There can be no ultimate political philosophy without a science of morality
Help me out here, but this is the claim I have come to. Politics is the activity of managing a society as a whole, a collection of individuals. In order to govern society, we have to govern individuals. The rules, laws, and ways of government that we establish have as their primary purpose to determine and regulate the way in which individuals are allowed to and should act. But it is impossible to determine how individuals should act without involving morality. As many of you know better than I do, there are several systems of morality that have been proposed throughout centuries, none of them flawless, and all incomplete. With this said, given that the basis for a political philosophy lies in establishing moral claims about how individuals should behave, and given that we have no utterly precise system of morality to establish ethical truths reliably, there is no way to determine a correct political philosophy. I know this sounds nihilistic, but it is just what I have come to. Please illuminate me.
Comments (42)
The goal shouldn't be to determine a correct philosophy, but the best one for the moment...and one will never suffice for all issues or needs.
Politics is simply the authoritative allocation of resources?.
Economics is supposedly the non-authoritative allocation of resources, but some people will probably tell you that it is another form of politics.
Either way it is about resources and their allocation, not the moral lives of people.
The best way to deal with resources, not a good life, is what politics is concerned with.
"Politics is who gets what, when, and how" -- Harold Lasswell.
No, it's not, and that's not even close to any official definition of the word.
No, it's not, economics is both "a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services" or "economic theory, principles and/or practices."
No, either way it is about much more than that, as I have shown.
No, politics is very often about a "good life" and working to ensure a good life for the most people possible.
That's just what Harold said, and he's only one person, and he's wrong.
I would argue that social issues in politics are just another way that who gets what, when and how is decided.
If nobody gains or loses anything--liberty, safety, power, influence, business, etc.--from politicizing abortion, abortion would not be a political issue.
There could be coin toss. Heads, capital punishment is the law. Tails, capital punishment is abolished.
A disagreement could be decided by a duel (unless you are Governor of Kentucky; the oath of office still includes? "have not and will not participate in any duels").
Or you could simply use force. Cross the border with tanks and infantry and say "This land is now ours".
And other ways to allocate resources without paying any heed to what is right or wrong, what constitutes a good life, what constitutes a just society, etc.
Quoting rickyk95
Not necessarily.
Somebody could subjectively believe or objectively know that a policy is morally wrong but enforce that policy anyway because he/she likes being in a position of power and needs that policy to keep him/her there.
In other words, his/her actions aren't saying "This is right". They are saying "This gets me what I want".
Doing this would implicitly acknowledge that tossing a coin to decide what laws are implemented would be the moral thing to do. In other words, you would be tacitly communicating that the allocation of resources by sheer luck is ethically right.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
It strikes me as fascinating how you wouldnt consider this to carry moral baggage. If I suddenly came to an empty piece of land besides your house with a tank and declared its mine, I imagine you would have something to say about the rightness or wrongness of such an action. Would you not ask yourself if someone needs that land more than I do? Do I deserve that land if I wont use it productively? etc...
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Even in that case: if I pass and enforce a policy that I believe to be wrong in the benefit of my own interests, this implies that what Im doing is wrong, and that perhaps some other policy would be right, therefore carrying an implicit moral claim.
I think you may find that right/wrong rarely enters into the equation of policy-makers and their donors.
Among the place, what is right and wrong is diverse as the number of people in the populace. People all have their own views on what is right and wrong.
I think it does enter into the equation implicitly. Whether you have a healthcare bill you want to pass, or a gun control policy, the law youre passing has a specific goal, e.g. "maximize the number of people who have access to healthcare", this implies that the right thing is for the greatest amount of people to have access to health care. Or, for example if the policy's goal was to "improve the quality of healthcare despite diminishing the amount of people who have access to it",then your moral claim is that the right thing is for society to have access to the best quality of healthcare possible, despite not everyone being able to access it. Hell, even if the policy's goal was just to enrich private insurers, it would carry either an implicit assumption that large business owners maximizing their profits ought to be more important than anything else in healthcare, or if the policymaker is doing it dishonestly and knows its wrong, it still carries with it the assumption that large business owners maximizing their profits ought not to be what a health care bill is built around.
Quoting Rich
This is precisely the issue to which Im pointing at. We cannot have an ultimately right political philosophy with diverging notions of morality in our way.
As for the population, each person develops their own personal philosophy toward life based upon their own experiences, and the differences are enumerable.
No.
You have two political actors who want something and you have chosen a coin toss as "how" who gets what when.
No moral considerations have been incorporated into the process.
Quoting rickyk95
The conqueror may have a moral argument about his/her right to the land. Or he may not.
And if you say that it doesn't belong to him/her and give moral reasons to support your assertion, he/she could reply "Well, it belongs to me now".
There do not have to be moral considerations for there to be political actions.
Quoting rickyk95
No, it implies that no matter if it is right or wrong you are going to do it anyway.
If other political actors know that you are going to do it no matter what, they know not to bother responding with moral arguments. They know that diplomacy, military force, a coup, etc. are how they must respond if they don't want you to get what you want.
Freedom of the individual is about as close as one can get to a widely accepted morality, I would say....
But politics does seem to be about the allocation of resources--just not directly. Tax law, for instance, is conceived in politics to finance government -- but it frequently benefits one group more than others. For instance, minimum wage laws tend to be ceilings on low wage jobs, rather than floors. Inheritance laws generally benefit people with a lot of plunder to leave to their off-spring or alma maters. It is tax law that has greatly expanded the large share of wealth a very small fraction (1% - 5%) of the population possesses.
I also agree with you
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Numerous behaviors are sanctioned in law created in politics. The law may not say that "Fraud is immoral" but it does say that it is wrongful, and deserves punishment. I don't think that morality is cleanly one thing, and that law is cleanly something else. Morality may come first, but law often validates morality and visa versa. Law and morality are entangled.
But... there are many instances of law and morality parting ways. I think it is a moral act for women to abort a fetus during the first 20 weeks. The law may or may not agree. I think the accumulation of material resources (land, factories, rental housing, etc.) is immoral. The law generally does not agree. Whether individuals are free to accumulate as much property as they can get their hands on (they are free to do so, pretty much) is going to be decided through politics. If socialists had their way, accumulation of capital would not be legal. However, the process of developing socialist parties into a force capable of rewriting property law would be entirely political--involving all kinds of speech to persuade, endless organizing, membership drives, demonstrations, etc.
"That's merely the inevitable caveat to freedom of choice... "
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No, much of morality is centered on tailoring harmful individual acts on other individuals and society; that is the matter and focus of the philosophy, not just a caveat to freedom of choice.
Leo Strauss called Aristotle "the founder of political science because he is the discoverer of moral virtue". The City/Society, which is natural to man (as a defense against the rest of nature), enables the practice of moral virtue. "The highest good of the city is the same as the highest good of the individual. The core of happiness is the practice of virtue and primarily moral virtue;"
Rousseau thought that virtue is the means by which an individual's will conforms to the general will, which is achieved by love of country and its laws. So while a precise science of political philosophy might not be possible, there is a direction, a description and a goal.
Few people nowadays would not concede that slavery is unacceptable, so at a very fundamental and important level people are agreed on the desirability of freedom. And wanting more than freedom of choice is in no way incompatible with also wanting freedom of choice itself.
I put it to you that freedom is a special moral attribute of a society, because no other moral attributes are "moral" unless freely chosen.
Except in countries where they are pretty much going on a different direction. Take a look around this forum and observe how many members are absolutely thrilled with the idea that government can force people to do things. I am sure they are all for from except for those things that they want to force on people. It's just that it's very, very fluid to the point of hypocrisy.
No, it's not because people all have their owndefinitions of freedom, and one person's freedom is another person's imprisonment; so, they don't all desire the same thing.
You cannot dismiss that so readily as you have.
That is somewhat of a specific gripe to throw into the discussion at this stage! But OK, let's go with it a little ...
A) suppose someone says that they want freedom to choose a low consumption/ low work,but viable, lifestyle. (That is rather different from saying that they want to choose ANY lifestyle and still expect to do a low amount of work BTW)
B) Now consider a somewhat opposite stance... someone says that everyone must be on a high work/high consumption lifestyle.
Given that situation A is viable (through robotic automation say, but the means need not concern us here), which is the most "moral" A or B? Where there is a way to allow freedom and diversity, then that is a Good Thing.
So we can't discuss "freedom"??!!
I never said that. Stop straw-manning me.
This is what I actually said in response to your post:
"Jake Tarragon
Nevertheless, the desire for freedom is almost universal, and surely you cannot dismiss it so readily as you have, as being unsuitable as a basis for universal morality."
[b]No, it's not because people all have their owndefinitions of freedom, and one person's freedom is another person's imprisonment; so, they don't all desire the same thing.
You cannot dismiss that so readily as you have.[/b]
You seem sure of this. So go ahead and name them.
Freedom to practice religion
Freedom not to practice religion
Freedom of thought
Freedom of speech
Freedom to move around and meet others
Freedom of choice in how to function in society
It's no accident that incarceration is a punishment in most societies. Or that hardly any political parties openly criticize these freedoms.
Freedom of religion: Many people believe their freedom of religion should allow people to break civic laws, like Christian Scientists believing they're allowed to kill their kids by denying them necessary medical treatment. Many, like myself, believe they don't.
Freedom of speech. Many believe their freedom of speech allows them to call people racial or homophobic epithets anytime they want, including at work, whether they are boss or employee. Many also feels their freedom of speech should allow them to sexually harass people or make intimidating death threats or verbal assaults. Many, including myself, don't agree with any of those arguments.
Freedom to move around and meet others: Many believe private property is a nuisance and they should be able to move through all private property freely. Many, like myself, disagree with that.
Freedom of choice in how to function in society: Many, including prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, hit-men, and con-men believe in that freedom. Many, like myself, believe that freedom needs to be curtailed if we are to have a society.
1.) What makes an act a political act is that it is done through the institutions, procedures, people, etc. where authority has been placed in a society.
2.) There are only two alternatives: A.] A society in which no authority has been placed anywhere B.] A society in which authority has been placed somewhere such as institutions, procedures, people, etc.
3.) I have never heard of any example of A.]. Maybe it would be anarchy.
4.) There is no such thing as a "correct political system". Just like there is no such thing as a "correct" system of kinship, a "correct" economy, a "correct" form of food security, etc. Political systems--where authority is placed--vary with culture. Constitutional democracy may at this time suit the occupants of the land now called the United States of America, but it may not have suited the inhabitants of Easter Island thousands of years ago.
What you are doing is taking cultural adaptations and making them teleological. Biological and cultural evolution do not work that way. Culture, including political institutions and behavior, is an adaptation to an environment. Saying that political systems are a moral matter is like saying that bipedalism is a moral matter. No, bipedalism is an adaptation to the environment through natural selection. Political systems are no different.
Politics is simply the way that resources are authoritatively allocated within groups and in the relations between groups. Some people say that economics and politics are the same thing, other people say that economics is outside of politics. Either way, it is about marshaling and distributing resources, not about creating a perfect or "correct" system.
It seems to me that this business of creating the "correct" system is simply an Enlightenment project and to characterize that as the business of all political behavior past and present is extremely ethnocentric.
Your sole viewpoint seems to be that every freedom has a problem. And I readily accept that, so just listing the problems isn't advancing this discussion.