Contents VOL. VI WINTER 2000 No 3 A DIALECTIC OF MORALS - Chapter VII
Mortimer J. AdlerTHE GREAT IDEAS PROGRAM:
THE SYLLABUS AND FIRST YEAR'S READING LISTINTRODUCTION TO THE ELEVENTH READING
LOCKE CONCERNING CIVIL GOVERNMENT (SECOND ESSAY)INSIGHT: POLITICAL LEADERSHIP?
Mortimer J. Adler
by
Mortimer J. Adler
CHAPTER VII
FROM ETHICS TO POLITICS:
THE COMMON GOOD AND DEMOCRACYON THE PRACTICAL LEVEL, ethics is auxiliary to politics in so far as the knowledge it affords is useful to the legislator or magistrate. When Aristotle speaks of politics as being the architectonic discipline in the practical order, his criterion is the use of knowledge to direct action. But, as we know, there is a theoretical level of practical knowledge, concerned with universal principles, with the definition and analysis of end and means. On this level, ethics is architectonic and politics subordinate. Political theory is a part of moral philosophy. Though politics has some principles peculiarly its own, their truth can be verified only by reference to the prior principles of ethics. as the principles of physics (i.e., the philosophy of nature) are not first principles, but subalternate to metaphysics, so the common good, which is the first principle of political theory, cannot be understood except in the light of virtue and happiness. In other words, the political common good is an end, but not the end: it is an end, in a certain order, but also a means to happiness, which is the end absolutely.50 Thus, our inquiry in the field of morals, having established happiness and virtue as the first and second principles of ethics, leads us to the foundations of political philosophy, for it enables us to see the common good both as an end and as a means. All of political philosophy rests upon this insight because, unless the common good is the end of political activity, there is no answer to realpolitik; and unless the common good is itself only a means to happiness, there is no answer to "totalitarianism" -- using that word for the false political doctrine that the State is the highest good or the whole good in the temporal order.51
To establish the foundations of political philosophy (by refuting realpolitik and totalitarianism), it is necessary to understand the nature of the state, and the precise character of the goodness which inheres in the political community. The first of these problems concerns the origin of the state and its mode of being. The second requires us to define the common good by locating it under one or another of the categories in terms of which we have already classified the types of partial good. By doing this, we shall be answering a question, previously raised, about the precise character of the social goods.
(1) The nature of the state. If man were not by nature a social, and also, through being rational, a political, animal, the state or political community would not itself be natural. It originates, or comes into being, in answer to a human need. If man, like other non-gregarious animals, could subsist in a solitary mode of life, not even the family would be a natural community, for it would answer to no natural need. And if man could live well (i.e., live humanly, rather than merely subsist), apart from a larger community than the family, the domestic society would suffice, and there would be no natural need for the state. That which comes into being as indispensable to the fulfillment of a natural need is itself natural and necessary. This type of naturalness and necessity is in the order of final causality. To say that the state is natural in this sense is, therefore, to deny that it is artificial -- i.e., an accidental contrivance which is totally dispensable, as, for example, any work of useful art that is a mere luxury. At one extreme, then, there is the error of the social contract which conceives the state as if it were a mere luxury -- not natural at all in the order of final causality. At the other extreme, there is the erroneous notion that the state is entirely natural in the order of efficient causality -- that it flows from instinctive determinations, rather than is a free work of reason. This latter error confuses human association with the instinctively determined communities of the social brutes. The nature of the state is rightly conceived only when it is understood both as originating in natural needs, and also as being a mode of association which is determined by reason rather than instinct.
The needs which the state satisfies can be briefly enumerated by reference to the partial goods which constitute happiness. Man cannot live well without a minimum sufficiency of external goods (wealth) and without health (an intrinsic, though animal, good): though these can be provided by the domestic economy, the ampler economic facilities of the political society, through greater division of labor, can guarantee them more readily. (Hence Aristotle says that though the family and the village can supply the wants of daily life, the state is better able to meet these same needs, by extending and regularizing the economic functions: the state satisfies these needs on more than a day-by-day basis.52) Wealth and health do not suffice. Man cannot live well unless he lives virtuously -- unless he has good habits and operates accordingly. But the life of virtue is itself a social life because man is by nature a social animal: this applies not only to the moral virtues, as principles of social behavior, but also to the intellectual virtues, which are formed and operate through the communication of men with one another. Man is both rational in his social proclivities, and social in the exercise of his rationality. Now the structure of the domestic or tribal community cannot provide an adequate social setting for the acquirement or exercise of virtue, moral and intellectual. Because it is a more complex and diversified organization, only the political community can adequately provide the conditions of virtuous living, through the peaceful unity of a multitude of men, greatly diversified in the quality of their endowments. (Hence Aristotle says that the state, which originates in the bare needs of daily life, continues in existence to provide the conditions of a good, or virtuous, life.53) We see, therefore, that the social goods, among which the goodness of the political community is paramount, function as means to all the other partial good, which constitute happiness.
Everything which is natural exists in some way. To complete our understanding of the nature of the state, we must ask about its mode of being. That which exists primarily is a substance, and when we speak of natures, in the primary sense, we mean the essential natures of existing substances. The state is certainly not a nature in this primary sense: it is neither a substance nor the essential nature of one. Now, whatever else exists, other than substances and their essential natures, must have some accidental mode of being. Hence, the state exists accidentally. This is confirmed by its very nature as an organized multitude, for this reveals it to be a form of composition or order -- an accidental form through which a substantial many is unified. Though it belongs properly in the sphere of prudence rather than of art, the state has the same kind of accidental being that a work of art has (e.g., a house is an accidental unity, realized through a form of composition and order). But every accident must exist in some substance: it cannot exist by and of itself. Thus, works of useful art exist as accidental determinations of natural inorganic substances. Since it is an enduring association of men, a state must exist as an accidental determination of the natures of its members. Not being natural in the order of efficient causality, the state cannot exist in human powers as such. The fact that it is a work of reason indicates that it exists in the habits of men by rational determination of their powers. In so far as the state is itself a good, it must exist in the good habits of its members; and since the habits in question must be habits of social behavior, we reach the conclusion that a state exists (a) accidentally, (b) in the sphere of habit, (c) through the moral virtues as principles of just conduct, without which (d) the peaceful association of a multitude acting for a common good is impossible. Justice is not merely one of the moral virtues, along with fortitude and temperance; justice, generally considered, is all the moral virtues as integrated and in their social aspect, i.e., as principles of social behavior. Hence, the state exists through and in the justice of its members, differing from virtue itself (which also has an accidental mode of being) in that virtue exists as the accidental determination of a single human nature, whereas the state exists as the habitual co-determination of the natures of a multitude of men.54
(2) The goodness of the common good. The preceding analysis of the nature and mode of being of the state enables us now briefly to define its characteristic goodness. In the first place, since its very naturalness and necessity is in the order of final causality, we know at once that the state is itself a good, i.e., an object of natural desire, responding to the needs of man's rational, social nature. In the second place, since its mode of being is in and through the virtues of the multitude, we know that the state is identical with the common good. Just as virtue is an individual good (i.e., a good existing in a single individual), so the state is a common good (i.e., a good co-existing in a multitude of individuals). It is, therefore, false to say that the end of the state is the common good, unless the "common good," here mentioned, signifies happiness. The common good, which is identical with the well-being of the state (i.e., with that unity of peace which distinguishes the goodness of the state from the evil of violent organizations), is the end of government, i.e., of political activity both on the part of rulers and of ruled. In the third place, just as the virtues are partial goods constitutive of happiness, so is the common good a partial good: it is the greatest of the social goods. Moreover, since it is analogous to virtue in its mode of being, it has an analogous mode of goodness; it is an intrinsically human good and a bonum honestum. (This is true of all the other social goods.) In the fourth place, although in the order of partial goods it is inferior to intellectual virtues and contemplative activity, serving these goods as do the moral virtues, the state is indirectly productive of happiness, through being directly productive of moral virtue, i.e., forming inchoate virtue, applying sanctions to reinforce virtue, providing the conditions for virtue's exercise. Whereas any partial good may function as a generative means with respect to some other partial good, the state, like moral virtue, stands in a peculiar relation to happiness, the whole of goods. Finally, from all this we know that the political common good, in the sense defined, is not identical with happiness: the goodness of the state as such is not the supreme good in the temporal order, for it is neither the highest good in the order of partial goods, nor is it equivalent to "all good things" -- that which, being possessed, leaves nothing to be desired. On the contrary, the essential goodness of the state, like the essential goodness of moral virtue, lies in its productive function with respect to happiness.55
Although the goodness of the state, or common good, is not the end in the temporal order, it may, nevertheless, be an end, in the strict sense in which every partial good which is a bonum honestum is an end. Moreover, within the sphere of specifically political activity, the common good, the welfare of the political community, is the last end toward which all political institutions, agencies, and acts, are ordered as means. In the domain of political life, the common good occupies a place analogous to that of contemplation in the order of partial goods constitutive of happiness. Furthermore, the common good is a complex whole of many social goods, whose variety and order constitute it, as happiness is constituted by the variety and order of all good things. And just as moral virtue is both a constitutive part of happiness and also its productive means, so good government is, as a social good, constitutive of the common good, and also the one means which is directly productive of the state's well-being. (By "government" here I understand all the institutions and agencies through which both rulers and ruled can act for the common good.) Just governmental activity not only maintains the common good, but also facilitates the formation of virtue in the citizens and thus the state is, indirectly, productive of happiness, or the life of virtue.
This indicates at once the major principles of political theory: the first principle is the end (the common good), the second principle, the productive means (good government), analogous to the first and second principles in ethical theory (happiness and virtue). The exposition of political theory consists, therefore, first, in a definition of the end and an analysis of its constitution; and second, in a definition and analysis of the productive means. As there are several species of virtue, so there are specifically distinct forms of government, though here there is a basic difference in that, whereas the specific virtues are conjunctive and must be integrated, the several forms of government are disjunctive and cannot co-exist. The central problem in political theory is the classification and evaluation of the forms of government, and here the crucial question is whether one form is better than another, on moral grounds, because it is essentially more just, through greater justice effecting a greater common good and, ultimately, making the state serve the happiness of every man, rather than that of the many or the few. This question will be answered in the affirmative, despite traditional opinion to the contrary, once it is seen that the common good is the end of government, not of the state, and that happiness, which is the end of the state, is, as a life of virtue, necessarily a political life. When the forms of government are specified by criteria of justice (the distinct elements of political justice being separable and cumulatively combinable), they can be graded according to their moral goodness and democracy can be demonstrated to be, on moral grounds, the best form of government56 -- intrinsically, the most just; extrinsically, productive of the most complete common good and, thereby, of human happiness.
Thus we have learned that the nature of the state, its mode of being, and its essential goodness, cannot be understood except in terms of the nature of man, the perfection of his nature by virtue, and the perfection of his life by happiness. Unless, therefore, the principles of ethics can be ascertained, as objective theoretical truths comprising wisdom in the practical order, the principles of politics cannot be established. Unless, as a branch of practical philosophy, it be founded upon moral wisdom, political theory cannot be defended against the skepticism of realpolitik, or protected against the doctrinal errors of totalitarianism. But no part of practical philosophy (ethics or politics) can be validated as knowledge of absolute and universal principles without the prior acknowledgment of ultimate theoretic truths -- about being, goodness, and the nature of man. To overcome moral skepticism, and realpolitik as its consequence, it is necessary, first, to eradicate its root in the prevailing positivism which denies philosophical knowledge -- metaphysics, and especially the philosophy of man. This has been illustrated in the very motion of our inquiry; the dialectic of morals uncovered the need for a prior dialectic of substance, essence, and man. Until that prior work is done, most of the truths we seemed to reach, both dialectically and by deductive elaboration, will not convince the student. Lacking conviction with respect to these, the student remains susceptible to all the "political religions" which rush in to fill the vacuum created by his doubts and denials. In the world as it is today, a good work the philosopher can do is to labor inductively in the fields of metaphysics and psychology, for the sake of moral wisdom and, ultimately, for the foundation of a true political philosophy.
The Great Ideas Program:
The Ten-Year Syllabus
- INTRODUCTION TO THE GREAT BOOKS AND TO A LIBERAL EDUCATION
- ETHICS: THE STUDY OF MORAL VALUES
- THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL THEORY AND GOVERNMENT
- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE
- PHILOSOPHY
- IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE I
- IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE II
- FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
- BIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND MEDICINE
- RELIGION AND THEOLOGY
The First Years Reading List 1 PLATO, APOLOGY AND CRITO
2 PLATO, THE REPUBLIC, BOOKS I-II
3 SOPHOCLES, OEDIPUS THE KING AND ANTIGONE
4 ARISTOTLE, NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, BOOK I
5 ARISTOTLE, POLITICS, BOOK I
6 PLUTARCH, THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS, LYCURGUS, NUMA POMPILIUS, LYCURGUS AND NUMA COMPARED, ALEXANDER AND CAESAR
7 OLD TESTAMENT, BOOK OF JOB
8 AUGUSTINE, THE CONFESSIONS, BOOKS I-VIII
9 MONTAIGNE, THE ESSAYS, "OF CUSTOM AND THAT WE SHOULD NOT EASILY CHANGE A LAW RECEIVED," "OF PEDANTRY," "OF THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN," "THAT IT IS FOLLY TO MEASURE TRUTH AND ERROR BY OUR OWN CAPACITY," "OF CANNIBALS," "THAT THE RELISH OF GOOD AND EVIL DEPENDS IN A GREAT MEASURE UPON THE OPINION WE HAVE OF THEM"
10 SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET
11 LOCKE, CONCERNING CIVIL GOVERNMENT (SECOND ESSAY)
12 SWIFT, GULLIVERÕS TRAVELS
13 GIBBON, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, CH. XV-XVI
14 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FEDERALIST, NOS. 1-10, 15, 31, 47, 51, 68-72
15 MARX AND ENGELS, MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
A Note on Reference and Style Since it would be impossible to cite page references in all the many existing publications of these great works, we have used the Encyclopædia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World (GBWW) First Edition (1952) volumes for reference. Pages are cited by number and section. In books that are printed in single column, "a" and "b" refer to the upper and lower half of the page. In books that are printed in double column, "a" and "b" refer to the upper and lower half of the left column, "c" and "d" to the upper and lower half of the right column.
As some of you may not own, or have access to this set from a local library, we have also provided several Internet "Great Books" sites where other published versions of these works can be found.
Eleventh Reading: Introduction LOCKE
Concerning Civil Government (Second Essay)
Vol. 35, pp. 25-81
In the history of human liberty, Locke's essay Concerning Civil Government stands out not only as a great contribution to political theory, but also as an effective instigator of political action. It is a stirring pronouncement of the principles of the English "bloodless revolution" of 1688, which brought about fundamental innovations in the British constitution. It also set the stage for the American Revolution of 1776 by furnishing inspiration to the writers of the Declaration of Independence.
Its central doctrines of man's natural and unalienable rights, of popular sovereignty, and of the right of rebellion are eloquently set forth in the opening paragraphs of the Declaration. "That all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights," that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," and that when government becomes destructive of human rights, "it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it" -- these are the principles (and, for the most part, the words) which Thomas Jefferson and his associates adopted from Locke and put to good use.
While the image of good government that Locke had in mind was a constitutional monarchy, in which the legislative power of Parliament was supreme but in which the king retained certain executive prerogatives, the republican form of government set up by the Constitution of the United States is a more thoroughgoing embodiment of his ideal of government by law rather than by men. All our political liberties are rooted in the rule of law. It is this which makes constitutional government "free government" -- government that secures to all of us "the blessings of liberty." No American can ever afford to forget this basic truth. The reading of Locke's essay will never permit him to.
Guide to the Eleventh Reading Locke's two essays on government were first published in 1690, the same year in which his Essay Concerning Human Understanding appeared. The date is of some significance, for it is just a year after the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England.
He wrote his political treatises in Holland, where he had gone into exile in 1683, returning to England six years later on the same ship which carried Princess Mary, the wife of William of Orange. In the preface to the two treatises, Locke expresses the hope that these works would
establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William -- to make good his title in the consent of the people, which, being only one of all lawful governments, be has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin.The first Treatise on Civil Government is directed against Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, which upheld the theory that monarchs rule by divine right -- a right supposedly transmitted from Adam. In the first chapter of the second treatise, Locke summarizes what he has shown in the first, and indicates what the subject matter of the second treatise is. If kings do not govern by divine right, and if government is more than the rule of the strongest (which hardly seems to deserve being dignified by the name "government"), then we must discover some other source for the authority of government. Accordingly, the full title of the second treatise is: An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.
In other words, Locke did not believe that royal authority was divinely given and therefore unchallengeable. Such a theory, of course, would have given the English throne to James II rather than to William of Orange. But if royal authority is challengeable, if a king may, upon cause, be deposed, who has the authority to say that a king should be dismissed and a new one installed? Who shall be the judge between a king and his people? In Chapter XIX of the second treatise (entitled "Of the Dissolution of Government") Locke answers the question:
Who shall be judge whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust?...To this I reply, The people shall be judge (p. 81b)This treatise, therefore, is dedicated to establishing that the authority of governments derives from those whom they govern -- a proposition which it succeeded in establishing so well that less than a hundred years later we read in the American Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident....That, to secure these [natural] rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed (Vol. 43, p. 1a)II
Locke begins his quest for the legitimacy of government by defining political power:
Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good. (p. 25c-d)Such power and the government which wields it comes into being, Locke maintains, as the result of a compact made by persons who previously lived in a non-political condition.
Locke is by no means the first political philosopher to have a "social contract" theory. For instance, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) had a fully developed theory of this sort. But there are great differences, nevertheless, between Hobbes's and Locke's view of the origin of the state.
These differences have to do with the condition of men prior to the formation of the state, and with the consequences that derive from living in a state. If men enter into civil society by making a contract among themselves, then they must first exist in a condition prior to the state. Both Hobbes and Locke call this the "state of nature" -- that is to say, a condition which is natural to man. Here we may recall, by way of contrast, Aristotle's view that the political state is natural to man.
According to Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of war; men are either actually fighting each other or threatening each other. In such a state, Hobbes says, there are "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." (Leviathan, Vol. 23, Ch. 13, p. 85c) But Locke does not view the state of nature (Or, presumably, human nature itself) so darkly. Rather, be says, in the state of. nature men enjoy "a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man." (p. 25d)
Thus, while Hobbes thinks of the state of nature as one of war and brutishness, Locke thinks of it as a state of liberty. For there may be liberty either in the state of nature or in the state of civil society:
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it. Freedom, then, is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us: "A liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws"; but freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, as freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of Nature. (p. 29d)Thus even the state of nature has a law, according to Locke:
The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which obliges every one, and 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 possessions... (p. 26b)Locke himself makes his difference from Hobbes quite explicit in the following passage which we may assume has Hobbes in mind:
Here we have the plain difference between the state of Nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation; and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction are one from another. (p. 29b)From this difference their conceptions of the state of nature follows a difference in their views of the social contract and civil society. For Hobbes, man is in such a miserable state naturally that he gives up all rights upon entering civil society, in order only to be safe and protected from the lusts and passions of other men.
For Locke, too, man has something to gain from entering into the social contract. He enumerates the disadvantages of the state of nature as (1) lack of established and promulgated law, (2) absence of a judge to make determinations according to this law, and (3) lack of power to execute what is in accord with the law. But Locke hastens to add that men do not give up all their rights upon entering civil society:
But though men when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative as the good of the society shall require, yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse), the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property by providing against those three defects above mentioned that made the state of Nature so unsafe and uneasy. (p. 54d)And so he describes the actual formation of political society as follows:
Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent, which is done by agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it. (p. 46d)III
What Locke has to say about the origin of civil society is also of interest in connection with the concept of property. It is apparent that property is very important in Locke's political theory. He says that the law of nature commands one not to harm another's possessions; and he also says that men enter into society in order to preserve more perfectly their liberty and property. Thus the right to property is protected both by the law of nature and the civil law; in fact, one of the reasons for the existence of civil society is the preservation of property. In Chapter V, Locke takes up the question of property in detail. By property Locke means private property; for that is a man's property which is his own. In this chapter, Locke considers how it comes about that anyone has private property, i.e., owns something to the exclusion of all others. He concludes that it is labor which gives the laborer a right to, or property in, that which he produces or adds his labor to. He summarizes his view as follows:
Though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great foundation of property...Thus labour, in the beginning, gave a right of property, wherever any one was pleased to employ it, upon what was common (p. 34c)
We must realize that Locke uses the term "property" to refer not only to land or goods, but also to anything else that is a man's own, as the following passage indicates:
Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property -- that is, his life, liberty, and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law... (p. 44a)Since man has a natural right to property in this wider sense (i.e., life, liberty, and estate), the state cannot take it away from him, but must rather protect his right to it. The Declaration of Independence echoes Locke, substituting, however, "pursuit of happiness" for "estate":
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men... (Vol. 43, p. 1a)IV
Aristotle said that the political state is natural.Locke says that the natural condition of man is that in which he existed prior to the origin of the state. What is the reason for this difference?
Such a difference of opinion can result from a different understanding of (1) what man is, or (2) what it means for something to be natural.
We can illustrate how differences in these concepts would lead to differences concerning the naturalness of the state. It is completely natural for bees to form a kind of society, as every beehive illustrates. But there are many animals that live solitarily, i.e. not even in packs or herds; nevertheless they may occasionally be found in a group because of special circumstances. As an example of this consider tigers. They ordinarily live and hunt alone, yet they may live in a group in a zoo or menagerie. Such a group is clearly an artificial one.
Whether the state is natural or artificial depends, therefore, on whether human gregariousness is like that of bees, or is something imposed on men by artificial convention. This matter is further complicated, however. For the beehive comes about as the result of completely instinctual action, whereas those who maintain that the state is natural also agree that its origin is not due to instinct but to reason. Thus Aristotle distinguishes between the gregariousness of bees and that of men. Only the latter are political animals, because of their possession of speech and reason (see Vol. 9, p. 446b-c).
It is easier to see how differences in the meaning of "natural" affect the question. If "natural" means that which is normal, what occurs always or for the most part, then the political state is natural. If, on the other hand, "natural" means "original" or refers to any condition that is stripped of all complications, additions, and embellishments, or if it is taken to be the same as "primitive," then a pre-societal or pre-political condition may well be natural.
Does a "social contract" theory require us to believe that there actually was a time when men lived in a state of nature?It is not always easy to see, in a given author, whether he treats the social contract as a fiction or a hypothesis -- as something that must be imagined to have taken place in order to legitimize present governments -- or whether be actually thinks there was such a historical event. Locke discusses the question on page 28b-c; we shall return to his answer below.
To give some examples of these opposing views, it seems on the whole safe to say that Rousseau thinks of the state of nature as a hypothesis; see for example the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Volume 38, pages 333c-334a. Kant appears to take a similar view in The Science of Right, Volume 42, page 437c-d. On the other hand, Hobbes says that although there was perhaps never a time when everyone in the world was in a state of nature, there are nevertheless even now many men in such a condition. (See Leviathan, Vol. 23, pp. 85d-86a.)
Are sovereign nations in a state of nature?
It seems in Locke's view that they are. And if they are, then this also has a bearing on the previous question. For even if man's living in a state of nature and entering a social contract turn out to be fictions, a state of nature among nations seems real enough, and so does the need for a social contract among them.
That sovereign nations are in a state of nature can be seen readily. No laws govern them; no nation is secure from the predatory attacks of another; the strongest nation enforces its will. Indeed it seems as though it is Hobbes's rather than Locke's conception of the state of nature that applies to nations.
Locke himself writes as follows:
It is often asked as a mighty objection, where are, or ever were, there any men in such a state of Nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of "independent" governments all through the world are in a state of Nature, it is plain the world never was, nor never will be, without numbers of men in that state. (p. 28b)A social contract among nations would, by analogy, require each nation to give up its "equality, liberty and executive power" in order to be more secure, in a society of nations, in its "life, liberty, and estates." In other words, a society of nations would require each nation to give up its sovereignty. Thus we see that the United Nations is not a political society, for each nation in it maintains its sovereignty, as is evidenced by the right of the veto in the Security Council and the immunity of the member states from the UN's "interference" in their internal affairs.
Since, according to social contract theories, a state is formed by the consent of all those who were in a state of nature, must the government of a civil society also be based on consent, i.e., must it be constitutional?The answer is no, or at least uncertain. For Hobbes, although an adherent of the social contract theory of the origin of the state, is also a firm believer in the absolute power of governments once established; while Locke, as we have seen, is an advocate of constitutionalism, i.e., government based on the consent of the governed.
Curiously enough, however, both Hobbes and Locke derive their differing views as to the nature of government from their social contract theories. The difference is explained by their differing views of the state of nature.
For Hobbes, the state of nature is so terrible (nasty, brutish, and short) that men give up everything in order to get away from it. Thus they give up, forever, any rights against the sovereign. Locke, however, conceiving men to have liberties and rights in the state of nature, holds that no man would want to make his condition worse than it was, and therefore maintains that men always retain rights against the sovereign. Their consent, in other words, is conditional upon his executing the trust placed in him.
What, if anything, is the significance of substituting "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for "life, liberty, and estates" in the enumeration of natural rights?Were the writers of the Declaration of Independence any less believers in the right to "estates" (i.e., private property) than Locke? That is hardly likely, if we examine the other writings of the Declaration's authors and signers.
Nor is it likely that the substitution is altogether insignificant, constituting merely a slip of the pen, or the substitution of a more euphonious phrase for one less so. There was disagreement among the Founding Fathers about the political significance of private property. Franklin, for example, opposing the limitation of suffrage to property-holders, asked, "Why should property be represented at all?"
"Pursuit of happiness" seems to take in a wider territory than "estate." Perhaps it can be maintained that that was the reason for the change. If pursuit of happiness requires a man's estate to be secure, then the Declaration of Independence affirms that to be part of man's inalienable right; but if other things are also required, it also asserts his right to those.
Insight: Political Leadership? Dear Dr. Adler,
I've heard a lot about the importance and virtue of leadership ever since I was a boy. However, I've never heard anything clear and definite about what a leader should be like, what the qualities of leadership are. And my experience in social clubs, military service, and as a citizen in my community has given me a rather confused and downgraded notion of leadership. What makes a man a leader? What qualities should he possess? Can we have good political leadership in a democratic form of government?
C. W. T.
Dear C. W. T.,
We may get some notion of the nature of leadership and the qualities we look for in a leader by paying attention to the various meanings that the verb "to lead" evokes in our mind. First, "to lead" means to be physically out in front, as when we refer to the lead car in a procession. Second, "to lead" refers to a skilled human action, as when we speak of a trained guide leading a party to its destination. Third, "to lead" means to have the authority to command or direct others.
The first type of leadership is often found in our community organizations, in which the leader is chosen not for any special excellence but only as a figurehead to "front" for the group. This very attenuated type of leadership is usually rotated among different members of the group.
The second type of leadership, is found in educational and religious institutions. The concept of the teacher as a guide on the road to learning (see Chapter 45) is a case in point. Some religious groups refer to their heads as their "spiritual leaders."
The third type of leadership is the kind that we look for in the political community. It has been a subject of discussion in the great books for thousands of years. You may remember that Plato wants the leader of his ideal republic to be a philosopher-king, combining all the moral and intellectual virtues, and possessing both philosophical and practical wisdom.
The aristocratic ideal of leadership-that the best man or men should govern-is an element in most ancient political theories. A certain excellence in mind and character was looked for in the men who were to lead the community. In the early forms of society, the wisdom and experience required for leadership were deemed to reside in the elders of the community.
Our experience with dictatorships in this century has made us rather leery about self-appointed leaders. The writings of Mussolini and Hitler are full of praise for the 'leadership principle," and they even chose the title of "leader" for themselves. But leaders who are above the law or are a law unto themselves abuse this principle. Political philosophers ever since Aristotle have been aware that even leadership by the best men must be limited by constitutional safeguards to prevent it from degenerating into tyranny. Only under constitutional government, in which the leader is the first among equals, can freedom be preserved.
A special problem occurs in modem democracy with its representative form of government. Are the representatives of the people to be mere servants who follow the will of the voters who elect them, or are they to follow their own judgment on public measures? Should the representatives mold or follow public opinion?
The writers of The Federalist and John Stuart Mill hold that the representative should be chosen for his superior wisdom and experience, and should make his own decisions. The opposite opinion is that the winner of an election bears a mandate from the voters to carry out specific measures.
The qualities we look for in a political leader are much the same now as they have always been. He must be interested primarily in the good of the community rather than in his own advancement. He must have sound practical judgment and whatever special skill and knowledge is required for the particular task. He must have decisiveness and the courage to take the risk of being wrong or becoming unpopular. And, above all, he must have the ability to inspire trust and confidence.
One of the main obstacles to good political leadership is the reluctance of the best men to assume the burdens of public office. Writers as far back as Plato and Aristotle remark on this. Some people are of the opinion that every crisis in American history has called forth the proper leader. Washington and Lincoln are outstanding examples.
