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Common Good and Common Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Yves R. Simon
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Extract

Anarchy is rarely or never upheld with consistency. In the pedagogy of Rousseau, there is a set purpose to let the child be guided by natural necessity rather than by human command, and to let him learn from the experience of physical facts rather than by obedience. “Keep the child solely dependent on things; you will have followed the order of Nature in the process of his upbringing. Never oppose to his unreasonable wishes any but physical obstacles or punishments resulting from the actions themselves — he will remember these punishments in similar situations. It is enough to prevent him from doing evil without forbidding him to do it …” (Emile, II). Remarkably, the theory that the method of authority is a poor substitute for the pedagogical power of nature has been accepted, in varying degree of enthusiasm or reluctance, by most schools of pedagogy and has demonstrated lasting power. Yet the authority of parents and tutors is present throughout pedagogical theories, even when it is passed over in silence. Childhood is the domain where the suppression of all authority is obviously impossible. The most radical constructs of anarchy, as soon as they rise above the level of idle rhetoric, admit of qualifications so far at least as the immature part of mankind is concerned. Anti-authoritarian theorists, with few exceptions if any, do not mean that authority should disappear or that it can ever cease to be a factor of major importance in human affairs. What thinkers opposed to authority generally mean is that authority can never be vindicated except by such deficiencies as are found in children, in the feeble-minded, the emotionally unstable, the criminally inclined, the illiterate, and the historically primitive.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1960 , pp. 202 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1960

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References

1 Nietzsche, F., The Birth of Tragedy (Garden City, N. Y., 1956), p. 24Google Scholar.

2 Eth.1.2. 1094 b 7.

3 The notion of contingency conveyed by “happen” is understoodhere with strict propriety. The fact that the capital of the enterprise, or part of it, is owned by a lender, is accidental to the commercial operations: these would not be essentially different if the merchant had inherited all the capital he needs.Consider, on the other hand, the cooperation of the surgeon, his assistant, the anesthetist and the nurses in the treatment of a surgical case: it would not occur to anybody to say that the purposes of these persons just “happen” to be interdependent. Their unity is not a sheer happening.

4 In fact, when the theory of anarchy took hold of a thinker free from anyconnection with the spirit of individualistic revolt and possessed with a strong sense for order and the excellence of the human association, this theory assumed the form of a contractual system — supplemented, however, with an authoritarian treatment of the relations involving significant deficiency. The social philosophy of Proudhon owes nothing to the romantic exaltation of primitiveness, cosmic emotion, infrarational life, individualistic solitude, and rebellion against society. The work of a mind intensely dedicated to “the creation of order in mankind” (the title of a book of Proudhon, 1843) and convinced that the masterpiece of the universe is human society, the Proudhonian theory of anarchy consists in an ambitious plan for the extension of contract to many relations traditionally settled by way of authority. For sometime Proudhon recommended and promised the withering away of the state. Yet, a day came when herealized that every step in the conquering of the state was accompanied by a residual assertionof political authority, which thus proved irreducible and perennial. Proudhon's anarchism finally matures into a theory of federation, and there is no longer any question of eliminatingthe state. Rather, the state itself is forced into a contractual relation. In this reconsidered theory of anarchy, the general endeavor to substitute equilibrium for subordination, and contract for authority, does not spare the state; but instead of being, in Utopian fashion, driven out of existence, the archetype of authority, the state, is treated as the perennial partner of liberty. Insofar as authority itself enters into a contractual arrangement, the ideal of anarchy is not given up.

To the indignation of many, this unyielding anarchist, Proudhon, abides by the most uncompromising standards of traditional authoritarianism with regard to the family community. The inexperience of the child vindicates, with no need for elaboration, authority in the paternal relation. The case of the woman is not so obvious, and the intuitive genius of Proudhon, always somewhat awkward when there is a question of dissociating the components of an historical trend, never succeeded in avoiding misinterpretations. Proudhon did not explain quite convincingly in what respects the woman is equal to man and in what respects she is not. On his deepest level of thought, he believes that she is incomparably more subject than man to those irrational drives which originate in the cosmic part of human nature and in which he sees the worst enemies of justice and freedom. The deepest reason of Proudhon's aversion to Rousseau is that, in his interpretation, the philosophy of Rousseau delivers man and society to the infrahuman powers of emotions, passions, natural spontaneity, and cosmic drives, and that Rousseau calls freedom precisely this submission to the infrahuman. Because of this greater subjection to cosmic nature, the woman is a permanent minor and needs to be guided by father, husband, brother, or son. At times Proudhon reveals that authority, which he generally seems to confine within the family, has a part to play whenever a deficient state of affairs makes it impossible for men to do by themselves the things that mature people are supposed to accomplish without guidance. In his remarks on the American Civil War in La guerre et la paix, first published in 1861, ed. Moysset, C. Bouglé and H. (Paris, 1927), pp. 176–180Google Scholar, he goes so far as to write, by one of those paradoxes which cast obscurity on the best parts of his work, that Southern slavery supplied the proper circumstances for the training of primitives who had somehow to acquire the discipline of labor. Thus, the social philosophyof Proudhon is a theory of order through a system of contractual anarchy supplemented with a deficiency theory of authority.

5 The words “is supposed to” are not used casually. Moral philosophy is still in a rather primitive stage, and moral philosophers commonly fail to render obvious the deductive connection of their answers with the self-evident principles of the moral order. Their answers may still be true and good and worth adhering to: but the cause of their certainty is an inclination, not a deduction, and for a conclusion so attained to be safe, the philosopher's — or the theologian's — inclination must be sound, which is the same as to say that the fellow must be possessed, first, of genuine virtue and, second, of all the conditions and instruments required for the regular functioning of virtuous inclination as cause of true practical judgment. Of course whoever writes a book of ethics, whether philosophical or theological, likes the reader to believe that every bit of it is scientifically established: in case it were not, the only guaranty of his statements would be the perfection of his virtue: a thing that moralists, understandably, do not like the public to inquire into.

6 Such words as “heart,” “sentiment,” etc., must not be allowed to convey the belief that the determination of the right and the wrong ever is entrusted to emotional reactions. Let it be said that there exist inclinations of a purelyintellectual character, the best example of which is the familiarity of a man of science with his own scientific field; thus, he is able to put his finger on the true statement a long time — a few years or a few centuries — before this statement is demonstrated. The inclinations which assure the determination of the right and the wrong in contingency are not of purely intellectual nature. They pertain to the appetite and can be termed affective with propriety provided it is understood that the appetite of man comprises, as its principal part, the systems of desires and aversions born of rational apprehension, that is, the will. The affective inclination which alone can determine the right and the wrong when demonstration is powerless is principally the inclination of the will, an inclination born of intelligent apprehension, and constantly strengthened by dedication to truth. Inclinations of an emotional character are by no means excluded, but they are subordinated. It often is a feeling of charm or disgust which notifies us that — perhaps in spite of appearances — there is something definitely right or wrong about a situation; but if such a feeling were let loose, and allowed to work outside an integrated system whose principal part is the will, we would run into all the absurdities of the doctrines, so popular at the end of the eighteenth century and in the Romantic period, which give infrarational sentiment ultimate control over the determination of the right and the wrong and the utterances of reason. The “conscience” of the Savoy Vicar (Rousseau, J. J., Emile, Amsterdam, Jean Neaulme, 1762, III, 114)Google Scholar would not perform any of the wonders that Rousseau describes if it were not precisely this: an inclination antecedent to reason, more native than anything born of understanding, closer to cosmical energies, closer to animals and plants and other thingsof nature, and closer to sheer existence.

7 Sum. Theol., ii-ii. 32.7 ad3.

8 To see why the qualification “in principle,” is necessary, consider the case of a leader who knows that, under the circumstances, he cannot resign, and that it is he, and no one else, who has to guide the community toward a certain goal. Two ways, a and b, are open; a would be preferable if it were not for a feature pertaining to the individual history of this leader, who cannot resign, but, his individual history being what it is, b ought to be preferred. In fact, whenever an individual feature modifies the ability of a leader to carry out a certain policy, this feature belongs to the system ofdata that public prudence is confronted by and has to reckon with.

9 Met. 2. 3.995al3. That the treatise classified as Bk. 2, (a) of Metaphysics was written by Aristotle himself is questioned by some.

10 Met.6. 4. 1027b25.

11 Between the concept of authority and that of law there exist enlightening relations. It is, indeed, perfectly proper to speak of the authority of the legislator, and nothing would warrant the identification of authority with executive power. Many acts of authority assume the form of laws passed by assemblies. However, authority and law evidence opposite intelligible tendencies inasmuch as the more a proposition is expressive of necessity, the moreit participates — other things being equal — in the character of law, whereas thereis nothing, in the concept of authority, that expresses aversion to contingency. A law rules human acts in the capacity of premise, not of conclusion; now, the more a premise is independentof contingency, the more of a premise it is. The first or absolute premises regulating human actions express the absolute necessities intelligibly following upon the rational nature. But authority is perfectly at home in the management of contingency and in the uttering of practical conclusions. A decree which applies a law to a particular and unique situation is no less an actof authority than a law passed by an assembly to establish a principle that can be applied to indefinitely many particular situations. No doubt, this law is already so particularized, and soengaged in contingency as not to be a sheer expression of natural necessity. Yet it retains thecharacter of premise, and calls for further determination in terms of adjustment to contingencies that an assembly cannot deal with. Common usage contrasts government by law and authoritarian government. Both of these expressions are objectionable, and their meaning has to be carefully specified. In a way every government is authoritarian. On the other hand, “government by law” conveys the suggestion that propositions retaining the character of premises may suffice to guide a community in entirely concrete and perhaps unique situations, and this involves the nonsense of a premise which is also an ultimate conclusion. Provided these abusive interpretations are definitely ruled out, it is perfectly correct to use the expression “government by law” when a political system depends as much as possible on premises establishedby the wisdom of the legislator, and to call “authoritarian” the system of government which gives the few men in the executive power the greatest possible liberty to manage the concrete circumstances by connecting the conclusions of their choice with premises that have no other source than their pleasure, since no positive enactment ever gave these premises any juridical existence.

12 Evil is a privation, not a form, but this privation is understood afterthe pattern of a form and cannot be understood otherwise.

13 According to a well-known remark of Aristotle, the natural order of excellence may be reversed by a condition of emergency. To philosophize is, absolutely speaking, better than to make money; but for the fellow who is in dire poverty, to get money is better than to philosophize. Likewise, the order of love which requires that, under ordinary circumstances, I should provide my own children with advantages that many other children do not have, also requires that in an emergency — flood, epidemic, war, revolution — I should deprive my own people of goods that are not needed for their survival in order to insure the survival of children who are not mine.

14 There are, in the history of mankind, only a few communities governed exclusively by the methods of direct democracy. But every democracy, no matter how important thepart that a distinct personnel plays in its operation, embodies direct democracy in some of itspolitical processes. These processes may either pertain to the written constitution, for example, a plebiscite, or to the unwritten one — the influence of public opinion. In all cases the citizens of a democracy are tempted to boast of having no masters except themselves, for they truly exercise much political power besides the electing of their leaders. The United StatesConstitution mentions two assemblies: the House and the Senate. There is a third one which doesnot need to be mentioned because its existence is obvious and which could hardly be mentionedina written document, because of the indefiniteness of its role and power: it is the People of the United States.

15 Once more, we are not asking whether society necessarily ought to be divided into a distinct governing personnel, and the governed. When we speak of “persons whose business it is … to look after particular goods …, ” we do not exclude the possibility that all these persons should, in another capacity, constitute the agency in charge of looking after the common good.

16 These Saint-Simonian expressions (Exposition de la doctrine de Saint-Simon, ed., by Halévy, Elie and Bougié, C. [Paris, 1924], p. 127)Google Scholar are used here without the connotations implied by the Saint-Simonian philosophy of historical causality. For the Saint-Simonists, the great facts of change as well as the great facts of permanence in human history are determined by ideas, and especially by religious beliefs. Accordingly an organic period is defined as one “in which all the facts of human activity are classified, foreseen, and set in order by a general theory, and in which the goal of social action is clearly defined.” A critical period is one “in which all communion of thought, all common action, all coordination have ceased to exist, and in which society has become nothing else than an aggregation of isolated individuals fighting against each other.” The distinction between organic and critical periods remains meaningful without deciding whether the organic and the critical characters are due to beliefs or to factors of another kind, or to a diversity of factors including beliefs.

17 Proudhon was a firm opponent of democracy so understood. (He called it “democracy” with no further specification.) In his 1848 pamphlet Solution of the Social Problem, a subtitle attracts the attention of the philosophers: Democracyis materialistic and atheistic. In Jacobin democracy he recognized the traditional picture fthe Epicurean universe where all things result from the encounters of particles, without patterns of wholes, without plans and without final causes: “Universal suffrage is a kind of atomism by which the legislator, being unable to make the people speak in the unity of its essence, invites the citizens to express their opinion by heads, viritim, just as the Epicurean philosopher explains thought, will, understanding, by arrangements of atoms. This is political atheism in the worst sense of this expression. How could a general thought ever result from the addition of any number of votes?” (A. Lacroix, ed., pp. 62–63.)

A brief elaboration on the concept of materialism will help to understand these confused, but challenging remarks. Let it be said, in general terms, that a materialistic explanation is one which forcibly traces to material causes effects belonging to causes of another description. This is the case wheneverthe material cause needs to assume the character of a thing in act. What is material is, as such, potential; if, in order to play the explanatory role that it is expected to play, it has to be credited with actuality, explanation is materialistic in a proper sense. Since the parts arethe matter of the whole, explanation forcibly follows the line of the material cause whenever effects belonging to the power of the whole are traced to the part. What the words of Proudhon mean is that individualistic democracy, as well as Epicurean physics, credits things considered in the capacity of parts with the ability to bring about the perfections of the whole. Individualism, in its use of material causality as well as in its interpretation of means and ends, pertains to the spirit of the critical periods: when the question is to dispose of the old order, to dissolve traditional setups, to destroy crippling structures, the theory that the greatest good results from the nonintegrated operation of the parts looks congenial enough. But as soon as the possibility of a new organic period is perceived, minds no longer expect so confidently that the perfection of the whole will steadily proceed from the sheer operation of the parts.

18 Sum. Theolo., i. 29.4.

19 When individuation originates in matter, as it does in all composite substances, man included, to speak of the “autonomy of the individual” involves a degree of inappropriateness. To be sure, individuals are possessed of autonomy, but the principle of their autonomy is not the same as the principle of their individuality. Matter is that whichhas no law of its own. In a composite substance all that has the character of a law comes fromthe form. But the form is specific and consequently all the law of the material individual is the law of its species. In order to reach the principle of a norm concerned with what is unique in the individual substance, we have to turn to the concept which results from the union of completeness in substantial constitution and rationality in specific nature: this is, by the celebrated definition of Boethius, the concept of person. Among the many writings of Professor Maritain on the person, see, in particular, The Person and the Common Good(New York, Scribner's, 1947)Google Scholar.

20 It is obvious that no human community is unqualifiedly complete, but insofar as the most comprehensive of our communities remains incomplete, we keep struggling toward something beyond the least incomplete of the existent communities.

21 Essays, Bk. I, ch. 27.

22 Pensées, frag. 323, Modern Library (New York, 1941), p. 109Google Scholar