Political Justice Read online

  Godwin urges his reader to consider whether there might be some remedy to war, despotism and poverty. Seeking such a remedy is a noble pursuit, but we must consider how applicable it is to our time. Despotism does not affect the Western world in the way it once did, and poverty compared to that of the 18th century is much less dire. Nevertheless, Godwin’s arguments stand in some ways: how can we remedy the poverty that does exist, and how can we end war? It seems that even Godwin himself was aware that it might be wishful thinking to eradicate these things from the world completely, but political philosophers must consider how we might reduce them. It is reasonable to deduce from history that a perfect world is never possible, but what is possible is to strive to come close to one. But this political improvement relies on several factors, perhaps the most pressing of all being human nature itself, followed by how we define morality, and then the nature of political institution itself: its costs and benefits, its inheritance and limitations. It is true that the human race is one which constantly seeks to support itself and aid itself in the pursuit of continuous technological self-improvement (the progress of history is enough for us to see that), but to achieve moral and social improvement, certain other conditions must be met. A political society cannot ever edge closer towards justice (which is a term preferred to the one which has become ever more common: ‘fairness’) without first establishing its moral boundaries and foundations. A state, however composed, must be ethical; it must have a guiding lantern which leads it into times of darkness and exalts in times of daylight. Without any sort of ethics, political institutions cannot gauge how the law should be made and applied, and men cannot act with any sort of goodwill towards one another. Some may object to trying to find a definitive morality, but without it there is no political justice. We must observe history and use it to plug the moral deficiencies of our own time as much as to identify the moral deficiencies of history itself.

  Chapter III

  The Foundation of Morality

  When we are born, we are frequently described as a blank slate. Godwin suggests that when we first come into the world, we are ‘neither virtuous nor vicious’, and to a certain extent this is correct. We may not bring any new ideas into the world with us, but there are certain elements of human nature which are irrefutable. We will all be able to feel similar emotions, be disgusted at certain fundamentals and take pleasure in certain fundamentals. For instance, cold-blooded murder is generally considered immoral as a cultural universal. We punish those who commit it, and those who take pleasure in senseless killing are pathologised. The only reason for this can be that the vast majority of humankind has a sense of some justice and therefore can only be naturally disgusted by murder. Even in a system without law to punish such wrongdoers, blood feuds and desires for revenge are innate in the human spirit. It is therefore true that certain actions are naturally immoral, and humanity will always seek to punish such actions, whether there is law to define such immorality or not.

  Godwin’s concept of humankind bringing no naturally new ideas into the world with it at birth is somewhat similar to Locke’s theory of tabula rasa,2 where he emphasised the importance of education, since it moulded a child’s view of morality and placed value on certain aspects of life from early on. But we are not blank slates entirely, and whilst a child may be born without even the faculty of speech, human beings are not born identical to one another either. Even the earliest philosophers identified that different people were disposed towards different subjects and activities in life more than others. Some, such as the Roman thinkers Lucretius, ascribed this to ‘seeds of prolepsis’, naturally placed within each person, urging them towards certain activities more than others. Education, and the influence of others, or as Godwin puts it, our perceptions of the habits and morals of others, merely serve to shape the nuances of our own worldview, but fundamentally we all have our own irrefutable path, thanks to our genetics. We often find that those who engage in activities contrary to their dispositions become miserable, whilst those who focus on their natural activities are happy. Godwin’s assertion, then, is not a fair one, and its inference, that all humans are born intellectually equal, is also false.

  Nevertheless, Godwin suggests that virtue is an innate principle to which we are obliged to conform. He describes virtue as actions and thoughts of intelligent beings which benefit other intelligent beings. This is a utilitarian view, but it seems something of a limitation to constrain virtue purely within the bounds of what ‘benefits’ other humans, or what is ‘useful’ to them. A thief can benefit his family by stealing money from another, but this should not make him virtuous by any means. Virtue itself is a form of moral excellence, which in the Western Indo-European canon, at least, was used to refer to the power of God. To be virtuous, therefore, is to aspire to be as magnanimous and upstanding as the moral teacher in God himself. Morality has certain foundational absolutes, which our societies have historically often placed in the image of gods so that we might aspire to be like them and achieve true virtue. It was, however, Aristotle who most perfectly defined virtues: that they are derived partly from our upbringing and partly from our natural habits. We can change those habits, but only with persistence and practice; it is a difficult exercise. Equally, if we establish virtueless habits, we will falter and find it harder to train ourselves back into virtue.

  We may not, then, be born with an upbringing — that is situational, but we are born with certain natural dispositions and habits. It is the role of education to show us alternatives, and thus it is for our own perceptions to deduce how we might change our habits; whether we choose to act or not is a matter of free will, but certain innate aspects of human morality will always be present. Corruption of that morality is rare, and when we compare the number of people who commit series crimes to the number of law-abiding people in a nation, we see that the former is tiny when compared to the latter. Humans, then, are naturally virtuous to some degree, but as creatures of habit, their potential for corruption is just as strong as their innate virtue.

  We have refuted the Jacobin philosophy of education, but let us consider the next two questions: are self-preservation and self-love innate in humankind? The former is true for the most part, and it is observed in all animals. It is only when a rational being has nothing left to live for that the trait of self-preservation begins to weaken. Even then it is a difficult force to overcome. When placed in an immediate physical crisis, such as a burning building, men will go to great lengths to escape. Mental crises are more complicated, but even then, we can observe the suicides of great Romans such as Seneca and Cato the Younger, who died in the most gruesome of ways, being unable to kill themselves outright with their initial blow — Cato stabbed to the stomach but was unable to force the blade to his heart; Seneca slashed his wrists but was unable to cut deep enough to cause his death until placed in a steam-room. To face death is difficult for living creatures, and even when death appears to be the only option left to take, self-preservation will do its utmost to prevent the body from doing damage to life. We have a natural aversion to pain and to fear.

  As for self-love, this is a difficult concept to define, and it is hard to comment on its prevalence. People are often encouraged to take pride in their work, and in this sense, self-love is common, but it is not innate. Here we may concur with Godwin that acts for the sake of others are virtuous, and so narcissism is not a natural state of humankind. As we have asserted before, humanity always seeks to improve itself; if this is true, then self-improvement cannot be achieved via self-love. It is the love of others that is preached in many religions, not least by Christ. The love of others is required if we are ever to see any inherent value in improvement as a race in general, rather than as individuals.

  What we may categorically deny, by this evidence, is Godwin’s assertion that many of these characteristics are not innate but are merely sown in our characters at an early stage. If these things were not innate, there would not be so many culturally univer
sal human qualities. Whilst there are great differences between different cultures, certain human characteristics, both those viewed as vices and those as virtues, are ever present.

  It is certainly possible, on the other hand, to corrupt children from an early age. We often hear stories reported of disturbed individuals having come from equally disturbing backgrounds. Whilst these cases are rare compared to the population at large, it proves that these innate qualities of humankind can be suppressed, if the intervention of elders sets bad examples. We spoke of habits before, and so we already know that habits can be changed. But most children abused violently by their parents do not grow up to be criminals themselves but merely suffer from mental ailments which cause them suffering. The image hangs there in their minds of the suffering that was inflicted upon them, whilst the human values of justice hang next to them — here is the source of their suffering, for they cannot reconcile their treatment at the hands of the people who were supposed to provide them with nurture and good habits with innate human justice. Thus we might claim that there is mental suffering in the setting of abhorrent examples to young children.

  Godwin then is incorrect in saying that morality is entirely down to the perceptions of the individual. Those perceptions may shape nuances of morality, but humans certainly share particular moral concepts. Let us not then be lectured on blank slates, for there is an inequality at birth by nature of individual disposition, and there is an inequality in the habits, be they virtuous or virtueless, of individuals at birth, with certain moral ideas lying at the root. However, whilst cultural moral universals are all very well, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. Morality is only semi-absolute, and there arise issues which cause a divergence of opinion. Let us then consider how we can change the diverse aspects of our moral habits by analysing the various suggestions for moral character-building, and in so doing attempt to find both concurrence and alternatives.

  Chapter IV

  Moral Improvement

  Godwin considers three potential areas for moral improvement in rational beings: literature, education and political justice. The nature of each of these is such that they serve a great purpose in the furtherance of public debate and moral discourse, and they are to be discussed before continuing. Specifically the relation between literature, public debate, education and political institutions is an intriguing one, and it is something which we have often neglected in recent years. Yet even Godwin recognised the usefulness of these institutions in promoting the advancement of future generations.

  Godwin’s grand claim that ‘literature has reconciled the whole thinking world [in matters of knowledge]’ is not far off the truth. It is often the written word which carries some of the most insightful thoughts. Whether in the form of fiction or non-fiction, it has always been published works which authors have used to express their opinions on history, social customs, politics and the like. Great works of fiction can be lengthy commentaries on deep-rooted problems within our home countries, or indeed philosophers may publish works expressing their own opinion in the most wild and abstract of ways, if they so wish. It is the freedom to publish that has given rise to so many mass movements and important conservative as well as radical ideologies. Without a free press, the American and French revolutions may never have been fomented; agitators such as Thomas Paine would have been silenced. Thinkers such as Marx would have been stifled in their advancement of the communist ideology without the freedom to publish works like The Communist Manifesto, and of course, modern conservatism would never have found its feet, at least so quickly, without Edmund Burke’s freedom to publish his Reflections on the Revolution in France. In the realms of fiction, Dickens used his narratives to comment on the treatment of the poor in Victorian England, and Disraeli wrote novels exposing the political divisions between rich and poor; in more modern times, D. H. Lawrence struggled to break the sexual mores of his time in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It has always been literature of all kinds which has stimulated public discourse, political ideology and deep thinking.

  So we come to appreciate the value of opinion. Since literature, being a product of the authors’ imaginations, is surely also subject to the personal opinions of the authors, it is a source of opinion. Political discourse can only be founded upon differing opinion, and thus debate. The great pamphlet battles between gentlemen of differing opinions in the late 18th century proved the power of written opinion in political debate. It is only by debate and opinion that we may resolve our minds in such a way that we either reinforce our own opinions or are inclined to change them. It is a wonderful tool in the search for truth, or in the case of our discussion, the search for political justice. The more we debate, the more likely we are to find some common ground on which we may continue to build the groundwork for a just society and thus allow for the progression of our race. To throw debate and alternative opinion to the wind, to stifle literature and outlaw publications, is dangerous — such things can only gag and bind humanity. We shall surely enter onto the path of our own destruction by closing our ears to the phenomena and opinions which we find distasteful, or even uncomfortable.

  Such is the power of literature, and politically inclined literature in particular. A caveat must be made clear, however, if we are to remember that opinion is one of the most valuable aspects of political discourse: the search for political and moral justice, and indeed, philosophical ‘truth’ as we may refer to it, is marked by a wide range of disagreements. Today philosophers continue to ask the same questions that were asked by the philosophers of over two millennia ago, which surely tells us something about the nature of truth: it is a concept nearly impossible to define. Opinion and debate may edge us ever closer to finding justice and truth, but it can never find the definitive truth. It will always be opinion that political justice is structured around, even if there is some inherent morality which cannot be changed underpinning that justice. There are so many variables outside of fixed moral questions that we can never find a ‘perfect system’. Literature, then, and the opinions which stem from it, cannot and will not ever be the sole answer to moral deficiency; this book is no exception.

  ***

  What is the value of education? Literature is only accessible to those who have already been educated, who are literate, and as Godwin writes, it is ‘inadequate for reformation’ of those who are morally deficient. Education, being the facilitation of learning by others, also has the power to inform and promote opinion and debate. The Latin word educare, from which the word ‘education’ derived, means to ‘lead out’ or ‘raise up’. It is the role of the educator, then, to lead the young and ignorant out of their childhoods and into the knowledge which will prepare them for the real world. It is as much the role of education to present virtue to children as it is to give them knowledge of the abstract. To instil certain moral virtues in young people, or at least to show them the varied philosophies that thinkers have proposed concerning virtue, is to create a generation that values those virtues which they were taught. It is most important to teach creativity and critical thinking in order to promote a wider moral discourse within the young. There is therefore much onus on teachers, for they may carry either the moral successes or the moral decadences of the age upon their shoulders. So it is indeed an engine of unlimited power, but the purpose of education cannot be fully understood under the theory of tabula rasa; indeed, it is difficult to tailor education to the needs and desires of individuals when we assume that each person requiring education is just a blank slate.

  Today, we often think of education in terms of starting broadly and then allowing children to specialise in areas which they enjoy the most, or find most practical, as they grow up. Some would rather cut out much of this broad teaching and educate via focussed and practical means from a young age. However, look inside any primary school, and you are sure to see children colouring in or painting in at least one of the classes, even if it is only the nursery. Children, when given the opportunity, wil
l attempt to show us the world as they see it. We may look back at the oddly drawn paintings of cars and trees that we made whilst toddlers and laugh, but the reason we did this in the first place was that we wished to try to capture for a moment something which we perceived before we had the full faculties of speech and writing. The truth is that we all have some element of creativity, and whilst some of us may lack the talent to be the next van Gogh, we are all able to draw or paint something to represent the world as we see it. To cut out the arts from education simply because they are considered less practical than subjects such as maths and science is ridiculous. We live for what we love, and whilst we may not all love creation, we can all appreciate the objects of creation. In starting broadly, we give our children the chance to appreciate as much as possible later in life, no matter what specific subject they might choose to specialise in once they are older. It is perfectly possible for a mathematician to admire the composition of a musician, just as much as it is possible for the musician to appreciate the logical deductions of the mathematician, even if he cannot understand them himself.