Transcript History of Political Ideas

History of Political
Ideas
3rd lecture
Ideas of Early Modern Age and
Enlightenment
Political Thinking on Way to a
Secular Society
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The Church remained an important social power for centuries after the
twilight of the Medieval Ages. However from the 14th Century AD the
central, mundane, secular power of the king became ever stronger.
In the late medieval society, in the early, matured and late Renaissance, and in
the early modern society (16-17th Century AD) the basic questions of
political thinking became: what makes the central political power legitimate
(independently from the Church)? What (secular, non-ecclesiastic) goals must
the monarch or the governor must strive after? What factors and institutes are
necessary (if any) in order to control the central power and defend the people
from a possible tyrant?
These thinkers raised the question of source and nature of political power in
a secular manner.
Late Medieval Political Theory.
Marsilius da Padua
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An important predecessor of modern political thinking was Marsilius da
Padua (1290-1343) of Italy. He wrote an important book: „Defensor Pacem”,
„The Protector of the Peace”. We could treat him as a forerunner of modern
political thought, because the secular motifs were emphatic in his book.
According to Marsilius: citizens are living in a political society not due to their
nature but due to the recognition of the benefits of living together in a state.
Creating a state is not a natural event but a voluntary act of a community.
It is the community who creates the laws and rules of the particular society.
What makes a political order and a system of law legitimate? According to
Marsilius: if the will of the majority of society serves as the basis for a social
and legal system, then the latter is legitimate. If it is not legitimated by the will
of the majority of citizens, then this social order is illegitimate.
Only the will of majority could be the source of the legitimacy of political and
social order.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
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Father of modern political theory. First and foremost aim of governance of the society:
is success. He tried to articulate a realistic theory of political power in his book „The
Prince”, (Il Principo). He said we must treat the norms and techniques of successful
political action and strategy independent from the prescriptions of the moral. „That
who seeks moral, should rather remain inside private life. It is result what is important
in business and political life ”.
He delineated a highly individualistic picture of society and social sphere. He praised
the individualistic virtues and eminence of a person. Result and achievement what
really matters in his opinion.
He did not say that „Goal sanctifies the means” – a phrase which is often attributed to
him, but he did say: „If you want a certain goal, then you must also want the means
which lead to this goal”.
He despised the Church and religion in general as a form of superstition and
ignorance, and regarded religion as a mean to rule and manipulate people, who are less
educated. His works were on the Index of forbidden literature of the Catholic Church
for centuries.
What shall a prince do? Should he make
himself loved or rather feared?
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What is the best strategy to rule and control a people? Should the people love
the prince or should they rather fear him?
Machiavelli told: if he could manage the both it would be the best, but if it is
not possible to be loved and feared in the same time, it is better to be feared
than to be loved. Because people are usually unreliable: they offer their blood,
honor and loyalty when there is no danger and need at all, and when the
prince needs their loyalty in real, they betray him if they do not fear him
enough.
If it is unavoidable to shed blood, the prince shall do better if he trust
someone to take the role of the butcher, and to kill everyone who is actually
or potentially a danger, or simply to set a bloody example. After the
bloodshed the prince could throw this butcher or hangman to the anger of
people, saying, that this man went too far, ignoring his personal orders.
The prince shall use the means of „sword and intrigue”, of bare (military,
political) power and of deceive, of manipulating the people and his
opponents.
The limits of using the power
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What are the taboos, the borders of useing and abusing
the political power? The prince must know that the
citizens are the most sensible concerning their honour
or reputation, and their private property. Accordingly:
the prince must respect the women and private
property of the citizens under any condition. He could
shed blood if it is necessary, but he cannot loot,
otherwise he will be a subject of despise of the citizens.
Contract-theory
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Early and matured Modern Age is a period of economic upswing.
Consequently: economic life influenced very deeply the intellectual life
also. Thus the most popular theory of interpreting the source of
political legitimacy was in the Modern Age the social contract theory of
political power.
According to social contract theory the people, who are not yet
citizens, give up some of their rights, in order to create a central
political power with a monopoly of violence. The legitimacy of central
political power rests on the implicit or explicit agreement of the
citizens (who first became citizens as members of a state), on an
explicit or implicit social contract – between the members of society
and between these members and the central power.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).
„Leviathan”
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According to Hobbes one could find two basic sorts of
entities in the world: natural and artificial. Amongst the
artificial things the greatest and most important is the
state. State is a huge machine that the people created to
make their life easier, safer and happier.
Before creating the state, that is to say: before political
state the people lived in the natural state. In this natural
state of life „life was cruel, miserable, brutish and
short”. No one could feel himself or herself in safety,
one could have been robbed or killed at any moment.
The Monarch in Hobbes
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Therefore people recognized that their mutual interest is to create a
central power, to which they cede some of their rights, and which in its
turn defends the life and property of its citizens.
The utmost function of a state: to defend the life and property of
citizens. This state is according to Hobbes the „Leviathan”, the Great
Monster, created by the people to their own defense. In Hobbes’
interpretation the head of Leviathan must be one single person.
Otherwise the governance of the state would fell prey of meaningless
debates
The Monarch, the governor of the Leviathan, has an absolute power
by force of the social contract, and nobody has the right to question
his decisions or to resist him.
John Locke (1632-1704). The problem
with the Absolute Sovereign
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John Locke accepted Hobbes’ idea of the social
contract theory of political legitimacy – but he differed
at the point whether the members of the society does
not have any right to oppose the governor and to
question his decisions.
He said that in Hobbes’ view it looks like as if people,
because of troubles foxes and polecats causing them,
happily surrender to a bloodthirsty lion. There must be
a much more rational solution to the problem of
natural state of man.
Locke. The Idea of Liberal State
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According to Locke: the ultimate source of property right is work or labor.
The power of the Sovereign or of central political institution is not
unconditional – it has a clause of resistance. According to this clause of
resistance people should not obey to tyrannic power. They have the resist
even with power, with weapons, in a military way, to a tyrannical central
power.
The central power must serve the prosperity of the members of society, it
must serve the goal to defend the life and property of people. The
government is responsible to the people. It is the idea of the responsible
state.
Absolute freedom of conscience, of science and of religion. With one
exception: according to Locke the atheist do not deserve to follow and
propagate their ideas, because in the case of atheist there is no transcendent
guarantee of their word – so one cannot trust someone who declares
himself/herself to be an atheist.
Enlightenment. The Age of Reason
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We call Enlightenment (Aufklärung, Lumière) the intellectual and cultural
movement in Europe in the 18th Century AD.
It was an age of advanced secularism, at least amongst intellectuals of the age.
Representatives of Enlightenment regarded the religion as superstition,
something that hides the true nature of things from the eye of people, and
something which is a mere mean of manipulation. Ignorance and
manipulation – most thinkers of Enlightenment described religion with these
two word.
„Crush the monstrous!” – said Voltaire, an intellectual leader of the age,
where „monstrous” was the Church itself.
The thinkers of Enlightenment thought that the main source of troubles in
the world is ignorance. If they spread the knowledge amongst the entire
society, and if they unfold the laws of nature (and of society) as deeply as
possible, then they will be able to solve all problems in the world, and they
will be able to build a completely harmonious, happy society.
Montesquieu. The Spirit of Laws
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According to Montesquieu (1698-1755) the source and basis of just
governance is the division of powers. He elaborated this idea in his book
„The Spirit of Laws”, („L’espirit des lois”).
In Montesquieu’s opinion there are three basic governmental forms:
monarchic, republic and tyrannical. In monarchic one person owns and exerts
power under the reign of laws, in the republic the entire people exerts power
under the reign of laws again, while in a tyrannical system only one person
owns the power, who does not care at all with the laws, nor the prosperity of
people.
In his view a basic condition of a just governance is the division of power.
There three main branches of political power: juridical, executive and
legislative power. When all three powers are centered in hand, and they are
not functioning separately, then that system is – at least potentially – a
tyrannical one: because the utmost owner of power could charge and convict
whomever he wants on trumped.-up charges.
Rousseau and the Social Contract
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A leading figure of French Englightenment was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778). He followed the idea of social contract, but he emphasized the thought
that every power and sovereignty belong to the people itself. He emphasized
the thought of Sovereignty of People.
His main work is „Social Contract”, (Contract Social, 1762). „The man was
born as a free being, notwithstanding he wears chains everywhere. Some
thinks that they are masters of others, though they are slaves even more than
the latter. How this change could have taken place? I don’t know. What could
do this rightful? This question, I suppose, I am able to answer”.
The social contract is the source of every political right and legitimacy. The
subject of social contract is the people itself. When the people feels that the
basic aims of this contract are violated, then it has the right to revolt against
the violation of the natural rights of its members.
The will of the all and general will
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Rousseau rejected Montesquieu’s idea of division of powers. He thought that
divising of the powers of people would be just the same of cuting into pieces
a human body. The branches of political power must form a unified, organic
body in his opinion.
Rousseau made a difference between the will of the all (volonté de tous) and
the general will (volonté générale). The will of all is everybody’s will, that is
to say: the will of every single person, the will of the individuals. This form of
will could be wrong. The people, Rousseau thinks, often do not know what is
their real interest and need.
In opposition to this the general will cannot be wrong, it intuitively knows
always what are the true needs and interests of the people. The general will is
represented by a central political institute of the society, which has the
function represent the entire society.
In Rousseau’s interpretation there is no fixed borders between private and
public sphere in the ideal society of people sovereignty. The people live
amongst glass walls. It is a collectivistic society.
David Hume. „Custom is the great
leader of life”
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Eminent representative of Scottish and Brittish Enlightenment. David Hume
(1711-1776) was a founding father of modern conservative political theory –
alongside with the Irish Edmund Burke, who criticized harshly the French
Revolution and Enlightenment.
According to Hume every working institution of present society passed the
test of time, and thus deserves preservation and maintenance. We should be
very careful when we want to alter the actual society, when we want to
transform its institutions, because we cannot foresee how these changes will
influence the entire society, and we should rather not make experiments with
society.
The universal link and bondage between people is custom and habit. The
people do not make any social contract or whatsoever – but they are
„polished together”. The custom helps the individual to find her/his way in
the life, and custom holds together the society as a whole.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). „What is
Enlightenment?”
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„What is Enlightenment” raised the question in his essay Kant, the
leading figure of German Enlightenment, („Answer to the Question:
What is Enlightenment?”, 1784).
Enlightenment, said Kant, „is man’s …”
Kant made a difference between the public and private usage of
reason. He thought that in private sphere, when one fulfils his or her
official obligations, when one does one’s work, one must always follow
the instructions of his superior or the official administrative norms and
instructions of his vocation. Otherwise the life of a society cannot go
on properly. So the private usage of private is limited.
But the public usage of reason cannot be limited in such a way, or the
society cannot develop in a normal way. Everybody has the right to
express his or her opinion, his or her critique concerning the matters
and institutions of society.
The Perpetual Peace
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In Kant’s view the history leads to a globalized
community, where there are no wars anymore,
and every local and global conflict is treated by
one harmonized legal system. It is the world of
the universal civil legal order. It is the world of
Perpetual Peace, with an overal, completely
rationally organized society, (or a global network
of completely rational civil societies).
Hegel and the Civil Society as End of
History
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was another important figure of
German Enlightenment.
He rejected very emphatically the idea of social contract theory. He thought
that it is an abstract approach of society. Society, Hegel said, is never a bunch
of atomic individuals, but an organic whole with its own history.
Hegel followed the organicistic model of society – which he took over
(amongst others) from Aristotle, with whom he sympathized very much.
The source of political legitimacy is the traditions and customs of particular
peoples.
The Civil Society with its rational laws means the end of history, in Hegel’s
interpretation, but there will be no such a happy end of history about which
Kant was talking. The nations will be separated forever (in Hegel’s view), and
each develops that form of civil society which is characteristic to their own,
internal, inherent nature.