Eric Schliesser's Blog, page 21
February 19, 2022
Covid Diaries: An Optimistic Intermezzo full of joy
In each case, the night after class, I wake up in the middle of the night with a headache. It's scary because during the Fall such headaches were the start of two (plus) days misery each time. But not this time! So far, I tend to fall back asleep. Somewhat weirdly on Wednesdays I have a modest headache (last week worse than this week), and on Fridays I have been fine so far, and yesterday I felt awesome. (My only regret of the storm was that I could not be outside to enjoy.)
Ordinary conversations still fatigue me relatively quickly, and in other respects I live a very simple almost monkish life. I spent a lot of time this week with physicians, and we're going to change my medical care. I am dropping my occupational therapy and will start working with a neuro-psychologist (in consultation with a rehab physician) in order to reduce my stimulus sensitivity. The occupational therapist I had really helped me get my symptoms under control, but I felt we had exhausted options with her (she was basically treating my long haul as if I had burn out--which has been the norm in the Netherlands for those w/o clear heart or lung problems--this itself often generates infuriating circumstances, but that's for another occasion).
So, after the Fall semester I was really doubtful about my future professional life. I imploded during most seminars, and spent days recovering in miserable fashion. Even if the university were to accommodate me in the future, the prospect of that was miserable. But this is much more enjoyable, and the prospect of teaching fills me with joy. And while it's unusual for me not to be busy with several big projects at the same time, I am doing final edits to Neglected Classics II on the side. Anyway, this is longer than I intended. But those of you who like hearing about progress, today's update was definitely the cuppeth is half full and, with -- aliquid fit ex nihilo -- the magic of undergrad teaching, filling up.
February 18, 2022
On Dutch War Crimes and Perry Anderson on Schmitt, Hayek, Strauss, and Oakeshot.
After the debacle of the First World War, and the victory of Bolshevism in Russia, the old political world of landed rulers and limited electorates, modest budgets and stable currencies, had crumbled away. A new kind of mass enfranchisement and expectation gripped Europe, the arrival of a democracy capable of brushing aside, in the pursuit of security or equality, traditional barriers between the tasks of government and the affairs of business - a semi-oligarchic state and a still-hierarchic civil society. Where would popular sovereignty without social liability lead? Communism was, of course, the first and greatest danger. Fascism, which looked to some as if it might be an antidote, proved little better - indeed, in German guise at least, all but identical. But even when these were seen off, there was still the welfare state, a creeping version of the same disease. In the course of six decades, political judgements of this changing scene varied. Strauss and Oakeshott, scornful of liberalism before Hitler came to power, were more circumspect after the war; Hayek, who described himself as a classical liberal during the war, repudiated the term as compromised beyond recovery when he got to America; Schmitt, who never had any truck with liberalism, moved from Catholic authoritarianism to National Socialism, before ending as an informal doyen of the most respectable post-war constitutionalism. But beyond the discrepant local sympathies of these careers - with their splay of temporary identities: Conservative, Zionist, Nazi, Old Whig - they reflected a common theoretical calling....
But the Stygian cap fits the collective effort of this cluster of thinkers. For these were indeed constructions designed to hold something back. What they all in the end sought to restrain was the risks of democracy - seen and feared through the prisms of their theories of law, as the abyss of its absence: to misterion tes anomias, the mystery of lawlessness.
Each put up their own barriers against the danger. The dichotomies which are the signature of their work - the esoteric and the exoteric, the civil and the managerial, the friend and the foe, the lawful and the legislative - are so many cordons. Their function is to hold popular sovereignty at bay. The different gifts displayed in this enterprise, whatever view is taken of it, were remarkable. For all his later tendency to textual dressage, Strauss's range and subtlety as a master of the canon of political philosophy had no equal in his generation. Schmitt's moral instability never impaired an extraordinary capacity to fuse conceptual insight and metaphoric imagination in lightning flashes of illumination around the state. Hayek could seem tactically ingenuous, but he fashioned a theoretical synthesis out of his epistemology and economics whose scope and strength has yet to be supplanted.
Oakeshott was the literary artist in this gallery.--Perry Anderson (1992) "The Intransigent Right" in Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas, p. 25-27 [HT Jonathan Kramnick]
The other day (recall here), I quoted the conclusion of Anderson's essay (which contrasts Rawls with the four horseman of the Intransigent Right) in order to introduce my digression on Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice. And before I turned to my serious engagement with Forrester, I made a snarky remark about Anderson's 'acrobatics' in order to lump Schmitt, Hayek, Strauss, and Oakeshot together. I don't plan to withdraw the remark here, but I do regret making it for two reasons: first, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from reading Anderson's essay, which is, in fact, very perceptive about these four thinkers and their relations. In fact, at times Anderson practices a kind of judicious, esoteric reading to reveal their core commitments. Along the way he draws on chapter 24 of Leviathan in illuminating ways.
As an aside, when Kramnick (a distinguished literary scholar) mentioned Anderson's essay to me he remarked (I am paraphrasing) that Anderson was more charitable of these four than Rawls (something characteristic of certain kind of Marxists more generally). The veracity of Kramnick's remark can be readily judged not just by comparing the quoted passages above with the paragraph I quoted from in my digression on Forrester, but also by reading his self-standing scornful essay, "Designing Consensus: John Rawls," primarily on Rawls' Political Liberalism. Nothing like the praise of Hayek's "theoretical synthesis" can be found in Anderson about Rawls.
Second, while lumping people together with Schmitt is generally a sign that we're in the ambit of rhetorical delegitimation, it's not true (as I kind of implied) that these thinkers have nothing important in common. For, I agree with Anderson that the specter that haunts all of them, at a certain of level of abstraction is indeed "the risks of democracy," especially if that is understood in terms of "popular sovereignty." And this is not a trivial communality nor is it something that by itself deserves criticism.
It's worth noting that anyone that worries about minority or civil rights and, say the respect for the kind of rights that are associated with human rights or a bill of rights, or the division of powers is ipse facto also worried about popular sovereignty and the risks of democracy. And there is widespread theoretical agreement that such rights ought to be respected. Yet, one problem that pollutes a lot of contemporary theorizing about democracy is that proponents of popular sovereignty, deliberative democracy, and (alas) public reason tend to take for granted, on some fundamental level, that these rights are respected, or that they are in accord -- I am now using the words of Rawls -- with "the most deep-seated convictions and traditions of a modern democratic state."*
Just yesterday, the Dutch government admitted, after commissioning a new formal historical study in 2017, that the Netherlands had engaged in all kinds of war crimes toward innocent civilians and enemy combatants in what was Indonesia's war of independence (concluded in 1949). And subsequently these facts were covered it up, and for decades public opinion did not permit these facts to be aired (often under pressure of not especially large groups of veterans), or to be taught in history classes (not even by my teachers who were rather progressive by Dutch standards). This despite the steady drip of materials that suggested the official narrative was hopelessly flawed, and the accumulating evidence of the non-trivial trauma for those that actually witnessed and perpetrated the atrocities. The time it took to admit any of this formally, and to offer (modest) compensation to victims, is of biblical proportions: the generations that experienced had to die off first for a sober and truthful discussion to be possible.
A friend of popular sovereignty may well respond that the Dutch inability to acknowledge their war crimes just shows that our liberal democracy -- which tends to get incredibly high marks for democratic freedom -- is fatally shaped by our colonial heritage. I am by no means unsympathetic to the charge. But I see little reason to believe that popular sovereignty unmediated by parliamentary institutions will do much better (given that it public opinion never really wanted to know the truth).
My reason for mentioning the case is straightforward. From afar the entrenched, small liberal democracies of Scandinavia and the North Sea are often treated as and seem paragons of democratic virtue (with robust proportional representation and reasonably generous welfare states). But even these exhibit the non-trivial democratic risks and rights violations that ought to concern friends of popular sovereignty. (Google, "Compulsory sterilisation in Sweden" or "Denmark xenophobia.") While it's true that all these places have not abolished capitalism (on the contrary they also tend to do well in economic freedom rankings), they are kind of limit examples that illustrate that even in the best circumstances democracies may misfire greatly.
To be sure, the claim in the previous paragraph does not require to accept the road to serfdom thesis. While I am not inclined to treat the road to serfdom thesis as an empirical prediction (spoiler: I think Hayek's work belongs in the genre philosophical prophecy), if one were to treat it as an empirical prediction then the small liberal democracies of Scandinavia and the North Sea have clearly falsified it. And while I am much less sanguine about the state and character of British liberal democracy, its current state also stands as a falsification of it 70+ years after the fact.
The explicit or implicit theoretical denial of the risks of democracy and popular sovereignty strike me as instances of irresponsible theorizing. (When I am polite I call it 'democratic innocence.') And it is a peculiar feature of far left critics of those concerned with the risks of democracy and popular sovereignty, that they then have to treat Leninism and Stalinism as contingent perversions of the ideal or, -- and now I am speaking of Anderson -- and criticize Rosa Luxemburg, who almost alone among the friends of popular sovereignty recognized its risk, for lacking a "theory of the conquest of power by the proletariat."**
The problem is, of course, that once one has diagnosed the risks of democracy and popular sovereignty it's very hard to avoid solutions that are inimical to democracy (as the example of Mill's Considerations on Representative Government shows). And it is no surprise that those who do emphasize the risks of democracy and popular sovereignty are often reactionaries of some sort or don't reject temporary despotism. But what follows from this is not that a true friend of democracy should wish away the risks of democracy and ignore the dangers of popular sovereignty in order to avoid being tainted by the charge of 'right-wingism.' Rather, it's incumbent to find ways of navigating these risks in ways in accord with if not the letter then the spirit of democracy. But about that some other time other time more.
*Quoted by Anderson in Spectrum, pp. 111-112.
See Anderson The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, p. 126.
February 15, 2022
Fear is the Cause of Hatred: Joshua Child on economic growth and Jewish naturalization
Those that are for the admission of the Jews, say in answer to the aforesaid Reasons, viz .
1st, The subtler the Jews are, and the more Trades they pry into while they live here, the more they are like to increase Trade; and the more they do that, the better it is for the Kingdom in general, though the worse for the English Merchant, who comparatively to the rest of the People of England is not one of a thousand.
2dly, The thriftier they live, the better Example to our People; there being nothing in the World more conducing to enrich a Kingdom than thriftiness.
3dly, it is denied that they bring over nothing with them; for many have brought hither very good Estates, and hundreds more would do the like, and settle here for their Lives, and their Posterities after them, if they had the same freedom and Security here as they have in Holland and Italy, where the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other Princes allow them not only perfect Liberty and Security, but give them the privilege of making Laws among themselves'; and that they would reside with us, is proved from the known Principles of Nature, vz.
Principle 1. All Men by Nature are alike, as I have before demonstrated, and Mr. Hobbs hath truly asserted, how Erroneous soever he may be in other things.
Principle 2. Fear is the cause of Hatred, and hatred of separation from, as well as evil Deeds to, the Parties or Government hated, when opportunity is offered: This by the way shews the difference between a bare connivance at Dissenters in matters of Religion, and a toleration by Law; the former keeps them continually in Fear, and consequently apt to Sedition and Rebellion, when any probable occasion of success presents: The latter disarms cunning, ambitious minded Men, who, wanting a popular discontented Party to work upon, can effect little or nothing to the prejudice of the Government. And this methinks discovers clearly the cause why the Lutherans in Germany, Protestants in France, Greeks in Turkey, and Sectaries in Holland, are such quiet peaceable-minded-men, while our Non-conformists in England are said to be inclined to strife, War, and Bloodshed; Take away the cause and the Effect will cease.
While the Laws are in Force against Men, they think the Sword hangs over their Heads, and are always in fear (though the Execution be suspended) not knowing how soon Councils, or Counselors, Times or Persons, may change, it is only only Perfect Love that casts out fear; and all Men are in love with Liberty and security: It cannot be denied that the Industrious Bees have Stings (though Drones have not) yet Bees sting not, except those that hurt them, or disturb their Hives.
As I noted in a piece I contributed to The Reading Room, Josiah Child's writings on the naturalization of the Jews, which he developed in successive editions of his works, and his mercantile thought more generally were influential through the intercession of Vincent de Gournay in the political economy circles associated with the Encyclop��die. Child (1630/31���1699) was a MP, and governor of the East India Company, and had not trivial importance for its expansion in India. He is generally treated as a Mercantilist. As can be gleaned from the quoted passage (and larger context), he is advocating for policies that are meant to fundamentally copy Dutch success in trade and economics, and thereby displace their power. He has some claim to being the source of the very idea of economic progress.
Child frankly acknowledges that Jewish immigration and naturalization, which will bring in stock and trade-connections, may have zero-sum effects for relatively small number of English traders. But the overall effect will be good for the English economy due to the expansion of exports and change in culture they will bring. Child clearly thinks that, alongside trade, savings are essential to economic growth. The underlying idea is that once one opens borders to people and capital, a rising population and capital will facilitate trade and enhance competitiveness, and so allow the English to compete more successfully with the Dutch. Child does not suggest here that one should open borders to goods and commodities. People and capital are de facto treated as inputs with the goal (or output) being export of goods and a competitive trade balance.
That immigration may harm some locals was, as regular readers know (recall this post), tackled by John Toland in his (1714) Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland, Chapter XVI, by explicitly drawing on Locke���s political economy. But unlike Child, Toland addresses the displacement concerns of what one may call the working poor. Yes, they will have to compete with new workers. But these new workers will also ensure a larger internal market with an improved cost of living (due to "cheaper wrought" goods). And the goods will be cheaper not just because the division of labor can be more specialized, but also because the newcomers will bring technological improvements. The newcomer���s ���stock��� is also a human capital. This build's on Child's own claim about the Jews ("subtler"). That is to say, Toland grasps and fully articulates the more liberal win-win logic that is essential to Locke's more liberal arguments, and later generalized by Hume and Smith.
I can't prove that Toland read Child (although it would be surprising if he had not), but I would be amazed if Mandeville hadn't. For Child's "thrifty bees,' are clearly Mandeville's target in the Fable. In Mandeville's hive, they will indulge in luxury spending.
Child inscribes his argument in what I (following Levy and Peart) call methodological analytic egalitarianism (MAE): the positing of homogeneous human nature such that we're equal for theoretical (including moral and political) purposes. Observed differences are due to cultural, educational, institutional factors. This is developed (as I have argued) by Mandeville, but, as Child also notes, first articulated by Hobbes (recall here).
That there is an important difference between mere toleration and formal legal recognition/protection is explained by Child in terms of its effect on one's expectations. The underlying logic is Hobbes', but I don't think Hobbes (who emphasizes the positive impact of the rule of law on stabilizing expectations and reducing uncertainty) actually makes this point. The security afforded by the rule of law is conducive to liberty and economic growth.
That "fear is the cause of hatred" does not, I think, have a Hobbesian provenance (although I would be delighted to learn otherwise).* It does have a Shakespearian ring: "In time we hate that which we often fear." And I suspect that lurking behind Shakespeare and Child is Machiavelli's Prince, Chapters 17&19. (There are other Machiavellian allusions in Child.) To be sure Machiavelli is clear that part of political skill is to be feared without causing hatred.
In fact, Child clearly recognizes that the benefit of an impartial rule of law, which does not discriminate against some groups, is not in the first instance economic but to reduce civil unrest greatly. And for him this is compatible with a thoroughgoing multiculturalism because he sees no problem in allowing the Jews self-government ("the privilege of making Laws among themselves') so they can maintain their identity.
*I am not the first to have been struck by the phrase. See this dissertation by John N. Blanton, p. 411.
Perry Anderson, and the Political Failure of the Rawlsian Project: Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice, pt 3
If we compare the general fortune of these thinkers of the radical Right to that of more conventional eminences of the Centre, there is a pregnant contrast. The work of just one theorist, John Rawls, may have accumulated more scholarly commentary than that of all four put together. Yet this veritable academic industry has had virtually no impact on the world of Western politics. The reticence of its subject, who has never risked his reputation with express commitments, is no doubt part of the reason. But it is also to do with the distance between a discourse of justice, however Olympian, and the realities of a society driven by power and profit. The quartet considered here had the political courage of their convictions. But these also went, more largely, with the grain of the social order. So although they could often appear marginal, even eccentric figures to their colleagues, their voice was heard in�� the chancelleries. Schmitt counselled Papen and received Kiesinger; Straussians thronged the National Security Council under Reagan, and surround Quayle; Hayek earned formal homage from Thatcher on the floor of the Commons; and Oakeshott, under the anaesthetic Major, has entered the official breviary. Even arcane teaching can reach gentlemen. They are the heirs.--Perry Anderson (1992) "The Intransigent Right" in Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas, p. 28 [HT Jonathan Kramnick]
Once upon a time political radicals were Utilitarians. I also am going to ignore the acrobatics required to lump Schmitt, Hayek, Strauss, and Oakeshot together. Rather, my interest in Anderson's comments is in his treatment of the failure of a scholarly community devoted to political philosophy to have political uptake.
Let's stipulate, with the Marxists, that the aim of political philosophy is to shape political life. Here Anderson suggests that the manner of so doing is in terms of what Machiavelli and Hobbes would call 'council' to the politicians by the students of the magister or by the magister himself in person or through his books. Anderson explains the absence of Rawls and Rawlsians in the corridors of contemporary power in virtue of the fact that a discourse of justice does not sell in a social environment devoted to power and profit. The political failure of the Rawlsian project is, then, plainly due to the demand side: successful politicians have no use for it (and lurking behind them an indifferent electorate). But he also hints at something else -- "express commitments" -- is lacking in the Rawlsian "academic industry," which seems to be engaged in cheap talk which, if I sense the drift of his remarks correctly, involves mostly servile people echoing each other, or at least sharing considerable common ground. There is striking evidence of this claim in Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice. She observes that "when [in 1979] Amartya Sen gave the Tanner Lectures, he took for granted that there was no need to justify his focus on equality." (208)+
As I noted in my first two essays (recall here; here) on Forrester's booke, it's easy to exaggerate the political impotence of Rawls' political philosophy in the corridors of power. A year after Anderson wrote these lines, the then most visible public interpreter of Rawls, Norman Daniels -- who started his political career as co-chair of SDS and gave a once famous speech on the steps of University Hall April 9, 1969 -- , was asked to be a member of Hillary Clinton's healthcare taskforce in 1993.* In a nearby possible world America would have had health care provision along Rawlsian lines. (Of course, Anderson will not be impressed by such possibilities.)
One may well suspect that Anderson's Machiavellian focus on the halls of power misses an important step. Unlike, say, Locke or Bentham, it is not entirely obvious that Rawls proposed an art of government. Given the Rawlsian focus on the basic institutions of society, one may well argue that the day to day political tactics of the executive are far less important than the role of ideas in shaping fundamental institutions of society: law, education, healthcare, criminal justice, welfare, etc. So, if one is interested in establishing and diagnosing the failure of the Rawlsian project outside the academy it would be useful to study how and to what extent (or not!) Rawlsian ideas percolated through the law and welfare provisions, etc.
I do not mean to suggest that the lack of political uptake (by the political class) of Rawls during the last half century isn't striking. I have often mused about the fact that as political life seemed to be moving toward the right, political philosophy seemed to have moved leftward. And so I was thrilled that Katrina Forrester addressed the issue in a scholarly context. It's an important sub-theme throughout the book -- where it is often operationalized rather narrowly in terms of the influence of Oxford philosophers on the British Labour Party--, and is, in fact, the major theme of chapter seven, where it is introduced as follows:
Liberal philosophers underestimated how high the New Right would rise. Many did not see or did not object to the process of marketization taking place, whereby social relationships were subordinated to market logic and new aspects of life were commodified. In part this was because they were preoccupied not with the rising right, but the left. For political philosophers, the ascent of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan initially provided an opportunity to consider the nature of the social democratic left���s egalitarianism. The collapse of affluence during the previous decade, particularly in Britain, had looked at first like it might benefit the socialist left. ���In the 1950s many of us thought that inequalities would diminish as society became more prosperous,��� wrote the Labour Party grandee and later founder of the Social Democratic Party Roy Jenkins in 1972. ���It is now clear that this view was at best oversimplified and at worst just wrong.��� Over the course of the 1970s, the Labour Party had responded by returning to ideas of industrial democracy and public ownership. In the United States, even as the traditional working- class constituency of left politics fragmented and was recomposed, and the political efforts to sustain it were abandoned, the Cold War thaw and leftward tilt of academia enabled the radicalization of philosophy, seen in the appeal of anticolonial global redistributive politics and Rawlsian engagements with socialism. With the relationship of capitalism to democracy under scrutiny following the fiscal crises, a socialist resurgence gradually became visible within political philosophy. ���The apparent pause in economic growth, the crisis in stabilization policy occasioned by the current inflationary threats and realities, and the loss of purpose in redistributional measures all combine,��� Kenneth Arrow wrote in 1978, ���to raise anew the question of alternatives to capitalism.��� By the 1980s, liberal political philosophy was being pushed to the left. Marxism was poised to enter the philosophical mainstream. Katrina Forrester In The Shadow of Justice, p. 205
Forrester echoes Anderson's point that elite political philosophers simply underestimated the more right wing thinkers amongst them. Lurking in Forrester's description is a very different kind of explanation of the irrelevance of Rawls to political power. In her account, political philosophy is sensitive to and tracking major social changes to which it responds and, one may, say offers solutions to. It just so happens, one might say, that its preferred policies are not popular among the political class (either because it is corrupted or because it senses there is no electoral gain to be had from pursuing democratic socialism). I return to this below. Furthermore, Forrester suggests that the end of the cold war, alongside a perhaps contingent leftward orientation of the academy, facilitated this leftward turn of liberal egalitarianism. I hasten to add, as Forrester notes, that in this period even the theories of analytic Marxists were "populated by individual rather than collective agents and focused on distribution and ownership rather than labor." (206)
Later in the chapter, Forrester suggests, however, that while political philosophers were tracking something, they did not really understand, or at least failed to register important changes to their own societies:
The irony of this change in focus was that it did not help philosophers identify the transformation in the state they were witnessing. Those [among liberal egalitarian philosophers] most focused on the New Right overlooked the decline of democratic control that followed from the depoliticization, privatization, and weakening of the welfare functions of the state that occurred in the 1980s. By contrast, many who maintained Rawls���s assumptions and sought to deepen liberal philosophy���s democratic procedures did not engage with the radicalization [within philosophy] of egalitarianism.(207) [Insertions added to facilitate discussion--ES]
It's a bit of shame that Forrester does not engage with Melinda Cooper's Family Values (which she cites in different context, see p. 332 n 127). I want to pick up two themes from that book (recall this post; and here). First, Cooper shows that Stateside in non-trivial respects welfare reform (which drew on libertarian and socially conservative ideas) entailed the intensification of the state's involvement with and micro-management of the lives of poor people (who are, say, exposed to invasive drug-testing requirements) not the least massively increased incarceration. These illiberal and inhumane policies were democratically enacted and hugely popular at the time (perhaps still are) not the least because of the racial undertones of such policies. (Forrester notes this, too, on p. 228.)
As an aside, I suspect Forrrester falls victim here, not uncommon among left-leaning-theorists of idealizing (true) democracy, and of being unwilling to countenance that democratic processes often produce manifestly unjust outcomes. (I call this 'democratic innocence'). It's also not obviously true that democratic control really lessened in the 80s. While the administrative state expanded with delegated powers, those powers could be and sometimes were clawed back. In the UK (in the 80s), most changes involved centralization of control, but that does not entail lessening of democratic control. A lot of British privatization created monopoly suppliers that were regulated, and while such regulation was often at arm's length of government and parliament, the absence of de facto democratic control was more due to lack of political will (and perhaps the corrupting influence of revolving doors between industry, politicians, and civil servants) than lack of political power.
Second, Cooper notes (and I am simplifying here) that by focusing on the male-gendered family wage and by ignoring the emancipatory desires of women and ethnic minorities (pertaining to work, sexuality, life style, etc.), social democratic/left-liberal parties missed out on changes in the electorate that gave the New Right part of its dynamism, and demanded from the Left new kind of reactions. And this suggests that Forrester is right to claim that the philosophers of the age did not understand their own society, but provides the wrong diagnosis of it.***
Given the demographics of professional philosophy at the time -- overwhelmingly male and white --, it is no surprise (after the fact) that political philosophers focused either arguing for egalitarian outcomes from individualist premises or doubling down on democratic procedures completely missed the boat on issues pertaining to race, ethnicity, diversity, sexuality, environmental health, etc. Many such issues were discussed in other disciplines, and these were disparaged, or when philosophers did approach them it often entailed giving up on, or delaying greatly, a career at the "elite institutions" (p. 242) that are Forrester's focus. (The career trajectories of, say, Iris Marion Young and Charles Mills are instructive.) That is to say (and now i am using Forrester's vocabulary), the internal politics of (elite) political philosophy left it in a bad epistemic position to develop the conceptual structures needed to be salient for a refashioned Left policy because, in part, its own elite demographics was out of step with social developments.+ And this meant, again quoting Forrester, that while there was conceptual room for "bottom-up challenges to the basic structure, to widen its scope and to include gender, racist, and interpersonal injustices. But there were few top-down reassessments." (237)
This second point is, thus, in the spirit of Forrester's own analysis. Her book starts, in fact, by telling us "this is the story of the triumph of a small group of influential, affluent, white, mostly male, analytical political philosophers who worked at a handful of elite institutions in the United States and Britain, especially Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford. It is a story that includes few women, except at the margins, and fewer people of color." (xvii) So, she is highly aware of the facts I am appealing to. Recall from my earlier posts that the official main focus of Forrester's "[i] book is about the politics of political philosophy and [ii] the political implications of conceptual choices." (xxi; numbers added to facilitate discussion.) Now, Forrester is careful not to suggest a causal connection between [i] and [ii]. But nothing prevents it.
Let me close with two final observation inspired by Cooper. First, Forrester correctly notes "the horizons of philosophers [of that generation] were shaped by defenses and critiques of the market, and so, like nearly everyone else, many misdiagnosed the changes they were living through." (238) It's hard not to agree here. When I started blogging about philosophy of economics, I vowed not to recycle the state vs market debates that had been suffocating twentieth century political philosophy. (It's pretty clear that states constitute markets, and that markets shape states.) But Forrester misses that it was, in part, the dynamic effects of markets (alongside education and immigration) that created the constituencies among the non-wealthy for whom the family wage was not the highest priority.
Second, it's natural to read this digression, and suspect that I think demography is destiny and always decisive. By contrast, Forrester's "like nearly everyone else" suggests that knowing one's age is generally out of reach to those in elite echo chambers. (Here she and Anderson end up close together again.) But whatever one thinks of Foucault's interventions in politics, in his theoretical work he clearly understood his own age in a way that those working at "Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford" did not. And while the sample size is incredibly small, one can't help but wonder if the very different educational trajectories and internal gate-keeping didn't (and doesn't continue) to play a role here. To be continued...
*Full disclosure, I took introduction to Bioethics with Norman a few years before.
**It's worth noting that Sen's and Nussbaum's capability approach (which is also a huge academic industry) has had some political influence, and it would make for an interest study alongside the Rawlsian study.
***Here's another example of where I agree with Forrester that influential political philosophers manifestly did not understand their own society, but where I disagree with her diagnosis:
"Writing in the aftermath of Thatcher���s first electoral victory, Dworkin argued that that election represented not an ���ideological revolution������ a collapse of faith in the welfare state or a belief in ���free enterprise������ but a signal of the ���non- ideological��� nature of the British electorate and the failure of the Labour Party to persuasively set out its core egalitarian principles. Labour, Dworkin continued, ���must give up trying to deduce a vision of the fair society from its historical association with the trade unions. The basis of that association must follow from the party���s principles, not the other way around.��� Like many British liberals who championed the left���s move to the center in the aftermath of Thatcher���s victory, Dworkin wanted a social democratic theory of equality that could be decoupled from its historic association with the labor movement. He, like them, underestimated the rise of the right in part because he underestimated how this decoupling of equality from collective bargaining would hasten the hollowing out of social democracy." (209)
+
February 14, 2022
Hume, Lazar, Locke, and the State of Exception, revisited
Seven years ago (recall) I discussed the quoted passage on this blog, and then eventually published a paper on the material (here). Today, I revisit it because of an extraordinarily fertile book (published in 2009), States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies by Nomi Claire Lazar, which I recently read and had overlooked before. Lazar offers what she calls a 'Lockean' approach to states of emergency amply documented in Locke's Second Treatise, but developed and elaborated by her in very creative ways.
Now, the key move of Lazar's Lockean approach is to insist that states of emergency need not abolish accountability (of the sovereign, the executive, the dictator). In the right sort of political order, accountability is "an ever-present possibility." (p. 149) And one of the neatest chapters in her book is to show that this is even so in the case of the institution of Roman dictatorship (made famous (recall) by Livy in his treatment of Cincinnatus). Such accountability can be formal in a political and juridical sense. Or it can be more informal by way of the political restraints of countervailing powers and forces, including public opinion.
That during states of emergencies accountability need not abolished builds on another key insight of hers: that there is no sharp division between states of emergency and the ordinary rule of law. In particular, first, in both instances rights derogation occur, but the manner in which this happens is different. In fact, her book reminds the reader that even in the most noble liberal democracies, many of our rights can be derogated within the ordinary rule of law (as rights clash or in instances of ordinary punishment). This is recognized in treaties and constitutions that set an explicit limit on which rights can be derogated (see p. 145). Second, these rights derogations reflect the ordinary pluralism, even "pervasive" conflict of values in ordinary political life (p. 89).
And, third, office holders have considerable discretion not just in cases understood as emergencies, but also in ordinary political life. As Locke notes in his "Of Prerogative," which, as noted, is important to Lazar's overall argument, "many things there are, which the law can by no means provide for; and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require." (Second Treatise, Chapter 14, sect 159; quoted by Lazar on p. 116). The cumulative effect of these three points is that states of emergency are part and parcel of what Locke (and Foucault) call the 'art of government.' If Lazar is right -- and she is -- then states of emergency also belong to a distinctly liberal art of government.
However, there is also a complication. And I introduce it by way of Locke. Locke goes on to claim that this discretion is in the service of "public good and advantage" in the context of circumstances "that as much as may be, all the members of the society are to be preserved...for the end of government being the preservation of all." It is notable that Locke puts this not in terms of the survival of society (the effect of, or instituted by, the social contract), but rather in terms of the preservation of "all" the individuals (the "members") that compose society. On Locke's view, the prerogative, thus, really is in the service of the preservation of (individual) life rather than, say, the preservation of the state. (This makes sense because for Locke, unlike Hobbes, we can survive just fine outside society and the state.)
The claim in the previous paragraph nicely illustrates Lazar's point that "emergency powers take on the moral character of the end they serve." (p. 138) In Locke, then, the prerogative and the powers it licenses are means toward serving the interests of individuals. Admittedly, Locke often treats this in terms of serving the "public good" -- which is more expansive than mere individual survival --, so I don't mean to suggest that for Locke emergency powers ought only focus on preservation of bare life. But for Locke the proper functioning prerogative is in the service of the same values as those that justify the social contract. And in so far as we can treat these as liberal -- some will object here to my anachronism here -- for Locke emergency powers can be liberal.
The point of my last two paragraphs is to note that Lazar goes beyond Locke in an important way . To be sure, Locke anticipates, as she notes, her claim that public opinion is an important check on the use of prerogative. But rather (and this gets me to the complication), for Lazar, emergency powers are invoked when "the state order through which norms and laws are normally enforced is threatened, the order itself is threatened." (p. 103) As she recognizes the preservation of such order is not self-evidently a liberal value. In her account this is not a bug, but a feature. Because for her, 'extra-liberal values' are also "pervasive" in "the moral life of liberal democracies." (P. 93) She includes "security, order, desert, group cohesion, cultural pluralism, and the preservation and expression of cultural heritage" among the list of pervasive non liberal values, and the source of pervasive pluralism and conflict of values in liberal democracies.
And the way Lazar handles this conflict -- and this puts her in the camp of political realists -- is to distinguish between the "quotidian ethics animating the day-to-day functions of political order" which are constituted by "liberal values" and the "existential ethics" that govern the foundation and preservation of the liberal democratic order (p. 88; see also p. 12). And such existential ethics "are characterized by their relative uniformity across regime types." (24) So, for Lazar, the ordinary liberal art of government always involves navigating extra liberal values. And this is, we might say, intensified and more noticeable during states of emergency where the existential ethics that guide the preservation of order may be more important.
In a way, Lazar meets contemporary critics of liberalism, often inspired by Schmitt on their own ground (recall this post on Agamben). These tend to insist that the state of emergency is always (and hypocritically) lurking in liberal practice. And such critics have had ample ammunition during the last (say) fifteen years with the ways in which central banks operated during the great financial recession, the ways in which France (and other countries) have tackled Islamic terrorism, and the ways in which the Pandemic has been governed. Lazar shows that the critics are not wholly wrong in calling attention to the phenomenon, but they misunderstand the significance of it.
As an aside, I take the positing of two such ethics as characteristic of what is now known as political realism, which insists that political life has norms of its own and, if the state is worth having, ought to be governed by them. (For a an important recent paper on this, see Matt Sleat here, which nicely refutes the idea that such political norms must be non-moral a view he associates with my colleague Enzo Rossi.) And Lazar's slender work (but fertile in ideas) ought to have a place in the developing canon of recent political realism.*
Be that as may, as should be clear from what I said above I do not think Locke is committed to such bifurcation between quotidian ethics and existential ethics. Because for Locke the state of nature is livable, the preservation of order is always instrumental to the grounds of (entering) civil society.
Having said that, Lazar's view does characterize Hume's position nicely. (For recent work on Hume as such a political realist, see Andrew Sabl's book (here), and my paper.) As the quoted passage above makes clear, in his ideal constitutional order, Hume made place for provisions of states of emergency. That order -- it is a federation -- is modeled (and Hume is explicit on this) on Dutch political arrangements improved in light of experience. And, in fact, Hume's construction quite clearly addresses a weakness in the Dutch political order that Hume has diagnosed in his History. That in foreign policy affairs its decision-making process could be too slow and so too vulnerable to foreign influence:
The articles of this confederacy [viz. the defensive alliance between England Holland negotiated by Temple and De Witt] were soon adjusted by such candid and able negotiators: But the greatest difficulty still remained. By the constitution of the republic, all the towns in all the provinces must give their consent to every alliance; and besides that this formality could not be dispatched in less than two months, it was justly to be dreaded, that the influence of France would obstruct the passing of the treaty in some of the smaller cities. D���Estrades, the French ambassador, a man of abilities, hearing of the league, which was on the carpet, treated it lightly; ���Six weeks hence,��� said he, ���we shall speak to it.��� To obviate this difficulty, de Wit had the courage, for the public good, to break through the laws in so fundamental an article; and by his authority, he prevailed with the States General at once to sign and ratify the league: Though they acknowledged,13th Jan. that, if that measure should displease their constituents, they risqued their heads by this irregularity. [Emphasis added]
The emphasized part in the quoted passage nicely illustrates one of Lazar's key points that even in an emergency, a political leader is aware of the reality of accountability and acts accordingly.+
In larger context, Hume presents De Witt as acting for the survival of the Dutch republic which is threatened by (their former ally) France which has just overrun Flanders. And so the alliance with England is negotiated (while England and Holland are still at war with each other!) in order to save "the remaining provinces of the Low Countries could be thereby saved from the danger, with which they were at present threatened." And it is clear that for Hume the survival of the state, the continued existence of order (and property), "the public good" justifies the means. While Hume rejects the social contract, he is in this respect closer to Hobbes than to Locke (as I have argued in a paper with Spencer Pack here).
That, for Hume, non-liberal values can guide the art of government is illustrated by Hume's praise for the De Witt (earlier in the 1665 war with England) "by his management a spirit of union was preserved in all the provinces." This shows that for Hume the conditions that maintain the survival of the state -- this includes among them such a public spirit -- are, indeed, part of the non-liberal art of government. So, I'd like to suggest that Hume (who I am here treating as a key thinker in the liberal tradition) is the historical figure that anticipates Lazar's position.
*I am not without criticism of her work. Her argument is developed by way of an epistemological contrast within liberalism between those that hew closely to Kantian synthetic a priori moral propositions and a Lockean, empiricist and more inductive stance (see especially chapter 3). But, while I am personally sympathetic to her Lockean stance, the contemporary Kantian will work with the method of reflective equilibrium--something she ignores entirely. And that method is much more empirical and inductive than she attributes to the contemporary Kantian. (Strikingly, she treats Nozick as the exemplary contemporary neo-Kantian (pp. 54-57.)
+I had missed this before.
February 11, 2022
Covid Diaries (2022)
I have had an eventful two weeks, and so it's time for another entry covid diary. (For my official "covid diaries," see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here). Before I get to the events: the really good news is that my symptoms are under control if and only if I avoid most social contact, avoid contexts with background noise, avoid multi-tasking, go to bed between nine and nine-thirty, and turn off all electronics a half hour before I go to bed. When I don't avoid these I am likely to have what I call head fatigue (which is a leaden feeling from the nose upward). I also spent most of January swimming daily, and during it and the hour after, I would almost feel completely normal.
The bad news is, of course, all this means I lead a very socially isolated existence. I spent too little time with my family. Have stopped hanging with friends, and am excused from work related meetings. For example, one shocking discovery has been that walking together silently is, in fact, also a form of multitasking. As an aside, when you have long covid, minor physical ailments have an outsized impact on well being because they disrupt sleeping patterns and physical exercise. Last Summer, a swimmer's ear threw me back. During the last few weeks, I have struggled with modest but persistent daily pain -- a pinched nerve in my back-- which made it difficult to sit and sleep (luckily I didn't notice it while walking and swimming). Luckily, that's not really bothersome anymore. So much for the status quo before my teaching started (this past Tuesday).
Monday last week I had an appointment at the Long Covid clinic at UCLH. My physician was new to me and a lung specialist. Despite a long delay and lunch time, she took her time to check my past case history with me and to hear about how things were going. She was the first physician I have spoken to who said that my particular symptoms are not unusual. One of her patients, a young mom, is even more noise sensitive as I am and basically can only see her baby a few minutes a day. My physician insisted I should remain hopeful despite the fact that I don't belong to the group of patients that recover after three and nine months. As long as I keep improving, a full recovery is likely in her experience.
Because of my booster shot, I was not enrolled in various trials they are running. But they are running a trial with Famoridine (an anti-histamine medicine), which has shown improvement in patients that are struggling with cognitive symptoms during long covid. And suggested I try it, too. (I return to that below.) Because there have been quite a few stories about blood-clotting, she also suggested a much wider range of blood tests than ever before.
I walked over to the blood-testing site down the hall. It was a total zoo: people yelling and cheating. There was a number system to queue, but people also could be slotted in with pre-existing appoints. After 45 minutes, I realized that at the rate they were going it would last a couple of hours before it was my turn, and the fighting and anger was not being blocked out with my noise-canceling headphones. I knew I could safely leave the queue to get lunch, but I really didn't want to return to this wild menagerie. Corona lockdowns have really changed national character because I have never seen a queue behavior like this in England. Some asking around landed me with a kind receptionist, and I booked an appointment at the blood bank first thing next morning. The next day, the nurse told me that this kind of behavior is now a daily occurrence at any time of the day. And I suspect that before long the queues will be even longer because of an absence of workers who will put up with this crap. (She also told me that my absence had been noted the day before because apparently some of my blood had been marked for research which surprised me.)
Later that day I went to my GP because I suddenly realized that there was a risk my Famoridine would not be filled before I would leave town. I spent a few days trying to charm the office managers of the practice, and trying to contact a person at UCLH. But eventually I got a text massage from one of the GPs (unknown to me) that if the hospital had wanted me to start the meds at once, they would have given me a script. Now I had to wait for their letter to the GP, and then the GP could write me a prescription. I learned this way, that in the NHS it matters quite a bit which budget pays for your medicine (and hospitals have little budge for non-urgent patient care meds). Lesson learned for next time.
The previous paragraph understates, of course, the powerlessness and energy consuming effort to get care. When I first got covid, when I was in London, I joined my family's GP practice. My London GP had then just (partially) recovered from her long haul. And she was empathic and pro-active. She left -- very clearly annoyed at how her peers had treated her -- and now I am a number in the (very large) GP practice. That same week I was in the practice with my son, and I was on my best behavior to see him get excellent care.
Because of the hip problems, I didn't feel especially well rested on Tuesday ahead of my lecture first class. (There were also other sources of anxiety unrelated to me that I am skipping.) It's a required, first year, undergraduate-lecture-course with 640 students. Under our corona rules, we're teaching in hybrid format. Class numbers are capped at 75 with a sign in system. When I went to the service desk I was told the hand-held microphone was broken. I felt my heart sink, and I nudged the desk agent to call our service team to try to fix it anyway. When I went to the auditorium, the previous lecture was running over. I decided to stand quietly back in the room, but making sure I was in his line of vision. I couldn't believe it that he decided to tag on another ten minutes leaving my crew very few to get me all set up. (We record lectures which is distinct system from the zoom link up we use to broadcast them live.) I have to control my nerves not to give him an earful.
Once the auditorium starts filling up, I immediately realized there were a lot more than 75 students. Tim (who runs our canvas pages in the department) counted 150. I decided I didn't have the energy to try to throw half out. But I did aggressively police masking in the front rows (and banning food or drink for them). Most students were excellent about this, and the ones who protested I offered a spot in the balcony. I told the students about my long haul and warned them that I might struggle with Q&As, and probably the quality my jokes would suffer.
As I was introducing my TAs Wais and Tom��s, and Tim, much to my amazement the sound technician showed up, and fixed the hand-held microphones. So, while I started the lecture ten minutes late, this was a great energy boost. The next ninety minutes were a gigantic adrenaline rush. I even fielded questions during break and after. (About which below.) While I talked slower than I ordinarily would -- I had to cut a few slides near the end --, I thought it went well. I received a resounding applause, and while I usually make fun of that, this time I soaked it up. I apologize to the lecturer after me explaining that I had a late start due to our colleague before me.
As a rule I don't share student stories. But the encounter with one of them after class was so memorable I'll repeat a stylized version of it to protect the identities involved. An excited student who shows up with an entourage tells me it was great, but would like to share a reservation about the syllabus. I say, 'please I welcome suggestions.' It becomes clear the student objects to me putting The Communist Manifesto on the syllabus. I say (a bit worried about where this is heading), 'why is that?' The student explains it will give the other students 'the wrong idea about Marx; it's not theoretical enough. It's too popular.' We go back and forth a bit about different genres. Eventually I ask, 'what would you suggest? Excerpts from the Grundrisse?'
'That would be good or Engels' Dialectics of Nature,' the student responds (and saying the title in English) before explaining to me how important Engels is. I ask the student if s/he read Engels in English, which elicits an apologetic affirmative answer. As I start to feel the exhaustion of the day flowing into me, I say 'look if I were to teach the Grundrisse or the Dialectics of Nature, I would have to teach Hegel first, no?' The student agrees, and castigates me for not having Hegel on the syllabus:)
I walked home through town, and with a delicious lentil soup I savor the day on the side of a canal. It takes me a few hours to fall asleep. I know I am apprehensive about how I would feel the next day. I am disappointed when I wake up with a headache around five thirty. And I know I won't be able to fall back a sleep. The headache stays with me for most of the day, but it's not as bad as last Fall. There is no nausea or dizziness. I chill doing nothing. During the afternoon I have to go to the hospital to pick up some sleep testing gear. I walk back through the drizzle along a largely unused canal (Noordhollandsch Kanaal), which nowadays turns out to provide cooling for the hospital. It's drizzling, and I realize that I am getting blister on one of my toes. Before taking the ferry back into city (see picture below) I break my low carb diet and treat myself to divine French fries with mayo and curry.
The testing gear is too advanced for me, and after futzing around with them fruitlessly I decide to go to bed without them. I sleep better than the night before, but not great I wake up fatigued but without a headache. I return to the hospital next morning, and am informed I am not alone in struggling with the stuff. (Later that day, I learned that the test failed unsurprisingly, and I will have to return for more invasive set up that they will apply in the hospital.)
By the time I am at the university, I wonder if I'll be able to complete the lecture. And whether they have to shape tapes of me again while I am sick inb bed. In my vulnerability I decide to put on a tie (which I always have available in case I have to show up in academic robes for a thesis defense in my office). As I walk into the auditorium, the previous lecturer (a different one from the dude that annoyed me in Tuesday) is wrapping up.
This time there are even more students in the hall. I am a bit more ambivalent about this lecture. The student questions were phenomenal -- always a great sign --, but the ending is a bit messy. I have to skip a few slides on material I think important, and I notice no applause. A walk home, and I notice that the weather suddenly has improved. It's warmer and I exhale. I take pictures and grab my lentil soup. I still have trouble falling asleep. I wake up around 4am. I know a headache is lurking, but I fall back asleep. When I awake it's after 7 and I have have slept almost nine hours. I wouldn't call myself well rested -- I'll chill today --, but there is no headache. And while I will be very cautious the next few weeks, for the first time I think I may get some of my life back.
February 9, 2022
The debts of Hume's account of Convention to Locke
It has been asserted by some, that justice arises from HUMAN CONVENTIONS, and proceeds from the voluntary choice, consent, or combination of mankind. If by convention be here meant a promise (which is the most usual sense of the word) nothing can be more absurd than this position. The observance of promises is itself one of the most considerable parts of justice; and we are not surely bound to keep our word, because we have given our word to keep it. But if by convention be meant a sense of common interest; which sense each man feels in his own breast, which he remarks in his fellows, and which carries him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of actions, which tends to public utility; it must be owned, that, in this sense, justice arises from human conventions. For if it be allowed (what is, indeed, evident) that the particular consequences of a particular act of justice may be hurtful to the public as well as to individuals; it follows, that every man, in embracing that virtue, must have an eye to the whole plan or system, and must expect the concurrence of his fellows in the same conduct and behaviour. Did all his views terminate in the consequences of each act of his own, his benevolence and humanity, as well as his self-love, might often prescribe to him measures of conduct very different from those, which are agreeable to the strict rules of right and justice.
Before I start: I would be amazed if my underlying claim in this post hasn't been noticed before. But while my search was certainly not at all exhaustive, I couldn't find it in the literature. So, I put it forward here tentatively with the invitation to be pointed to works that have treated it more at length and in scholarly fashion.
It is not uncommon to start discussions of convention with a nod to Hume, and especially the passage quoted in bold/italics. In addition, people often will mention the rowing boat example. (See, for example, this entry by Michael Riscorla in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which mentions Hume throughout.) In my accont, Hume's definition has parts seven (or eight) parts: (i) a sense of common interest (i*) felt in each person's breast; (ii) and it (that is, (i)) observed in others; (iii), this fact (the existence of (i&ii) creates collaboration; (iv) the collaboration is structured in non-trivial ways; (v) and this has good consequences or positive externalities for society. (I avoid the language of 'utility' to avoid issues pertaining to utilitarianism.) And (vi) a Humean convention is contrasted with practices founded in promises and in practice regulated by formal governmental law. In addition, (vii), the process (i-iii) need not be verbalized at all. It can be entirely tacit.
Now notice that Hume's beloved two rowers example actually doesn't fit his definition all that well. It is by no means obvious that when two thieves row away from a heist that this rebounds to society's benefit (so (v) is absent). Nor is it obvious that cases of rowing really instantiate a general plan or a system of actions (iv). I don't deny that the example is an attractive one to show that promises are not necessary to create joint action even in the absence of good enforcement mechanism.
But I do want to suggest that Hume's definition is more naturally read as being about major social institutions (like language, money, and property (which he calls 'justice' here.) In larger context justice is the main subject, after all. And that lurking in Hume's discussion there are really two kinds of conventions: (a) large scale social institutions that exist over time, fit a wider social context, and have social utility (like language, money, property); (b) apparently spontaneous behavior that benefits those that directly participate in it and that can draw on, perhaps by re-inventing it each time anew, previously existing patterns of behavior (like rowing). I don't want to insist that there is a very sharp distinction here -- I usually don't bet against Hume (whatever the Bayesians might say) --, queuing may well be thought to be an instance of (a) or (b).
My reason for suggesting the distinction between (a) and (b) is that I want to convince you Locke actually presents a version of (a), and is plausibly Hume's inspiration. (That's the thing I suspect has been noticed before.) My claim is a bit counter-intuitive at first because it is pretty clear that Hume is criticizing the social contract tradition here (which he calls 'absurd'), and since Locke is a social contract theorist, one might naturally take him to be the target here. But the view he is criticizing is Hobbes'.
After all, for Locke, property precedes the social contract. Now, from this it does not follow that Locke has a conventionalist account of the origin of property. He famously doesn't. His is, as is well known, a weird labor mixing account. I am not suggesting that Hume has modelled his account of convention (in the sense of (a)) on Locke's account on the origin of property. He is a serious critic of Locke's account of property (I have published on that here). Rather, I am suggesting Hume is modeling his account of convention on Locke's account of the origin of money. And notice that 'gold and silver' are 'the measures of exchange' is one of the conventions in the sense of (a) that Hume mentions here.
Okay, with that in place let's turn (recall) to the key passage that I have in mind in Locke, which is, in fact at the end of the account of property (which arguably is one of Hume's targets.
Again, I am not suggesting Hume accepts Locke's account of money. I am interested in their underlying views about convention.
Notice, first, in the last sentence, that Locke contrasts the use of money with both with promises ("compacts") as well as formal laws and positive constitutions. So, I claim Locke embraces (vi). Second, Locke insists that the practice the practice is socially useful ("men have made practicable"). Even though i precedes the existence of what he calls 'society' (which is the effect of the social contract). So, Locke adopts (V). In fact, I think the underlying here is that it is useful is something discovered over time ("found out.") And this keeps the convention in place for Locke.
In addition, Locke emphasizes that the convention can be entirely tacit. So, I think it's clear he insists on (vii), too. Fourth, the example of money is meant to illustrate what Hume calls a 'system of actions.' Money is an especially durable convention. For Locke it precedes society and shapes the development of society. So, I claim Locke is the source of (iv).
So, that leaves (i-iii). These are not wholly explicit and disambiguated in Locke. And in my view, Hume's distinctive contribution is to make these features of the nature of a convention explicit. For, in Locke (i-iii) are generally treated in terms of consent. And for Locke consent is the glue that makes human associations of all kinds of sorts possible (including ones that are not conventions at all). And if I were only to emphasize the similarities between Locke and Hume, I would suggest that this account of (tacit) consent anticipates Hume's (iii). But I also recognize that if one is thinking about consent in terms of some other institutions that Locke discusses (churches, political society) then consent pulls one away from seeing that he is also talking about Humean conventions.
So my proposal is this. Hume liked Locke's account of conventions, and so how he could use it against Locke's account of property. (Amusingly, Smith likes Hume's account of conventions and uses it against Hume's account of property to make it in some sense more Lockean.) But what Hume noticed is that Locke misses a mechanism of how one would arrive at such tacit consent. And (i-ii) supply that mechanism.
And it is important to see that appealing to 'common interest' is Kosher in Locke's approach. Locke appeals to it at least twice (as an explanatory concept) in the Second Treatise see sect 82 & 216. In both cases Locke takes for granted that there is such a thing and that can be known by individuals (see especially 82). So, Hume's methodological individualism in (i-ii) is consistent with Locke's philosophy, but not exploited by Locke in his account of the nature of convention.
February 7, 2022
Russell and Kant on World Peace
Before the end of the present century, unless something quite unforeseeable occurs, one of three possibilities will have been realized. These three are:
I. The end of human life, perhaps of all life on our planet.
II. A reversion to barbarism after a catastrophic diminution of the population of the globe.
III. A unification of the world under a single government, possessing a monopoly of all the major weapons of war.
I do not pretend to know which of these will happen, or even which is the most likely. What I do contend, without any hesi��tation, is that the kind of system to which we have been ac��customed cannot possibly continue.--Bertrand Russell (1950) "The Future of Mankind" reprinted in Unpopular Essays, (1950) [all references to the 2009 Routledge reprint], p. 33.+
This is the second post on Russell's Unpopular Essays (recall here). I don't quote this to make fun of Russell as prognosticator, or to use it as an example of the fallacy of overlooked alternatives, although it is amusing that such an admirer of Hume misses the option of muddling through altogether. Or more accurately he finds it wholly unattractive: for, unlike the better dead than red crowd, Russell thinks "world empire of either the US or the USSR is preferable to the results of a continuation of the present international anarchy." (37) This reminds us that those who lived through and survived the first half of the twentieth century had every reason to expect more disastrous, political upheaval. For example, while illustrating the scenario that can lead to option I, Russell expects a "next world war" sooner or later. (The extent of the spread and use of atomic weapons is the key variable in this option.)
While illustrating possibility II, Russell sketches a scenario that anticipates A Canticle for Leibowitz:
Imagine each side in a position to de��stroy the chief cities and centers of industry of the enemy; imagine an almost complete obliteration of laboratories and li��braries, accompanied by a heavy casualty rate among men of science; imagine famine due to radio-active spray, and pesti��lence caused by bacteriological warfare: would social cohesion survive such strains? Would not prophets tell the maddened populations that their ills were wholly due to science, and that the extermination of all educated men would bring the mil��lennium? Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational. I think the great states to which we are accuston1ed would break up, and the sparse survivors would revert to a primitive village economy. (34-35)
But most of "The Future of Mankind" is not given over to such gloomy prognostications. Russell's heart is in envisioning the "establishment of a single government for the whole world." (35) And the "most hopeful" scenario he advocates is "an alliance of the na��tions that desire an international government, becoming, in the end, so strong that Russia would no longer dare to stand out." (35) As is well known, Russell was not fond of the Soviet Union, and the "Future of Mankind" explains his reasoning for preferring world domination by America over Russia. His view is not based on an uncritical fondness of the USA (even if, as noted above, he is willing to live with either Russian or American world empire).*
Strikingly, from our perspective, he thinks there are then "only two fully independent states, America and Russia." (42) And so according to Russell all other states are protectorates, vassals, or dominions of these two in some sense. While for us it is easy to note that he missed the long-term significance of Mao's (1949) victory, it is especially striking that he understood, what the British government of his own age did not yet, that full British independence had ended (they would discover it in 1956).
His preference for an American empire is rather Millian in character and is instructive about Russell's fundamental values: freedom of speech, academic freedom, experiments in living (etc.). It is not a preference for capitalism over socialism. But he thinks the absence of liberty has turned Russia into an extreme oligarchy.*
The first step-and it is one which is now not very difficult -is to persuade the United States and the British Common��wealth of the absolute necessity for a military unification of the world. The governments of the English-speaking nations should then offer to all other nations the option of entering into a firm Alliance, involving a pooling of military resources and mutual defense against aggression. In the case. of hesitant na��tions, such as Italy, great inducements, economic and military, should be held out to produce their co-operation. (41)
As I learned from (recall) Or Roisenbom's The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order, and a number of Duncan Bell's writings including (recall) Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, 356-357, especially, the more recent Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America proposals for union between the US and the British Commonwealth were quite prevalent in the 1930s. And Russell was very much aware of these developments. Many of these proposals had a strong imperial flavor with commitments to racial or civilizational (Anglo-Saxon) superiority. Russell's echoing of such proposals is notable because he is cosmopolitan critic of existing empires, and a critic of racial superiority (e.g. "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish" (82-85) "Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind" (152-153)).
Even so, because of the History of Western Philosophy (1947), it's easy to establish that Russell was also familiar with and admired Kant's Perpetual Peace.** Kant's federalism involved pacific regional (growing) federations of commercial liberal democracies (Kant uses 'republics' but he means, as Russell notes in the History, states with separation of powers).** In Kant, too, the main point is to pool military resources and make foreign aggression unlikely and to eventually creative a world state with a monopoly on violence. And not unlike Kant, Russell wants this to lead to a world in which "laws to control international relations" are "effective." (43) That is, backed up by power and possibility of violence. A world army would then be "like a municipal force." And while one might flinch at the conflation of military force and policing, the underlying point is rather Kantian, I think. The point of the monopoly of force
is a means to the growth of a social system governed by law, where force is not the prerogative of private individuals or nations, but is exercised only by a neutral authority in accordance with rules laid down in advance. There is hope that law, rather than private force, may come to govern the relations of nations within the present century. If this hope is not realized we face utter disaster; if it is realized, the world will be far better than at any previous period in the history of man. (43)
Now, I want to close with four observations about Russell's position. First, when Russell wrote this he cited public opinion in the United States in favor of such a project. (37) But in contrast to the American public, which foresaw "friendly negotiations" as the means to such an imperial federation, Russell -- who had been a heroic pacifist in World War I --, he believes "the use of force, or the threat of force, will be necessary." That Russell is willing to advocate the use of force, given his prior commitments, suggests how seriously he takes the likelihood and disastrousness of the threat of options I-II.
Third, earlier in the essay, Russell, recognizes that world empire might well be world domination. But he assumes that in the absence of foreign enemies, a world elite would eventually soften "freed from fear." (37) And so "gradually more good-natured and less inclined to persecute." (37) He has the Roman example in mind, an he calls attention to their practice of extending citizenship to those they conquered. And it's not difficult here to discern her the Victorian (romantic) understanding of the Romans he would have encountered as a kid.
Finally, and most importantly, I am struck by the fact that Russell tacitly assumes the abolition of politics with world empire. In this, even Russell is very much a man of his own age. Notice that there is no middle term between force and law. But somewhere, somebody has to lay down the "rules...in advance." And presumably this will involve the play or clash of competitive interests; and since the context is a concentration of power, one may well wonder how impartial or unbiased these rules will be. That is, while it is possible that the laws will be administered impartially, a 'neutral authority' seems perhaps a lovely hope, too far.
+The Simon and Schuster (American edition) has slightly different page-numbers, alas.
*Interestingly enough, Russell takes for granted that economic inequality diminishes in democratic regimes. (40)
**It is worth quoting the whole paragraph:
Kant's vigour and freshness of mind in old age are shown by his treatise on Perpetual Peace (1795). In this work he advocates a federation of free States, bound together by a covenant forbidding war. Reason, he says, utterly condemns war, which only an international government can prevent. The civil constitution of the component States should, he says, be "republican," but he defines this word as meaning that the executive and the legislative are separated. He does not mean that there should be no king; in fact, he says that it is easiest to get a perfect government under a monarchy. Writing under the impact of the Reign of Terror, he is suspicious of democracy; he says that it is of necessity despotism, since it establishes an executive power. "The 'whole people,' so-called, who carry their measures are really not all, but only a majority: so that here the universal will is in contradiction with itself and with the principle of freedom." The phrasing shows the influence of Rousseau, but the important idea of a world federation as the way to secure peace is not derived from Rousseau.
While I agree with Russell here -- I think Kant got his version of the idea of world federation from Spinoza and Smith (and as Pauline Kleingeld has argued, Cloots) -- this comment suggests that Russell may not have been familiar with Rousseau's writings on (recall) Saint Pierre's proposals (and here).
February 4, 2022
Russell, Locke and Order without Authority
There is, of course, imperialistic commerce, where men are forced to buy at the point of the sword; but this is not the kind that generates Liberal philosophies, which have flourished best in trading cities that have wealth without much military strength. In the present day, the nearest analogue to the commercial cities of antiquity and the middle ages is to be found in small countries such as Switzerland, Holland, and Scandinavia.
The Liberal creed, in practice, is one of live-and-let-live, of toleration and freedom so far as public order permits, of moderation and absence of fanaticism in political programs. Even democracy, when it becomes fanatical, as it did among Rousseau's disciples in the French Revolution, ceases to be Liberal; indeed, a fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible, as appeared in England under Cromwell and in France under Robespierre. The genuine Liberal does not say "this is true," he says "I am inclined to think that under present circumstances this opinion is probably the best." And it is only in this limited and undogmatic sense that he will advocate democracy.
What has theoretical philosophy to say that is relevant to the validity or otherwise of the Liberal outlook?
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way in which opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology. The decisions of the Council of Nicaea are still authoritative, but in science fourth-century opinions no longer carry any weight. In the U.S.S.R. the dicta of Marx on dialectical materialism are so unquestioned that they help to determine the views of geneticists on how to obtain the best breed of wheat, though elsewhere it is thought that experin1ent is the right way to study such problems. Science is empirical, tentative, and undogmatic; all immutable dogma is unscientific. The scientific outlook, accordingly, is the intellectual counterpart of ��what is, in the practical sphere, the outlook of Liberalism.
Locke, who first developed in detail the empiricist theory of knowledge, preached also religious toleration, representative institutions, and the limitation of governmental power by the system of checks and balances. Few of his doctrines were new, but he developed them in a weighty manner at just the moment when the English government was prepared to accept them. Like the other men of 1688, he was only reluctantly a rebel, and he disliked anarchy as much as he disliked despotism. Both in intellectual and in practical matters he stood for order without authority; this might be taken as the motto both of science and of Liberalism. It depends, clearly, upon consent or assent. In the intellectual world it involves standards of evidence which, after adequate discussion, will lead to a measure of agreement among experts. In the practical world it involves submission to the majority after all parties have had an opportunity to state their case...
I conclude that, in our day as in the time of Locke, empiricist Liberalism (which is not incompatible with democratic social��ism) is the only philosophy that can be adopted by a man who, on the one hand, demands some scientific evidence for his beliefs, and, on the other hand, desires human happiness more than the prevalence of this or that parry or creed. Our con��fused and difficult world needs various things if it is to escape disaster, and among these one of the most necessary is that, in the nations which still uphold Liberal beliefs, these beliefs should be whole-hearted and profound, not apologetic towards dogmatisms of the right and of the left, but deeply persuaded of the value of liberty, scientific freedom, and mutual forbear��ance. For without these beliefs life on our politically divided but technically unified planet will hardly continue to be pos��sible.--Bertrand Russell (1947) "Philosophy and Politics" in Unpopular Essays (1950), p. 14-20
Because George Reisch's (2005) How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic is so beautifully written and so carefully argued its thesis has become part of the lore about our intellectual fathers and (fewer) mothers that after a brief flowering of socially relevant philosophy in Red Vienna, they retreated (cowed like little schoolboys--I exclude Anscombe here) into the ivory tower where they could contemplate their crystal clear arguments about minutiae. I suspect this lore is peddled in part by continental philosophers, who after having lost the war, can feel that they are now on the right side of history, and in part by our kewl kidz who, in order to climb academia's greasy pole, have to burry the previous generation--and better yet if it buries the boring liberalism of Pax Americana.
I exaggerate, of course, but as regular readers know, I think Reisch's book didn't quite capture properly the mainstream liberal alternative (as articulated by Ernest Nagel) to the Sturm und Drang of Neurath and Carnap, and so obscured the political nature and political aims of the disciplinary choices (see here for the scholarly argument). As it happens Reisch mentions the significance of Russell's politics -- as an important representative of "the anti-Stalinist left" (158) -- throughout his book, and has a whole section on the The Russell Affair, but he does not actually say much about Russell's political theory such as it was and when he does, he treats him as a pacifist and socialist (50). Now Russell's pacificism was heroic, and there is no doubt that Russell's mature heart was a species of socialism (see here for a fine essay).
As the quoted passages above reveal, Russell's socialism was of a kind that is very much part of a broader liberal tradition. And it is worth nothing that the essay I quote contains true praise of Popper's Open Society and its Enemies. (This is something one wouldn't expect in light of Reisch's treatment which treats The Open Society as a target of the folk he admires.) Now, Popper's views are also compatible with a kind of liberal, tempered social democracy, so I don't think Russell's admiration is a coincidence.
But few socialists can bring themselves to write so admiringly of Locke as Russell. And few would be so open about their reservations about democracy, and their "limited" support for it. And so something also goes off track if one merely calls Russell a 'socialist.'
At the start of his then recent, History of Western Philosophy, Russell treats Locke as the representative of a "half-way compromise philosophy, the doctrine of liberalism, which attempted to assign the respective spheres of government and the individual." (I mention the book in part because Russell self-plagiarizes from it in the essay!)* And later in the book, when he introduces Locke, he says, "The first comprehensive statement of the liberal philosophy is to be found in Locke, the most influential though by no means the most profound of modern philosophers." I don't mean to suggest Russell only admires Locke. My favorite passage in the History is this one: "No one has yet succeeded in inventing a philosophy at once credible and self-consistent. Locke aimed at credibility, and achieved it at the expense of consistency. Most of the great philosophers have done the opposite." And while Russell is critical of Locke going all in on the defense of property, he thinks Locke's political philosophy is the least worst (in the History) or the last one standing ("Philosophy and Politics").
Now, unlike Nagel, for whom his liberalism is intrinsic, even constitutive of his philosophy (including his philosophy of science), Russell's political writings are often treated, not the least by Russell, as non-philosophical. And, speaking as a historian, that is not wholly without merit--his political essays are often unlike the works that established his philosophical credentials. Russell himself acknowledges in the "preface" to Unpopular Essays, that his essays "may seem flippant." And they certainly do not seem to belong to what professional philosophy was becoming in the age (under the influence of Carnap and Nagel). But Russell once quite rightly described his "life" -- in a self-authored "obituary" that is, in fact, in dialogue with Hume's little autobiography -- as having "a certain anachronistic consistency, reminiscent of that of the aristocratic rebels of the early nineteenth century." (p. 171) And, crucially, he claims that his principles "governed his actions." That is to say, as these essays articulate these principles are philosophical by the lights and standards of that earlier epoch. And this is the use of 'philosophy' in the final paragraph quotes above (e.g., empiricist Liberalism is the only philosophy).
Order without authority is, of course, an excellent summing up of liberalism,+ even if, too often, there is more than a hint of violence supporting that order. And not unlike the more classically liberal Michael Polanyi, Russell insists that science and liberalism are kind of mirrors of each other (another version of this idea can be found in Ernest Nagel as I argued.) I intend to return occasionally to the character and content of Russell's liberalism (in which there is plenty to criticize).
But here I want to close with an observation on Russell's claim that "The genuine Liberal does not say "this is true," he says "I am inclined to think that under present circumstances this opinion is probably the best."" Now, there is a natural, epistemological reading of this such that the 'present circumstances' just refers to the evidence supporting it. (This is, in fact, Nagel's version of pragmatism in the era.) And what I am about to say is not meant to contradict the natural reading. But I also think one could read "present circumstances" as referring to the political and social circumstances of the age--that strikes me as quite plausible in light of the argument Russell is putting forth. And that suggests that the social significance or social effects (including inductive risk) of an opinion enter into its evaluation. And this puts Russell's account into the realm of responsible speech (just like Nagel's political defense of analytic philosophy).
If the previous proposal is plausible, then for Russell a liberal's views are sensitive to political circumstances. So, say, one's defense of democracy is sensitive to the particulars of one's age or place and one's considered judgment how 'human happiness' can be promoted. And so while the non-liberal will see lack of consistency in first order judgments, the liberal will see merely different tactics while aiming for order without authority in the service of happiness.
*This can easily be established by word-searching "Hume was a Tory" in both works.
+Order is often associated with more conservative views or liberal views like the Ordoliberals. But Erwin Dekker has persuasively argued in his biography of Tinbergen, that social democrats also found grounds to praise order. And so did the young Rawls, as Katherine Forrester argues in her book.
February 3, 2022
An Early Multiculturalist, Schmittianism, and the Original Vision(s) of the European Union
Once again, I repeat: the reality which we call the State is not the spontaneous coming together of men united by ties of blood. The State begins, when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live in common. This obligation is not of brute force, but implies an impelling purpose, a common task ,which is set before the dispersed groups. Before all, the State is a plan of ac��tion and a programme of collaboration. The men are called upon so that together they may do something. The State is neither consanguinity, nor linguistic unity, nor territorial unity, nor proximity of habitation. It is noth��ing material, inert, fixed, limited. It is pure dynamism ��the will to do something in common-and thanks to this the idea of the State is bounded by no physical limits...
A static interpretation will induce us to say: That is the State. But we soon observe that this human group is doing something in common-conquering other peoples, found��ing colonies, federating with other States; that is, at every hour it is going beyond what seemed to be the material principle of its unity. This is the terminus ad quern, the true State, whose unity consists precisely in superseding any given unity. When there is a stoppage of that impulse towards something further on, the State automatically succumbs, and the unity which previously existed, and seemed to be its physical foundation-race, language, natural frontier-becomes useless; the State breaks up, is dispersed, atomised.--Jos�� Ortega y Gasset (1932 [1930]) The Revolt of the Masses, (anonymous translator), pp. 162-162. [HT: Jeffrey Bernstein]
Outside of Spain and Latin America, Ortega y Gasset is largely forgotten except among a small band of European, liberal classical liberals, who often understand themselves as 'conservatives.' (See here for an example; [ht: Aurelian Craiutu].) And since he was one of the original invitees of the Lippmann colloquium, and since he is a civilizational elitist clearly influenced by the Italian Elite school, this understanding is not wholly misleading. But in that group he remained a better friend of democracy than most. More important for present purposes, he was an ardent early supporter of European integration, and he is often quoted for his slogan, ���Spain is the problem, Europe is the solution.��� But unlike many such 'conservatives' he rejects a Europe of nations. His is a more ambitious, multicultural ambition. And I believe that if we understand why, we will also understand his response (recall this post a few days ago) toward the Schmittian challenge in a better way (and perhaps find it more compelling).
We can recognize in the quoted passage Renan's idea (recall) that nationalism presupposes some forgetting. Renan's famous essay is cited a few pages down (p. 172), so the connection is not accidental. But Ortega y Gasset, the state is always a construction-in-progress, and by no means defined by some shared element in its past, nor by some organic unity. In fact, for Ortega y Gasset if one attempted a kind of genealogy of a state -- of the sort that has grown out of the confines of ancient cities [but the same is true for them on a micro-scale] -- one would only find heterogeneity no natural unity would appear. Whatever present unity and homogeneity one finds, "is the result of the previous political unification." (p. 166) But this unity is always a "relative" one--unfinished, and to be (this is not a word he uses, I think), sublated in a larger project.
And while I do not wish to deny the Nietzschean roots of his thinking, unlike Nietzsche he does not dwell on the violence that creates the natural seeming grouping. His wording (deliberately) effaces that part of the process: "when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live in common," (emphasis added). And this is why he can claim that within some kind of states -- he focuses on liberal democracies, but it is also clear of certain kind of empires -- enemies can "share existence with the enemy, more than that, with an enemy ,which is weak." (76) And in so far as these start understanding themselves as a 'we,' this is a consequence of the state's efforts to enlist them into a collective, forward looking project and the willingness to let bygones be bygones (to break the cycle of revenge, etc.)*
It's important, I think, that this one version of multiculturalism. No part of a pre-existing identity has to be disowned unless it prevents buy in in the shared collective project. This fact is, in fact, familiar from contemporary critics of multiculturalism who often complain of its superficial character denying the more materialist roots of our identity in class or blood. But within a group that partakes in multicultural identity formation it is the separatist who insists on the priority of some original identity (imagined or real) who is the extremist because she rejects the larger collective project.
As an important aside, what the previous paragraph reveals, is that this version of multiculturalism is not rooted in a kind of Herderian cultural pluralism. Rather, it is rooted in a fairly realist picture of political unity formation. I call it 'fairly' realist because it also involves a kind of tact or restraint which asks us not to dwell on the violence that is presupposed.
Crucially, for Ortega y Gasset, this process never ends: "modern nations are merely the present manifestation of a variable principle, condemned to perpetual supersession." (165) I mentioned Nietzsche, but perhaps Spinoza's conatus is the better model. The process always requires forward motion. In the present European Union this idea is often captured by (and now I quote one of its central bankers) "the metaphor of the "bicycle theory", which is the notion that European integration has to progress in order to avoid backtracking on past achievements - just like a bicycle has to keep going to avoid falling over."
One important consequence of this analysis is that nostalgic and inward looking forms of nationalism -- and these have become very popular in our own day -- inevitably return to sites of conflict and so, thereby, promote conflict.+ As Harry Eeyres notes, for Ortega y Gasset such movements are themselves an expression of malaise and promote the "unmaking" (176) of the relative unity.
I close with two observations: first, projects that try to minimize the forward and collective unity formation of the European Union, while locally often prudent and exercises in damage control, also effectively undermine the process that gives (to use a metaphor) vitality to such political projects. And so while they are often understood in terms of preserving the Union they undermine it. This is, in fact, Lincoln's great insight at Gettysburg (recall) and in the second inaugural (recall here; here). For the European Union to exist, and even flourish, it must involve a "enterprise in common." (170) And this involves the tacit or explicit expression of common or public opinion (this is the way Ortega y Gasset reinterprets Renan's idea of a daily plebiscite). It presupposes a shared program and shared images of the future.
Second, I fully grant that Ortega y Gasset makes an uncomfortable hero for contemporary multiculturalists. Because his project for European integration is, in part, designed to create economic competitiveness (vis a vis the United States (150)), and to counterbalance the attractiveness of Marxist "five year plans" (p. 186). That part is familiar enough. But this plan also includes the vast "colonies and protectorates." (150) So, he fits in a larger, now largely forgotten (although Duncan Bell (recall) and Or Roisenbom (recall) have recently reminded us) projects of European federation that have a global reach.
*Ortega y Gasset does not alert the reader that this may also involve giving up on claims of justice.
+This is also true of demands for compensation for historical injustices. But these at least promise a form of closure.
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