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Plato, the first neocon
Political philosophy of classics superior to today
By Johanan Raatz
If rights are merely contractual arrangements between people and society, those rights can be changed, especially in a democracy.
Over the summer I had the opportunity for some recreational reading. I went over to the library and got a copy of Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss, a book I had been planning to read for a while. Though cryptic, it was a fun read.
The book starts out by describing the problem of “right” in modern times. Because of moral relativism and historicism, modern political philosophers seemed to dismiss the notion of natural or God-given rights in favor of purely contractual rights based on one’s arrangement with society.
If rights are merely contractual arrangements between people and society, those rights can be changed, especially in a democracy. Now logically if your rights are not inalienable, but rather a social construct, they can be done away with as the contract changes over time.
Strauss, who was Jewish, fled the Weimar Republic as Hitler came to power. He saw how the contractual view of rights led to the Holocaust. According to contract theory the Nazis had the right to kill the Jews, or whoever else they didn’t like, because they could use politics to change the contract, thereby erasing rights.
Most of the book compares the political philosophies of Plato and other ancient Greeks with modern political philosophers such as Machiavelli. In contrast with the moderns, the ancients eschewed the notion of contractual rights in favor of rights based on natural law.
Ancient political philosophy, best exemplified in Plato’s Republic, circumvents the problem the moderns face. Plato’s view starts with how society ought to be. Since a society ought not be like Nazi Germany or communist Russia the problem is automatically avoided.
Once the “ought” is figured out, the rest follows. Based on the conceptions of moral virtue, just laws and absolute rights are determined. Contracts simply don’t enter the equation.
By contrast modern political philosophers leave morality out of the equation. Rights are contractual and have nothing to do with moral virtue. This modern philosophy bases its view of politics not on how people ought to be, but on how they are. “Some say you can’t legislate morality. I say nonsense. The legislation of morality is the entire point of politics.”
As a result of this the point of modern political philosophy is to maximize contractual rights independently of morality. This is in stark contrast with the views of political philosophers like Plato where the law and hence rights are based on the natural law of morality.
In Natural Right and History, Strauss compares the two modes of political philosophy to natural right as it actually came to be in nature before the existence of philosophy. By looking at rights as they actually are in nature he determines which view is correct.
In nature, before philosophy arose, rights came to be in human societies based on moral virtues stipulated by authority or tradition. Rights were never contractual. It seems that nature abhors a contract. If someone acted outside of the realm of morality, the community punished them. If they did things that were determined to be morally virtuous, they were rewarded. As such, “right,” as it naturally came to be called, was defined by the bounds of behavior deemed morally acceptable.
When measuring the ancients and the moderns to the standards of natural right it became obvious to Strauss that the ancients were correct. The ancients understood that right is based in morality. The moderns didn’t. This isn’t to say that the moderns should be entirely thrown out. They can be useful, but they can’t be viewed as the final authority either.
Neoconservativism is based on the Platonic notion of politics, and so in a way, Plato was the first neocon. The point of neoconservativism is to moralize politics. Some say you can’t legislate morality. I say nonsense. The legislation of morality is the entire point of politics.
In some sense, Plato’s philosophy could be thought of as “reactionary” in the sense used by the left (though, I dispute this) in that it favors the ancient notion over the moderns. However, it is simultaneously revolutionary in that it seeks to overturn the foundations of the present system.
But, above all else, it is by definition the right mode of politics. It is because “right” is inherently a moral term and hence politics outside of morality can’t be thought of as right. It is time we gave Plato and his philosophy a second chance.
> Comments
_ on Sep 04, 2008 at 10:26 PM:
this makes almost no sense at all.
Johanan on Sep 05, 2008 at 12:09 PM:
"this makes almost no sense at all."
Well it's kind of simple. The modern political philosophers say that politics should be based on a contract. The ancient political philosophers say it should be based on morality. Strauss says the ancients are right.
That's all it is.
gob on Sep 06, 2008 at 01:35 PM:
The notion that the Nazis had the right to kill the Jews is absolutely absurd.
A contract, by definition, requires the approval of both parties. The Nazi regime did not even have the approval of the German people, let alone the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists, etc. Although their party technically received the most votes, they quickly moved to kill or jail opposition members in order to consolidate their power and re-write law.
The resulting relationship between the regime and the people was not a legitimate contract.
Johanan on Sep 06, 2008 at 09:54 PM:
"The notion that the Nazis had the right to kill the Jews is absolutely absurd."
Of course it is. That is what motivated much of Strauss's work. The first chapter of his book is on the crisis of natural right in modern times. He points out that with the rise of totalitarian regimes the modern notion of rights simply won't do anymore unless we want to accept absurdities like the Nazi's having a right to kill the Jews or the Bolsheviks having a right to steal others property and killing anyone who stands in their way.
"A contract, by definition, requires the approval of both parties. The Nazi regime did not even have the approval of the German people, let alone the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists, etc."
Well all of those parties agreed to the contract of the Weimar republic. They agreed to the contract that led to Hitler being elected. After that everything the Nazi's did was perfectly legal under the contract. It was devious and heinous but they had the contractual law on their side.
"Although their party technically received the most votes, they quickly moved to kill or jail opposition members in order to consolidate their power and re-write law."
Yes but all of their actions were legal every step of the way. Hitler even said that he wanted to make sure he had the law on his side at all times for the psychological benefit it would have on his movement.
If laws and rights are merely contracts then according to modern political philosophy they had a right to do what they did.
"The resulting relationship between the regime and the people was not a legitimate contract."
Well Strauss would agree for reasons other than what you suggest. Strauss would say it was not legitimate because it was not contained within moral bounds. As for the contract being legitimate in the other sense those people did agree with the Weimar republic only they didn't realize what such an amoral conception of politics entailed.
A deal with the devil is still a deal. Just because you only realize what it entails later doesn't mean you can get out of it.
gob on Sep 07, 2008 at 09:20 AM:
I'm sorry, but that just isn't accurate. Hitler often maintained the appearance of legality, but that does not mean his actions were legal.
And even if they had been (which, again, they were not), the notion that the people had "agreed to the contract of the Weimar Republic" doesn't stand up. I think you would be hard-pressed to find "the people" signing their names to a Weimar contract in the first place. Further, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich were not the same thing. That's just silly.
Living under occupation is not the same as agreeing to a contract.
Laws are written by, and enforced by, governments. Laws are not agreements, though sometimes governments give the appearance of people's participation (such as the symbolic act of voting). This is not the same thing as a contract.
gob on Sep 07, 2008 at 09:20 AM:
I'm sorry, but that just isn't accurate. Hitler often maintained the appearance of legality, but that does not mean his actions were legal.
And even if they had been (which, again, they were not), the notion that the people had "agreed to the contract of the Weimar Republic" doesn't stand up. I think you would be hard-pressed to find "the people" signing their names to a Weimar contract in the first place. Further, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich were not the same thing. That's just silly.
Living under occupation is not the same as agreeing to a contract.
Laws are written by, and enforced by, governments. Laws are not agreements, though sometimes governments give the appearance of people's participation (such as the symbolic act of voting). This is not the same thing as a contract.