The Beginning and the Beyond of Politics

Political, Philosophical, and Historical Discoveries

David Walsh

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780268107390
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

In The Priority of the Person, world-class philosopher David Walsh advances the argument set forth in his highly original philosophic meditation Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being (2015), that "person" is the central category of modern political thought and philosophy. The present volume is divided into three main parts. It begins with the political discovery of the inexhaustibility of persons, explores the philosophic differentiation of the idea of the "person, " and finally traces the historical emergence of the concept through art, science, and faith. Walsh argues that, although the roots of the idea of "person" are found in the Greek concept of the mind and in the Christian conception of the soul, this notion is ultimately a distinctly modern achievement, because it is only the modern turn toward interiority that illuminated the unique nature of persons as each being a world unto him- or herself. As Walsh shows, it is precisely this feature of persons that makes it possible for us to know and communicate with others, for we can only give and receive one another as persons. In this way alone can we become friends and, in friendship, build community.

By showing how the person is modernity's central preoccupation, David Walsh's The Priority of the Person makes an important contribution to current discussions in both political theory and philosophy. It will also appeal to students and scholars of theology and literature, and any groups interested in the person and personalism.

PART 1

The Political Discovery

CHAPTER TWO

Are Freedom and Dignity Enough?

A Reflection on Liberal Abbreviations

Political language, Michael Oakeshott has taught us, consists of a set of abbreviations for a far more concretely extended knowledge.¹ This is why politics cannot simply be taught or reduced to a science. It must be picked up in all of its embedded complexity as befits a branch of practical wisdom. Nowhere is this characterization more apt than in the liberal language of rights, which appears to have carried the principle of compression to its limit. “Rights-talk” has become so elliptic that the shorthand is in danger of losing its connection with any sustaining political order. We all know that respect for individual rights is meaningful only in the context of a political order that is capable of preserving them. Yet somehow the core liberal vocabulary of individual rights seems not to invite that wider recognition. As a consequence, liberal politics tends to teeter perpetually on the brink of incoherence and collapse.

The pattern generates an unavoidable anxiety, reflected by a multitude of conferences and anthologies, in which the participants are provoked to wonder if this narrow liberal evocation is capable of surviving. It is a question most eloquently provoked by Glenn Tinder’s Against Fate, in which the underlying tensions are brought to light. Are liberal abbreviations enough? Or do they necessarily lead to ever-shriller demands of a political order that ever fewer are willing to work to preserve? Is the liberal construction an invitation to self-destruction? Or are there deeper resources within this seemingly fragile arrangement that might yet rescue us from the threat of disintegration? Are there depths within the liberal soul of which liberals themselves are scarcely aware? Such are undoubtedly the questions that press on any observer of our contemporary political scene in which friction and fracture seem to shake liberal democracies to their very roots.

Traditionalists have increasingly concluded that the situation is hopeless. The very defenders of the classical liberal ideal, in which individual liberty is preserved in a constitutional political order, have in many instances lost faith in the project. Not only have liberal democratic polities taken a wrong turn, as conservative voices have argued for half a century, but that misstep was already implanted in the eighteenth-century foundation itself. A pluralist political order was a misconception in principle. Any scheme erected on the principle of transferring conflict from the public to the private realm would inevitably proceed apace until the public arena had been thoroughly evacuated of all substance. At that point the superstructure could no longer endure and the house of cards would collapse of its own weight. A critique that began with a questioning of the welfare state has been radicalized to cast suspicion on the entire constitutional enterprise. Within the United States this means that even the revered founders are declining in conservative estimation. How, after all, can they point us toward a deeper wisdom when it is their foundation that has led to the dead end of liberal disintegration?²

The assessment hardly fares better when we turn to the contemporary standard-bearers of the liberal impulse—the progressive liberals. They too have moved in the space of fifty years from confidence in the liberal enlargement of autonomy to a state of profound uncertainty concerning its defensibility. Following World War II and its challenge to liberal democratic regimes, a concerted series of attempts to provide a philosophical articulation of liberal principles culminated in the impressive achievement of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971). Within that work Rawls was able to provide a neo-Kantian justification for the core principles of liberty and equality within a constitutional order that respected social differences. His demonstration that “the right is prior to the good” seemed to have furnished the definitive foundation to the neutral state. But the success was short-lived. Closer scrutiny in the years that followed compelled liberal intellectuals, including Rawls, to concede that the achievement had been overstated. There is no way to articulate a conception of right that utterly avoids taking a position on the good. As a consequence, the project of finding an unassailable defense of rights was exposed as a failure. Incoherence returned to the liberal evocations, and Rawls pleaded for an acknowledgment of a politically, if no longer rationally, grounded liberalism. A blunter admission by Richard Rorty insisted on the priority of democracy to philosophy and appealed for solidarity despite the manifest contingency of all our liberal convictions. The collapse of liberal faith was transparent.³

The burden of this book is to suggest that both of these perceptions are mistaken. Neither the traditionalist despair nor the postmodern incoherence adequately reflects the enduring and undeniable viability of the liberal political tradition. In the first place, both assessments fly in the face of the evident historical durability of liberal polities. Liberal constitutions have emerged from the competition of modern political forms to outlast and surpass all rivals. Not only did they supersede monarchical and aristocratic forms to establish commercial republics, but they have overcome the far more formidable challenges posed by collectivist and authoritarian rivals in the last and present centuries. Despite their weakness and unpreparedness, liberal democracies found within themselves the resources necessary to defeat fascism and persevere through the long confrontation with communism. Now they stand as the exemplars not only of economic and political success but as the model of moral legitimacy the world over, even as they are challenged by the lingering assertion of authoritarian models. No higher aspiration prevails in the contemporary world than to create a political order that is derived from and ordered toward the preservation of individual dignity and respect. The moral and political authority of liberal democratic forms may be ironic, given their own inner self-doubt, but it can hardly be denied as a global reality.

A political form does not demonstrate that kind of world historic persistence without evoking a substantive reality far deeper than the critics’ misgivings. Why then the failure to perceive the hidden liberal strength? The reason lies in the misunderstanding of the genre of liberal abbreviations. It is generally erroneous to take the self-articulation of any political order as a theoretical account of its inner spiritual vitality, but this is doubly problematic in the case of liberal regimes that have been fashioned to be as abbreviated as possible. Not only are their principles merely summative of a larger philosophy of existence, but they have been developed to function without explicit reference to that sustaining moral universe. As a consequence, liberal political formulations appeal to their self-evidence or, in its absence, seek to function as if the question of foundations did not exist. One of the results of such a strategy is that they suggest the nonexistence of any broader philosophic or spiritual orientation by which their coherence and conviction are sustained. The superficiality of the pronouncements almost invites the impression that nothing further is entailed. Few observers are prepared to contemplate the possibility that the surface manifestations may conceal a larger underlying reality, from which crises and confrontations can draw forth reserves of virtue that surprise even the practitioners themselves. To appreciate this possibility we must examine the structure of liberal political thought.

Minimum Consensus

The first characteristic of a liberal regime is that it is based on a minimal political agreement. Consensus has been narrowed to those principles judged indispensable to the preservation of a common public order. The nature of that judgment may vary over time as elements previously viewed as indispensable are regarded as less momentous. Agreement can continue in the absence of many dimensions previously judged crucial. The most obvious example is the early modern struggle over religious or confessional differences. If human beings cannot agree on such fundamental questions as the proper mode of worship or of obedience to the divine will, how could agreement be trusted on any lesser matters? Much blood was spilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the effort to compel conformity, before the futility of the exercise became apparent. The turning point was formulated in Locke’s Letter on Toleration, which recognized the inappropriateness of state attempts to resolve religious differences. Civil society existed for the sake of the political good and could confine itself to the agreement necessary to secure that intermediate end.

The pattern of narrowing the base of consensus had been established. Locke’s amplitude of agreement was considerably broader than we would deem necessary, since it excluded atheists and Catholics as unreliable, but it was clearly more limited than what had preceded it. In the centuries that followed, other challenges reduced the consensus further, in line with increasing social pluralism. At each stage it has turned out that agreement on the principles of public order can be maintained with a more limited set of background presuppositions. The pattern of increasing social diversification of all types has indeed made the liberal restriction of agreement almost a necessity. It would be difficult to see how a common political order could be maintained in any other way, short of the unlikely possibilities of coercion or persuasion to resolve differences. Far better to focus on those elements of agreement that are indispensable to the maintenance of political society. In our own day the contraction of consensus has perhaps gone so far that many suspect we may have reached the vanishing point. Whether we have is the question to be tested, but, before hazarding a conclusion, we should make sure we understand more clearly what is entailed in the concept of a limited consensus.

The impression exists that the principles drawn into such a compression are closed and unrelated. It is almost as if the bald formulations of rights are taken at face value. Overlooked is the extent to which such declarations are a selection of the most evocative principles prevailing in the social environment. The liberal invocations of rights, summarizing the necessity of self-determination both individually and collectively, are reflective of the deepest reverence for human dignity. Natural or human rights constitute a recognition of the transcendent worth of each individual, which we are never justified in setting aside in the name of some particular social good. A liberal framework of rights, with all of its constitutional prerequisites, cannot exist in the absence of that underlying resonance. It is not, therefore, that the principles first exist and then find their connection with some more pervasive understanding of humanity and its place in the order of things. Rather, the liberal invocations emerge with authority only because they are regarded as expressive of the most powerful moral sentiments of a society. They function in this sense, not as self-contained principles of the political order, but as visionary maxims redolent with the deepest and most authoritative intimations of an age. A deliberately restricted statement of consensus, in the form of mutual guarantees of rights, is therefore not so precarious a foundation as it is often taken to be. On the contrary, it may evince considerable stability as the best expression of the evocative resonances that remain within a context of disagreement and uncertainty. To the extent that the statement of principle represents the authoritative present, it can be the means of arresting further disintegration. A new stage of stability has been reached in which the moving intimations of truth and goodness have found uncontestable expression. Whatever the debates about the broader philosophical framework, this much at least is certain, that human beings deserve to be treated in such a way and that political society must be organized on the basis of that recognition. During the sixteenth century it was expressed by Jean Bodin as the realization that friendship between human beings transcended their theological differences; such a recognition of their common humanity was sufficient to provide the substance for a community inclusive of differences.⁴ The difficult circumstances of increasing animosity and mistrust can be surmounted, in the acknowledgment of mutual humanity, to yield a fairly durable consensus concerning basic obligations despite limited theological explication. Sentiments that had previously sustained a far more elaborate philosophical and theological unfolding now find expression in vaguer but, for that reason, less challenged intellectual expression.

Liberal principles emerge in this way as the residue of resonances that remain of the Christian evocation of the transcendent finality of the person. At the heart of the liberal construct is the recognition of the person as an inexhaustible center of value. When we inquire into the source of this conviction, we recognize that it has its most powerful affirmation in the Christian openness of the soul toward God. Through Christ the invitation to participate in the transcendent Being of God is extended to every human being. From this we derive a sense of the unique unfathomability of every single one. To the extent that each is invited personally to union with God who is the center of all, each human being is already another divine center within the whole order of things. There is no such thing as the good of the whole outweighing the good of the parts when we are dealing with human beings.⁵ Each of us is a whole, open to God who is all and in all, and therefore partakers of that transcendent dignity. The liberal language of rights that makes it possible for the good of a single human being to outweigh larger social and historical goods is a reflection of that compelling realization. To the extent that the articulation takes place outside of an explicitly Christian context, it represents a secularization of the Christian revelation, but it is not for that reason any the less durable as an acknowledgment of our common self-understanding.

Indeed, the very stability of the liberal formulation arises from the residue of Christian resonances that remain within a social setting from which explicit theological reference has largely withdrawn. The rightness of a moral and political language in which the inexhaustible worth of the person is placed at the center still lives from a sense of the movement of participation in the life of God. Discovery of the infinite worth of each human being may take place in this theological framework, but its recognition can endure outside of it. The reason for this is that Christianity has awakened us to a permanent dimension of human nature, which, once differentiated, cannot simply be erased. For anyone with a modicum of spiritual sensitivity the rightness of that perspective remains unarguable. What can be more valuable than a human being? How could we conceive of a social and political good outweighing the rights of a person without undermining the very purpose we seek to serve? If the polity does not reverence the fundamental worth of its members, what else can it serve? These are in a sense Christian sentiments that have migrated to a secular context in which they continue to demonstrate their authoritative truth. Conversely, the secular setting may be viewed as replete with a transcendent orientation on which its very coherence now depends. The lowering of the bar of theological reference by the liberal abbreviated consensus may, but it need not, unfold toward religious indifference or hostility. It may also be a way of preserving spiritual openness with a less substantive theology.

Heightening of Dignity of Person

What makes a secularized spirituality more likely to prevail is explained by the second characteristic feature of the liberal construction. Beyond the formation of consensus on implicitly transcendent principles, there is also a distinct heightening of certain aspects of individual dignity. To the extent that all of the weight is placed on the inviolable dignity of the person, there is a corresponding tendency to make that the overarching criterion of moral and political judgment. “Autonomy” becomes the watchword almost as if its promotion constituted the purpose of the moral universe. Anything that obstructs or fetters its unfolding must be removed as anathema to the central conception of what a human being is. It is as free rational beings that we are self-determining and therefore can claim the right to be treated with absolute dignity and respect. No one else can presume to run our lives, not even when they claim to be doing it in our interest. The essence of our humanity requires unimpeachable recognition of our right to make our own decisions. Anything less would be a denial of the dignity of beings that are not only intelligible but also intelligent. It is surely one of the most significant achievements of the liberal philosophical tradition that it has made this recognition a centerpiece of our universe of discourse.

By taking the dignity and respect owed autonomous beings as the focus, a heightening of awareness of its centrality and undeniability has taken place. Liberal moral language marks out the equal dignity and respect owed every human being with dramatic emphasis. A clarity about the criteria for our treatment of one another has been reached through the intensity of emphasis on the autonomy of the person. It may not provide a fully articulated account of the moral life, and it clearly stops short of a developed notion of the life of virtue or excellence as the proper fulfillment of a human being, but an unmistakable clarity has been reached concerning the core integrity of the person. Anything that diminishes respect for the inviolability of the person is on its face irreconcilable with the most fundamental understanding of what a human being is. Good action is, by contrast, what enhances the emergence of a community of persons mutually aware of one another as ends-in-themselves. As Kant formulated it, a rational being must never be regarded as a means but always as determining its own end.⁶ This heightened sensitivity to the mistreatment of human beings, which is in many ways the fruit of the liberal concentration on the dignity of the person, has become a significant factor in the movements of social reform that liberal democracies have undertaken in the past two hundred years.

The greater awareness of this central line of emphasis on the person has also been one of the most overlooked sources of its strength. Contrary to the widespread misperception of liberal principles as an inconsequential house of cards, these principles turn out to have considerable resilience precisely because they are rooted in the sense of constituting a moral advance. The focus on the person as an inexhaustible center of value is hardly unique to liberal regimes, since it clearly derives from the Christian opening of the soul, but the single-minded emphasis imparted to it within the liberal framework has generated its own consequences. Not the least is that it has enabled liberals to mount a critique of the Christian and traditional moralities that had hitherto exercised an authoritative role. In part the success of the liberal analysis is derived from its greater strength as a mode of critique than as a comprehensive account of the moral life; neglect of the more intractable dimensions of human fallenness and the need for reconciliation are nowhere developed. In part, too, it must be acknowledged, the liberal critique is convincing within a social environment in which Christian sensitivity to the suffering of the neighbor has often not lived up to its own rigorous demands. But most of all it is because the liberal highlighting of the dignity and respect owed every human being casts a light of searching intensity. Its power as a moral language derives from its identification of what is in fact the core perspective in which the weighing of private and public actions must be judged. Do they retard or advance the unfolding of our humanity?

The abbreviated character of liberal discourse can be tolerated more readily when it is accompanied by this sense of incontrovertible moral authority. It has been able to establish itself as the primary moral framework, despite its inarticulateness, because it has deri...

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyrights
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• One The Priority of the Person as the Modern Differentiation
• Part 1 The Political Discovery
• Part 2 The Philosophical Discovery
• Part 3 The Historical Discovery
• Notes
• Index