Rene Descartes

Richard Kennington begins his entry in History of Political Philosophy by noting a problem with how modern philosophy is often presented, particularly in its origins. While Rene Descartes is often described as the father of modern philosophy, he is not considered the father of modern political philosophy, with that honor going to Machiavelli. This appears to give modern philosophy and modern political philosophy a separate origin, and perhaps one that cannot be reconciled. But, for Kennington, such a view is overly simplistic as there is a common thread between the ideas of Descartes and Machiavelli. That thread, according to Kennington is Francis Bacon as Bacon was a Machiavellian in politics who attempted to give science a brand new grounding. As Kennington notes, this new grounding is very similar to the new grounding Descartes attempted to establish in philosophy. Though this link, Kennington then goes on to argue for Rene Descartes’ place in the history of political philosophy.

One of the first things that needs to be understood for Descartes’ political philosophy is that he tends to be very cautious in his political writings in an attempt to avoid getting into trouble with the actually existing political authorities, but still, several important ideas can be drawn from them. At the basis of Descartes’ thought is the idea that all of philosophy is a tree. The roots of this tree are metaphysics while the trunk is physics. The branches of the tree however were all the other sciences, which would of course also include political science. In Descartes’ system, man is seen as both the second metaphysical root as well as the highest branch.

Using this analogy, Descartes seeks to radically change the understanding of knowledge as for him, the Classical tradition of speculation must be overthrown in favor of what Descartes calls “useful knowledge.” For Descartes, the overreliance on speculation is why the Classicalists were never able to properly formulate the distinction between passion and virtue, thus allowing the distinction between the two to become blurred. But, it is not enough for Descartes to throw out speculation as he also thinks that the passion/ virtue distinction should also be thrown out in favor of a new distinction between good passion and bad passion. Descartes finds this distinction far more useful.

For the average person, Descartes is primarily identified with his elevation of human reason, and this has political implications. According to Descartes, there are seven examples of the mastery of reason. Those examples are as follows: 1) the single architect of a building, 2) the single engineer of the buildings of a city, 3) the general case of a single prudent legislator who gives laws to the city, 4) the special case of a single divine legislator, 5) the special case of the single human legislator of pagan Sparta, 6) the simple relationship made naturally by a single man of good sense, and 7) the final, hypothetical case of a single man who had perfect use of his unaided reason infancy, unaffected by appetite or preceptors. Part of the political applications of Descartes’ writing here is easy to see as three of the items listed here (3, 4, and 5) deal explicitly with matters of legislation while another one (2) while not dealing explicitly with legislation does deal with the functioning of a city, which is certainly a political matter. There is however another aspect to Descartes’ list that needs to be noted as under this system, the use of reason becomes tied up in work, and thus philosophy becomes a technique. What this means that is it though technique that the ability arises to make proper legislation.

The use of reason is where one of Descartes’ biggest impacts on political philosophy can be seen as Descartes untimely hopes that reason can be used to establish a completely neutral framework in which knowledge can be produced free from prejudice. In order to do this though, Descartes readily admits that a man must reform his views. There are two realms in which to do this, the private realm and the public realm. In order to reform his views in the public realm from prejudice, first his views in the private realm must be reformed. After this happens, Descartes feels that unity in knowledge will be attained. He applies this thought to the political realm as well as while Descartes does say that humans have a moral obligation to obey the laws of their particular area, he still thinks that the fact that laws vary wildly from country to country was a sign of imperfection. Descartes’ elevation of reason also has implications in his conception of the common good, as he does not seen the common good as being rooted in the relationship of citizens to each other or in the relationship of citizens to the sovereign, but rather in the mutual relationship between philosophy/ science and society.

The elevation of reason also touches Descartes’ conception of God, as absolutes are so important to Descartes as less that perfectly omnipotent or as a deceiver that could make 2+2=5 is he wanted to do so. What this means is that God’s goodness becomes equal to the existence of absolutes. Thus, under this system, God becomes the first principle for man’s knowledge. The second principle for man’s knowledge is seen as physics, two ideas that when taken together means that there is both a non-psychical and physical basis for man’s knowledge. But of course Descartes’ focus on the importance of absolutes also greatly raises the specter of doubt and indeed Descartes sees generosity as the highest virtue as it does not presuppose any other virtue, giving doubt when an absolute cannot be produced. With this in mind, it is no surprise that Descartes feels that political society should be from the perspective of the most generous and even thinks that it is though generosity that true glory can be attained.

It should also be noted that Descartes rejects the notion of the “best regime,” an idea which took up much of the time of Classical political philosophers. Instead, Descartes is more concerned with the establishment of a neutral framework as he feels this is the best system in which science can be allowed to flourish. What this means is that Descartes can be seen as an early advocate of the “open society,” which will be accepting to all who wish forgo their own prejudices. Despite this influence, Descartes’ ideas here show some very obvious limitations as he untimely fails to fully understand his own prejudices and thus becomes overly simplistic.                      

Thomas Hobbes

For his contribution to History of Political Philosophy, Laurence Berns looks at the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, one of the men most responsible for the shift of the Classical/ Medieval paradigm to the modern one. One of the things that is most important to remember about Hobbes is that he has two major intentions. These intentions are as follows: 1) put moral and political philosophy on a scientific basis and 2) contribute to the establishment of civic peace and amity and to the disposing of mankind towards fulfilling civic duties. It also should be remembered that Hobbes represents a radical break in Classical thinking, particularly in regards to the place of natural law as Hobbes keeps natural law, but drastically reformulates it. For Hobbes, natural does exist but is rooted in passion, rather than in reason as the Classical natural law theorists thought it was. Hobbes made this move as he thought the most powerful men of his time had done this.

Hobbes focus on the importance of absolute knowledge that could not be seriously questioned is also a very important element of his thought, It is for this reason that Hobbes considers scientific knowledge to mean mathematical, and particularly geometrical knowledge. For Hobbes, these things are to be admired for their ability to establish absolutes.[1]  According to Hobbes, the philosophy of science proceeds in one of two ways. Those ways are as follows: 1) through the compositive method, which is reasoning from the first and generating causes of all things to their apparent effects and 2) through the resolutive method, which is reasoning from apparent effects, or facts, to the possible causes of their generation. This leads Hobbes to a highly mechanistic theory of understanding people, as people can now be seen as being ruled by their passions.

This mechanical understanding of humanity caused several other significant developments in Hobbes thought as while he does ground his conception of the goals and character of moral and political life in human nature, human nature becomes radically changed so that people are no longer seen as a political or social animal. Rather, human nature is seen as being rooted in pre-social and pre-political conditions. As to what these conditions were, Hobbes sees the pre-social world as a place of fundamental equality. And while this may seem like a good idea to people living in the early 21^st century, for Hobbes such a such a concept of horrifying as this equality was mostly manifested in people having an equal ability to kill each other. These conditions understandably create a good deal of fear as self-preservation is the most powerful passion. Fear plays such an important part of Hobbes’ conception of the world, he even sees ideas such as competition, distrust, and glory   as being rooted in fear. So prevalent is this fear, for Hobbes the state of nature is a state of war as mean war with one another out of fear of being killed. What this means is that people do not come to society because they are naturally inclined to do so, but rather because society is seen as the best way to avoid death, get comfort and attain glory. It also should be noted that Hobbes uses a mechanistic understanding of human nature as he feels that this is the easiest to understand, and thus hopes that his new understanding of human nature can help it be eventually conquered.

Though he is often misunderstood as a sort of proto-fascist, in reality Hobbes can be seen as a liberal, abet a highly authoritarian one, as he sees the obligations of human society as being rooted in individual rights. Individual rights are actually very important to Hobbes, and it is though one of his most influential ideas, the social contract, that people can come to this understanding. His ideas on the social contract also caused Hobbes to reject the notion of Aristotelian distributive justice as Hobbes thought that it overlooked the fact that people come into the social contract under equal conditions which leads to more of an expectation of equality. Furthermore, though Hobbes thinks there is a law of reason, he rejects the notion that reason alone can make people obey it as only fear can do this. Thus, the government is needed to enforce that fear. It should also be noted that ultimately Hobbes sees the commonwealth as a person.

The Hobbesian social contract also has two parts that need to be understood. These two parts are as follows: 1) a covenant of each member of the future civil body with each of the others to acknowledge as sovereign whatever men of assembly of mean a majority of their members decide one and 2) the vote to determine who or what is the sovereign. Once this has been completed, all people are obligated to obey the sovereign due to their signing of the social contract. This obligation extends to future generations as they have tacitly signed the social contract due to their acceptance of protection. Through the notion of the sovereign, Hobbes hopes that a mathematical exactness in political philosophy can be established. According to Hobbes, the first right of the sovereign is the right to punish. This is seen as an exclusive right. Furthermore, according to Hobbes, the will of each individual is in the will of the sovereign and thus accusing the sovereign of injury is tantamount to accusing oneself. Hobbes does however have a conception of the sovereign being divided into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The concept of fear underlines each one. Despite this division, according to Hobbes the sovereign must be absolute in order for him to properly work and must eve be above the law.

Hobbes’ focus on the importance of fear can be further seen when he does into greater detail on how the sovereign should function. According to Hobbes, though running way from battle may be cowardly, it is not unjust. Thus, it is the job of the sovereign to make sure that the fear of punishment from running away from battle exceeds the fear of being killed in that battle. This does not mean that Hobbes necessarily gives the sovereign a black check to behave in whatever way he wants as the unjust sovereign is acting against the laws of nature. And while it is true Hobbes sees rebellion as something that is never justified, he is still well aware that unjust sovereigns often incite rebellions, and thus the unjust sovereign may face a rebellion as punishment for his crimes.

Much like the Classical thinkers, Hobbes does admit that there are several different kinds of commonwealths depending upon where the sovereign is located. Hobbes particularly notes three of them and they are as follows: 1) the power by one man, monarchy, 2) a situation in where every citizen has the right to vote, democracy and 3) a situation in where only part of the citizens have the right to vote, aristocracy. Unlike the Classical thinkers though, Hobbes makes no moral distinctions between the various types of government (i.e. monarchy/ tyranny). Though all three are examples of the sovereign, Hobbes does not see them as being created equally as he clearly favors monarchy over the others. This is because Hobbes wishes to closely align public and private interests and feels that monarchy is the best way of accomplishing this goal. Another reason for his preference of monarchy, particularly over democracy is that in monarch, bad people have a lower chance of having power. Hobbes also rejects the notion of mixed government as he feels will lead to civil war.

Talk of social contract often leads to talk over how the social contract can be abolished. For Hobbes, there is only one way to dissolve the social contract, and that is through unanimous consent. It should be noted that Hobbes does draw a distinction between law and council as while the law is rooted in will, council is rooted in reason as it can be voluntarily obeyed or disobeyed, thus, Hobbes’ world view is not one of complete force. Still, despite the focus on stability Hobbes uses, Hobbes is well aware that no commonwealth can last forever as it is made by morals and thus cannot be immortal itself. However, though proper structure and management, it can last a long time. Despite this realization, Hobbes still greatly fears revolution, even to the point to where he thinks that it is wrong for commonwealths to ask for less power than they need in peacetime and then as for more when it is necessary, such as in times of war as Hobbes feels that this may incite rebellion. Hobbes also places on the sovereign the crimes it commits. For example, if the sovereign tells a citizen to commit an unjust act and the citizen does so, it is the sovereign who is to be punished by God rather than the citizen who actually committed the act. Protection of the sovereign though is still paramount and thus Hobbes suggests that the censorship of potentially dangerous ideas is acceptable in order to defend the commonwealth.

Religion plays a major role in Hobbes’ thought as being fully aware of the problems the Puritans caused in England, Hobbes thinks religion must be kept in check as religion that is not kept in check has the potentially to be able to make men imagine rewards and punishments far greater than any sovereign could possibly give, thus causing people to disobey the sovereign. This is not to say that religion is completely or at least potentially negative for Hobbes, apart from the times when it is well managed by the sovereign as Hobbes draws his ideas on the social contract from the Old Testament idea of the covenant. What this does however mean is that Hobbes produces a much more robust conception of Caesaropapism than was seen in the Medieval period.    

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[1] It is for this reason that Hobbes rejected the experimentalist science of Robert Boyle and his air-pump. For more information see Leviathan and the Air-Pump (Shapin and Schaffer 1985). 

Hugo Grotius

For his entry in History of Political Philosophy, Richard A. Cox discusses the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius, one of the more obscure people discussed in Strauss and Cropsey’s book. One of the first things that needs to be understood about Grotius is that even though he is featured prominently in History of Political Philosophy, he did not see himself as a philosopher or political theorist, but rather as a legal theorist. This is particularly true of Grotius’ most famous work, The Law of War and Peace. The work is a general treatise on “the law of nature and nations and also on the main points of public law.” As the work is narrowly, rather than widely focused, it is an important work in understanding legal theory.

Grotius’ book is rooted in the Classical idea that people are by nature a rational and social animal. Considering this point of agreement with Aristotle, it is perhaps not surprising that for Grotius, laws are made by natural right and not by convention. For Grotius, people’s social and rational nature are deeply linked as people’s rational nature gives them a tendency towards self-preservation which in turn leads to people seeking society. What this means for Grotius is that the concepts of right and wrong are rooted in the nature of society, thus that which is wrong is in conflict with the nature of society. This causes Grotius to have several conceptions of “right.” The first kind of right can be easily inferred from his conception of wrong; that with is not in conflict with the nature of society. There are however other conceptions of right in Grotius’ theory. Another one of these conceptions of right is a quality of belonging to persons and usually refers to the rightful power to have or to do something. The third conception of right Grotius introduces is law, which refers to a rule of action which obliges to what is correct and also carries with it some sanction.

Just as there are several conceptions of right, there are also several kinds of right. The first kind of right can be divided into two other kinds. Those kinds are as follows: 1) natural law and 2) volitional law. One of the things to keep in mind about Grotius is that he heavily raises the importance of natural law, to the point that for Grotius, natural law would exist even if there was no God. Because of its importance in his theory, Grotius is careful to lay out two proofs for natural law. The proofs are as follows: 1) an a priori argument focusing on the necessary agreement of an act or thing with the rational and social nature of man and 2) a postpriori focusing on those things believed by all nations. On volitional law, Grotius divides that into two kinds. Those divisions are as follows: 1) human law and 2) divine law. From this, human volitional law is further divided into three kinds. Those kinds are as follows: 1) the law that is not dependent upon civil power (example: the law of fathers, masters, etc.), 2) the municipal or civil law, and 3) the law of nations whose force comes from the will of all or many nations. Though the law of nations is highly elevated in Grotius’ theory, it should not be equated with natural law, for unlike natural law, the law of nations can be changed.

Grotius’ focus on legal theory causes his work of purely political matters to be sketchier and draw heavily from others and simply accept two classical ideas. These ideas are as follows: 1) it is only within civil order that people can fully realize the potential of their rational and social nature and 2) and such, ruling is necessary and natural to the civil body as the rule of reason is necessary and natural to the human body. Grotius also lays out three branches of the civil body. The branches are as follows: 1) the architectonic, which is concerned with the general framing of society, 2) the particular interest in society which are public in nature and 3) the private interest of the citizens and the controversies that may arise from them.

In order to properly understand Grotius, it is important to understand him as a fundamentally classical theorist as power does not reside in the governed nor does it reside in the mutual dependency of the ruled and the rulers. Rather, power for Grotius resides in the natural order. Perhaps not surprisingly then, there is no right to revolution in Grotius’ theory. This is not to say that Grotius supports absolute rule necessarily as he does show some favor to non-absolute forms of rule, but much like Aristotle, for Grotius, the type of government is rooted in who has supreme power. So important is the idea of natural order for Grotius, for him a just war is a war waged to restore the natural order and fall into two categories. The categories are as follows: 1) Those wars waged in the defense of self and property and 2) Those wars waged to correct injustices and give proper punishment.

The last thing that is important to keep in mind with Grotius is that though he came out about the same time as Hobbes, and in fact predated him by a few years and though the two appear to have many superficial agreements, the two cannot be equated. This is because they have two fundamentally different foundations, for while Grotius is a fundamentally Classical thinker, Hobbes is a decidedly modern one. Thus, while Grotius attempted to restore the glory and power of Classical thought, Hobbes sees this attempt as being futile and thus sets out to attempt to make something new. That new path Hobbes sets out on will be explored in the next entry of History of Political Philosophy.  

Francis Bacon

Howard B. White in his contribution to History of Political Philosophy focuses on the political theory of Francis Bacon. Though Bacon is more commonly thought of as a scientist, or perhaps a philosopher of science, he is still included in History of Political Philosophy as not only did his work on science ended up having political ramifications, he also produced political philosophy in its own right, abet in a version that was heavily tied up in his ideas on science. Much like many of the others that came before him, most notably Plato and Aristotle, for Bacon, the central question of political philosophy is “What is the best state?”. In order to answer this question, Bacon both drew from as well as rejected certain elements of his philosophy of science.

First off, though he rejected the idea of a “fifth essence” in space, which Aristotle used to explain the functioning of the stars, he appears to grant one to the state. Furthermore, he also incorporates some idea of a “final cause” in his theory of the state, an idea which he rejects in science. As a result of Bacon’s ideas of the final cause in the state, the highest good for Bacon becomes rooted in human achievement. Another consequence of this idea was that man became much more detached from nature, and thus can attain no natural good from nature. Instead of some sort of natural order, the state for Bacon rooted in the actions of its founder.

Bacon’s rejection of natural order, at least in the Aristotelian sense had several consequences. One of these was that without natural order to guide people, a far greater emphasis was placed on observation as the way in which humans could be guided. This created the conception of the “expert”, a move which would replace the old dichotomy of philosopher and non-philosopher with a new trichotomy of philosopher, expert, and public. The experts and the philosophers were to both have a role in the new technologically driven world as the experts were to understand the physical workings of new technologies while the philosophers were to understand the effects of these new technologies on the general public. As a result of his expert-philosopher distinction, Bacon also creates another distinction, one between experimental and pure knowledge.

Bacon has great hope that technology will eventually be able to being about a better future. First off, for Bacon technology is not for the individual or even nation that invented it, but for all mankind. What’s more, for Bacon only two criteria were needed to bring about progress: technology and peace. Thus, as can be seen, all of mankind holds one of the key elements in bringing about progress. It is here where the political ramifications of Bacon’s theories on science can be most clearly seen. Bacon though has several ideas on how best to bring about the peace that is also needed to bring about progress. For Bacon, a key component of this is tradition as Bacon thought that tradition was key in bringing about the stability needed to bring about peace that would eventually produce progress. According to Bacon, this tradition had three components. These components are as follows: monarchism, Anglicanism, and imperialism. Though he thought all three were important in bringing about peace, he approaches them in different ways. For Bacon, monarchy is to be favored simply because that is what currently actually exists and any attempt to move to a republican form of government would disrupt the stability needed to bring about progress. Though he does have someone similar views on Anglicanism, his defense of it is more robust as he also concedes that it still has value beyond the fact that it currently exists as Bacon noted that to Anglicanism’s favor, it is more tolerant that the Catholic or Calvinist Churches. Despite his qualified support for the first two elements of his three part scheme of bringing about peace, Bacon has a much more robust defense of imperialism as Bacon sees imperialism as a civic duty and is rooted in his belief of man’s triumph over nature.

Bacon’s theories on the state also lead to him writing about his own utopia in the New Atlantis, where he discusses the hypothetical utopia Bensalem. In Bensalem, Bacon describes two major safeguards. These safeguards are as follows: 1) Collegiate power, which decides which inventions may be revealed to the general public and what the limits of knowledge should be and 2) Paternal power, which is concerned with enforcing virtue. Thus, in Bensalem, power is rooted in the unity of the old, paternalistic power and the new, vigorous science. It may appear odd to many that Bacon, a man so connected with the scientific revolution would be willing to limit what sort of technologies the general public is aware of, but there is in Bacon’s view a very simple reason for this. The reason is that if there were no limits to what sort of technologies the general public were aware of, then eventually stability would be under minded which would stop scientific progress. For Bacon then, science must be limited in order for its long term survival to be guaranteed. Bacon’s utopia has several other interesting characteristics, among these is that power is seen as being rooted in the state rather than the king. Furthermore, though it is possible for anyone to become a ruler, the gap between the ruled and the rulers is quite large.

Several other aspects of Bensalem would likely strike the modern reader as highly authoritarian, particularly for a supposed utopia. One of these aspects is the travel is greatly restricted as travel is restricted so that the people may resist corruption. Such an idea is particularly odd in light of Bacon’s previous support of commerce and imperialism, so it appears to be the case that for Bacon, imperialism and commerce are simply means to an end and once his ideas have firmly taken root, they will no longer be needed. Bacon also has a dim view of the masses as he sees the science of politics secret science that is hard to know and not fit to utter and as such is only for the select few. Misused, this science can bring about doom and gloom. Thus, for Bacon, though some people can be truly free, not all of them can, as while it is true people can be freed from their old superstitions; these superstitions would have to be replaced by new institutions in order to maintain stability. Only a very select few can forgo both of these things.