Freedomvrights.com
Philosophy Pages - Articles by Dr Jack Kerwick
Replies to Critics on Behalf of Classical Conservatism
by
Dr Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.
Before commencing, I should thank readers generally, and Joseph MacMillan in particular, for having taken the time to engage my last two articles, “Neo-conservatism vs. Classical Conservatism,” and “Rationalism and ‘the Founding’ of America.” Self-identified conservatives of all stripes can only benefit from a candid conversation on the meaning (or meanings) of the intellectual tradition from whose resources they claim to draw their identity. In my experience, however, this conversation has yet to transpire, for a genuine conversation demands civility, intellectual honesty, and, in short, good will, but these conditions severally, much less collectively, are seldom if ever satisfied by partisans in this debate. Mr. MacMillan, I believe, as well as some others whose comments I have read, have proven themselves exceptions to this rule. For this, I thank them.
My gratitude to my respondents aside, their thought provoking comments are not for that accurate. Thus, it is my purpose here to dispel both their misconceptions concerning my position and the confusion regarding their own. Let me begin with the first part of MacMillan’s response to my “Neo-conservatism v. Classical Conservatism.”
(1). MacMillan writes that since his “primitive instinct conjures up a vision of blood on the floor” upon seeing “the word ‘versus,’ or its abbreviation ‘v.’, the title of my article proved misleading, for I not only failed to achieve a “knock out” in favor of my conception of conservatism, I didn’t even attempt to “draw blood.” He then laments: “At the risk of being unkind, I fear that the article provides a sort of summary of the assumptions underlying each ‘brand’ of conservatism, or Conservatism without a commentary of the ‘fight’ itself.”
MacMillan should rest easily, for his remarks are not unkind. In fact, they are partially correct. My primary objective was indeed to offer nothing other than a relatively succinct summation of the formal or philosophical presuppositions of classical conservative and neo-conservative thought. I stated as much at the very outset of the article. As for the charge that I failed to provide “commentary” on “the fight” between these two schools, I confess that I am uncertain as to in what exactly such a “commentary” would consist. If we insist on using MacMillan’s boxing metaphors, I suppose I can say only that by delineating key differences between these two visions, I both established the conflict as well as provided some commentary on it: the stances that each persuasion assumes on such major philosophical issues as the origins and character of reason, morality, and the State are “the punches” that each hurls at the other. There is more that can be said, of course, but given spatial limitations, I could only say so much.
(2). I did not, or at least I did not intend, to “denigrate” neo-conservatism by referring to it as a version of Enlightenment liberal rationalism. I tried to show that given their trans-historical conceptions of Reason and morality—conceptions that rose to dominance during the eighteenth-century and that found expression in such documents as our Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man—neo-conservatives locate themselves squarely within this camp. Aside from noting that there were differences between the American and French revolutions—and practical differences there indeed were—I don’t think that many neo-conservatives would take exception to this description. In any event, I can’t imagine tenable grounds on which they could.
The Enlightenment was anything but an intellectually homogenous project. Classical conservatism is no less a contributor to it than, say, Jeffersonian liberalism. What many have called “the Enlightenment project” consists of multiple currents of thought, some of which are in stark conflict with one another. Furthermore, classical conservatism—again, the conservatism for which Burke can and has rightfully been credited with inspiring—is as much an expression of “liberalism” as neo-conservatism or libertarianism. Burke and Hume in the eighteenth century, and F.A. Hayek and Michael Oakeshott in the twentieth, are conservatives, but they are equally liberals. Their suspicion of large concentrations of power, respect for private property rights, and affirmation of individuality and plurality go some distance in establishing this. The fundamental distinction between classical conservatives and neo-conservatives, what makes them competing accounts of Enlightenment liberalism, is that the latter is rationalistic while the former is not.
(3). This brings me to the third of MacMillan’s objections. Because I draw attention to the fact that conservatives have always recognized the tradition-constituted character of reason, MacMillan identifies classical conservatism as a species of “irrationality.” This conservative notion of reason “implies that reason is the product of a ‘tradition’ not itself based on ‘reason.’ We could then call it ‘irrational tradition.’” There are two points to bear in mind at this juncture.
First, to oppose “rationalism” is not to oppose reason; rather, it is to oppose a particular conception of reason, a conception according to which the intellect is “omnicompetent,” judge, jury, and, if need be, executioner of all traditions, institutions, customs, and laws that fail to vindicate themselves before its bar. The notions that nations can be “built,” societies “engineered,” and governments “justified” by “the consent” of their subjects or the extent to which they promote “human rights,” are alike the progeny of rationalism.
Second, to equate the classical conservative’s tradition-based conception of reason with an endorsement of irrationality is to beg the question in favor of the rationalism that he rejects. As any remotely sober assessment of it readily reveals, the concept of reason has a storied past: it is susceptible of multiple variations or conceptions, each of which reflects the sensibilities of particular peoples living in particular places and at particular times. The idea that Reason is prior to and hence independent of all tradition, an idea that MacMillan apparently favors, is but one conception of reason among others. It is fine if he wants maintain it, but it is something for which he needs to supply an argument. It is illegitimate to assume, as he assumes, its superiority in advance of the discussion when one of the principal goals of that discussion is to determine which conception of reason is rationally superior.
To this, no doubt, MacMillan will direct me back to his column where he rhetorically asks: if reason is the product of tradition, “what instituted the ‘tradition’ in the first place?
It is understandable that appeals to “tradition” should in no time lapse into confusion. Everyone, especially self-styled conservatives, refers to “tradition” from time to time, but by virtue of the many disparate contexts in which it finds expression, the term has been made to sustain a range of meanings: the Christian tradition, the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, the Thanksgiving traditions of eating turkey and watching football, the Marxist tradition, family traditions, etc. There is certainly some sense in which each of these activities can be said to be “traditions.” But when Burke and other conservatives have insisted that reason is constituted by tradition, it is something else that they have had in mind.
The “tradition” of which reason is the product is a tradition of conduct, or what Michael Oakeshott called a “tradition of behavior.” As John Donne said, “no man is an island.” The identity of each person is derived from the historically and culturally specific complex of relationships in which he or she is immersed. That is, each person’s “mind”—his experiences, feelings, skills, and values—is begotten by the form of life—the tradition—to which he belongs. This is not to deny that the son becomes the father, however, for mind or reason (I use the terms interchangeably) in turn furthers the development of the tradition from whence it sprang.
For purposes of clarity, it would serve us well to think of a tradition in this sense analogously with a natural language. Natural languages have an internal logic, a systemic order, and they fulfill a variety of purposes, yet not for a second would anyone seriously suggest that they have been rationally designed. Since there is no one who originally “instituted” any of our natural languages, just as there is no one who originally “instituted” our traditions of conduct, is MacMillan willing to argue, as he argued in the case of the latter, that our natural languages are “irrational” or devoid of thought? It would seem that by parity of reasoning he would have to draw this conclusion.
We learn about ourselves and our world through the language(s) that we speak. It is with justice that it can be said of language that it constitutes who we are. In order to modify or revise a language, one must first speak it. But one learns to speak a language only by speaking it with others. Similarly, reason and, for that matter, morality (both of which are inseparable from language), while shapers of tradition, are products of it as well. That we are, first of all, engaging in this particular discussion, and that, secondly, we are capable of doing so, are facts made possible by a shared language and a heritage that neither we nor anyone created. In short, tradition precedes theory, even if the latter can in turn contribute to (or corrupt) the development of the former.
(4). By now I hope that classical conservatism’s idea of tradition is becoming clearer. But we should still turn to MacMillan’s enlistment of Albert Schweitzer in his campaign to discredit its tradition-based conception of morality. Of Darwin and Spencer, Schweitzer says “that they have not gone to the root of the problem of the relation between instinct and reflection [individual reason] in ethics.” Darwin and Spencer may very well have not provided an adequate account of the relationship between the individual’s instincts and his reason, but by dichotomizing ethics in terms of “instincts” or “reason,” Schweitzer’s project runs aground.
For the conservative, there is something of no small importance in addition to and lying between individual instinct and individual reason. As F.A. Hayek persuasively argued in his The Fatal Conceit, and as I have tried to show above, this something is “tradition”—a more or less shared way of life.
For rooting morality in tradition, the classical conservative makes himself vulnerable to the charge that he is a “relativist.” “Ethical relativism,” considered as a doctrine that asserts that there is no “objective” or “universal” or “absolute” moral truth, is itself a manifestation of rationalism. The relativist “absolutizes” the relative, as it were. In contrast, the classical conservative tends to eschew such dogmatisms. His is a more nuanced position, a healthy combination (though, admittedly, not a seamless one) of, on the one hand, a keen awareness of and profound appreciation for the tradition-specific character of our moral judgments (their temporal and cultural hue), and, on the other, an openness to the possibility that they are true in a sense that transcends the tradition from which they unfold.
Take the issue of slavery, for example. There are no Americans today who would even flirt with the notion that slavery might be a good thing. Leftists—including and especially, ironically enough, those who identify themselves as “relativists”—incessantly berate the United States as a “racist” nation because of the fact that it once practiced slavery, and even neo-conservatives who never tire of expressing their reverence for our Founding Fathers describe slavery as “reprehensible,” “repugnant” (Sean Hannity) and “criminal” (Michael Medved). But if slavery was a “crime,” then it follows that George Washington—the “Father” of our country—and Thomas Jefferson—the author of that document, the Declaration of Independence, that supposedly embodies our “national creed”—were criminals. If slavery is reprehensible and repugnant, then Washington, Jefferson, and all of our Founding Fathers, to say nothing of many others who made enormous contributions to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual traditions of Western civilization—men like Aristotle, Jesus, and St. Paul—were also reprehensible and repugnant. Aristotle articulated a defense of “natural slavery,” and while neither Jesus nor Paul ever explicitly defended it, neither condemned it in spite of having had numerous opportunities to do so.
This list of illustrations of great and even magnanimous Western figures endorsing practices and institutions that we today judge immoral can be multiplied exponentially. If it is a universal moral truth that “slavery is a ‘crime’ against humanity,” a proposition, say, to be deduced from the “self-evident” claim that “all people have a ‘right’ to liberty,” then Aristotle, whose treatises on logic remained normative in the West for well over two millennia after he wrote them and that continue to exert influence to this day, must have been an intellectual and moral idiot for not recognizing it. Jesus—who the greater part of the Western world for nearly 2,000 years has viewed as God incarnate—also must have been rationally inept and morally unenlightened, for given the great numbers of people that he attracted, he surely would have invoked tirelessly “the inalienable rights” of all humankind to life and liberty in condemning slavery, which was ubiquitous throughout the Roman Empire under which he lived. But alas, not once did he so much as insinuate that it was wrong and he even taught in parables—the parables of the “talents” and the ungrateful “servant,” etc.—that reinforced the status quo in this respect. St. Paul, without whose inexhaustible evangelistic efforts Christianity more likely than not would have perished before the end of the first century, must have been a moral monster, for he went beyond the realm of theory and encouraged the institution of slavery by convincing a run-away slave to actually return to his master.
None of this is to suggest that we are not justified in condemning slavery today, but not even the most unabashed moral universalist would say of any of the people to whom I have referred that they are deserving of any less respect or, in the case of Christ especially, reverence, for having failed to condemn it. In any case, no moral universalist of a neo-conservative persuasion, to my knowledge, has of yet to declare Jefferson, Washington, Aristotle, Jesus, or Paul a cretin. In fact, these men elicit unqualified praise from them. Would the same universalist, though, refrain from condemning say, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or any other contemporary figure who approved of slavery, much less owned slaves? The question is rhetorical, for of course the answer is a resounding “no.” Neo-conservatives (as well as others, to be fair) have “exiled” from “polite society” people for much less than this (recall the treatment that Trent Lott received by his own party for the innocuous remarks he made at the 100th birthday celebration of Strom Thurmond, or the treatment that the opponents of “comprehensive immigration reform”—the majority of American citizens—received at the hands of its proponents who summarily dismissed and denigrated their concerns as “racist”). What accounts for the difference in reaction regarding this issue that these universalists have toward their ancestors, on the one hand, and their contemporaries on the other? The answer is obvious: the circumstances of time and place. But if universalists are willing to permit such contextual considerations to enter into their moral deliberations, then by the logic of their own reasoning against my account of classical conservatism, they are “relativists.”
Our moral determinations are informed by the conceptual resources—the language, values, customs, and habits into which we are educated. But those resources are in turn the products of place and time. It may or may not be fair to say that had they been exposed to it, Jesus, Paul, Aristotle, Plato, and every other moralist, secular and religious, that lived outside of the modern Enlightenment West would have been taken by the language of “natural” or “human rights.” I personally believe that those who I named would most decidedly oppose it, but my point here is that they did not and could not have conceived it considering that it didn’t yet exist. Historically speaking, the idiom of “natural rights” is not at all old, yet true believers in “rights” would have us believe that they express timeless and “self-evident” principles.
Yet even if there are “natural rights” that are intuitively obvious to all people in all places and times, it is irrelevant. This speaks to another criticism that a reader posted. The reader launched into a tirade against “paleo-conservatives,” charging them with suffering a shortage of theoretical resources—“principles”—by which to formulate sound “policies.” My response is twofold.
First, at no time have I identified my position with “paleo-conservatism.” I do not deny that the claim of this orientation to the conservative intellectual tradition is legitimate. However, my interest is to defend what I have called “classical conservatism,” a rich, diverse philosophical tradition going back to the eighteenth century. Classical conservatism is not identical to “paleo-conservatism.”
Furthermore, in spite of the moral universalist’s insistence to the contrary, “principles” like “natural rights” or “human rights,” are incapable of informing policy. Such principles are universal, but policies are specific. Principles are formal, policies substantive. From the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition roughly 2500 years ago, the greatest thinkers have struggled mightily with the problem of reconciling the universal with the particular. Some, like Plato, have denied that particulars are ultimately real. Others like Locke denied that universals are real. Aristotle said that universals are embedded in particulars. Two and half millennia later, the problem remains just as intractable as ever.
Stop and think about any contemporary political-moral issue. Take, say, abortion. How have the “principles” of “the right to life” and “the right to choose” helped to resolve this issue? Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that the unborn have a “right to life,” nothing substantive regarding the permissibility or impermissibility of abortion generally, much less in specific cases, follows. Similarly, even if we accept that women have a “right to choose,” nothing substantive follows. That this debate continues to rage on, with no end in the foreseeable (or, for that matter, distant) future, reflects not at all well on the philosophy of “rights” vis-à-vis its contribution to it. And what is true of the abortion issue is true of every other issue: appeals to “natural law” and/or “human rights” do not because they cannot determine policy.
Let the conversation continue.
Posted June 10, 2008
Copyright © Dr Jack Kerwick. All Rights Reserved 2008
Disclaimer: Please note that as a guest contributor to this site, Dr Kerwick does not necessarily, or at all, endorse or share the views expressed on the site, or the views and books of Joseph BH McMillan, and likewise, Freedomvrights.com and Mr McMillan do not necessarily, or at all, endorse or share the views expressed by Dr Kerwick by virtue of his being a guest contributor to this site. We at freedomvrights.com welcome debate on all issues, irrespective of differences of opinion, belief, religion, or political ideology.
Click here to purchase Freedom v. A Tyranny of Rights from Amazon.com.
A Philosopher hard at work solving the riddles of life.
Home | Articles | Books | Biography | Contact
Copyright©Escaping Books, S.L. and Joseph B.H. McMillan,2007