College of Social Studies

Because of the critical dimension of these theories, they are important not only for what they teach us about how society works and the causes of modernization and industrialization, but also because they themselves become part of the very process of social change itself. For men and women take up these theories, or ideas inspired by them, draw up political programs, create institutions, and conduct their lives according to them. As these theories become part of society in this way, they often have consequences that are unintended by the theorists who drew them up. Thus, to look back on our history and to understand our own form of life requires that we understand the theories that have in part shaped it. As Keynes once wrote in his General Theory,

the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.¹

Thus, when you study the consolidation of the modern state, the development of the institutions of political and legal sovereignty, and the growth of new forms of the state and law, you will be studying social and political processes whose ideas were first articulated by Hobbes; when you investigate the growth of the constitutional state of the 19th century, you will find the ghost of Locke; and when you learn about the socialist movement and the creation and operation of non-market industrial economies, you will not have to look hard to see the influence of Marx.

If we must study these theories because they have become integral parts of our world, and the history of the creation of that world, we must also study them because they continue to provide the essential ideas we still use to understand and explain that world. One of the principal aims of the social sciences is to develop theories which explain the widest possible range of social phenomena in terms of a few basic principles. Ultimately, the idea is to create a unified theory that could account for many aspects of social life, including such things as war, the structure of families, the level of prices and employment, political revolutions, and the forms of religious practice. Social theories ultimately rest upon certain very basic assumptions regarding human motivation, rationality, sociality and needs. In other words, they presuppose a conception of human nature and society, some image of what it is to be a person and the relationships of people to one another. In order to understand these theories, it is essential that we grasp the basic assumptions upon which they rest.

The theories that we will be studying in this course all put forward a conception of the person and society on the basis of which social scientists have continued to develop theories even to this day. The first theory we will study is Hobbes's Leviathan. In this work Hobbes sets out a conception of the person and of society that will be familiar to many of you, for in many ways it resembles the conception that underlies much of modern economics, political science, and sociology – not to mention our ordinary, unreflective ways of talking about society. Another theory we will study is Marx's, and the connections between his theories of society and contemporary Marxist ideas are obvious. There will be such connections for all of the theories we will study this semester.

These theories also provide the basic frameworks within which normative issues have been and continue to be posed. If we want to understand such concepts as liberty, equality, solidarity, democracy, the public interest, justice, or alienation, then the best place to begin is with the thinkers who first enunciated them, or who first thought about them in a systematic, rigorous, way.

This course, then, has a number of intellectual objectives. First, it will provide a background for the other work you will be doing in the College by presenting some of the theories that are important components of the social and historical processes you will be studying in tutorials. Second, by studying these theories and analyzing their structures and basic assumptions, you should come to see some of the assumptions that underlie the theories modern social scientists use to explain society. This should help you become more self-conscious about your own assumptions about what is involved in understanding social life. Third, you should come to see, at least in an impressionistic way, the connection between thinking about society in a certain way and holding certain values or principles regarding how society ought to be organized. And last, you should come to see that there are a number of fundamentally different and competing ways of thinking about modern society, and what some of these differences involve.

One final note about the role of this colloquium in the CSS. This is the first occasion when your whole class will meet and work together on a common academic project. Thus, it is an opportunity to learn not only about the subject, but also about your colleagues. Ideally the colloquium will contribute to the development of a shared sense of membership and common purpose within your class, which can be one of the most valuable and rewarding aspects of the College experience, and something that is hard to find outside of the College setting.

The notes in this syllabus have been developed and refined over the years during which this course has been offered. They were originally developed by Brian Fay and me, but over the years they have been elaborated by many others.

II. Class Procedures and Assignments:

The class will meet Monday and Wednesday afternoons. A study guide will be handed out at least a week before each unit of the class, introducing the reading assignment for that unit by describing some of the general issues the readings address, and by offering a list of questions that direct your attention to essential points in the material. There will be three kinds of writing assignments for the colloquium, quizzes, short (2-3 page) papers, and tutorial style (6 page) pages. Every week there will either be a short quiz at the beginning of class on Monday, or a short, 2-3 page paper will be assigned ahead of time and will be due at the beginning of class on Monday. Short papers will be assigned for weeks 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12; there will be quizzes on weeks 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 13. The first tutorial style paper will be due on Wednesday, October 17 by noon; the second will be due after class is over, on Monday, December 17, no later than 4:30 PM. These papers will require you to engage critically with the readings from several weeks, and will be similar to the kind of essay you will be writing at the end of the year for your comps. I encourage you to work together outside of class to discuss the reading and the questions, but each student must write his or her paper individually. During the class you may be called upon to summarize your paper in order to get the discussion started.

The short papers must be done by class time, but one paper may be submitted late during the semester. If you are late more than once, you will have to write a 6 page, tutorial type essay instead of the regular 2-3 page paper for each of the weeks in which you are late beyond the allowable one. Papers handed in for weeks in which you are absent will be counted as late.

Johanna Richlin will be the preceptor for this class. She will hold review sessions on Sunday evenings and will also work with individual students to help with their papers and writing. I strongly encourage you to come to the Sunday sessions. The readings for this class are complex, often rather difficult texts, and you will find them more intelligible and interesting if you talk about them with other students and with the preceptor.

IIa: Some Notes on Writing:

In the CSS you will be doing a great deal of writing, which will give you the opportunity to improve your writing skills. We will be talking about writing in class, but here are some general notes you should bear in mind in writing your papers:

1. Establish a focus. A good paper has a thesis, a central idea or claim that it is making, and it presents an argument supporting that thesis. You should be able to make an outline of your paper, which will at the same time be the skeleton of the argument you are making. It is often helpful to write out the outline – in sentence form, not simply as a list of topics – before writing the paper or, at least, the final draft. A good way to think about your paper is ask yourself, “What do I want my readers to believe after they have read my paper? What reasons can I offer them to think that?” If you can answer these questions succinctly, you’re off to an excellent start.

2. Title. The title should express the main idea or focus of your paper, preparing your reader to see immediately what you’re going to say, and why it’s interesting.

3. Structure and organization. The paper should have a clear structure, with an introduction presenting the central question or problem you are addressing, a body that sets out a logical development of the reasons and evidence you are offering, and a conclusion that ties the paper together. In longer papers it is often useful to provide section headings. The introduction should generally state your main thesis, and provide an overview of the structure of the argument, to make it easier for your reader to follow it.

Some specific points:

1. Please NUMBER your pages.

2. All quotations, paraphrases, and direct use of another's ideas (even if not quoted) MUST BE cited. Using parenthetical references (author’s last name, page number) with a bibliography is fine; you do not have to use footnotes or endnotes in short papers. Footnotes can be used to present additional ideas, qualifications, or other points that would detract from the flow of the paper.

3. Avoid common but egregious errors such as misuse of too, to or two; there, they're, or their; its or it's; affect or effect; principle or principal....

4. Stamp out sexism. If you mean men and women or he and she, say so. Don't assume that "man" or "men" refer to human beings generally. There are lots of ways of writing that avoid the awkwardness of, e.g., saying he or she over and over again. For help, you might consult Williams (see #5) or a more specialized guide such as the Handbook of Nonsexist Writing by Miller and Smith.

5. There are a number of excellent guides for good writing. Strunk and White is a classic, especially for grammar and word usage; it also offers a useful set of “principles of compositon.” I especially recommend Joseph Williams, Style: Toward Grace and Clarity. His work is particularly helpful in offering examples of how awkward passages can be rewritten, using rules or principles that are fairly concrete and address specific issues such as clarity, cohesion, emphasis, etc. (these are all chapter headings in his book). Anthony Weston, Rulebook for Arguments, offers a helpful discussion of how to develop (and express) an argument in a tight, logical way.

One final comment about class expectations: The structure of the CSS week means that most of you will only begin work on the colloquium after you have finished your tutorial on Friday, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for the reading and for doing the paper by Monday afternoon, and so you may be tempted to shortchange yourself, and do only enough of the reading to answer a specific question. That may often get you through the week, but only at the cost of not understanding all of the material, and taking that shortcut will hurt you when it comes to comps, or when you deal with some of these issues in your tutorials or other classes. If you are having difficulty keeping up, please don’t hesitate to see me or the preceptor.

III. General Syllabus Note that the schedule of meetings for this class deviates from regular university MW classes in order to fit with your tutorials.

Week 1 (September 10/12): T. Hobbes, Leviathan

Week 2 (September 17/19): J. Bentham, selections from An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation, and James Mill, Essay on Government.

Week 3 (September 24/26): John Locke, Second Treatise of Government and "Letter Concerning Toleration."

Week 4 (October 1/3): J.J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.

Week 5 (October 8/10): J.J. Rousseau, The Social Contract.

Fall Break, October 15-16

Week 6 (October 22/24): The Enlightenment and the Idea of Progress, selections from Kant.

Weeks 7 - 8 (October 29/31 and November 5/7): Marx, selections from The Marx-Engels Reader.

Week 9 (November 12/14): Durkheim, The Division of Labor and Suicide, selections.

Week 10 (November 19): Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals. N.B. Because we will be on break on the 21^st, we will meet twice on the 19^th to continue our discussion of Nietzsche. The second meeting will be in the evening, so please reserve that time.

Weeks 11 - 12 (November 26/28 and December 3/5): Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and selections from From Max Weber.

Week 13 (December 8-10): S. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents.

December 17: Final paper due.

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall, 2007 Mr. Moon

Week 1 (September 10/12) Thomas Hobbes: Egoism, Instrumental Rationality, and Social Order.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is the author of one of the most powerful conceptions of human nature in the history of political thought. In the first part of the Leviathan he presents a conception of the person as a rational egoist. He conceives of the human being as a kind of machine: "For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body?" (p. 1, "Introduction")². Each of us is but a complex organization of matter in motion, and on the basis of this image he gives an account of sensation, language, thought, rationality, the passions, voluntary movement, and motivation. This is all set out in the first twelve chapters of the Leviathan, and the picture that emerges is one of human beings who are egoistic in the sense that they are moved to action only to gratify their own desires or to escape the objects of their aversions. They are also rational in the sense that they are capable of learning the consequences of their actions, and of choosing an action whose consequences are, on the whole, most conducive to the satisfaction of their desires. This conception of rationality is called "instrumental rationality" because it limits the role of reason to the discovery of the best means to our ends. Reason, in this view, is an instrument of our desires or, as Hume would later put it, a slave of our passions. Reason is also instrumental in the (related) sense that it can be used to judge our beliefs about the world, and to determine whether a maxim of behavior or a choice of action is most likely to advance our goals. But, according to this view, reason cannot be used to determine the (ultimate) goals we should pursue, or what things we should desire. Reason is limited to assessing the consistency of different ideas or statements – Hobbes calls it a kind of "reckoning." Therefore, while it can tell us if our actions are consistent with our goals, in the sense that they will advance these goals, or if our goals are consistent with each other, it offers no grounds for choosing among goals or values. (A similar view of the limitations of “practical” reason – reason as applied to action – is presented by Max Weber, over 250 years later.)

Now if human beings are rational egoists, each motivated to act on the basis of rational calculations of his or her own individual advantage, how is social order possible? What will social relations be like among creatures such as these? Much depends on exactly what goals we seek – how, in other words, we define our “self-interest.” You should pay careful attention to Hobbes's account of how we come to have certain goals, and what they are.

His answer to the question of what social relations would be like among humans in the absence of a political order is set out in chapter 13, "Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning their Felicity and Misery." In the state of nature, Hobbes argues, "social" relations will be a state of war of everyone against everyone else:

In such condition there will be no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (62)

This is not a pretty picture, and for the rest of the book Hobbes sets out a theory of how we can avoid it. His basic idea is that social order requires the existence of a system of rules regulating individual conduct, but this system will be effective if and only if the rules are enforced by an agency that has an effective monopoly of force.

Hobbes does not use the phrase "an effective monopoly of force," and it seriously understates what Hobbes takes to be the necessary condition for social order. What is distinctive about his position is that the power of the state must be absolute. Hobbes (along with Bodin) is the father of the idea of "sovereignty." Prior to Hobbes most political thinkers thought of the state as bound by a moral and legal order, and saw the purpose of the state as upholding that order. Hobbes is a radical thinker in that he completely rejects this traditional view, arguing instead that the state itself must be the source of the moral and legal order it upholds. There must, Hobbes argues, be a supreme power within the state, a sovereign authority whose decisions are absolutely final, that is not answerable to anyone for its decisions. Much of the Leviathan consists of an account of the theory of sovereignty, together with a defense of Hobbes's central claim that a social order can be stable only when there is a sovereign authority.

But how is it possible for there to be a sovereign authority within society? What does this require? Evidently, one person or even one small group could hardly coerce everyone else to obey his or their orders, because the combined strength of the whole would be greater than that of any part. (What assumptions does Hobbes make in offering this argument?) If I am to get you to obey me, then I will need the support of others in order to have more power than you, and so be able to force you to do my bidding. But why would others be willing to support me? Since everyone acts only in his or her own interests, others would support me in coercing you only if it were in their interests to do so. But why would supporting me be in their interests? In answering this question, Hobbes argues that if I am enforcing the law, and so acting to make social order possible, then my actions are in the interests of everyone except the person whom I am coercing. Thus, everyone else will support me, and I will have an overwhelming advantage of power in relationship to each person in the society who might be tempted to break the law. Thus, Hobbes concludes, a political agency, the mortal god, Leviathan, could in principle be formed from the unanimous agreement of everyone in society to obey it, because it is in the interests of everyone that it exist. And so, he argues, a social contract could bring it into being.

If a political order requires an institution that exercises an effective monopoly of force, then the question becomes, "What sort of institution would be most effective?" Should it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? (Note that in posing this question we are making distinctions among the forms of government – but in every case the government would be "sovereign"; that is, it would have the powers of the Leviathan, as Hobbes outlines them.) Hobbes answers this question in the first few chapters of Part II, especially ch. 19. In considering Hobbes's answer, you should pay particular attention to his account of what the purpose of government is, for it is only in terms of that purpose that different forms of government can be assessed. In this regard, you should note his discussion of this matter in ch. 30.

Given the importance Hobbes attaches to the maintenance of order, it is not surprising that he was preoccupied with the problem of political stability. Much of Part II can be read as a theory of political stability, in which the impact of such factors as economic and social equality, different religious practices, and systems of taxation are considered. Some of the issues Hobbes discusses, including law, freedom, and punishment, will come up again and again throughout the term.

Assignment: Hobbes, Leviathan, Parts I, II, and "A Review and Conclusion." This is a very long reading assignment, one of the longest you will have this semester. It is possible to skim some of the chapters especially in Part II, particularly chs. 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, and 31. In these chapters Hobbes takes up a variety of topics; you might want to pay particular attention to the first couple of pages where he identifies his topic and defines key terms (see, e.g., the first couple of pages of ch. 27). The rest of the chapter elaborates his position and addresses opposing views. Because of the length of the reading, you might want to skim those sections, using the notes printed in the margins as a guide.

Essay and discussion questions (write on one of the following questions):

The questions for this week are all essentially expository; they ask you to explicate part of Hobbes's argument. In future weeks some of the questions will be more analytical and critical, like the second set of questions below.

1. What does Hobbes mean by "felicity", and what is the relationship between felicity and power? What does Hobbes mean by "good" and "evil"? How are these ideas related to his conception of felicity?

2. What does Hobbes mean by "the state men are naturally in" or "the state of nature" and why does he call it that? Why is the state of nature a state of war?

3. Compare and contrast "right of nature" and "law of nature."

4. Why must the government be absolutely sovereign?

5. What is the best form of government, and why is it best?

Further topics for discussion in class:

1. Do you think people always act so as to maximize the satisfaction of their desires? Can you think of examples where it doesn't seem that they do? What would Hobbes say about these examples? Can the claim that people always act to maximize their self-interest be disproven?

2. Hobbes argues that there is a "similitude of passions" among people. What does he mean by this? How might someone argue against this claim?

3. Does Hobbes make a mistake by claiming that social order requires political power in the hands of Leviathan?

4. Is Hobbes committed to the view that existing societies have actually been created through social contracts?

5. What is the place of "civil philosophy" (or what might be called political science?) in Hobbes's scheme of the sciences?

6. What is Hobbes’s attitude towards the Church? What does he think the relation between church and sovereign should be? How are his views about the Church related to his views about other secondary associations (“systems”)?

7. What does Hobbes mean by “liberty”? Is this an adequate definition?

8. Many people tend to think that moral skepticism and relativism naturally lead to liberalism in politics. Why does Hobbes’s moral skepticism lead to illiberal politics?

Supplementary readings: The Leviathan is Hobbes's last and most comprehensive statement of his political philosophy. The English version (1651) differs somewhat from the later Latin version (1668). Hobbes had previously stated his views in the De Cive or Of the Citizen (Latin ed., 1642; English ed. under the title Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, 1651), and in the Elements of Law (1650). In both of these earlier works he states portions of his teaching more clearly than in the better known Leviathan.

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.

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall, 2007 Mr. Moon

Week 2 (September 17/19): 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 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, incidentally, 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 50 years that "democracy" has come to have universally favorable connotations, so that even its greatest 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.

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall, 2007 Mr. Moon

Week 3 (September 24/26): John Locke: Rights, Reason and Constitutional Government

For the first two week of the colloquium we studied social theories which we have viewed as being rooted in a particular conception of human nature. Although there are important differences between Hobbes and Bentham, we have interpreted 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. 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 ahistoricism 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.

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall, 2007 Mr. Moon

Week 4 (October 1/3): 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 ahistoricism 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. 81; 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.

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall,2007 Mr. Moon

Week 5 (October 8/10): Rousseau II: Consensus and Social Order

In the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality 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. 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 accord oneself respect in ways that one is not prepared to respect others. 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" propel 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 do that? What is the normative standard that Rousseau uses that leads him to want to avoid the conditions of 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 opportunities to satisfy the needs and to realize the values which they have come to have. Given this standard, we should reject any society that systematically frustrates the aspirations of the people who compose it can be rejected, 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 bad 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 respect 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 it is possible in political society 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 persons. (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?

College of Social Studies

Sophomore Colloquium in Social Theory

Fall, 2007 Mr. Moon

Week 6 (October 22/24): 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 a constitutional republic which respected human rights and freedom was required. 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 object.

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 ways 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