November 13, 2005
The tradition of modern political philosophy ----ie., not Plato's Republic, but Hobbes' Leviathan, Rousseau's Social Contract, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and Rawl's Theory of Justice etc --- takes its bearing from the idea of freedom and the centrality of freedom in understanding political life in modernity. It subdivides in terms of its understanding of freedom, ie. negative and positive freedom. By this is meant freedom as the pursuit of our desires without obstruction or interference and freedom as self-determination or autonomy in the realm of politics. Rousseau is generally understood as the turning point between the two conceptions of freedom in modernity.
When I read Kant in the light of the modern liberal traditon I was suprised how much like Hobbes and Locke he actually was. The concern is with harmonizing individual wills---just like utilitarianism that defines the political philosophy of the newly born Australian colonial state in the mid to late 19th century.
In the 'Perpetual Peace' essay Kant, working in the social contract tradition, says that the task of of creating the good organization of the liberal state only involves arranging the state in such a way that the:
"... self-seeking energies [of men] are opposed to one another, each thereby neutralizing or eliminating the destructive effects of the rest. And as far as reason is concerned , the result is the same as if man's selfish tendencies were non-existent, so that man, even if he is not morally good in himself, is nevertheless compelled to be a good citizen."
Law does this job of neutralizing. The state's concern is to compel the antagonism of hostile attitudes and drives submit to coercive laws thereby producing a condition of peace within which the laws can be enforced. Kant in short, does not take us very far beyond a Benthamite utilitarianism, which presupposes the security of life and property.
In the Hobbe/Locke understanding of the social contract security is deemed to be a trade off with respect to individual freedom: the prudentially calculating individual gives up a part of their freedom to enjoy the security of life and property. That is the current discourse of the national security state in relation to terrorism. It is our duty to consider the law as just.
So how can it be guaranteed that the national security state will not itself become an arbitrary power; that it will rule in accordance with the rule of law?
The standard liberal answer to despotism is representative government and the division of legislative and executive powers. As we know in the Australian national security state today, legislation is the exercise of executive power( through CoAG). So where is the constitutional check on the executive-legislative power? Where is the power to suspend government if it violates the freedom of the people to ensure national security from the enemy without and within?
Elections is the classic answer. But the national security state now manipulates fear of violate death and ethnic nationalism to ensure national unity under the state and the continual re-election of the Coalition political party.
|
Hi Gary,
Interesting topic. The ideas of the political spectrum have been talked about lately, with the book Beyond Right and Left for instance, and perhaps some of these theorists could be placed on that spectrum.
Rather than placing Hobbes with Locke at the Right, I would place Hobbes on the authoritarian Right [monarch rules], Locke at the Centre [liberal democratic parliament], and Rousseau on the Left [the leader personally represents the General Will, or whatever he calls it].
When I read the Perpetual Peace pamplet by Kant I thought it sounded sort of vague. Perhaps his idea of the categorical imperative could tie in with the social contract idea of reciprocity - but he seemed very strict and too black-and-white about it. Kant didn't write much about politics - but I think that Hannah Arendt wrote about a Kantian kind of politics that sort of linked the rule of law with a theatrical kind of understanding of what a person is. Freedom in society and freedom in the self, perhaps. I have only dabbled in this, and would love to research it properly. Interesting stuff.