No, but neither is capitalism merely an expression of greed. I expand on this theme here.
Category: Social and Political Philosophy
The Principle of Subsidiarity
David A. Bosnich, The Principle of Subsidiarity:
One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the passion for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the Welfare State.
Obama and Co. take note. But of course they won't. A CHANGE is coming, though, and this time it will be a change for the better. The whole of Bosnich's essay is well worth reading.
Ernst Bloch on Law and the State
Ernst Bloch, like Theodor Adorno, is a leftie worth reading. But here are two passages replete with grotesque exaggeration and plain falsehood. Later, perhaps, I will cite something from Bloch that I approve of. The offensive passages are from the essay, "Karl Marx, Death, and the Apocalypse" in Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (Herder and Herder, 1970, p. 32. The translation is by E. B Ashton):
. . . the law as a whole, and the greater part of the criminal law as well, is simply an instrument by which the ruling classes maintain the legal standards that protect their interests . . . If there were no property, there would be no law and no need for its sharp-edged though hollow categories.
I Get a Rise Out of Aristotle
Michael Gilleland, the Laudator Temporis Acti, in his part-time capacity as 'channel' of Aristotle, submits this delightful missive:
Dear Dr. Vallicella:
You wrote:
"Society and its various coercive and noncoercive arrangements exist for the sake of the individual and not the other way around. Given that the individual is the locus of value and the reason for the being of state and society, the latter cannot be ends in themselves, whence it follows that the political life, useful as it is, cannot be the highest life."
I once argued otherwise, in my Nicomachaean Ethics 1.2.8 (tr. H. Rackham):
"For even though it be the case that the Good is the same for the individual and for the state, nevertheless, the good of the state is manifestly a greater and more perfect good, both to attain and to preserve. To secure the good of one person only is better than nothing; but to secure the good of a nation or a state is a nobler and more divine achievement."
Regards,
Aristotle the Stagirite
Dear Aristotle,
I will begin by thanking your for your interest in my humble weblog. If it were not for you and your teacher Plato — to whom, if I may say so, you do not accord sufficient respect in your otherwise outstanding writings — none of us epigoni would be so much as thinkable. But now to the matter at hand.
You do indeed argue that politics is the master science of the good in Book I, Chapter 2 of your excellent Nicomachean Ethics, and you do indeed state at 1094b8 that the good of the state is nobler than the good of the individual. But I must remind you of what you say in the tenth and last Book of Eth. Nic. beginning in Chapter 6 and continuing until the concluding Chapter Nine. May I be so bold as to summarize the immortal thought of these inspiring chapters?
Chapter Six: Happiness and Activity. Happiness is a an active state, not one of passivity or amusement. Happiness, as the ultimate goal of human striving, cannot be identified with pleasure as certain 19th century English blockheads thought, and certainly not with bodily pleasures. (The German philosopher Nietzsche, whom you may have heard of, once quipped, "Man does not seek pleasure, only the Englishman does." I think you would approve of that line.) Happiness is an activity of the soul, not the body, in accordance with virtue.
Chapter Seven: Happiness, Intelligence, and the Contemplative Life. Now if happiness, eudaimonia, is an activity of the soul, an ergon of the psyche, in accordance with virtue or excellence, then it ought to be an activity in accordance with the highest virtue or excellence. You wisely distinguished the moral from the intellectual virtues and gave precedence to the latter. But among the intellectual virtues theoretical knowledge or contemplation, what you call theoria, stands in first place. Thus the highest life is the bios theoretikos, the life of theory, of contemplation, of philosophy. This is what your students in the Middle Ages called the vita contemplativa.
One of the arguments you give for the superiority of the theoretical life is the argument from sufficiency (1176b25 ff.) One who practices such virtues as justice, courage, and self-control needs other people. Thus a just legislator, a just judge, and a just executive requires other people as a condition of his virtuous behavior, a fact which brings in its train a lack of self-sufficiency. But he who follows the bios theoretikos needs little beyond the necessities of life. As you put it, "a wise man is able to study even by himself, and the wiser he is the more he is able to do so."
You go on to point out that the theoretical life is legitimately regarded as an end in itself and is a life of true leisure. By contrast, those who engage in military and political pursuits live in unleisurely and servile fashion, and insofar forth can do little to advance the cause of culture. As you point out, we are busy in order to have leisure just as we wage war for the sake of peace. The vita activa is for the sake of the vita contemplativa. Have you read Josef Pieper's Leisure The Basis of Culture? He does an excellent job of expounding this idea of yours. All neg-otiation, whether econonomic or political, is for the sake of otium, leisure. Sorry to employ the inferior language, Latin, but it is nearer to me and my readers than Greek.
Your view, then, is that the contemplative life stands higher than the political life. As the first to investigate logic systematically, you will not take it amiss if I set forth your view in a syllogism:
1. The highest activity is self-sufficient, an end in itself, and productive of the highest pleasure attainable.
2. Only theoretical, but not political, activity is self-sufficient, an end in itself, and productive of the highest pleasure attainable.
Therefore
3. The highest activity is theoretical, not political, activity.
Chapter Eight: The Advantages of the Contemplative Life. The contemplative life is the happiest life since it is the life in accordance with the best in us, nous or intelligence, that in us which make us godlike and self-sufficient.
Chapter Nine: Ethics and Politics. If I may say so, this chapter, something of a grab bag of tentative considerations, does not attain the level of the chapters I have just summarized, and indeed leaves unresolved a tension that you must have felt while composing the various parts of your excellent book.
Is politics the master science of the good, as you say in Book One, so that ethics is a branch of politics? That would seem to suggest that the good of the polis is superior to the good of the individual, and that the happiness and self-realization of the individual must be subordinated to the welfare of the state. But this conflicts with your plain commitment to the thesis that the theoretical life is superior to the political life, not to mention the economic life and the pleasure-seeking life.
I don't need to point out to you that the theoretical life is the individual life par excellence. Indeed, you underscore its solitariness and self-sufficiency as key advantages of it. It is not a group life. And its thinking is not group-think. Indeed, your god, the primum mobile (pardon the Latin!) is noesis noeseos, thought thinking itself, in your beautiful phrase. And you would be the first to admit that no group of thinkers is a thinker.
So I think there is a bit of a tension here. Is politics the master science of the good, or is ethics? Which is subordinated to which? You can't have it both ways, and I would resolve the tension by giving the palm to ethics and to the happiness of the individual. And I would do so invoking your authority!
If over the centuries you have come to any further conclusions on this weighty matter, I should like to hear them, either directly, or via the good graces of your acolyte the estimable Dr. Gilleland.
Yours in the love of wisdom,
MP
A Common Liberal Fallacy: The Diachronic Red Herring
Much opposition to contemporary political conservatism involves a curious argumentative fallacy that I shall dub the Diachronic Red Herring. A liberal succumbs to this fallacy when he (i) appeals to the past accomplishments of liberalism to justify contemporary liberalism while ignoring the ways in which contemporary liberalism has come to occupy extreme positions; and (ii) criticizes contemporary conservatism by bringing up past failings of conservatives while ignoring the fact that contemporary conservatism accepts many of the advances of paleo-liberalism.
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Understanding Conservatism and Tradition
An outstanding essay by James Kalb.
Notes on Anarchism III: Wolff on the Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy
This post is the third in a series. The first discussed authority, the second autonomy. The topic at present is the alleged conflict between them.
The state lays claim to moral authority, to the right to rule and the right to be obeyed. If it has the right to command and be obeyed, then the citizen has the correlative moral obligation to obey. But "the primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled." (18) Conflict is the result: the obligation to obey contradicts the obligation to be autonomous. We might call this Wolff's antinomy.
There are three ways of responding to a contradiction: deny the first limb, deny the second limb, deny the contradiction. In the present case: deny the legitimacy of the state's claim to authority; deny that there is a moral obligation to be autonomous; deny that there is a genuine contradiction.
Wolff denies the first limb: he asserts that there is no obligation to obey the state's commands. On his view they lack legitimacy, binding moral force. (18) This is not to say that the anarchist will not comply with state commands. He may do so for prudential or even sentimental reasons: they are the commands of the government of his country and his feelings of attachment to his country may incline him to comply with its government's laws. The point, however, is that the laws have "no objective moral basis." (19) American laws have no more moral claim on Wolff than the laws of Sri Lanka. "All authority is equally illegitimate. . . ." (19)
Continue reading “Notes on Anarchism III: Wolff on the Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy”
Notes on Anarchism II: Wolff on Autonomy
This post has a prerequisite. We now explore the concept of autonomy as discussed by Robert Paul Wolff on pp. 12-18 of In Defense of Anarchism.
1. "The fundamental assumption of moral philosophy is that men are responsible for their actions." (12) Wolff intends moral as opposed to mere causal responsibility. But if we are morally responsible, then we are "metaphysically free." W. doesn't explain what he means by "metaphysically free," but since he mentions Kant, we may impute to W the view that we are libertarianly free, that is, free in the 'could have done otherwise' sense. Thus we enjoy more than the compatibilist "freedom of the turnspit" (Kant).
So if we are going to do moral philosophy at all, we must assume both that we are morally responsible for some of our actions and omissions and libertarianly free with respect to those same actions and omissions. So far, so good.
Notes on Anarchism I: Wolff on Authority
Robert Paul Wolff's In Defense of Anarchism (Harper 1970, 1976) is a good book by a clear thinker and master expositor. Here is a first batch of interpretive and critical notes. I use double quotation marks when I am quoting an actual person such as Wolff. Single quotation marks are employed for scaring, sneering, and mentioning. The MP is punctilious to the point of pedantry about the use/mention distinction. Numerals in parentheses denote pages in Wollf's text. 'W' abbreviates 'Wolff.'
‘One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter’
Often and thoughtlessly repeated, 'One man's terrorist in another man's freedom fighter' is one of those sayings that cry out for logical and philosophical analysis. Competent analysis will show that clear-thinking persons ought to avoid the saying.
Note first that while freedom is an end, terror is a means. So to call a combatant a terrorist is to say something about his tactics, his means for achieving his ends, while to call a combatant a freedom fighter is to say nothing about his tactics or means for achieving his ends. It follows that one and the same combatant can be both a terrorist and a freedom fighter. For one and the same person can employ terror as his means while having freedom as his end.
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Peter Lupu on My Gun Rights Argument
A guest post by Peter Lupu. Editing by BV. BV will respond to PL in the ComBox. Here in his own words is the argument that BV presented:
1. Every human person possesses a natural right to life.
2. If every human person has a natural right to life, then he has a right to defend his life against those who would seek to violate this right.
3. If every human person has a right to defend his life, then he has a right to an effective means of defending his life.
Therefore
4. Every human person has a right to an effective means of defending his life. (From 1, 2, 3 by Modus Ponens and Hypothetical Syllogism.)
5. In many circumstances, a gun is the only effective means of defending one's life.
Therefore
6. In many circumstances, human persons have a right to possess guns, a right that is not conferred by constitutions but ought to be respected by them.
In “Deriving Gun Rights from the Right to Life” Bill presented a powerful argument on behalf of gun rights that is grounded on the right to life. The argument is based on the assumption that the right to life is a natural right and, hence, is logically prior to positive law, where by positive law we mean a law that is enacted by society. In addition to the principle that natural rights are logically prior to positive law, Bill’s argument features two additional very important principles.
Why Must the Left be Totalitarian?
A reader inquires,
I was wondering if you could expand on a statement you made in Political Correctness and Gender Neutral Language . . . . The statement is as follows: "The Left is totalitarian by its very nature and so it cannot leave any sphere of human concern unpoliticized." I wholeheartedly agree with your statement, but I was wondering if you would explain why the Left must be totalitarian. All I know right now is that it is, and has been from at least the days of Woodrow Wilson and especially FDR.
A huge and daunting topic, but I'll hazard a little sketch.
My statement telescopes two subclaims and an inference. The first subclaim is that the Left is totalitarian, while the second is that it totalitarian by its very nature (as opposed to accidentally). From these two subclaims the conclusion is drawn that the Left cannot (as opposed to does not) leave any sphere of human concern unpoliticized.
The Bigger the Government, the More to Fight Over
Taking a page from Prager, I've already noted that big government makes for small citizens. Let us also note that government expansion exacerbates political divisions and sets citizen against citizen.
Suppose we get to the point where Washington bureaucrats dictate what types of cars and trucks will be manufactured. Then you can be sure that there will be more lobbying, more corruption and the buying of votes, more fighting. Or suppose the czars of Obamacare begin dictating how many cardiologists we need, how many gastroenterologists, etc. Do you think medical students, physicians, and their patients will take that lying down? Hell no, they will organize and fight and protest and lobby. They will be justified in doing so because of the constitutionally protected right to a redress of grievances.
Do you like contention and division? Then support bigger government. We are coming apart as a nation as Patrick J. Buchanan documents here. The rifts are deep and nasty. Polarization and demonization of the opponent are the order of the day. Do you want more of this? Then give government more say in your life. Do you want less? Then support limited government and federalism.
Federalism, roughly, is (i) a form of political organization in which governmental power is divided among a central government and various constituent governing entities such as states, counties, and cities; (ii) subject to the proviso that the central and constituent governments retain their separate identities and assigned duties. A government that is not a federation would allow for the central government to create and reorganize constituent governments at will and meddle in their affairs. Federalism is implied by the Tenth Amendment tothe U.S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Federalism would make for less contention, because people who love high taxes and liberal schemes could head for the People's Republic of Taxachusetts or the Left coast state of Californication, while the conservatively inclined who support gun rights and capital punishment could gravitate toward states like Texas.
The fact of the matter is that we do not agree on a large number of divisive, passion-inspiring issues (abortion, gun rights, capital punishment, wealth redistribution . . .) and we will never agree on them. These are not merely 'academic' issues since they directly affect the lives and livelihoods and liberties of people. And they are not easily resolved because they are rooted deep in fundamental worldview differences. When you violate a man's liberty, or mock his moral sense, or threaten to destroy his way of life, you are spoiling for a fight and you will get it.
Recognizing these facts, we must ask ourselves: How can we keep from tearing each other apart literally or figuratively? I am floating the suggestion that federalism and severe limitations on the reach of the central government are what we need. Example: Suppose Roe v. Wade is overturned and the question of the legality of abortion is returned to the states. Some states will make it legal, others illegal. This would be a modest step in the direction of mitigating the tensions between the warring camps. If abortion is a question for the states, then no federal monies could be allocated to the support of abortion. People who want to live in abortion states can move there; people who don't can move to states in which abortion is illegal.
Standing on the Terra Firma of Antecedent Reality
That beautiful line is contained in the following passage from the pen of Richard M. Weaver (1910-1963):
It is my contention that a conservative is a realist, who believes that there is a structure of reality independent of his own will and desire. He believes that there is a creation which was here before him, which exists now not just by his sufferance, and which will be here after he is gone. This structure consists not merely of the great physical world but also of many laws, principles, and regulations which control human behavior. Though this reality is independent of the individual, it is not hostile to him. It is in fact amenable by him in many ways, but it cannot be changed radically and arbitrarily. This is the cardinal point. The conservative holds that man in this world cannot make his will his law without any regard to limits and to the fixed nature of things . . . . The conservative I therefore see as standing on the terra firma of antecedent reality; having accepted some things as given, lasting and good, he is in a position to use his effort where effort will produce solid results. (Quoted from Fred Douglas Young, Richard M. Weaver 1910-1963, University of Missouri Press, 1995, pp. 144-145.)
An aphorism of mine supplies the contrast:
With one foot in a past from which he will not learn, and the other in a future that will never be, the leftist stands astride the present — to piss on it.
Notes on Mark Anderson, Pure: Modernity, Philosophy, and the One
Professor Mark Anderson kindly sent me a copy of the above-captioned book the other day. I am about a third of the way through its 108 pages. To write a proper review is hard work, something I will not attempt in the humid heat of the Arizona monsoon. But I will offer a few somewhat random comments over one or more posts.
PURE is a stimulating collection of aphorisms, observations, and obiter dicta which document "one man's struggle against the intellectual and existential disorder called Modernity." (1) It is written in a partially aphoristic Nietzschean style against Nietzsche who for Anderson is the anti-Plato. So while the packaging is Nietzschean, the content is Platonic. Indeed, the author sees "the intellectual history of the West as a prolonged struggle between Platonism and Nietzscheanism." (3)
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