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Virtue, Obligation and Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Stephen G. Salkever
Stephen G. Salkever*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the terms “virtue,” “obligation,” and “politics,” a project suggested by similar analyses currently underway in the field of ethics. The essence of the study is the contrast between politics understood in terms of virtue (as by Plato, Aristotle, and, in a way, Rousseau) and politics understood in terms of obligation (as by Hobbes, Locke, John Rawls and, in a way, Rousseau). The paper argues that obligation and virtue form the center of two separate languages or paradigms for the formulation and discussion of basic political questions, and discusses the theoretical grounds for the neglect of the language of virtue by the greater part of modern political thought. This discussion, while pointing to the possible weaknesses of the language of virtue, also serves to indicate (directly and by contrast) the limitations of the language of obligation as a way of understanding politics.

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Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 78 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 Anscombe, G. E. M., “Modern Moral Philosophy,” reprinted in The Is-Ought Question, ed. Hudson, William D. (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 175–195 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Cunningham, Stanley B., “Does ‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest upon a Mistake’ Make an Even Greater Mistake?,” Monist, 54 (January, 1970), 86–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Frankena, William K., “Prichard and the Ethics of Virtue,” Monist, 54 (January, 1970), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both Cunningham and Frankena take as their point of departure Prichard's, H. A. paradigm-setting essay, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest upon a Mistake?,” reprinted in Prichard, , Moral Obligation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 1–17 Google Scholar.

4 Hampshire, Stuart, “A New Philosophy of the Just Society,” New York Review of Books, February 24, 1972, pp. 34–39 Google Scholar. Hampshire's article is an extended review of Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar. Both Hampshire and Marshall Cohen (in his review of Rawls's, book in The New York Times Book Review, July 16, 1972, p. 1 Google Scholar) praise Rawls's study; but both, and especially Hampshire, have reservations about the value of Rawls's political theory, reservations which are based on their feeling that Rawls has not sufficiently explored the possibilities of what I will be calling the language of virtue in political philosophy. See Hampshire, p. 38, and Cohen, p. 18.

5 Frankena argues that “moral philosophy must fully explore the possibility of a satisfactory ethics of virtue as an alternative or supplement to one of obligation …,” (“Prichard and the Ethics of Virtue,” p. 17).

6 The distinction between ethics (or morality) and politics is itself the result of a particular way of understanding both ethics and politics. In my terms, the distinction is much more appropriate and important to politics conceived in terms of obligation (for which ethics tends to become the residual class of all nonobligatory “duties”), than to politics conceived in terms of virtue or ways of life.

7 Throughout this paper I will refer to “contemporary political philosophy” as if there were one single position or school that could be identified in this way. This is surely an oversimplification, but I think such an identification is plausible, as well as useful for the purposes of my argument. For examples of this position, consider Concepts in Social and Political Philosophy, ed. Flathman, Richard E. (New York: Macmillan, 1973)Google Scholar; Political Philosophy, ed. Quinton, Anthony (London: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; and Raphael, David, Problems of Political Philosophy (New York: Praeger, 1970)Google Scholar. There are undeniably some notable nonconforming summary conceptions of the tasks of political philosophy, such as that of Kateb, George, Political Theory (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968), p. 3 Google Scholar.

8 A different and more complex formulation of the distinction between power and authority is presented by Arendt, Hannah in On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1970), pp. 44–45 Google Scholar.

9 See Below, p. 90. For a similar characterization, see Euben, J. Peter, “Water's Obligations,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (Summer, 1972), 438–459 Google Scholar.

10 Social Contract, book I, chapter 1, in Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Oeuvres Complètes, Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel, eds. (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Editions Gallimard, 1959–), III, 351 Google Scholar. Cf. Social Contract (First Version), book I, chapter 3, O.C. III, 289: “Man is born free, and nevertheless he is everywhere in chains” (emphasis added). Speaking of the paradigmatic character of this passage, John Carnes makes the following comment: “This paragraph … might be taken as the motto, not only of social contract theory, but of the whole of political theory.” “Myths, Bliks, and the Social Contract,” Journal of Value Inquiry, 4 (Summer, 1970), 105–118, at 114 Google Scholar.

11 Or, less dramatically, of the marketplace. The view that the disappearance of politics is a necessary consequence of the fundamental premises of modern moral and political philosophy is stated in a plausible manner by R. P. Wolff: “If all men have a continuing obligation to achieve the highest degree of autonomy possible, then there would appear to be no state whose subjects have a moral obligation to obey its commands. Hence, the concept of a de jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous, and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man.” In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 19 Google Scholar. See also Wolff, , “On Violence,” Journal of Philosophy, 66 (October 2, 1969), 601–616 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The less than plausible aspect of Wolff's argument is that once he has shown that the political problem can not be solved in terms of the language of obligation and legitimacy, he concludes that the problem is simply insoluble. This conclusion neglects the possibility, that the problem might be solvable in some other terms, or (as I shall try to show) that the problem itself is the result of certain prior philosophical presuppositions, and hence is only one possible philosophical conception of politics among several, all of which must be considered before we say that political philosophy as such secretes philosophical anarchism. An interesting discussion of the relationship between descriptive conceptions of politics and normative political rules is provided by Taylor, Charles, “Neutrality in Political Science,” in Philosophy, Politics and Society, 3rd series, ed. Laslett, Peter and Runciman, W. G. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), pp. 25–57 Google Scholar.

12 I do not mean to suggest that these two concerns are necessarily mutually exclusive, although a concentration on one of these distinctions might well require an abstraction from the other (since each distinction tends to appear insignificant when viewed from the perspective of the other). Consider, for example, Aristotle's abstraction from (or at the very least, obscuring of) intellectual virtue when he presents the grounds for distinguishing between slaves and free men (citizens) in Politics 1. 5. 1259b22–1260a34.

13 See Strauss, Leo, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, Inc., 1964), chapters 1 and 2Google Scholar. For Rawls, and for modern political thought in general, this question can not be rationally answered. See A Theory of Justice, section 50.

14 Anscombe's criticism of the ethics of obligation rests in part on the argument that an adequate moral philosophy is impossible without an adequate philosophical psychology; that is, it is impossible to say what a good action is until we are clear about “what a human action is at all.” “Modern Moral Philosophy,” p. 179. Stuart Hampshire argues that any idea of human goodness depends on some idea of “the distinctive powers of humanity.” Thought and Action (New York: The Viking Press, 1967), chapter 4Google Scholar. Stephen Clark discusses and defends the Aristotelian argument from “distinctive powers” to moral principle in “The Use of ‘Man's Function’ in Aristotle,” Ethics, 82 (July, 1972), 269–283 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 This is the basis of John Stuart Mill's proof of the utility principle in Utilitarianism, chapter 4. The difficulty here is that in this view of human action, rational interpersonal comparison becomes impossible. Rawls (p. 174) attempts to overcome this difficulty by specifying the existence of certain objective “primary social goods, things that every rational person is presumed to want whatever else he wants.” A critical account of Rawls's attempt is given by Schwartz, Adina, “Moral Neutrality and Primary Goods,” Ethics, 83 (July, 1973), 294–307 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 This view is suggested by, among others, Hobbes: “The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn into agreement.” Leviathan, ed. Oakeshott, Michael (Oxford: Blackwell's Political Texts, Basil Blackwell, 1946), chapter 13, p. 84 Google Scholar. The classical criticism of this conception of politics as an alliance for the purpose of avoiding death is presented by Aristotle, , Politics, 3. 5. 1280a25–1281a9Google Scholar. According to Aristotle, such an alliance is a necessary precondition of politics, but is not itself political.

17 This conception of human nature and politics is drawn from some modern writers who might be called existentialist or historicist, such as F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Section 188; Ortega y Gasset, Revolt of the Masses, chapter 13 (beginning). Jean-Paul Sartre's contention that man defines himself by his “project” seems to be in line with this development; see Search For a Method, trans. Barnes, Hazel (New York: Knopf, 1963), pp. 150 ffGoogle Scholar. A case might be made that such a view also informs Kant's moral philosophy; at least, it seems to be present in the neo-Kantian interpretations of Rousseau, such as those of Ernst Cassirer and Robert Déathé. For example, see Dérathé's, discussion in his Le Rationalisme de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), pp. 182ff.Google Scholar

18 Aristotle, Politics 7. 13.Google Scholar, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 13 Google Scholar.

19 I will be using the opposition economic man/political man throughout this paper. It is intended to express the distinction between a life directed by private or personal desire or inclination, and a life directed by a strong sense of public duty. “Economic,” as I use it, then, is not to be equated with “commercial” (since it could also refer to crime, self-defense, art, and hobbies), although commercial activity is one of the most common and important forms of economic activity, in my sense of the word. The idea of economic activity (in this broad sense) as opposed and in some way prior to political activity is discussed by Aristotle, Politics 3. 5.Google Scholar, and by Plato in his description of the immediate predecessor of the genuine polis in the Republic Book II, 371d4ff. The applicability of the concept of economic man to early modern political thought is suggested by Macpherson, C. B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (London: Oxford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar, and by Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), chapter 5Google Scholar. John Rawls places himself squarely in this tradition of political thought when he argues for the appropriateness of the model of rational (economic) choice for all moral and political situations. For Rawls, political philosophy is understood to be a special case (choice under uncertainty) of the theory of rational choice. A Theory of Justice, p. 172.

20 Rawls excludes the issue of ways of life from the range of rational deliberation on fundamental political questions. Rational public decisions can only be made about the distribution of primary social goods, not about the encouragement of certain life styles or ways of life making use of those goods. Rawls, pp. 142-145. Both Hampshire, p. 38, and Cohen, p. 18, in their reviews of Rawls, regard this as a shortcoming of Rawls's theory of justice.

21 This is not to say that the ends of a polity and its manner of institution (or integration) may not have real consequences for one another, but that what is most particularly important about politics (as a distinct human activity) are its ends or goals.

22 Plato is surely not as firmly committed as Aristotle to the appropriateness of the natural standard for evaluating politics. This will appear, I think, if we compare Book 1 of the Politics with the cave story and the myth of Er in the Republic. Plato's doubts, however, seem to center not on the suitability of the natural standard for judging politics, but on whether the differences among polities are significant in the light of the natural standard. In other words, the doubt is not about the standard, but about politics.

23 For Aristotle, the distinction has to be made in teleological terms. See Politics 3. 5. Consider also his discussion of citizenship in Book 3 of the Politics, which turns on the difference between those who are really citizens and those who are only called citizens. The difference between the merely conventional and the real citizen is stated in terms of the purpose of politics.

24 The description and comparison of different ways of life in terms of their desiring or erotic dimension is provided by Plato in the Republic Book 5, 474c8 to the end of Book 5.

25 In speaking of “philosophers” here I am not referring to the substantial professional group that sometimes goes by that name. I am also obscuring, because of the nature of this introductory context, any possible differences between a philosopher (a lover of truth and wisdom) and a wise man (a possessor of truth).

26 It can be argued that this is, in fact, the Platonic view. See Statesman 257b2–4, and Republic Book 10, 619b7–d1. Sometimes Plato does suggest there can be substantial differences in quality among different nonphilosophic ways of life. But these suggestions often appear to rest upon what are for Plato suspect (or nonphilosophic) premises, such as the quantifiability of human happiness (Republic Book 9, 587b10–588a10; Protagoras 356c4–357b5), or the adequacy of traditional piety (Crito 53a9–54d1). This is not to say that these differences are unimportant from some nonphilosophic perspective—such as that of the citizen.

27 The most consistent application of a standard of this kind is to be found in Aristotle's Politics, perhaps most clearly in Book 7. J. J. Mulhern explains the complexity of the Aristotelian, standard in “Pantachou Kata Physin hē Aristē,” Phronesis, 12 (1972), 260–268 Google Scholar. See also Plato, Republic Book 10, 599c6–d4Google Scholar, Montesquieu, , De l'Esprit des Lois, vol. I, Book 5Google Scholar, and Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. The applicability of such a standard to contemporary politics is considered by Berns, Walter, “Pornography vs. Democracy: A Case for Censorship,” Public Interest, 22 (Winter, 1971), 3–24 Google Scholar, and by Wilson Carey McWilliams's response to Berns, in the same issue, pp. 32–38.

28 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 10, 1178b1–10Google Scholar; Politics Book 8, 1325a–b; Plato, Republic, Book 1, 347b5–d9Google Scholar. One of the great questions of the Republic is that of the compatibility of the requirements of justice with the requirements of the happiness of the philosopher. As Simon Aronson says, “If Plato does opt for making the city happy, and thus devises ways of persuading the philosopher [to be just], his recognition of the possible need to ‘compel’ (520a8) indicates his awareness that the tension is a real one.” “The Happy Philosopher: A Counter-Example to Plato's Proof,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 10 (October, 1972), 383–398, at 396 Google Scholar.

29 Consider, for example, Aristotle's criticism of Plato's analysis of the polis in Politics 2. 1., and of the Platonic analysis of the good in Nicomachean Ethics 1. 6.

30 Compare the understanding of politics displayed in the Social Contract with that of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. For a discussion of the problem of Rousseau's political language, see Launay, Michel, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ecrivain Politique,” L'Information Littéraire, 22 (September, 1970), 157–163 Google Scholar. Rousseau's awareness of the problem is indicated in his “Préface d'une Seconde Lettre à Bordes,” O.C., III, p. 105.

31 Another way of putting this would be to say that virtue is to be taken here as a general concept rather than a particular conception. For a discussion of this distinction with reference to American constitutional concepts and conceptions, see Dworkin, R., “Nixon's Jurisprudence,” New York Review of Books (May 4, 1972), pp. 27–35 Google Scholar.

32 This characteristic of the modern language of moral and political philosophy is discussed by Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy.”

33 The special quality of the answer in question could be expressed succinctly by the Greek logō, which would suggest an answer by means of that reason which is expressed in human speech. The argument that the task of any moral philosophy is to supply “the ultimate grounds for preferring one way of life to another” is made by Hampshire, Stuart, “Morality and Pessimism,” New York Review of Books (January 25, 1973), 26–33, at 27Google Scholar.

34 This step is very concisely set forth in the first paragraph of Chapter 11 of Hobbes's Leviathan.

35 Locke, , Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Gough, J. W. (Oxford: Blackwell's Political Texts, Basil Blackwell, 1946), p. 128 Google Scholar. See also Second Treatise, chapter 11, sect 134, p. 67.

36 Marx, and Engels, , German Ideology, Part I, in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed. and trans. Easton, Lloyd D. and Guddat, Kurt H. (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 424–425 Google Scholar. Even in his direct confrontation with the liberal view, On the Jewish Question (in Easton and Guddat), Marx criticizes the liberals not in the name of equality or community, but of liberty or emancipation. An interesting commentary on the passage in question is provided by Walzer, Michael, “A Day in the Life of a Socialist Citizen,” in Walzer, , Obligations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 229ff.Google Scholar

37 Perhaps the most influential and painstaking development of this position is David Hume's, in A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III, Part I, sections 1–2.

38 As in J. S. Mill's famously ambiguous claim that “the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.” Utilitarianism, chapter 4, in The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill, ed. Cohen, Marshall (New York: The Modern Library, Random House, 1961), p. 363 Google Scholar.

39 Rawls attempts to demonstrate the rationality of a rule of justice requiring preferential treatment for the least favored members of society. As Rawls indicates, however, the rationality of this rule depends upon the rationality of something like what game theorists call a maximum strategy in matters of fundamental political choice. That this strategy is the rationally appropriate one in this circumstance is open to question, as in the reviews by Cohen (p. 18) and by Hampshire (p. 39) and by Arrow, Kenneth J., “Some Ordinalist-Utilitarian Notes on Rawls's Theory of Justice,” Journal of Philosophy, 70 (May 10, 1973), 245–263 Google Scholar.

40 This is not at all to say that the prominence of the question of obligation was historically caused solely or even primarily by events in epistemology or metaphysics. At least part of the reason for the pre-eminence of obligation can plausibly be ascribed to a change in the form of the prevailing patterns of social interaction, roughly described by the transition from face to face communities to the distinction between state and society. See Euben, , “Walzer's Obligations,” pp. 439–440 Google Scholar. Similarly, a strong case can be made for assigning the decisive part in this transition to Christianity, as suggested by Hegel, , The Philosophy of History, trans. Sibree, J. (New York: Dover, 1956), introduction, p. 18 Google Scholar and part IV, p. 342, and by Bergson, , The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trans. Audra, R. Ashley and Brereton, Cloudesley (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1935), chapter 4Google Scholar. My point is rather that the philosophic significance of the question of obligation (and thus its theoretical, if not its historical, justification) can be grasped by a consideration of the theoretical grounds for discarding the question of virtue.

41 Such a view is almost formulaic in early modern political thought. Among others, see Montesquieu, , De l'Esprit des Lois, Vol. I, Book 12, Chapters 1–2 (Paris: Gamier Frères, 1961), pp. 196–197 Google Scholar, and Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 21.

42 This distinction rests on Kant's distinction between a kind of hypothetical (nonmoral) and a categorical (moral) imperative. See Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Beck, Lewis W. (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), section II, p. 33 Google Scholar. For the use of this distinction in the context of the question of moral obligation, see Gewirth, Alan, “Must One Play the Moral Language Game,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (April, 1970), 107–118 Google Scholar. See also Prichard, H. A., Moral Obligation, pp. 90–91 Google Scholar.

43 This confusion of authority and power would still exist even if we were to assume the rather unlikely condition that obedience to law will always be in our (or everyone's) interest.

44 “Unimportant” in that it deals only with minimal and instrumental necessities, the items Rawls identifies as “primary social goods,” and does not concern the more important question of what to do with the goods.

45 Although this position is characteristic of a certain kind of modern political thought, it was by no means unknown to Plato and Aristotle. Consider Glaucon's speech about the value of justice in Republic Book II; the speech of Callicles in the Gorgias 483b4–484c4; Aristotle's criticism of the sophist Lycophron, in Politics Book 3, 1280b11–13Google Scholar; and especially the statement by Antiphon, the Sophist, , On Truth, Fragment B44 in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 7th ed., ed. Diels, H. and Kranz, W. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1951–1954), vol. 2, 346–355 Google Scholar. Something of a confrontation between this view and the position of ancient political philosophy is presented by Xenophon in his descriptions of three conversations between Socrates and Antiphon, Memorabilia Book I, chapter 6. The basic disagreement appears to be over the issue of human needs. On this meeting, see Strauss, Leo, Xenophon's Socrates (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), pp. 28–31 Google Scholar.

46 One of the most systematic attempts to accommodate the question of the best life to the question of liberty is made by Mill in Utilitarianism, especially in the context of the distinction between higher and lower pleasures drawn in chapter 2 of that essay. Whether Mill was successful is extremely controversial. A neo-Kantian refutation of Mill is given by Wolff, R. P., Poverty of Liberalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), chapter 1Google Scholar. That Mill was unsuccessful in his attempt to reconcile liberty and duty is also argued by Gildin, Hilail, “Mill's On Liberty ,” in Cropsey, Joseph, ed., Ancients and Moderns (New York: Basic Books, 1964), pp. 288–303 Google Scholar. An argument for Mill's consistency is given by Martin, Rex, “A Defence of Mill's Qualitative Hedonism,” Philosophy, 47 (April, 1972), 140–151 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 See especially Arendt, Hannah “What is Freedom?” in Between Past and Future (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1963), pp. 143–171 Google Scholar, and The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), chapters 2 and 5Google ScholarPubMed. Arendt's argument that the source of this view can be traced to Greek political practice seems to me highly questionable; but this problem has no bearing on the significance of the conception of politics involved. See also Thompson, Kirk, “Constitutional Theory and Political Action,” Journal of Politics, 31 (August, 1969), 655–681 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Wolff's argument in The Poverty of Liberalism proceeds from a rejection of the liberal position as logically inconsistent, to an attempt to demonstrate the existence (in principle) of a political community which can serve as the source of authority and obligation.

49 Just as, for Kant, a truly good action can have no connection with self-interest. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Preface, p. 6; Section I, p. 13. On this point, Rawls is much closer to Mill than to Kant, in his argument that political principles must be in the interest of each individual for social control to be just or legitimate. See A Theory of Justice, Section 29.

50 “Freedom as a demonstrable fact and politics coincide and are related to each other like two sides of the same matter” (“What Is Freedom?,” p. 149). This conception of freedom and politics as coterminous and inseparable is similar to Marx's assertion that unalienated (or free) human activity is species (or political) activity. See “Alienated Labor,” in Easton, and Guddat, , p. 294 Google Scholar. Another directly related formulation is implicit in Rousseau's position that since freedom and citizenship are inseparable, and since citizenship is not always pleasant or in one's interest (and hence not always or necessarily immediately chosen for its own sake), some men will have to be “forced to be free” (Social Contract, bk. I, chap. 7, O.C., Vol. III, 364). For a comparison (from a liberal viewpoint) of something like the two concepts of liberty I have been considering here, see Berlin, Isaiah, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in his Four Essays on Liberty (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 118–172 Google Scholar.

51 An excellent illustration of the organization of the debate in terms of a conflict over the true meaning of freedom is provided by Marx in his attack on liberalism in the name of genuine liberation in the essay On the Jewish Question. In criticizing liberalism for achieving “political emancipation” only, Marx is criticizing the liberal insistence on the separation of politics and society, in which society stands for the realm which is emancipated from political control. But, according to Marx, the real liberation of man as species-being is the emancipation of a creature who has evolved beyond the stage of “man as an isolated monad” (or free economic man) and has “taken back into himself the abstract citizen [of liberalism] and in his everyday life, his individual work, and his individual relationship has become a species-being, … only then is human emancipation complete” (emphasis in text). On the Jewish Question, in the Easton, and Guddat, edition, pp. 235–241 Google Scholar. A similar distinction is drawn by Hegel in his argument for political (or universal) freedom in preference to individual (or particular) freedom in Philosophy of History, Introduction, p. 38, and in Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox, T. M. (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), sections 182–187Google Scholar.

52 A good discussion of this in the context of constitutional issues is that by Berns, Walter, Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), especially chapter 10Google Scholar.

53 Again, at this point in the argument “virtue” is intended as a concept rather than a conception, in terms of the distinction referred to in note 31.

54 Freedom here is understood very broadly, and in this sense can include an idea of security or secure preservation. An example of this usage can be found in the passage in Montesquieu referred to in note 41 above: “Political liberty consists in security, or at least in the opinion that one has of one's security.”

55 This is the source of the distinction between the open and the closed society. The not so remote vulgarizations of these paired oppositions are the popular divisions of contemporary politics into Free World vs. Slave World, and Third (communitarian nationalist) World vs. Imperialist (capitalist) World.

56 Of course, these may be classified as “cultural” differences, and since (given cultural relativism) they are therefore incommensurable (at least morally), they are not fit subjects for a generalizing and evaluative political philosophy. I am not concerned here with the possible truth of this claim (it would be necessary to examine the plausibility of the asserted moral incommensurability of cultural phenomena); but note that this position implies a political philosophy which, at least in its explicitly evaluative procedures, must ignore the political consequences of “culture.”

57 This point is brilliantly, though perhaps too briefly, made by Benjamin DeMott in his essay, “Pure Politics,” which reviews the work of Arendt and others. DeMott, , You Don't Say: Studies of Modern American Inhibitions (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1966), pp. 169–182 Google Scholar.

58 I am using “paradigm” here only for clarification, and with almost the same meaning that I wish to convey by the word “language.” Paradigm refers to the heart or grammar of the language, the rules for the proper ordering of concepts and vocabulary, the element that gives the language its particular character and structure. This usage is like the one established by Kuhn, Thomas S. in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), chap. 5Google Scholar; however, I do not share, and the use of “paradigm” here should not be taken to imply, Kuhn's relativist assertion of the incommensurability of competing paradigms. The case for considering the history of political ideas in terms of paradigms is presented by Parekh, Bhiku and Berki, R. N., “The History of Political Ideas: A Critique of Q. Skinner's Methodology,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 34 (April, 1973), 163–184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by Greenleaf, W. H., “Hume, Burke and the General Will,” Political Studies, 20 (1972), 131–140 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 139–140.

59 Leo Strauss's controversial discussions of these issues are of continuing importance. Relevant here are the Introduction to The City and Man, Strauss's, “Epilogue” to Essays on the Scientific Study of Politics, ed. Storing, Herbert J. (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1962)Google Scholar, and his essays “What Is Political Philosophy” and “On Classical Political Philosophy,” reprinted in Strauss, , What Is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe: Free Press, 1959)Google Scholar. The strongest and broadest defense of the modern understanding of political philosophy is still Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1945), Vol. I Google Scholar. An interesting discussion and criticism of some of the central features of the modern paradigm is provided by Aune, Bruce, “The Paradox of Empiricism,” Metaphilosophy, 1 (April, 1970), 128–138 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An interesting consideration of the theoretical alternatives underlying the alternative conceptions of morals and politics is presented by Dorter, Kenneth, “First Philosophy: Metaphysics or Epistemology?,” Dialogue 11 (March, 1972), 1–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 The importance and interest of Rousseau for a study of the strengths and limits of the two conceptions of politics discussed here can hardly be overemphasized. Rousseau's treatment of politics in the Social Contract and elsewhere presents one of the best known uses of the legitimacy paradigm, “community” variation. And yet Rousseau also insists, in a way that other legitimacy theorists (like Hobbes and Locke) do not, on the intimate connection of (a kind of) virtue and politics. Moreover, no reader of Rousseau can avoid being impressed by the depth, complexity, and even by the uncertainty, of his concern with the question of the best life. Unlike almost any other modern writer, Rousseau was led by this concern to consider not only the question of the best political life, but also that of the best alternatives to politics or citizenship, thereby compelling his readers to engage in the process of comparing political virtue with nonpolitical virtue or virtues. In the terms of this analysis, Rousseau holds a unique position as an uncommonly brilliant (though not necessarily successful) link between the language of legitimacy and obligation on the one hand and the language of virtue on the other.

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