An Introduction to Political Philosophy

171 Pages·2010·17.799 MB·English

by  Alexander Rainy Maclean Murray

An Introduction to
Political Philosophy
A.R.M.Murray
) i Routledge
V* m m gj Taylor & Francis Group
AN INTRODUCTION TO
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
by
A.R.M.MURRAY, M.A., PH.D.
Extension Lecturer in Social Philosophy
in the University of London
COHEN & WEST LTD
30 PERCY STREET, LONDON, W. I
First published in 1953
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
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ISBN 0-203-85168-4 Master e-book ISBN
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ISBN 10:0-415-57921-X(hbk)
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Routledge Revivals
An Introduction to
Political Philosophy
First published in 1953, this seminal introduction to political philosophy is intended for
both the student of political theory and for the general reader. After an introduction which
explains the nature and purpose of philosophy, Dr Murray provides a critical examination
of the principle theories advanced by political philosophers from Plato to Marx, paying
special attention to contemporary issues.
The book also makes an attempt to define the essential issues of philosophical significance
in contemporary politics, with special reference to the conflict between political authority
and individual rights, and to show how the different moral assumptions underlying authori
tarian and democratic systems of government are ultimately based upon different theories
of logic.
PREFACE
There are, no doubt, a variety of ways in which political philosophy can be introduced to
those who are assumed to have made no study of philosophy at all, and there may well be
differences of opinion as to which of these methods is the best In the present volume I
have attempted to define what seem to me the fundamental issues of the subject by giving
some account of the historical theories which discuss them, but the list of those selected
is far from exhaustive, and other authors might well have made a different selection. It
is, of course, impossible to embody a comprehensive survey of the history of political
thought in a book of modest compass, and there are already larger works, such as Professor
G.H.Sabine's History of Political Theory, which have already done this with conspicuous
success.
Moreover, the present volume is intended to be, not primarily a history of political
thought, but a critical examination of it with a view to defining the basic assumptions which
have been made by the great political thinkers of the past, and the fundamental issues about
which controversy still continues. My selection of the theories for discussion has therefore
been determined by the conclusions which I have reached about the nature of those issues
and the theories which define them most effectively.
The first chapter, in which I attempt to define the nature and scope of philosophy gen
erally, and its application in the field of politics, is inevitably somewhat abstract, and any
reader who finds it difficult should omit it on a first reading, and proceed straight to Chap
ter II, where some of the main issues of moral and political philosophy are defined in the
simple terms employed by the early thinkers of Ancient Greece. But the study of the first
chapter is essential at some stage if the logical foundations of political philosophy are to
be appreciated, and only so can political philosophy in the proper sense be understood.
For unless an examination of these logical foundations is undertaken, political philosophy
reduces, in effect, to political science, and never raises the essentially philosophical ques
tion of the extent to which the moral assumptions made by political theories can be ratio
nally justified. The final chapter on The Justification of Government' attempts to define the
basic issues which have emerged in the historical chapters, and to relate them to the logical
alternatives set forth in Chapter I.
As the book is based on the lectures which I have been delivering during the past seven
years to London University Extension Classes in Social Philosophy, it will, I hope, prove
of special assistance to future classes in this subject But I hope that it will also be of value
to University students elsewhere, and that it may help to enlighten the general reader who
wishes to acquire some knowledge of what philosophy has to say about the main issues of
contemporary politics.
I wish to take this opportunity of acknowledging the great help which I have received
in the preparation of the book from my friends. Professor H.B.Acton, D.Phil., of the Chair
of Philosophy in Bedford College, London, and Mr. E.W.Jones, M.A., Barrister-at-Law
and one of my colleagues on the Panel of Extension Lecturers in Social Philosophy. Both
were good enough to read the entire typescript and to make many valuable suggestions.
While they must not, of course, be held in any way responsible for what I have written.
Preface vii
I am deeply conscious of the way in which their criticisms have helped me to work out
my own position. I must also acknowledge the debt which I owe to the excellent classes
which I have had the good fortune to teach, for the searching questions which I have been
asked during the discussion hour which follows every lecture have helped me, in no small
measure, to develop and clarify my views. Finally, I must thank the Clarendon Press for
kindly allowing me to quote a number of passages from the late Professor F.MCornford's
translation of Plato's Republic.
A.R.M.M.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vi
I THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 1
II THE POLITICAL THEORIES OF THE SOPHISTS 17
III PLATO'S THEORY OF THE IDEAL STATE 24
IV ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF THE BEST POSSIBLE STATE 37
V POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY BETWEEN ARISTOTLE AND
MACHIAVELLI 47
VI MACHIAVELLI ON THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT 54
VII HOBBES'S THEORY OF THE RATIONAL STATE 61
VIII LOCKE'S THEORY OF THE MORAL STATE 73
IX ROUSSEAU'S THEORY OF THE GENERAL WILL 82
X HUME AND BURKE ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF
CONSERVATISM 92
XI HEGEL'S IDEALIST THEORY OF THE STATE 100
XII THE UTILITARIAN THEORIES OF BENTHAM AND MILL 109
XIII MARXISM, COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM 123
XIV POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN CONTEMPORARY POLITICS 140
XV THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOVERNMENT 151
INDEX 161
CHAPTER I
The Nature and Scope of Political Philosophy
Until the beginning of the present century philosophy was generally regarded as a source
of knowledge which transcended, both in scope and certainty, the discoveries of natural
science. Science, it was agreed, marked an advance on the uncritical and often unrelated
beliefs of ordinary life, yet it was itself based on the observations of the senses and con
sisted of the uncertain generalizations based upon them; whereas philosophy was assumed
to answer questions about such subjects as the existence of God, the nature of knowledge,
and the authority of the moral law upon which sense-experience, from its very nature, could
throw no light. On such subjects, it was believed, reason was alone competent to pronounce
and, when it did so, its conclusions were characterized by a logical and universal certainty
which the generalizations of natural science could never claim.
That philosophical knowledge is certain and indubitable is a claim which, in a broad
sense, all philosophers have made, or at least implied; and if a short and simple definition
of philosophy were sought the title of the late Professor Dewey ^ GirTord Lectures—The
Quest for Certainty'—might serve as a starting point at least For all philosophers have
claimed, or at least implied, that philosophical knowledge not only is, but must be, true.
But this general agreement has not prevented fundamental differences of opinion regarding
the nature and scope of such knowledge; and since these differences are reflected in the
application of philosophy to the problems of political theory it is important to be aware,
however generally, of their nature.
The different conceptions of philosophy ultimately depend upon different conceptions
of the nature of indubitable knowledge. The propositions of mathematics are usually cited
as typical illustrations of such knowledge. For example, the proposition "Two plus two
1
equals four is said to be necessarily and universally true on the ground that, once we have
grasped its meaning, we recognize that it must be necessarily and universally true, and
because further instances of its truth do not increase our certainty that it must always be
true. Its falsity, in other words, is inconceivable. On the other hand, there are numerous
propositions of which the falsity is perfectly conceivable. It may be true that The cat is
black* or that "Poliomyelitis is caused by a vims', but these propositions are not necessarily
true. On the contrary, their falsity is perfectly conceivable, even if observation appears to
confirm their truth.
Analytic and Synthetic Propositions
The distinction just illustrated is variously referred to as the distinction between rational
and empirical knowledge, or between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, or between
truths of reason and truths of fact And it is generally true to say that all philosophers have
claimed, or at least implied, that their theories are rational and a priori. Where they have
differed is in their view of the scope of such knowledge. And the main difference has been
that some have held that rational knowledge is always analytic, while others have held that
it is sometimes synthetic.
2 An Introduction to Political Philosophy
The difference between analytic and synthetic propositions was defined by the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) as follows: Analytic propositions, he said, 'add
nothing through the predicate to the concept of the subject, but merely break it up into those
constituent concepts that have all along been thought in it, although confusedly', while syn
thetic judgments 'add to the concept of the subject a predicate which has not been in any
1
wise thought in it, and which no analysis could possibly extract from it'. The difference is,
in short, that the predicate in an analytic proposition is contained within the meaning of the
subject, while in a synthetic proposition the predicate is not contained within the meaning
of the subject but adds something related to it. Kant illustrated the difference by the two
propositions 'All bodies are extended' and 'All bodies are heavy'. The former, he thought,
is analytic, because the concept of 'extension' is part of the meaning of 'body', while the
latter is synthetic because the concept of 'heaviness' is not part of the meaning of 'body',
but only a quality which it acquires when it is placed in a gravitational field.
Kant's definition drew attention to an important difference between analytic and syn
thetic propositions, although not all analytic propositions naturally fall into the simple sub
ject-predicate form which his examples illustrate. The essential characteristic of an analytic
proposition is that it defines the meaning, or part of the meaning, of its subject and does
not describe unessential features which may, or may not, belong to it A cube of iron has a
certain weight at sea level, a smaller weight at the top of a high mountain, and no weight at
all at a certain point between the earth and the moon; but these differences are not essential
elements in the meaning of the description 'cube of iron'. It is clear, on the other hand,
that if the cube of iron had no extension it would not be a cube of iron, since extension is
an essential part of the meaning of the phrase 'cube of iron'. In other words, to deny an
analytic proposition is self-contradictory since that is simultaneously asserting and deny
ing the same thing. It is, to borrow Bertrand Russell's example, like saying 'A bald man is
1
not bald'.
Modern philosophers have devoted much attention to the study of analytic propositions,
and many would agree with Professor Ayer that 'a proposition is analytic when its validity
2
depends solely on the definitions of the symbols it contains', and that this is so because
analytic propositions 'do not make any assertion about the empirical world They simply
3
record our determination to use words in a certain fashion.' They are, in other words, tau
tologies; and the reason why we think it worth while to assert them and sometimes, as in
mathematics, to draw elaborate deductions from them, is that our reason is too limited to
recognize their full significance without going through these complex verbal processes.
These considerations may appear to be extremely abstract and their connection with
what is commonly understood as 'political philosophy' far from obvious; but in fact this
connection is both simple and fundamental. For philosophy is the 'quest for certainty', and
if certainty is a characteristic of propositions, then an inquiry into the nature and scope of
1 Critique of Pure Reason, Second Edition, Introduction.
1 The Problems of Philosophy, p. 129.
2 Language, Truth, and Logic, Second Edition, p. 78.
J
op. cit, p. 84.