Political Theory. Pete Woodcock

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СКАЧАТЬ the age of ideological polarization and populism that we live in today, Weber’s argument needs some consideration. Across the world we are increasingly being attracted to charismatic politicians, often from outside of the traditional political class, that adherents see as being able to shake up the political system for the better. Weber would not necessarily have regarded this as being a good thing. Whereas passion and the ability to persuade people of the need for change is not a bad thing in and of itself, it always needs to be measured with a sense of responsibility and proportion for government to be successful and balanced.

      Activity 5. Please attempt the tasks below:

      1 Why does Weber think that passion alone is insufficient to be a successful politician?

      2 Make a list of some politicians you think are conviction politicians. Have they achieved what they set out to?

Conclusion

      So we have seen in this chapter a variety of responses to the question ‘what is the nature of politics?’

For Socrates, it was the perusal of justice and living an examined life. Likewise, Kant placed morality at the centre of politics, arguing that politics should always bend the knee to morality. For Kant, we should always live as if our actions should become a universal law. So for both Socrates and Kant, politics, morality and the way we live our life are intrinsically linked. Passion for causes is a necessary but insufficient quality in a politician for Weber; passion must always be measured with responsibility and sense of purpose. If it isn’t (if, say, a sense of justice is all a politician has), then little might actually get done.

      For Machiavelli, politics is about glory – concentrating too much on morality would cause you to lose your position if you were a prince; concentrating on it too little would make you remembered as a tyrant. For Machiavelli, the real skill of politics was judging when to act, and in what manner. For Bentham (and to a certain extent Mill), politics was about bringing happiness to as many as possible, meaning the rightness or wrongness of an act was not determined by its moral justifications, but rather its consequences. Walzer notes that a politician cannot remain morally innocent; there is something about the position that means one has to get one’s hands dirty, but this is not to deny that there is a moral dilemma involved.

      Throughout this book there will be more discussions that pertain to the nature of politics. For Hobbes it is security, for Burke preserving the best of the past for the future, for Paine the protection of rights, for Rawls the ability to make impartial laws about justice, and so on. So whereas this chapter concludes here, this does not mean to say that these are the last words on the nature of politics in this book.

Works cited

      Bentham, J. (2012) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Cosimo Classics.

      Machiavelli, N. (1950) The Prince and the Discourses. New York: The Modern Library.

      Machiavelli, N. (1961) The Prince. London: Penguin.

      Oppenheimer, P. (2011) Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology. London: Continuum.

      Plato (1993) The Last Days of Socrates. London: Penguin.

      Skinner, Q. (1978) The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Vol. 1, The Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

      Walzer, M. (1973) ‘Political action: the problem of dirty hands’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2(2), 160–80.

      Weber, M. (1946) Politics as a Vocation. New York: Oxford University Press. Available at https://archive.org/details/webermax18641920politicsasavocation/page/n3

       Text reading activities

      Aristotle on citizenship, The Politics, Book III, part IV, available at https://classicalwisdom.com/greekbooks/politics-by-aristotle-book-iii/2/

There is a point nearly allied to the preceding: Whether the virtue of a good man and a good citizen is the same or not. But, before entering on this discussion, we must certainly first obtain some general notion of the virtue of the citizen. Like the sailor, the citizen is a member of a community. Now, sailors have different functions, for one of them is a rower, another a pilot, and a third a look-out man, a fourth is described by some similar term; and while the precise definition of each individual’s virtue applies exclusively to him, there is, at the same time, a common definition applicable to them all. For they have all of them a common object, which is safety in navigation. Similarly, one citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the common business of them all. This community is the constitution; the virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of which he is a member. If, then, there are many forms of government, it is evident that there is not one single virtue of the good citizen which is perfect virtue. But we say that the good man is he who has one single virtue which is perfect virtue. Hence it is evident that the good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man.

      The same question may also be approached by another road, from a consideration of the best constitution. If the state cannot be entirely composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own business well, and must therefore have virtue, still inasmuch as all the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good man cannot coincide. All must have the virtue of the good citizen – thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state all the citizens must be good.

      Again, the state, as composed of unlikes, may be compared to the living being: as the first elements into which a living being is resolved are soul and body, as soul is made up of rational principle and appetite, the family of husband and wife, property of master and slave, so of all these, as well as other dissimilar elements, the state is composed; and, therefore, the virtue of all the citizens cannot possibly be the same, any more than the excellence of the leader of a chorus is the same as that of the performer who stands by his side. I have said enough to show why the two kinds of virtue cannot be absolutely and always the same.

      But will there then be no case in which the virtue of the good citizen and the virtue of the good man coincide? To this we answer that the good ruler is a good and wise man, and that he who would be a statesman must be a wise man. And some persons say that even the education of the ruler should be of a special kind; for are not the children of kings instructed in riding and military exercises? As Euripides says:

      No subtle arts for me, but what the state requires.

      Kant on politics and morality, ‘On the Opposition Between Morality and Politics with Respect to Perpetual Peace’, available at https://www.constitution.org/kant/append1.htm

To such dubious consequences we are inevitably driven if we do not assume that pure principles of right have objective reality, i.e., that they may be applied, and that the people in a state and, further, states themselves in their mutual relations should act according to them, whatever objections empirical politics may raise. Thus true politics can never take a step without rendering homage to morality. Though politics by itself is a difficult art, its union with morality is no СКАЧАТЬ