philosophy, he teaches that reason is impotent and that it is omnipotent, or that reason is omnipotent because it is impotent. Reason is impotent because reason or humanity have no cosmic support: the universe is unintelligible, and nature "dissociates" men. But the very fact that the universe is unintelligible permits reason to rest satisfied with its free constructs, to establish through its constructs an Archimedean basis of operations, and to anticipate an unlimited progress in its conquest of nature. Reason is impotent against passion, but it can become omnipotent if it co-operates with the strongest passion or if it puts itself into the service of the strongest passion. Hobbes's rationalism, then, rests ultimately on the conviction that, thanks to nature's kindness, the strongest passion is the only passion which can be "the origin of large and lasting societies" or that the strongest passion is the most rational passion. In the case of human things, the foundation is not a free construct but the most powerful natural force in man. In the case of human things, we understand not merely what we make but also what makes our making and our makings. Whereas the philosophy or science of nature remains fundamentally hypothetical, political philosophy rests on a nonhypothetical knowledge of the nature of man.1 As long as Hobbes's approach prevails, "the philosophy concerned with the human things" will remain the last refuge of nature. For at some point nature succeeds in getting a hearing. The modern contention that man can "change the world" or "push back nature" is not unreasonable. One can even safely go much beyond it and say that man can expel nature with a hayfork. One ceases to be reasonable only if one forgets what the philosophic poet adds, tamen usque recurret. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Naturrecht - Offenbarung, Neues Testament

Kurzinhalt: The law of nature is a declaration of the will of God. It is "the voice of God" in man ... What he did stands in striking contrast to what he said.

Textausschnitt: 202a At first glance Locke seems to reject altogether Hobbes's notion of natural law and to follow the traditional teaching. He certainly speaks of man's natural rights as if they were derivative from the law of nature, and he accordingly speaks of the law of nature as if it were a law in the strict sense of the term. The law of nature imposes perfect duties on man as man, regardless of whether he lives in the state of nature or in civil society. "The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men," for it is "plain and intelligible to all rational creatures." It is identical with "the law of reason." It is "knowable by the light of nature; that is, without the help of positive revelation." Locke considers it entirely possible for the law of nature or the moral law to be raised to the rank of a demonstrative science. That science would make out "from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences ... the measures of right and wrong." Man would thus become able to elaborate "a body of ethics, proved to be the law of nature, from principles of reason, and teaching all the duties of life," or "the entire body of the 'law of nature,'" or "complete morality," or a "code" which gives us the law of nature "entire." That code would contain, among other things, the natural penal law.1 Yet Locke never made a serious effort to elaborate that code. His failure to embark on this great enterprise was due to the problem posed by theology.2 (Fs)

202b The law of nature is a declaration of the will of God. It is "the voice of God" in man. It can therefore be called the "law of God" or "divine law" or even the "eternal law"; it is "the highest law." It is the law of God not only in fact. It must be known to be the law of God in order to be law. Without such knowledge man cannot act morally. For "the true ground of morality ... can only be the will and law of a God." The law of nature can be demonstrated because the existence and the attributes of God can be demonstrated. This divine law is promulgated, not only in or by reason, but by revelation as well. In fact, it first became known to man in its entirety by revelation, but reason confirms this divine law thus revealed. This does not mean that God did not reveal to man some laws which are purely positive: the distinction between the law of reason, which obliges man as man, and the law revealed in the-gospel, which obliges Christians, is preserved by Locke.3 (Fs)

203a One may wonder whether what Locke says about the relation between the law of nature and the revealed law is free from difficulties. However this may be, his teaching is exposed to a more fundamental and more obvious difficulty, to a difficulty which seems to endanger the very notion of a law of nature. He says, on the one hand, that, in order to be a law, the law of nature must not only have been given by God and be known to have been given by God, but it must in addition have as its sanctions divine "rewards and punishments, of infinite weight and duration, in another life." On the other hand, however, he says that reason cannot demonstrate that there is another life. Only through revelation do we know of the sanctions for the law of nature or of "the only true touchstone of moral rectitude." Natural reason is therefore unable to know the law of nature as a law.4 This would mean that there does not exist a law of nature in the strict sense. (Fs)

204a This difficulty is apparently overcome by the fact that "the veracity of God is a demonstration of the truth of what he has revealed."5 That is to say, natural reason is indeed unable to demonstrate that the souls of men shall live forever. But natural reason is able to demonstrate that the New Testament is the perfect document of revelation. And since the New Testament teaches that the souls of men shall live forever, natural reason is able to demonstrate the true ground of morality and therewith to establish the dignity of the law of nature as a true law. (Fs)

204b By demonstrating that the New Testament is a document of revelation, one demonstrates that the law promulgated by Jesus is a law in the proper sense of the term. This divine law proves to be in full conformity with reason; it proves to be the absolutely comprehensive and perfect formulation of the law of nature. One is thus led to see that unassisted reason would have been unable to discover the law of nature in its entirety, but that the reason which has learned from revelation can recognize the thoroughly reasonable character of the law revealed in the New Testament. A comparison of the New Testament teaching with all other moral teachings shows that the entire law of nature is available in the New Testament, and only in the New Testament. The entire law of nature is available only in the New Testament, and it is there available in perfect clarity and plainness.6 (Fs)

205a If "the surest, the safest and most effectual way of teaching" the entire law of nature, and hence any part of it, is supplied by "the inspired books"; the complete and perfectly clear natural law teaching concerning government in particular would consist of properly arranged quotations from Scripture and especially from the New Testament. Accordingly, one would expect that Locke would have written a "Politique three des propres paroles de l'Ecriture Sainte." But, in fact, he wrote his Two Treatises of Government. What he did stands in striking contrast to what he said. He himself "always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts."7 If we apply this rule to what was perhaps his greatest action, we are forced to suspect that he encountered some hidden obstacles on his way toward a strictly scriptural natural law teaching regarding government. He might have become aware of difficulties obstructing either the demonstration of the revealed character of Scripture or the equation of the New Testament law with the law of nature or both. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; vollständiges Naturrecht, Offenbarung - partielles Naturrecht, Vernunft

Kurzinhalt: However doubtful the status of the complete law of nature may have become in Locke's thought, the partial law of nature which ... would seem to have stood firm.

Textausschnitt: 212a One can state the issue in simpler terms as follows: The veracity of God is indeed a demonstration of any proposition which he has revealed. Yet "the whole strength of the certainty depends upon our knowledge that God revealed" the proposition in question, or "our assurance can be no greater than our knowledge is, that it is a revelation from God." And at least as regards all men who know of revelation only through tradition, "the knowledge we have that this revelation came at first from God, can never be so sure as the knowledge we have from the clear and distinct perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas." Accordingly, our assurance that the souls of men shall live forever belongs to the province of faith and not to that of reason.1 Yet since without that assurance "the just measures of right and wrong" do not have the character of a law, those just measures are not a law for reason. This would mean that there does not exist a law of nature. Therefore, if there is to be "a law knowable by the light of nature, that is, without the help of positive revelation," that law must consist of a set of rules whose validity does not presuppose life after death or belief in a life after death. (Fs)

212b Such rules were established by the classical philosophers. The pagan philosophers, "who spoke from reason, made not much mention of the Deity in their ethics." They showed that virtue "is the perfection and the excellency of our nature; that she is herself a reward, and will recommend our names to future ages," but they left "her unendowed."2 For they were unable to show a necessary connection between virtue and prosperity or happiness, a connection which is not visible in this life and which can be guaranteed only if there is a life after death.3 Still, while unassisted reason cannot establish a necessary connection between virtue and prosperity or happiness, the classical philosophers realized, and practically all men realize, a necessary connection between a kind of prosperity or happiness and a kind or part of virtue. There exists, indeed, a visible connection between "public happiness" or "the prosperity and temporal happiness of any people" and the general compliance with "several moral rules." These rules, which apparently are a part of the complete law of nature, "may receive from mankind a very general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his hands rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the proudest offender." But even if, and precisely if, those rules are divorced from "the true ground of morality," they stand "on their true foundations": "[Prior to Jesus], those just measures of right and wrong, which necessity had anywhere introduced, the civil laws prescribed, or philosophers recommended, stood on their true foundations. They were looked on as bonds of society, and conveniencies of common life, and laudable practices. "4 However doubtful the status of the complete law of nature may have become in Locke's thought, the partial law of nature which is limited to what "political happiness"--a "good of mankind in this world"--evidently requires would seem to have stood firm. Only this partial law of nature can have been recognized by him, in the last analysis, as a law of reason and therewith as truly a law of nature. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Verhältnis: Neues Testament - partielles Naturrecht; Schutz des Eigentums

Kurzinhalt: According to Locke, one of the rules of "the law of God and nature" is to the effect that the government "must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people, ...

Textausschnitt: 214a We must now consider the relation between what we call for the time being the partial law of nature and the New Testament law. If "no more nor no less" than the entire law of nature is supplied by the New Testament, if "all the parts" of the law of nature are made out in the New Testament in a manner which is "clear, plain, and easy to be understood," the New Testament must contain in particular clear and plain expressions of those prescriptions of the law of nature with which men must comply for the sake of political happiness.1 According to Locke, one of the rules of "the law of God and nature" is to the effect that the government "must not raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people, given by themselves or their deputies." Locke does not even attempt to confirm this rule by clear and plain statements of Scripture. Another very important and characteristic rule of the law of nature as Locke understands it, denies to the conqueror a right and title to the possessions of the vanquished: even in a just war the conqueror may not "dispossess the posterity of the vanquished." Locke himself admits that this "will seem a strange doctrine," i.e., a novel doctrine. In fact, it would seem that the opposite doctrine is at least as much warranted by Scripture as is Locke's. He quotes more than once Jephtha's saying "the Lord the Judge be judge"; but he fails even to allude to the fact that Jephtha's statement is made in the context of a controversy about the right of conquest, as well as to Jephtha's entirely un-Lockean view of the rights of the conqueror.2 One is tempted to say that Jephtha's statement, which refers to a controversy between two nations, is used by Locke as the locus classicus concerning controversies between the government and the people. The statement of Jephtha takes the place in Locke's doctrine of Paul's statement "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers," which he hardly, if ever, quotes.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Inkonsistenz: Offenbarung - "partielles" Naturrecht (Mangel an Begründung);

Kurzinhalt: We thus arrive at the conclusion that Locke cannot have recognized any law of nature in the proper sense of the term. This conclusion stands in shocking contrast

Textausschnitt: 219a It can safely be said, we think, that Locke's "partial law of nature" is not identical with clear and plain teachings of the New Testament or of Scripture in general. If "all the parts" of the law of nature are made out in the New Testament in a clear and plain manner, it follows that the "partial law of nature" does not belong at all to the law of nature. This conclusion is supported also by the following consideration: In order to be a law in the proper sense of the term, the law of nature must be known to have been given by God. But the "partial law of nature" does not require belief in God. The "partial law of nature" circumscribes the conditions which a nation must fulfil in order to be civil or civilized. Now the Chinese are "a very great and civil people" and the Siamites are a "civilized nation," and both the Chinese and the Siamites "want the idea and knowledge of God."1 The "partial law of nature" is, then, not a law in the proper sense of the term.2 (Fs)

220a We thus arrive at the conclusion that Locke cannot have recognized any law of nature in the proper sense of the term. This conclusion stands in shocking contrast to what is generally thought to be his doctrine, and especially the doctrine of the Second Treatise. Before turning to an examination of the Second Treatise, we beg the reader to consider the following facts: The accepted interpretation of Locke's teaching leads to the consequence that "Locke is full of illogical flaws and inconsistencies,"1 of inconsistencies, we add, which are so obvious that they cannot have escaped the notice of a man of his rank and his sobriety. Furthermore, the accepted interpretation is based on what amounts to a complete disregard of Locke's caution, of a kind of caution which is, to say the least, compatible with so involving one's sense that one cannot easily be understood and with going with the herd in one's outward professions. Above all, the accepted interpretation does not pay sufficient attention to the character of the Treatise; it somehow assumes that the Treatise contains the philosophic presentation of Locke's political doctrine, whereas it contains, in fact, only its "civil" presentation. In the Treatise, it is less Locke the philosopher than Locke the Englishman who addresses not philosophers, but Englishmen.2 It is for this reason that the argument of that work is based partly on generally accepted opinions, and even to a certain extent on scriptural principles: "The greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe," so much so, that even if philosophy had "given us ethics in a science like mathematics, in every part demonstrable, ... the instruction of the people were best still to be left to the precepts and principles of the gospel."3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Naturrecht (im Gefolge von Hobbes);

Kurzinhalt: These are the fundamental rules of the law of nature on which the argument of the Treatise is based: the law of nature is nothing other than the sum of the dictates of reason in regard to men's "mutual security" ...

Textausschnitt: 226a What, then, is the status of the law of nature in Locke's doctrine? What is its foundation? There is no rule of the law of nature which is innate, "that is, ... imprinted on the mind as a duty." This is shown by the fact that there are no rules of the law of nature, "which, as practical principles ought, do continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing [and which] may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and universal." However, "Nature ... has put into man a desire of happiness, and an aversion to misery; these, indeed, are innate practical principles": they are universally and unceasingly effective. The desire for happiness and the pursuit of happiness to which it gives rise are not duties. But "men ... must be allowed to pursue their happiness, nay, cannot be hindered." The desire for happiness and the pursuit of happiness have the character of an absolute right, of a natural right. There is, then, an innate natural right, while there is no innate natural duty. To understand how this is possible, one merely has to reformulate our last quotation: pursuit of happiness is a right, it "must be allowed," because "it cannot be hindered." It is a right antedating all duties for the same reason that, according to Hobbes, establishes as the fundamental moral fact the right of self-preservation: man must be allowed to defend his life against violent death because he is driven to do so by some natural necessity which is not less than that by which a stone is carried downward. Being universally effective, natural right, as distinguished from natural duty, is effective in the state of nature: man in the state of nature is "absolute lord of his own person and possessions."1 Since the right of nature is innate, whereas the law of nature is not, the right of nature is more fundamental than the law of nature and is the foundation of the law of nature. (Fs)

227a Since happiness presupposes life, the desire for life takes precedence over the desire for happiness in case of conflict. This dictate of reason is at the same time a natural necessity: "the first and strongest desire God planted in men, and wrought into the very principles of their nature, is that of self-preservation." The most fundamental of all rights is therefore the right of self-preservation. While nature has put into man "a strong desire of preserving his life and being," it is only man's reason which teaches him what is "necessary and useful to his being." And reason--or, rather, reason applied to a subject to be specified presently--is the law of nature. Reason teaches that "he that is master of himself and his own life has a right, too, to the means of preserving it." Reason further teaches that, since all men are equal in regard to the desire, and hence to the right, of self-preservation, they are equal in the decisive respect, notwithstanding any natural inequalities in other respects.2 From this Locke concludes, just as Hobbes did, that in the state of nature everyone is the judge of what means are conducive to his self-preservation, and this leads him, as it did Hobbes, to the further conclusion that in the state of nature "any man may do what he thinks fit."3 No wonder, therefore, that the state of nature is "full of fears and continual dangers." But reason teaches that life cannot be preserved, let alone enjoyed, except in a state of peace: reason wills peace. Reason therefore wills such courses of action as are conducive to peace. Reason dictates, accordingly, that "no one ought to harm another," that he who harms another--who therefore has renounced reason--may be punished by everyone and that he who is harmed may take reparations. These are the fundamental rules of the law of nature on which the argument of the Treatise is based: the law of nature is nothing other than the sum of the dictates of reason in regard to men's "mutual security" or to "the peace and safety" of mankind. Since in the state of nature all men are judges in their own cases and since, therefore, the state of nature is characterized by constant conflict that arises from the very law of nature, the state of nature is "not to be endured": the only remedy is government or civil society. Reason accordingly dictates how civil society must be constructed and what its rights or bounds are: there is a rational public law or a natural constitutional law. The principle of that public law is that all social or governmental power is derivative from powers which by nature belong to the individuals. The contract of the individuals actually concerned with their self-preservation--not the contract of the fathers qua fathers or divine appointment or an end of man that is independent of the actual wills of all individuals--creates the whole power of society: "the supreme power in every commonwealth [is] but the joint power of every member of the society."4 (Fs)

229a Locke's natural law teaching can then be understood perfectly if one assumes that the laws of nature which he admits are, as Hobbes put it, "but conclusions, or theorems concerning what conduces to the conservation and defense" of man over against other men. And it must be thus understood, since the alternative view is exposed to the difficulties which have been set forth. The law of nature, as Locke conceives of it, formulates the conditions of peace or, more generally stated, of "public happiness" or "the prosperity of any people." There is therefore a kind of sanction for the law of nature in this world: the disregard of the law of nature leads to public misery and penury. But this sanction is insufficient. Universal compliance with the law of nature would indeed guarantee perpetual peace and prosperity everywhere on earth. Failing such universal compliance, however, it may well happen that a society which complies with the law of nature enjoys less of temporal happiness than a society which transgresses the law of nature. For in both foreign and domestic affairs victory does not always favor "the right side": the "great robbers ... are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world." There remains, however, at least this difference between those who strictly comply with the law of nature and those who do not, that only the former can act and speak consistently; only the former can consistently maintain that there is a fundamental difference between civil societies and gangs of robbers, a distinction to which every society and every government is forced to appeal time and again. In a word, the law of nature is "a creature of the understanding rather than a work of nature"; it is "barely in the mind," a "notion," and not "in the things themselves. " This is the ultimate reason why ethics can be raised to the rank of a demonstrative science.1 (Fs)

230a One cannot clarify the status of the law of nature without considering the status of the state of nature. Locke is more definite than Hobbes in asserting that men actually lived in the state of nature or that the state of nature is not merely a hypothetical assumption.2 By this he means, in the first place, that men actually lived, and may live, without being subject to a common superior on earth. He means, furthermore, that men living in that condition, who are studiers of the law of nature, would know how to set about remedying the inconveniences of their condition and to lay the foundations for public happiness. But only such men could know the law of nature while living in a state of nature who have already lived in civil society, or rather in a civil society in which reason has been properly cultivated. An example of men who are in the state of nature under the law of nature would therefore be an elite among the English colonists in America rather than the wild Indians. A better example would be that of any highly civilized men after the breakdown of their society. It is only one step from this to the view that the most obvious example of men in the state of nature under the law of nature is that of men living in civil society, in so far as they reflect on what they could justly demand from civil society or on the conditions under which civil obedience would be reasonable. Thus it becomes ultimately irrelevant whether the state of nature understood as a state in which men are subject only to the law of nature, and not to any common superior on earth, was ever actual or not.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Ggs zu Hobbes; begrenzte Macht der Regierung

Kurzinhalt: He tries to show that Hobbes's principle--the right of self-preservation ... far from favoring absolute government, requires limited government.

Textausschnitt: 231a It is on the basis of Hobbes's view of the law of nature that Locke opposes Hobbes's conclusions. He tries to show that Hobbes's principle--the right of self-preservation--far from favoring absolute government, requires limited government. Freedom, "freedom from arbitrary, absolute power," is "the fence" to self-preservation. Slavery is therefore against natural law except as a substitute for capital punishment. Nothing which is incompatible with the basic right of self-preservation, and hence nothing to which a rational creature cannot be supposed to have given free consent, can be just; hence civil society or government cannot be established lawfully by force or conquest: consent alone "did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world." For the same reason Locke condemns absolute monarchy or, more precisely, "absolute arbitrary power ... of any one or more" as well as "governing without settled standing laws."1 In spite of the limitations which Locke demands, the commonwealth remains for him, as it was for Hobbes, "the mighty leviathan": in entering civil society, "men give up all their natural power to the society which they enter into." Just as Hobbes did, so Locke admits only one contract: the contract of union which every individual makes with every other individual of the same multitude is identical with the contract of subjection. Just as Hobbes did, so Locke teaches that, by virtue of the fundamental contract, every man "puts himself under an obligation to everyone of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it"; that, therefore, the fundamental contract establishes immediately an unqualified democracy; that this primary democracy may by majority vote either continue itself or transform itself into another form of government; and that the social contract is therefore in fact identical with a contract of subjection to the "sovereign" (Hobbes) or to the "supreme power" (Locke) rather than to society.2 Locke opposes Hobbes by teaching that wherever "the people" or "the community," i.e., the majority, have placed the supreme power, they still retain "a supreme power to remove or alter" the established government, i.e., they still retain a right of revolution.3 But this power (which is normally dormant) does not qualify the subjection of the individual to the community or society. On the contrary, it is only fair to say that Hobbes stresses more strongly than does Locke the individual's right to resist society or the government whenever his self-preservation is endangered.4 (Fs)

233a Locke would nevertheless have been justified in contending that the mighty leviathan, as he had constructed it, offered a greater guarantee for the individual's self-preservation than Hobbes's Leviathan. The individual's right of resistance to organized society, which Hobbes had stressed and which Locke did not deny, is an ineffectual guaranty for the individual's self-preservation.1 Since the only alternative to pure anarchy--to a condition in which everyone's self-preservation is in continual danger--is that "men give up all their natural power to the society which they enter into"; the only effective guaranty for the rights of the individual is that society be so constructed as to be incapable of oppressing its members: only a society or a government thus constructed is legitimate or in accordance with natural law; only such a society can justly demand that the individual surrender to it all his natural power. According to Locke, the best institutional safeguards for the rights of the individuals are supplied by a constitution that, in practically all domestic matters, strictly subordinates the executive power (which must be strong) to law, and ultimately to a well-defined legislative assembly. The legislative assembly must be limited to the making of laws as distinguished from "extemporary, arbitrary decrees"; its members must be elected by the people for fairly short periods of tenure and therefore be "themselves subject to the laws they have made"; the electoral system must take account of both numbers and wealth.2 For, although Locke seems to have thought that the individual's self-preservation is less seriously threatened by the majority than by monarchic or oligarchic rulers, he cannot be said to have had an implicit faith in the majority as a guarantor of the rights of the individual.3 In the passages in which he seems to describe the majority as such a guarantor, he is speaking of cases in which the individuals' self-preservation is threatened by tyrannical monarchic or oligarchic rulers and wherein, therefore, the last and only hope for the suffering individual obviously rests on the dispositions of the majority. Locke regarded the power of the majority as a check on bad government and a last resort against tyrannical government; he did not regard it as a substitute for government or as identical with government. Equality, he thought, is incompatible with civil society. The equality of all men in regard to the right of self-preservation does not obliterate completely the special right of the more reasonable men. On the contrary, the exercise of that special right is conducive to the self-preservation and happiness of all. Above all, since self-preservation and happiness require property, so much so that the end of civil society can be said to be the preservation of property, the protection of the propertied members of society against the demands of the indigent--or the protection of the industrious and rational against the lazy and quarrelsome--is essential to public happiness or the common good.4 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Eigentum

Kurzinhalt: Locke's doctrine of property, which is almost literally the central part of his political teaching, is certainly its most characteristic part.

Textausschnitt: 234a Locke's doctrine of property, which is almost literally the central part of his political teaching, is certainly its most characteristic part.1 It distinguishes his political teaching most clearly not only from that of Hobbes but from the traditional teachings as well. Being a part of his natural law teaching, it partakes of all the complexities of the latter. Its peculiar difficulty can be provisionally stated as follows: Property is an institution of natural law; natural law defines the manner and the limitations of just appropriation. Men own property prior to civil society; they enter civil society in order to preserve or protect the property which they acquired in the state of nature. But, once civil society is formed, if not before, the natural law regarding property ceases to be valid; what we may call "conventional" or "civil" property--the property which is owned within civil society--is based on positive law alone. Yet, while civil society is the creator of civil property, it is not its master: civil society must respect civil property; civil society has, as it were, no other function but to serve its own creation. Locke claims for civil property a much greater sanctity than for natural property, i.e., the property which is acquired and owned exclusively on the basis of natural law, of "the highest law." Why, then, is he so anxious to prove that property antedates civil society?2 (Fs)

235a The natural right to property is a corollary of the fundamental right of self-preservation; it is not derivative from compact, from any action of society. If everyone has the natural right to preserve himself, he necessarily has the right to everything that is necessary for his self-preservation. What is necessary for self-preservation is not so much, as Hobbes may seem to have believed, knives and guns as victuals. Food is conducive to self-preservation only if it is eaten, i.e., appropriated in such a manner that it becomes the exclusive property of the individual; there is then a natural right to some "private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind." What is true of food applies mutatis mutandis to all other things required for self-preservation and even for comfortable self-preservation, for man has a natural right not only to self-preservation but to the pursuit of happiness as well. (Fs)

236a The natural right of everyone to appropriate everything that is useful to him must be limited if it is not to be incompatible with the peace and preservation of mankind. That natural right must exclude any right to appropriate things which have already been appropriated by others; taking things which others have appropriated, i.e., harming others, is against the natural law. Nor does natural law encourage begging; need as such is not a title to property. Persuasion gives as little a title to property as does force. The only honest way of appropriating things is by taking them, not from other men, but directly from nature, "the common mother of all"; by making one's own what previously belonged to no one and therefore might be taken by anyone; the only honest way of appropriating things is by one's own labor. Everyone is by nature the exclusive owner of his body and hence of the work of his body, i.e., of his labor. Therefore, if a man mixes his labor--be it only the labor involved in picking berries--with things of which no one is the owner, those things become an indissoluble mixture of his exclusive property with no one's property, and therefore they become his exclusive property. Labor is the only title to property which is in accordance with natural right. "Man, by being master of himself and proprietor of his own person and the actions or labour of it, [has] in himself the great foundation of property."3 Not society, but the individual--the individual prompted by his self-interest alone--is the originator of property. (Fs)

236b Nature has set "a measure of property": there are natural law limitations to what a man may appropriate. Everyone may appropriate by his labor as much as is necessary and useful for his self-preservation. He may therefore appropriate in particular as much land as he can use for tilling or grazing. If he has more than he can use of one kind of things (a) and less than he can use of another kind (b), he could make a useful to himself by bartering it away from b. Hence every man may appropriate by his labor not only what is in itself useful to him but also what could become useful to him if bartered away for other useful things. Man may appropriate by his labor all those things, but only those things, which are, or may become, useful to him; he may not appropriate things which through his appropriating them would cease to be useful; he may appropriate as much as he "can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils." He may therefore accumulate many more nuts which "last good for his eating a whole year" than plums which would "rot in a week." As for things which never spoil and, in addition, are of no "real use," such as gold, silver, and diamonds, he may "heap" as much of them as he pleases. For it is not "the largeness" of what a man appropriates by his labor (or by bartering the products of his labor) but "the perishing anything uselessly in [his] possession" which makes him guilty of a crime against the natural law. He may therefore accumulate very little of perishable and useful things. He may accumulate very much of durable and useful things. He may accumulate infinitely much of gold and silver.4 The terrors of the natural law no longer strike the covetous, but the waster. The natural law regarding property is concerned with the prevention of waste; in appropriating things by his labor, man must think exclusively of the prevention of waste; he does not have to think of other human beings.5 Chacun pour soi; Dieu four nous tous. (Fs)

237a The law of nature regarding property, as hitherto summarized, applies only to the state of nature or to a certain stage of the state of nature. It is the "original law of nature" which obtained "in the first ages of the world" or "in the beginning."6 And it obtained in that remote past only because the conditions in which men then lived required it. The law of nature could remain silent about the interests or needs of other men because these needs were taken care of by "the common mother of all"; however much a man might appropriate by his labor, there was "enough and as good left in common for others." The original law of nature was the dictate of reason in the beginning, because in the beginning the world was sparsely populated and there was "plenty of natural provisions."7 This cannot mean that early men lived in a state of abundance showered upon them by their common mother; for if this had been the case, man would not have been compelled from the very beginning to work for his living, and the law of nature would not have prohibited so sternly every kind of waste. The natural plenty is only a potential plenty: "nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless materials as in themselves"; they furnished "acorn, water, and leaves, or skins," the food and drink and clothing of the golden age or of the Garden of Eden, as distinguished from "bread, wine, and cloth." The natural plenty, the plenty of the first ages, never became actual plenty during the first ages; it was actual penury. This being the case, it was plainly impossible for man to appropriate by his labor more than the bare necessities of life or what was absolutely necessary for mere self-preservation (as distinguished from comfortable self-preservation); the natural right to comfortable self-preservation was illusory. But precisely for this reason, every man was forced to appropriate by his labor what he needed for his self-preservation without any concern for other men. For man is obliged to be concerned with the preservation of others only if and when "his own preservation comes not in competition."8 Locke explicitly justifies man's natural right to appropriate and to own without concern for the needs of others by referring to the plenty of natural provisions which was available in the beginning; but such unconcern can be justified equally well on his principles if one assumes that men lived in a state of penury; and it must be justified in the latter manner, since Locke says that the only men to whom the original law of nature applied lived in a state of penury. It is the poverty of the first ages of the world which explains why the original law of nature (1) commanded appropriation by labor alone, (2) commanded the prevention of waste, and (3) permitted unconcern for the need of other human beings. Appropriation without concern for the need of others is simply justified because it is justified regardless of whether men lived in a state of plenty or in a state of penury. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Eigentum (Naturzustand, Gesellschaft); Geld

Kurzinhalt: Yet Locke teaches exactly the opposite: the right to appropriate is much more restricted in the state of nature than in civil society ... the introduction of money has introduced "larger possessions and a right to them"

Textausschnitt: 239a Let us now consider that form of the law of nature regarding property which has taken the place of the original law of nature, or which regulates property within civil society. According to the original law of nature, man may appropriate by his labor as much as he can use before it spoils; no other limitations are required because there is enough and as good left for others which has not yet been appropriated by anyone. According to the original law of nature, man may appropriate by his labor as much gold and silver as he pleases because these things are of no value in themselves.1 In civil society almost everything has been appropriated; land in particular has become scarce. Gold and silver are not only scarce but, through the invention of money, they have become "so valuable to be hoarded up."2 One should therefore expect that the original law of nature has been replaced by rules imposing much severer restrictions on appropriation than those which existed in the state of nature.3 Since there is no longer enough and as good left in common for everyone, equity would seem to demand that man's natural right to appropriate as much as he can use should be restricted to the right to appropriate as much as he needs, lest the poor be "straitened." And, since gold and silver are now immensely valuable, equity would seem to demand that man should lose the natural right to accumulate as much money as he pleases. Yet Locke teaches exactly the opposite: the right to appropriate is much more restricted in the state of nature than in civil society. One privilege enjoyed by man in the state of nature is indeed denied to man living in civil society: labor no longer creates a sufficient title to property.4 But this loss is only a part of the enormous gain which the right of appropriation makes after "the first ages" have come to their end. In civil society the right of appropriation is completely freed from the shackles by which it was still fettered under Locke's original law of nature: the introduction of money has introduced "larger possessions and a right to them"; man may now "rightfully and without injury, possess more than he himself can make use of."5 Although Locke stresses the fact that the invention of money has revolutionized property, he does not say a word to the effect that the natural right to heap as much gold and silver as one pleases has been affected by that revolution. According to the natural law--and this means according to the moral law--man in civil society may acquire as much property of every kind, and in particular as much money, as he pleases; and he may acquire it in every manner permitted by the positive law, which keeps the peace among the competitors and in the interest of the competitors. Even the natural law prohibition against waste is no longer valid in civil society.6 (Fs)

242a Locke does not commit the absurdity of justifying the emancipation of acquisitiveness by appealing to a nonexistent absolute right of property. He justifies the emancipation of acquisitiveness in the only way in which it can be defended: he shows that it is conducive to the common good, to public happiness or the temporal prosperity of society. Restrictions on acquisitiveness were required in the state of nature because the state of nature is a state of penury. They can safely be abandoned in civil society because civil society is a state of plenty: "... a king of a large and fruitful territory [in America] feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-labourer in England."7 The day laborer in England has no natural right even to complain about the loss of his natural right to appropriate land and other things by his labor: the exercise of all the rights and privileges of the state of nature would give him less wealth than he gets by receiving "subsistence" wages for his work. Far from being straitened by the emancipation of acquisitiveness, the poor are enriched by it. For the emancipation of acquisitiveness is not merely compatible with general plenty but is the cause of it. Unlimited appropriation without concern for the need of others is true charity. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Ziel der Gesellschaft: Schutz des Eigentums

Kurzinhalt: ... if peace and safety are the indispensable conditions of plenty, and the public good of the people is identical with plenty ... if all this is true, it follows that the end of civil society is "the preservation of property."

Textausschnitt: 244a If the end of government is nothing but "the peace, the safety, and public good of the people"; if peace and safety are the indispensable conditions of plenty, and the public good of the people is identical with plenty; if the end of government is therefore plenty; if plenty requires the emancipation of acquisitiveness; and if acquisitiveness necessarily withers away whenever its rewards do not securely belong to those who deserve them--if all this is true, it follows that the end of civil society is "the preservation of property." "The great and chief end ... of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property." By this central statement Locke does not mean that men enter civil society in order to preserve those "narrow bounds of each man's small property" within which their desires were confined by "the simple, poor way of living" "in the beginning of things" or in the state of nature. Men enter society in order not so much to preserve as to enlarge their possessions. The property which is to be "preserved" by civil society is not "static" property--the small farm which one has inherited from one's fathers and which one will hand down to one's children--but "dynamic" property. Locke's thought is perfectly expressed by Madison's statement: "The protection of [different and unequal faculties of acquiring property] is the first object of government."1 (Fs) (notabene)

245a It is one thing to say that the end of government or of society is the preservation of property or the protection of the unequal acquisitive faculties; it is an entirely different thing and, as it would seem, an entirely superfluous thing to say, as Locke does, that property antedates society. Yet, by saying that property antedates civil society, Locke says that even civil property--the property owned on the basis of positive law--is in the decisive respect independent of society: it is not the creation of society. "Man," i.e., the individual, has "still in himself the great foundation of property." Property is created by the individual and in different degrees by different individuals. Civil society merely creates the conditions under which the individuals can pursue their productive-acquisitive activity without obstruction. (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Beitrag zum Gemeinwohl: Eigensucht, Begehrlichkeit

Kurzinhalt: ... the burden of his chapter on property is that covetousness and concupiscence, far from being essentially evil or foolish, are, if properly channeled, eminently beneficial and reasonable, much more so than "exemplary charity."

Textausschnitt: 246a Locke's doctrine of property is directly intelligible today if it is taken as the classic doctrine of "the spirit of capitalism" or as a doctrine regarding the chief objective of public policy. Since the nineteenth century, readers of Locke have found it hard to understand why he used "the phraseology of the law of nature" or why he stated his doctrine in terms of natural law. But to say that public happiness requires the emancipation and the protection of the acquisitive faculties amounts to saying that to accumulate as much money and other wealth as one pleases is right or just, i.e., intrinsically just or by nature just. And the rules which enable us to distinguish between what is by nature just and by nature unjust, either absolutely or under specific conditions, were called the "propositions of the law of nature." Locke's followers in later generations no longer believed that they needed "the phraseology of the law of nature" because they took for granted what Locke did not take for granted: Locke still thought that he had to prove that the unlimited acquisition of wealth is not unjust or morally wrong. (Fs)

246b It was indeed easy for Locke to see a problem where later men saw only an occasion for applauding progress or themselves, since in his age most people still adhered to the older view according to which the unlimited acquisition of wealth is unjust or morally wrong. This also explains why, in stating his doctrine of property, Locke "so involved his sense, that it is not easy to understand him" or went as much as possible "with the herd." While therefore concealing the revolutionary character of his doctrine of property from the mass of his readers, he yet indicated it clearly enough. He did this by occasionally mentioning and apparently approving the older view. He traced the introduction of "larger possessions and a right to them" to "the desire of having more than man" needs, or to an increase in "covetousness," or to " amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence." In the same vein he speaks disparagingly of "little pieces of yellow metal" and of "sparkling pebbles."1 But he soon drops these niaiseries: the burden of his chapter on property is that covetousness and concupiscence, far from being essentially evil or foolish, are, if properly channeled, eminently beneficial and reasonable, much more so than "exemplary charity." By building civil society on "the low but solid ground" of selfishness or of certain "private vices," one will achieve much greater "public benefits" than by futilely appealing to virtue, which is by nature "unendowed." One must take one's bearings not by how men should live but by how they do live. Locke almost quotes the words of the apostle, "God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy," and he speaks of "God's blessings poured on [man] with a liberal hand," and yet "nature and the earth furnish only the almost worthless materials as in themselves."2 He says that God is "sole lord and proprietor of the whole world," that men are God's property, and that "man's propriety in the creatures is nothing but that liberty to use them which God has permitted"; but he also says that "man in the state of nature [is] absolute lord of his own person and possessions."3 He says that "it will always be a sin in any man of estate to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty." But in his thematic discussion of property, he is silent about any duties of charity.4 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Eigentum, Natur; der Mensch als Zentrum der Welt

Kurzinhalt: From now on, nature furnishes only the worthless materials as in themselves; the forms are supplied by man, by man's free creation. For there are no natural forms, no intelligible "essences":

Textausschnitt: 248a Locke's teaching on property, and therewith his whole political philosophy, are revolutionary not only with regard to the biblical tradition but with regard to the philosophic tradition as well. Through the shift of emphasis from natural duties or obligations to natural rights, the individual, the ego, had become the center and origin of the moral world, since man--as distinguished from man's end--had become that center or origin. Locke's doctrine of property is a still more "advanced" expression of this radical change than was the political philosophy of Hobbes. According to Locke, man and not nature, the work of man and not the gift of nature, is the origin of almost everything valuable: man owes almost everything valuable to his own efforts. Not resigned gratitude and consciously obeying or imitating nature but hopeful self-reliance and creativity become henceforth the marks of human nobility. Man is effectively emancipated from the bonds of nature, and therewith the individual is emancipated from those social bonds which antedate all consent or compact, by the emancipation of his productive acquisitiveness, which is necessarily, if accidentally, beneficent and hence susceptible of becoming the strongest social bond: restraint of the appetites is replaced by a mechanism whose effect is humane. And that emancipation is achieved through the intercession of the prototype of conventional things, i.e., money. The world in which human creativity seems to reign supreme is, in fact, the world which has replaced the rule of nature by the rule of convention. From now on, nature furnishes only the worthless materials as in themselves; the forms are supplied by man, by man's free creation. For there are no natural forms, no intelligible "essences": "the abstract ideas" are "the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it for its own use." Understanding and science stand in the same relation to "the given" in which human labor, called forth to its supreme effort by money, stands to the raw materials. There are, therefore, no natural principles of understanding: all knowledge is acquired; all knowledge depends on labor and is labor.1 (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Locke; Hedonist, Hedonismus; Angst vor dem Tod; Leid, Schmerz; Tod als größtes Übel -> Besitz von angenehmen Dingen

Kurzinhalt: Locke is a hedonist: "That which is properly good or bad, is nothing but barely pleasure or pain." But his is a peculiar hedonism:

Textausschnitt: 249a Locke is a hedonist: "That which is properly good or bad, is nothing but barely pleasure or pain." But his is a peculiar hedonism: "The greatest happiness consists" not in enjoying the greatest pleasures but "in the having those things which produce the greatest pleasures." It is not altogether an accident that the chapter in which these statements occur, and which happens to be the most extensive chapte of the whole Essay, is entitled "Power." For if, as Hobbes says, "the power of a man ... is his present means, to obtain some future apparent good," Locke says in effect that the greatest happiness consists in the greatest power. Since there are no knowable natures, there is no nature of man with reference to which we could distinguish between pleasures which are according to nature and pleasures which are against nature, or between pleasures which are by nature higher and pleasures which are by nature lower: pleasure and pain are "for different men ... very different things." Therefore, "the philosophers of old did in vain inquire, whether summum bonum consisted in riches, or bodily delights, or virtue, or contemplation?" In the absence of a summum bonum, man would lack completely a star and compass for his life if there were no summum malum. "Desire is always moved by evil, to fly it."1 The strongest desire is the desire for self-preservation. The evil from which the strongest desire recoils is death. Death must then be the greatest evil: Not the natural sweetness of living but the terrors of death make us cling to life. What nature firmly establishes is that from which desire moves away, the point of departure of desire; the goal toward which desire moves is secondary. The primary fact is want. But this want, this lack, is no longer understood as pointing to something complete, perfect, whole. The necessities of life are no longer understood as necessary for the complete life or the good life, but as mere inescapabilities. The satisfaction of wants is therefore no longer limited by the demands of the good life but becomes aimless. The goal of desire is defined by nature only negatively--the denial of pain. It is not pleasure more or less dimly anticipated which elicits human efforts: "the chief, if not only, spur to human industry and action is uneasiness." So powerful is the natural primacy of pain that the active denial of pain is itself painful. The pain which removes pain is labor.2 It is this pain, and hence a defect, which gives man originally the most important of all rights: sufferings and defects, rather than merits or virtues, originate rights. Hobbes identified the rational life with the life dominated by the fear of fear, by the fear which relieves us from fear. Moved by the same spirit, Locke identifies the rational life with the life dominated by the pain which relieves pain. Labor takes the place of the art which imitates nature; for labor is, in the words of Hegel, a negative attitude toward nature. The starting point of human efforts is misery: the state of nature is a state of wretchedness. The way toward happiness is a movement away from the state of nature, a movement away from nature: the negation of nature is the way toward happiness. And if the movement toward happiness is the actuality of freedom, freedom is negativity. Just like the primary pain itself, the pain which relieves pain "ceaseth only in death." Since there are therefore no pure pleasures, there is no necessary tension between civil society as the mighty leviathan or coercive society, on the one hand, and the good life, on the other: hedonism becomes utilitarianism or political hedonism. The painful relief of pain culminates not so much in the greatest pleasures as "in the having those things which produce the greatest pleasures." Life is the joyless quest for joy. (Fs) (notabene)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Rousseau; Kritik der Moderne: Tugend (Stadt, Rom. Cato) - Natur

Kurzinhalt: Rousseau attacked modernity in the name of two classical ideas: the city and virtue, on the one hand, and nature, on the other.

Textausschnitt: 252a The first crisis of modernity occurred in the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau was not the first to feel that the modern venture was a radical error and to seek the remedy in a return to classical thought. It suffices to mention the name of Swift. But Rousseau was not a "reactionary." He abandoned himself to modernity. One is tempted to say that only through thus accepting the fate of modern man was he led back to antiquity. At any rate, his return to antiquity was, at the same time, an advance of modernity. While appealing from Hobbes, Locke, or the Encyclopedists to Plato, Aristotle, or Plutarch, he jettisoned important elements of classical thought which his modern predecessors had still preserved. In Hobbes, reason, using her authority, had emancipated passion; passion acquired the status of a freed woman; reason continued to rule, if only by remote control. In Rousseau, passion itself took the initiative and rebelled; usurping the place of reason and indignantly denying her libertine past, passion began to pass judgment, in the severe accents of Catonic virtue, on reason's turpitudes. The fiery rocks with which the Rousseauan eruption had covered the Western world were used, after they had cooled and after they had been hewn, for the imposing structures which the great thinkers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries erected. His disciples clarified his views indeed, but one may wonder whether they preserved the breadth of his vision. His passionate and forceful attack on modernity in the name of what was at the same time classical antiquity and a more advanced modernity was repeated, with no less passion and force, by Nietzsche, who thus ushered in the second crisis of modernity--the crisis of our time. (Fs)

253a Rousseau attacked modernity in the name of two classical ideas: the city and virtue, on the one hand, and nature, on the other.1 "The ancient politicians spoke unceasingly of manners and virtue; ours speak of nothing but trade and money." Trade, money, enlightenment, the emancipation of acquisitiveness, luxury, and the belief in the omnipotence of legislation are characteristic of the modern state, be it the absolute monarchy or the representative republic. Manners and virtue are at home in the city. Geneva is a city, indeed, but it is less a city than the cities of classical antiquity, especially Rome: in his very eulogy of Geneva, Rousseau calls, not the Genevans, but the Romans, the model of all free peoples and the most respectable of all free peoples. The Romans are the most respectable of all peoples because they were the most virtuous, the most powerful, and the freest people that ever were. The Genevans are not Romans or Spartans or even Athenians, because they lack the public spirit or the patriotism of the ancients. They are more concerned with their private or domestic affairs than with the fatherland. They lack the greatness of soul of the ancients. They are bourgeois rather than citizens. The sacred unity of the city has been destroyed in postclassical times by the dualism of power temporal and power spiritual, and ultimately by the dualism of the earthly and the heavenly fatherland.2 (Fs)

254a The modern state presented itself as an artificial body which comes into being through convention and which remedies the deficiencies of the state of nature. For the critic of the modern state, therefore, a question arose as to whether the state of nature is not preferable to civil society. Rousseau suggested the return to the state of nature, the return to nature, from a world of artificiality and conventionality. Throughout his entire career, he never was content merely to appeal from the modern state to the classical city. He appealed almost in the same breath from the classical city itself to "the man of nature," the prepolitical savage.3 (Fs)

Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Rousseau; Spannung: Stadt, Tugend - Natur

Kurzinhalt: There is an obvious tension between the return to the city and the return to the state of nature. This tension is the substance of Rousseau's thought.

Textausschnitt: 254b There is an obvious tension between the return to the city and the return to the state of nature. This tension is the substance of Rousseau's thought. He presents to his readers the confusing spectacle of a man who perpetually shifts back and forth between two diametrically opposed positions. At one moment he ardently defends the rights of the individual or the rights of the heart against all restraint and authority; at the next moment he demands with equal ardor the complete submission of the individual to society or the state and favors the most rigorous moral or social discipline. Today most serious students of Rousseau incline to the view that he eventually succeeded in overcoming what they regard as a temporary vacillation. The mature Rousseau, they hold, found a solution which he thought satisfied equally the legitimate claims of the individual and those of society, the solution consisting in a certain type of society.1 This interpretation is exposed to a decisive objection. Rousseau believed to the end that even the right kind of society is a form of bondage. Hence he cannot have regarded his solution to the problem of the conflict between the individual and society as more than a tolerable approximation to a solution--an approximation which remains open to legitimate doubts. The farewell to society, authority, restraint, and responsibility or the return to the state of nature remains therefore for him a legitimate possibility.2 The question is, then, not how he solved the conflict between the individual and society but rather how he conceived of that insoluble conflict. (Fs)

255a Rousseau's First Discourse provides a key to a more precise formulation of this question. In that earliest of his important writings he attacked the sciences and the arts in the name of virtue: the sciences and the arts are incompatible with virtue, and virtue is the only thing which matters.3 Virtue apparently requires support by faith or theism, although not necessarily by monotheism.4 Yet the emphasis rests on virtue itself. Rousseau indicates the meaning of virtue clearly enough for his purpose by referring to the examples of the citizen-philosopher Socrates, of Fabricius, and, above all, of Cato: Cato was "the greatest of men."5 Virtue is primarily political virtue, the virtue of the patriot or the virtue of a whole people. Virtue presupposes free society, and free society presupposes virtue: virtue and free society belong together.6 Rousseau deviates from his classical models at two points. Following Montesquieu, he regards virtue as the principle of democracy: virtue is inseparable from equality or from the recognition of equality.7 Secondly, he believes that the knowledge which is required for virtue is supplied, not by reason, but by what he calls the "conscience" (or "the sublime science of the simple souls") or by sentiment or by instinct. The sentiment which he has in mind will prove to be originally the sentiment of compassion, the natural root of all genuine beneficence. Rousseau saw a connection between his inclination toward democracy and his preference for sentiment above reason.8 (Fs)

256a Since Rousseau assumed that virtue and free society belong together, he could prove that science and virtue are incompatible by proving that science and free society are incompatible. The reasoning underlying the First Discourse can be reduced to five chief considerations, which are indeed only insufficiently developed in that work but which become sufficiently clear if, in reading the First Discourse, one takes into account Rousseau's later writings.9 (Fs)