Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Vgl. Politik: Aristotles - Machiavelli

Index: Machiavelli 2; Vgl. I Principe, Kap. 9 - Aristoteles, Politik Buch 3; M. als erster demokratischer Denker; das Böse in d. Politik - Unschuld d. Volkes; Plato, A.: Blickpunkt d. Bürger - M.: Blickp. von außen; Il P., Kap. 6, 7; Cesare Borgia - Hobbes

Kurzinhalt: Machiavelli did not elaborate the idea of an institution capable of opposing the encroachments of the Roman Church. That was accomplished by Hobbes. Instead, by discrediting the idea of the good, Machiavelli persuaded men to consider evil ...

Text: 15a Up to this point, I have limited myself to recalling the flavor of Machiavelli's teaching, more than the teaching itself. Let me risk a brief incursion into the substance of his argument, in chapter 9 of The Prince. There we learn that the city-state has a fundamental division, that between the common people and the nobility. These two groups are compared with two "diverse humors" of the body politic: the common people do not want to be oppressed, the nobles want to oppress them. One sees that neither of these two groups has an end that is both positive and good, neither is aiming for a good. The nobles have a positive end, but it is wicked: to oppress. The people have no positive end, only a negative one: not to be oppressed. The "humors" of the city-state do not point toward a positive good for the city-state. According to Machiavelli, only the prince who knows how to gain the support of the people in opposing the nobility, without confusing his interest with that of the people, has the chance to found a stable order.1 (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

15b Let us compare chapter 9 of The Prince with book 3 of Aristotle's Politics. The themes are the same. This book of the Politics is a kind of dialogue between the people and the nobility, between the democrat and the oligarch. It is not Aristotle's teaching that interests us here, but his approach. He shows that both the democrat and the oligarch have good arguments for asserting their respective claims to govern, and that in a tolerably well-organized city-state both claims have to be granted. He also shows that, even when joined or adjusted to each other, these two claims do not bring about justice. To the considerations of freedom, equality, and wealth, one must add that of virtue. In other words, he shows how each claim of the social body, however biased it may be, points toward justice or the good which is both part of the body politic and its end. In Machiavelli's description, each element of the city-state is turned into a "humor"; in Aristotle's, each "humor" is anchored in the good. (Fs) (notabene)

15c Certainly, there is an element of the Machiavellian city-state whose humor can, in a sense, be called good: the common people. The people's desire, after all, is innocent: they do not want to be oppressed. Machiavelli even praises their "honesty," at least relatively speaking. The desire of the people is more honest (è piu onesto) than that of the nobility, he says. But it is a completely passive or negative goodness. In Machiavelli's city-state, the good is found only in the mutilated form of the people's innocence. Radically depreciating the pretensions to "virtue" of the nobility, and simultaneously making the people "honest," Machiavelli becomes the first democratic thinker. (Fs)

16a It is easy now to see the link between the insistence on evil in politics and the assertion of the goodness or honesty of the people. If political action is not organized in view of a good—or, more generally, if no human action has an intrinsically good end—then all the goodness of the world belongs to the innocent passivity of those who ordinarily do not act in political terms, to the people. Leo Strauss remarked that the Machiavellian viewpoint heralded Rousseau's distinction between virtue (always painful, most often hypocritical or doubtful) and goodness (the innocent passivity of self-love with its headquarters, so to speak, in the people). In this aspect of the Machiavellian analysis, we see a new spiritual mechanism that is going to act powerfully on the development of modern politics and, more generally, of modern sensibility: the discrediting of the idea of the good, coinciding with the elevation of the idea of the people. (Fs) (notabene)

16b Something further should be said about Machiavelli's approach to politics. Aristotle, we have noted, begins by adopting the citizen's point of view. He takes seriously each of the principal claims that spring up in the body politic, accepting them as valid, up to a certain point. Citizens consider their claims as the whole of justice; Aristotle corrects their excess by showing that such claims are only a part of justice. At the same time, Aristotle stands outside the city-state. He puts the accent on the rights of virtue, which tend to be ignored in a political life divided between the people and the nobles, democrats and oligarchs. Nonetheless, his position of exteriority and superiority is based on a certain form of community between the philosopher and the city-state. The good aimed for by the city-state, and which it can attain in the most favorable circumstances, points toward a superior and ultimate good that can be grasped only by the philosopher through contemplation. In a word, it is the idea of the good that permits the philosopher to be superior to the city-state, to understand it better than it understands itself, yet also to understand it from within as it understands itself. (Fs) (notabene)

16c With Machiavelli, this medium of communication between the philosopher and the city-state, the good, disappears. The philosopher is completely exterior to the city-state, understanding it better than it understands itself and exposing its "actual truth."2 But the nobles would not recognize their motives and aspirations in the unique desire to oppress; the people would see in their claims a more positive end than the mere absence of oppression. So, can one say that Machiavelli really understands the aspirations of the citizens better than they themselves do? If nothing connects the city-state's "humors" to the philosopher's search for truth, who will support the "actual truth" when it is found? In a world where nothing can be called intrinsically good, will the knowledge of this truth be an exception? It is not certain that Machiavelli offers us the means to answer these questions. Machiavelli's city-state is a closed totality that he understands completely because he remains completely exterior to it. (Fs)

17a This position occupied by Machiavelli is radically new in the history of philosophy and politics. To understand the meaning of life in the city-state, philosophers like Plato and Aristotle took seriously the citizens' viewpoint by adopting it, even if it subsequently meant pointing out its limits and transcending it. Other philosophers deliberately placed themselves outside civic life, with little concern about understanding the citizens' point of view even temporarily. Such philosophers disdained politics because they thought they had a higher good to contemplate: the order of all the cosmos, the divine, or nature. Machiavelli adopts the paradoxical position of keeping himself outside the city-state, while concentrating his attention exclusively on it. He stays on the outside, not to achieve a superior good, but only in hopes of observing it better. (Fs)

17b The original, paradoxical character of such a position no longer strikes us today. On the contrary, We recognize in it the requisites of the scientific attitude. We even believe we have understood Machiavelli's originality by noting that he was the first to adopt the "scientific" viewpoint for studying politics. This appraisal, however, often formulated by modern historians, is most likely to blind us both to the nature of political science and to Machiavelli's originality. I have already briefly noted why his "realism" is subject to caution. We can add that to describe political life without taking seriously the citizens' viewpoint is more likely a source of arbitrariness than a guarantee of scientificity. Besides, the development of modern science—strictly speaking, the science of "nature"—is appreciably later than Machiavelli's time. To accept that the modern scientific point of view was first born in his political thought would be to weigh down science itself with political suspicions, instead of covering Machiavelli's politics with the protective coating of science. (Fs)

17c An incomparably more plausible and pertinent explanation of Machiavelli's originality is available. After all, in Machiavelli's time, there was another viewpoint claiming to be radically exterior and superior to politics, while pretending, from this position, to act within the city-state: the religious viewpoint of the Church. This position from which one can see politics from the exterior, as subject to intervention, did not have to be invented by Machiavelli; it was furnished to him by his enemy, the Church. Adopting it was not an epistemological exploit, it was, in military language more congruous with Machiavelli's, to fight the enemy on his own ground. (Fs)

17d Of course, the Church's position of exteriority was based on a specific raison d'être, something really different from political life: the worship of God, spiritual perfection. It was based on the supposed superiority of the religious good to the political good. Machiavelli's entire approach consists of occupying this position so as to attack the very foundations of the Church's autonomy and of its right to intervene in the city-state. By interpreting the body politic as a closed totality founded on violence, Machiavelli established that the "good" brought by the Church tended to destroy rather than perfect the city-state, that the idea of the good had no support in the nature of human things. (Fs)

18a One of Machiavelli's texts, perhaps the most famous, confirms this thesis. In chapter 6 of The Prince he compares "armed prophets" to "unarmed ones" and concludes that "all the armed prophets conquered and the unarmed ones were ruined." There is, however, one "unarmed prophet" who could be considered, especially by Machiavelli, as a "conqueror": Jesus Christ. And what is Machiavelli himself, who writes tempting books instead of committing terrible deeds, if not an "unarmed prophet"? Machiavelli is, in his own eyes, that unarmed prophet who is trying to disarm the teaching of the greatest of the unarmed prophets. In this respect, Machiavelli is more an antireligious religious reformer than a philosopher. He tried to change the maxims that actually govern men's lives. (Fs)

18b Machiavelli did not elaborate the idea of an institution capable of opposing the encroachments of the Roman Church. That was accomplished by Hobbes. Instead, by discrediting the idea of the good, Machiavelli persuaded men to consider evil—whether ruse, force, violence, or "necessity"—as the principal source of the political order. (Fs) (notabene)

18c To conclude, let us read a brilliant passage from chapter 7 of The Prince:

Once the duke [Cesare Borgia] had taken over Romagna, he found it had been commanded by impotent lords, who had been readier to despoil their subjects than to correct them, and had given their subjects matter for disunion, not for union. Since that province was quite full of robberies, quarrels, and every other kind of insolence, he judged it necessary to give it good government, if he wanted to reduce it to peace and obedience to a kingly arm. So he put there Messer Remirro de Oreo, a cruel and ready man, to whom he gave the fullest power. In a short time Remirro reduced it to peace and unity, with the very greatest reputation for himself. Then the duke judged that such excessive authority was not necessary, because he feared that it might become hateful; and he set up a civil court in the middle of the province, with a most excellent president, where each city had its advocate. And because he knew that past rigors had generated some hatred for Remirro, to purge the spirits of that people and to gain them entirely to himself, he wished to show that if any cruelty had been committed, this had not come from him but from the harsh nature of his minister. And having seized this opportunity, he had him placed one morning in the piazza at Cesena in two pieces, with a piece of wood and a bloody knife beside him. The ferocity of this spectacle left the people at once satisfied and stupefied. (Fs)

19a This text is a marvelous illustration of how the civil and political order is enveloped and supported by violence. In this episode, Machiavelli distinguishes three types of violence: the diffuse violence of the impotent lords (violent anarchy); the repressive violence of Remirro de Oreo (reestablishing order); and the violence exercised against Remirro de Oreo. The second type of violence reestablishes order but leaves the citizens prey to resentment because of the cruel acts committed. The third type purges them of their resentment: the citizens or subjects are satisfatti e stupidi. These men are satisfied, they are not happy. They do not participate in a good, they are delivered from an evil. They are delivered from a first evil, violence and fear, by another evil, cruel repression; from a second evil, resentment, they are healed by a third evil, fear. This "homeopathic" approach purges them of hate by letting survive just the right amount of fear; and fear is always needed. The political order becomes the alchemy of evil, the suppression of fear through fear. (Fs) (notabene)

19b Thomas Hobbes will see the very logic of the human order in the series of actions and feelings dramatically described by Machiavelli. The absolute monarchy, the "Leviathan" described by Hobbes, is the institutionalization of Cesare Borgia's actions at Cesena. (Fs) (notabene)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Hobbes: Einheit - weder Natur noch Gnade

Index: Hobbes: Einheit weder durch Natur noch Gnade (bloße "Meinung"); wenn keine Einheit mehr durch das Gute, dann durch Angst vor Übel

Kurzinhalt: [Hence] ... neither nature nor grace can unite men... until this point the basis of political action had been the idea of the good, whether natural or supernatural. This way of conceiving of action in the city-state failed tragically, because men ...

Text: 21c What, according to Hobbes, are the causes of the English Civil War? He distinguishes two, one secular, the other religious. The secular cause is found in the influence of the universities, which educate the elite; the religious cause is found in the influence of the Presbyterians, or Puritans, who are by and large made up of the people. The universities' influence stems from classical studies, from Greek and Roman models glorifying "freedom." The Puritan influence stems from a religious conception attributing to everyone who shares it the right and duty to obey individual "inspiration," and the right and duty to "dogmatize." These two influences conspire to foment the spirit of disobedience. (Fs)

21d Thus at the origin of Hobbes's construction lay the two great doctrines of protest against the Church's political power: classical republicanism (Aristotle and Cicero) and Protestantism. These led to a political and social catastrophe. Now, notice that these two great movements consisted of appealing to a prestigious past (antiquity) or a pure one (primitive Christianity) against a corrupted present. Or, put differently, the Catholic confusion between nature and grace, expressed in Aristotelian scholasticism, naturally led to appeals to pure nature (antiquity) or to grace alone (Protestantism). Why did these two appeals lead to an unprecedented disorder? (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

22a The problem was that, whatever the intrinsic merits of classical antiquity and primitive Christianity, these two great doctrines existed in England only as opinions. They were available to all, providing a ready-made argument or pretext whenever anyone's vanity inclined him to disobedience. What had in ancient times been experience, now became an opinion that proved to be ruinous for civic life. Consequently—and this is the polemical heart of the Hobbesian vision—the deplorable political effects of these opinions refuted their claim to reflect an experience authoritatively. (Fs) (notabene)

22b Take classical republicanism. Its fundamental thesis was that the city-state was natural, and urged men to rule themselves in freedom. But the effect of this idea's prestige on the actual conduct of men in Hobbes's time was only to set them against each other in the name of freedom. The destructive effect of this opinion was stronger than the supposed political nature of men. Thus, "nature" had to be dismissed as model or reference for political organization. The same was true of Protestantism. Its fundamental thesis was that God bestows his grace on anyone who approaches him with a pure and humble heart, and that such a man, with divine help, will want and do only the good. The experience of the Civil War showed that the claim of "having grace," of being "holy," led to insufferable political arrogance, to disdain for and humiliation of one's neighbor. Hence the conclusion Hobbes drew from the crucial experience of the English Civil War was the following: neither nature nor grace can unite men. Then what can? The only possible response was obvious: art. (Fs) (notabene)

22c Traditionally, art was defined as the imitation of nature. If nature was no longer to be the reference, what was to be the model for this new art that Hobbes had to elaborate? Every "model" being an "opinion" on "nature," and every opinion being a principle of disorder, it was necessary to develop an art that needed no model. Political art needs a foundation stronger than any opinion. In other words, until this point the basis of political action had been the idea of the good, whether natural or supernatural. This way of conceiving of action in the city-state failed tragically, because men inevitably have incompatible notions of what is good, an incompatibility that is an unending source of conflicts and wars. But if people are unsure about what is good, they are not unsure about what is evil, or at least about certain evils. There is one evil in particular that is considered by every human being, or at least by most, as the greatest evil; and they recognize it not through reasoning, always contestable, but through the grip of a passion that nothing can quell. That evil is death. The foundation, stronger than all opinion, of the new political art will be this passion: the fear of death. (Fs) (notabene)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Hobbes: Leviathin - St. Anselm

Index: Hobbes 5; Problem: Einheit unter atomisierten Individuen -> Leviathan, gottgleiche Macht (St. Anselm: Definition Gottes); Grundlage absoluter Macht nicht in Gott, sondern in menschl. Schwäche; Religion als natürlich und falsch

Kurzinhalt: It is no longer an almighty being who gives existence and the meaning of existence to absolute power. On the contrary, it is powerless beings who create Leviathan to remedy their weakness. Absolute power is no longer God's representative ...

Text: 29b But can this absolutism really succeed in realizing its aim of creating a political unity from radically separated and independent individuals? Certainly it is easy to imagine that individuals obey the sovereign because they are satisfied with the peace he guarantees, or because he threatens them with punishments. Certainly we can conceive of individuals who are strangers to each other becoming one because they have a common representative. But is not this unity through a single Representative, on which Hobbes insists, largely abstract? Based exclusively on the covenant, is it not precisely a simple agreement, and therefore unreal? (Fs; tblStw: Politik)

29c In fact, individuals can constitute a real unity only if they are similar or homogeneous. The Hobbesian political problem is to hold together atoms that are both foreign and similar to each other. What makes them enemies is what they have in common; and what makes them capable of living together is also what they have in common. What do they share? Their fundamental passion for power, for ever-increasing power, a desire ceasing only with death; men differ only in the degree of intensity of this desire. It is because they are transformed by this desire that they are perpetually in a state of war, latent or declared. Simultaneously, what makes their unity so difficult is also what makes it possible. If individuals are the quanta of power, then in order to unite they must construct above themselves a quantum of power incomparably superior to their own. More precisely, they must construct above themselves the greatest power they can imagine, a power such that one cannot imagine a greater one. This is the definition of an unlimited or absolute power. (Fs) (notabene)

30a I have said that Hobbes deduced the political institution from the rights of the individual and from them alone. This is not entirely exact: the individual not only has rights, he also has a nature. Leviathan can guarantee the individual's rights by unifying the body politic because both Leviathan and man are constituted by power: there is basic homogeneity between the state and society. The device of representation is supported by a conception of man's nature that extends beyond the idea of rights. The "artisan" of absolute power is capable of fabricating that power because, in his being, he too is power, or rather desires power. In this sense, the Hobbesian individual remains something of a political animal. (Fs)

30b This individual greedy for power is powerless in the state of nature. What then will he sacrifice in order to accomplish something? Not his power, which is nonexistent or ineffective, but his right to do as he pleases. So as to make a certain power from his impotence he constructs an absolute power above himself. The traditional religious interpretation of royal power signified that the king linked himself directly with God, that he was accountable only to Him, that he was his lieutenant or representative, and that consequently he participated in the omnipotence or sovereignty of God. But the case of the Hobbesian absolute power is completely different. It is no longer an almighty being who gives existence and the meaning of existence to absolute power. On the contrary, it is powerless beings who create Leviathan to remedy their weakness. Absolute power is no longer God's representative, but mankind's; its transcendence no longer has its origins in God's strength but in man's weakness. (Fs) (notabene)

30c Leviathan's power is therefore such that men cannot imagine a greater one. Such a definition reminds one of Saint Anselm's definition of God: ens quo majus cogitari nequit (a being such that a greater one is inconceivable). From this nominal definition, Anselm concludes that God exists according to the "ontological" argument.1 What Hobbes's presentation suggests is that this being does indeed exist, that it actually organizes the human world, but that it is fabricated by men. The political institution is the human device permitting men to make effective and efficient this "idea of the greatest power" that in their impotence they are naturally led to imagine. There is no more subtle way of suggesting that the construction of Leviathan reproduces the genesis of the idea of God: in following the construction of the Hobbesian body politic, we are witnessing the elaboration of the idea of God. Hobbes shows us both how the natural situation of men leads them to conceive of the idea of God, and how human art can appropriate the meaning of this idea, revealing its vanity by this very art. The political art establishes that religion is both "natural" and "false," and why it can be one or the other without contradiction. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Hobbes: Liberalismus - Demokratie

Index: Hobbes 5; politische Ordnung durch Schwäche; Leviathan: Neutralisierung von Gnade; Demokratie: das einzig legitime Regime (Zustimmung); liberale Interpretation von Gesetz (total "äußerlich"); "negative Matrix": Klammer v. Souveränität und Demokratie

Kurzinhalt: Hobbes's thought is thus the common matrix of modern democracy and liberalism. It founds the democratic idea because it develops the notion of sovereignty established on each subject's consent. It founds the liberal idea because it develops the notion ...

Text: 31a Hobbes creates the political order from human impotence; Aristotle created it from human capacities or strength. Unlike Aristotle's city-state, the Hobbesian body politic does not compose and adjust forces (virtue, wealth, freedom); it relieves weaknesses. Leviathan heals, at least in part, the ills of the "natural condition of mankind." Under Leviathan's hand, the subject finds himself like the faithful under the Church whose grace heals the ills of sinful nature. The body politic constructed by powerless men who conceive of an absolute power is not a city-state, limited by the natural order and thus vulnerable to the intervention of religion. Its genesis repeats and makes effective the gesture by which humanity conceives of the divinity and places itself under its protection. The meaning of the Hobbesian state is to be an artificial Providence.1 Just as the state of nature neutralizes sin by naturalizing it, Leviathan's absolute power neutralizes grace by making it artificial. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

31b By nature, men quarrel rather than love or help each other. This political problem is so difficult, and its solution so simple in Hobbes, that political discussion faces only clear-cut alternatives. Either the body politic exists and citizens live in civil peace, or it does not and citizens tear each other to pieces. Either the sovereign has the power necessary for fulfilling his mandate and then men enjoy the happiness compatible with their condition, or he lacks it and men experience the disorders and misfortunes of civil war. This means that the comparison between the respective merits of different political regimes seems altogether pointless to Hobbes. Admittedly, one can distinguish between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. But whether the sovereign is one, several, or everyone, what is important is that that sovereign have the right to demand complete obedience. Whether he is one, several, or everyone, the sovereign conceives of, promulgates, and enforces respect for the laws that seem to him good or expedient. They are laws only because they are the declaration of his will. One is no more free to disobey the laws in Venice or Lucca than in the realm of the Grand Turk. Of course, monarchy has a certain number of technical advantages based on the fact that a natural individual is the soul of the artificial individual that is the body politic. But the inflexible rule is this: that each citizen must consider the regime under which he lives as the best one. Indeed, he does not even attempt to evaluate it, and obeys in all good conscience everything that the sovereign orders him to do. (Fs)

31c However, whether a regime is a monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, its legitimacy—which is also its mode of generation—is essentially democratic. The foundation of every regime is based on each citizen's consent. The sovereign's power does not belong to him by nature or by grace, it is always given by his subjects. By dismissing the old discussions about the best regime, by being particularly critical of ancient democracies, by scorning the monarchies in which Europeans lived, Hobbes contributed powerfully to the making of the modern democratic view. For its partisans, modern democracy is not one political regime among others; it is the only legitimate organization of men's life in common. Precisely because it is based on consent, its legitimacy—which is its goodness—is beyond any doubt. To whoever objects or grumbles, one can always answer: what are you complaining about? This is what you wanted. And even if you voted against, it is as though you had voted for, since you committed yourself to abide by the law of the majority. (Fs) (notabene)

32a Because Leviathan is external to individuals, and because they are the quanta of its power, the sovereign's absolute power is not in contradiction with his subjects' liberty. Whatever is outside the obedience of the law is free; where the law is silent, subjects can do whatever seems good to them. A quantum of power does everything it can do; it cannot cease to be a power to act. Wherever the sovereign interposes his law, with the threat of punishment, the subject obeys. But wherever there is no law he acts freely, since nothing prevents him from doing so. The law promulgated by the sovereign is only the device that prevents men/atoms from clashing with each other; it does not immobilize them. It is similar to those hedges that prevent one from parking on a neighbor's field, but not from walking on his path. Hobbes can be called the founder of liberalism because he elaborated the liberal interpretation of the law, a pure human device, rigorously external to everybody. Such a law does not transform or inform the individual atoms whose peaceful coexistence it is limited to guaranteeing. (Fs) (notabene)

32b Hobbes's thought is thus the common matrix of modern democracy and liberalism. It founds the democratic idea because it develops the notion of sovereignty established on each subject's consent. It founds the liberal idea because it develops the notion of the law as device external to individuals. It is not clear that the democratic idea of sovereignty and the liberal idea of the law are easily compatible, since in Leviathan these two notions only link up through absolutism. It is because unlimited sovereignty is external to individuals that it leaves them free space where the law is silent. If one abolishes absolutism, that is, the exteriority of sovereignty, then the law becomes, as Rousseau says, "the register of our wills." The law is no longer the external condition of my free action, it becomes the very principle of this action: the liberal notion of the law is dead. If, on the contrary, one wants to abolish absolutism while maintaining the liberal interpretation of the law, the very idea of unlimited sovereignty has to be renounced. This is what Montesquieu will do. (Fs) (notabene)

32c Yet the fact remains that our democratic and liberal societies seem to have overcome this contradiction. Perhaps not entirely, but such a contradiction is not fatal. The democratic idea of sovereignty and the liberal idea of the law are contradictory only in their positive aspects, not the negative ones. They have a common "negative matrix": they agree that man has no ends inscribed in his nature, and that the element of human action is not the good or goods. The two definitions, democratic and liberal, alternately prevailed; sometimes they emphasized the sovereignty of the collective will, sometimes the legal liberty of individuals. This contradictory compatibility of the two definitions helps to explain why our democratic and liberal regimes are both remarkably stable and subject to perpetual and rapid social change. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Naturzustand - Konstruktion: Individuum

Index: Hobbes 6; Gehorsam: Gott - Souverän (Leviathan); Aristoteles's Politik; Naturzustand: Mensch vor d. Gehorsam (Kirche, Staat); M. als Individuum (Konstrukt; Neutralisierung d. Priesters usw.); Locke, Rousseau gegen Absolutismus (da wieder Bund mit Kirche)

Kurzinhalt: The state of nature is the condition of men before any obedience to the city-state or Church, a condition from which it is possible to construct a body politic invulnerable to the conflict between state and Church. Certainly, in Hobbes's doctrine ...

Text: 33a In presenting the dominant ideas of the Hobbesian doctrine, I have placed the emphasis on the themes and difficulties that determined the subsequent development of political thought. I have deliberately neglected—and paradoxically so, given the principal idea of this essay—Hobbes's direct criticism of Christianity. I have tried to suggest that the positive logic of the Hobbesian construction is more fundamental than the direct criticism of religion. Hobbes draws the plans for a body politic invulnerable to Christianity since it reproduces its meaning, making it effective. However, so that the explanation is not incomplete, I must say a few words about Hobbes's radical and influential criticism of religion. (Fs; tblStw: Politik)

33b The question is the following: what happens to the duty to obey the sovereign when he orders an action contrary to the subject's idea of God's law or will? What happens to the sovereign's sovereignty in face of a religion that orders men to obey God rather than other men? What I have already said contains the response: everything that is human falls within Leviathan's power, and thus religion also. However much religion may have its origins in God, it still addresses itself to men and is preached by men. Without ever contesting the principle that it is better to obey God than men, Hobbes limits its application so much that this principle becomes politically inoffensive, incapable of moving the masses of men. Moreover, and more radically, he reinterprets the meaning of Christian revelation in such a way that obedience to God tends to merge with obedience to the sovereign. (Fs)

33c On the first point, Hobbes's argument is simple but devastating. To believe that God spoke to certain men is to believe that these men speak the truth, it is to believe them. The necessity of a human intermediary means that to believe in a revealed God is to believe men. Now, experience teaches us that men are readily liars, or more exactly, that the elevated idea they have of their wisdom often leads them to believe themselves inspired by God. Besides, those who believe themselves to be inspired most often attract partisans, who call themselves disciples. Thus those inspired by God hold a power whose extent depends on the number of their partisans. We know that the desire for power is men's dominant, primordial desire. Therefore we should not be surprised if many an individual, through sheer desire for power, proclaims himself inspired by God. Does not Scripture itself—the Old as well as the New Testament—insist on this point, that there are false prophets? Indeed, that for one truly inspired prophet, there are a hundred or four hundred false ones? The lesson of secular experience is just as clear: each time that an individual or a group of individuals claims to be inspired by God, those who listen to them must be skeptical: the probability is that they are impostors. The safest action is to recognize as prophets only those who are judged as such by the sovereign. If men are convinced by Hobbes's arguments, it is not very likely that any prophets, true or false, will have many disciples. (Fs)

34a There remains the case of those who, instead of simply following the prophets, believe themselves to be prophets. Whether sincere or liars, they are inaccessible to reason. Thus they ought to be left to the sovereign's judgment; he will decide whether they constitute a danger to civil peace. If he judges them to be dangerous, the sovereign will use public force to ensure that they can do no harm. The operation will be easy because, thanks to Hobbes's warnings, they will have hardly any disciples. The claims of the "prophets" or "saints" who played such a role in the English Civil War will cease to be a major political threat; they will pose only a simple problem of law and order. (Fs)

34b One can wonder whether Hobbes's triumph here is not too complete and even somewhat imprudent. If every claim of divine inspiration is as radically suspect, is not the very root of Christianity in danger? Would one not have to suspect the Apostles and Christ himself? Hobbes asserts that he has no stake in the matter, that he is only reminding us of the vigilance recommended by scripture. Therefore, he accepts that there are (or at least were) true prophets, on whose witness the Catholic church and Protestant confessions are founded. Conceding this—and Hobbes had to concede it if he wanted to avoid suffering the fate reserved for false prophets—a new task faced him. He had to show that scripture itself, exactly interpreted, actually professes Hobbes's own political doctrine: that is, that the civil sovereign is absolute also in religious matters. We shall not follow him in his exegesis. Its conclusion is that it is all the same whether ones says "Church" or "body politic composed of Christians": there is no place in the human world for another representative. There is no need for a power other than civil power. (Fs)

34c The fundamental question of the Hobbesian doctrine is that of obedience: whom does my conscience tell me to obey? The question is fundamental because if the response is uncertain then civil war ensues. And yet this question is new, or at least the intensity with which Hobbes and his successors ask it is. Of course, in a sense, the question of obedience is always posed in real political life. Yet, it did not play a major theoretical role in the Greek formulation of the political problem. For the Greeks, the important questions were: what is the best political regime? Who is best qualified to command, the people, the rich, the wise, or a man of exceptional virtue? These are the questions Aristotle poses in his Politics. (Fs)

35a It will be said that the two approaches are essentially the same. If I know who must command, I know whom to obey, and conversely. Here the similarities end. According to Aristotle, the one who commands must be the bearer of the most important human good, the most politically significant, the "best" human good. The candidates whose claims are rejected (actually, only corrected and moderated) also draw their inspiration from significant goods, although they are less important. For Aristotle, to answer the question "Who must command?", is to decide on the basis of a hierarchy of goods; but the goods that are not chosen survive and even obtain some portion of power, once the decisive choice has been made. For Hobbes, on the contrary, the one who has the right to demand obedience has all rights, those who do not have this right have none, or rather have only the rights conceded by the former. Gradation is replaced by exclusion, by polarity between an absolute assertion and an absolute negation. How did the logic of gradation, a logic that seems much more suitable to the complexity of human affairs, come to be replaced by the logic of exclusion? (Fs)

35b Within the human world, the assertion of the primacy of a certain good does not entail the total exclusion of other goods; on the contrary, it only implies that they are recognized as somewhat inferior goods. If, however, one compares the human world as a whole with the religious world, the question is no longer what element of the human world must command, but which world—human or divine—must command. But how can these two incomparable worlds, the human and the divine, be "compared"? They are incomparable because each of them, in a different way, is self-sufficient. Within a human city-state, the pretensions of wealth cannot ignore those of liberty, nor can they completely ignore those of wisdom. But the priest, who reveals God's truth and heals sin through the sacrament, has little in common with the citizen who defends the rights of wealth, or freedom, or even wisdom. (Fs)

35c Therefore the human and the religious worlds cannot be compared, and yet it is necessary to decide between their respective claims. If peace is at last to be achieved, a third world must be constructed, one where the conflict will lose all urgency because it will lose its meaning. But constructing a new world does not seem within man's power. What is to be done? If the two worlds are in conflict, it is because they are in contact. In this sense, they do have something in common. This common ground, the locus of their conflict, is man himself. Not man as member of the human city (since the church claims him), nor man as faithful member of the Church (since the human city claims him), but the man who belongs to neither of these two cities. This man's name is already known to us: he is the individual. (Fs) (notabene)

Kommentar (15/10/14): Sehr wichtig, das Individuum in diesem Sinn zu erfassen.

36a Of course, the individual does not exist as such. Each "individual" is always already a member of a human city and also a believer within a church. But insofar as he is needed by both realms, each of which wants to snatch him away from the other, he belongs to neither one; he exists as "individual." In other words, the individual "exists" insofar as he hesitates in his obedience and is considered "prior to" his choice of obedience. Since all men are the target of the twofold claim of which I am speaking, all of them can be considered as individuals. It can be objected that this is a purely abstract point of view, leaving the reality of the conflict intact. But if, starting from this idea of the individual, I succeed in conceiving of a viable political institution, then this inexistent individual will come into existence as citizen or subject of this institution. If that is possible, we will have created this third world which appeared to be beyond our grasp. (Fs) (notabene)

36b To fulfill its function, this new political institution by its very constitution must prevent the individual from being claimed by either the old city or the old Church. The obedience to which the individual will be subjected must be invulnerable to the criticisms and claims of the former candidates for power. They are the candidates of the human city—virtue, riches, liberty—as well as those of the divine city—the law or grace which comes from God, the doctrine revealed by Him, and the men who take their inspiration from this doctrine. The particularity of the new obedience is that it will be indisputable in principle. Of course, one will continue to hear the old claims, those of the rich, the poor, the wise, the priests. But their impact will be blunted by the absolute character of the obedience founding the new city. They will be neutralized. The new political institution will envelop and surmount the old conflict which seemed insoluble. The conflict will undoubtedly survive but in domesticated form, confined to the subpolitical level of "society." (Fs) (notabene)

36c Let us imagine then that all men are individuals, that is, men prior to obedience. Let us imagine the state of nature. In this state, men are not subjected to the prestige of wise men, the seductions of the rich, the intimidations of the strong, the preaching of priests; prior to any secular or religious society, they are equal and free. The body politic that they would form from this condition would be necessarily invulnerable to the claims of the rich as well as those of the poor, those of the strong as well as those of the priests. None of these categories would inspire the foundation of the institution, thus none of them would enter into its essential constitution. (Fs)
36d What I have just tried to suggest is the raison d'être of the state of nature in Hobbes's work. It is the key notion of political reflection, one that will remain crucial for more than a century, during the formative period of modern liberal regimes. The state of nature is the condition of men before any obedience to the city-state or Church, a condition from which it is possible to construct a body politic invulnerable to the conflict between state and Church. Certainly, in Hobbes's doctrine, the state of nature does not appear as a mere hypothesis needed by the project of surmounting the conflict between politics and religion, but as the reality produced by the actual conflict: the war of all against all. This is why Hobbes prefers the expression natural condition of mankind to that of "the state of nature." But essentially, the state of nature is not a state of war. We are going to observe this in studying Locke and Rousseau. The generating power of Hobbes's doctrine stems from the fact that with him the respective aspects of the hypothesis and reality of the state of nature are indistinguishable. And they have to be if the hypothesis is to be plausible, if the political art to come is to have a support in nature. And yet Hobbes authorizes his successors to distinguish between the two aspects. Once the plausibility and fecundity of the hypothesis are established, the possibility arises for anyone to modify its terms so as to realize better the end for which it was first conceived. (Fs) (notabene)

37a From Hobbes to Locke and Rousseau, the idea of the body politic will amount to absolute sovereignty variously conceived, founded on and deduced from a state of nature. I have tried to show the theologico-political origin of this notion which has become so unfamiliar to us. If it continued to prevail until the end of the eighteenth century, that is because the motive giving it birth remained effective. Here, however, a nuance must be added. For even if Locke and Rousseau were as concerned as Hobbes to abolish religion's political power, even if Rousseau concluded the Social Contract by extolling Hobbes for having reduced the duality of political and religious powers to the unity of the civil sovereign, it is still true that their principal enemy was no longer the political power of religion. Rather, it was a phenomenon that seems to be strictly political, namely absolutism. (In Rousseau's case, it was also the social, political, and moral reality of inequality.) Locke and Rousseau do indeed seem to turn against Hobbes, and it is important that we understand why. The fact that they criticize Hobbes for having given arguments to absolutism does not mean that they do not share the intention that led Hobbes to construct his Leviathan. They simply observe that real absolutism, instead of accomplishing Hobbes's intention, actually gets in its way: it is through absolutism or its protection that religion retains political power. Therefore they criticize Hobbes's doctrine in order to carry out his intention more effectively. (Fs) (notabene)

37b At the same time, it is true that the beginning of the implementation of the Hobbesian program—what is called the "rise of absolutism"—induces difficulties unfamiliar to Hobbes's original problem. The "third world" or "third city" had begun to live its own life. Consequently, if this life turned out to be unsatisfactory, it was proof, in Locke's eyes and especially in Rousseau's, that Hobbes's program had been imperfectly conceived. They remained faithful, however, to Hobbes's fundamental instrument, the state of nature; they simply thought that he did not make all possible use of it, that he did not interpret it radically enough. They reckoned that by interpreting it more radically, they would be in a position both to carry Hobbes's program through to a successful conclusion, and to deal with the disadvantages that his program's implementation had begun to reveal. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Hobbes: Individuum - Recht

Index: Locke 1; Hobbes: (Widerspruch: Naturzustand; Individuum: Recht auf Selbsterhalt nicht als I., sondern durch Bedrohung durch andere); Locke: Bedrohung durch Hunger; Dialektik: Sklave - Herr (H.: Dilemma: Aristokrat - Bürger) -> Lösungsversuche der Nachf.

Kurzinhalt: Locke begins like Hobbes: the first need and therefore man's fundamental right is that of preserving his life. But what threatens his life? Locke answers: not other individuals, but rather hunger. This is the original difference between Locke and Hobbes.

Text: CHAPTER IV
Locke, Labor, and Property

39a As we have seen, the reason for the appearance of the state of nature as a key notion of political reflection stemmed from the necessity of producing an incontestable obligation to obey. Perhaps the most striking feature of Leviathan's power is that it is incontestable: its "absolute" or "unlimited" character signifies that in principle no objection to it can be raised. And the central difficulty in Hobbes's doctrine can be formulated as follows: can one define and construct a human power in such a way as to make it, in principle and in fact, invulnerable to criticism? Hobbes thinks that he overcomes the difficulty by basing his reasoning on a reality—the fear of violent death—stronger than any reasoning. But then he confronts two major problems. (Fs) (notabene)

39b Hobbes's reasoning ends where it began: with the fear of death. This is the motive for Leviathan's construction and remains the principle of his effectiveness once he is constituted. Ultimately the subjects conduct themselves peacefully because they are afraid of the sovereign. Certainly from Hobbes's perspective, this fear is incomparably more circumscribed than the original fear; far from contradicting the elementary conditions of a decent human life, it is its elementary condition. In this regard, one can speak, along with Michael Oakeshott, of "homeopathic" fear. For, if the desire for self-preservation is the source of Leviathan's legitimacy in the state of nature, the fear that Leviathan then inspires, however "homeopathic" it may be, can be the basis of a new legitimacy. This is so true that, according to Hobbes himself, I have the right to preserve my life even against Leviathan's orders, if these orders put my life in danger. In other words, the search for security that founds Leviathan's unlimited power will subsequently found its limitation. (Fs)
39c But if it is necessary to start from the state of nature to construct the legitimate political institution, did Hobbes correctly describe that state? Is the state of nature essentially a state of war? Certainly civil war is a good approximation of the war of all against all, but is civil war the truth of political life? Or is it only an exceptional circumstance from which nothing can be inferred for organizing "ordinary" social and political life? And can human nature really be reduced to the desire for power? These are questions that necessarily reintroduce controversy into an approach whose goal had been to suppress it. All these questions can be summed up in one: what is truly the "natural condition of mankind," what is "the most natural in man"? To this question, as we shall see, Locke and Rousseau will give answers very different from that of Hobbes. But first we have to see how Hobbes's interpretation of the state of nature elicits its own refutation. (Fs)

40a What is the meaning of the jus in omnia, the right over everything, that belongs to every individual in the state of nature? It means that each individual is in himself an indivisible whole whose unique rule of conduct is to preserve his life. But why does the need for self-preservation mean he has a right over everything? Because, says Hobbes, he is perpetually threatened, actually or potentially, by others, because the relationship linking him to others is one of hostility. The jus in omnia is born from the intersection of two essentially distinct ideas: the absolute moral independence of the individual, and his hostile relationship with other individuals. Of these two ideas, the latter is the more important: it is because hostility is universal that self-preservation is the unique principle of action taken by the individual. Put in stronger terms, it is because the hostile relationship is universal that each person is an individual, that is, an indivisible whole closed in on himself, morally self-sufficient, thinking only of preserving his life. What is "the most natural" in the "natural condition of mankind" is not the independent individual as such, it is the war of all against all that gives him birth. In other words, the individual exists only through a kind of negative sociability, that of war. The unlimited right he has is only an effect of this war. Consequently, the individual does not truly have this right; it appears only when he is threatened by death. In the state of nature it is continuously possessed, since there the mortal threat is continuous, and it reappears in the civil state, even against Leviathan, when the mortal threat arises. (Fs) (notabene)
40b Thus one sees how Hobbes elaborates, with an extraordinary power of suggestion, a new idea of the body politic: power is an ingenious device constructed by powerless individuals for protecting their rights. He does not succeed, however, in carrying out this idea completely. Individuals in the state of nature are not truly individuals entitled to rights intrinsically belonging to them, and power constructed in this way is not really a protector of their rights since it can protect them only insofar as it threatens them. The program of what later became liberalism is thus laid out. It will entail giving the Hobbesian idea of political power its full scope by modifying its beginning and its end. The individual in the state of nature will acquire intrinsic rights, and power will be limited to the protection of individual rights. This will be Locke's approach. Locke begins like Hobbes: the first need and therefore man's fundamental right is that of preserving his life. But what threatens his life? Locke answers: not other individuals, but rather hunger. This is the original difference between Locke and Hobbes. For the latter, death first threatens in the form of the hostile other man; for the former it threatens in the form of hunger. (Fs) (notabene)

41a Hobbes is remarkably reserved about the role of hunger in the state of nature, even if he mentions as being obvious that in it, men are "poor." The fact of war and its consequences overshadow war's motives, hunger among them. From the moment that fear engenders fear war feeds on itself, and the question of its "origins" indeed appears to be secondary. Hobbes in fact suggests two origins: first, rivalry for the possession of "goods" (rivalry based on "scarcity," "economic" rivalry); then pure rivalry, based on the desire for power, prestige, reputation ("moral," "political," or "spiritual" in origin). In the state of nature, these two types of rivalry are indistinguishable since they have the same effects. If I take my neighbor's herd, it can be to nourish myself or because I want to possess the larger herd. Which of these two versions of rivalry is more important for Hobbes? Apparently the latter: Hobbes explicitly defines the desire for power, the desire to be first, as the fundamental human passion to which the others can be reduced. And yet if one judges by the effect, the former is more important. If men accept Leviathan, it is for guaranteeing their security, the condition, Hobbes points out, for all "industry." Accepting Leviathan's "protection," they escape the risks implied by the unending quest for more power. And here we see the moral ambiguity of the Hobbes's vision, which also makes it so bewitching: men defined explicitly as "aristocrats" (struggling for power, honor, or prestige) behave at the decisive moment like "bourgeois" (making certain that their security comes first). (Fs; tblStw: Politik)

41b Hobbes's successors will endeavor to remove this ambiguity. Locke, by an elegant simplification, will simply erase rivalry, or at least its original character. In the beginning, there were no relationships among men, not even hostile ones. As for Rousseau, he accepts the Lockean point of view and pushes it even further by making original man a solitary, happy brute. But at the same time he takes Hobbes's "psychology" very seriously. In his Second Discourse, he describes how the individual, beginning as a solitary brute, becomes greedy for riches, power, and prestige. To remove the ambiguity of Hobbes's "psychology," he is the first to have recourse to a history. It was left to Hegel to provide the most convincing solution: the motor of historical development lies in the original situation described by Hobbes. The two "moralities" fighting each other in the state of nature lead to the distinction between two types of men: those who prefer prestige to security, and those who prefer security to the risks that the pursuit of prestige entails. What Hegel would later call the "dialectic of the master and slave" is already contained in the Hobbesian state of nature, and in this dialectic all of mankind's history.1 (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: Montesquieu - Paradox d. Repräsentation

Index: Montesquieu 4; Grundlagen d. Liberalismus: Repräsentation - Gewaltenteilung; Paradox d. R.: Zuwachs an staatl. Gewalt, Erosion d. sozialen Gewebes; ind. Freiheit durch Negation d. Kompromisses; Ambivalenz demokr. Gesellschaften; Bourgeois - Bürger?

Kurzinhalt: The modern idea of representation leads naturally to a continuous increase of the state's power over society, because it continuously erodes the intrasocial powers that ensure the independence and solidity of this society.

Text: 62c Fully constituted liberalism, which is fully constituted doctrinally only with Montesquieu, is based on two ideas: the idea of representation and the idea of separation of powers. The idea of representation postulates that the only legitimate power is founded on the consent of those subject to power. In such a regime, all powers within civil society born from the spontaneous interplay of economic and social life or from traditions come to seem essentially illegitimate since they are not representative. Hence they are slowly but surely eroded. All legitimate power is concentrated at the summit, in the political institution, in the state which alone represents members of society. The modern idea of representation leads naturally to a continuous increase of the state's power over society, because it continuously erodes the intrasocial powers that ensure the independence and solidity of this society. This is the paradox of representation: representative power tends necessarily to dominate the civil society that it claims to represent. In this sense, those who deplore society's growing dependence on the state are right. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

63a But, simultaneously, because this representative state is divided between majority and opposition, its acts tend no less necessarily to be generally favorable to individual liberty. As I have tried to show, the compromise between the two powers is reached much more easily in the negative mode than in the positive: each power tends to exercise its power by preventing the other from obtaining what it wants. Thus what are sometimes called the citizen's "realms of freedom" inevitably grow. In this sense, those who celebrate the progress of individual liberty, the growing emancipation of individuals, are right. (Fs)

63b Hence there is an essential ambivalence in the internal movements of democratic societies. It leads some people to describe them as totalitarianisms in disguise; others, as the most satisfying societies in human history, where each free and sovereign person uses the talents and satisfies the tastes nature has granted him. Both groups are both wrong and right. The reason is that today we are governed more exclusively by a state that governs us less. Insofar as we are less governed, we are, in a way, living more in a state of nature. And because this state of nature is still not a state of war, but offers us acceptable security and prosperity, we have no motive for leaving this state. We have thus fulfilled the original program of liberalism by reversing the order of the factors. The representative regime initially was the ingenious device making it possible to leave a state of nature that was essentially (Hobbes) if not even necessarily (Locke) unbearable; it became the ingenious device making it possible to live in an essentially satisfying state of nature. This diagnosis can hardly be contested even by those who denounce the benign "totalitarianism" of liberal societies. What makes them indignant about our societies is precisely this state of satisfaction: the quarrels and rebellions, the audacities and subversions, are all absorbed and recuperated by the system, to our general satisfaction. (Fs) (notabene)

63c A slight doubt can still, however, undermine this satisfaction. After all, an artificial or instituted state of nature that is still political is a contradiction in terms. Montesquieu himself discreetly suggested the difficulty when he said of the English that they were "confederates rather than fellow citizens." This alternative can and will be formulated as questions. Is each person primarily an independent member of "civil society" or a subject of the "state," a bourgeois or a citizen, a homo oeconomicus or a homo politicus? Does he belong first to the transnational or worldwide space of the "market" or rather to the territory of the "nation"? He belongs to both, it will be answered. But such an answer signifies that in spite of the reconciliation between the state of nature and the civil state by means of a free regime, we remain radically divided: the dividing line between the natural man and the citizen is now within us. To describe this division, to denounce the misfortune and corruption that it brings about, to seek to overcome it, will be the task of Montesquieu's—and liberalism's—most profound critic, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Mansfield, Harvey C., A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy

Titel: Politische Philosophie (erste Bestimmung)

Index: Politische Philosophie (gute erste Bestimmung); Meinungsverschiedenheit (Beispiel: Liberale - Konservative) - gemeinsames Gut - Schiedsrichter; Unterschied: pol. Ph. - Politikwissenschaft; Relativismus (fauler Dogmatismus)

Kurzinhalt: Political philosophy reaches for the best regime, a regime so good that it can hardly exist. Political science advances a theory ... that promises to bring agreement and put an end to partisan dispute. The one rises above partisanship, the other ...

Text: PARTISAN DIFFERENCES
I
3a Each side defends its own interests, those of schoolteachers versus those of stockbrokers, for example, but they also appeal to something they have in common: the common good. Defending their interests, each says, contributes to the common good. At the same time, the parties appeal to someone in common, a common judge who would decide the issues between them. Normally this judge is merely the person they are trying to persuade or impress, but he could be a person competent to judge. Arguments, good or bad, are made with reasons and so are aimed implicitly, if not usually, at a reasonable judge. Here is where political philosophy enters. Most people reason badly, but they do reason—and political philosophy starts from that fact. In America today, liberals argue that wealth is unjustly distributed, for example, but they overlook the need to generate wealth. Conservatives do the reverse; preoccupied with wealth generation, they pay little attention to how it should be distributed. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

4a A partisan difference like this one is not a clash of "values," with each side blind to the other and with no way to decide between them. A competent judge could ask both sides why they omit what they do, and he could supply reasons even if the parties could not. Such a judge is on the way toward political philosophy. (Fs)

4b There is a long tradition of political philosophy dating from Socrates and consisting of a series of great books, each written to comment favorably or adversely on a contemporary or a preceding philosophy. A scholar can devote his life to this tradition or a part of it, and anyone serious about political philosophy will want to acquire at least some knowledge of the tradition. But one does not have to go to books of political philosophy to find political philosophy. All the books of political philosophy could be lost, if one can imagine such a calamity, and yet the activity could be generated anew directly from political life. The partly rational character of politics calls for completion in political philosophy—even though it takes a great thinker, to whom we are all greatly indebted, to answer the call. (Fs)

5a Politics always has political philosophy lying within it, waiting to emerge. So far as we know, however, it has emerged just once, with Socrates—but that event left a lasting impression. It was a "first." I stress the connection between politics and political philosophy because such a connection is not to be found in the kind of political science that tries to ape the natural sciences. That political science, which dominates political science departments today, is a rival to political philosophy. Instead of addressing the partisan issues of citizens and politicians, it avoids them and replaces their words with scientific terms. Rather than good, just, and noble, you hear political scientists of this kind speaking of utility or preferences. These terms are meant to be neutral, abstracted from partisan dispute. Instead of serving as judge of what is good, just, or noble, such political scientists conceive themselves to be disinterested observers, as if they had no stake in the outcomes of politics. As political scientists, they believe they must suppress their opinions as citizens lest they contaminate their scientific selves. The political philosopher, however, takes a stand with Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59), who said that while he himself was not a partisan, he undertook to see, not differently, but further than the parties. (Fs) (notabene)

6a To sum up: political philosophy seeks to judge political partisans, but to do so it must enter into political debate. It wants to be impartial, or to be a partisan for the whole, for the common good; but that impartiality is drawn from the arguments of the parties themselves by extending their claims and not by standing aloof from them, divided between scientist and citizen, half slave to science, half rebel from it. Being involved in partisan dispute does not make the political philosopher fall victim to relativism, for the relativism so fashionable today is a sort of lazy dogmatism. These relativists refuse to enter into political debate because they are sure even before hearing the debate that it cannot be resolved; they believe like the political scientists they otherwise reject that nothing can be just or good or noble unless everyone agrees. The political philosopher knows for sure that politics will always be debatable, whether the debate is open or suppressed, but that fact—rather welcome when you reflect on it—does not stop him from seeking a common good that might be too good for everyone to agree with. (Fs) (notabene)

6b Political philosophy reaches for the best regime, a regime so good that it can hardly exist. Political science advances a theory—in fact, a number of theories—that promises to bring agreement and put an end to partisan dispute. The one rises above partisanship, the other, as we shall see, undercuts it. Now, why should we prefer the former? So far I have argued for political philosophy, but what's wrong with seeking agreement instead of reaching for the moon? (Fs) (notabene)

7a The question is more complicated than we have seen so far, because an important historical fact has not yet been mentioned: political science came from political philosophy. More precisely, political science rebelled from political philosophy in the seventeenth century and in the positivist movement of the late nineteenth century declared itself distinct and separate. The controversy we see now between political science and political philosophy within university departments of "political science" is a consequence of this earlier, deeper rebellion. Today political science is often said to be "descriptive" or "empirical," concerned with facts; political philosophy is called "normative" because it expresses values. But these terms merely repeat in more abstract form the difference between political science, which seeks agreement, and political philosophy, which seeks the best. Political science likes facts because it is thought possible to agree on facts as opposed to values, and political philosophy provides values or norms because it seeks what is best. (Fs) (notabene)

8a When we contrast political science and political philosophy we are really speaking of two kinds of political philosophy, modern and ancient. To appreciate the political science we have now, we need to look at its rival; to do that, we must enter into the history of political philosophy. We must study the tradition that has been handed down to us. The great political philosophers read the works of their predecessors and commented on them, sometimes agreeing, often disagreeing. This history has less of the accidental in it than other history because, to a much greater degree than citizens or statesmen, philosophers are reflecting upon, and reacting to, thinkers that came before them. In considering the history of Western civilization, one must not forget the tradition of Western thought that inspires and explains the actions of peoples and statesmen. It is both more and less than a tradition in the usual sense—more, as it is more thoughtful, and less, being divided against itself and open to argument and correction. The tradition of political philosophy is not a sequence of customs; still less is it a "canon" established by some dominant political power, as is sometimes said. It is the only tradition that does not claim to be an authority, that on the contrary constantly questions authority; quite unlike the various non-Western traditions, it is not exclusive and not peremptory. It is philosophic. No one can count himself educated who does not have some acquaintance with this tradition. It informs you of the leading possibilities of human life, and by giving you a sense of what has been tried and of what is now dominant, it tells you where we are now in a depth not available from any other source. (Fs)

9a Much political theory today feels no obligation to examine its history and sometimes looks down on the history of the subject as if it could not be a matter of current interest. But our reasoning shows that the history of political philosophy is required for understanding its substance. The question of what view to take of partisan debate is still an issue today; some people relish their partisanship, some—perhaps a growing number—feel uncomfortable with loud arguments and deplore partisan attitudes. In recent decades the political science profession has been subject to successive new theories such as behavioralism and rational choice, each of which promises to put an end to the old debates over values and to do away with political philosophy. But somehow political philosophy survives, despite efforts to supersede it, just as, despite the failure of those efforts, political science in the modern sense reemerges periodically to make another try at bringing consensus and doing away with debate. To see what each of them is we must look for their origins. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Mansfield, Harvey C., A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy

Titel: Demokratie - Abneigung: Form

Index:

Kurzinhalt: Democratic peoples disdain forms because they want to go directly to the object of their desires, preferring action to dignity, sincerity to politeness, result to correctness; in sum, substance to form.

Text: 27b The issue arises in the discussion of the “necessity of forms” in democracy, a theme throughout the book. In his summary at the end, Tocqueville remarks that democrats “do not readily comprehend the utility of forms; they feel an instinctive disdain for them.” Forms or formalities are institutions (with rules and officers) or mores (ceremonies, rituals, courtesies, and “dressing up”) or legalities (for example, due process of law) that show respect for others and enable common action with people who are not friends or family. To democrats, these often appear to be mere technicalities, inconveniences that delay or get in the way of the rapid consummation of their desires. They seem fussy and irrational in a democracy, like “standing on ceremony” as if you wanted to appear more or less than you are. But this, for Tocqueville, is precisely their virtue. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

27c Forms place barriers between men, as when formal offices create inequalities between government and people. They place obstacles between men and their desires, when formalities require certain ceremonies or polite manners. They require respect for due process when they compel government to pass a law instead of issuing a decree or acting on a whim. They keep distances among men when they enforce respect for privacy or dignity. Democratic peoples disdain forms because they want to go directly to the object of their desires, preferring action to dignity, sincerity to politeness, result to correctness; in sum, substance to form. Such peoples are naturally impatient by virtue of their equality, which relieves them from having to “behave” and please others more important than they. Self-interest in its primary meaning suits this disposition, as it requires looking at everything for one’s advantage, as we say today pragmatically, rather than for its propriety. Yet precisely democratic peoples, who respect forms less, need them more. Their principal merit, says Tocqueville, is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the weak, especially between the government and the governed, forcing the former to slow down and enabling the latter to have time to reflect. Self-interest well understood, for Tocqueville as opposed to his Americans, is to live in a society where one is prevented from going directly to one’s self-interest but compelled to do so legally or constitutionally or conventionally or respectfully or formally. (Fs)

28a Self-interest, then, both supports associations for their utility and undermines them if they become inconvenient. The readiness to form them is matched by the temptation to ignore or dissolve them. So Tocqueville emphasizes the tumult and agitation “constantly reborn” of political activity in the United States, something he says one cannot understand without having witnessed it there. The activity of associating is especially associating for some new idea or moral purpose, and in America the habit of freedom is even stronger than the love of freedom. In the restive activity and energy of associations the true superiority of democracy to despotism can be found. (Fs)

28b Another aspect of self-interest that needs to be “well understood” is the democratic mores (moeurs) of Americans. Tocqueville takes for granted the calculation of self-interest in economic activity, but he adds to that the practical experience, habits, and opinions—the mores—that sustain society. Any reader who does not feel the importance he has given to mores, he says, has missed “the principal goal” he proposed to himself in writing his book. Mores were featured in the political philosophy of two eighteenth-century mentors of Tocqueville, Montesquieu and Rousseau, and played a role in the rise of nineteenth-century sociology. Classical political philosophers would have spoken of law in a wide sense (nomos), including both written and unwritten laws, but Tocqueville accepts the liberal distinction between the two. In the liberal theory of Hobbes and Locke, the purpose of the distinction is to elevate laws made by a sovereign and derived from the consent of the people above customs that might hinder the decisions of the sovereign. But for the sake of political liberty Tocqueville wants those sovereign decisions to be not so much hindered as scattered at large in democratic society. In another disagreement with pristine liberal theory he elevates mores above laws, since mores maintain the laws. Laws may sometimes change mores, as a new inheritance law helped to democratize the American family, but mores, “habits of the heart” as well as those of the mind, comprise the “whole moral and intellectual state of a people.” (Fs)

30a Mores therefore include religion. Is religion a factor in the American doctrine of “self-interest well understood”? The answer: in a complicated way. Tocqueville treats religion in both volumes of Democracy in America, but somewhat differently in each. In the first, religion is the root of the mores that help maintain a democratic republic in America. It is considered for this function, not for its truth—and he says that what is most important is not that all citizens profess the true religion, but that they profess a religion. In this political view, religion serves politics, rather than politics serving religion, as with the Puritans. Religion “harmonizes the earth with heaven” by compelling humans to respect insurmountable barriers, “certain primary givens” that restrain their will. Religion sets limits to human sovereignty and therefore to the sovereignty of the people in a democracy. It does this mostly through women rather than men, for democratic men are hardly to be restrained in their desire to become rich, but women make mores, and religion “reigns as a sovereign over the soul of woman.” (Fs)

30b The weight that Tocqueville assigns to mores in politics, he thus assigns also to women. Paradoxically, one sees in his discussion of women in volume 2 that the condition of women’s influence is that they stay out of politics themselves. The same condition applies to the clergy. Tocqueville firmly supports the separation of church and state, and the main reason is that religion loses its concern for the other world when it interferes in the politics of this world. To secure its power, religion must keep its purity—and then, when it stays out of politics, it can have the most power in politics—for the sake of fostering restraint. Both women and the clergy hold their power indirectly, by refraining from exercising it directly. Together religion and the family represent an indispensable nonpolitical supplement to politics that keeps it under restraint with the reminder of a higher and more intimate life than political life. Both religion and family are, however, in a sense political because they are necessary to self-government. (Fs)

31a Thomas Jefferson wrote the last letter of his life (on June 4, 1826) about the Declaration of Independence he had authored and in it did not hesitate to insert a swipe at “monkish ignorance and superstition” as the enemy of Enlightenment. For Tocqueville, despotism can do without religious faith, but freedom cannot. Though Americans do not allow religion to mix directly in government, he says, it should be considered as “the first of their political institutions,” not so much giving them their taste for freedom as facilitating their use of it. In their minds they “completely confuse Christianity and freedom,” a conclusion enabling him to avoid judging how sincerely Christian Americans are. Americans believe religion to be useful, but it would appear to be useful only if they believe in it because it is true, rather than as a political institution. Religion cannot be “well understood” in the manner of self-interest, as if Americans were impiously looking on their religion from outside it in order to conclude that their piety is a good thing. (Fs)

31b In this context Tocqueville, leaving Jefferson untouched, inserts a swipe of his own at those in France who condemn Americans for not believing with the atheist philosopher Spinoza in the eternity of the world. In the introduction to Democracy in America he had put among the “intellectual miseries” of Europe the parties that set religion and liberty in fierce opposition, and clearly an alliance between the two is the first principle of his new political science and a distinguishing feature of his new liberalism. (Fs)

Stichwort: Politik, politische Philosophie

Autor, Quelle: Aristoteles, Politik

Titel: Staat - gutes Leben als Zweck des Staates

Index: Ziel des Staates: nicht Handel, Reichtum, Vermeiden on Unrecht, sondern das gemeinsame "gute" Leben

Kurzinhalt: Das Ziel des Staates ist also, in einer guten Weise zu leben ... die Anteil am vollkommenen und autarken Leben hat - das ist, wie wir behaupten, ein Leben in Glück und vollendeter menschlicher Qualität.

Text: 102b Es ist nun offensichtlich, daß eine Staatsgemeinde nicht eine Gemeinschaft ist, die sich ein Gebiet miteinander teilt, und auch nicht (ein Zusammenschluß von Menschen), um zu verhindern, daß sie sich untereinander Unrecht antun, und um (Güter) auszutauschen; sondern dies alles sind wohl notwendige Voraussetzungen, sofern ein Staat existieren soll, jedoch existiert ein Staat noch nicht dann schon, wenn alle diese Voraussetzungen erfüllt sind, vielmehr ist ein Staat eine Vereinigung von Haushalten und Familienverbänden, die gemeinschaftlich das richtige Leben führen, also eine Gemeinschaft zum Zwecke des vollkommenen und autarken1 Lebens. Das läßt sich jedoch nicht verwirklichen, wenn seine Mitglieder nicht ein und denselben Ort bewohnen und untereinander als gültig anerkannte Ehen schließen. Deswegen bildeten sich ja auch in den Staaten verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen und Geschlechterverbände aus, und es gibt gemeinsame Opfer und Veranstaltungen geselligen Zeitvertreibs. Es ist aber nur Freundschaft, die dies zustande bringt, denn die Entscheidung zum Zusammenleben macht eine Freundschaft aus. Das Ziel des Staates ist also, in einer guten Weise zu leben, die eben genannten Dinge dienen jedoch (als Mittel) jenem Ziel. Ein Staat ist also eine aus Familien und Dörfern | (1281a) gebildete Gemeinschaft, die Anteil am vollkommenen und autarken Leben hat - das ist, wie wir behaupten, ein Leben in Glück und vollendeter menschlicher Qualität. Man muß also feststellen, daß die staatliche Gemeinschaft um der in sich vollendeten Handlungen willen existiert, jedoch nicht um des Zusammenlebens willen. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

103a Denjenigen, die am meisten zu einer Gemeinschaft dieser Art beitragen, steht daher ein größerer Anteil am Staat zu als denjenigen, die an freier Geburt und Abkunft gleich oder überlegen, an der für einen Bürger notwendigen charakterlichen Qualität aber ungleich sind, oder als denen, die zwar an Reichtum überlegen, jedoch an der guten charakterlichen Qualität von Bürgern unterlegen sind. Aus diesen Erörterungen geht hervor, daß alle, die um die (politische Rechte in) Verfassungen streiten, in einem gewissen Maße einen gerechten Anspruch vertreten. (Fs)