david hume (1711-1776) [ 1 ]

David Hume (1711-1776) [1]

• David Hume is widely regarded as: • The greatest English philosopher, and • One of the officially Great Philosophers• Lived a quiet and modest life, including several years at a Roman Catholic academy in France• Failed to get university appointments because of his “atheism” • [the quotation marks are probably unwarranted]• His major works are the Treatise of Human Nature, the Enquiry Concerning the Foundations of

Morals, the Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding, and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Also a six-volume History of England.

David Hume (1711-1776) [2]

“Of the Original Contract” (1748)This is Hume’s full-front attack on Locke’s Contractarianism• - Only Consent could, at first, subject people to any authority• Accepts Hobbes in general outline• - But - there is obviously no explicit social contract• - instead, time gradually produces an habitual, and precarious, acquiescence

• Locke’s claim: “These advantages the sovereign promises him in return; and if he fail in the execution, he has broken the articles of engagement, and thereby freed his subject from all obligations to allegiance.”

• Acquiescence: where you don’t rebel

David Hume (1711-1776) [3]

“Of the Original Contract” (1748)

This is Hume’s full-front attack on Locke’s Contractarianism

• Acquiescence: where you don’t rebel

• - Still, “philosophers [i.e., Locke] assert not only that government in

• its earliest infancy arose from consent” .. but that it still is so based.

• 1. This idea is unreal:

• “But would these reasoners look abroad into the world, they would meet with nothing that, in the least, corresponds to their ideas, or can warrant so refined and philosophical a system.”

• “Everywhere, princes

• (1) claim subjects as their property, and assert

• (2) their independent right of sovereignty from conquest or succession

• AND

• (3) subjects acknowledge this right in their prince

• (4) .. always conceived to be independent of our consent”

• [Note: a question: should the subject “acknowledge” this alleged right? Can’t we ask that?]

David Hume [4]

• Locke’s alleged counter-Claim: it’s the original contract that counts.• Hume: the original agreements are “obliterated by a thousand changes”• and “cannot now be supposed to retain any authority.”• [Recall Lysander Spooner’s piece]• >> Actual governments have been founded originally on usurpation or conquest - Where is the voluntary

association ( - in America, 1776?)• >> election?• - Either • (1) “a few great men decide for the whole and allow no opposition”; Or • (2) “the fury of a multitude” decides for a “seditious ringleader”• Hume asks: >> “Are these disorderly elections of such mighty authority?”

• The real point: “Nothing more terrible than dissolution of government, • which gives liberty to the multitude.”• -> Every wise man wishes to see a general take charge and give to the• people a master, which they are so unfit to choose for themselves.

• The philosopher’s account is unreal • - Human affairs never admit of this consent - only conquest and usurpation • - in plain terms, force• > consent is a just foundation - but “has seldom had place”

David Hume [5]

• Perfect Morality would make Anarchy work just fine:

• “If all men would totally abstain from the properties of others,”

• they would have “for ever remained in a state of absolute liberty, without any magistrate or political society.”

• >> But this is “a state of perfection, of which human nature is justly deemed incapable”

• >> it would be absurd to infer a consent by birth to a certain prince -

• Does a poor peasant or artisan literally have free choice to leave his country?

• (We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master, though he was carried on board while asleep and must leap in the ocean and perish the moment he leaves her.)

• - New people always coming along

• -> stability “requires that the new brood should conform themselves to the established constitution”

• Some innovations must happen, and it’s nice if they include reason, liberty and justice

• - BUT “violent innovations no individual is entitled to make;

• [and it’s] even more dangerous from a legislature:

• more ill than good is ever to be expected from them...”

David Hume [6]

• 2. A “More philosophical refutation”• All moral duties may be divided into two kinds:

– 1. impelled by natural instinct - love, gratitude, pity

– 2. not supported by any original instinct, but performed from a sense

of obligation in view of the necessities of human society

examples:

• justice or a regard to the property of others,

• fidelity or the observance of promises

• Instinct prompts us to “indulge in unlimited freedom or to seek dominion over others”

• Reflection suppresses such strong passions to the interests of peace and public order.

David Hume [7]

• Philosophical Foundations of Consent theory:• Can the duty of allegiance be founded on a promise?• “We are bound to obey our sovereign, it is said, because we have given a tacit promise to that

purpose.• But why are we bound to observe our promise?• [there should be an answer!• and if there is, it’s this:

• >> answer: the commerce and intercourse of mankind can have no security where men pay no regard to their engagements

• >> Similarly with government: “without laws, magistrates and judges to prevent the encroachments of the strong upon the weak, or the violent upon the just - society would be impossible”

• -> Therefore, we gain nothing by resolving the one into the other --

• The general interests or necessities of society are sufficient to establish both.

David Hume [8]

• Virtue of Stupidity ... • To whom is allegiance due?

• “The necessities of human society don’t allow of such an enquiry

• -- there is no virtue but may be refined away if we indulge a false philosophy in scrutinizing it”

• Locke says that absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society,

• “What authority any moral reasoning can have, which leads into opinions so wide of the general practice of mankind in every place but this single kingdom, it is easy to determine.

• Concluding Methodological pointer:

• “... though an appeal to general opinion may justly, in the speculative sciences of metaphysics, natural philosophy, or astronomy, be deemed unfair and inconclusive, yet in all questions with regard to morals, there is really no other standard by which any controversy can ever be decided.”

David Hume [9]

Hume’s Treatise, part III: Of Morals• Hume on Justice • [compare with the account in the Inquiry, which we’ll consider later in this lecture]

• Is it a Natural or an Artificial virtue?• Answer: Artificial. • [Why not Natural? - Again, compare with his later writing - end of this lecture]• -its motive is via a convention• it characteristically requires actions contrary to private interest

• (like Hobbes, Hume sees that our various interests aren’t directly conducive to upholding justice:)

• “no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, as such” public benevolence cannot be the “original motive to justice” rules of justice are artificial, but not arbitrary

• The rules of justice are uniform, inflexible, general, precise Our passions are variable, particular, and vague

David Hume [10]

Hume’s Treatise, part III: Of Morals

• Society

• - is absolutely fundamental:

• “’Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defects, and raise himself

• up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquire a superiority

• above them.”

• By society all his infirmities are compensated; and

• tho’ in that situation his wants multiply every moment upon him,

• yet his abilities are still more augmented, and

• leave him in every respect more satisfied and happy,

• than ’tis possible for him, in his savage and solitary condition, ever to

• become.”

David Hume - Treatise III [11]

• Property

• Like Locke, Hume virtually identifies justice with property rights

• (in Locke’s broader sense)

• Three sort of goods:

• 1) internal to the mind

• 2) “external advantages of the body”

• 3) external possessions

• type (3) are the problem:

• a) vulnerable to the violence of others,

• b) transferable without loss or alteration

• c) scarce in relation to demand

• Only a “convention” can remedy this problem

• [ see also p. 89., Enquiry, App. III]


• Property

• nothing but those goods, whose constant possession

• is establish’d by the laws of society;

• that is, by the laws of justice.

• Property

• Who sees not, for instance, that whatever is produced or improved by a

• man’s art or industry ought forever to be secured to him in order to give

• encouragement to such useful habits and accomplishments?

• [answer: the NDP, the Liberals, and the Tories?]

• >> all questions of property are subordinate to the authority of civil

• laws, which extend, restrain, modify, and alter the rules of natural justice

• according to the particular convenience of each community. [!]


• Limitation of present possession:

• “its utility extends not beyond the first formation of society

• nor wou’d any thing be more pernicious, than the constant observance of it

• - restitution wou’d be excluded, and every injustice wou’d be authoriz’d and rewarded.

• We must, therefore, seek for

• some other circumstance, that may give rise to property after society is once establish’d

• four principles of property:• Occupation - getting there first, just being there

• Prescription - long-term use or occupancy [we leave and return to it...]

• Accession - connected to things we already own (as in fruits of trees)

• [calves born of our previously owned cattle; cattle found on the land we acquired ...]

• Succession - passing on to “those who are dearest to them” - such as one’s children (or whoever??)

• [passing goods on to children “naturally presents itself to the mind”]

David Hume - Inquiry [14]

• Hume’s Inquiry [also spelled ‘Enquiry’], Ch. III - Of Justice

• Thesis: "That public utility is the sole origin of Justice,

• - “ reflections on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the sole foundations of its merit."

• Argument: a famous thought experiment, in two parts.

• (1a): First, he asks us to suppose extreme "abundance of all external conveniences”• 1a. - without any effort at all, "every individual finds himself fully provided with whatever his most

voracious appetites can want".

• Why, in such a circumstance, would anybody bother to create distinctions of "mine" and "thine"?

• (Note that this consists in reversing the Hobbesian postulate of Scarcity, in one direction. • We can vary this version and deny a different Hobbesian postulate: • (1b): [reversing Hobbes’ assumption of Limited Altruism] imagine • "the mind is so enlarged with friendship and generosity that every man has the

utmost tenderness for every man"... • Again, "It seems evident that the use of Justice would be suspended, nor would property and

obligation have ever been thought of."


• Second Part of the experiment: Deny the Hobbesian postulate in the opposite direction. Instead of no scarcity, we are imagining unrectifiable scarcity. [viz., that natural scarcity can be improved by human cooperation]

• (2a) “physical” version: "Suppose a society to fall into such want of all common necessaries that the utmost frugality and industry cannot preserve the greater number from perishing”

• it will readily, I believe, be admitted that the strict laws of justice are suspended in such a pressing emergency and give place to the stronger motives of necessity and self-preservation."

• Again, the utility of having any such notion as justice falls to zero. • (2b): the “Moral” version • imagine that it is "a virtuous man's fate to fall into the society of ruffians, remote from the

protection of laws and government, what conduct must he embrace? • ... He can have no other expedient than to arm himself, to make provision of all means of defense

and security.”• (The question of citizens' rights to arm themselves is a case in point – in central Detroit, we are not

far from being in that situation; in Hebron, we are right in the midst of it!)

• The general conclusion is that "the rules of equity or justice depend entirely on the particular state and condition in which men are placed, and owe their origin and existence to that utility which results to the public from their strict and regular observance."

• - No need to bother with "original conditions" and "social contracts".


• [Reflections on the foregoing:• Why is it “useful” to people to have such institutions as contracts and property rights?• Consider two more of Hume's discussions. • Animals

• "Imagine a species of creatures intermingled with men which, though rational, were possessed of such inferior strength, both of body and mind, that they were incapable of all resistance and could never make us feel the effects of their resentment,

• the necessary consequence, I think, is that • “we should be bound by the laws of humanity to give gentle usage to these creatures,• but should not, properly speaking, lie under any restraint of justice with regard to them,

nor could they possess any right or property." • And he immediately notes that "This is plainly the situation of men with regard to

animals." • The point being that the obligations we have to animals can only be of the kind

prompted by natural sentiment, such as it is. That is how most people have regarded and still do regard it, one might note.


• Property, again

• "Suppose that a creature possessed of reason, but unacquainted with human nature, deliberates with himself what rules of justice or property would best promote public interest and establish peace and security among mankind".

• (1) Distribute according to “Virtue”

• "his most obvious thought would be to assign the largest possessions to the most extensive virtue"

• – and then notes that while this would be fine in a "perfect theocracy",

• - it isn't so fine when we get to real people, who would simply fall to quarreling about who was "virtuous" and who wasn't.


• (2) Equality

• His next thought would be like that of the levellers• who propose an equal distribution of property. • (1) - this would be physically possible, says Hume: "nature is so liberal to mankind that, were all

her presents equally divided, every individual would enjoy all the necessaries and even most of the comforts of life".

• (2) What's more, he notes, "It must also be confessed that wherever we depart from this equality we rob the poor of more satisfaction than we add to the rich, and that the slight gratification of a frivolous vanity in one individual frequently costs more than bread to many families, and even provinces.”

• [this is the famous hypothesis of “diminishing marginal utility”]


• Bad Consequences of Egalitarian Rule:

• Nevertheless, on reflection, "historians, and even common sense, may inform us that, however specious these ideas of perfect equality may seem,

• they are really at bottom impracticable; and

• were they not so, would be extremely pernicious to human society.

• (1) Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care, and industry will immediately break that equality.

• (2) Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence and, instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community" – sagaciously adding that

• (3) The most rigorous inquisition, too, is requisite to watch every inequality on its first appearance; and the most severe jurisdiction to punish and redress it ... so much authority must soon degenerate into tyranny ...”

• [All these are amply demonstrated in every communist country]


• Hume's conclusion

• “ in order to establish laws for the regulation of property we must be acquainted with the nature and situation of man,

• must reject appearances which may be false, though specious; and

• must search for those rules which are, on the whole, most useful and beneficial."

• "Who sees not", he asks, "that whatever is produced or improved by a man's art or industry ought forever to be secured to him in order to give encouragement to such useful habits and accomplishments?

• That the property ought also to descend to children and relations, for the same useful purposes?

• And that all contracts and promises ought carefully to be fulfilled in order to secure mutual trust and confidence, by which the general interest of mankind is so much promoted?"

• What makes these arrangements useful are precisely the ones that make the rules appear to be quite other than what one might expect on the assumption that the object of social rules is the "good of society"!

• Diminishing marginal utility prompts equal distribution; but selfishness overrules it.

• "Selfishness", though, turns out to be a part of the very thing we are dealing with – "society".


• they are sure to terminate here at last and

• to assign as the ultimate reason for every rule which they establish, the convenience and necessities of mankind.

• What other reason, indeed, could writers ever give

• why this must be mine and that yours, since “uninstructed nature, surely never made any such distinction?”

• Sometimes the interests of society may require a rule in a particular case, but not determine any particular rule, among several equally beneficial.

• [reminder: this is coordination]

• In that case the slightest analogies are laid hold of in order to prevent that indifference and ambiguity which would be the source of perpetual dissension.


• What is a man’s property?

• Anything which it is lawful for him and for him alone to use.

• But what rule have we by which we can distinguish these objects?

• Here we must have recourse to statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, and a hundred other circumstances - some of which are constant and inflexible, some variable and arbitrary

• But the ultimate point in which they all professedly terminate, is the interest and happiness of human society.

• Where this enters not into consideration, nothing can appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even superstitious than all or most of the laws of justice and property.

• Those who ridicule vulgar superstitions have an easy task.

• A Syrian would have starved rather than taste pigeons; a fowl on Thursday is lawful food; on Friday abominable.

• “It may appear to a careless view, that there enters a like superstition in all the sentiments of justice. I may lawfully nourish myself from this tree; but the fruit of another of the same species, ten paces off, it is criminal for me to touch.”

• But there is this material difference between superstition and justice, that

• - the former is frivolous, useless, and burdensome;

• - the latter is absolutely requisite to the well-being of mankind and existence of society.


• Of Political Society

• If we all had:

• (1) sagacity to perceive at all times the strong interest which binds him to the observance of justice and equity, and

• (2) strength of mind sufficient to persevere in a steady adherence, in opposition to the allurements of present pleasure and advantage,

• Then (3) there had never, in that case, been any such thing as government or political society.

• What need of positive law where natural justice itself is a sufficient restraint? Why create magistrates where there never arises any disorder or iniquity?

• It is evident that if government were totally useless, it never could have place, and

• that the sole foundation of the duty of allegiance is the advantage which it procures to society by preserving peace and order among mankind.

• All politicians will allow, and most philosophers, that reasons of state may, in particular emergencies, dispense with the rules of justice and invalidate any treaty or alliance, where the strict observance of it would be prejudicial, in a considerable degree, to either of the contracting parties.


• Further Considerations with regard to Justice

• Restated: the contrast between “natural” and “social” virtues:

• (1) Natural: Humanity and benevolence “exert their influence immediately by a direct instinct”

• - they need “no scheme or system”

• A parent flies to the relief of his child, transported by natural sympathy.

• A generous man cheerfully embraces an opportunity of serving his friend.

• (2) Social: justice and fidelity - are different

• They are, indeed, absolutely necessary to the well-being of mankind.

• But the benefit is not the consequence of every individual act, but from the whole scheme concurred in by the whole or the greater part of the society.


• The Wall versus the Arch• The happiness and prosperity of mankind arising from the social virtue of benevolence may be

compared to a wall built by many hands - which still rises by each stone. The same happiness, raised by the social virtue of justice, may be compared to the building of a vault where each individual stone would, of itself, fall to the ground; nor is the whole fabric supported but by the mutual assistance and combination of its corresponding parts.

• All the laws of nature which regulate property as well as all civil laws are general and regard alone some essential circumstances of the case, without taking into consideration the characters, situations, and connections of the person concerned.

• They deprive, without scruple, a beneficent man of all his possessions if acquired by mistake, without a good title, in order to bestow them on a selfish miser who ha already heaped up immense stores of superfluous riches.

• Public utility requires that property should be regulated by general inflexible rules ;

• though such rules are adopted as best serve the same end of public utility, it is impossible for them to prevent all particular hardships or make beneficial consequences result from every individual case.


• Does justice arise from human convention? • 1) Not promises

• If by convention be here meant a promise, nothing can be more absurd.

• 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.

• 2) But if by convention be meant a sense of common interest, which .. carries him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of action which tends to public utility

• it must be owned that in this sense justice arises from human conventions.

• For if it be allowed (which 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 behavior.

• Thus two men pull the oars of a boat by common convention, for common interest, without any promise or contract; thus speech, and words, and language are fixed by human convention and agreement.

• Public Goods:• Whatever is advantageous to two or more persons if all perform their part, but what loses all

advantage if only one perform, can arise from no other principle.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau [27]

1712 - 1778

Rousseau [28]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• 1. A First Convention is Necessary - but A Moral “convention”: “The act by which

we become a people” • 2. Self-Legislation: Freedom via Self-Given Rules• To find: A “form of association by means of which each one, though uniting with all,

obeys only himself -- and remains, therefore, as free as before [and yet involves the “total alienation of each associate, with all his rights, to the whole community”]

• - Equal for everyone - Each “gains [at least?] the equivalent of everything he loses”• No rights can be reserved to private individuals -> need a common superior [does that

follow?]•• 3. The General Will• Each puts all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will ->->

that produces a public person

• The General Will Cannot Err -- But the people’s deliberations do; People are not corrupt, but often fooled, and appear to want what is bad.

Rousseau [29]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• 4.Private vs. General Will: Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be

constrained - will be forced to be free

• Lose natural freedom ->-> gain (1) civil freedom and (2) proprietorship of all that we possess.

• [possession is replaced by property]

• Natural freedom: force of the individual

• Civil freedom: force of the general will. •

Rousseau [30]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• 5. “Real Estate”• The State is master of all goods through the social contract, the basis of all rights• (1) “Every person naturally has a right to everything he needs; but (2) the positive act

that makes him the proprietor of some good excludes it from all the rest • ->-> he no longer has any right to the community’s goods• >> right of the first occupant -weak in the state of nature, but “respectable to every

civilized man”• How can a man or a people seize an immense territory and deprive the whole human

race of it except through punishable usurpation? Answer: the community thereby only assures them of legitimate possession, changes use into property

• The right of each private individual to his own resources is always subordinate to the community’s right to all ...

• This sounds threatening. Is it?

• It would be if the “community’s will” is just arbitrary• - but it isn’t!• [why? ...]

Rousseau [31]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• 6. The Sovereign• Public deliberation can obligate the subjects to the sovereign, but the

sovereign itself cannot in any way be obligated • Harm any member, attack the whole! So, duty and interest equally obligate the

contracting parties to mutual assistance. [?]• The sovereign, formed in this manner, cannot have any interest contrary to

those who formed it .... [?]• 7. Equality• The compact substitutes moral and legitimate equality for natural physical inequality -• Bad governments -> -> equality is illusory • (serving to “maintain the poor in his misery and the rich in their usurpation”)• In fact, laws are always useful to those who have and harmful to those who have not -> ->

the state is only advantageous to men insofar as • (1) they all have something, and • (2) none has anything superfluous • [?] (according to whom??)•

Rousseau [32]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”

• 8. General Will ≠ Will of all

• General Will: common interest

• Will of All: private interests:

• “a sum of private wills”

• What defeats GW: factions, partial associations at the expense of the whole

• no longer as many voters as people, but rather as many as there are associations

• If one association prevails over the others, there is no longer a general will, but merely a private opinion

• To prevent this, there must be no partial society in the State, so that each citizen gives only his own opinion

• [i.e., let’s have no political parties, no trade unions....??]•

Rousseau [33]


• 9. The Limits of Sovereign Power

• Each person alienates only that part of his power, goods, and freedom whose use matters to the community

• -- though the sovereign alone is the judge of what matters!

• [The point: principle decides this, and principle is the unanimous underlying “agreement”]

• The sovereign, for its part, cannot impose on the subjects any burden that is useless to the community. [as in Hobbes - “needful”]

• Social Duties: obligatory only because mutual

• [yes: that’s the essence of the Social Contract idea]

Rousseau [34]


• 10. Equality of right, and justice are derived from each man’s preference for himself (i.e. from the nature of man)

• The general will, can only consider what is general

• - not the number of votes but the common interest that unites them

• The sovereign only knows the nation as a body,

• - it makes no distinctions among those who compose it

• If it did, then there would have been no genuine renunciation of private good

• - We only “exchange an uncertain, precarious mode of existence for another that is better and safer”

Rousseau [35]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• 11. Democracy• It is contrary to the natural order that the majority govern and the

minority be governed• [What does that mean? Compare with Locke’s thesis that the community

“must be moved by its greater part” ....]• People can’t remain constantly assembled to attend to all the affairs of the

public• So, virtue is the principle of a republic. For all these conditions cannot subsist

without it. • [What is meant here by ‘principle’?• One possible answer is that there is no substitute for good people, if a

community is to thrive. It’s pretty hard to deny that. • But that is very far from saying that government should put power into

the hands of “the virtuous”, for example ...]

Rousseau [36]

Rousseau’s “Social Contract”• No government is so subject to civil wars and internal agitation as the

democratic. • If there were a people of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. Such a

perfect government, though, is not suited to mere men.• 11.1 On Voting• Dissension and debate indicates the ascendance of private interests • - and the decline of the State. • Only one law requires unanimous consent: the Social Contract. Apart from

that primitive contract, the vote of the majority always obligates all the others. • The citizen consents to all the laws, even those passed against his will. • This presupposes that all of the characteristics of the general will are still in

the majority. • When that ceases, there is no longer any freedom, no matter which side one

takes. ...•

Rousseau [37]


• 13. Religion

• Christianity tries to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth

• - This causes internal divisions that never cease - the “otherworldly kingdom” became, under a visible leader [the Pope], the most violent despotism in the world

• The “religion of the citizen” makes people bloodthirsty and intolerant - believing it performs a holy act when killing whoever does not accept its Gods.

• Christianity’s homeland is not of this world - it is antisocial

• Christianity preaches nothing but servitude and dependence.

• “True Christians are made to be slaves”

• >> Tolerate only the Tolerant:

• One should tolerate all religions that tolerate others

• - But whoever says “There is no salvation outside of the church!”

• should be chased out of the State !

Rousseau [38]


• 14. Civic Religion

• Civil profession of faith:

• The State can obligate no one to believe them

• -- but can banish anyone who does not: not for being impious but for being unsociable

• >> “The dogmas in the civil religion ought to be simple and few in number. The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foresighted, and providential divinity; the afterlife, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws, are the positive dogmas.

• As for the negative ones, I limited them to one: intolerance, which belongs with the cults we have excluded.”

• There is to be no national religion --

• [end, Rousseau lectures]

Kant [39]

•

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Kant [40]

Kant’s Social Contract

• This selection has to do with Justice.

• (Our selection is from his late work, Rechtslehre, or “Doctrine of Right”, or “Metaphysical Principles of Justice”

• Which “department” of moral theory is justice?

• Answer: it’s the department of morals having to do with compulsion:

• with what people may permissibly be made to do whether they like it or not.

Kant [41]

Background: Kant’s Moral Philosophy

• In his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals he proposes to identify the fundamental principle of the subject.

• He finds it in a principle (or “formula”, or “recipe”) known as the “Categorical Imperative” (or more precisely, the “Supreme Categorical Imperative”) [we’ll state the principle shortly]

• -- What’s a “Categorical” Imperative?• Kant divides Rational Imperatives: two kinds

• “Hypothetical” versus “Categorical”

• Hypothetical imperatives tell you to do something if (and because) you have a certain desire, interest, want, goal, or end.

• Categorical imperatives tell you to do something whether you like it or not. You “must” do what they say ....

Kant [42]

• Maxims

• (Kant says rational beings act on something called “maxims”

• which are “subjective principles of volition: “given that I want something (call it ‘E’ (for ‘End’), I must do such-and-such (we’ll call it ‘x’)

• But we can distinguish two sorts of ends, says Kant:

• a) contingent, or logically accidental ends - “I’d like a martini” (more precisely: I’d like, just now, to experience the taste of a martini)

• - contingent: some people have this end, some don’t; and it can change

• b) necessary or essential ends. Kant sums this up under the heading of “happiness”: we don’t just happen to desire to be happy, he says - we’re just built that way.

Kant [43]

• Now we get to what Kant claims is an altogether distinct, third kind:

• (3) Categorical imperatives

• Kant’s distinctive claim in moral philosophy is that • reason commands us to act on these independently of “inclination”• CI’s are not contingent on your wanting anything in particular - even happiness can be

overriden by one of these “imperatives”.

• -- According to Kant, there is one fundamental, supreme such imperative:

• “Act only on maxims that you can will to be universal laws.”• [That’s the “supreme C.I.”]• - you can’t miss the “golden rule” aspect ...• At a minimum, it says this: in regard to any sort of action that affects other people

besides yourself, you must act on maxims, “rules” (imperatives) which are such that everyone could act (successfully) on those.

• (The qualification ‘successfully’ is essential. Hobbes spent twenty years trying to square the circle - which it later turned out is logically impossible to do. We can try anything, so a rule that everybody must be able to “try” to do x is pointless.)

Kant [44]

• Now: the C I is rather abstract and very general, and as presented, it is about the directions which you give to yourself, as a rational being.

• But what about the directions that you can give to everybody else? In particular, what about the “directions” to others which are, as I put it, “marching orders” - that is,

• which are intended not just as suggestions but as outright commands, with the implication that they can be enforced by coercive means? (I.e., laws!)

• Kant says that these are purely “external”:

• what we can do to each other out there in the world, and not just in our souls.

• Justice has to do with our external relations to each other - not what goes on in the soul.

Kant [45]

• This bring us to Kant’s• Supreme Principle of Justice, or as he calls it,

• Universal Principle of Right:• "Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it

proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all in action, according to a universal law.”

• • [note the exact similarity to Hobbes - especially his second law of nature, which says

that we are to be “content with as much liberty as we are willing to grant to others” (and no more!); and (of course) to Locke’s Law of Nature]

• The principle amounts to a prohibition on aggression - just as in Hobbes. Why?• Because “coexisting with the will of others” means not conflicting with them, so, not

intervening in their activities, and especially, of course, not trying to take over their bodies for your own use.

• Not surprisingly, then, the Universal Principle of Right prescribes peaceable external relations among people.

Kant [46]

• In developing this, we’ll look first at Kant’s discussion of property, which, like Locke and Hume, he obviously thinks to be extremely important.

• Kant Refutes the “Commons”:• - we must distinguish:• 1) the mere fact of the land’s being there and us able to walk around on it and use

it; from • 2) common ownership (taken literally )• - the “state of nature” situation of land is entirely different from a primitive community of

things, which is a fiction• - The latter would have to be a form of society

- originating in a contract by which • - all renounced the right of private possession)

• To regard that as the original mode of taking possession, so that every individual’s particular possessions must be grounded on it, is a contradiction.

• “Relative to others, so far as they know, physical possession, or holding of the soil, is in harmony with the law of external freedom.

• - to disturb the first occupier in his use of it is a wrong done to him • The first taking of possession has therefore a title of right in its favour

Kant [47]

• a single will, in relation to an external possession, cannot serve as a compulsory law for all

• - that would do violence to freedom in accordance with universal laws.

• Therefore only a will that binds every one, and as such a common, collective, and authoritative will, can furnish a guarantee of security to all.

• the state of men under a universal, external, and public legislation, conjoined with authority and power, is called the civil state.

• There can therefore be an external mine and thine only in the civil state

• [‘therefore’??]

• The will as practical reason can only justify external acquisition insofar as it is itself included in an absolutely authoritative will, with which it is united by implication

• = only in so far as it is contained within a union of the wills of all

• Unilateral will imposes no obligation on all.

• This requires an omnilateral or universal will - which is not contingent, but a priori

• - and is therefore necessarily united and legislative

• [??]

Kant [48]

• Kant on legal land ownership

• Is the sovereign (1) the supreme proprietor of the soil?

• - or (2) only the highest ruler of the people by the laws?

• - answer: (2)!

• - Sovereign [must] proceed, therefore... from the necessary formal principle of a division of the soil according to conceptions of right

• Thus, the supreme universal proprietor cannot have any private property in land

• - otherwise he would make himself a private person.

• So: no private monarchical estates - even for the support of the court.

Kant [49]

• Government

• patriotic government is to be distinguished from paternal government

• which is the most despotic government of all

• - the citizens being dealt with by it as mere children

• A patriotic government, deals with subjects as if members of a family

• - but still treats them as citizens

• - by laws that recognize their independence

• - each individual possessing himself

• - not being dependent on the absolute will of another

• The welfare of the state = that condition in which

• the greatest harmony is attained between its constitution and the principles of right

• - a condition of the state which reason by a categorical imperative makes it obligatory upon us to strive after.

Kant [50]

• The origin of the supreme power • - is practically inscrutable by the people • - who “may not reason too curiously in regard to its origin” • - if the right of the obedience due to it were to be doubted

• "It is a duty to obey the law of the existing legislative power, be its origin what it may."

• - the state has only rights - no (compulsory) duties to the subject • - if the ruler proceeds in violation of the laws - the subject may oppose

complaints and objections to this injustice, but not active resistance• - There cannot even be a constitutional provision enabling this• - For, whoever would restrict the supreme power of the state must have more,

as compared with the power that is so restricted• - Hence the so-called limited political constitution is an unreality • - instead of being consistent with right, it is only a principle of expediency.

Kant [51]

• Resistance by people to supreme legislative power is illegitimate

• The “feeling of horror” re the formal execution of a monarch• is - .... a complete perversion of the principles that should regulate the

relation between a sovereign and his people• - For it makes the people, who owe their constitutional existence to the legislation

that issued from the sovereign, to be the ruler over him ....

• Alteration of a defective constitution may sometimes be quite necessary• - but not by revolution• [Aquinas again!]• - and when they take place, they should only affect the executive, and not the legislative,

power

• [btw: if a revolution is successful, the unlawfulness of its beginning cannot release the subjects from the obligation of adapting themselves, as good citizens, to the new order of things

• [!]

Kant [52]

• [Some thoughts about Kant’s apparent absolutism

• - his reasoning is entirely Hobbesian• consider the claim that “people owe their constitutional existence to the

legislation that issued from the sovereign”• - note that they don’t owe their existence to that - but only their

“constitutional” existence.• Which is more important to me: my existence, or my constitutional

existence? ....

• - unless the state somehow promotes my existence better than some alternative, why do I owe it “allegiance”??

• Kant overestimates the role of government in our lives

Kant [53]

• Kant on Relief of the Poor• The sovereign may tax the people • - for purposes essentially connected with their own preservation • Argument: “the existence of persons with property in the state

implies their submission under it for protection and the provision by the state of what is necessary for their existence”

• accordingly the state’s right to tax comes from• “an obligation on their part to contribute of their means for the

preservation of their fellow citizens”• (?) • Note: Kant is here assuming the state creates a relevant “people”

• (he may have got that from Rousseau...)• - But why should it? The Supreme Categorical Imperative doesn’t say

anything about applying only to fellow subjects of King X....

Kant [54]

• Punishment as Retributive

• Judicial punishment ... “can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good”

• - either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society

• - but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime

• One man ought never to be dealt with merely as a means subservient to the purpose of another, nor be mixed up with the subjects of real right.

• The penal law is a categorical imperative

• “woe to him who tries to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the justice of punishment.”

• [Kant appears to be in complete disagreement with Locke and Hobbes here]

Kant [55]

• Republican Government

• Every true republic is and can only be constituted by a representative system of the people

• - constituted by “all the citizens being united together”, in order, by means of their deputies, to protect and secure their rights

• But as soon as a supreme head of the state - king, nobility, or democratic union - becomes also representative

• -- the united people then does not merely represent the sovereignty

• - but they are themselves sovereign

• All power comes from the people

• It is in the people that the supreme power originally resides

• - accordingly from this power all the rights of individual citizens as mere subjects, and especially as officials of the state, must be derived

Kant [56]

PERPETUAL PEACE

• Three Definitive Articles for Perpetual Peace• 1. The Civil Constitution of Every State Should be Republican• 2. The law of Nations Shall be Founded on a Federation of Free States• 3. The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of

Universal Hospitality

[The most important is no. 1. Why does Kant think that will lead to perpetual peace?

Idea: if governments have to serve the interests of people rather than vice versa, then people will never vote for wars for any reason except self-defense.

They value their children too much to sacrifice them on the altars of war...Note: there is strong empirical support for his claim...No war has ever been fought between two Liberal polities....

Kant [57]

[A further reflection or two on Kant on liberal society and war.

I said, regarding voters, “They value their children too much to sacrifice them on the altars of war...”

But in current times, many families in the Middle east have apparently been ready to do just that. If they were typical, Kant’s claim would fail

In any case, democratic votes can support highly illiberal regimes. (witness current Iran and Venezuela)

I also said, “Note: there is strong empirical support for his claim...”

No war has ever been fought between two Liberal polities....

Empirical discussion was provided in a major pair of articles in 1983Michael Doyle, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs: Parts I and II," in

Philosophy and Public Affairs (1983)

Kant [58]

Concluding thoughts on Kant:

1. Wants to set political philosophy on an a priori basis. - is this possible?

2. The state is a sort of stand-in for the Categorical Imperative

[a bad idea]

3. A funny mix of liberal premises and conservative conclusions (Hume’s comment is even more applicable here: “Whig foundations for Tory conclusions”

4. His foundational principles are, again, the same as Hobbes & Locke - the maximum freedom principle

5. his refutation of the “commons” is brilliant

6. His defense of retributive punishment is problematic...

7. His work on war is ground-breaking

david hume (1711-1776) [ 1 ]

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