The
secondary literature on Hobbes is enormous. Two fairly short and systematic
treatments are David Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan (Oxford, 1969)
and J.W.N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas. For perspectives on
Hobbes very different from that developed in the colloquium, see Richard
Tuck., Hobbes (Oxford, 1989); Tuck stresses Hobbes’s skepticism, and
is very critical of the kind of interpretation developed in these notes. See
also C.B. MacPherson, The Theory of Possessive Individualism and his
introduction to his edition of the Leviathan, where Hobbes is
interpreted as offering an apology for the rising bourgeoisie. Q. Skinner,
"The Context of Hobbes's Theory of Political Obligation," in R.S. Peters,
ed., Hobbes and Rousseau (Doubleday, 1972) also looks at Hobbes as an
ideologist in the political contexts of his own time. See also Michael
Oakeshott’s “Introduction” to Leviathan, reprinted in his Hobbes
on Civil Association. Finally, John Rawls (in his Lectures on the
History of Political Philosophy) argues that Hobbes does not assume that
people are rational egoists, and that his (somewhat anemic) account of human
nature is put forward as a “political” conception of the person, a
conception that is tailored to the specific purpose of developing a theory
of politics, rather than as a complete account of human nature.
Week
2 (September 21/23): Bentham and Mill: Utility and Democracy
According
to Hobbes, "The office of the sovereign consists in the end for which he was
trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of
the people.... But by safety here is not meant a bare preservation, but all
other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without
danger, or hurt to the commonwealth, shall acquire to himself" (ch. 30). But
how is the sovereign to be constrained to pursue this end? For the people
(or person) who exercises the powers of the sovereign will follow their own
interests. Where those interests happen to coincide with the public
interest, the public interest will be promoted, but where they diverge from
the public interest, it will be sacrificed. Hobbes, as we have seen, argued
that the best form of government would be a monarchy because in his view the
private interest of the monarch and the public interest would generally
coincide. He admitted that sometimes the monarch would abuse his or her
position by harming a particular person in order to advance the monarch's
personal interests. But, he insisted, there could be no way to restrain the
sovereign without bringing about political instability, which would be even
worse than enduring the "inconveniences" of occasional abuses of the powers
of sovereignty. In his Essay on Government James Mill argues that
Hobbes was wrong – that we can have the advantages of the sovereign without
having to endure the abuses of the powers of sovereignty.
James Mill
(1773-1836), the father of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), was one of a group
of people associated with Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). This group was known
as the "philosophic radicals," for they demanded that the practices of their
society, particularly the political system, be rationally justified. It was
not enough, they argued, that a law or practice be of venerable age, or that
it somehow be thought to express the traditions and sentiments of the
community. They argued that nothing was exempt from criticism, that every
institution must justify itself by showing that it serves its purposes well.
But what are
these purposes, and how are they to be determined? For Bentham, there is
only one answer to that question: utility. In his most famous and often
quoted words, "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what
we ought to do, as well as what we shall do." Laws, institutions, public
policies, individual actions – all should be designed or chosen in such a
way as to maximize the pleasures and to minimize the pains that result from
them. (In order to express this idea, Bentham coined the words "maximize"
and "minimize.") This doctrine, which came to be known as utilitarianism
(or hedonistic utilitarianism to distinguish it from other, later versions)
is one of the most important principles of public life in the modern world.
It is enshrined in the standards of contemporary political argument, in the
demands for efficiency and rationality in government and administration, and
in such mundane techniques as cost-benefit analysis. It has become so much a
part of the way we think about moral and political choice that many people
today cannot even imagine other ways of thinking. And it is Bentham who, in
spite of his horrible style of writing, his long, boring, tendentious books
full of neologisms, must be given much of the credit (or blame?) for this
state of affairs.
Like Hobbes,
Bentham started off believing in autocracy as the ideal form of government.
With all of the powers of government concentrated in a single pair of hands,
with the person of the monarch closely identified with the state, there
would be someone who could effect reforms, and who would be moved to do so
once he or she became convinced of their superiority to existing practices.
Thus, he set out to advise the emperors of Europe, including Catherine the
Great of Russia, proposing to them codifications and rationalizations of
their legal systems in order to make the dictates of law accord with the
principles of utility. His advice, however, was often ignored, and he came
to see that autocrats were not the best promoters of the public interest,
for their own interests (or at least their conceptions of their own
interests) often diverged from the public interest. But how could this
opposition be overcome? Some way had to be found to align the interests of
the rulers with the interests of the whole population if good laws and
public policies were to be made. Bentham eventually came to believe that
this could occur only when the rulers were accountable to the population as
a whole: good government would have to be democratic government. Thus,
Bentham and Mill came to offer one of the earliest arguments justifying
representative democracy. In thinking about their argument it should be
remembered that at the time "democracy" was widely regarded as one of the
corrupt or unjust forms of rule. Theirs was a radical position at the time;
indeed, it has only been in the past 75 years that "democracy" has come to
have universally favorable connotations, so that even its enemies have to
pretend to be its friends.
Given that
Bentham and Hobbes share many assumptions about human nature and politics,
particularly the idea that humans pursue the satisfaction of their interests
in an instrumentally rational way, you might wonder why they arrive at such
different conclusions about the ideal form of political order. In thinking
about this question, you should pay particular attention to differences
between them (note, for example, that Hobbes posits that one of our
fundamental motives is “glory”); you should also look for differences (and
even mistakes) in their reasoning.
The reading
from Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
sets out his general account of utility and law, and applies it to the
problem of punishment. Bentham develops a very clear and powerful theory of
punishment which is important to our practices today; we will return to this
topic later in the term when we study Kant, Durkheim, and Nietzsche. James
Mill's Essay on Government applies these ideas to the problem of
designing the ideal political order, and presents the essentials of the
utilitarian justification for democracy. Note that Mill’s essay was written
in part to garner support for the cause of electoral reform (a movement that
culminated in the Reform Act of 1832); some of his arguments appear to be
affected by that purpose, particularly his defense of the monarchy and the
House of Lords, and possibly some of his reasoning about restrictions on the
franchise. In both cases, Mill’s argument seems to be inconsistent with the
general theory he develops earlier in the pamphlet.
The basic
understanding of human motivation and rationality that we find in Hobbes,
Bentham and James Mill is crucial to modern social science. The idea that we
are instrumentally rational utility maximizers is central to modern
economics, and to rational choice theories in political science, sociology,
and anthropology. The idea that we are above all concerned with our standing
relative to others, that as Hobbes puts it, “man, whose joy consists in
comparing himself with other men, can relish nothing but what is eminent”
(p. 86), is central to many accounts of class and especially status
competition in society. Later this semester we will examine how Rousseau
analyzes this problem. Next week, and even more when we study Kant in week
6, we will examine a radically different view of human rationality, in which
“reasonableness” rather than “instrumental rationality” is central.
Assignment:
J. Bentham, An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chs. 1-5, 13,
14, 17.
James Mill,
Essay on Government, available in many editions and at
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/xmilgov.htm.
Questions
for Discussion: Note: there will
be an in-class quiz this week; no short paper is assigned.
1. Set out Bentham's argument for the
principle of utility. How convincing is it?
2. Take an example or
two of specific types of activity that have been (or might have been)
subjected to legal regulation in our society, and analyze them according to
Bentham's principles. Examples might include abortion, prostitution,
narcotics dealing and consumption, stock fraud, regulating the price of
gasoline or rents, prayer in schools, etc. Should any of the actions you
discuss be proscribed? If so, how would you calculate the punishment for
these crimes?
3. Hobbes, on the one
hand, and Bentham and Mill, on the other, start out with very similar
conceptions of human nature but advocate very different models of the ideal
political system. How do you explain this difference? Which position is more
correct?
4. According to
Bentham, pain and pleasure are to determine both what people ought to do,
and what they will do. But is this consistent? Is there not a conflict
between his assumption of psychological egoism and his doctrine of
utilitarianism?
5. "The trouble with
the Hobbes-Bentham-Mill view of the self and society is that it assumes that
people are always the best judges of their own interests, and this is
manifestly false. Once we reject that assumption, all of their conclusions
about how society ought to be organized must be rejected." Comment.
Supplementary
Readings:
As you can
imagine, there is an enormous literature on Bentham and his school. A
classic account is Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism.
A more recent and very readable account (and biography) of Bentham is Mary
Mack, Bentham. Jack Lively and John Rees have edited a collection,
Utilitarian Logic and Politics, which includes Mill's Essay on
Government and much of the critical discussion it generated at the time
(including Macaulay's attack on it). John Plamenatz offers an excellent
discussion of the utilitarian justification for democracy in his Man and
Society vol. 2, "Bentham". David Lyons, In the Interest of the
Governed, is a interesting and important reinterpretation of Bentham's
theory of law of politics. H.L.A. Hart's Essays on Bentham includes a
number of useful and important papers. Russell Hardin offers an interesting
and important reconstruction of utilitarianism in Morality within the
Limits of Reason.
Week 3 (September
28/30): John Locke: Rights, Reason and Constitutional Government
For the first two week of the
colloquium we studied two social theories which we interpreted as being
rooted in a particular conception of human nature. Although there are
important differences between Hobbes and Bentham, we read them as conceiving
of humans as instrumentally rational, as motivated to act by wants or
passions, and as essentially egoistic in the sense that their wants are
principally, if not exclusively, self-regarding. This conception gives rise
to a particular way of theorizing about society and social relations. For
these thinkers, social phenomena are to be explained by showing how they
arise from the rationally self-interested behavior of individuals. This
atomistic approach to explanation is illustrated by Hobbes's account of the
conditions of political stability, and by Mill's analysis of the interests
that are promoted by different forms of government. This conception of the
person also gives rise to a particular account of the human good, of what is
of value for human beings. For these thinkers, the ultimate value is
want-satisfaction. Accordingly, Bentham and Mill hold that the purpose of
government is to organize society in such a way as to maximize the sum total
of want-satisfaction or utility accruing to its members, and Hobbes’s view
is similar.3
John Locke
(1632-1704) represents a different tradition of political and social
theorizing. It is fashionable to minimize the differences between political
thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke; MacPherson, for example, sees Hobbes and
Locke as both offering an ideology of "possessive individualism" to justify
capitalist economic and social structures. Nonetheless, there are
significant differences among these theorists which were of great importance
to them. Locke, for example, is often read as providing a critique of Hobbes
(even if, as Laslett points out in the "Introduction" to his edition of the
Two Treatises, he did not see his main target to be Hobbes, but
Filmer), and Bentham wrote a lengthy critique of Locke's political and
ethical theory.
Perhaps the
most striking differences between Hobbes and Locke can be seen when we
consider their views on religious freedom and freedom of conscience
generally. Hobbes, as we have seen, denies that individuals have any rights
against the state and that one of the duties of the sovereign is to control
the doctrines which subjects may teach and publicly profess (see ch. 18, p.
91, and ch. 31, p. 192). Locke, by contrast, insists that the authority of
the state is severely limited, and that it does not extend to the "salvation
of souls." His Letter Concerning Toleration is essential to
understand this vital impulse in Locke's thinking and in the liberal
tradition in political theory generally. Like Hobbes, Locke tried to
articulate an understanding of how society might be organized so that people
could live together and enjoy civil relations with each other even when they
disagreed about the fundamental values and purposes of life. But Locke,
unlike Hobbes, offered a liberal solution to this problem – toleration and
limited government. According to Locke, individuals have the right (within
certain limits) to determine for themselves what their deepest beliefs and
commitments will be, and to join with others who share their beliefs in
common forms of worship and communal activity. This ideal, needless to say,
continues to be important and controversial today.
In reading
the Second Treatise you may be struck by the fact that Locke begins
with an account of a set of basic human rights, rights that we have by
nature and independent of our membership in any particular society. By
contrast, Bentham once described the doctrine of natural rights as
"nonsense upon stilts," and Hobbes denies that human beings have any rights
(in the sense that Locke uses this term, that is, rights in the sense of
property, including even an exclusive right to one’s own body) in the state
of nature at all. As you read further in Locke, you will see that these
rights are so important that their protection is the principal function of
government, and that governments themselves are limited by these rights. In
fact, in order to prevent government from abusing human rights Locke argues
for a "mixed government" in which different powers are divided between
different institutions (the legislative and the executive/federative, in
Locke’s language). This proposal directly contradicts one of Hobbes's and
Bentham's most important ideas, that there must be a locus of absolute,
undivided sovereign power within the government.
As you can
imagine, Locke's conception of what it is to be a person is different from
Hobbes's and Bentham's, and that is why he starts his political theory with
human rights rather than with interests. According to the Lockean model,
humans are not merely instrumentally rational, but they are also
reasonable in the sense that they are capable of recognizing and abiding
by4
principles in their conduct. Because we are reasonable beings (and not
simply instrumentally rational) we are able to discover certain principles
of reason which require conduct that may be against our self-interest. Locke
does not develop this idea as fully as he might, but relies principally upon
a religious justification for human rights. (The idea that reason is an
adequate grounding for rights, and that human possess rights just because
they are capable of reason is most fully developed by Kant a century
later.) Nonetheless, this idea is implicit in much of what he writes, and
at times is stated explicitly. Thus, in ¶ 6, lines 7-10, he writes "Reason,
which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who will but consult it, that being
all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health,
Liberty, or Possession." This fundamental law of nature is a precept of
reason, and because we are reasonable, we are capable of apprehending and
acting upon it.
Locke, of
course, does not believe that we are purely reasonable beings – disembodied
creatures who merely think all the time. Rather, we are also appetitive
creatures who have wants and desires of various sorts, including a desire to
live. Because I want to preserve myself, I demand that others not harm or
kill me. And because others want to live, they make the same demand of me:
that I not harm or kill any of them. Because I am a reasonable being, I
recognize that if others have reason to accept my demand that they not harm
me, i.e., if I am to have a right to live, I must acknowledge that everyone
has a right to live, and so accept a duty not to harm or kill them. Thus,
the state of nature is not, as Hobbes argued, a condition in which there is
no moral order, in which no one owes duties (or at least duties that they
must observe in their conduct) towards others. Rather, it has a law to
govern it, a law which most of us, most of the time, are capable of
observing. It is, therefore, not (or not always) a state of war.
There are
some political theorists who conceive of human nature in the way I have just
described, and who go on to argue that there is no need for government –
that all government is unjust – and advocate a condition of anarchy (they
are called individualist anarchists). But Locke does not go this far.
Humans, he argues, are imperfectly reasonable beings. While reasonableness
may be part of our nature, not all humans are fully reasonable – just as it
is part of the nature of the acorn to grow into an oak tree, but not all
acorns do so. Thus, there are some evil people who renounce "Reason, the
common Rule and Measure, God hath given to Mankind" by committing
aggression against others. In doing so, Locke argues, they declare "War
against all Mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a Lyon or a Tyger" (¶
11, lines 21-5). Moreover, and perhaps more important, everyone is liable
to act unreasonably when his or her own interests are involved in a dispute.
If I feel that I have been wronged, I may defend myself and punish the
aggressor, but I may not always judge the situation correctly. In such cases
I may commit acts of aggression, and my victim will be justly outraged and
will try to ward me off. Although Locke does not make this point, we might
argue that because we are capable of justice and moral action, conflicts
like this may be quite violent. Someone concerned only with his
self-interest would fight only when it appeared to be to his or her
advantage to do so; if the stakes were not high, or it looked like one might
lose, one would flee. But people who are capable of acting upon principles
might continue the struggle because for them what is at stake is not merely
the item in dispute, but the very principles of the moral order which in
part define their identities as morally upright men and women. Consider the
common saying, “It’s the principle of the thing!”, which we often hear when
someone is pursuing something to an extent that goes well beyond what he or
she actually has at stake in the matter. Thus, while the state of nature is
not necessarily a state of war, it may become one, and a government is
necessary to provide an impartial judge to which we can appeal when disputes
arise, to provide an authoritative interpretation of the requirements of
justice (or, in Locke's language, the law of nature), and to enforce the
law. But, of course, it will be a very different government from Hobbes's or
even Bentham's.
In
emphasizing the ways in which Locke differs from Hobbes and Bentham I do not
mean to suggest that there are no similarities. Locke, Hobbes, and Bentham
are all committed to the view that there is a "human nature" which is the
same for all humans at all times (one might call this view "ahistoricism").
Both are individualist in orientation, in that they see the individual as
"prior" in a certain sense to political society. That is, they do not
believe that membership and participation in a political community is
by itself necessary to human fulfillment or to the realization of the human
good. For them, the value of political association is instrumental, in that
enables us to protect interests and rights that arise outside of politics.
"If men were angels," wrote Madison in this vein, "there would be no need
for government." They all see human interests as based in our passions and
appetites, and view freedom in negative terms as the absence of restraints
on one's actions. They also regard nature as a set of resources for humanity
to exploit. These shared notions will come into sharper relief in the next
few weeks as we study Rousseau and Marx, whose theories are deeply opposed
to the individualism and a historicism of Hobbes, Locke and Bentham.
Assignment:
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, particularly chs.
1-11, 15, and 19, and his Letter Concerning Toleration.
Questions for discussion and essays:
1. Briefly outline
Locke's justification for private property in land and material objects. Is
his justification persuasive?
2. According to Locke,
what is the ideal or proper form of government? How do you suppose Locke
would respond to Hobbes's arguments about the best form of government?
3. What is (are) the
meaning(s) and function(s) of consent in the Second Treatise? Why
does Locke have to introduce the notion of tacit consent? Is this a coherent
concept?
4. How necessary
is a belief in God to the idea of "natural right" in Locke's system?
Further topics for
discussion:
1. What does Locke mean
by "civil" or "political" society, and by "political power," and why does he
think it necessary for human beings to live in civil or political societies
under a government exercising political power? How does civil society differ
from other forms of kinds of "society"? Why can the valid purposes of
government not be fulfilled by purely voluntary organizations?
2. Who or what are the
parties to Locke's social contract? What are the terms of the contract, what
are its ends, and what constraints does it acknowledge? How do Locke's
answers to these questions differ, if at all, from Hobbes's?
Supplementary
Readings: For other accounts of
Locke, see Laslett's excellent introduction to the Cambridge University
Press edition of the Two Treatises and the extensive bibliography he
provides. For a very different view of Locke from that presented here, see C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism.
For a discussion of the Letter Concerning Toleration see "Liberty of
Conscience," in John Plamenatz, Man and Society, vol 1, and the
Tully’s introduction to the Hackett ed. Rawls (Lectures on the History of
Political Philosophy) offers a different view of Locke’s social contract
from the one presented in these notes and in class.
Week 4 (October
5/7): Rousseau I: History and Human Nature
Rousseau's
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men
(1755), also know as the Second Discourse marks a sharp break with
the traditions of social theory that we have studied until now. In this
seminal work Rousseau criticizes the individualism and a historicism of
Hobbes and Locke and offers an alternative view which sees humans as
essentially social and historical creatures. According to Rousseau, our
actions should not be understood as reflecting an invariant, universal human
nature. Rather, we might be said to have the "nature" we have, to be the
kind of creatures we are, because we belong to a social group located in a
definite historical period. What Locke, Hobbes, or Bentham thought was part
of the nature of individual human beings, Rousseau took to be the result of
our being members of groups that had experienced a particular history, and
had come to be organized according to certain conventions.
Rousseau
sees humans as essentially social not merely in the sense that we live with
other humans and depend upon them to satisfy our needs, but in the sense
that the qualities that make us recognizably human only develop in society.
We come to have the characteristics that distinguish us from other animals,
such as speech, reason, morality, and self-consciousness, because of our
interaction with others. Moreover, we develop specific identities and
characters as a result of growing up and living in particular societies. Our
values, beliefs, ways of looking at the world, traits of character,
motivations – all are a result of our social experiences and interactions.
These ideas are commonplace today, but that is in part because of the power
and conviction with which Rousseau expressed them. The thinkers who came
after Rousseau (with some notable exceptions) had to respond, either
implicitly or explicitly, to his ideas, for he fundamentally changed the
terms of our discourse about human action and society. It would not be much
of an exaggeration to call Rousseau the father of the modern social
sciences (excepting economics).
One way to
read the Second Discourse is to see it as presenting a critique of,
and an alternative to, Hobbes. (This is not the only way, but it is
particularly appropriate to the concerns of this course.) The critique of
Hobbes begins with Rousseau's discussion of the state of nature at the
beginning of the "First Part" of the Second Discourse. But you should
pay close attention to the material before that, especially the "Preface"
where he provides something of an overview of his argument, and addresses
some of the conceptual issues involved in thinking about human nature. You
should also pay close attention to the "Notes"; if you have an edition that
does not include Rousseau's notes you should not use it as they are
essential.
Rousseau
begins his critique of Hobbes by imagining what humans would be like if they
were stripped of all of those qualities which result from their living in
society in interaction with others, but on the supposition that they have
certain innate dispositions and capacities. He refers to these at a couple
of points, and they include the ability to learn (Rousseau calls this
capacity "perfectibility"), the capacity to choose, or free will, and the
"principles" of self-preservation and compassion or pity. Hobbes, of course,
would reject the idea that humans are compassionate by nature, but Rousseau
does not make use of this idea until after he has made his critique of
Hobbes. He begins with the assumptions that people are motivated to act only
by a desire for self-preservation, and that their capacities for choice and
learning are undeveloped. Given these assumptions, Rousseau concludes that
humans by nature have no need of one another; they are physically
self-sufficient and, what is more important, they are psychologically
self-sufficient. They have few, easily satisfied appetites. The key reason
for this is that they would not yet have developed the capacity for reason,
and so would not have the foresight to see that they would have needs in the
future, and so they would not strive to acquire the power to satisfy those
needs. You should ask why Rousseau does not think humans would develop the
capacity for reason if they lived outside of society, and exactly where his
account differs from Hobbes’s.
Further,
living outside of society without the capacity for reason, humans could not
develop the desire for what Hobbes calls “glory,” and what Rousseau calls
amour-propre (vanity, pride, or egoism in most English translations),
for this trait could only arise when people live and interact with each
other regularly, and develop the capacity to reason, which is necessary if
they are to compare and evaluate one another. One of Rousseau’s most
important ideas is that amour-propre is not, as Hobbes held, a
primary passion at all. It is entirely derivative, and one of the tasks he
sets himself in this Discourse is to explain why it develops, and how
it can be avoided or limited.
Rousseau
concludes that the state of nature would not be a state of war, arguing that
Hobbes is mistaken in thinking otherwise because he fails to see that the
capacity to reason and to compare oneself to others, which is required for
the war of each against all, could not develop under the assumptions that
define his state of nature. Rousseau then goes on to observe that if humans
have a disposition to compassion – a kind of spontaneous identification
with others that makes us reluctant to cause suffering – there is even more
reason to suppose that the state of nature is peaceful. But his criticism of
Hobbes does not depend on the assumption that humans are compassionate by
nature. Hobbes errs not simply by neglecting pity, but more fundamentally by
imputing to humans the ability to reason and to make comparisons which could
only be acquired in society.
If the state
of nature is not a state of war, if humans are not necessarily egoistic and
vain, then the range of possible forms of political and social organization
might be much greater than Hobbes had thought. Hobbes believed that an
absolute sovereign was necessary, and absolute monarchy desirable, because
he believed that people inevitably come into deep and continuous conflict
since everyone defines his or her good in opposition to the good of others.
But if humans are not quarrelsome and contentious by nature, then it might
be possible for us to imagine circumstances in which we would not consider
our own good to be at odds with the good of others, and so we might be able
to create a different kind of society from any Hobbes thought possible.
Before we
can envision alternative forms of social order we have to explain how human
beings develop their capacities for reason and will, and how they come to
have particular motivations, beliefs, and values. This is the task which
Rousseau sets himself after disposing of the Hobbesian conception of the
person and society.
The quandary
Rousseau faces is a version of the old "chicken and the egg" problem. He has
argued in his critique of Hobbes that reason and language could not develop
except in society, but he also realizes that society (or at least
recognizably human society) could not exist without language and therefore
reason. We can't imagine people acquiring language unless they lived in
society with each other, but we can't imagine their living in society unless
they had language. Now he never satisfactorily solves this problem, but he
does offer some conjectures as to how the human race could have emerged from
the early or "pure" state of nature, where they lived in an isolated,
animal-like way, into a state of primitive or natural society, which is
called the advanced state of nature. One of the questions that you might
think about is whether Rousseau really needs to solve his quandary at all,
or whether he could merely begin his theory by assuming that human beings
always lived in primitive societies. Another way of putting this question
is to ask whether Rousseau really needs to assume that the pure state of
nature, where people lived like animals, actually existed at an earlier
time.
Rousseau
describes the advanced state of nature in the first several pages of the
"Second Part" of the Second Discourse. Here he explains how such
paradigmatically human traits as reason, language, self-consciousness,
morality, and the family arise out of social interaction. Of course, along
with these traits come amour-propre or vanity (or egoism, depending
on your translation), which Rousseau distinguishes sharply from amour de
soi-mLme,
or self-love. You should pay close attention to the difference between these
two concepts, and to Rousseau's account of their relationship. Both
amour-propre – the source of our greatest ills – and morality arise
together, and both depend on the desire that individuals develop for social
recognition, which turns out to be absolutely central to understanding
human behavior. But while amour-propre might always exist in society
(to that extent Hobbes might be vindicated, even if his argument was wrong),
its extent and importance – and therefore its implications for social order
– vary enormously. In the advanced state of nature, Rousseau argues, it is
quite limited. As you read this section you should ask yourself what are the
characteristics of natural society that keep vanity in check.
Having
developed an account of society in which he has shown that basic traits and
capacities of individuals can be explained in terms of their membership in
social groups, Rousseau goes on to show how changes in society – and with
them, changes in the nature of the individuals who compose it – lead over
time to new forms of social order, and (in a sense) new kinds of men and
women. He explains how humans come to leave natural society and enter civil
society, and he traces a "hypothetical history" showing how civil society
develops through different stages to its ultimate destiny in despotism. In
the final stages of civil society Rousseau describes a world that is a
corrupt form of the pure state of nature from which he began his account.
You should pay particular attention to the factors which bring about these
changes; what are the sources of dynamic change in Rousseau's theory, and
how do they work?
You will
notice that this account of Rousseau's Second Discourse implicitly
divides the body of the work into three parts: the pure or primitive state
of nature (corresponding roughly to the "First Part"), the advanced state of
nature or natural society (corresponding to the first 1/3rd of the "Second
Part") and the development and dynamics of civil society (the balance of
the work). You should note that Rousseau uses the term "state of nature" to
refer both to what I have called the early or pure state of nature and to
the advanced state of nature, or natural society. He does not use separate
terms to refer to these different conditions, and that may make some of his
references confusing. For example, a common mistake is to think that
Rousseau opposed “nature” to “society,” claiming that society results in
human corruption. But that is clearly wrong, since people in the advanced
state of nature live in society. You may want to ask why Rousseau used the
same term to refer to two distinct pre-political stages.
These
comments have focused on contrasts between Rousseau and Hobbes. There are
also significant similarities between their teachings. In particular, they
agree in their understanding of natural right; and, most important of all,
they are both contractarians who understand the logic of the contract in
similar ways, even if they draw different conclusions from it.
A final
comment: the original purpose of this work is to answer the question posed
by the Academy of Dijon. Although we have other interests (which have
dominated these notes), we should not lose sight of that very important
issue.
Assignment: J-J. Rousseau,
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men
Questions for
Discussion:
1. If the state of
"nature" is a state of peace, then what accounts for the transition from it
to the state of civil society, and what causes this transformation? What
alternative accounts of the origin of civil society does Rousseau reject,
and what are his reasons for rejecting them? (Note the ambiguity, discussed
above, in Rousseau's use of the phrase the "state of nature.")
2. Explain what Rousseau
means when he says, "the Savage lives within himself; sociable man, always
outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinion of others and, so
to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their
judgment" (p. 187; Part II, ¶ 57).
3. According to Locke,
everyone participates freely in the formation of the political association
in the original social contract, but Rousseau (in the Second Discourse)
represents the first formation of the state as a clever trick pulled off by
the rich against the poor. Why do they differ in this way? Which account
seems to you the more reasonable?
4. How does Rousseau
understand the question posed by the Dijon Academy? That is, how does he
understand "inequality," "natural law," and what, in his view, is the origin
of inequality among men? Is it authorized by natural law?
5. What are the main
features of Rousseau's "pure" state of nature, and what role does it play in
his argument?
6. According to
Rousseau, self-consciousness, morality, and vanity all arise together. Why
is this so, and what are the principal relationships among them? Can there
be "pity" prior to or independently of "vanity"?
7. What is the meaning,
and what is the role of "accident" in Rousseau's Second Discourse?
8. What stages does
Rousseau distinguish in the state of nature, and on what basis does he
distinguish them? What stages does he distinguish in the civil state, and on
what basis does he distinguish them?
Supplementary
Readings:
Since this is a
two-week unit, the obvious place to go for more readings is to next week's
assignment. Beyond that, you might read the First Discourse, which
will give you a more comprehensive perspective on Rousseau's work. Useful
secondary sources, in addition to the introduction to our edition, include
the chapter on Rousseau in Plamenatz, Man and Society, vol 1, Roger
Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau, and V. Gourevitch,
"Rousseau's Pure State of Nature," Interpretation 16 (Fall, 1988):
23-59. For an account of Rousseau that differs sharply from the one
presented in these notes, particularly regarding Rousseau’s understanding of
vanity (amour-propre) see John Rawls, Lectures on the History of
Political Philosophy.
Week 5 (October
12/14): Rousseau II: Consensus and Social Order
In the Discourse on the
Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Men Rousseau argued that as
a result of social interaction an individual develops a sense of personal
identity, a sense of oneself as a distinct person with a definite worth, and
a corresponding desire that others recognize one's identity and worth
(though this way of putting it is not Rousseau’s). This is the desire that
lies behind both the development of morality, which Rousseau sees as
involving mutual and equal recognition of persons, and amour-propre,
in which one demands that others show regard to oneself in ways that one is
not prepared to show regard to them. Rousseau also argued that the
importance of amour-propre in human life varies systematically with
the nature of society. In natural society, where the division of labor has
not developed beyond the family, he thought that amour-propre would
not be a major source of motivation in part because no one would have the
means to enforce a demand for unequal recognition. But as society develops
from primitive conditions, permanent forms of inequality and asymmetrical
relationships of dependence come into being, and a fateful "dialectic of
inequality and amour-propre" propels us away from a social order
based on equality and freedom to one based on despotism. Rousseau saw this
process as the natural result of the division of labor and the development
of property.
Rousseau's
analysis of the normal course of social evolution is essential to an
understanding of the Social Contract (1762), for in this work
Rousseau asks whether there is any alternative path which a society might
follow. Is it possible to create the moral conditions that naturally occur
in the advanced state of nature, where people live free and self-determining
lives and where the effects of vanity are limited, in a complex society
based on the division of labor and property? This is the question that
The Social Contract is intended to answer. As Rousseau puts it,
The problem is to find a form of association that will defend and
protect the person and goods of each associate with the full common force,
and by means of which each, uniting with all, nevertheless obey only himself
and remain as free as before (Bk I, ch. 6).
Rousseau's answer,
briefly, is that this can occur under favorable conditions, at least for a
certain period of time, if the rules under which we live are expressions of
the "general will."
Before
pursuing Rousseau's answer, however, we might ask a prior question: why
should we want to find an alternative path of social development? In other
words, what normative standard does Rousseau accept, which underlies his
rejection of the despotism and inauthenticity that he sees emerging in civil
society? This problem arises because, as we saw last week, Rousseau rejects
the idea of a fixed, invariant conception of human nature as an adequate
ground for social theory. We must explain human actions and the
characteristics of a society not in terms of some "given" qualities that all
humans share, but in terms of the particular processes of historical change
that have shaped the people and the society we are studying. But if we
reject the idea of human nature, don't we also deprive ourselves of any
standpoint from which to evaluate human behavior and social practices as
well?
Without
wanting to argue that Rousseau posed these questions for himself in just
these terms, I would suggest that there is an answer that is implicit in his
work, and that is the idea of a "society adequate to human needs." While
rejecting the view that there are some fixed, essential human needs whose
satisfaction can be used as a standard to evaluate different societies and
social institutions, we can still use the idea of human needs as a basis for
social criticism and evaluation. Briefly, we can ask of any form of social
order whether it provides its members the opportunity to satisfy the needs
and to realize the values which they have come to have as a result of
growing up and living in that society. Given this standard, we should reject
any society that systematically frustrates the aspirations of the people who
compose it, and seek to create forms of social life in which people are able
to live in accordance with the values and principles they come to have as a
result of living in that society. Thus, to judge civil society as
undesirable, one need not have recourse to some particular conception of the
"human essence." Rather, one may observe that it is a form of society in
which people come to have needs based upon vanity, upon a desire for higher
status and regard than others have, and therefore a society in which most
people will experience their lives as frustrating because most people will
be unable to satisfy needs such as these. Natural society and the society
organized on the basis of the general will, on the other hand, are both
forms of life where people come to have needs that they can realize, and so
can live lives that are happy and fulfilled. The good society is a society
whose members are at one with themselves and with one another. This occurs
spontaneously in natural society, and Rousseau argues that it is also
possible in a political society – but only if it is organized in accordance
with the general will.
The general
will is a key political concept for Rousseau, but it is not an easy one to
understand. In reading and discussing this book we will have to pay close
attention to what he says about the general will, how it functions to insure
political order, and how it differs from the "will of all." One thing is
clear, however, and that is that the general will must be a general
will, and not the particular will of just some people. (In this
regard you should ask what Rousseau means by "freedom," and how it compares
with the way Hobbes or Bentham use this term. See especially Bk I, ch. 8 in
this context.)
In
conceptualizing a society in which the general will is the basis of social
order, Rousseau is developing what might be called a "consensus theory of
social order," which holds that ongoing social life is made possible, at
least under certain conditions, by the members of the society seeing
themselves as part of a moral whole and willingly abiding by its laws.
Society coheres because its members are integrated into it on the basis of
norms they all share, which is the general will. The distinctiveness of this
theory can be appreciated by comparing it with Hobbes's, who argues that the
basis of social order is force and self-interest.
Rousseau
argued that several conditions are necessary in order for a consensus on
values and principles to be the principal basis of social order. In the
first place, it is only in a society in which people participate in
determining the general will that it can emerge. Second, the general will is
possible only when people share common interests and can identify with one
another, and this means that inequality must be limited. Finally, the
society must not be fragmented into groups with distinct identities and
interests. Later thinkers such as Durkheim will question whether these
conditions are really necessary, but Rousseau's ideal (or at least ideals
inspired by Rousseau) of collective self-determination, equality, and
freedom will serve as an inspiration to the radical critique of liberalism
and market society, or capitalism, which we will find in Marx and his vision
of communism.
In reading
The Social Contract you should ask how his image of a society based
on the general will develops out of the general account of human nature and
society that Rousseau sets out in the Second Discourse. Answering
this question will bring these two works together for you, and will show you
how Rousseau provides a unified conception of the person and society that is
as rich as Hobbes's, and stands in sharp contrast to it.
Assignment: J.J. Rousseau, The
Social Contract.
Questions for Essays
and Discussion:
1. What is the
difference between the general will and the will of all?
2. How can Rousseau
explain the apparent contradiction in his famous statement that a citizen
can be "forced to be free"? (See I, ch. 7 and IV, ch. 2.)
3. Why is the legislator
necessary?
4. What does Rousseau
think of representative democracy?
Week 6 (October 19/21): Kant
Kant
(1724-1804) is one of the most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment.
In common with other thinkers like Condorcet, Kant seeks a rational
politics, one in which the principles of public life (as well as the
principles of individual morality) would fully reflect the claims of reason,
and he believes that this ideal requires a constitutional republic that
respects human rights and freedom. Unlike Condorcet, Kant does not think
that the natural sciences provide an adequate model for moral and political
knowledge. The natural sciences provide an understanding of the phenomenal
world of matter and energy, a world governed by the causal laws of physics
and the other sciences. Morality, however, presupposes freedom, the capacity
of agents to choose between right and wrong. Without such a capacity, the
whole idea of moral responsibility and judgment, would be empty; indeed, the
very notion of morality (or political theory) as providing the rules which
we should use to decide what to do presupposes that we have decisions to
make, that we have choices. Practical reason, then, cannot simply be
a branch of natural science, since it has a fundamentally different goal.
Kant seeks
to ground basic moral and political principles in reason: not to accept any
contingent starting point for morality such as valuing one's own life and
well-being and accepting equality (Locke), or moral "sense" or feeling
(Hutcheson). To begin moral philosophy with some given, empirical end can
yield moral rules or norms only for those people who happen to hold the end
in question. In Kant's terminology, this strategy can give us only
hypothetical imperatives, rules telling us how we must act if we want
to achieve a certain end. For example, Hobbes's natural laws are
hypothetical imperatives; he calls them convenient articles of peace. They
are of the form, "if you wish peace, then you must be prepared to...." For
Kant this is unsatisfactory. He distinguishes moral action from non-moral
action precisely on the grounds that the former involves acting on
nothing but the claims of reason. Thus, he rejects the commonly offered
justification for being honest, namely that "Honesty is the best policy,"
because whether it is or not depends upon what our goals are, and what
situations we find ourselves in. Sometimes it will pay to be dishonest. For
Kant, then, if honesty is morally required, it must be required
categorically: "Thou shalt not lie – period!" (or, as Kant puts it, “Honesty
is better than any policy” (p. 116)).
Kant seeks
what he calls a categorical imperative: a norm that is binding on us, and on
all rational agents, irrespective of the particular ends we seek, or our
particular situations, aims, or beliefs. The categorical imperative is
entirely objective, so to speak, for it does not depend upon anything that
pertains merely to a particular subject, such as the values one holds and
the loyalties one feels. Indeed, it doesn't even depend upon one's being a
human being since it applies to all rational agents. If someone like R2D2
existed (or comes to exist), the categorical imperative would apply to it as
well.
To make
sense of the idea of one's actions being determined by reason as opposed,
say, to desire or inclination, one may begin by thinking about autonomy,
which is a necessary presupposition of moral action. To grasp the idea of
autonomy, consider the opposite idea, determinism. People have sometimes
argued that social conditions together with the socialization experiences of
a person determine the person's desires, which in turn determine one's
actions. For example, it is might be said that the reason someone committed
a crime is that he was abused as a child. If this is a true account of human
action, Kant argues, we never really have any choices to make, and so we are
never responsible for what we "do." In such a world, he argues, there can
be no such thing as morality; morality would not have any point, for we
would have no choices, and so no need for morality to guide our choices.
Thus, if morality is to be possible, we must think of human beings as
capable of free activity. But where could such freedom come from? Kant's
answer: from the fact that we are rational beings (in addition to beings
with desires, habits, etc.), that is, from reason, which gives us the
moral law.
In his
Critique of Practical Reason Kant gives us an example of what he has in
mind by this argument:
Suppose that someone says his lust is irresistible when the desired
object and opportunity are present. Ask him whether he would not control his
passion if, in front of the house where he has this opportunity, a gallows
were erected on which he would be hanged immediately after gratifying his
lust. We do not have to guess very long what his answer would be. But ask
him whether he thinks it would be possible for him to overcome his love of
life, however great it may be, if his sovereign threatened him with the same
sudden death unless he made a false deposition against an honorable man whom
the ruler wished to destroy under a plausible pretext. Whether he would or
not, he perhaps will not venture to say; but that it would be possible for
him he would certainly admit without hesitation. He judges, therefore, that
he can do something because he knows that he ought, and he recognizes that
he is free – a fact which, without the moral law, would have remained
unknown to him. (p. 30)
What Kant is saying is
that even our strongest passion – the love of life – can be overcome by the
moral law, and so we know that we are free. (This idea of freedom is similar
to Rousseau's notion of "moral freedom," and the idea of "positive freedom"
more generally.)
What is the
moral law? What is the categorical imperative? There are a number of
different ways of understanding what Kant had in mind; one useful way is to
think about it as a way of testing whether a proposed action is morally
permissible. Any action can be characterized in terms of a certain "maxim"
to which it conforms, or which expresses the point or purpose of the action.
For example, if I am thirsty and want to drink some water, the maxim of my
proposed action might be expressed as, "When I am thirsty, let me drink
water." The categorical imperative can be thought of as a device to test
the "maxims" of our actions, and only those actions are morally permissible
whose maxims are consistent with the categorical imperative.5
Kant offers
four formulations of the categorical imperative:6
1. The Principle of
Universal Law:
Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will
that it should become a universal law.
2. The Formula of
Autonomy:
So act that the will through its maxim could at the same time regard
itself as legislating universally.
3. The Principle of
Personality:
So act that you treat humanity in your own person and in the person of
everyone else at the same time as an end and never merely as a means.
4. The Kingdom of Ends
Formula:
Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxims always
a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.
All of these
formulations are different versions of the fundamental moral law. All are
categorical imperatives. They focus on somewhat different aspects of moral
duty, but should be thought of as different ways of saying the same thing.
Categorical imperative and reason:
These
imperatives are seen as in some way involving an appeal to the principle of
non- contradiction. It is this which makes these laws or imperatives
rationally necessary.
To see this, take the
first formula:
The Principle of Universal Law:
Act only according to that maxim by which
you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. In
another version, "Act so that the maxim of your will can always at the same
time hold good as a principle of universal legislation."
The "maxim"
of your action is a statement of what you're trying to accomplish in
performing the action. The rationality of your action can be tested in two
ways. First, we can ask whether it is rational to suppose that doing what
you propose to do will in fact achieve the purpose or the point of the
action. This involves what we have been calling "instrumental rationality,"
which is what Hobbes takes practical reason (reason applied to practice, to
what we do) to be. Second, we can ask whether the maxim of the action
conforms to a universal law. That is, we can ask whether there could be a
(set of) universal law(s) which would permit the performance of this action.
(This involves the idea of "reasonableness" that we talked about when we
discussed Locke in Social Theory.) The basic notion behind the principle of
universal law has been called the principle of universalization. The
idea is that actions that violate this principle are self-contradictory in
some way.
An example
of such a self-contradiction is a lying promise. A lying promise involves a
contradiction between the public statement of one's intention and the
private statement of it. What it means to make a promise is to commit
oneself to something, but a lying promise is self-contradictory because one
is both committing oneself to doing something and denying the commitment at
the same time. A second example is stealing. The maxim of one’s action when
one is going to steal something might be expressed as something like this:
when it is to your advantage, you may take the property of another. But what
it means to call something the property of another is that one may
not take it (without permission). Thus, the maxim is self-contradictory: it
amounts to saying one may take something and one may not take it.
This kind of
argument depends critically upon the way in which the action – or the maxim
of the action – is described. Suppose that we said, in the case of stealing,
that the maxim was:
when to one's advantage, one may take whatever one wishes to take.
This maxim may not
appear to lead to self-contradiction when it is universalized because the
object taken is not described as “property.” The crucial point is
that "property" is constituted by certain rules, and so maxims involving
stealing contradict those rules. But if we describe what we are doing as
"taking what someone possesses" rather than "taking someone's
property," it might be thought, our actions would be consistent with a
set of universal laws, in particular, a system of laws that did not
establish a right to property.
To make this
clear, consider the distinction between two types of rules: constitutive vs.
regulative.
constitutive: a set of rules that constitute a certain manner of
activity, institution, action. For example, property, promising, scoring a
touchdown – all are things that are constituted by certain rules. Outside of
these rules, so to speak, they could not occur.
regulative rules: rules which regulate an already established, on-going
set of activities. E.g., rules of proper eating behavior.7
Kant's
argument works well with regard to maxims that violate constitutive rules,
because in these cases the maxim directly violates the rules that constitute
the practice in question. This is not insignificant: consider slavery
(thought of as a moral institution, that is, one in which slaves are seen to
have duties or responsibilities). The slave, then, has a duty to obey his
master in whatever action the master prescribes. To be subject to duties,
however, is to be a moral agent (we do not think of cats, for example, as
having duties). To be a moral agent, though, is to be responsible for one's
own acts, to be autonomous. But to be autonomous is not compatible with
unquestioning obedience. Thus, slavery is self-contradictory.
Similarly,
truthfulness can be shown to be a constitutive norm of language. The
universalization of lying would destroy the medium of communication,
language, which is necessary to lying.
The maxim,
"when to one's advantage, you may take the property of another" employs the
concept “property,” which is constituted by certain rules which directly
contradict the statement of the maxim itself, making the maxim
self-contradictory. But even if we substitute a maxim that does not employ
such concepts, such as "when to one's advantage, you may take the
possessions of another," the maxim is still not universalizable. One could
not will that maxim to be a universal law because doing so would defeat the
point of the maxim, as there would then be nothing to take. When
universalized, such maxims are self-defeating because they destroy the very
institution whose existence is required if the action in question is to have
a point. The most common kind of actions that are ruled out by the test of
universalization are those where the agent wishes to make an exception in
his or her own case, that is, not to conform to rules which he or she wishes
others to obey.
The "formalism" of
the Kantian CI:
Many have
criticized Kantian morality on the ground that universalization is a purely
formal requirement. There may be cases where someone proposes despicable
courses of action that don't involve making an exception in one's own case,
where the agent fully universalizes the behavior in question. Indeed, in
some cases the agent may believe that he or she is acting conscientiously,
and is prepared to make significant sacrifices of his or her own interests
in order to carry out the proposed maxim. The example that is often used to
illustrate this point is the "conscientious Nazi." So long as the agent is
prepared to apply the rules to himself or herself (e.g., willing that one be
expelled from the country or even destroyed if it turns out that one had
non-Aryan ancestors), then the action would seem to fit with the first
formulation of the CI.
This is one
of the oldest criticisms of Kant's theory – that the categorical imperative
is "merely formal" and so permits heinous actions to be performed so long as
the individual does not try to make exceptions in his or her own case. This
criticism can be countered by appealing to the third formulation of the
categorical imperative, the Principle of Personality:
So act that you treat humanity in your own person and in the person of
everyone else at the same time as an end and never merely as a means.
This notion is not
entirely clear, but I think we can get at what it means by considering the
difference between a thing and a person. The essential
difference is that a person has reasons for what he or she does. People are
agents whose actions reflect their choices. Things have no purposes, no
value in themselves. They serve merely as the "stuff" onto which we may
impose our own purposes. For example, we may transform various materials
into a building, or a tool. Thus, to treat someone as a person is to act
towards that person on the basis of his or her own choices and actions – not
to impose one's own purposes on him or her.
A
paradigmatic denial of personhood is the taking of hostages. When people are
used as hostages, they are treated purely as things. Our actions towards
hostages are not determined by what they do or have done, but by someone
else, whose behavior we are trying to influence by threatening to harm the
hostages. Hostages are treated simply as objects someone happens to value,
not as agents in their own right. (A more exotic example is cannibalism.)
There is a
connection between universalization and the principle of personality, in
that actions violating the former will involve the exploitation and
manipulation of others, which the agent would not be prepared to accept if
done to himself or herself. Lying promises are paradigmatic; when I make a
lying promise, I induce someone to do something for me that the person would
not do if he or she understood my true intentions.
But the
principle of personality seems to go beyond mere universalization in seeing
persons as sources of value in their own right. The principle of
personality requires that the dignity of each person be respected. It
requires that we respect the freedom of rational beings (including humans
who are imperfectly rational), and so makes rational freedom a
necessary end of moral life. Now in what way can we justify freedom as a
necessary end? Why should one respect the freedom of rational beings?
To answer
this question we must go back to the distinction between persons and things
– to freedom or autonomy as what separates us and distinguishes us from the
rest of nature. I see myself as free and value autonomy in myself, for I
recognize that I can make choices and cannot experience my own choices as
determined. My valuing of my own autonomy is expressed when I make claims
against others or when I form my own projects. When I call upon others to
treat me in a certain way, to respect my choices, I assert the value of my
own freedom. In choosing some project I show myself to be a person who is
capable of setting his or her own ends, rather than a thing on which ends
can be imposed, and so I at least implicitly affirm the value of my own
autonomy.
But in
demanding that others respect my choices and in choosing some project, I
must also recognize that others are capable of autonomy, and so respect that
autonomy in them. Thus, autonomy is a rational end, a necessary value for a
rational being.
This idea of
autonomy is crucial to Kant's argument, and requires some elaboration.
According to Kant, we act autonomously only when we obey the moral law:
otherwise, we act heteronomously. Why does Kant say this, and what does it
mean? It surely is not obviously true. The answer, I think, is that autonomy
is tied up with the idea of reason. It is because we have reason that we can
be free: "for freedom (as it first becomes known to us...) is known only as
a negative property within us, the property of not being constrained to
action by any sensible determining grounds" (Kant, The Metaphysical
Elements of Justice, p. 27). But how do we come to know that we are free
in this sense, that we can overcome desires and other factors that constrain
our actions? We know this through knowing the moral law, which we know as a
dictate of reason, in this case, of practical reason. Recall Kant's
example of a person who is able to resist some great temptation only because
he knows that if he succumbs, he will immediately afterwards be killed.8
According to Kant, that same person, even under the threat of death, knows
that it would be possible for him or her to refuse to do some heinous thing.
Because I come to see the power of reason to determine my will in this way,
even in the face of overwhelming desire, I know that I am free, that I am
not completely determined by my desires and inclinations.
To say that
I am free when I act according to reason is not to say that autonomous
action is always opposed to desire – that if I do something that I want to
do, I am not an autonomous agent, but act heteronomously. I only act
heteronomously when I act against the requirements of reason, when I
pursue the satisfaction of desires without regard for the requirements of
reason or morality.
It is
because I am a being who is capable of reason that I am distinguished from
other animals (let alone plants or rocks). And I act freely (as opposed to
being determined by natural forces, socialization, etc.), when I act
according to reason, which is say, according to the moral law. In obeying
the moral law, I am acting on a principle I accept for myself. I am not, for
example, obeying out of fear, or out of hope for reward. Thus, I am free in
obeying the moral law, not in acting heteronomously. My action is not
dictated by something external to myself, something merely given or
contingent. There is then, a deep connection between reason and freedom. And
since reason is universal, when I act according to reason I act both
autonomously and in ways that other reasonable beings could accept. This is
expressed in the principle of autonomy,
So act that the will through its maxim could at the same time regard
itself as legislating universally.
That is, if my actions
are governed by reason, then the maxims on which they are based (or which
they express) must be acceptable to other rational agents. Thus, I am
legislating universally in the sense that I am prescribing and acting on
rules that are or at least could be accepted by all. The moral law is
actively willed by all rational agents and is regarded by each as a law that
he or she should submit to. But if this is the case, then they are laws that
would be recognized as just and proper by everyone. Because everyone finds
them acceptable, these rules would recognize the autonomy and dignity of
each person, are so would be consistent with the principle of personality.
This leads
to the fourth formulation of the categorical imperative, The Kingdom of Ends
Formula:
Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxims always
a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.
This formulation directs
us to adopt maxims or principles of conduct that are suitable for
harmonizing the ends or purposes of all rational creatures. In our case, as
human beings, we must harmonize our ends with those of all other humans.
Kant calls
these categorical imperatives the "laws of freedom," and we can see what he
means by distinguishing three senses in which they involve freedom:
1. They take freedom as an end to be realized. This is expressed most
clearly in the principle of personality.
2. They are expressions of our autonomy as rational beings, our ability
to rise above necessity or the determination of our actions by desire,
social conditioning, etc.
3. They serve to make a system of freedom possible by constraining each
person by the freedom of others.
If you accept this
argument, then Kant's position has much more content than merely the
requirement of universalization. It not only rules out the conscientious
Nazi, but it leads to an important political ideal – the idea of a society
in which every member respects every other member, and in which all laws are
those which everyone recognizes to be reasonable. This is a society in which
everyone has a right to freedom as a fundamental right. This idea is
expressed in the Universal Principle of Right:
Every action which by itself or by its maxim enables the freedom of each
individual's will to co-exist with the freedom of everyone else in
accordance with a universal law is right.
This principle is
fundamental to Kant's politics.
Kantian Politics:
The key to
Kant's view of politics is the elimination of force in human relationships,
substituting justice for force in determining the outcomes of disputes.
Unlike others, Kant insists that the elimination of violence is necessary
not only domestically, but also internationally (Perpetual Peace).
Kant's fundamental claim is that law is to be governed by the universal
principle of right, which means that people cannot be prohibited from
performing actions that are consistent with this principle. Thus, it
establishes a fundamental, natural (in the sense of not depending upon
positive law, but prior to and governing positive law) right of freedom or
liberty. This fundamental right Kant glosses in "Theory and Practice"9
as involving three principles on which the lawful state is based:
1. a right
of autonomy or the right to be free;
2. the right
of equality, that is, equal freedom;
3. the right
to be self-dependent, that is, to the autonomous exercise of the will.
Thus, Kant argues that
no one may be bound by laws which one has not made (or, at least)
participated in making. This idea, which today we see as the heart of the
idea of democracy, is central to a tradition of political theorizing known
as “republicanism.” For most thinkers before the 19th century,
“democracy” was a suspect, corrupt type of government. Those who supported
the idea of popular government (one in which authority derives from the
people and in which those who make the laws are accountable to the people)
called themselves republicans, for a republic – as opposed to a monarchy –
is a political system in which authority ultimately rests with the people.
Kant's republicanism is indebted to Rousseau, though unlike Rousseau he
accepts representation. Note that the key to “republican” government
according to Kant is the separation of legislative and executive power, and
that the legislative be accountable to the people.
Unfortunately, however desirable republican government is, or moral behavior
more generally, Kant recognizes that people do not always act in the way
they should. They do not always follow moral principles, and political
systems are often despotic. We often follow our desires and inclinations, or
act out of habit, or conform unthinkingly to the customs of our society or
the edicts of our superiors. We are, in short, unenlightened. As human
beings acting in the world, we are subject to the laws of science, in which
events are explainable in terms of the causal forces that bring them about.
As rational agents, however, we are capable of choice, of determining our
behavior according to the moral law or reason. Can these two features of our
nature be reconciled? How can we be both part of the causal chains of the
natural world, and yet free to determine our own actions?
We will not
be spending enough time on Kant in this class to provide anything like a
full answer to this question, but his basic notion is presented in his “Idea
for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose.” Let us think of
nature, Kant seems to suggest, as having a purpose which is realized over
time in history. Since what is distinctive to humanity is our capacity for
reason, we can suppose that the purpose is the realization of this capacity,
the creation of conditions within which humans can be rational (and so
self-legislating) beings. In human affairs these conditions include a
constitutional, republican order which respects human rights, which thus
must be the goal of history (see p. 36ff.). It is important to stress that
Kant does not claim that there is someone or some Being called "nature" who
has set things up in a certain way so that constitutional republics will
eventually be set up everywhere. Rather, we should think of this goal as a
kind of hypothesis, which we can use to make sense of the pattern and
direction of historical change. We could never prove that the purpose of
history is the realization of human freedom, but without this Idea, history
would be unintelligible, Kant argues. (An analogy might be helpful. We often
explain biological phenomena in teleological terms, as when we say that the
function or purpose of the heart is to circulate the blood. If we think of
the whole of nature as, in a sense, a great organism, then we could explain
specific phenomena in terms of the ways in which they contribute to the
whole.)
If the goal
of history is the realization of freedom, then we can reconcile the
simultaneous participation of humans in natural processes governed by causal
laws and in the moral world, governed by reason. But this vision requires
that we specify the causal processes through which reason comes to be
realized in the world. Human history is marked, Kant argues, by deep and
pervasive conflicts, conflicts often driven by selfish interests and leading
to actions that, to say the least, are not compatible with the moral law. On
the face of it, one might think, this condition offers evidence against
Kant's hypothesis. How can we talk about the realization of reason in a
world of violence? Kant attempts to turn this apparent anomaly into evidence
for his view, arguing that it is our very "unsocial sociability" that drives
history forward. In the end, only a cosmopolitan culture and an
international order in which war has been abolished will be adequate: our
unsocial sociability drives us forward but in the process it is itself
overcome. As Kant makes clear in “What is Enlightenment?”, he believed that
the process of enlightenment was moving forward, but that society had not
yet reached its final stage.
One way of
seeing what is distinctive to Kantian, or rights-based approaches to
morality and politics, particularly compared to utilitarianism is to
consider the issue of punishment. This is one of the areas where advocates
of rights are most critical of utilitarians, for it is here that the
individual is apparently treated as a means, and not as an end in himself or
herself. In deterrence, for example, the justification for punishment of a
particular type and degree is not its appropriateness to what the criminal
did, but its effect in discouraging others from doing the same. This is an
idea that Kant completely rejects:
Judicial punishment can never be merely a means of furthering some
extraneous good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but must
always be imposed on the criminal simply because he has committed a crime.
For a human being can never be manipulated just as a means of realizing
someone else's intentions, and is not to be confused with the objects of the
law of kind [or "things"] (Sachenrecht)] (pp. 154-5).
This involves several
specific points or applications:
1. the
commission of a crime makes one deserving of punishment, so that the failure
to punish someone is itself a crime. Why? What Kant is saying is that
inflicting punishment a duty of the authorities. Why should this be so? To
see why, suppose we test the decision not to punish a criminal against the
categorical imperative. We would see then that leaving a crime unpunished
would be to fail to correct an injustice. Those who had abided by the law
and endured sacrifices would be unjustly disadvantaged compared to those who
broke the law. They would receive the advantages of a system of law, without
enduring its costs. Punishment, by removing this advantage by inflicting
harm, restores a just distribution of advantages and disadvantages (or, at
least, corrects one source of injustice). A maxim permitting criminal acts
to go unpunished could not be universalized. Therefore it is a duty for
those in authority to inflict punishment (even in cases where no deterrence
would result). This means that the criminal can't be forgiven by, for
example, volunteering for medical experiments. That would be to treat the
criminal as a means to another's end, and to buy justice for a price.
2. For Kant,
the law of retribution determines the kind and amount of punishment an act
requires. Criminals should suffer in a way relevant to the norm that is
broken. Thus, murderers should die. Thieves should be denied property, and
so condemned to involuntary labor. But punishment should be inflicted
"without any maltreatment which might make humanity an object of horror in
the person of the sufferer" (p. 156) [alternate translation: "would make an
abomination of the humanity residing in the person suffering it"]. Nor can
the punishment be an act that would be a crime for someone to inflict it –
as in the case of rape. (But just why raping a rapist is a crime, while
killing a murderer isn't, is not entirely clear. Kant proposes castration
for rapists.)
3.
Nonetheless, under extreme circumstances failure to apply punishment may be
excused.
Assignment:
Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" (1784);
"What is Enlightenment?" (1784); Perpetual Peace (1795), “The Right
of Punishment,” (1797) pp. 154-60, in Kant's Political Writings.
Discussion Questions:
1. Is a republican
constitution necessary for justice and to secure international peace?
2. "In light of the
events of the 20th century, the enlightenment faith in progress can only
appear naive. Today, no one who reflects seriously about these matters can
share their hopes. The progress of knowledge can and does go hand in hand
with barbarism." Discuss.
3. Critically contrast
Bentham’s and Kant’s accounts of punishment.
4. Why does Kant say,
"I can imagine a moral politician ... but I cannot imagine a
political moralist ..." (p. 118)? Do you agree?
5. Why does Kant say,
"... the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of
devils (so long as they have understanding)" (p. 112)? Do you agree?
Week 7
(November 2/4): Marx I: Alienation, Communism and Property
For the
purposes of this colloquium, Marx can best be read as sharing many of
Rousseau's ideas regarding human nature and society. For Marx, humans are
social beings in that their "nature" is socially created, and it changes as
their society changes, which in turn is at least in part a result of their
own activities. He rejects any "fixed" conception of human nature; humans
are essentially historical and their needs and capacities change in
fundamental ways over time. Like Rousseau, Marx places great emphasis on
self-consciousness as a distinctive trait of human beings, on human activity
as a process of self-creation and on positive freedom. He envisions a
society which enables its members to express the capacities and satisfy the
needs to which it has given rise.
In addition
to these continuities, there are also profound differences between Marx and
Rousseau. Unlike Rousseau, Marx thinks that history is progressive; for
Marx, human history is a process of social change culminating in a condition
of full human freedom. In this process, humans create their own needs and
capacities through their own activity. There is nothing outside of us – no
God, state, spirit, no higher force that determines what we will be and do.
And history is largely a process through which our capacities become
enlarged and our understanding and control over nature increase. In many
ways, then, Marx shares the Enlightenment views we examined last week.
The critical
sphere of activity, the sphere which largely controls historical change, is
production. Marx begins with the idea that humans are animals who must
reproduce the material and social means of their existence through labor,
through working (in cooperation with other humans) on nature. It is in this
work that they create themselves, and it is for this reason that the
material basis of social life is the primary determinant of other aspects of
society, such as its legal, political, and cultural characteristics. We must
understand ourselves first of all in terms of the ways in which we produce
the material means of our own existence, because they will constrain all
other aspects of our social life.
In working
on nature and in social interaction people "objectify" themselves: they
create a world of objects and institutions which express, and are the result
of, their activities, their capacities, their needs. Human nature, the
external world, and the social world are not simply given; they are
(at least in large part) the products of human activities and must be
created through conscious, practical work.
This concept
of humans as self-creative beings expresses an ideal that is immanent in the
historical process, but which has not (yet) been realized. What actually
happens is that we do not recognize the world we have created as our own
world; rather, we experience it as something that is different, something
"just there," something alien. This alienation, however, does not exist only
in the mind or "consciousness": it is not simply a matter of our
failing to recognize that the world in which we live is actually our
own creation. Nor is it simply a matter of our feeling estranged from
the world. On the contrary, alienation or estrangement is an objective
condition rooted in the real, material conditions of our existence, in
actual forms of domination and inequality which prevent us from being
self-determining beings. In an alienated world, our activity is often
imposed on us, something we perform because we have to, and so it is not
expressive of our own purposes and aspirations. In many cases we are not
fully conscious of what we do, nor why, nor how it is related to larger
social or natural processes. In many ways our lives are frustrating and
mysterious to us.
Human
estrangement (in capitalist society) is rooted in part in private property,
as Marx explains in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Under
capitalism, workers can gain access to the means of production only by
selling their labor as a commodity to the capitalists who own the means of
production. They have to do this because only by gaining access to the means
of production can they produce the goods or earn the wages that are
necessary to satisfy their needs. But when one has sold one's labor, when
one's own life-activity has been alienated to an employer, one's activity in
working is no longer one's own, for it is controlled and directed by someone
else. And the product of one's activity does not express one's own purposes
and plans, but those of one's employer. Thus, workers confront a world they
have made, a world that is the objectification of their labor. But they
experience that world, and themselves and, indeed, their own activity in
production, as alien, as estranged from them. The workers' activity and the
objects they produce in capitalist society do not express the workers'
purposes; rather, these products come to have an independent existence, over
and apart from the workers, and are used to dominate them.
In producing
goods for the market using the workers' labor, capitalists are able to
realize a profit by paying the workers less than they actually produce with
their labor. This profit is then reinvested in the business in the form of
capital, thereby augmenting the very power which capitalists used to
dominate the workers in the first place. Workers are forced to produce the
very means that dominate them.
This
condition of alienation or estrangement does not only characterize
production; rather, it pervades every aspect of life. In religion and in
politics, for example, humans, through their own activity, create objects,
such as God or the state, which come to have an independent existence over
and apart from us, and which dominate and control us. One of the conditions
of this alienation is that we understand ourselves and our situation in a
"mystified" or ideological manner, and so fail to understand the reality of
our situation and our own role in creating it. In the case of religion, for
example, we believe in God as an object or power that exists outside of
ourselves. But this belief is an illusion. In reality, it is we who create
God by displacing our own human powers of self-creation onto "God" which we
conceive as an external, all-powerful being. We are driven to do this in
part because we seek consolation for the real loss of these powers in our
lives:
Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering
and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people (p. 54).
In politics,
as Marx explains in "On the Jewish Question," we conceive of ourselves as
individuals who are separate, independent atoms of society who form a moral
community only in that we are by nature bearers of rights. But by thinking
of ourselves in this way we fail to see that we are social beings, whose
"rights" are the historical products of a particular form of society. In his
"Theses on Feuerbach" Marx argues that "the human essence is no abstraction
inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of
social relations" (p. 145). If we are to realize ourselves as the social
beings we necessarily are, we must no longer see society "as a limitation of
man's original independence, as wholly external to the individual" (p. 43).
Genuine human emancipation requires that we overcome the split between the
individual and society, public and private, and that in our day-to-day lives
we live, act, and work as social beings who recognize and organize our own
powers as social powers. Thus, we can see that the realization of communism
will involve the abolition of such bourgeois notions as "rights," including
the differential claims and inequalities to which rights give rise. More
generally, the overcoming of alienation in religion, in politics, and in
other spheres of society will be possible only through a transformation of
the real, material conditions of our lives, through the abolition of
capitalism.
Human
estrangement can be overcome, and human emancipation achieved, only by
abolishing private ownership of the means of production, so that control
over the means of production cannot be used by some to dominate others. With
the abolition of private property, the workers – and all will then be
workers – can collectively organize production in accordance with their own
purposes and plans, in accordance with human needs and not for profit. But
this will only be possible when the means of production are developed to the
point where production is genuinely and fully social; at this point it will
not be possible to organize production effectively except through the
community as a whole. While capitalism was at one time a revolutionary force
that broke the fetters that feudalism placed on the expansion of the means
of production, it will increasingly come to retard their development. This
will be manifested in the deep crises of unemployment and inflation that
capitalism causes, the increasing concentration of capital in fewer and
fewer hands, and in the increasing polarization of society into opposed
classes of a small number of capitalists and a vast majority of workers. As
these "objective conditions" come to be realized, the workers will come to
see their condition as insufferable, and to understand that what must be
changed is the capitalist system itself. The writings of Marx and other
socialists who correctly understand the dynamics of capitalist society will
be instrumental in enabling the workers to come to this realization, which
will satisfy the "subjective conditions" necessary for the revolution. At
this point it will be possible to bring about the revolution that will
establish communism.
Communism,
Marx emphasizes, is a condition "in which the free development of each is
the condition for the free development of all" (p. 491). Its premise is
human emancipation, not the imposition of a dull uniformity and equality on
all people through state control of the means of production. This latter
image Marx calls "crude communism," and he rejects it unequivocally. Rather,
communism makes it possible for people collectively to determine the
conditions under which they will live, and to do so in a self-conscious
manner. It creates for the fist time a form of society in which individuals
freely decide on their activities, so that they produce a world of objects
that expresses their purposes and needs. It is thus a human world in which
they can find themselves and feel at home. And because the conditions of
their lives are consciously chosen, rather than being imposed on them, or
being the unintended results of their own activities, people will then be
fully self-creative beings who make their own history.
The readings
for this week include Marx's first formulations of his critique of
capitalism. His essay "On the Jewish Question" examines the ways in which
the liberal state, based on a commitment to human rights, fails to realize
its own ideal of human emancipation because it reproduces the very
conditions of alienation and separation that are characteristic of
capitalist society. It is a troubling essay in part because Marx employs
anti-Semitic language to make his point. The argument could easily be made
without using such language; that Marx chose to put it that way, is a
testament to the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in the culture of his time.
The second reading, Marx’s “Introduction” to a manuscript he prepared but
did not publish on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right offers a powerful,
early statement of his account of alienation. The third reading, his
"Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts," provides the earliest analysis of
alienation in which economic relationships are seen as central. This work
was never prepared for publication, and it is heavily laden with abstruse,
Hegelian terms. Note that I have not asked you to read the last section,
which is exceptionally difficult. Finally, "The Communist Manifesto"
provides an early overview of Marx's ideas. You may even wish to read it
first, to get a sense of Marx's overall theory. I would also recommend
Engels' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," which is assigned for next
week. It offers a very clear statement of what Engels took to be the core of
Marxist theory as it had taken shape late in Marx's life.
Assignment:
Marx, "On The Jewish Question," in Tucker, pp. 26-52.
Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:
Introduction,” in Tucker, pp. 53-65.
Marx, "The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts," in Tucker, pp. 66-105.
Marx
and Engels, "The Communist Manifesto," in Tucker, pp. 469-500.
There
will be no essay assigned this week. Instead, you should prepare notes on
the following questions:
1. What does Marx mean
by "alienation," and in what ways is it central to his concept of the person
and society? In thinking about this question you should consider the
relationships between alienation and such ideas as objectification, the
person as a social being, communism, and private property.
2. Critically assess
Marx's views of "human rights".
Study Questions:
1. What is
"objectification"?
2. Why is labor so
important according to Marx?
3. Why does Marx think
that human nature is not fixed and given for all places and time?
4. Why does Marx say
that political emancipation is not human emancipation?
5. What does Marx mean
by saying humans are "species-beings"?
6. What are the four
aspects of alienated labor, and how are they related to each other?
7. Are wealthy
capitalists alienated?
8. What is crude about
"crude communism"?
9. How is money "the
alienated power of humanity"?
10. Why is private
property a manifestation and cause of alienation?
Recommended Reading:
The readings this
week are short, but difficult. There is a vast secondary literature on Marx.
The best on this aspect of Marx's thought is Shlomo Avineri's The
Political Thought of Karl Marx, especially chs. 3 and 4. See also A.
Giddens, Capitalism and Modern Social Theory, the first chapter on
Marx. A very brief, but very good account of Marx is David McLellan, Karl
Marx; an excellent study of Marx and the intellectual and political
movements which formed the context of his writings, and which he may be said
to have inspired, is George Lichtheim, Marxism. Finally, Leszek
Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, offers an explication and
critique of Marx and virtually all significant thinkers in the Marxist
tradition.
Week
8 (November 9/11): Marx II: Historical Materialism
The focus
of this week's readings is Marx's theory of history, which we will refer to
as the theory of historical materialism. The basic question which this
theory is meant to answer is "how does social change occur?" This is a
vital question for Marx because he believes that we are essentially
historical creatures, and because he is trying to construct a theory of
society that will help to bring about a revolution establishing communist
society. There are several key concepts in his theory; as you do the
readings for this week you should pay special attention to how these
concepts are used. They include forces or mode of production, relations of
production, class, ideology, bourgeoisie, proletariat, commodity, and state.
From our
discussion and readings it should already be clear why the premise of Marx's
theory is that labor – the productive interchange between humans and their
environment – is the foundation of human society. The first few pages of the
German Ideology state this premise quite clearly and provide a good
bridge from Marx's earlier "philosophical writings" to his later writings in
social theory. Marx argues that through labor humans create, satisfy and
recreate their needs, and develop their capacities. This is why Marx
concentrates on the "economic" aspects of social life in his account of
historical change.
Marx also
insists on the social character of human laboring. Every kind of
productive activity requires a definite set of social relations without
which it could not occur. Like Rousseau and Adam Smith, Marx sees the
division of labor to be crucial, for it is with the development of the
division of labor that people come to be differentiated into separate groups
based upon their different roles in production. When the division of labor
was very limited, people lived a fully communal existence in which there was
little differentiation within society, and what division of labor existed
was largely contained within a patriarchal family structure. Property was
communal because private property in the means of production was practically
nonexistent. With the growth of specialization came the development of new
forms of property, and people came to be differentiated into distinct
classes reflecting their relationships to the means of production. Because
classes are the social forms through which production takes place, and
because production is the crux of human society, Marx analyzes history in
terms of the succession of "social formations" which are distinguished by
their particular class structures and associated modes of production. In his
most general formulation of this view (in the "Preface" to his
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) he distinguishes four
stages of development: the Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois.
All of these
social formations are forms of class society, where one class dominates
another because it "owns" the means of production – although what it means
to "own" something varies from society to society. Class society is always
based upon a conflict of interest between dominant and subordinate classes;
class society embodies an "antagonistic form of the social process of
production" (p. 5). This antagonism does not mean that particular
individuals from different classes cannot have friendly or warm relations
with each other; rather, it arises "from the social conditions of life of
the individuals." People in different classes find themselves in situations
where their interests and aspirations are in deep conflict because of the
very structure of the situation, irrespective of the goodwill they may feel
towards members of other classes. Moreover, the dynamics of class conflict
have a powerful impact on the overall pattern of development of a society.
As Marx puts it in the Communist Manifesto, "The history of all
hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" (p. 473).
In Marx's
general theory, the fundamental contradiction in social formations may be
said (though somewhat imprecisely) to develop between the forces of
production and the relations of production. At the inception of a form of
society the dominant relations of production complement and foster the
development of the forces of production, but later on new forces of
production, employed by new social groups or classes, may come into
existence. The further development of these new forces, and the advancement
of the interests of the new classes, will become inimical to the existing
relations of production, and to the interests of the dominant class in the
old structure. The prevailing relations of production increasingly become
"fetters" on the forces of production, and conflict between the dominant
class of the old society and the newly emerging class will intensify. As
this contradiction becomes more severe, the society experiences a crisis.
Eventually, the point is reached where the new class which has emerged in
the interstices of the old society overthrows the existing political and
legal institutions, establishes a new set of productive relations, and
restores another (temporary) equilibrium.
Marx uses
this model to explain the development of feudal society and how it gives way
to capitalism. Feudal society was based on a mode of production in which the
division of labor was very restricted, and where virtually all production
was directed towards supplying the needs of particular individuals, who were
generally members of same community as the producer. As trade over long
distances developed and new techniques of production were discovered, new
social groups came into being – particularly the bourgeoisie who lived in
towns and made their living as merchants and later manufacturers. As the new
mode of production developed and the bourgeoisie expanded its activities and
power, feudal institutions and practices became greater and greater
obstacles in the path of the bourgeoisie. Eventually, a revolutionary
struggle ensued, and the bourgeoisie triumphed, at least in northern and
western Europe. In Capital Marx applies this theory to the
development and functioning of capitalist society.
One of the
main purposes of Marx's theory is to answer such questions as what
determines the way in which these struggles develop, and how does one kind
of class structure evolve or change into another? Marx is often interpreted
as having given a particularly rigid, mechanistic answer to these questions.
According to this view, the mode of production, understood as the
techniques of production (which involves the technical division of labor in
productive activity), requires certain "relations of production." These
relations involve certain forms of property and a particular class
structure; the relations of production together with the mode of production
are called the "economic base" of society. The economic base, according to
the mechanistic interpretation of Marx, determines the "superstructure" of
society, the political and legal structures, and the forms of consciousness
(its art, philosophy, religion and other forms of culture). Thus, as the
mode of production changes, the relations of production change, and these
changes together cause the other aspects of the society to change in
determinate ways. According to this view, history consists of a series of
predetermined stages through which society passes on the road to
communism. The texts most often used to support this interpretation include
the German Ideology and the "Preface" to his Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy, but there are passages in the
Communist Manifesto and in other writings that support it as well.
Engels' essay for this week offers a relatively "mechanistic" reading of
historical materialism. You should be able to state this mechanistic model
of historical materialism after having read this week's readings.
There are,
however, many who argue that Marx's theory is not mechanistic and
deterministic in this way. According to them, Marx does not claim that the
forces of production mechanically determine the rest of social life
(including both what people do and what they believe and value). Rather,
they interpret Marx as seeing economic factors (and the model of society set
out above) as the primary, but not the sole, causal elements in social life.
Some would go so far as to argue that the forces of production can be
affected by changes in the political or ideological sphere, so that the
direction of causation is not simply one way. As you read you should ask
yourself whether there is any evidence that Marx held this "dialectical"
view of social change.
A great deal
hinges on whether the "mechanistic" or "dialectical" version of the model is
correct, because revolutionary strategy will be quite different depending on
which version one accepts. If the mechanistic view is accepted, one would be
likely to disregard the ideas people hold, concentrating instead on the
economic arrangements of society. This could give rise to a fatalistic
attitude, according to which there is little to be done until the necessary
"objective conditions" for a revolution (i.e., the required changes in the
economic base) have been realized. On the other hand, it may support a
radical kind of activism, leading revolutionaries to try to seize power and
impose socialism on the society once they have seen that the necessary
“objective conditions” have developed. In either case, the crucial
leadership role would fall to the (small) elite who had come to understand
the laws of history and who therefore were uniquely qualified to decide what
should be done. One might call this the instrumentalist or elitist view of
social revolution, perhaps best represented in the writings and political
activity of Lenin and Leninist parties.
A more
dialectical account might support revolutionary strategies which placed
great stress on educating people to the possibilities of social change in a
humanizing or communist direction. In this model, the objective would be to
enable the people themselves to alter their own organizations and activities
in such a way as to bring about a communist revolution. This might be called
the "educative" view of social revolution, a view often associated with the
work of Rosa Luxemburg.
Marx was
most interested in understanding the stage of human history which he thought
was reaching its apogee as he was writing, the capitalist or bourgeois
epoch. In the Communist Manifesto and in the selections from the
Grundrisse, Marx details what he takes to be distinctive about
capitalism. You should note the many laudatory things Marx has to say about
capitalism; contrary to popular belief, Marx's view of capitalism was not
purely negative, for the very good reason that he believed it to be
necessary in order to create the basis for a communist society. Marx saw his
work, including his theory of history and his life-long study of the
dynamics of capitalist society, as a contribution to the revolutionary
struggle to build a new, socialist society upon the achievements of
capitalism.
Assignment:
"Preface" to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in
Tucker, pp. 3 - 6.
"Theses on
Feuerbach," in Tucker, pp. 143-5.
The German
Ideology, Part I, in Tucker, pp. 146-200.
Grundrisse,
sections E and F, in Tucker, pp. 261-78.
Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific, in Tucker, pp. 683-717.
Essay Questions:
1.
What does Marx mean when he says that "Life is not determined by
consciousness, but consciousness by life"?
2. What is distinctive
about capitalist society? Why does Marx think that a traditional economy,
where there is a division of labor, where people exchange labor and products
using money, and where artisans and landowners may hire workers to perform
economic tasks, is not a capitalist economy?
3. What distinguishes a
communist revolution from all past revolutions? Why does Marx expect a
communist revolution to be distinctive?
Note:
For a contemporary
statement, written from a Marxist perspective, of the difficulties of
reconciling Marx's commitment to "materialism" and the primacy of the
economic base in explaining social change, and the apparent role of
ideational, cultural, and political factors in this process, see E. Laclau
and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
Week 9 (November 16/18) Durkheim: The Forms of Social
Solidarity and the Causes of Anomie
During the first few weeks of
this term we studied the political and social theories of Hobbes, Bentham,
James Mill, and Locke. These theories provide a philosophical and normative
basis for modern society, particularly capitalism and liberal,
representative democracy. From a Marxist point of view, we could say that
they formulated the ideas of the new class that was coming into power at the
time. And as it became the ruling class, its ideas became the ruling ideas –
or illusions – of the epoch.
Marx's
theory was intended to replace these ideas by providing a more adequate
account of capitalism, an account that would reveal the ways in which these
conceptions of politics and society were ideological distortions of the
social reality of capitalist society. According to Liberal theory (i.e., the
theories of people such as Bentham and Locke), market relationships are
based on the exchange of equivalents among free persons in which each party
gives up an object he or she owns in return for a commodity owned by
another. Marx did not argue that this account is false in any
straightforward way, but rather that it is one-sided, for it conceals the
exploitation of labor that is intrinsic to capitalism. This is because
labor-power has the property that it can produce more value than is required
to produce it. When workers sell their labor-power, the capitalists to whom
they sell it are able to realize surplus value from this transaction. Thus,
what appears as an exchange of equivalents – workers selling their
labor-power for what it costs to produce it – is in reality a relationship
of exploitation.
One of the
crucial ideas of the individualist theory of society that Marx attacked, an
idea that is central to the thinking of Hobbes and Bentham, is that social
order is based upon and must be explained in terms of individuals acting
rationally to advance their interests. This can be seen most clearly in
Hobbes, who argued that social order is possible only if there is a state
that coerces individuals to obey the rules that are required for peaceful
social relations to exist. What the state does by enforcing the law is to
change the situation one faces so that it comes to be in one's own interests
to do what the law requires; to do otherwise would be to incur a punishment
(or the risk of punishment) which would cancel any possible gains from
breaking the law. Moreover, the existence of the state itself must be
explained in terms of similar calculations. The state exists because
individuals find it in their interests to have an institution that, by
forcing people to act in a manner consistent with the requirements of social
order, enables them to escape the state of war in which they are unable to
realize their most basic interest, self-preservation. And while he differed
fundamentally from Hobbes on many issues, Locke too had an essentially
individualist theory of social order. For he claimed that people must leave
the state of nature because in it they cannot find the orderly and regular
life they desire: certain "degenerates" regularly fail to respect individual
rights, and even basically reasonable and decent people find it difficult to
settle their disputes fairly. Thus Locke also explained the existence of
stable, ongoing social life as a result of the choices of individuals who
are thought of as having certain capacities and desires that are "prior" to
their membership in political society.
Rousseau
subjected this conception of society and this approach to social explanation
to a scathing critique. He argued that we cannot explain social phenomena by
showing how they arise from the rational pursuit of self-interest by
isolated, atomistic individuals because the interests that people have are
themselves deeply shaped by society. We can hardly explain the structure of
society in terms of individual interests, and then turn around and explain
these interests in terms of the structure of the society! This was one of
the main lines of argument that Rousseau advanced in the Second Discourse
and it led him to propose a different way of thinking about society and
social explanation. In particular, we can see from Rousseau's argument that
social explanation is necessarily historical, and that the nature of society
and the "nature" of the individuals who make it up will vary with the
history and social conditions of that society.
This idea
led Rousseau to re-examine another of the principal doctrines of the
individualist thinkers, that social relations are inevitably marked by
conflict. Hobbes began with the assumption that human interests will
necessarily conflict because people are motivated to gratify their wants in
a world in which resources are scarce. Even if external resources weren't
scarce, Hobbes thought that conflict would arise because a person's "Joy
consisteth in comparing himselfe with other men, [and so] can relish nothing
but what is eminent" (Leviathan, ch. 17). Thus, the satisfaction of
one person's interests will necessarily require that another's be
sacrificed. While Locke thought of humans as "reasonable" and not driven by
vanity in this way, he thought that some people were incapable of living by
reason, and that all of us were liable to have our own interests cloud our
judgment, so that conflicts would inevitably arise once resources became
scarce due to the growth of population the introduction of money.
Individualist thinkers typically hold that serious conflict is a necessary
part of any society.10
Because
Rousseau thought of people as social and historical creatures, whose desires
and needs were not given by "nature," he denied that human relationships
were necessarily characterized by the degree of conflict that Locke and
especially Hobbes posited. Since people come to have certain desires and
needs by living in a particular kind of society, we can imagine a form of
social order in which the needs people come to have are mainly those which
can be satisfied without frustrating the needs of others. In such a society
individuals would be able to live with others and to realize their
aspirations without coming into conflict with their fellow citizens. This
kind of society would be one in which conformity to its laws and customs
would not be experienced as a restriction but as an enhancement of the
freedom of the individual. Rousseau believed that a society organized in
accordance with the "general will" of its citizens would realize this ideal.
Laws which express the general will respect the needs of everyone, and
citizens will want to act in accordance with these laws because they will
see them as their own, in part because they have participated in making
them. Of course, such a society will be possible only if people do not have
fundamental needs, needs that are basic to their conceptions of themselves,
that are inherently incompatible, that is, needs based upon vanity. And this
requires that inequality be limited: "no citizen should be sufficiently
opulent to be able to purchase another, and none so poor as to be forced to
sell himself" (Social Contract, II, ch. 11).
Rousseau
thought that his ideal of a free society could be realized only under very
special circumstances. It would have to be a small, rather simple society
with a limited division of labor, enjoying a fairly high degree of
distributive equality (everyone having some property, no one having too
much), and having had the good fortune of the appearance of a great
law-giver at a propitious moment in its history. Rousseau was writing at the
dawn of the industrial age when the vast majority of people lived in small
communities, having rather little contact with other communities, and where
the state appeared to do little more than extract taxes and engage in
occasional depredations during times of war. Under these circumstances,
Rousseau's ideas were not altogether implausible, at least outside of the
major countries of Europe that had already undergone an extensive process of
urbanization and commercial development. But once the industrial revolution
had occurred, Rousseau's small-scale state came to seem anachronistic. This
was not only because the changes wrought by industrialization were
irreversible, but also because of the enormous possibilities for human
well-being that industrialization promised. Although the early phases of the
industrial revolution produced enormous dislocation and suffering (and
continue to do so even now in countries where industrialization is just
beginning), it also produced enormous wealth. To many it held out the hope
that a level of material production might be achieved that could liberate
humanity from much of the toil and suffering that had always seemed to be an
essential feature of the human condition.
If
Rousseau's vision of a pre-industrial, small-scale community seems
anachronistic, his moral vision of a society in which individuals would be
free and self-determining, and in which the opposition of individual and
society would be largely11
overcome, had (and continues to have) great appeal. Certainly it appealed to
Marx, whose vision of communism as a state of human emancipation and
self-determination, as a state in which “the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all,” bears an obvious resemblance to
Rousseau's. But where Rousseau thought that such a society could only be
created by an act of political will, and under pre-industrial conditions of
production, Marx held that it could only be achieved on the basis of the
full development of the productive forces of society. Where Rousseau thought
that a society that had become capitalist had virtually no chance of
returning to the kind of simplicity and equality that would characterize the
state based on the general will, Marx held that a communist society could be
constructed only on the basis of the achievements of capitalism. Marx's
argument, as we have seen, is based on a general theory of historical and
social change, and on an elaborate account of the structure and dynamics of
capitalist society. According to Marx's theory, capitalism prepares the
material basis for a communist society in which men and women will be able
consciously to determine the conditions of their own lives, creating a
social world that does not impose constraints and suffering upon them.
Like Marx,
Durkheim developed theories to enable us to understand the enormous changes
that have occurred in society as a result of industrialization and
commercialization. Durkheim was a descendant of Rousseau in his claim that
society cannot be understood in terms of the self-interested actions of
individuals because he believed that one's interests are themselves
determined by the society in which one lives. And he was deeply affected –
and attracted – by the moral ideal of Rousseau and Marx: the image of
society as a moral community whose order is based upon shared values and a
willing obedience to rules, and whose life is not marked by conflict so deep
and systemic as to require force to insure co-existence. However, Durkheim
rejected the claim that such an ideal requires a high level of
citizen participation in legislation and a high degree of equality, and he
did so because he thought that Rousseau and Marx made important mistakes in
their theories of social order and in their accounts of modern society.
Durkheim thought that the ideal societies of Marx and Rousseau were not only
utopian but dangerous, and he thought that their accounts of modern life
failed to appreciate what was significant in industrial societies. Thus,
although Durkheim rejected the "individualism" and "atomism" of earlier
theorists, he provides a basis for many of the values and practices,
including representative democracy and market society, which were important
to those theorists.
The central
question that concerned Durkheim was, "How can a multiplicity of individuals
comprise an on-going social group?" Even more pointedly, he wanted to know
how such an order is possible when the individuals involved in it are very
different from one another, when the population is very large, and when
people are largely concerned to satisfy their own interests and aspirations.
In other words, Durkheim's basic concern was to understand the nature of
social solidarity in modern societies, which are marked by an elaborate
division of labor and a commitment to the value of individualism or
individuality.
One can best
appreciate Durkheim's answer to this question by viewing it in light of
Rousseau. Like Rousseau, Durkheim rejected the answer Hobbes provided to
these questions, and a significant part of the book we will be reading is
devoted to a critique of the theories of the English sociologist, Herbert
Spencer, whose basic conception of the person and society is very much in
the tradition of Hobbes. Following Rousseau, Durkheim conceived of people as
essentially social beings whose character, values, and very "nature" are
dependent upon the kind of society in which they live. Moreover, for
Durkheim social order is possible only because human beings internalize a
set of norms and values that they accept as rational and just, and on the
basis of which they act. Social order must be construed as a consensual
order of willingly accepted rules, and not as a system of rules that are
operative only because they are backed up by force. In particular, Durkheim
insisted that altruism is not only possible for humans, but absolutely
necessary:
. . . altruism is not destined to become, as Spencer would wish, a sort
of pleasant ornament of our social life, but one that will always be its
fundamental basis. How indeed could we ever do without it? Men cannot live
together without agreeing, and, consequently, making mutual sacrifices,
joining themselves to one another in a strong and enduring fashion. Every
society is a moral society. (173, emphasis supplied)
Rousseau, as
we saw earlier, agreed that (a legitimate or good) society must be based on
a consensus on values among its members: "the strongest is never strong
enough to be always the master unless he transforms strength into right and
obedience into duty." But Rousseau thought that such a consensus on values
could occur only in the kind of society he sketched in the Social
Contract, only in a society based on the general will. If Rousseau is
right, it would seem that modern society would have to be inherently
unstable. The complex, individualistic, mobile, cosmopolitan world in which
we live precludes the kind of participation Rousseau envisioned, and it
provides numerous opportunities for the development of vanity. Rousseau
paints a grim picture of modern society at the end of the Second
Discourse. It is a society characterized by tyranny and continual
revolution, in which social order is impossible because the society is held
together only by force and the calculation of individual interest.
Although
Durkheim shared Rousseau's basic conceptions of the individual and society,
he took issue with Rousseau's general account of the conditions that are
necessary for a genuine consensus on values to emerge. Broadly speaking,
Durkheim argued that Rousseau had too narrow an understanding of what is
required for a people to have shared norms, and therefore he had too narrow
a conception of the conditions necessary for social solidarity. Durkheim
argued that there are different sorts of social solidarity, and that with an
advanced division of labor a new sort of "organic" solidarity is possible.
He contrasts this type of solidarity with the earlier "mechanical" type
which is found in undifferentiated, primitive forms of social life.
One way of
characterizing the difference between Rousseau and Durkheim regarding social
solidarity in a society with an elaborate division of labor is to
distinguish between egoism and individuality. Rousseau believed that the
division of labor would lead to systematic and permanent inequalities, and
that these inequalities would in turn lead to egoism. As egoism becomes more
pervasive, compassion or pity vanishes and a moral way of life becomes
impossible.
Unlike
Rousseau, Durkheim did not believe that the division of labor would
necessarily lead to a breakdown of the moral basis of political and social
order. For him, the development of the division of labor can lead to
individuality rather than egoism, and individuality can itself provide the
basis for the "mutual sacrifice" and the "strong, durable bonds" that both
he and Rousseau thought were necessary for social cohesion. Durkheim argued
that even though people come to value their individual distinctiveness and
aspire to live their lives in accordance with their own choices, they can
recognize the deep ties they have to others and to society as a whole:
Because no individual is sufficient unto himself, it is from society
that he receives all that is needful, just as it is for society that he
labours. Thus there is formed a very strong feeling of the state of
dependence in which he finds himself: he grows accustomed to valuing himself
at his true worth, viz., to look upon himself only as part of a whole, the
organ of an organism. Such sentiments are of a kind not only to inspire
those daily sacrifices that ensure the regular development of everyday
social life but even on occasion acts of utter renunciation and unbounded
abnegation. (173)
Durkheim
thought that the "cult of the individual" was the great, positive
achievement of the modern age, an achievement which makes contemporary
society an improvement over earlier forms of social life. Durkheim
celebrated the individuation which is possible in modern society, the rich
development of capacities and talents, the autonomy that comes with being
"one's own person," the originality that this makes possible, and the
diversity and range of experience open to us. Moreover, Durkheim thought
that this went hand in hand with a kind of tolerance of others not found in
more primitive societies. He thought that only these qualities could produce
a truly universal kind of solidarity in which people come to show respect to
each other simply because they are persons. He believed that the modern age
extracts a price in the form of a decline of human happiness, but he thought
the achievements of individuality made that price worth paying.
In thinking
about Durkheim's argument, you may be struck by the way in which he puts
forward his own evaluations as "objective," even scientific judgments. How
can he do that? How can he suppose that moral questions can be answered by
social scientific investigation?
After
developing an account of the moral basis of modern society, Durkheim goes on
to explain why the division of labor develops at all. He argues that it is a
result in part of increasing "moral density" of society. (He also discusses
change in the “volume” of society.) Durkheim insists that the division of
labor cannot be understood on purely economic grounds, explicable in terms
of the size of markets and the requirements of efficient production. He
argues instead that it must be explained in terms of changes in the nature
of social relations and social structure. Note that it is a mistake to
interpret "moral density" (as many commentators on Durkheim do) as an
essentially biological concept referring to an increase in population or
population density.
While
Durkheim argued that the proper growth of the division of labor would
provide a moral basis for social and political life, he also recognized that
the division of labor could assume "abnormal forms," which would not produce
the required social solidarity. These abnormal forms can result from a
number of factors: 1. people may not understand the values or rules which
form the basis of their collective life; 2. these rules are not sufficient
to keep conflict among individuals at a minimum; 3. the rules are
unilaterally imposed by one group on another, and are thus experienced as
forms of domination. Under these circumstances individuals will experience
what Durkheim called "anomie," or normlessness. That is a condition in which
people do not feel themselves to be participants in an ongoing social order
in which they willingly believe, and so they lack a sense of direction and
purpose in their lives. Anomie, therefore, places great strains upon
society; it is, according to Durkheim, the central problem of life in
advanced societies.
A good way
to see if you have a grip on the notion of anomie is to contrast it with
Marx's notion of alienation. Can you see how they are deeply opposed
diagnoses of what is wrong in modern life? More important, can you explain
how these diagnoses derive from conceptions of the person and society that
are in important respects incompatible with each other? It is also important
to see that they are not entirely incompatible; both Durkheim and Marx, for
example, share a belief in what we might call "the priority of the social,"
the view that social phenomena must be explained in terms of social facts,
and that they cannot be reduced to, or explained in terms of, individual
judgments and behaviors.
It is
important for a full understanding of Durkheim that you appreciate his
political recommendations in order to deal with the problem of anomie.
Basically, he made two proposals: first, he called for a revitalization of
occupational or what your translation calls "professional" groups in
general; he believed that the different branches of industry should be
organized in a "corporatist" manner, as he argues in the "Preface to the
Second Edition." Second, Durkheim argued that the social order of modern
society must be "just"; it must conform to the fundamental values of
individuality on which modern society is based. This means that there must
be greater equality of life chances, and particularly equality of
opportunity, than prevailed in Western countries at the time. In many ways,
then, we can see Durkheim as developing a political theory of the welfare
state; many of the ideas he presents will have a bearing on topics you will
study in the Government tutorial. A good way to see if you understand his
theory of anomie is to see if you can explain how these two proposals can
provide solutions to anomie in modern society. In doing so, you may also
gain an appreciation of how a follower of Durkheim might outline the chief
political problems of our day, and what is required to solve them.
Assignment:
I am sorry to say that, in spite of my best efforts to trim it, the reading
for this week is quite long – about 275 pages. A good bit of this consists
of examples Durkheim offers to illustrate his points, and it should be
possible to skim parts of it. But there is a good deal of reading, and I
urge you to get started on it early.
Durkheim,
The Division of Labor, Book I, chs 1, 2, 3, 5.1-5.3, 5.5, 6.1, 6.2, 6.4,
7.1, 7.4; Book II, chs 1, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 3 and 5.3; Book III, chs. 1, 2;
Conclusion; Preface to the Second Edition. (N.B. The "Preface to the Second
Edition" will be most intelligible if you read it last.)
Durkheim,
Suicide, pp. 246-57 (xeroxed).
Because of the length of the reading for this week, no essay will be
required. You should prepare notes for the following questions.
1. Compare Bentham's and
Durkheim's accounts of the function(s) of punishment.
2. One of Durkheim's
objectives is to be explain the development and significance of
individualism. Consider, for example, two of his statements: First, he
writes "... if in lower societies so little place is allowed for the
individual personality, it is not that it has been constricted or suppressed
artificially, it is quite simply because at that moment in history it did
not exist" (p. 142). He also says that, with the coming of organic
solidarity, "the individual becomes the object of a sort of religion" (p.
122). Critically analyze these claims. What do they mean? Are they true?
3. What does Durkheim
mean by anomie, and how does it compare with Marx's account of alienation?
4. Why does Durkheim
believe that "a nation cannot be maintained unless, between the state and
individuals, a whole range of secondary groups are interposed" (p. liv)? Is
Durkheim's position plausible?
5. "The task of the most
advanced societies may therefore said to be a mission for justice." Why? Is
this claim correct?
6. Why does Durkheim
argue that value judgments can be objective?
Week 10
(November 23, two sessions): Nietzsche: Genealogy, Truth, and Value
Much of modern thought is
characterized by what we might call a "denaturalization" of ethical and
political life, a divorce of ethical and political practices and
understandings from what is taken to be natural, or given. The first
theorists we studied, Hobbes, Bentham, and Locke, sought to develop a set of
moral and political principles based on accounts of human nature, but even
in their cases there were hints of a different foundation. The metaphor of
the social contract, for example, suggests that agreement or consent is the
critical basis for political order. And this suggestion was taken up by
Rousseau, who, as we saw, began to shift the basis for political theory from
nature to history, a shift that culminates in Marx, particularly in his
account of historical materialism and in the critique of "utopian
socialism." Common to all of these theories is a central concern with human
emancipation, with the creation of a society that is based on norms that all
people could accept under conditions of freedom and equality.
This
emancipatory project is based in part upon a conception of the self as a
subject. The self is seen in terms of its capacity to direct activities on
the basis of reflection, and to control its behavior in accordance with
universal moral rules that apply to all, and that guarantee human freedom
and equality. This vision is accepted by both Liberals and Marxists,
although they disagree about the possibility of realizing it in a capitalist
system.
Nietzsche
offers a radical critique of this ideal, going so far as to call this
morality a form of nihilism. Perhaps the most striking point at which
Nietzsche parts company with the other thinkers we have studied is in his
metaphor of the lamb and the great birds of prey (p. 44). Part of the point
of this metaphor is that there is no way that the birds of prey can justify
themselves to the lambs, nor that the lambs could accept any account the
birds would offer. Nietzsche contends that the demand for such justification
is misplaced. It is not only misplaced, it is a manifestation of
ressentiment — of the resentment on the part of the weak of the
superiority of the nobles, and of one's own weakness.
Ressentiment is at the root of what Nietzsche calls slave morality, by
contrast with the morality of the masters. The former is based on the
opposition of good and evil, while the latter is based on the opposition of
good and bad. The masters begin with a sense of their own value, affirming
the self, their will to power, their instinct for freedom; their morality is
a morality of self-assertion. For them, the "bad" is what fails to measure
up to what one is, and thus what one has contempt for – plebeians, lower
classes, etc.
Good and
evil, by contrast, begin with resentment at one's domination by others. Evil
is what they do to you, and so good is what you are. But your goodness is
derivative, merely a negation of what is taken as evil. This "need to direct
one's view outward instead of back to oneself is the essence of
ressentiment" (36-7). It is fundamentally reactive, a response to the
actions of others. Needless to say, what is deemed "good" in noble morality
is "evil" in slave morality.
At this
point in his argument Nietzsche insists that we necessarily express our
natures in our action. The strong person acts and expresses his strength by
dominating others, acting to realize his own purposes. The weak person,
motivated by ressentiment, imagines himself as freely choosing his
own actions, and so as responsible for them. But this is an error for we
cannot separate our activities from our character. Those who hold a slave
morality see the strong man (in using the term “man” I follow Nietzsche's
usage) as free to be weak, and so they wish to hold him accountable for what
he does. Similarly, the weak go on to distinguish themselves from the
strong, and hold up their opposite traits as goods or virtues, as if they
were freely chosen. Thus, belief in the "neutral, independent subject" makes
possible the "self-deception that interprets weakness as freedom, and their
being thus as a merit" (46). In this way Nietzsche deconstructs the concept
of the person as a “subject” or agent, which is central to all forms of
modern morality, including especially Kantianism. (Nietzsche also heaps
scorn on utilitarianism.)
Nietzsche's
account of the origins of what he calls "slave morality" is rich and
suggestive, though obviously controversial. But even if we suppose that it
is true, what relevance does it have for how we should view these moral
beliefs today? Even if they originally resulted from or were motivated by
resentment, might we not affirm them now on other grounds? Isn't Nietzsche's
critique an example of the genetic fallacy?
This
question leads to a second important aspect of Nietzsche's argument, his
idea of "genealogy." He insists that the meaning of a social practice
changes over time as different individuals and groups bend it to their
wills. It is an error, he argues, to assume a constant function over time
for some superficially similar practice, such as that of punishment. Thus,
the fact that morality developed under certain conditions, and emerged first
as the morality of a particular group, doesn't mean that it has the same
meaning today. Nonetheless, its genealogy is essential to an understanding
of its current significance.
What is
critical about modern western morality (which derives from Judeo-Christian
morality) is that it is essentially reactive, based on a resentment of
superior men, and it demands conformity with its precepts. But this does not
mean that Nietzsche would have us return to the morality of the nobles – a
return that would in any event be impossible because of the ways in which
society has changed since that time. And even if it were possible, it would
be undesirable. For the noble, as Nietzsche points out, when not bound by
specific ties, tends to go back to the innocent conscience of the beast of
prey. What Nietzsche calls the "taming of man" is the task of slave
morality, under which we come to have a "soul" and a rich inner world. This
is, ironically, because slave morality gives us guilt and bad conscience.
Basic to all
life is the will to power, or freedom: the affirmation of the self through
the realization of its projects, its will, the bending of the world to its
ends. Under certain conditions, and for certain groups, this will to power
becomes "introjected," turned inward, against the self. Instead of striving
to turn the world to one's purposes, one seeks to impose an order on one's
own, animal nature. This is the key to bad conscience and to guilt – the
turning against the self of the will to power, so that it takes the form of
a will to impose order not on the world but on the self. It is a kind of
self-imposed cruelty, which, like all forms of cruelty, brings a certain
delight to the person who performs it on himself.
Guilt and
bad conscience also underlie the ascetic ideal, which is the renunciation of
desire, of sexuality and the will to power itself, that is, of life. Its
highest form is the development of the idea of sin, in which one's suffering
comes to be seen as a punishment for one's having sinned, so that the
"invalid is turned into the sinner." The ascetic ideal provides answers to
the question of the meaning of suffering, but in this answer is a hatred of
all things human, of life, a will to nothingness.
This complex
of bad conscience, guilt, and morality – the ascetic ideal – is a kind of
sickness that is pervasive in our culture. Even science, which is often seen
as opposed to religion, manifests it, because science is premised upon a
commitment to truth. But, Nietzsche insists, we must push further and ask
what is the value of truth, for we must criticize even that commitment. In
rejecting the claims of truth and morality, we may free ourselves so that we
can affirm our life and our world.
Assignment:
Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morals.
Essay questions:
1. Write an essay
responding to Nietzsche's parable of the lambs and the birds of prey.
2. Why does Nietzsche
reject the idea of universal justice? Is his argument plausible?
3. Is contemporary
morality nihilistic?
4. Critically evaluate
Nietzsche's critique of "truth."
Week 11 (November 30/December 2): Weber I:
Protestantism and Capitalism
A major theme of this class has
been the emergence of modern, industrial society. The theorists we have
studied have offered different accounts of what makes modern society
distinctive and of the causes of its emergence. For Marx, the critical
factor was the rise of capitalism, which he thought resulted from the
inability of feudal relations of production to cope with the changes in the
forces of production that occurred in the early modern period. For Durkheim
the crucial change is not simply the emergence of capitalism, but the
development of a form of society characterized by a high degree of social
differentiation, whose cohesion is based on "organic solidarity." This
transformation is caused, according to Durkheim, by increases in the
population and the "moral density" of a society and by the gradual
effacement of the "segmental type" of social organization.
In spite of
their many differences, these thinkers see changes in the economic sphere as
crucial. Even Durkheim, who vigorously rejects Marx's economic determinism,
explains the emergence of modern society as a result of a dramatic increase
in the division of labor. The reading for this week, Max Weber's
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, marks a sharp break with
this tradition. For Weber, modern society is the result at least in part of
a process of cultural rationalization in which the crucial sphere is
religion. Weber does not neglect the important roles of economic or
"material" conditions in the rise of capitalism, but at least some of the
key changes that gave rise to capitalist modes of behavior and eventually to
"capitalism" as a system of economic and social relations were developments
within Protestantism. These changes, moreover, resulted from a "logic of
development," which Weber calls "rationalization," that was essentially
internal to the religious sphere.
According to
Weber, capitalism as it came to exist in the West is unique. When one thinks
about it, the behavior of capitalists must appear to be very strange indeed.
In traditional societies people work for a living, and once they have earned
enough to maintain their customary way of life, they stop working.
Similarly, merchants or warriors who acquire or seize great wealth use it to
"buy" social status. They acquire land or marry their children into the
nobility and so use their wealth to enhance their social standing. Greed and
avarice are found in most if not all cultures, but generally we find
individuals who are successful in the pursuit of wealth using that
wealth. And when the wealth is used, it is dissipated or, at least, it stops
growing. What is odd about capitalism is that capitalists reinvest what they
earn so that they can earn more. They appear to take the increase of capital
as an end in itself; rather than making money in order to live, they seem to
live in order to make money. Today it is easy to understand why people
behave that way (to the extent that they do) – they are caught up in a
system of interactions that forces such behavior on them. But how could such
a system ever have begun? What could induce people to act in accordance with
the "ethos" or "spirit" of capitalism, to direct their activities in a
rational, methodical way towards the continual increase of capital, before
capitalism had been established as a system?
Weber finds
an answer to this question in the religious beliefs of Protestants or what
he calls the "Protestant ethic." People did not consciously adopt the ethos
of capitalism, Weber argues, but were led by their acceptance of certain
doctrines of Protestantism to act as if they were committed to
capitalist values. And as they achieved success in their businesses, a new
system gradually came into being that could supply its own ethos, its own
motivations for action.
The rise of
the Protestant ethic should be seen as a result of a gradual
"rationalization" of religious beliefs, one in which certain ideas of
Medieval Christianity were given a more and more determinate and specific
form as they were subjected to criticism and reflection from within the
religious community itself. In general, Weber argues, the different spheres
of life have a certain autonomy from one another. Each is based upon its own
distinct principles, and each gives rise to its own distinct needs. Changes
in a sphere, then, may be responses to its specific needs or result from a
rationalization of its principles. Weber is careful to stress that a
religious ethic may be influenced by economic or social factors, but, he
insists, "it receives its stamp primarily from religious sources, and, first
of all, from the content of its annunciation and its promise." When
religious doctrines are reinterpreted, Weber argues, "Such reinterpretations
adjust the revelations to the needs of the religious community. If this
occurs, then it is at least usual that religious doctrines are adjusted to
religious needs" (Gerth and Mills, p. 270; all subsequent quotations
are from this anthology). Thus, Weber argues, historical materialism is
inadequate; no particular sphere of social life should be seen as primary,
let along determinative of the rest. It is for this reason that Weber is
often considered an "idealist," since he allows for the possibility of ideas
being independent and sometimes even the principal causes of social change.
Weber's
account of Protestantism is a particular case of his more general theory of
human society and social change. Weber sees much of human history (or, to
speak more precisely, the histories of particular peoples and cultures) as a
continual interplay between the explosion onto the scene of an inspired
vision and the subsequent routinization and rationalization of that vision
both in intellectual systems and in social institutions. Thus, a prophet or
charismatic figure will proclaim a religious vision, will offer an
"annunciation and a promise," which will attract disciples and followers.
This vision may provide a sense of ultimate meaning for the people who
accept it, in part because they are moved by the power of the individual who
proclaims it. But over time, especially after the death of the original
prophet, questions of interpretation will arise, and it will become
necessary to stabilize the movement by adopting regularized customs and
institutions. As the original vision is clarified and explained, it will be
made more coherent, and certain implications, which had previously gone
unnoticed, will be grasped. What had been an inspired vision will gradually
become transformed into an elaborate system. Over time, unless renewed, it
may become so rigid that the original vision is undermined, setting the
stage for the appearance of a new prophet, proclaiming a new promise.
Weber argues
that rationalization (at least in the Occident) has taken two different,
though related, forms. One is the "theoretical mastery of reality by means
of increasingly precise and abstract concepts." This form is exemplified in
Thomist philosophy, Newtonian mechanics, and in musical theory. The other
form of rationalization is the "methodical attainment of a definitely given
and practical end by means of an increasingly precise calculation of
adequate means." Rationalization as "practical mastery" of the world is
exemplified in the techniques of yoga (designed to enable the yogi to
overcome attachment to the body), rational bookkeeping (crucial to the
emergence of modern capitalism), bureaucracy, and scientifically based
technologies of production. Theoretical and practical mastery are different,
but, as Weber says, "ultimately they belong inseparably together" (293).
Implicit in
this account is a view of human beings as creatures who have a need for a
sense of ultimate "meaning" in their lives. People must have a sense of the
significance of their lives, a sense of direction or purpose, which gives
their lives meaning and which enables them to see their places in an ordered
whole. This is one of the reasons why religion is so important, for
historically religion has provided people with answers to the fundamental
questions of suffering, injustice, and death. Because we are (at least to
some extent) "rational" creatures, we strive to order our lives – including
the accounts we give of our lives – into coherent and systematic patterns.
If our need for meaning gives rise to religious visions, our capacity for
rationality underlies the rationalization of these visions.
The
direction that the rationalization of a religious vision will take depends
very much upon the original vision itself. Weber makes an important
distinction between two fundamental types of religious visions, those which
are forms of "asceticism" and those which exemplify "mysticism." Both of
these attitudes are to be found in most of the major world religions, but
their fundamental visions usually can be seen as predominantly one or the
other. In mysticism, the devout individual attempts to realize the
"contemplative possession of the holy." "Mysticism," Weber writes,
"intends a state of 'possession,' not action, and the individual is not a
tool but a 'vessel' of the divine" (325). In contrast, "Active asceticism
operates within the world; rationally active asceticism, in mastering the
world, seeks to tame what is creatural and wicked through work in a worldly
'vocation' (inner-worldly asceticism)" (325). The ascetic is God's tool,
sent on earth to do God's work. "Such asceticism contrasts radically with
mysticism, if the latter draws the full conclusion of fleeing from the world
(contemplative flight from the world)" (325). The rationalization of a
mystical vision will lead in the direction of withdrawal from the world
because action will be seen as "dangerous" and corrupting. The devout and
the religious "virtuoso" will strive for union with the holy, with the
divine, through renunciation of the world. The rationalization of an ascetic
vision, on the other hand, will lead to engagement with the world and to the
effort to "mould life in this world according to the will of a god" (290).
While the
religions of the Orient were generally mystical, Protestantism in the West
offered a fundamentally ascetic religious vision. Over time this vision was
made more and more systematic, more and more rigorous. The rationalization
of Luther's vision, according to Weber, particularly in its uncompromising
form in Calvinism, set the stage for the forms of behavior that would
eventually lead to capitalism. This is a major theme of the Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The story that Weber tells is a
deeply ironic one, for the rationalization of various branches of life that
the Protestant sects set in motion eventually undermines the original
religious visions themselves. But that is a theme we will pick up next week.
Assignment:
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, entire.
There
will be no essay this week. The main focus of our discussion in class will
be the question, “Does Weber's account of the origins of capitalism show
that Marx's theory is wrong?”
Study Questions:
1. Explain what Weber
means when he writes, "the impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of
money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do
with capitalism."
2. "Capitalism is
identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit." What
does this mean?
3. What does Weber mean
by the "rationalistic organization of (formally) free labor"?
4. What is an "ideal
type"?
5. In capitalism,
"Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the
satisfaction of his material needs." What is it for, then?
6. What is a "calling"?
7. What does Weber mean
by "traditionalism"?
8. Why does capitalism
only develop in the West?
9. Why, according to
Weber, do adherents of certain sects experience an "unprecedented inner
loneliness"? What significance does this experience have for them?
10. What is the
significance of "active self-control" in Weber's theory?
Week 12 (December 7/9) Weber II: Disenchantment and
Bureaucracy: The Fate of our Times
Last week we saw how the ethos
of modern capitalism grew out of the rationalization of the religious vision
underlying modern Protestantism. According to Weber, Protestantism is the
epitome of a religion of active asceticism, in which the devout see
themselves as God's tools, whose purpose is to do His work on earth. A
critical idea for Protestantism, then, is the idea of a "calling" or
"vocation," for it is the idea of a calling that suffuses ordinary, worldly
activities with transcendent meaning. While the specifically religious
meaning of a vocation is no longer central to the culture of the West, the
idea of a vocation continues to be important. One of the principal means
through which many people in our society define themselves, and come to find
a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives is through their work or
vocation. In two of his most famous and most brilliant essays, Weber sets
out to address the meaning of science and of politics as vocations – or,
better, as callings – in the modern world.
There is
something deeply problematic about the pursuit of science as a calling. In
one sense, science may be seen as a continuation of the historical process
of the rationalization of religious worldviews. As we have seen, one
important characteristic of religions (at least religions of individual
salvation) is that they provide answers to the deep and fundamental question
posed by Tolstoy: "What shall we do and how shall we live?" In answering
this question, religions offer their adherents a vision of the world which
enables them to see how their own lives, and their suffering, fit into a
broader scheme of things. They come to see how their lives serve purposes
which make them worthwhile, and so they can become reconciled to the world
and its apparent irrationalities. This attempt "practically and ethically to
rationalize the world" (p. 357) complements the effort of science to
comprehend the world in theoretical terms. But the very success of science
in increasing our rational understanding of the world undermines the
religious vision which gave our lives meaning, and which led to the
rationalization of our worldviews in the first place. Science has this
result because it leads to the "disenchantment of the world." It forces us
to see the world as stripped of purpose and ultimate meaning, as the locus
of the interplay of causal forces, whose ultimate outcomes are governed by
contingent circumstances and which do not serve, and are not controlled by,
any higher purpose.
Because it
strips the world of meaning, science as a vocation is doubly problematic. In
the first place, it calls into question the possibility of answering
Tolstoy's query at all. On what basis can we find meaning in our lives if we
can no longer see the world as "enchanted," as a realm of purpose and
meaning that transcends one's own, individual life? Second, we must ask
what, if any, point can the calling of science – the life of scholarship,
study, and theoretical reflection – have for the men and women who pursue
it? How can science contribute to the lives of its practitioners, and what
role can it play in giving point and direction to the lives of others? What
special qualities does it require in a person, and what special rewards does
it offer? These are the questions that Weber sets out to answer in "Science
as a Vocation."
From the
account I have given so far, you may think that Weber could have no answer
to these questions, that his view of life in the modern age must be entirely
bleak. But that is not really the case. In the face of an increasingly
rationalized world, he saw a possible stance a person could take which would
involve a special kind of heroism, the heroism of the individual who can
stand up to the "stern seriousness of these fateful times" (149), who could
make his or her own commitments and affirmations, and live in accordance
with them, without the illusion that they are anything but one's own
commitments. The modern hero must have an adequate understanding of his or
her situation, and must make commitments that are not based upon
self-deception, or the delusion that the world could be different.
Such a
person will be characterized by enormous inner strength, and may also serve
as an inspiration for others, presenting them with an image and a model of
how they might live their own lives. If so, that person might have the
capability to become a political actor. In "Politics as a Vocation" Weber
describes the qualities a person must have "if he is to be allowed to put
his hand on the wheel of history” (115). In many ways the political life is
more demanding than the life of scholarship and science because politics
gives rise to deep moral and personal paradoxes that the political actor
must face. While the scholar must above all be committed to truth, and must
recognize the limitations of his or her authority and role as a scientist,
the politician is responsible for the well-being of a community, and must
strive to advance a "cause" in his or her public actions. This means that
politicians may face deep conflicts between the requirements of ordinary or
private moral life and their public responsibilities.
The specific
means of politics is violence: the state, in Weber's well-known definition,
claims a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory. Because of this, the politician may have to use means, such as
killing or lying, that would be utterly wrong for someone acting in other
roles. Those who let themselves "in for politics, that is, for power and
force as means, [contract] with diabolical powers and for [their] actions it
is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but
that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a
political infant" (123). In order to deal with these dilemmas, Weber
develops his account of an "ethics of responsibility" and an "ethics of
absolute principles," arguing that the politician must strive to find an
appropriate balance between them. (Note: In your edition of "Politics as a
Vocation," the translators have used the phrase "ethics of ultimate ends"
for "ethics of absolute principles." Their phrase is somewhat misleading as
it does not capture the distinction between the two systems of ethics as
adequately as the phrase I have suggested. You might substitute "ethics of
absolute principles" whenever you see "ethics of ultimate ends" in the
essay.)
One reason
why politics presents us with such deep moral problems is that it is so
different from religion in the means it must employ, but similar to religion
in that the state, like religious associations, is capable of giving meaning
to death. This is most evident on the battlefield, where soldiers feel that
they are risking their lives and dying for their country. Politics is also
similar to religion in the important role that charismatic leadership plays
in both spheres. Last week we saw that much of history could be seen as an
interplay between inspiration and the routinization or rationalization of an
inspired vision in systems of belief and in social institutions. The men and
women who offer such visions are charismatic figures. They have the "gift of
grace," and are followed because they can inspire personal devotion and
personal confidence on account of their extraordinary qualities such as
heroism, sanctity, or exemplary character. A charismatic figure offers his
or her followers a vision of life which they accept and follow because they
believe in him or her.
Because
charismatic leaders are set apart from ordinary men and women, because they
are endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least exceptional powers
and qualities, they "must stand outside the ties of this world, outside of
routine occupations, as well as the routine obligations of family life."
This means that there is "an unavoidable separation from this world of all
those who partake of charisma" (248). This "separation from the ordinary"
means that charismatic figures are an important source of innovation in
society – they have a kind of authority that enables them to break with
traditions and to articulate new values and norms. But it also means that
their authority is inherently unstable. Because they are exceptional,
because they stand outside of the ordinary flow of life, because their
authority is purely personal, they do not provide an "ordered procedure of
appointment or dismissal" (246); they must "reject as undignified any
pecuniary gain that is methodical and rational" (247); and they do not
provide a formal method for the adjudication of disputes (250). Because
charisma is personal, the possession of a particular individual, it is
necessarily impermanent.
It follows
from this that if an inspired vision is to be efficacious it must make its
peace with the world: it must assume a form that can be applied in the
everyday world, and it must become manifest in an organization based on
forms of discipline, on the "consistently rationalized, methodically trained
and exact execution of the received order" (253). If charismatic leadership
is to give rise to a new way of life, to new institutions and practices or
to a stable system of rule, it must be "routinized." Of course, this need is
particularly acute when the movement faces the problem of succession due to
the death of the original, charismatic figure. The routinization of charisma
can take two directions. On the one hand, it may be "traditionalized," as
customary practices evolve through which the authority of the old leader is
passed on to successive generations. The grounds of authority in this case
will be in part "the sanctity of immemorial traditions." On the other hand,
the authority may be "rationalized." In this case, authority will be at
least in part "rational-legal" in form. Recruitment to the administration
will be based upon technical competence and training, and obedience will be
based "on a belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those
elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands."
Historically, the dominant form of authority throughout much of the world
was traditional authority, occasionally interrupted by the rise of new
charismatic leaders who would establish a new dynasty or other religious and
political institutions. But in the Occident, a process of rationalization
has occurred that has fundamentally altered that pattern. While the
rationalization of religious visions or political structures and ideology is
a general feature of human life, in modern times in the West this process
has been carried much farther and has been much more intense than anywhere
else. This is due in part to the growth of scientific knowledge and the
division of labor occasioned by capitalism, and by the fact that
rationalization has come to be self-consciously pursued by social actors as
efficiency has become an important value in our culture. This has resulted
in a way of life and a system of institutions that threatens the dialectic
between inspiration and its routinization or rationalization that has
previously characterized human history.
Modern
society is dominated by large-scale, bureaucratic organizations. Bureaucracy
is the epitome of rational-legal authority; bureaucratic structures tend to
replace non-bureaucratic forms of administration largely because of their
superior efficiency. The growth of bureaucracy is closely related to the
growth of democracy (which requires uniform or equal treatment of people, a
prime characteristic of bureaucracy) and to the growth of market or
capitalist society (which requires stable expectations regarding the actions
of public authorities). But as modern society comes to be dominated by
remote, impersonal structures of the state, business corporations, and the
market, individuals may experience the world as an increasingly alien one,
over which they can exercise no control, and with which they cannot
identify. In some of his moments Weber could see only the vision of a future
in which men and women were trapped in an "iron cage" of rationalization,
bureaucratization, the decline of art, spontaneity, and impulse, and in
which the individual can find no solid grounding for his or her ultimate
commitments. This is the oppressive world that Kafka describes so tellingly
in novels such as The Trial.
Weber and
Marx offer different diagnoses of the problems of modern life and, not
surprisingly, they prescribe different solutions. Weber rejects socialism as
an ideal; by abolishing the market, socialism would lead to the universal
bureaucratization of life and so further restrict possibilities for
individuality and self-expression. Rather, Weber advocates a system of
parliamentary democracy which would encourage charismatic political leaders
to rise to the fore. Such leaders, Weber hopes, would be able to control the
bureaucracy and make it responsive to the changing needs and aspirations of
the citizenry. Of course, this is a limited solution; it is possible only if
we have politicians and citizens who possess the maturity to cope with the
"polar night of icy darkness" (128) that, in the end, defines our lot.
Assignment:
Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," "Politics as a Vocation," "The Sociology
of Charismatic Authority," "The Meaning of Discipline," "Bureaucracy," all
in From Max Weber. "Bureaucracy and Political Leadership," xeroxed
hand-out.
Essays:
1. What is the role of
science in making value judgments? Can we provide a rational grounding for
moral values and norms?
2. "He who seeks the
salvation of the soul, of his own and of others, should not seek it along
the avenue of politics" (126). Why not? What should be sought in political
action?
3. Critically assess
Weber's vision of modern politics and society. In what ways do you find it
appealing? In what ways problematic? Does Weber convincingly refute those
(such as Marx or even Durkheim) who hold out the vision of a genuine
community under the conditions of modern society?
4. It has been said that
a paradox of modern democracy is that it necessarily gives rise to
bureaucracy which necessarily undermines democracy. Critically assess this
claim.
Study Questions:
1. "It is the fate of
charisma, whenever it comes into the permanent institutions of a community,
to give way to powers of tradition or of rational socialization" (253). Why?
2. Explain: "Discipline
in general, like its most rational offspring bureaucracy, is impersonal"
(254).
3. Exactly how is
military discipline the "ideal model" for the modern capitalist factory?
4. How does charisma
"remain a highly important element of the social structure" (263) even after
it has become routinized, and even after the sources of authority become
traditional or rational-legal?
5. Why is the
development of the money economy a presupposition of bureaucracy?
6. "Bureaucracy is
occasioned more by intensive and qualitative enlargement and internal
deployment of the scope of administrative tasks than by their extensive and
quantitative increase" (212). Explain.
7. Why is bureaucracy
"among those social structures which are hardest to destroy" (228)?
8. Why does Weber say
that in the modern world the "struggle of the 'specialist type of man'
against the older type of 'cultivated man'" enters "into all intimate
cultural questions" (243)?
9. Why does Weber place
the discussion of the "legitimation of domination" at the forefront of his
account of political power?
10. "All states may be
classified according to whether they rest on the principle that the staff of
men themselves own the administrative means, or whether the staff is
'separated' from these means of administration" (81). Why does Weber propose
this basis for classification?
11. What is the
significance of the role of lawyers in politics in the west, according to
Weber?
12. "To take a stand, to
be passionate . . . is the politician's element" (95). Explain.
13. Why does Weber say
that tragedy is an aspect of all political action?
14. What is the
difference between the "ethic of absolute principles" (in your translation,
"ethic of ultimate ends") and the "ethic of responsibility"? Which is more
appropriate to political life?
15. In what ways does
Weber think these two "ethics" can be understood as supplements to each
other?
16. Just how does
science lead to the disenchantment of the world?
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