Peter Lawler once remarked that the only thing worse than the failure of Lockeanism in America would be its complete success. Under the reign of a decent materialism, man’s soul would atrophy as humans focused on their individual pursuit of comfortable well-being.
Not surprisingly, this position–or some version of it–has earned Peter Lawler the disfavor of many FOLs (Friends of Locke). They have accused him of everything from mischaracterizing Locke’s thought to undermining the settled thoughts of the American republic. One strand of this group has been even more upset. These are the thinkers who embrace the thesis that what ails America results from the progressive replacement of Lockeanism by Progressivism. If only, they say, America would return to Locke and exorcise this demon, the nation would be saved. It’s not so simple, Peter Lawler says. He has raised the stakes in the conflict by arguing that at the most basic level—the level of fundamental anthropology–Progressivism should be considered a variant more than a foe of Lockeanism.
For this provocation Peter has placed himself into a state of nature with the FOLs. And there is no common intellectual superior to which to appeal.
Peter has carried on undaunted, a warrior for the soul, insisting that liberal democracy and the quality of human life will be strengthened, not weakened, by pointing up the problems and limitations of a Lockean world.
Unless Peter had a blog post hidden on his computer, you may not hear from him this morning. He is set to deliver a paper at his alma mater, the University of Virginia, in a room on the historic range, entitled “Walker Percy, Alexis de Tocqueville and the Stoic and Christian Foundations of American Thomism.” The paper pursues and deepens Peter’s theme, as he seeks to elucidate “a theory adequate to the greatness of our Founders’ practical accomplishment.” Such an account would supplement or correct Lockeanism with doses of aristocracy (“stoicism”) and Christianity. The sources Peter discusses– Walker Percy and Alexis de Tocqueville–become his soul mates in this enterprise. And since the South in America has been home to this stoic tradition, with all of its problems and difficulties, his paper also serves as a nice inquiry into the metaphysical regionalism of American life.
If you’re lucky, he will post it.
April 6th, 2012 | 10:07 am
So this is Peter Lawler typing on the MacBook Pro of the legendary Mr. Ceaser. He’s here whining that he put himself “out there” with this post and is not feeling the love of a active and vital thread. It is of course quite the pleasure to be back here at Mr. Jefferson’s university. Matt Sitman is asking about the connection between nominalism and the reformation, and Mr. Ceaser, to my surprise, actually paying attention to Matt’s spontaneous lecture on the Notre Dame historian Brad Gregory–the author of the “unbelievable” UNINTENDED REFORMATION. Nominalism, Mr. Ceaser reminds us, the only substantive reference in the index to Mr. Strauss’ NATURAL RIGHT AND HISTORY. Ceaser just explained that Strauss wants to us to see the difference between classical (or descriptive/phenomenological) and modern (or abstract/transformational) nominalism. But we can’t forget that in his Hobbes lectures Strauss distinguishes between Hobbes teaching and nominalism.
April 6th, 2012 | 1:31 pm
We await the report of Mr. Sitman’s lecture on that book.
April 6th, 2012 | 1:41 pm
Since we’re talking about UVA–one of the hot spots for the “foundationalism/nonfoundationalism” debate–I’ll put my comments in terms of “foundationalism.”
Lawler suggests that we need Tocqueville to supplement or correct Locke, but it’s also likely that we need Locke to supplement Tocqueville.
With the doctrine of natural rights, Locke attempts to supply an indisputable “foundation” for political life. Politically motivated, the doctrine is offered for at least two reasons: a) because despite the phenomenological (I would argue) nominalism of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke thinks that life in society requires a definition of “man”; b) as a counter to alternative understandings of “man” that were in Locke’s day making the maintenance of political society and order difficult. Locke’s theory of natural rights is centered on the notion of the “self,” which he constructs by isolating certain elements of human psychology (e.g. preference for self) then proclaiming them the fundamental aspects of human existence. Locke’s doctrine has the advantage of being relatively clear and straightforward, even if he ultimately fails in his attempt to immunize the theory against the intrusion of the Essay’s nominalism (the charge of “Essay creep” leveled by Peter). However, what political advantages Locke’s theory offers are achieved by turning us into “last men”–arguably one of the doctrine’s principal weaknesses.
Tocqueville is alive to the political dangers of “foundationalist” natural rights thinking, which undermines the solidarity necessary for political community (see ceaser’s article on the two foundings). He also challenges the Lockean reduction of human being, arguing instead for an appreciation of the capaciousness and almost infinite variety of being. The question, of course, is whether Tocqueville goes too far in correcting Locke. Does Tocqueville abandon the category of human nature altogether, without which his project of instructing liberal democracy cannot hope to succeed?
What seems desirable is a synthesis of Locke and Tocqueville, which some have effected by democratizing Tocqueville’s anthropology to make it align with his political judgment in favor of democracy. I doubt this interpretive strategy but think it’s the right theoretical project.
April 7th, 2012 | 10:46 am
A quality post from Prof. Ceaser. Your perspective is certainly a welcome addition to the conversations which take place here at PoMoCon. I can only hope that Lawler does follow up with, at the very least, some excerpts from his UVA talk on American Thomism. In the meantime, a contribution to the invitation to Lawler studies. (Hopefully other observers will chime in)
Hasn’t Lawler’s take on the dangers of a completely Lockean regime changed somewhat since the days when he put it in the stark terms you suggest:
“Under the reign of a decent materialism, man’s soul would atrophy as humans focused on their individual pursuit of comfortable well-being.”
I suppose this could still prove correct, depending on how extensive an atrophy one understands the soul to allow. But my sense is that he now tends to emphasize the ways in which both nature and human nature have resisted and will continue to escape the limits imposed by contract and consent. The doom and gloom Lawler who used to get all worked up over Nietzsche has all but disappeared. He’s been replaced or developed into a more reassuring, less agonized Lawler, the 21st century Lawler, who seems less tortured over whether or not we could ever see the “complete success” of Lockean society, and more concerned with pointing to the ways in which nature remains as resilient and present as ever. But perhaps, Ceaser, you mistrust these latter-day expressions of confidence in an enduring nature?
April 7th, 2012 | 12:38 pm
Ms. Sarah is right on target, asking whether “Tocqueville goes too far in correcting Locke.” Tocqueville tells us that societies need certain dogmas–a dogma like self-interest rightly understood (Lockeanism)–but then proceeds to “de-dogmify” almost every dogma. From this point of view–and despite all appearances to the contrary–Locke’s Second treatise is really a less theoretical and more “political” book than Democracy in America. As for UVA being the hotbed of foundational/nonfoundational debate, Ms. Sarah might be slightly behind the time. We have progressively evolved into an a-foundationalism, focusing our efforts more and more on the findings of social science.
April 8th, 2012 | 1:47 pm
I am grieved to have missed Lawler’s return to Virginia, having been obliged to do so by the schedule of meeting of the Pacific division of the APA. I agree that one of the principal defects of Locke’s political philosophy is that it in adopting it we are willy nilly transformed into last men, but I frame the issue somewhat differently; in my understanding the question is built around the difference between the two great ideal proposed by political philosophy, virtue and freedom. I frame it this way because the same result seems to follow regardless of which of the major branches of modern political philosophy we follow, the deontological branch exemplified in Locke, or the utilitarian branch exemplified in Bentham. If the first has the tendency to make virtue a perfectly private affair, of limited relevance to or pernicious effect upon politics, the second has the tendency to positively militate against virtue for the sake of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, preference-satisfaction, or whatever concept we build our calculus upon; utilitarian theory tends toward a democratic flattening of Callicles’ philosophy.
The history of our attempts to reconcile virtue and freedom is long and alas uninspiring. Rousseau redefines virtue in terms of freedom and thereby does away with both. Mill assures us that they really do cohere with more hope than proof. Mandeville here perhaps provides deeper insight into what a utilitarian politics implies; and he redefines virtue so as to make it impossible, and its loss therefore nothing to worry about. Charles Taylor goes the opposite tack of Rousseau, and redefines freedom to fit the good; but thank you, its negative freedom we want.
Tocqueville stands in this tradition also, of political theorists attempting to reconcile the two ideals with each other, and so far he is the only one whose attempt at reconciliation I am not yet sure fails. I do not think that it is impossible to provide an account of his conception of human nature; the key is to see that for Tocqueville human nature cannot be represented as man-as-he-would-be-if-he-realized-his-telos, nor as man-in-his-original-state, nor in any simple list of faculties and interests, but it can be found in human sensitivities and patterns of transformation. Specifically, human nature can be found in the essential psychic operations underlying humanity’s various manifestations, in how human beings conceive of themselves, in the objects they regard as appropriate to themselves, and in what kind of freedom they experience in pursuing these objects. At least that is what I have argued about it in a forthcoming paper.
The big question, for me, is whether this conception of human nature can adequately support an account of freedom that we’d count as freedom and an account of civic virtue that we’d count as virtue, without any incoherence in the view. Tocqueville melds freedom and excellence; they feed each other and feed upon each other. But how does that work, and does it work? Tocqueville plainly distinguishes between the higher and the lower, between what is greater and what is lesser, but both what is good and what is bad admit of distinction between higher and lower; aristocrats are notable for the grandeur that attends even their vices. Is there something in this that would allow us to conceive of civic virtue and soulcraft in a way that wouldn’t offend against Lockean proprieties?
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact