Enlightenment Politics

If there is a single overarching idea shared in common by adherents to different strands of Enlightenment thinking, it is faith in the power of human reason to understand the true nature of our circumstances and ourselves. Human improvement is measured by the yardstick of individual rights that embody, and protect, human freedom.

Descartes announced that he was in search of propositions that are impossible to doubt. His famous example, known as the cogito, was ‘‘I think, therefore I am.’’

Immanuel Kant defined in The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), of placing knowledge ‘‘on the secure path of a science.’’

These developments in philosophy reflected and reinforced the emergence of modern scientific consciousness.

Such ideas, as necessary conditions for the development of natural science (not merely technology), seems to never had appeared in China. Year 1781 is the year 乾隆四十六年 in China, one of the most closed, ignorant, and autocratic era in history.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the hallmark of scientific knowledge was indubitable certainty, ethics, political philosophy, and the human sciences were regarded as superior to the natural sciences. This view seems strange from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, when fields like physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and biology have all advanced with astonishing speed to discoveries that would have been unimaginable in the eighteenth century.

The Workmanship Ideal of Knowledge

The first distinctive feature of the early Enlightenment concerns the range of a priori knowledge, the kind of knowledge that either follows from definitions or is otherwise deduced from covering principals. This is the kind of knowledge Descartes had in mind when he formulated his cogito and that Kant located in the realm of ‘‘analytic judgments.’

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge. The term comes from the Greek words “episteme,” meaning knowledge or understanding, and “logos,” meaning study or discourse. Epistemology addresses questions such as:

What is knowledge?
How is knowledge acquired?
What do people know?
How do we know what we know?
What are the limits of human knowledge?
What makes beliefs justified or rational?

In exploring these questions, epistemology deals with the definition of knowledge and its scope and limits. It often involves debating between different theories of knowledge, such as empiricism (the idea that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience), rationalism (the idea that reason is the main source of knowledge), and constructivism (the idea that knowledge is constructed by individuals through their interactions with the world).

Immanuel Kant distinguished between two types of judgments: analytic and synthetic. These distinctions are central to his philosophy, especially in his work “Critique of Pure Reason.”

Analytic Judgments: An analytic judgment is one where the predicate (the part of the sentence that says something about the subject) is contained within the subject itself. The truth of an analytic judgment is derived from the meanings of the words involved and logical reasoning. They are tautological in nature and do not add any new information about the world. For example, the statement “All bachelors are unmarried” is analytic because the predicate “unmarried” is part of the definition of the subject “bachelor.”
Synthetic Judgments: A synthetic judgment, on the other hand, is one where the predicate adds something to the subject that is not contained within it. The truth of a synthetic judgment is determined through how our concepts relate to the world and cannot be known just by understanding the meanings of the words. They require empirical investigation or intuition. For instance, “The cat is on the mat” is a synthetic judgment because the concept of “the cat” does not inherently include the concept of “being on the mat.”

Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments is fundamental to his epistemology, particularly in addressing the question of how human beings can have knowledge about the world. He further introduced the concept of “synthetic a priori” judgments, which are synthetic judgments that are known independently of experience (a priori), like mathematical truths.

The creationist or workmanship theory in political science, often associated with the work of John Locke, is a theory of political obligation. It suggests that political authority and legitimacy derive from the consent of the governed, likening the role of the government or ruler to that of a craftsman or creator who constructs a system with the consent and for the benefit of the people.

This theory is rooted in the idea that political and social structures are artificial constructs, made by human beings, unlike natural phenomena. The “creationist” aspect implies that political structures are deliberately created or constructed, rather than organically evolved. The “workmanship” aspect emphasizes the idea that the creators or rulers of these structures have a responsibility to the people they govern, similar to how a craftsman is responsible for the quality and function of their creation.

Locke’s theory was revolutionary at its time because it challenged the prevailing notion of the divine right of kings, suggesting instead that political authority is justified only when it serves the interests of the governed and respects their rights. This theory laid the groundwork for modern concepts of democracy, individual rights, and the social contract.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two prominent philosophers, had distinct views on natural law, reflecting their differing perspectives on human nature and the ideal structure of society.

Hobbes, in his work “Leviathan,” presented a rather pessimistic view of human nature. He believed that in the state of nature (a hypothetical condition without government or laws), humans are driven by self-interest and a desire for self-preservation, leading to a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). In this state, life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

For Hobbes, natural law is a set of precepts or general rules, discovered by reason, which prohibit anything destructive to one’s own life. It’s based on the right of every individual to preserve their own life, leading to the conclusion that humans should seek peace. This is where his famous concept of the social contract comes into play: individuals surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of a ruler (or a ruling assembly) to ensure their own safety and peace. Thus, Hobbes’s natural law is fundamentally about self-preservation and the avoidance of harm to others as a means of securing one’s own safety.

Locke’s view, as articulated in “Two Treatises of Government,” is more optimistic about human nature. He believed that in the state of nature, humans live in a state of equality and freedom, not inherently prone to violence or war. For Locke, the law of nature is a moral guide based on the belief that God has given the world to all people in common. It teaches that, since all are equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in their life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Locke’s natural law is grounded in the rights to life, liberty, and property. It includes the idea that people have the obligation to respect the rights of others. His social contract theory suggests that people form governments to protect these natural rights. If a government fails to do so, citizens have the right to overthrow it. This view laid the groundwork for modern democracy and significantly influenced the development of political philosophy in the Western world.

So, Hobbes saw natural law as a means of avoiding the brutal state of nature through self-preservation and peace, whereas Locke viewed natural law as a moral guide ensuring equality and the inherent rights of life, liberty, and property.

A basic issue for Locke and many of his contemporaries was the ontological status of natural law and in particular its relation to God’s will.

In this sentence, “ontological status” refers to the fundamental nature or essence of natural law, especially in relation to its existence and its relationship to God’s will. Ontology, in philosophy, is the study of being or existence, and it deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

So, when discussing the “ontological status of natural law” in the context of John Locke and his contemporaries, the focus is on understanding the very essence of natural law: whether it exists as an objective reality independent of human beings, how it relates to or derives from God’s will, and what its fundamental characteristics are. This was a central topic in the philosophical and theological debates of that era, particularly in the context of determining the basis and legitimacy of moral and legal principles. Locke and many others were engaged in trying to understand whether natural laws were inherent aspects of the universe, ordained by God, or whether they were constructs of human reason and society.

“Will-centered” refers to the philosophical position known as voluntarism. This is a theory that emphasizes the role of the will, either divine or human, in various philosophical contexts. In the context of Locke’s moral and political writings, being “will-centered” or a voluntarist means that Locke ultimately leaned towards the view that natural law and moral principles are determined by the will, particularly the will of God, rather than being inherent or objective truths that exist independently of any will.

In Locke’s time, the debate about the nature of natural law often centered around whether natural laws were intrinsic to the universe (a position known as intellectualism or rationalism) or whether they were decrees of God’s will (voluntarism). A will-centered or voluntarist approach suggests that moral and legal norms derive their authority from an act of will, particularly the divine will, rather than from reason alone or from the inherent nature of reality. In this view, what is right or wrong, just or unjust, is so because God wills it to be that way, and human beings understand and follow these laws through revelation, religious teachings, or other means of discerning God’s will.

Locke distinguished “ectype”’ from “archetype” ideas: ectypes are general ideas of substances, and archetypes are ideas constructed by man.

John Locke’s distinction between “ectype” and “archetype” ideas is a crucial aspect of his epistemological theory, which he discusses in his work “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” This distinction is part of his broader inquiry into the nature of human knowledge and understanding.

In Locke’s philosophy, archetypes are the original models or patterns from which copies are made. They are the fundamental, primary ideas that exist in the mind of God or, in a more secular interpretation, the perfect, abstract forms of things. When Locke refers to archetypes as ideas constructed by man, he means that these are the ideal standards or criteria we hold in our minds for categorizing and understanding the world. They represent our understanding of what the essential characteristics of a particular thing are.

For instance, the archetype of a tree would be the idealized concept or mental representation of what a tree is supposed to be. This archetype is not derived from any particular tree but is a kind of composite or abstracted idea of “treeness” that we use to recognize and categorize individual trees.

Ectypes, on the other hand, are derivative or secondary ideas. They are the imperfect copies or generalizations that we derive from our experience with individual instances in the world. Ectype ideas are more about the general ideas of substances we form based on our sensory experiences and observations. When we see many individual trees, for example, we form a general idea of what a tree is - this is an ectype. It’s a more practical, experiential idea based on the aggregation of real-world instances.

In summary, Locke’s distinction between archetype and ectype ideas can be understood as a differentiation between the idealized, abstract concepts we hold in our minds as standards (archetypes) and the more practical, general ideas we form based on our sensory experience of the world (ectypes). Archetypes are about the essence or ideal form of things, while ectypes are about the general, often imperfect, concepts we derive from actual experiences.

The Preoccupation with Certainty

The post-Humean Enlightenment tradition has been marked by a fallibilist view of knowledge. All knowledge claims are fallible on this account, and science advances not by making knowledge more certain but by producing more knowledge. Recognizing the corrigibility of all knowledge claims and the possibility that one might always be wrong exemplifies the modern scientific attitude. As Karl Popper (1902-1994) noted, the most that we can say, when hypotheses survive empirical tests, is that they have not been falsified so that we can accept them provisionally.

Value judgments are statements or opinions that express an evaluation, typically of something’s worth, beauty, goodness, or morality. Examples include statements like “Lying is wrong,” or “This painting is beautiful.” A.J. Ayer was a key figure in the logical positivist movement, which held that for a statement to be meaningful, it must be either empirically verifiable (i.e., testable by observation or experiment) or analytically true (true by definition, like mathematical or logical statements). In logical positivism, a proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It’s a claim about the world that can, at least in principle, be tested and verified or falsified.

The Logical Positivist movement, also known as Logical Empiricism, was a philosophical movement that emerged in the early 20th century. It primarily revolved around a group of philosophers associated with the Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Hans Hahn, ), along with others like A.J. Ayer in Britain. This movement sought to apply the rigor of scientific methodology to philosophy, with a significant focus on the analysis of language and the verification of statements.

Key Features of Logical Positivism include

Verification Principle: The central tenet of Logical Positivism is the verification principle. This principle asserts that a statement is only meaningful if it can be empirically verified or is analytically true (true by virtue of its meaning, like “All bachelors are unmarried”). The idea was to eliminate metaphysical and abstract discussions that couldn’t be supported by empirical evidence or logical reasoning.
Empiricism and Science: Logical Positivists emphasized the importance of empirical evidence and scientific methods in acquiring knowledge. They viewed science as the model for all true knowledge.
Rejection of Metaphysics: They were critical of metaphysics and other traditional philosophical endeavors, which they saw as meaningless since such statements couldn’t be empirically verified. They believed that many philosophical problems arose from misunderstandings of language and could be resolved by clarifying the language used.
Language and Meaning: A significant focus was placed on the analysis of language, particularly the language of science. They aimed to clarify how language is used in scientific theories and to distinguish between meaningful and meaningless statements.
Influence of Wittgenstein: Although not officially part of the Vienna Circle, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early work, especially his “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” significantly influenced Logical Positivism. Wittgenstein argued that much of philosophy consists of nonsensical propositions and that the role of philosophy should be to clarify thought and language.
Ethical and Aesthetic Statements: Logical Positivists generally considered ethical and aesthetic statements to be expressions of emotions or subjective preferences, rather than statements that could be true or false.

The “positivism” component is linked to the movement’s commitment to a scientific and empirical approach to knowledge. Positivism, as a philosophical stance, argues that knowledge should be based on positive, observable facts and their logical and mathematical treatment. It rejects introspection and intuition as sources of knowledge and instead emphasizes empirical evidence obtained through observation and experimentation. Logical Positivists extended this approach by asserting that statements must be empirically verifiable (or analytically true) to be meaningful.

Somewhat to my surprise, Karl Popper is not a member of the Vienna circle even though they shared many intellectual engagements. Furthermore, Karl Popper is even critically oppositional. The Vienna Circle advocated for the verification principle, which held that a statement is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified. Popper challenged this view, proposing falsificationism instead. According to Popper, scientific theories cannot be conclusively verified but can be falsified. He argued that a theory is scientific if it is testable and can potentially be refuted by evidence. This approach places a greater emphasis on the role of empirical refutation rather than verification.

Also, Popper was critical of what he called historicism – the belief that history unfolds according to deterministic laws or principles. He argued that such theories, which were often used to justify authoritarian regimes, are fundamentally flawed. He believed that historicism led to totalitarianism because it promoted the idea that certain individuals or groups had access to inevitable truths about societal development, thus justifying their absolute rule. Popper advocated for what he termed an open society. An open society, in his view, is characterized by a democratic government, individual freedoms, and a critical attitude towards tradition and authority. It allows for change and improvement through rational and critical discourse, as opposed to the unquestioning acceptance of dogmatic principles.

Just as Popper applied the principle of falsifiability to scientific theories, he suggested that political policies should also be subjected to critical scrutiny and should be alterable in the face of new evidence or arguments. He was wary of any political theory or system that claimed to have absolute or final answers.

According to Ayer, the expression of a value judgment is not a proposition since it can not be judged by right and wrong, the question of truth or falsehood does not here arise.

Regarding ethics, Ayer points out that many theorists in ethics tend to treat statements about the causes and characteristics of our ethical feelings as if these statements were definitions of ethical concepts. For example, a theory might claim that an action is good if it promotes happiness. Here, the cause of the ethical feeling (happiness) is used to define the ethical concept (good). Ayer argues that ethical concepts are pseudo-concepts, since ethical concepts, in his view, is neither empirically verifiable or analytically correct.

Ayer’s stance is closely associated with emotivism, a meta-ethical view that suggests ethical statements do not assert propositions but express emotional attitudes. According to emotivism, saying “Stealing is wrong” is akin to expressing one’s disapproval of stealing, rather than making an objective claim about the nature of stealing.

The Centrality of Individual Rights

In addition to faith in science, the Enlightenment’s central focus on individual rights differentiates its political philosophy from the ancient and medieval commitments to order and hierarchy. This focus brings the freedom of the individual to the center of arguments about politics. This move was signaled in the natural law tradition by a shift in emphasis from the logic of law to the idea of natural right.

Hobbes contended that it was customary to conflate “Jus and Lex, law and right”. Yet he made the distinction that right, consisted in liberty to do, or to forbeare, whereas law, determines and binds to one of them. Similarly by Locke.

John Locke’s oppinion on natural law is as the following. In his work Essays on the Law of Nature, Locke argues a moral law inherent in the world and discoverable through reason.

Key points of Locke’s argument include:

Natural Law and Reason: Locke posits that natural law is an aspect of the natural world, similar to physical laws. According to him, this moral law can be discovered through the use of reason, without the need for divine revelation.
Moral Obligations: He argues that natural law imposes moral obligations on individuals. These moral principles are universal and apply to all people, regardless of their culture or society.
Rights and Duties: Locke’s view of natural law is closely tied to his ideas about individual rights and duties. He believes that natural law forms the basis for understanding human rights, especially the right to life, liberty, and property.
Foundation for Political Theory: These essays lay the groundwork for Locke’s later political theories, particularly those presented in his famous works, “Two Treatises of Government.” He uses the concept of natural law to argue for the rights of individuals and the limitations of governmental power.
Human Equality: Locke emphasizes the inherent equality of all human beings, derived from their natural state. This idea is a critical aspect of his argument against absolute monarchy and for the formation of governments based on the consent of the governed.
Religious Tolerance: Although not as explicitly developed in these essays as in his later works, Locke’s concept of natural law also leads to his advocacy for religious tolerance, seeing religious belief as a matter of individual conscience.

In summary, Locke’s “Essays on the Law of Nature” propose that there is a moral law inherent in the natural world, understandable through human reason, and that this law underpins human rights and forms the basis for just and ethical governance.

John Locke’s voluntarist theology reflects his views on the nature of God and the relationship between divine will and moral law. The emphasis is on the will will (voluntas in Latin, hence the name) of God of God as the primary or sole source of moral law. Locke’s voluntarism posits that moral laws are decrees of God’s will. In this view, what is morally right or wrong is so because God wills it, and not necessarily because it aligns with any intrinsic moral truths or rational principles independent of God’s will. Locke emphasizes the absolute freedom and omnipotence of God. He argues that God’s will is not bound by any external standards or principles. Therefore, moral laws are a product of God’s free choice.

While Locke is a proponent of reason and believes that human beings can discover moral truths through rational inquiry, he also upholds the importance of divine revelation. In his voluntarist theology, revelation plays a crucial role in imparting knowledge of God’s will, which might not be entirely accessible through reason alone. Locke’s voluntarism is tied to his rejection of innate ideas, a concept he famously critiques in his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” He argues against the notion that moral principles are innately known, instead positing that our understanding of moral laws comes from experience, reason, and revelation. Locke’s voluntarist approach suggests that moral obligations are ultimately grounded in obedience to God’s will. This perspective can lead to a form of ethical subjectivism, where moral truths depend on the decrees of a divine authority.

In Locke’s formulation, natural law dictates that man is subject to divine imperatives to live in certain ways, but, within the limits set by the law of nature, men can act in a godlike fashion. Man as maker has a maker’s knowledge of his intentional actions, and a natural right to dominion over man’s products. … Provided we do not violate natural law, we stand in the same relation to the objects we create as God stands to us; we own them just as he owns us.

Tensions Between Science and Individual Rights

The two enlightenment values, the preoccupation of science and the commitment to individual rights, seem to be in contradiction with each other. Science is deterministic, concerned with discovering the laws that govern the universe, with human being included. This has potential for conflict with an ethic that emphasizes individual freedom, for now the freedom has to be subjugated to the laws (of nature, of God).

In Locke’s theory, the freedom to comprehend natural law by one’s own lights supplied the basis of Locke’s right to resist, which could be invoked against the sovereign. No one is in a higher position to monopolize the right to interpret the scripture.

We will see this tension surface repeatedly in the utilitarian, Marxist, and social contract traditions, without ever being fully resolved.

Classical Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham famously wrote that

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of senses, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.

Some regimes indeed deals “in sounds instead of senses, in caprice instead of reason,” yet as long as they get only one thing right, as long as they supress the alternative, their reign will continue.

The principle of utility, as Bentham explains, “approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.”

A century later Marx and Engels would write of a utopian order in which politics could be replaced by administration. Bentham believed that it could be done in eighteenth-century England.

Funny enough, Marx thought very little of Jeremy Benthem. Marx wrote, in Das Capita, that Bentham was a “panegyric of bourgeois society,” and “With the driest naiveté he (Bentham) takes the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful. This yard-measure, then, he applies to past, present, and future. The Christian religion, for example, is ‘useful,’ ‘because it forbids in the name of religion the same faults which the penal code condemns in the name of the law.’ Artistic criticism is ‘harmful,’ because it disturbs worthy people in their enjoyment of Martin Tupper, etc.”

Bentham’s happiness principal, when applied to governments, requires us to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number in the community.

Bentham defended an extensive system of political rights, but he saw rights as human artifacts, created by the legal system and enforced by the sovereign. He insisted that there are no rights without enforcement and no enforcement without government, a blunt statement of the view that would subsequently become known as legal positivism.

Individual Versus Collective Utility and the Need for Government

In Bentham’s Principles of the Civil Code, he wrote

Law does not say to man, Work and I will reward you but it says: Labour, and by stopping the hand that would take them from you, I will ensure to you the fruits of your labour – its natural and sufficient reward, which without me you cannot preserve. If industry creates, it is law which preserves; if at the first moment we owe everything to labour, at the second, and every succeeding moment, we owe everything to law.

Law should limit itself to ensuring that people can pursue utility for themselves.

The necessity for having a government comes down to two things.

Selfish behavior can be self-defeating. The problem of funding the provision of public goods is one of a class of market failures, where the market’s invisible hand leads to sub-optimal outcomes for all concerned.

Synthesizing rights and Utility

Contemptuous though he generally was of normative inquiry, for the most part the Pareto of the Manual saw it as superfluous.

Pareto’s denial of the possibility of interpersonal comparisons had the effect of importing a powerful doctrine of individual autonomy into the core logic of utilitarianism.

Although Pareto’s is not a normative theory, it nonetheless has normative implications. These derive from the pivotal role it ascribes to free individual choice as embodied in and expressed through market transactions.

The core notion here is that of an indifference curve. Indifference means exactly what it says: someone is indifferent between two goods if exchanging one for the other would neither increase nor decrease his or her utility.

John Stuart Mill.

Note on The Moral Foundations of Politics by Ian Shapiro