A Source of the American Lust for Power: An Hypothesis

My thesis, stated very simply, is that the American embrace of the British liberal tradition in political philosophy has made us insatiable, and Hegel’s philosophy will help us understand ourselves much better. 

My Methodological Assumptions:

1) Ideas do not determine history, but they can be influential.

2) A full explanation of individual or collective human behavior requires consideration of many different causes.

3) Ideas are usually more than ad hoc rationalizations.

4) Ideas should be treated as hypotheses that are always subject to revision.

The British Liberal Tradition (BLT)

Representative Publications:

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Leviathan: The Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil (1651). Written during English Civil War (1642-49).

John Locke (1632-1704), Two Treatises of Government (1690). Written to justify the Glorious Revolution (1688).

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), “On Liberty” (1859) and “On the Subjection of Women” (1869).

Characteristics of the BLT:

1) The BLT is a “liberal” tradition in political philosophy because of its emphasis on individual liberty. It is also sometimes called “classical liberalism” in order to distinguish it from later permutations of liberal thought. The BLT defines liberty or freedom as the ability to act without external compulsion.

2) The philosophers of the BLT were profoundly impressed by the scientific revolution, which emphasized the importance of observation. The philosophers of the BLT were also influenced by Newton (see below).

3) The philosophers of the BLT are empiricists. Empiricism is the view that all knowledge ultimately comes from experience, as opposed to direct intuition or rational thought. It has often been pointed out, however, that these philosophers had a narrow conception of experience. Some critics have called them “sensationalists” rather than empiricists, because they believed that all knowledge comes through “the five senses.” Their empiricism includes the indirect theory of perception. We don’t experience objects; we experience our ideas of objects.

4) The BLT is hedonistic. Hedonism is the ethical doctrine that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good. The philosophers of the BLT hold that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

5) The BLT is atomistic and mechanistic. The philosophers of the BLT drew upon the ancient Greek atomists (Leucippus and Democritus, 5th century BCE) and were impressed by the work of Newton (1642–1727) to believe that reality consists of matter in motion, and that matter is composed of atoms. Literally, “atom” means that which is indivisible, the smallest particle of matter. Mechanism is a model of the way events occur in the world. Mechanism is analogous to a cue ball breaking the triangle of billiard balls at the start of a game. Balls scatter as they are impacted directly or indirectly by the cue ball, then perhaps off other balls or the side rails. How far a ball moves in this process and the direction in which it moves are functions of the force with which they are impacted and the direction of that force. The philosophers of the BLT tend to apply atomism to human society. This is sometimes called atomistic individualism and it assumes that man is a solitary animal, and society is composed of an aggregate of externally related individuals.

6) The BLT relies on the concept of “the state of nature,” which is a conception of what human life would be like if there were no political organization or government. The state of nature is an effort to think about man’s natural condition and the extent to which that condition may have been changed by society. We enter into society by forming a social contract.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

Principle Publications:

Phenomenology of Spirit (1807); The Science of Logic (1816); Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817); Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1820).

Characteristics:

1) Hegel is often labeled a conservative because of his criticisms of the BLT, but he’s really another type of liberal. For Hegel, the BLT’s emphasis on individual liberty is its greatest contribution to humanity.

2) Hegel was influenced by science, but he seems to have been influenced by biology more than astronomy and physics. Whereas the philosophers of the BLT were interested in abstractions like “the state of nature,” Hegel tried to focus more on real life (i.e., the historical development of the individual and of the human race). Hegel was also influenced by German neo-humanism (Goethe, Schiller, etc.) and romanticism (Schelling, the Schlegel’s, etc.), both of which articulated criticisms of the BLT.

3) Hegel is usually called an idealist, but there’s little understand of what exactly this means because the term idealism has been used in such a wide variety of ways. I believe Hegel’s idealism means that we experience objects in the world directly, but all experience is shaped by our historically and socially conditioned assumptions.

4) For Hegel, the BLT’s hedonism is simplistic. Although it’s true that we seek pleasure and avoid pain, we want more out of life than that alone. The BLT gives us formal, abstract freedom, which is essential, but we want concrete, actual freedom.

5) Hegel rejected the BLT’s atomistic individualism. Rather than solitary animals, according to Hegel, humans are social animals. Rather than mechanistic, Hegel saw reality as organic. Not only is reality analogous to an organism, so is human society.

6) Rather than the state of nature, Hegel talked about the master/slave dialectic (i.e., exchange or interchange).