Modern Political Theory

1. Modern Political Theory The Effectual Truth

2. Machivelli’s Intention • “Since my intent is to write something useful to whoever understands it, it has appeared to me more fitting to go directly to the effectual truth of the thing than to the imagination of it.” Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XV • The effectual truth: Machiavelli, unlike the ancient political philosophers, will consider politics only as it is and not imagine how it could be (as Aristotle did in his discussion of the great-souled man). • What are the “facts” about politics?

3. Machiavelli’s Realism • “For one can say this generally of men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, pretenders and dissemblers, evaders of danger, eager for gain. While you do them good, they are yours, offering you their blood, property, lives, and children, as I said above, when the need for them is far away; but, when it is close to you they revolt.” • So, politically Machiavelli argues the prudent prince should count on this about men and thus “it is much safer to be feared than loved.” Why? • “Men have less hesitation to offend one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation, which because men are wicked, is broken at every opportunity for their own utility, but fear is held by a dread of punishment that never forsakes you.”

4. What is necessary to maintain power? • Machiavelli claims immediately after the passage just cited that: “the prince should nonetheless make himself feared in such a mode that if he does not acquire love, he escapes hatred, because being feared and not being hated can go together very well. This he will always do if he abstains from the property of his citizens and his subjects, and from their women….But above all, he must abstain from the property of others, because men forget the death of a father more quickly than the loss of a patrimony.” • A prince who worries only about keeping his power is better for the common good than a prince who seeks to be virtuous. For instance, Machiavelli writes: “if one wants to maintain a name for liberality among men, it is necessary not to leave out any kind of lavish display, so that a prince who has done this will always consume all his resources in such deeds. In the end it will be necessary, if he wants to maintain a name for liberality, to burden the people extraordinarily, to be rigorous with taxes, and to do all those things that can be done to get money.” • We’re all better off, Machiavelli argues, if the prince concerns himself only with his own good. • This Machiavellian argument that the selfishness of the prince is better for society very much influences the entire way we think politically, i.e. capitalism.

5. Hobbes: A New Beginning • Machiavelli’s concern for the “effectual truth,” i.e. for thinking of politics purely insofar as our thoughts can be put into practice, influences tremendously one of the most significant founders of the modern conception of politics: Hobbes • Hobbes describes men exactly as he finds them, mincing no words in his description of our natures. • From this very realistic understanding of our natures, Hobbes attempts to build a conception of politics that does not, in any way, ask us to depart from our natures. Instead, he attempts to show us that we create a government purely out of our selfishness and government can continue based purely upon our selfishness. • Hobbes’s argument thus marks a new beginning in the conception of politics. • Instead of thinking about politics, as Aristotle does, in terms of what men can use the “city” to achieve, Hobbes thinks about politics in terms of how a peaceful government can be achieved without asking men to advance beyond their selfish natures.

6. Hobbes on Man’s Anti-Social Nature • Hobbes claims: “Men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a greate deal of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all.” • In other words, whereas in Aristotle men were in the first place naturally political because they are naturally social, in Hobbes we appear to take not pleasure in our fellow men. Naturally, we don’t like to be around one another. Nature, as he says at one point, “disassociates” us.

7. The State of Nature • Because we’re naturally anti-social, without government we’re in a constant state of war with one another. “During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.” • This natural condition is truly awful for everyone involved: “In such a condition, there is 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 requre 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, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”

8. Equality in light of the State of Nature • Because of Hobbes’s argument about the state of nature, he concludes in the first place that man is naturally equal. • This is because: “though there bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another, yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himselfe.” • In other words, though men might be quite different than another • Those differences don’t constitute a claim to unequal treatment. There is no obligation of a weaker man to submit to a stronger man in the state of nature. • Those differences can be overcome in the state of nature by machination: even the strong have to sleep and are susceptible to a weak man’s dagger while they sleep.

9. Justice in light of the State of Nature • Hobbes also concludes the following from his consideration of the state of nature. Without government, “nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice.” • So, according to Hobbes, what we call justice and injustice arise entirely from what we call justice and injustice under the laws. Without those laws, there is no injustice.

10. How Do We Get Out? • Given Hobbes’s description of the state of nature, how do we get out of it? This isn’t so easy as saying “form a society” because Hobbes argues we’re naturally anti-social. So, what do we do? • In the first place Hobbes says, that there are certain aspects of man’s nature that “encline men to peace.” These are “Feare of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them.” • These passions suggest certain reasonable “Articles of Peace,” or “Laws of Nature” which set down what man needs to do to escape the state of nature.

11. Two Important Laws of Nature • “Every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as farre as he has hope of obtaining it” • “That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.” • Both “laws” tie our “obligations” to other men to our own immediate interests.

12. The “Great Leviathan” • Because men are naturally anti-social, unlike bees and cattle who naturally do what is both good for the group and good for themselves (while for men their private good differs substantially from the common good), men must generate a “Common Power, to keep them in awe, and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit.” • Men mutually give up the right of governing themselves so long as everyone else gives up that same right. They give this right up to a common power which can use its power to secure “the Common Peace and Safetie.” • “The only way to erect such a Common Power as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Forraigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the fruites of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will.” • Government emerges as the solution to the biggest “collective action problem”

13. Locke on Toleration • Besides reconceiving of the purpose of politics, i.e. to provide us security so as to allow us to pursue our path in the manner we choose, modern political theorists also take on the teaching of the Catholic Church that we encountered in Augustine and Aquinas • Locke’s argument is two-fold: • Using persecution to create belief is ineffective and not in keeping with Christianity • Using civil government in the manner that Augustine calls for is inconsistent with the purposes of civil government

14. Persecution: Ineffective and Inconsistent with Christianity • 1) Ineffective: “If anyone maintain that men ought to be compelled by fire and sword to profess certain doctrines, and conform to this or that exterior worship, without any regard unto their morals; if anyone endeavor to convert those that are erroneous unto the faith, by forcing them to profess things that they do not believe and allowing them to practice things that the Gospel does not permit, it cannot be doubted indeed but such a one is desirous to have a numerous assembly joined in the same profession with himself; but that he principally intends by those means to compose a truly Christian Church is altogether incredible.” Why? • “Such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force.” • 2) Inconsistent: “Toleration” is the “chief characteristic mark of the true Church.” • A true Christian must embrace Christianity in own heart; a true Christian tolerates him who haven’t found his path to God

15. The Limited Sphere of Government • Locke understands the proper sphere of civil government in a manner that is similar to Hobbes and different than Aristotle’s and the Christians. • “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests. Civil interests I call life, liberty, heath, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.”