Politics

The previous chapter was devoted to discussions of applications of skepticism to moral philosophy. In this chapter, applications of skep­ticism to political philosophy are discussed.

The Justification of Sovereignty

The basic question of traditional political philosophy is: Whatjustifies sovereignty? Let us explain.

Rulers maintain their power even if some citizens oppose them, and then they rule by the application of force; the application of force is morally problematic. At the very least, it raises grave questions: Is this use of force moral? If so, under what conditions and on what grounds?

The most popular theory in the modern West is contractarianism, the doctrine of the social contract: rulers have the right to apply force because they are entitled to do it because they have the consent of their subjects to do so. This doctrine is obviously false because none of us has given blanket permission to the rulers to apply force, not even to apply force within the law, because none of us have given blanket consent to the law. Contractarianism came to distinguish between just and unjust governments, and it does not do that because no government is utterly just or unjust. Had it declared any government

just, it would thereby declare it a utopia. Nevertheless, the doctrine is immensely convincing because we all prefer life in civilized society over life in the wild, all shortcomings of present society, its government, and its laws notwithstanding.

This question implies the rejection of skepticism, of course. Because skeptics reject all (blanket) justifications, they reject all (blanket) jus­tifications of all government. Then, it seems, logic forces skeptics to endorse anarchism, and the general view is that, obviously, anarchism is impossible (although many people have endorsed it; in 1930s Spain, it was a popular political party). Opposition to skepticism is often pre­sented as a corollary to the opposition to anarchism.

Skeptics can meet this objection similar to the way they meet the objections to skepticism in epistemology and ethics: skepticism is the view that no statement is justified, neither the statement, “sovereignty is good,” nor the opposite statement, “sovereignty is evil.” Skep­tics claim that anarchism is as unjustifiable as any other system of sovereignty and, therefore, skepticism does not imply anarchism, does not recommend anarchism, and does not necessarily even sympa­thize with anarchism of any stripe. Nevertheless, skeptics are at lib­erty to assume at their own risk that anarchism is right - or at least to sympathize with it - and some of them do. Disagreement as to what regime is preferable is more widespread than anti-skepticism, although only skepticism is consistent by admitting the reasonable view that some prolonged disagreements are reasonable, although it is logically impossible that all parties are in the right.

Not all political philosophers partake in this dispute, however. Some of them follow Popper and prefer to shift from the search for the most beneficial to the least harmful regime.

Assuming that some kinds of sovereignty are better than anarchy, political philosophers turn to normative questions such as the follow­ⁱⁿg:

1. What is the best method of government?

2. What is the best method for the state to enforce its edicts?

3. What is the best method for the administration of socialjustice?

Allegedly, skepticism implies that the answer to all these questions is that sovereignty should be minimal. Because no one is immune to error, rulers’ decisions might be erroneous; therefore, rulers should minimize their decisions, leaving the governments to function simply as the night watchmen and no more.

Notso, say the skeptics. Because these questions rest on the supposi­tion that some normative political principles are justifiable, which the skeptics deny, their skepticism implies no answer to these questions and especially no positive ideology whatsoever.

But, if no normative political principle is justifiable, as skeptics claim, then another objection appears. Political disputes abound and demand their resolution one way or another in order to run practical affairs, and some resolutions are better - more rational - than others. Hence, politics is the search for these resolutions. Skepticism, how­ever, denies that some resolutions are preferable and thus it blocks their rational resolutions.

Toward a Psychological Theory of the Morality of Politics

Antiqua">Under what conditions, then, does one endorse a given political judg­ment? As mentioned in the previous chapter, evolutionist anthropol­ogists try to explain normative values by considering their contribu­tion to the survival of the societies that adopt them. Thus, when they study political judgments, they seek Darwinian models that explain how norms are reinforced by natural selection - namely, models that present these norms as having survived due to their contribution to the survival of their practitioners and so also to that of the whole species.

We suspect that this view is naive because survival is, at times, the result of a given characteristic and often despite it. In any case, our interest here is in a different aspect of the matter. The theory that we are looking for should explain neither the origins of norma­tive judgments nor their contributions to survival; it should describe the psychological process that is responsible for current normative judgments such as they are and hopefully be testable, tested, and improved on. We are now in the middle of a discussion of moral­political disagreements because, traditionally, they are presumed less amenable to rational treatment than they really are. We also briefly discuss ontological political disputes, mainly about the economy, because democracies generally agree about the method for settling them.

Under what conditions, then, do given political judgments meet with general agreement? Let us emphasize here that we are discussing endorsement, not validity: we do not aim at the reduction of values to ontology - psychological, political, or otherwise.

Here, then, is our tentative theory:

ι. People normally tend to sympathize with the suffering of oth­ers and to consider immoral any act that increases suffering (Hume’s principle).

2.      People are normally ready to consider which rules they would legislate if they were rulers of the state aiming at the maximiza­tion of the welfare of its citizens.

3.      People are normally afraid that changes in the current methods of government would result in social and political disorders (or, at least, significant deterioration) and that these changes would bring about needless suffering.

The first two assumptions were discussed in the previous chapter on ethics. This is hardly surprising: we want politics to be moral and, to that end, we want political philosophy to rest on ethical foundations, shaky as they might be.

The (psychological) tendency to sympathize with the sufferings of others is almost universal, so much so that we consider those who lack it to be psychopaths or sociopaths - that is, amoral due to some abnormal deficiency. The implication for politics is that we may take it as the consensus that people object to any rule that needlessly increases suffering because they consider it immoral.^[61]

As mentioned in the previous chapter, we note that people sym­pathize not just with fellow humans but also with other animals.

According to the tentative psychological theory presented here, people are willing to consider which rules they would legislate if they were rulers of the state aiming at maximizing the welfare of its citizens. In what follows, we discuss the patterns of such rules.

Contractarians claim that utilitarianism is refuted by the following thought-experiment. It is easy to imagine a case in which hurting one (possibly innocent) person raises the total welfare of others, although this conduct is obviously immoral. (Thus, for example, as Jorge Luis Borges noted in his “Three Versions of Judas,” it has never occurred to anyone to defend the crucifixion as moral on the grounds that it brought salvation.) This thought-experiment refutes the identification of moral conduct as causing an increase in general welfare. This refu­tation does not apply to our tentative theory: the statement that people prefer to maximize welfare is only part of our tentative theory. Because it also asserts that people sympathize with sufferers, and considering the victim of our thought-experiment, they will judge immoral the conduct that it describes.

Another objection to our tentative theory is the claim that human rights and citizens’ rights are not only means for raising welfare but also expression of some noble principles. We agree and see no criti­cism here: we view these principles as means for raising welfare, but we have no intent to declare that this is the exclusive characteris­tic of these rights. We suggest that this should do for passing judg­ment on legislation. It is best to judge proposed legislation favorably or not depending on judgments of empirical hypotheses about the best way for legislation to raise welfare. Otherwise, legislation gets entangled in needless disputes on principle that would only delay urgent reforms. For legislative ends, it should suffice to propose that an item is considered favorably on (hypothetical) reasons: under present conditions, implementation increases respect for human welfare most. Rights are useful as a type of shortcut because usually we cannot cal­culate the expected influence of actions on the welfare of all citizens. Moreover, because proposed laws on rights also depend on what is no more than tentative empirical hypotheses, we should better consider them tentative, try to test them before implementing them, and treat their implementation as further experimental tests of the hypotheses that support them. We suggest that this enhances the respect for the principles of human rights and citizens’ rights because it amounts to the willingness to withdraw a proposal if it turns out to cause suffering - hopefully out of respect for these very principles.

This leads to a practical implication: in disputes about questions pertaining to the enactments of new laws concerning rights, oppo­nents may try to refute claims that they would raise welfare most. Moreover, all legislation should be automatically open for reconsid­eration, perhaps even after an agreed-on test period. Perhaps it is advisable to constitutionally institute a temporary enactment of every bill before it is fully enacted and a separate authority for the purpose of supervising the tests of new laws beforehand.

The Fear of Social Disorders

The fear of social disorders is normal because it is common: most people fear that social disorder will unexpectedly bring all sorts of suffering in its wake. Therefore, they fear great changes of the systems of government because, for all they know, these changes may lead to social disorder and thus to needless suffering. This may be explained by the application of the economic or quasi-economic idea known as the law of diminishing marginal utility. No one denies that, typically, small financial differences mean more to the poor than to the rich. Now, because changes of the system of government might fail (and we learn from history that this is regrettably too often the case), this law makes it sensible to initiate a change in any system of government only if the expected gains are considerably higher than the possible losses or if the injustice it is expected to rectify is considerably greater than the injustice it will unwittingly engender. In this sense, under normal conditions, as Popper observed, some degree of conservatism may be rational and even the default option - to be upset only in cases of urgency, of great social distress or risk, of significant opportunity, and of expectations that the new legislation would bring about great progress fairly quickly.

This explains why the seventeenth-century thinkers who inaugu­rated modern political philosophy repeatedly endorsed powerful monarchism, even though today many consider it immoral. Indeed, even the English public, for example, supports British constitutional monarchy but would admit that, if they lived in a republic, they would not advocate powerful monarchy - which is the point of this dis­cussion. The scarcity within politics of the endorsement of new and bold changes in norms is due to a scarcely avoidable ignorance cou­pled with a fine consideration for the possibility that reform might worsen rather than improve people’s lot. So, the practical question is this: What changes in the current system of government are urgently required and/or greatly beneficial to upset this reasonable reluctance to endorse new proposals for reform?

Note that we are ignoring the dispute between radicals, reformists, conservatives, and reactionaries. As long as the spokespeople for these philosophies claim that certain political positions are more justified than others, as skeptics we object to them all, repeating our claim that no position is ever justifiable. When we interpret these positions as prescriptions for efficiently raising welfare, however, we object to them all because it is obviously better to judge matters case by case on their specific merits or demerits. This is particularly important when technological innovations are in the offing because one cannot tell what kind of technology will be readily available in the near future. It may be the case, therefore, that one position is more efficient at one time, whereas another is more efficient at other times. At most, we consider the choice between these philosophies as the choice of default positions. As such, however, our preference is for moderate reformism because it is liberal and fallibilist - thus, the default pref­erence for increased sets of options for choice. Evidently, this liberal preference at times tends toward radicalism, at other times toward conservative politics, and at still other times toward neither. As for the reactionaries, we never want to share attitudes with them because their position seems to us immoral: misanthropic and pessimistic.

Political Disputes

To reiterate, we suggest the following tentative psychological theory:

1.      The sympathy principle: People normally tend to sympathize with the suffering of others and to consider immoral any act that increases suffering needlessly (Hume’s principle).

2.      The welfare principle: People are normally ready to consider which rules they would legislate it they were rulers of the state aiming for the purpose of maximizing the welfare of its citizens.

Antiqua">3.      The conservative principle. People are normally afraid of suffer­ing from social disorders resulting from changing the current method of government, and this fear is at times quite reason­able.

In light of this tentative psychological theory, we find the following possible conditions for disputes regarding politics that rest on differ­ences in intuition. Some disputes rest on the difference of intuitions in regard to sympathy for the sufferings of others. As an example, we presented in the previous chapter the dispute over the moral­ity of abortion. Other disputes result from different views as to what best increases human welfare. The disputes between advocates of free enterprise and socialism are also straightforward examples. Still other moral disputes are explicable as disputes wherein the intuition of one party is the outcome of considerations that rest on sympathy, whereas that of the other is the outcome of considerations that rest on the wel­fare principle because, in some given cases, different intuitions may initiate conflicting political proposals. The dispute about the moral­ity of globalization, mentioned in the previous chapter, is the most topical example. Consider European farmers: abolishing subsidies for them will ruin their lifestyle, and we sympathize with the suffering that this move incurs. Yet, according to the neoclassical economic theory, free trade is beneficial for all concerned within a relatively short time span. This should obviously hold for all Europeans, farmers and non­farmers alike. The farmers’ negative response, then, may be rooted in their ignorance of economic theory or in their having sufficient famil­iarity with it to harbor distrust or else in their readiness to pay a high price for the preservation of their lifestyle. But perhaps the farmers have a vague, general fear that the promised future compensation for their immediate loss may not arrive for any reason whatsoever. This last item is a different matter altogether, one that renders conservative attitudes generally rational. Indeed, most historical moral disputes are explicable as the result of different parties having different expecta­tions regarding risks due to changes in the system of government. Again, disputes about the morality of monarchism are an example of this case.

The preceding discussion suggests ways for pursuing moral disputes in politics. A dispute rooted in a difference of sympathies should lead the disputing parties to seek arguments showing similarity or dissimilarity between the object of the contested sympathy and humans like them.

A dispute rooted in a disagreement about a theory concerning welfare should lead the disputing parties to attempts to test the theory scientifically. For example, they can test the theory that socialism or systems that practice relatively free enterprise, or any other system, is more conducive to welfare increase. At times, these tests amount to the implementation of different systems in different countries in an effort of the less successful to learn as much as possible from the more successful. What exactly this amounts to is open to further dispute. Here, we see that the pluralist political philosophy that is so popular today gains its greatest support and the best rationale from healthy, commonsensical skepticism of the kind that we share.

A dispute that rests on competing intuitions - for example, one based on the sympathy principle and the other on a theory concerning welfare - should lead the disputing parties to attempts to discuss their intuition with each other in the hope of reaching some agreement or compromise.

Finally, a dispute that rests on a disagreement about the risk implied by changing the system of government can at times be resolved by test­ing the change on small scales and then gradually increase their size and reach the national scale. We consider one such example in the next section, but first let us admit that this very proposal rests on a value judgment: in modern society, we expect ontological disagreements to be open to empirical resolution and demand that they should be resolved, and we expect that other ontological disagreements should be tolerated as much as possible without causing disruption. Of course, the question of how much disagreement is possible without disrupting society is predictive from prior observation, thereby likewise ontolog­ical. It is possible to destroy society over an empirically irresolvable ontological disagreement. History is full of cases of this kind. Because all of the preceding has gained public recognition and approval, it invites no further discussion here. Let us conclude, then, by observing that commonsensical skepticism is conducive to tolerance - for good or ill.

The Dissolution of the Nation-State

We now indicate the way for the application of our tentative theory to another practical political discussion. The subject under discussion is the proposal to dissolve the nation-state in a series of rather rapid, simple moves. Early in the twentieth century, Russell and Einstein recommended the establishment of a world government, of one state for the entire globe. The European Union is going in this direction, but obviously not in as extreme a fashion as Russell had hoped.

Following our tentative theory, considerations of this suggestion raise three questions that should be placed high on the European political agenda for public discussion.

First, does this suggestion harm other people with whom we sym­pathize? This question is empirical. Many people have strong feelings about their nationality, and they emphatically declare that reducing the role that nations play in world politics will hurt them. This may be true but, in this case, many viable options are easily available for harmless compensations for the nationalists; the experience of the European Union may indicate some of them. And, wherever options are open, the matter is open to empirical investigation - both as to the change of the role that nations may play as an outcome of any proposed reform and to its impact on their individual members. And, we suggest, the investigation should proceed along lines indicated pre­viously. The chief disaster to avoid in this case is war, especially civil war: because the chief aim of the exercise was to reduce the danger of war, it should be obvious that a wise move toward a world government is one that significantly reduces this danger.

Second, does this suggestion raise welfare? This question is also empirical. If a change that reduces the role of nations is implemented with any measure of success, especially by the reduction of the risk of wars and civil wars, then this in itself should raise welfare consider­ably. But, that very implementation, no matter how commonsensical it appears, may also disrupt the cultural life of nations, thereby alienating their members and thus being detrimental to their welfare. Moreover, it may cause social disorder in some states, thus reducing significantly the efficient management of its affairs.

Third, does the very transition to one world state cause social dis­order? Obviously, such a transition is very risky; indeed, Russell’s and Einstein’s proposal for the establishment of a world government was considered more utopian than practical. The example of the Euro­pean Union offers a practical gradual development toward this utopia, thereby minimizing the risk of suffering from disruption, social disor­der, and even the decline of local ethnic culture. Howfar the European Union can expand without raising a new type of trouble is obviously not given to scientific prediction because no extant economic theory explains its success - not even the classical or neoclassical theory - and because the European Union introduced new measures of economic state intervention. Hence, the sane proposal is to remain on guard.

Democracy versus Dictatorship

Thus far, we have discussed the implication of skepticism to the moral questions within political philosophy. We now turn to the second implication of skepticism to politics - the implication of skepticism for the choice of the best system of government. We concentrate on the central choice, that between democracy and dictatorship, because these systems seem to be the only current practicable options. And, to render dictatorship palatable, we should immediately state that we have in mind dictatorship as benevolent and as well disposed as possi­ble toward modernization.

Every ruler, a dictator or a leader of a most democratic state, must decide for people who do not participate in the process of making decisions about issues that concern them. This raises two questions.

Because rulers may look after their own interests rather than those of their citizens, the first question is: In which system are the rulers more likely to best pursue the welfare of the citizens? This question is value-laden, of course, because rulers may prefer to serve utterly dif­ferent ideals. So, not surprisingly, the comparison between democracy and dictatorship is not currently under debate: the rulers in democracy are more likely to pursue the welfare of their citizens for fear of not being reelected (Spinoza). This, however, is observed only in democ­racies; political commentators often extrapolate it to other countries because they assume that it would also be observed there if they were democracies.

Dictators repeatedly declare this question begging. Their countries are not democratic, they explain, because they lack the necessary con­ditions. They further suggest that their population cares more for their traditional ways of life than for their own welfare (i.e., they believe them to be best for the attainment of higher standards of welfare). Hence, their dictators conclude, becoming democratic without fur­ther ado would only worsen the situation. Accordingly, when certain new general elections lead to the rise of fanatical fundamentalist par­ties, dictators may block a fundamentalist takeover by simply refusing to step down. Should they step down?

These dictators are not fools. They are right to observe that tra­ditionalism is strong among their people; they are likewise right to observe that their traditional leaders are undemocratic and their tra­dition is at loggerheads with democracy. Now, the plain truth is that traditional people want both tradition and some fruits of modernity: weapons, material comforts, or both. No one has succeeded in com­bining the traditional ways of life of the less fortunate countries with the wealth that modern technology offers. (No matter how rich these countries may be in natural resources, their populations are poor - and what their natural resources purchase most often is modern weaponry.) So, the question is: How can populations of such coun­tries develop sufficiently reasonable public debates about what the people want? Dictators who often say that they prepare their people for democracy and express willingness to step down when the time is ripe do all they can to prevent public political debates. What is to be done about this?

We do not know. In fairness, we assume that the dictators we depict are benevolent and wish to improve the welfare of their citizens, but we observe that they do all they can to impede public political debates, thereby impeding democratization. Should we let them be or force them to open public political debates? If so, how? Even these questions are intractably difficult.

There is an additional aspect to consider. Benevolent dictators who try to maximize the welfare of their citizens may still make a mess of things, thereby worsening their citizens’ welfare. But this holds for democratically elected leaders as well. So, the next question is: Which system, democracy or (benevolent) dictatorship, is less likely to do harm?

Historically, rulers often claimed that they had access to divine knowledge (directly or via priests under their command) and that, therefore, they knew best what was good for their people. Here, we assume the skeptical view, according to which no system is immune to error so that access to divine knowledge, per impossible, offers no more guarantee of the avoidance of all error than any other source of knowledge - not to mention the possibility that the Divinity may have other considerations than the welfare of this or that nation. (Indeed, few doubt the recent assertion that the Divinity was not too kind to the Chosen People.) No matter what the system of government is, implementation of its opinions may harm the population at large.

This is no counsel of despair. Psychology and the history of ideas can help. In particular, we contend, we know of no better way to help our neighbors to democratize than by improving our own democracy. As mentioned in Chapter 2, we may try to combat one of the biggest obstacles to democracy that is one of the interesting phenomena in the history of ideas, and it is this: most people do not like to admit error, and rulers are no exception. Like other humans, if not more so, rulers hate to admit that the positions they had publicly espoused were erroneous. They hate even more to admit that their opponents had previously voiced valid criticism of their opinions.

This psychological phenomenon grants democracy a second advan­tage over dictatorship. Like a dictator, a democratic ruler cannot be trusted to admit having erred. However, contrary to dictators who stay in power and perpetuate their errors despite criticism and disaster, democracy can hopefully replace its elected government by peace­ful means - by refusing to reelect them or otherwise deposing or impeaching them.

Many politicians try to avoid being refuted by espousing irrefutable slogans. For example, instead of suggesting detailed plans for decreas­ing poverty, they may claim no more than that they consider it a bad thing or that they will apply social policies against poverty that they describe much too vaguely for them to be open to critical assess­ment. This leads to a practical suggestion mentioned in Chapter 2: when politicians present their positions and plans, we - the citizens - should insist on hearing refutable versions of them; we should prefer candidates with refutable ideas. This way, we may improve the rational­ity of our choice in elections. Incidentally, this is a matter of general education of the citizenry. So, there is a point to the excuse of dicta­tors who say their people are not yet ready for democracy. Yet, these dictators do their very best to prevent their people from achieving proper education - particularly democratic education - in favor of defunct traditional education. And, of course, the best way to acquire democratic education is to establish democracy, however imperfect it may be, to the extent that it is at all workable and somewhat more. This does not solve the problem for a country that is not ready for even a poor democracy. For that, what is needed is a government that is willing to provide for basic education and widening the circle of people involved in the decision processes of their government. Here is the place, perhaps, to mention the plan of Habib Borgiba, the erst­while president of Tunis, to ship thousands of young adult citizens of a non-democratic poor country to rich democratic countries for a few years of education.