The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton Classics)

by Karl Popper

But the word ‘essential’ is widely used in a way which corresponds very well indeed with what we wish to express here; something opposed to the accidental or unimportant or changing empirical aspect of the thing, whether it is conceived as dwelling in that thing, or in a metaphysical world of Ideas.

With the Platonic theory, Aristotle contrasts his own, according to which the ‘good’ thing is not the starting point, but rather the end or aim of change since ‘good’ means a thing aimed at—the final cause of change.

Tolerance towards all who are not intolerant and who do not propagate intolerance.

This implies, especially, that the moral decisions of others should be treated with respect, as long as such decisions do not conflict with the principle of tolerance. (2) The recognition that all moral urgency has its basis in the urgency of suffering or pain. I suggest, for this reason, to replace the utilitarian formula ‘Aim at the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number’, or briefly, ‘Maximize happiness’, by the formula ‘The least amount of avoidable suffering for all’, or briefly, ‘Minimize suffering’. Such a simple formula can, I believe, be made one of the fundamental principles (admittedly not the only one) of public policy. (The principle ‘Maximize happiness’, in contrast, seems to be apt to produce a benevolent dictatorship.) We should realize that from the moral point of view suffering and happiness must not be treated as symmetrical; that is to say, the promotion of happiness is in any case much less urgent than the rendering of help to those who suffer, and the attempt to prevent suffering. (The latter task has little to do with ‘matters of taste’, the former much.)

(We may have to disarm and to imprison a criminal in order to prevent him from repeating his crimes, but too much of moral judgement and especially of moral indignation is always a sign of hypocrisy and pharisaism.)

A statement intended as a formulation of a law of nature is certainly man-made. We make the hypothesis that there is a certain invariable regularity, i.e. we describe the supposed regularity with the help of a statement, the natural law. But, as scientists, we are prepared to learn from nature that we have been wrong; we are prepared to recast the law if fresh facts which contradict our hypothesis show that our supposed law was no law, since it has been broken. In other words, by accepting nature’s nullification, the scientist shows that he accepts a hypothesis only as long as it has not been falsified; which is the same as to say that he regards a law of nature as a rule which cannot be broken, since he accepts the breaking of his rule as proof that his rule did not formulate a law of nature.

(This inference also seems to me the only one compatible with all we know about this type of superstition; all astrology, for instance, involves the apparently somewhat contradictory conception that the knowledge of our fate may help us to influence this fate.)

Plato’s way of thinking, described at the end of the present chapter (cp. text to note 45; and note 37 to chapter 8), especially the way he opposes The One monarch, The Few timocrats, to The Many who are nothing but a mob, may have suggested to him the belief that an increase in numbers is equivalent to a decline in quality.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

All these paradoxes can easily be avoided if we frame our political demands in the way suggested in section ii of this chapter, or perhaps in some such manner as this. We demand a government that rules according to the principles of equalitarianism and protectionism; that tolerates all who are prepared to reciprocate, i.e. who are tolerant; that is controlled by, and accountable to, the public. And we may add that some form of majority vote, together with institutions for keeping the public well informed, is the best, though not infallible, means of controlling such a government.

But this implies the Platonic doctrine that he who wields power ought to be wise rather than ignorant (or that only he who is wise ought to wield power); in opposition to the original Socratic doctrine that (everybody, and especially) he who wields power ought to be aware of his ignorance.

But those who let the cat out of the bag are prosecuted for atheism by the idealists.

The paragraph to which this note is appended indicates my adherence to an ‘absolutist’ theory of truth which is in accordance with the common idea that a statement is true if (and only if) it agrees with the facts it describes.

Probably there was also the influence of Democritus, who had taught: ‘The wise man belongs to all countries alike, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.’

There is, to my knowledge, only one real exception, one passage which stands in flagrant contrast to all this. In a passage (Theaetetus, 174e, f.), designed to illustrate the broad-mindedness and the universalistic outlook of the philosopher, we read: ‘Every man has had countless ancestors, and among them are in any case rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks.’ I do not know how to reconcile this interesting and definitely humanitarian passage—its emphasis on the parallelism master v. slave and Greek v. barbarian is reminiscent of all those theories which Plato opposes—with Plato’s other views. Perhaps it is, like so much in the Gorgias, Socratic;

Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all; and further, that unavoidable suffering—such as hunger in times of an unavoidable shortage of food—should be distributed as equally as possible.) There is some kind of analogy between this view of ethics and the view of scientific methodology which I have advocated in my The Logic of Scientific Discovery. It adds to clarity in the field of ethics if we formulate our demands negatively, i.e. if we demand the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness. Similarly, it is helpful to formulate the task of scientific method as the elimination of false theories (from the various theories tentatively proffered) rather than the attainment of established truths.

Secondly, the means are not, as it were, superseded once the end is achieved. For example, ‘bad’ means, such as a new powerful weapon used in war for the sake of victory, may, after this ‘end’ is achieved, create new trouble. In other words, even if something can be correctly described as a means to an end, it is, very often, much more than this. It produces other results apart from the end in question; and what we have to balance is not the (past or present) means against (future) ends, but the total results, as far as they can be foreseen, of one course of action against those of another. These results spread over a period of time which includes intermediate results; and the contemplated ‘end’ will not be the last to be considered.

In my story there should be ‘no villains … Crime is not interesting … It is what men do at their best, with good intentions … that really concerns us’.

The fact that a sentence appears to some or even to all of us to be ‘self-evident’, that is to say, the fact that some or even all of us believe firmly in its truth and cannot conceive of its falsity, is no reason why it should be true. (The fact that we are unable to conceive of the falsity of a statement is in many cases only a reason for suspecting that our power of imagination is deficient or undeveloped.) It is one of the gravest mistakes if a philosophy ever offers self-evidence as an argument in favour of the truth of a sentence; yet this is done by practically all idealist philosophies. It shows that idealist philosophies are often systems of apologetics for some dogmatic beliefs. The excuse that we are often in such a position that we must accept certain sentences for no better reason than that they are self-evident, is not valid.

Outside of pure logic and pure mathematics nothing can be proved.

Clear speaking is speaking in such a way that words do not matter.

(Recommending that we solve the problem of demarcation by using falsifiability or testability, or degrees of testability, as criterion of the empirical character of a scientific system, I suggested that it was of no advantage to introduce ‘meaningful’ as an emotive equivalent of ‘testable’.)

‘I can see a horse, Plato’, Antisthenes is reported to have said, ‘but I cannot see its horseness.’

I admire the mediæval cathedrals as much as anybody, and I am perfectly prepared to recognize the greatness and uniqueness of mediæval craftsmanship. But I believe that æstheticism must never be used as an argument against humanitarianism.

In regard to hedonism and utilitarianism, I believe that it is indeed necessary to replace their principle: maximize pleasure! by one which is probably more in keeping with the original views of Democritus and Epicurus, more modest, and much more urgent. I mean the rule: minimize pain! I believe (cp. chapters 9, 24, and 25) that it is not only impossible but very dangerous to attempt to maximize the pleasure or the happiness of the people, since such an attempt must lead to totalitarianism.

Laws to safeguard democracy are still in a rather rudimentary state of development. Very much could and should be done. The freedom of the press, for instance, is demanded because of the aim that the public should be given correct information; but viewed from this standpoint, it is a very insufficient institutional guarantee that this aim will be achieved. What good newspapers usually do at present on their own initiative, namely, giving the public all important information available, might be established as their duty, either by carefully framed laws, or by the establishment of a moral code, sanctioned by public opinion. Matters such as, for instance, the Zinovief letter, could be perhaps controlled by a law which makes it possible to nullify elections won by improper means, and which makes a publisher who neglects his duty to ascertain as well as possible the truth of published information liable for the damage done; in this case, for the expenses of a fresh election. I cannot go into details here, but it is my firm conviction that we could easily overcome the technological difficulties which may stand in the way of achieving such ends as the conduct of election campaigns largely by appeal to reason instead of passion. I do not see why we should not, for instance, standardize the size, type, etc., of the electioneering pamphlets, and eliminate placards. (This need not endanger freedom, just as reasonable limitations imposed upon those who plead before a court of justice ...

At the back of all this is the hope of casting out the devil from our world. Plato thought he could do it by banishing him to the lower classes, and ruling over him. The anarchists dreamt that once the state, the Political System, was destroyed, everything must turn out well. And Marx dreamt a similar dream of banishing the devil by destroying the economic system. These remarks are not intended to imply that it is impossible to make even rapid advances, perhaps even through the introduction of comparatively small reforms, such as, for example, a reform of taxation, or a reduction of the rate of interest. I only wish to insist that we must expect every elimination of an evil to create, as its unwanted repercussion, a host of new though possibly very much lesser evils, which may be on an altogether different plane of urgency. Thus the second principle of sane politics would be: all politics consists in choosing the lesser evil (as the Viennese poet and critic K. Kraus put it). And politicians should be zealous in the search for the evils their actions must necessarily produce instead of concealing them, since a proper evaluation of competing evils must otherwise become impossible.