Not So Confusing…

…at least to me…

In my recent post regarding Edmund Burke, The Enlightenment’s Critic of Reason, I offered:

There seems to be much controversy in interpreting and understanding Burke; there are also aspects of his thinking that run contrary to – or at least appear to run contrary to – the idea of liberty.  I will avoid all of this…

While I will still avoid this in the sense of making some definitive interpretive statement about Burke’s thinking, I do want to examine some of the controversy.  To begin, what is the controversy?  As offered by Gerard Casey:

When it comes to Burke’s writing, the critics divide. 

William Pitt described it as “a mass of rhapsodic effusion [commanding] little admiration.”  Thomas Paine attacked what he saw as Burke’s unjustified attack on the French, as did Marx – who, when criticizing Burke for his attack on the French Revolution, described him as a “sycophant…in the pay of the English oligarchy…”  Conversely, Burke is described as a “more radical thinker even than Karl Marx himself.” 

A good amount of the confusion and controversy appears to stem from Burke’s evolving position from the time of his early publication, A Vindication of Natural Society, to his later publications.  This early publication, written anonymously when Burke was 27 years old, is described as one of the first statements in defense of rationalistic and individual anarchism; later, Burke would be known for what could be described as more of a conservative-libertarian posture.

Burke would come to describe Vindication as satire; his anonymity having been revealed shortly before he was to take public office, a defense of anarchy and against the state would not sit well.  Most accept his explanation; there are some who do not.  One of these latter is Murray Rothbard. 

Casey comments on Rothbard’s assessment of Burke and his Vindication: Rothbard’s view that Burke should be taken literally has not gained meaningful acceptance.  I will suggest that Rothbard could very well be right; Burke may very well have been sincere – in both his earlier and his later writing.  To make my case, I will present as evidence none other than Murray Rothbard.

Rothbard wrote perhaps…I don’t know…200 million words in his lifetime.  Reading through his work throughout this time one will find evolving positions on various topics about liberty; some have commented here: “are you speaking of the early Rothbard or the later Rothbard?” 

Given the breadth, depth, and scope of Rothbard’s work, how could such evolution be otherwise?  I have stumbled with trying to encapsulate the work of Rothbard in bringing together thought from various schools and multiple thinkers into this thing we call libertarianism.  I have found someone who has stated this idea much more succinctly and clearly than I ever have.  Gerard Casey offers Wendy McElroy’s view on Rothbard:

In her view, Rothbard was a system builder who put together, in a unique fashion, elements that did not necessarily originate with him.

Casey also offers, from Joseph Stromberg, that it was Rothbard who pulled together classical liberalism, free-market anarchism, Austrian school economists, upholders of natural law and natural rights, “isolationists,” revisionist historians, and critics of the state.

Murray Rothbard’s goal was a grand synthesis of all of these forms of knowledge.

One can nitpick specific positions of Rothbard here and there; one can find examples of his thinking that have changed over time.  One cannot deny two things: first, he was successful at pulling off this “grand synthesis,” and second, regarding his evolving thinking, that his objective was always liberty and not the purity of libertarianism.

What do you want from someone who wrote 200 million words and pulled together into a logical whole these many disparate disciplines? 

So, returning to Burke: he was the first to write extensively on individualistic anarchism; he has been described as the first post-modern (i.e. deconstructing the Enlightenment) thinker – at the time when “modern” (i.e. the Enlightenment) was being born.  Why is it unreasonable to conclude that Burke was sincere in both his early phase and his later phase?  Why is it difficult to accept that the road to liberty requires thinking through anarchism and finding one’s self at more of a conservative-libertarian position?

I know at least one other person who has walked this path in search of liberty, and he is sitting at my keyboard typing these words.  Not so difficult for me to believe that this development is possible.

Conclusion

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

When it comes to thinking about liberty, from what I have read of Rothbard I know this verse was never applicable.  For Burke I can’t say, but to conclude that the verse is applicable is reasonable to me. 

Applicable to me?  An absolute certainty.

The Enlightenment’s Critic of Reason

Freedom's Progress?: A History of Political Thought, by Gerard Casey

I am moving ahead in Casey’s examination, past thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to Edmund Burke.  I am moving ahead because the elements of Enlightenment thinking to be found in some of these others are well-known – both for good and bad.

In Burke, we have perhaps the first – and best-known – critic of one of the most important elements of the Enlightenment: reason without tradition, reason fully individualized.

There seems to be much controversy in interpreting and understanding Burke; there are also aspects of his thinking that run contrary – or at least appear to run contrary – to the idea of liberty.  I will avoid all of this and focus on the areas that are clear to me – if these are controversial amongst scholars, I am going to add little of value to the conversation in this short review. 

Burke is commonly understood to reject “abstruse metaphysical reasoning about politics,” specifically the acceptance of the certainty of reason over history.  Casey offers:

I think it might be fairer to characterise Burke as not so much denying reason a place in politics but denying a certain abstract, detached and ahistorical view of reason that place.

Reason, devoid of history and tradition, seemed to be the target in Burke’s sights.  Burke finds reason a place, but not the highest place; there is a history – what Burke describes as “prejudices” – that comes in advance of reason, but not opposed to reason.  This is reason built on tradition.

Burke’s reason built on tradition inherently takes aim at the individual reason that perhaps holds the highest position in the Enlightenment.  In its place, Burke offers reason tempered by history.  Burke describes this history – this “prejudice,” as he puts it – as “manners.”  It might be compared to what I have described as culture, tradition, custom.

Burke thought manners mattered more than law and even more than morals inasmuch as both law and morals in large measure depend on manners. …Manners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.

Burke’s harshest criticism in this regard was leveled at the French revolutionaries, who have “set about destroying manners and natural piety.”  I think it seemed reasonable to them at the time, one head at a time.

Casey finds himself in substantial agreement with Burke on this point of manners, as do I.  He describes this point as consistent with the views of a culturally conservative libertarian.  I take the point further, as I find it the only path toward libertarianism: to the extent manners sooth, purify, exalt, and refine us, voluntary governance rises and monopoly government falls; the opposite is true when manners vex, corrupt, debase, and barbarize.

Conclusion

While Casey finds several points of disagreement with Burke, he does find agreeable one aspect of Burke’s thought:

…his reminder to us that human beings aren’t disembodied rational beings but are fleshly creatures of experience, custom, habit, historical precedent and religion, and that there’s a perpetual danger that a concern with abstract rights runs the risk of dissolving those prior and necessary human roots that perform the constitutive role for man in his social identity that memory does for his psychological memory.

A concern for “abstract rights” dissolves these “necessary human roots.”  We see this in the community of libertarians: what human roots are maintained in this community?  The only thing in common is this concern for abstract rights.  There is no community in this, just as there is no future for liberty in a society so constructed.

Not Quite Speaking Truth to Power

God in Public: How the Bible Speaks Truth to Power Today, by N. T. Wright

From the time I began reading this book, I had been looking forward to this chapter, chapter 8 entitled “Christian virtue in peace and war.”  Several factors contributed to my anticipation:  first, combine this title with the title of the book – regarding war, in what manner would Wright recommend that we speak “truth to power” in this world; second, Wright had made several less-than-flattering comments regarding the post-911 militarism of the US and the UK; third, as the example for us, he emphasizes Jesus speaking to the high priest and Pilate in John 18 & 19; fourth, he offers that Christians must hold their government leaders to account.

I was anticipating a call to Christian leaders to come together and denounce the militarism (and other similar evils) of their government leaders.  Imagine my disappointment when what I read was not a lesson on how to speak truth to power using Jesus as a model, but why it makes sense to base our virtue on the military model.  Even as I write these words, I cannot fathom that Wright would make this connection – not that I have read much of him beyond this book.

Wright begins by examining the etymology of the words character and virtue.  He considers how one can develop the strength of character into a virtuous pattern of thought such that one will almost automatically act virtuous in any circumstance (a ‘second nature’).  He offers, as one such example, the actions of Chesley Sullenberger (Sully) in landing his plane full of passengers in the Hudson River – having studied and practiced every possible scenario over a career of flying, Sully did not have to “think” before he acted; he knew how to act in order to save the passengers of the plane.

“Some people at the time called it a ‘miracle’.”  Wright prefers not to label such events in this way:

…I think sometimes our culture reaches for the category of ‘miracle’ because we haven’t wanted to face the challenge of character, of virtue.

Wright offers four mainstream theories about how practical ethics actually works, with our culture stuck somewhere amongst the first three: the first way is the way of rules, a list of dos and don’ts; the second is just to do what comes naturally; the third option lies somewhere in-between, determined via utilitarian or consequentialist methods – the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers, or some such (not at all subject to calculation, of course).

The fourth is the approach that Wright would commend: that of virtue via a development of strength of character.  Having done the hard work of thinking through what ‘justice’, for example, means, one develops the means to always act justly.

Of course, nothing about this fourth approach works without considering ‘ends’, and living within a society that values the same ends or goals or telos.

Vice can be, just as much as virtue, a fixed habit of the heart.

Like I said, one man’s vice is another man’s virtue.  Aristotle considered the goal to be ‘happiness.’  The meaning of this, of course, has shifted over time.  Herein is our challenge today:

…the challenge for us today, in peace as well as in war, has to do with a fresh glimpse of the goals we should be setting ourselves right across Western society, and then the character strengths we need to develop in order to come at these goals.

Aristotle offered the four cardinal virtues: courage, justice, temperance, and prudence.  For any of these to exist, one needs all four.  For this we need moral teaching, as moral teaching will produce human beings who do the right thing by second nature:

…a full, genuine human life is found not by blindly following rules but by becoming the sort of person who acts in the right way because that’s the sort of person they have become through the sheer slog of character building. (Emphasis in original.)

Our present culture, instead, values spontaneity, or authenticity.  Of course, these might be a vice, or might be a virtue – this really only can be addressed in terms of ends.

Wright offers an interesting aside: it is the left – the left of spontaneity and authenticity – that has been the side, while in government, to introduce the most cumbersome and detailed ‘rules’.  This isn’t surprising: as the left devalues culture and tradition (and religion) to the point of irrelevancy, rules for living must come from somewhere.  There will be governance – either from culture and tradition or from man-made rules; governance cannot be avoided if there is to be any meaningful society.

It is the right that is after strict moral rules, desiring to put the genie of liberalism back in the bottle.  This, of course, cannot be done.  So, what is the way forward?

Once more, we need education. 

Given the ends necessary for liberty – let alone for a theologian of Wright’s standing – you might think that it would be education through the church that Wright suggests.  Well, not exactly:

If the schools can’t or won’t provide the development of character and virtue, then, as before, it’s up to the professions, not least the armed forces, to provide it instead.

Yes, you read that right.  Wright offers examples of virtuous behavior to be found in the armed forces – throwing one’s self on a grenade to save his comrades, things like that. 

There are too many problems with Wright’s statement to unpack simply: when was this “as before” time; what “professions”; why not the church; the “armed forces” are the most rule-based institution in the world – there is no virtuous behavior, there is only following orders…or else.

There is nothing to be learned about virtuous behavior from any government institution, least of all the armed forces. 

Wright has the most perfect example of speaking truth to power in his own backyard – and example of one being made a martyr.  This courageous and virtuous individual has been held as if a prisoner in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than six years.

Julian Assange has spoken truth to power.  If the Christian church would do a fraction of what he has done, the world would be a much different – and safer, and more peaceful, and more free – place.

Conclusion

Did Jesus mimic the “virtue” of the Roman soldiers when speaking truth to Pilate?  Give me a break.

You Are Not Viable

I have not discussed abortion for some time.  I have written my most comprehensive post on the topic specifically in response to Walter Block’s evictionism argument; given his “evictionism” argument, I took the approach of a rental real estate transaction and contract.  Walter and I went back and forth on it a time or two. 

Given that this was written four years ago, I might refresh it a bit today, but overall it offers my view – specifically taking the contract / property approach.  My primary view on this topic, however, is driven by other causes.  Causes like murder of innocents.

It is curious to me (I have no better word) that those who advocate for a society based on the non-aggression principle advocate for the ultimate aggression on the individuals least capable of defending themselves, individuals that are most vulnerable to aggression by another, individuals who are totally innocent regarding their circumstance. 

If libertarianism based on the non-aggression principle supports such aggression, it is a philosophy that offers no defense against any type of aggression.

Why am I discussing this today?  Walter has written a brief blog post, followed thereafter by a comment from Michael Rozeff.  It is not to Walter that I will reply, but to Rozeff.  I have to say, I had a difficult time reading Rozeff’s post; he offers, first, some facts:

What are we talking about? “In 2015, 638,169 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. The abortion rate for 2015 was 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years…” That’s a little over 1 woman in a hundred. There’s a lot of women in America, so the absolute number is also a lot; but it’s not large relative to the population.

More than any other statement in his post, it is this one that I cannot stomach.  Yes, I am used to libertarians favoring this type of aggression; few have had the courage to put numbers to it and – more so – suggest that six-hundred thousand is no big deal.

Over six-hundred thousand deaths in one year, all due to the same cause.  Reminds me of Madeline Albright – 500,000 Iraqi children’s deaths were worth it. Relative to the total population, not such a big deal.

He then offers the breakdown by the time elapsed after conception.  This is important to him for the following reason: almost 99% of all abortions occur before the twentieth week of the unborn child’s life.  And guess what?

The facts of abortion show that virtually all abortions are of fetuses that could not survive outside the womb.

Nor can any new-born babies, without assistance.

The question is when does a fetus gain the right to life. A sensible answer as well as one not at variance with actual abortions is that it gains this right when it is capable of surviving outside the womb, with assistance, of course. (Emphasis added.)

Wait a minute.  If a newborn baby has a right to this assistance, why not an unborn child?  What is different in any meaningful sense?  The newborn baby is entirely dependent on others for food, drink, sanitation, safety, protection from the elements, etc.  Basically, the exact same items of “assistance” that the unborn child – even one less than 20 weeks – requires.

To be a live human being, one must be capable of be-ing, even if it requires assistance that pregnancy or medical substitutes provide after 24 weeks. Fetuses that cannot survive outside the womb are not yet human beings, according to this theory.

Babies outside of the womb cannot survive without virtually identical assistance. 

“You are not viable.”  If this is the criteria for one to have the right to not be victim of aggression, well…let’s open the door to eugenics, assisted suicide, final solutions to the mentally and physically disabled, individuals with IQs below 70, etc. 

Where do you draw the line?  On what basis?  Who will decide?

Conclusion

In my estimation, abortion is not a major problem in America.

More than six-hundred thousand deaths per year all due to the same cause, and this is not a major problem. 

Epilogue

Rozeff begins early in his post with the following:

If a woman wants an abortion, I do not see how anyone can make her not have it. She cannot be forced to carry to term. Call that her right, if you want to.

I am not suggesting that I have an answer.  However, it is pointless to work on an answer if we cannot agree that murder is aggression.

The unborn child is the only innocent person in this exchange.  The woman took an action to become pregnant, as did the man in impregnating her.  If no responsibility comes to either of these two with this action, society (to say nothing of liberty) is 100% lost.