Political Theory To 1789

Roots of Modern Political

Thought
I. The Ancient Politics of Virtue:
Plato vs. Aristotle
A. Plato’s Republic (360 BCE)
1. Question = What is justice?
2. Answer = two types of justice
a. Individual justice = rationality ruling over
our appetites and emotional attachments
(spirit)
b. Social justice = rational parts (i.e.
philosophers) ruling over appetites
(workers) and spirit (warriors)
3. Answer is naturalistic (virtues are
discovered “out there,” not created by
us) and agent-based (people, not
actions, are described as just or unjust)
4. Politics of Plato’s Republic
a. What is good government?
i. Just government by rational thinkers
over those driven by their appetites, to
make the people better through
education, protection, and
management of daily life
ii. Tools of governance = Military force
and the “noble lie” (propaganda)
iii. Ideal polity = autocratic rule by the
intellectual elite (philosopher-king) in
order to avoid any social conflict
b. How can we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
There is no check on leaders in
Plato’s world. Implied answer: We
must select the right ones and give
them the power to effect real change.
In other words, Plato favors rule by a
person to the rule of law.
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
Duties depend on one’s abilities and
role in life. One should do what one
is best suited to do, and above all one
should create value for society.
Knowing one’s place and fulfilling
one’s function to the rest of society
are the paths to both contentment and
the good society.
B. Aristotle’s Politics (350 BCE)
1. Question = What is the best regime?
2. Answer = Elective aristocracy by well-
educated, prosperous slave-owners.
3. Answer is also naturalistic (everything
has a natural purpose, which is its only
proper purpose) and agent-centered (be
a virtuous person or a virtuous city – the
doing will naturally follow)
4. The Politics of Aristotle’s Politics

a. What is good government? Government

adapted to the people, with polity as the
best for free people and/or aristocracy
when people are very unequal in many
respects. Government should try to
develop better citizens and virtuous people,
but it should also leave household matters
to the household, for the household is
different from the city-state.
b. How do we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
All men of virtue must be given real
participatory power, with the ability
to stop tyranny, oligarchy, or mob
rule.
Note that tyranny is bad because it
has a bad character, not because it
infringes on “rights” or does bad
things
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
“Duty” is less important than inclination.
One with virtue won’t see his civic duty as
a duty at all, but a natural part of life from
which he finds fulfillment.
A good citizen will participate in politics
(ruling and being ruled in turn) to better
the city-state, and should follow the
leadership of those with greater wisdom
or virtue while exercising leadership over
those of lesser wisdom or virtue.
Citizens should give for the common
good and serve in the military to defend
the common good.
C. Plato vs. Aristotle on the Role of
Virtue in Politics
1. Disagreements:
a. Is it more important to have good institutions
(the rule of law) or a virtuous leader (the “rule of
man”)? Plato = people / Aristotle = law
b. Pure principles vs. compromise: Plato = purity
and radical change (neo-conservatism),
Aristotle = find the mean and incrementally
change (traditionalist conservatism).
2. Agreement:
a. Agent-centered, naturalistic morality -- we
should think of ourselves as parts of an organic
whole and find happiness in being virtuous and
living in a well-ordered society
b. Natural hierarchy: Some people are more
virtuous than others; these should hold
authority and teach the rest
3. Both reject modern values
a. Against atomistic individualism: Humans
are naturally social, and communities,
not individuals, are the proper units of
political analysis. No room for concepts
like “privacy” unless they promote virtue.
b. Against egalitarianism: People are not
naturally equal in morally relevant ways
c. Against “unnatural” behavior: Whether
personal, sexual, religious, or economic.
Everything has a perfect form or
purpose, and deviation is wrong in and of
itself.
II. The Middle Ages: Adaptation of
the Ancients to Christianity
A. Augustine’s Platonic City of God (426)
1. Question: What should a Christian society
look like?
2. Answer: Christians should aim at the City of
God -- a religious way of life -- rather than a
perfect political system (a mere City of Man).
Religious purity is more important than
political feasibility.
3. Morality still naturalistic (stems from Creator)
and agent-centered (state of the soul, not
political actions, defines a good person)
4. Augustinian (Anti-)Politics
a. What is good government? All non-
Christian polities are doomed to die in
body and soul. The City of Man produces
war.
b. How do we keep leaders from doing the
wrong thing? Teach them to be good
Christians. In the end, Christians are not
of this world and will find peace in the
City of God.
c. What are the duties of a good citizen?
Study what is good in order to come to
know God and follow divine law.
B. Thomas Aquinas Rehabilitates
Aristotle (1273)
1. Question = How should reasonable
Christians design their polities?
2. Answer = Natural Law. To be happy,
people must form harmonious political
communities guided by virtue. Everything
has a purpose, so we must identify ours.
3. Answer is still guided by naturalism
(God’s will) and agent-centered morality
(love as an emotion).
4. The Politics of Aquinas

a. What is good government?

Government for the common good,
with political autonomy for the
household and the Church. Leave
promotion of personal virtue to the
Church (unlike Aristotle) and focus
on protecting citizens from each
other.
b. How do we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
Morality and moral laws bind leaders,
who may justly be deposed if they
violate it. The Church cannot release
people from political bonds by an act
of will, but it can tell citizens that the
leader is transgressing moral law.
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
Obey the laws of the state in matters
of governance and also obey the laws
of the universal (Catholic) Church in
matters of personal virtue. Develop
personal virtue and reason to the
highest degree possible.
C. The Medieval Contribution to
Political Thought
1. Disagreement: Whether Christians are to
participate in political and material life (Aquinas)
or withdraw from it (Thomas). Echoes divide
between evangelical and non-evangelical
traditionalists in the last century…
2. Agreement: God’s law takes precedence over
the state or even the good of the community..
3. Innovations:
a. Concept of “natural law” – combining Plato’s
idea of universal laws with Aristotle's
emphasis on happiness.
b. Natural law as a constraint on rulers, not just
citizens. Foreshadows theories of a “right” to
disobey leaders.
III. Renaissance Philosophy:
Conflicts Between Reason and
Traditional Values
A. Niccolò Machiavelli (1513): A
rebuttal to the politics of virtue
1. Question = How do great leaders
actually behave?
2. Answer = they ignore moral law and
the Church, relying on power and fear
to gain security
3. Answer pits naturalism against agent-
centered morality: good people don’t
win and can’t defend their homelands.
 4. Machiavellian Politics
a. What is good government? Be stingy but
effective in everything necessary: war,
diplomacy, and justice. Good government
is limited government, refraining from
confiscation or lawless violence – it is
based on the rule of law rather than the
rule of man.
b. How do we keep leaders from doing the
wrong thing? Give them good advice and
let them defend the state as they see fit.
c. What are the duties of a good citizen? No
conspiracies or mob rule. Factionalism
weakens the state.
B. Thomas More Revisits Utopia
(1516)
1. Question = What would a perfect
polity look like?
2. Answer = Democratic, orderly
communism
3. Answer is naturalistic (but based on
reason, not God’s law) and retains
focus on agent-centered morality
(good people key to good society)
4. The Politics of More’s Utopia

a. What is good governance?

Government by the most highly
educated, who will teach the others.
Criminals become slaves to aid
others, weighed down by chains of
gold (!) Work is compulsory, but
health care and other essentials are
free from the government.
b. How can we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
Leadership is democratic, although
the people choose the best-educated
and smartest people to lead them.
Government has little real power over
everyday life because citizens are
virtuous.
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
Good citizens share everything with
each other, eagerly work for the
common good, and try to learn as
much as possible.
C. Contributions of Renaissance
Political Thought
Renaissance thinkers continued in
the naturalistic, agent-centered
tradition, but
Reason is not assumed to give the same
answers as Christianity. Therefore,
Natural law has two meanings: natural
ethical virtues (the normative laws of
religion) and natural cause-effect
relationships (empirical laws of science)
IV. Enlightenment Political Theory:
Rights-Based Conservatism
A. Thomas Hobbes and Leviathan
1. Question = When should we obey
authority?
2. Answer = Natural Law. Compare “state of
nature” (anarchy: life “nasty, poor,
brutish, solitary, and short”) to
government (social contract between
people to create sovereign powerful
enough to protect us from each other) 
Obey while government has any chance
of protecting you
3. Hobbes Breaks With Tradition
a. Answer rejects ethical naturalism (nothing
is right or wrong in a state of nature).
Goal is to overcome nature with binding
laws (which determine right and wrong),
not to emulate it. “Ought” implies “Can.”
b. Act-centered morality clearly expressed
(rights, duties, and consequences) 
modern framework of autonomous
individuals pursuing self-interest (homo
economicus)
c. Legitimizes the use of force against the
government for self-interest (survival)
rather than religion or the greater good.
 4. The Politics of Hobbes’s
Leviathan
a. What is good government? A strong
absolute monarchy that preserves
peace and grows the commonwealth.
The monarch should be aware of
Natural Law and educate the people
to revere duty to parents and the
state – not because these things are
good in their own right, but because
they are important for stability.
b. How can we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
We cannot because they have power
and we shouldn’t because we should
honor our contract with each other to
keep the covenant with the sovereign.
By definition, a leader can do no
wrong to the people since he/she
owes us nothing while we owe them
utter obedience, and since he/she is
the embodiment of all our interests
and desires. (Rule of man, not law)
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
Obey the sovereign, the civil law, and the
law of nature – in that order. Do not
presume to debate the wisdom of the
sovereign, although you should identify
shortcomings of his underlings if he so
allows. Defend the sovereign in war as
you are defended in peace.
Hobbes does allow for rights! (Only one:
right to preserve your own life). Hobbes =
birth of atomistic individualism in political
philosophy.
d. Statist Realism: A new kind of
conservatism
a. Humans are inherently selfish and violent – the
closer to a state of nature they are, the more
violent they are (fear of pre-modern societies
such as tribes)
b. Need for social control to protect us from each
other and foreign powers
c. Moral duty to fellow citizens to obey laws and
authority follows from self-preservation
d. State must be able to limit some individual rights
to preserve citizens’ right to life
e. Note the rejection of traditionalist morality:
Leaders may need to be Machiavellian to defend
their citizens in Hobbes’s world
B. John Locke’s “Classical
Liberalism” and Libertarian Thought
1. Question = When is rebellion justified?
2. Answer = rebellion is justified when
government violates our natural rights.
Follows Hobbesian logic: Identify rights
held in “state of nature” and compare
those to rights held under existing
government. Disagrees only on which
rights one enjoys in the state of nature.
3. Ethics are clearly act-based (wrong to
violate someone’s rights). Nature is to be
improved upon rather than rejected.
4. The Politics of John Locke’s
Second Treatise on Government
a. What is good government? Limited
government by majority rule to
protect property rights (including
rights to our own bodies, which are
just another type of property right).
Rule of law, not rule of man.
b. How do we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?

Divide up authority to make it difficult for

anyone to ignore the laws and create only
as much government as we need for life,
liberty, and estate– and no more (i.e. no
permanent legislature).
We should ensure that the majority has the
ability to express its consent from
generation to generation (also: elections)
Overthrow our government when it
threatens our natural, God-given rights.
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?
The good citizen respects the rights of
others and seeks to further his or her own
family’s welfare through labor.
The good citizen must also defend the
commonwealth from external enemies and
participate in monitoring and checking any
abuses of the government.
Sometimes, being a good citizen means
resisting the government when it has been
usurped or transformed into tyranny.
d. Locke and Libertarianism
Locke himself believed in natural limits to
property rights (do not waste or leave land
undeveloped, do not own land in common,
pay your taxes)
Modern libertarian conservatives reject the
naturalist part of Locke in favor of strong
property rights -- anything legitimately
acquired is legitimately owned, regardless
of how it is (not) used. More consistent
than Locke…
Key assumption: Society does not provide
property rights, but merely guarantees the
legitimate private ownership that would
exist in nature
C. Rousseau’s Romantic
Nationalism
1. Question = How can we make the chains
of government more legitimate?
2. Answer = Govern by the general will of
the people. Cannot return to “state of
nature” so we must make state of civil
society as good as possible.
3. Answer rejects naturalism as being value-
free (human nature can produce good or
bad, depending on environment and
culture), but retains notion of agent-
based morality.
4. The Politics of Rousseau’s Social
Contract
a. What is good government? Legitimate
use of power by the people (popular
sovereignty). The state should be
supremely powerful but since we are
ruling ourselves there is no threat to our
liberty. We gave up natural rights, but we
have gained civil rights in exchange.
Government must be adapted to the
nature of the people (i.e. nationalist
government).
b. How can we keep leaders from
doing the wrong thing?
The key is to have popular assemblies to
ensure that the government never usurps
the legitimate sovereign authority from the
people.
In addition, power should be divided
between the sovereign (people),
government (executive) and magistrates.
Note that government is not to be limited in
power, but rather harnessed to the general
will. Rousseau denies individual rights –
even a “right to life.” All civil rights are
given by society and subject to amendment
or revocation for the good of the people.
c. What are the duties of a good
citizen?

Participate in politics at the local level,

aim at the common good rather than
one’s own interests, and listen to the
advice of neutral outsiders (the
“lawgiver”) on how best to organize
society.
Try to make ourselves into better people
through deliberation and following the
general will (human nature can be
reshaped by institutions).
d. Was Rousseau liberal?
Yes: Emphasized popular society and the
complete supremacy of people over government.
No: Emphasized community over individuals,
national prejudices.

“Neo-conservatives” combined Plato’s idea of the

“noble lie” and Machiavellian methods (means)
with the Rousseau-like objective (ends) of making
people better through good law (democratization in
the Middle East). Goal = save freedom from
excess individual rights.
D. Burke: A Conservative Rebuttal
to the Enlightenment
Writes in opposition to the French Revolution (and
its favorite philosopher, Rousseau)
Argues that
Rights and institutions are inherited, not constructed from
scratch
Reason therefore cannot identify the “best” institutions
without examining history
History has produced traditions, which must therefore be
respected
Nature (and God) prevent equality, because inequality is
everywhere and therefore inevitable
Often credited as the originator of modern
conservatism, but really revives traditional
conservatism and virtue-based natural law.
V. Key Problems for modern
political philosophy
A. The problem of act-based ethical
standards
1. Traditionalists accept agent-based moral
theories (virtue ethics), but what do these
have to tell us about specific policies?
2. Most modern political theorists – both
Conservative (statist realists, libertarians) and
Liberal -- accept act-based moral theories.
But these theories were poorly-developed
during the Enlightenment. How do we know if
an act is right or wrong, without resorting to
traditional virtues?
3. Moral inconsistency before 1789
Example: Hobbes on honoring the social contract
Hobbes says breaking it leads to anarchy, which
is a practical death sentence (consequences
determine morality)
Hobbes also says that breaking a contract is a
form of contradiction, and therefore irrational
(nature of the act determines morality)
Problem: What should we do if contradiction
(lying, breaking a contract, etc) leads to good
consequences? Which standard is more
important?
Problem is common: Plato/Aristotle say virtue is
good in itself, good for you, and good for society.
What if one of these statements is false but the
others are true? How should one choose?
4. Why do we care?
Most interesting political disputes involve conflicts
between values: liberty vs. equality, good ends vs.
unpleasant means, good intentions vs. bad
consequences, etc.
Examples
Should we torture suspected terrorists to extract
information?
Should we threaten to destroy cities full of innocent
civilians in order to protect our own innocent civilians?
Should we execute people if doing so fails to deter
crime?
Should we respect property rights if property owners
want to discriminate against other races?
Is it OK for the US government to lie to its citizens about
whether it is testing biological weapons?
If gays want to marry, how to we know how to respond?
 B. Paradoxes of liberalism
1. Basic assumptions of liberalism
a. Rationalism: The world can be comprehended through the
use of reason, as opposed to revelation, intuition, or
authority
b. Teleology: History moves in a progressive fashion – new is
usually better than old and natural is not necessarily good.
Rejects myths of a “golden age”
c. Individual Autonomy: People have autonomous wills and
are capable of rational choice to fulfill their preferences.
Implies that society should be structured on the basis of
mutual respect for some fundamental list of rights, to
include being treated as rational, autonomous, and equal
individuals
d. Egalitarianism: People have equal worth and more or less
equal basic abilities. Implies that any inequality we
observe must be the result of policy or choice, not natural
hierarchy
e. Pluralism: Society is best served by having multiple,
competing points of view (the marketplace of ideas) and
multiple ways of living
2. Opposing tendencies in
liberalism
a. Paradox of liberal democracy:
Natural equality of autonomous
individuals means we all have equal
rights, so a majority cannot justly be
ruled by a minority. BUT what if the
majority wishes to violate the rights
of a minority?
b. Paradox of Pluralism

If having multiple views is necessary

and good, then how can liberalism
claim to be the best political
viewpoint? How should liberals react
to non-liberals who don’t share the
ideal of pluralism?
c. Paradox of Egalitarianism

Society is characterized by hierarchy

and inequality. According to liberal
assumptions of egalitarianism, this is
neither “natural” nor desirable. But
what if inequality is produced by
rational human choices? Efforts to
limit inequality would limit individual
autonomy (rights) and pluralism.
3. Unanswered Questions
a. Are political rights more deserving of
protection than property rights?
b. Does the greatest danger to liberty come
from government power or discrimination
by our fellow citizens?
c. How can democratic self-government be
reconciled with the rights of economic,
racial, or religious minorities?
d. Does a community owe duties to
individuals? How might social welfare be
justified?
e. Should government work to ensure equal
opportunities – and not merely equal
rights -- for all citizens?
C. Radical Challenges to Liberalism

1. Marxism: Why not just abolish private

property in the name of equality and
replace selfish individualism with concern
for the welfare of all?
2. Feminism: Do liberal ideas of the
“autonomous individual” marginalize
women and their care for dependents
who are far from autonomous?
3. Libertarianism: Why not just abolish the
state – or restrict it to defense and
enforcement of contracts?