Rather nice of them, really.
Over here.
Balliol Men’s First Boat Head of the River Monday, May 26 2008
Current Affairs 8:45 am
I don’t really care all that much about rowing, but was quite pleased for the rowers, who came head of the river for the first time since 1956, last Saturday. To celebrate, they put a boat on the quad…
Hobbes an optimist? Monday, May 26 2008
Philosophy 8:37 am
While much of Hobbes’ Leviathan does indeed express a pessimism about the condition of individual men, especially in the absence of a Sovereign keeping all in ‘awe’, there is I think a considerable element of optimism to be found in Leviathan, pertaining especially to Hobbes’ vision of what can be achieved by sovereign power in civil society. Describing Hobbes solely as a pessimist does an injustice to the subtly of his work, even though we may perhaps continue to view him as predominantly pessimistic in our general assessment.
In certain respects Hobbes is best described as a pessimist, most notably his vision of the condition of man in the State of Nature (SofN). We see this by considering chapters 13-16 of ‘Of Man’, where Hobbes tells us that men are possessed of a fundamental (and inalienable) ‘Right of Nature’ (RofN): that each may do whatever is required for his own preservation, including the use of the bodies of others. In the SofN men, who lack a Sovereign power holding them all in awe via the ‘publique Sword’ are mutually suspicious and threatened by each other, due to the very fact each individual possesses the RofN. Men are thus apt to ‘invade’ each other for ‘competition, diffidence and glory’ (the first for power, the second for security, the third for reputation). Due to the lack of Sovereign power holding all in awe, covenanting is impossible in the SofN – without the publique sword, covenants are “but empty words”. Yet the inability to covenant in turn means men can never trust each other, never escape their mutual fear of each other. Thus the SofN is a State of Warre (SofW), where as we all know life is “nasty, brutish and short”. Hobbes’ vision here is certainly pessimistic – but let us be careful where we locate the pessimism. It is not that Hobbes views men as inherently ‘evil’ (indeed, ‘evil’ is a word given content only within society, like ‘justice’) but rather that the lack of a common power, combined with each’s right to self-preservation, generates a situation where conflict and violence is inevitable. Human beings even in the SofN are capable of compassion and benevolence – towards family, for example – but the uncertainty of the SofN limits such sentiments in favour of self-preserving egoism.
In this light, Hobbes can be read as a pessimist in another dimension, also: his vision of Sovereign power as absolute. Hobbes is icily clear that Sovereign power is absolute: in Chapter 29 he details that any attempt to limit or divide the Sovereign power is to dissolve it – and in doing so, men lose the ‘common power’ that holds them all in awe, plunging them back into the SofN which is a SofW. Indeed on Hobbes’ picture the Sovereign, by matter of logic must be absolute. It is the existence of a Sovereign with the publique sword which makes covenanting possible, as well as creating the ‘artificial chains’, i.e. laws, which help make civil society such. Hobbes is clear that laws are ‘commands of a superior’ (which raises an interesting issue as to whether the ‘Laws of Nature’ of Chapters 14-16 are in fact laws at all, being mere ‘precepts of reason’ – indeed Hobbes says in Chapter 26 that they are not laws properly so called), which can be enforced through coercion. If the Sovereign were limited, the Sovereign would be subject to laws – yet that would mean being subject to the commands of a superior, in which case the Sovereign would, ipso facto, not be a Sovereign in the first place. Likewise to divide the Sovereign means creating alternate centres of publique power – but then no single Sovereign holds all in awe, thus ipso facto there is no Sovereign.
This has important implications. Firstly, Hobbes dramatically tells us in Chapter 21 that if the Sovereign decides to put you to death, even if you are innocent, then while the RofN guarantees you the right to resist (in the same way the Sovereign cannot command you to hurt or kill yourself) you cannot remonstrate: because you have lived in a society in which you have prospered, made covenants and been free of the SofN, you have authorised every act of the Sovereign – including his decision to execute you! Secondly, Hobbes is icely clear that you are not allowed to resist the Sovereign in the aid of those who are innocent, but are to be put to death. Hobbes reasoning on these dramatic illustrations, I take to be as follows: the SofN is so terrible that anything done by the Sovereign is favourable to the return to that state. If the Sovereign deems it that executing innocents ensures the continuance of civil society, then that is what is required. Indeed I take it to be this hard-line attitude regarding the extent of absolute rule which inspired Locke to comment in the Second Treatise that this was to fear the mischiefs done to one by polecats and foxes, but to be content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by Lions.
In this respect, I take Hobbes to be a pessimist of sorts: the SofN is so unbearable that anything is favourable to it – we must, therefore, resign ourselves to an absolute Sovereign, and run the risk that he will turn against us one day, even if we are innocent. At least until that point we will have been free of the SofN (which is a SofW), and we know that others will benefit from the Sovereign continuing to maintain civil society by wielding the publique sword. This is one reason Hobbes calls the Leviathan, in Chapter 28, the ‘King of the Proud’, after a passage from the Book of Job: God punishes Job for things he never did to test his faith in a wager with Satan – yet Job endures all, never challenging the authority of God or forsaking him. Hobbes’ implication is that subjects should take the same attitude to the ‘artificial man’, the Leviathan, i.e. the Sovereign power.
Yet to stop here would be to give only one half of the story, for I believe that despite this apparent pessimism, Of Commonwealth in fact indicates a significant level of optimism on Hobbes’ behalf. To see this, it is helpful to consider the vision of absolute Sovereignty as what I will call the ‘minimum requirement condition’ (MRC): for Hobbes, for us to exist the SofN, a Sovereign is required, and for the Sovereign to be such, it must be absolute (though it may be a King or an Assembly; Hobbes prefers the former, but thinks the latter is possible, though less desirable). Yet the MRC is just that – a minimum requirement, and nothing necessarily follows from it. While it is true that an absolute sovereign may put innocents to death, and so forth, there is nothing in Leviathan that entails that he must or will. Indeed, there is a great deal which suggests that the Sovereign may be kind, benevolent and helpful to his people. Firstly, Hobbes tells us that Sovereigns are more powerful and prosperous to the extent that their subjects are prosperous and do well: insofar as the Sovereign is wise and seeks to secure his own power, he will promote the good of the people –even if only as a cynical ploy to aid himself (after all, happy, well-fed subjects are those most likely to obey the Sovereign’s dictates). Secondly, Hobbes tells us in Chapter 30 that the Sovereign’s job is to provide more than just security, the enforcement of covenants and avoidance of the SofN, specifically, it must provide for ‘the contentment’s of life’. Thirdly, and again in Chapter 30, Hobbes likens the laws laid down by a Sovereign as restrictions upon subjects only in the way that ‘hedges keep a traveller on the right road’ (a sentiment Locke seems to have adopted with his insistence that laws are not undesirable restrictions when they fence men in from ‘bogs and precipices’).
Finally, I wish to offer a novel reading of Hobbes’ view of the Sovereign, which although not based in the text, seems to me perfectly compatible with the text. Namely, that a wise and able Sovereign might institute what we could think of as ‘quasi-limits’ on its own power. That is, if the Sovereign were, say, a King, he might recognise that he is only a man, and hence fallible. Consequently he might decide to establish a system of checks and balances, by which certain of his decisions might require consultation with an advisor (though only one; Hobbes was highly suspicious of multiple counsellors). Now we must be very careful here: Hobbes would certainly not have countenanced the idea of full-blown limits on the Sovereign – that would dissolve sovereignty. The idea here is that the Sovereign would always retain the power to ignore the self-imposed ‘quasi-limits’ if he chose, whether consulting a trusted counsellor or otherwise. But the limits would exist for as long as the Sovereign wanted them to – and a wise Sovereign might desire such limits as checks against error, though always retaining the power simply to overturn them if he saw fit. Again I stress that this is not in the text, but I believe it to be compatible with it. And if it is, this suggests a considerable degree of optimist is compatible with the theory of Leviathan.
I wish to conclude by offering the following explanatory consideration. I believe Hobbes focuses upon the absolute aspect of Sovereignty, and holds a pessimism about men without a common power to hold them in awe, because of his experience of the Civil War of 1642-6. The Civil War – for Hobbes a return to the SofN – was, for Hobbes, more terrible than any absolute power. Thus I suggest his’ main concern in writing Leviathan was a preoccupation with stability, and avoidance of war – and this is best facilitated by absolute Sovereignty. Yet once that stability has been guaranteed – the MRC is satisfied – there is no necessary limit to what can follow. Absolute Sovereigns need not be despots – indeed Hobbes expressly denied that they were. Thus I argue that a considerable degree of optimism can be discerned in Leviathan, and in discerning it we appreciate a greater level of depth and subtly to Hobbes work. Yet perhaps our final note should, after all, emphasise his pessimism – for the final passage of Of Commonwealth closes with a highly pessimistic remark: that this Leviathan Hobbes has written is perhaps no more a genuine possibility than the Republic of Plato, which was only a ‘model in heaven’. Despite undeniable elements of optimism within his work, perhaps Hobbes is essentially a pessimist after all.
Shock News As Hilary Clinton Puts Her Foot In It…again Saturday, May 24 2008
Current Affairs and North America and Politics 8:14 am
Oh, when will this be over? Clinton’s latest gaff is referencing the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in June 1968 as a casual illustration of previous long Democratic nomination campaigns.
Surely it’s obvious by now that she’s useless. I’m not sure Obama is all that much better, but for God’s sake if there is to be any chance of a Democratic win come November this nomination campaign has to end, and the acrimony has to cease. If only Clinton’s lust for power would cease preventing her from climbing down for the sake of,America, and arguably all of humanity…
Did you know? Wednesday, May 14 2008
Uncategorized 5:25 pm
That in 1913 Hitler, Tito, Stalin and Trotsky were all living in Vienna.
How do i know? Leafing through books I don’t intend to buy in Blackwell’s when i’m supposed to be reading about Hobbes.
And the Award for Most Odious and Vile Little Toad goes to… Tuesday, May 13 2008
Current Affairs and Politics 9:18 am
Ann Widdecombe!
For the following comments made to the Oxford Student Newspaper last week (here is but a choice selection of the best):
“What happens with those shows, things like [Celebrity] Fit Club, that have huge viewer numbers, is that they establish you in the public mind. And the next time you are on television doing a programme on something like the benefits culture, they’ll watch because it’s you. It does help, indirectly, get your message across”.
She describes herself as a “sensible feminist”: “There is a huge difference between 1970s feminism and 1990s feminism. In the 70s we were saying, ‘give us the opportunity and we’ll show you we are as good as men’. Now what feminists are saying is, ‘we want special favours, we want all-women short-lists for parliament’. I absolutely reject that sort of feminism.”
Also, we must be aware of “Christainophobia”, for which we can partly blame the Anglican Church for “failing to stand up for itself”. This is all part of the ‘political correctness’ which is itself “a symptom of what [Widdecombe] call[s] the libertarian dictatorship”.
And we also get a lesson in effective family planning: “I do support the abstinence policy. If everyone had always followed the Church’s teaching, which is chastity before and fidelity within marriage, we wouldn’t have AIDS or any sexual diseases”.
I was going to do a little critical analysis on these choice morsels, but what’s the point? Widdecombe speaks for herself – an Odious and Vile Little Toad.
Don’t Trash Me Friday, May 9 2008
Current Affairs and Oxford 10:50 am
I’ve been thinking about the supposed ‘tradition’ of ‘trashing’ finalists at Oxford, and i’ve come to the conclusion that it really is a thoroughly obnoxious and unpleasant practice.
For those not contained within the bizarre bubble that is Oxford University, ‘trashing’ is the practice of meeting people after their last exam and covering them with unpleasant things, usually food and drink, but in more extreme cases things like dead fish, vomit and human excrement.
Usually ‘trashing’ is presented as a harmless ‘tradition’, and just a bit of post-finals fun. On reflection I think that both claims need to be challenged and can be found wanting.
Firstly ‘trashing’ is not a tradition. People did not trash each other 15 years ago; it is an extremely recent phenomenon, and any status as a ‘tradition’ is purely invented. Furthermore, I see no worthwhile appeal in the claim that it is a tradition – which it is not – anyway: lots of things are traditional, like paying women less than men for work of equal skill and intensity (here we have an illicitly institutionalised tradition, at least in my opinion), but few people would be game to defend that on the grounds that it is ‘traditional’. For a less controversial example, Morris Dancing is traditional, but nothing follows – if you Morris Dance outside my window at 5am and wake me up, your appeal that it is ‘tradition’ won’t cut any mustard, nor would you expect it to.
Secondly, i don’t think that ‘trashing’ is harmless fun, on many counts.
To begin with, it is insulting. Why? Because Oxford has a disproportionately high number of homeless people, and there is something particularly repugnant about privileged Oxford undergraduates, all of whom are bankrolled either by parents, the state or the University, buying food and drink simply to waste it, leaving most of it to spoil on the floor after the ‘trashing’ is over. When you recall that there are people in this city who struggle to eat on a daily basis, you realise that trashing is perhaps not so harmless at all.
As a connected point, there is something thoroughly obnoxious about trashing insofar as no trashers ever clean up after themselves. Instead food, drink and vomit etc are left all over the floor of a public street. Other people are expected simply to endure this, while still others are expected to come along and clean it all up – those others being some of the poorest people in society, namely those who work as street cleaners, an already difficult and let’s be honest less-than-pleasant job, done for extremely poor pay.
So trashing insults more people than just the homeless – further it is positively dangerous: two people last year suffered broken limbs after slipping on mess left by trashers. That’s simply not fair, and it shouldn’t happen when it can so easily be avoided.
Finally, i object to trashing strongly on the grounds that it reinforces the message that Oxford undergraduates are both the beneficiaries and the manifestations of extreme privilege, who hold a contemptuous disregard for others. Partly this is for reasons already noted: wasting food in front of the homeless, expecting others to clean up for you, etc. But trashing generally express an attitude of privilege: that Oxford undergraduates are so wealthy that they can afford to have their suits trashed (all students do exams in suits – ’sub-fusc’ – for those note familiar with the system) - after all they can just buy new ones, can’t they? (Those students who are in fact not so financially privileged may themselves hold some prudential objections to trashing).
Oxford students can afford to waste food, and expect others to clean up after them. The message is clear: we are the privileged elite, we can do whatever we want, and you must not only live with it, you must pay for it too. In other words, trashing is an expression of superior class status.
Personally that is not the message I want to send to residents of Oxford, to wider society as a whole, or to prospective students already wary of Oxford’s reputation as a bastion of privilege and elitism cut-off from the modern world.
So in summary, don’t trash me, and don’t expect me to trash you.
Labour Panders to the Right Wednesday, May 7 2008
Current Affairs and Politics 9:20 am
So looks like cannabis is to be re-classified as a Class B drug, after a period of down-grading to Class C.
I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that this has nothing to do with science, crime, or other candidates for being plausibly good reasons. Rather Labour, and Brown especially, are trying to pander to Daily Mail reading middle England (hence the Mail’s headline last week: CANNABIS: FINALLY A U-TURN). In my opinion it won’t work; why vote for u-turners, when you can just vote for the other lot who said they were ‘tough on drugs’ all along?
The whole thing is ridiculous though. Firstly there is no conclusive proof that cannabis is especially harmful unless abused in ridiculous quantities – but you know, if you eat chips 3 times and day and no fruit and veg, you’ll get fat and die early. But nobody is reclassifying chips. Further, even if something is bad for me, who is the government to tell me I can’t do it? Especially when lots of other harmful things are legal (and taxed). After all
how can something with no recorded fatalities be illegal, and how many deaths are there per year from alcohol?
Oh, the Irony Of It All.
And further, smoking cannabis does not make you into a criminal. I’ve smoked cannabis on and off since I was 13, sometimes quite heavily on. I have, to date, not turned into a sociopath hellbent on crime prancing across the stepping stones to harder drugs, plunging me into a life of deviancy.
One last thing though, recreational drug-use is at record highs in this country. But if your drug-use is recreational, as opposed to dependence-habitual, that suggests you have a reasonably high level of disposable income with which to purchase recreational drugs. So who do we think are using drugs? Just the scum on council estates, stealing your car radio for their next fix? Or the very middle class voters – and if my quotidian experience is anything to go by, their children – whom such ‘tough on drugs’ policies are meant to pander to?
The more you look at this world, the more ludicrous it all looks. I’d laugh, if I could bring myself not to take it all so seriously.
Good Old Simon Tuesday, May 6 2008
Current Affairs and Philosophy and Politics 9:43 am
Simon Blackburn has a good little piece over here at T.H.E.
My favourite two are:
8. The myth of equal respect
The belief that everyone deserves equal respect and that anything else is discriminatory and elitist. The truth is the exact opposite: discrimination is a virtuous activity and elites are to be admired. The very few human beings who are good at anything, whether football or playing the violin or writing or painting, form an elite and deserve respect for their excellence. Other people either deserve sympathy for trying and failing, or should be ignored if they have not even tried.
Respect is not the same as toleration. I am lucky if my neighbours tolerate my singing when in the garden, but they would have to be tone deaf to respect it, and if they did then of course they in turn would forfeit my respect as music critics.
There are people whose chosen lifestyle disqualifies them from any respect at all, such as celebrities, although a more charitable view is that they deserve respect for the amount of publicity they can bestow, which is why they get into nightclubs and Downing Street. Religionists know in their hearts that they are always teetering on the edge of being ridiculous, and are therefore nervous about respect and constantly insist on it.
10. The myth of the public service ethos
The idea that sometimes people will do something because it is the right thing to do, not because it affords them any advantage. This was once true, but constant repetition by politicians and economists that it is a myth has successfully made it one.
Peter of Peter’s Apology thinks Mr Blackburn is not to be respected, I expect that’s got something to do with his religious and moral objectivist leanings…
But Peter is not the only one, over at Crooked Timber, poor Simon has been laid into:
Aside from the obvious fact (which Geras points out) that the claim that everyone deserves respect in the rights and human dignity sense doesn’t entail the hostility to discriminations of achievement that Blackburn claims, his statement that “very few human beings … are good at anything” is simply crap.
Many many human beings are talented cooks or gardeners, accomplished dancers, considerate colleagues, good mothers or good fathers. Many many human beings are empathetic, or courageous, or patient. And no, I don’t think those who are (for example) rated good cooks by those they know and cook for “deserve our sympathy” for failing to be Escoffier, nor should they be ignored for not even trying to be Escoffier. Blackburn, on the other hand, probably ought to have our sympathy: not for trying and failing to make it to the level of, say, David Hume, but for falling victim to the delusion that the less that superb doesn’t amount to good. What a failure he must imagine himself to be!
I feel an urge to defend Mr Blackburn at this point:
1) Blackburn is right: most people are not very good at anything. Note the word very. That’s important that is. Lots of people might be good cooks and gardners. The few who are very good go on Telly and do it for a living (and so forth). It’s simple a fact about the world that most people are decidedly average in their talents. Despite the propaganda you’ve been fed in primary school, which is perpetuated by ‘interactive, have your say!’ media culture, the fact is most people are only mildly good at a few things, and average or less than average at most. But that is just an empirical fact…nothing need follow from empirical facts alone.
2) If one bothers to read the tenor of Blackburn’s piece, his point is quite obviously not an attempt to insult people by denying them the ’status’ of ‘equal concern and respect’ that liberal egalitarians a la Dworkin hark on about. Hie point, as i take it, is to expose the fact that talk of equal respect is a pervasive sham detrimental to the interests of those very people it is aimed at and used to placate in the first place. Rhetoric about ‘equal respect’ is simply disingenuous – it does not follow that Blackburn advocates an Aristotelian vision of excluding the non-excellent – as he says, toleration can often be extended, except when people aren’t willing to reciprocate or to try themselves. But respect is a different matter; respect needs to be earned, and does not come automatically on the back of the myth – and it is a myth – that all people are good at stuff, because that is not true – but of course nothing follows from that as things stand.
Given that Simon is quite clearly a man who leans ever so slightly to the left, I can’t help thinking that it is a little silly to accuse him of holding nasty and inegalitarian attitudes towards ordinary people. From what I can tell, he’s been reading his Nietzsche more closely than his Truth ook might sugest (or his appearance at Balliol last year, for that matter), and has noticed that many lies are wrapped in the cloak of being beneficial to those they are given to.
So well done Simon, keep up the good work.
I think it is safe to say Saturday, May 3 2008
Current Affairs and Politics 9:30 am
THAT DEMOCRACY DOESN’T WORK:
This would never have happened if philosopher kings were in charge.
I’m a philosopher king. At least I like to think so.
Good article over here as to why this is an indictment of the state of modern Britain.
Plus did you know that if the Tories win the next election – sorry whenthe Torries win the next election, then the Prime Minister, The Chancellor and the Mayor of London will all be Old Etonians? Great.
