Abstract
The aim of this essay is to show that Burke’s criticism of French Enlightenment rationalism and the political theology of British revolutionary dissenters, like Priestley and Price, is not a form of irrational reactionary dogmatism. In this sense the chapter criticizes the picture painted of Burke by Strauss and others, and presents him rather as an enlightened and rational critic of dogmatic rationalism as a political ideology. Relying on such different interpreters of Burke as Pocock and Canavan, I argue two points:
1. To show that Burke was in favour of a more realistic understanding of politics, as he thought that radical changes are not possible without even more radical risks.
2. To argue that accepting this more realistic, sceptical account of the political possibilities of change, does not commit one to relativism, as far as the defence of basic values are concerned in politics.
The first point is argued with reference to Hume’s political scepticism, and the well-known analysis of the Scottish Enlightenment and Burke by Pocock. The paper admits that those who claim that Burke comes close to the early modern discourse of reason of state have a point. Yet the present venture is dedicated to offer a more complex view of his position. Secondly, I argue that he in fact is not a relativist. This thesis is supported by Canavan’s Aristotelian-Ciceronian analysis of Burke. Burke’s scepticism about changing the world of politics is not value relativism, but a form of virtue, called by the ancient Romans as prudentia, by the Greek as phronesis, and it was carried over into Christian moral theory as a practical and intellectual virtue. What is more, Burke’s prudence can be interpreted as coming close to “reason of state” in international relations. Finally, this paper is going to show that the Burkean defence of prudence in politics is in fact laying the groundwork for the modern political philosophy of conservatism, as understood in the British context, consisting of such values as common sense, tradition and the rule of law, all of them compatible with political rationality.
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Notes
- 1.
Rabaud de St. Etienne, quoted by Edmund Burke: Revolutionary Writings. Reflections on the Revolution in France and the first Letter on a Regicide Peace, ed. Iain Hampsher-Monk, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014, 171. (All further quotations of the Reflections are from this edition.)
- 2.
Leo Strauss: Natural Right and History, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953, 300–314.
- 3.
Ibid., 311, 313.
- 4.
For this position see for example: Albert O. Hirschman: The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991.; Corey Robin: The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011.
- 5.
As for his relationship to Catholicism, Pocock reminds us that “it is probable that the families of both /of his parents/ had only recently converted from Catholicism.” He also adds, however that “he was a baptized member of the Church of Ireland and a vehement defender of the Church of England.” Both of these quotes in: J.G.A. Pocock: ‘Introduction’, in: Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. with intr. and notes by J.G.A. Pocock, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1987, vii–xlviii, ix.
- 6.
Pocock’s position was first formulated in his book on The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (1957). Its more elaborate version is to be found in his own edition of the Reflections, for details see above. Canavan’s relevant piece is: Francis P. Canavan S.J.: Edmund Burke’s Conception of the Role of Reason in Politics, The Journal of Politics, vol. 21., No. 1, Febr. 1959, 60–79.
- 7.
Burke: Reflections, 79.
- 8.
Burke: Reflections, 35. See also his statement: “There is, by the essential fundamental constitution of things, a radical infirmity in all human contrivances.” The Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (4 vols., London, 1844), III., 117.
- 9.
Burke: Reflections, 62.
- 10.
David Hume: ‘Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth’, in his: Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller, Liberty Fund, Minneapolis, 1985, 512.
- 11.
Craig Smith: The Scottish Enlightenment, Unintended Consequences and the Science of Man, Journal of Scottish Philosophy, vol. 7., No. 1, March 2009, 9–28
- 12.
David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature – Reprinted from the original edition in three volumes and edited, with an analytical index, by L. A. Selby-Bigge, Revised by P. H. Nidditch, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978, 415.
- 13.
Hume: Treatise, 269. In this interpretation of Hume’s scepticism of solving metaphysical dilemmas, I rely on Donald Livingston’s works on Hume, most importantly on his Hume’s Philosophy of Common Sense, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1984, and his Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium. Hume’s Pathology of Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1998.
- 14.
Edmund Burke: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 16 vols., the Rivington edition, London, 1803–1827, II. 335.
- 15.
Iain Hampshire-Monk: ‘Editor’s introduction’, in: Edmund Burke: Reflections, xi-xxxvi., xi.
- 16.
For a short account of his life, see: Ian Harris: Edmund Burke, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/burke/>
- 17.
For Burke’s early education in Dublin, we have by now Lock’s and Bourke’s detailed biographical monographs. See F. P. Lock: Edmund Burke. Volume I: 1730–1784, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999. and F. P. Lock: Edmund Burke. Volume II: 1784–1797, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006. Richard Bourke: Empire and revolution: the political life of Edmund Burke. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2015. For an early effort to take Burke’s educational background into account, see Francis P. Canavan: S.J.: Edmund Burke’s College Study of Philosophy, Notes and Queries, N.S. IV (1957), 538–543. Both Johnson and Burke were founding members of The Club proposed by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1764. Yet their political positions were much of the time antagonistic, as they were the spokespersons of the Tory and the Whig cause, respectively.
- 18.
Burke: Reflections, 63.
- 19.
Pocock: Introduction, xi.
- 20.
Pocock: Introduction, xviii.
- 21.
Edmund Burke: Religion of No Efficacy Considered as a State Engine, Notebook, 68–69. Quoted in: Richard Bourke: Empire, 102.
- 22.
Jonathan Clark: English Society, 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure, and Political Practice During the Ancien Regime, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985. 2nd (revised) ed. English Society 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien Regime, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
- 23.
Pocock: ‘Introduction’, 27.
- 24.
See Canavan: Edmund Burke, 62.
- 25.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 63, quoting: Burke: Letter to Sir Hercules Langriske, 3 Jan. 1792, Works, VI, 318.
- 26.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 64, quoting: Burke: Reflections, 62.
- 27.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 65, quoting: Burke to Shackleton, 15 Aug 1770, Correspondence, I, 231.
- 28.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 68, quoting First Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), Works, VIII, 87.
- 29.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 68–69, quoting Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), Works, II, 269.
- 30.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 68, quoting Letter to Sir Hercules Langriske (1792), Works, VI, 309.
- 31.
Burke: Reflections, 101.
- 32.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 74.
- 33.
Burke: Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793), Works, VII, 197–8. quoted by Canavan: Edmund Burke, 76.
- 34.
Canavan: Edmund Burke, 77., quoting Burke: Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791), Works, VI, 97.
- 35.
For a full blown elaboration of this argument see my A Political Philosophy of Conservatism. Prudence, Moderation and Tradition, Bloomsbury, London etc., 2020.
- 36.
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, tr. by C.D.C. Reeve, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Cambridge, 2014, 1140b1, 102.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Burke wrote: “The balance of power had been ever assumed as the common law of Europe at all times, and by all powers.” Burke: Third Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), Works, IX, 338.
- 39.
David Armitage: Edmund Burke and reason of state. Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 61., No. 4, 2000, 617–634., 620.
- 40.
Armitage: Edmund Burke, 631. Armitage’s reference is to this work by Burke: Edmund Burke, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793), in Writings and Speeches, ed. Mitchell, VIII, 474; the “Appendix” of extracts from Vattel is inexplicably omitted from this edition. For a fragment of Burke’s working notes on Vattel see Sheffield City Libraries Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, 10/27, (passage transcribed from Vattel, Droit des Gens, II. 12. 196–97, printed in Burke, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies [London, 1793], 207–9).
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Hörcher, F. (2020). Burke on Rationalism, Prudence and Reason of State. In: Callahan, G., McIntyre, K.B. (eds) Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism. Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42599-9_2
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