25. Power and the Boundary of Politics

 

 

 

by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

 

          Here in Part Three we have been learning that philosophy deals not only with abstract theoretical issues relating to metaphysics, episte­mology, logic, and language usage, but also with more concrete practical issues, such as those relating to science and morality. The philosophy of science and moral philosophy are both major branches of philosophy: they provide the basis for applying philosophy to more practical issues relating to specific sciences or specific ethical situations. In this and the following lecture I want us to consider one further branch of the tree of philosophy, political philosophy. There are actually a number of other fields of philosophical inquiry that might be included in Part Three, if we had time. But for our purposes a discussion of political philosophy can serve as an adequate way of completing our study of how to apply philosophical thinking in our search for wisdom.

 

          Many of the philosophers we have already studied had much to say about political philosophy. For example, the main point of Plato's longest and most systematic book, called Republic, is to set out a rational plan for the ideal political system. However, many aspects of his proposal appear to modern readers to be too unrealistic and/or outdated to be considered very seriously. The suggestion that philosophers ought to be trained to serve as kings, for instance, is an idea that has rarely, if ever, been put into practice. One of the reasons Plato's political philoso­phy seems so distant from our own ways of thinking about politics is that modern political thought is rooted to a large extent in the quite different ideas put forward by his star student. Aristotle's book, Politics, also contains some examples whose relevance is limited to the ancient Greek city-states, where the political systems were early forerunners of modern democracies; yet the main issues it raises are of timeless interest, tran­scending their original historical context in their applicability. Hence, we shall use today's lecture to take a close look at this classic text in political philosophy.

 

          Aristotle regarded politics not merely as an optional field of philosophical inquiry, but as an essential task for any philosopher, because "man is by nature a political animal" (AP 1253a(37)). In Politics Aristotle attempted to determine what constitutes the "best" city. (The Greek word for "city", incidentally, is polis, from which we derive the word "politics".) This required him not only to discuss what its particu­lar characteristics would be, but also to analyze the general nature of a city and the different political systems ("politeiai") that can be used to govern a city. But politeiai include not only specific governmental struc­tures, but also "the way of life of a city" in general (1295a(133)). Although his analysis is by no means the last word on the subject, an examination of Aristotle's ideas can provide a good sampling of the vari­ous ways of drawing the boundary that defines possible political systems.

 

          Aristotle began his study of politics by claiming that "every city is some form of partnership ... for the sake of some good", and that the political philosopher's task is that of "investigating what the city is com­posed of" (AP 1252a(35)). He then pointed out that families and business relations are also examples of partnerships exhibiting something like politics on a lower level. A partnership between several families gives rise to a village, and a partnership between several villages gives rise to a city. The partnership that makes up a city therefore requires certain agreements between "similar persons, for the sake of a life that is the best possible" (1328a(209)). Aristotle never suggested that such partners must be similar in every respect, but that both unity and diversity must exist between the partners in different respects: "a city tends to come into being at the point when the partnership formed by a multitude is self-sufficient" (1261a-b(55-57)). The purpose of a city, therefore, is

 

 

not [to be] a partnership in a location and for the sake of not committing injustice against each other and of transacting business. These things must necessarily be present if there is to be a city, but not even when all of them are present is it yet a city, but [the city is] the partnership in living well both of households and families for the sake of a complete and self-sufficient life. (1280b(99))

 

 

          Anyone who can participate actively in the political partnership that makes up a city is qualified to be a "citizen". Thus Aristotle defined a citizen as anyone who can hold a government office: "Whoever is enti­tled to participate in an office involving deliberation or decision is ... a citizen in this city; and the city is the multitude of such persons that is adequate with a view to a self-sufficient life" (AP 1275a-b(87)). Sharing in the political partnership of the city requires the citizen not only to be a capable decision-maker, but also to be a person who is willing to abide by decisions made by others. For Aristotle stressed (1277b(92)) that "the good citizen should know and have the capacity both to be ruled and to rule, and this very thing is the virtue of a citizen-knowledge of rule over free persons from both [points of view]."

 

          In this sense monarchies, where only one person rules, have no citizens; in fact, they technically have no city and no politics either, inas­much as there is no partnership between equals for the purpose of ruling and being ruled. This is why Aristotle sometimes contrasted monarchies with what we would call "republican" (i.e., non-monarchical) political systems: only the latter are politeiai in the strict sense of the word (though he sometimes used this term loosely to refer to monarchies as well), so republican systems occupied his primary attention in Politics.

 

          One of the most interesting aspects of Aristotle's political philoso­phy is that, in the course of his discussion, he developed a systematic framework consisting of six possible types of political system. They are distinguished by the different source of authority and power that characterizes each. After asserting that "the authoritative element" in a political system must "be either one or a few or the many", he explains the difference between "correct" political systems and their "deviations" (AP 1279a(96)): "when the one or the few or the many rule with a view to the common advantage, these political systems are necessarily correct, while those with a view to the private advantage of the one or the few or the multitude are deviations."

 

          The names Aristotle assigned each of these six systems are as fol­lows. The correct form of monarchy is called a "kingship". (In ancient Greek monos means "alone" or "single"; archos means "ruler". The suffix "-cracy" comes from kratos, meaning "power".) The correct form of "rule by the few" is "aristocracy", meaning the power is held by the best (aristos) people. And "polity" is the correct form of majority rule, though Aristotle also used this term to refer in a general way to all political systems. Since he sometimes contrasted politeiai with monarchy, Aristotle in this context probably intended politeiai to be interpreted in this narrow sense; as such, his claim was that all non-monarchical systems (i.e., all republics) can be called polities. In Nicomachean Ethics (NE 1160a), he avoided the equivocal use of "polity" by referring to this third correct political system as "timocracy", meaning power held by those who own property (timema). Moreover, he explicitly stated that this term is to be preferred to the term "polity", even though the latter is the more common of the two terms. However, this brief account of timocracy is difficult to distinguish from oligarchy (see below); so I shall adopt the usage given in Politics in spite of its possible ambiguity.

 

          Aristotle also described deviations from each of the three basically positive forms of political system:

 

Deviations from those mentioned are tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, democracy from polity. Tyranny is monarchy with a view to the advantage of the monarch, oligarchy [rule] with a view to the advantage of the well off, democracy [rule] with a view to the advantage of those who are poor; none of them is with a view to the common gain. (AP 1279b(96))

 

Let's now examine each of these six political systems in a bit more detail.

 

          In his discussion of kingship, Aristotle was careful to point out that there are several different kinds of kings. The main distinction is between those whose authority transcends the law and those who must themselves obey the law. A political system where the "so-called king" rules "according to law" is not a true kingship; such a king is more like a "permanent general" (AP 1287a(113)). A kingship in the true sense of the word is an "absolute kingship", where "one person has authority over all matters ..., with an arrangement that resembles household manage­ment" (1285b(110-111)). In a kingship, "the best political system is not one based on written (rules) and laws", because a good king will be able to judge fairly according to the circumstances of each specific situation, being guided by the general principles of the law, even though his judgment need not be determined by them (1286a(111)). As Aristotle put it in AP 1284a(106-107): "If there is one person so outstanding by his excess of virtue-or a number of persons ...-... such persons can no longer be regarded as a part of the city.... [For] they themselves are law." He then pointed out that "ostracism" is the inevitable fate for such persons "in the deviant political systems" (1284b(108)), even though in "the best political systems ... persons of this sort will be permanent kings in their cities."

 

          Although kingship is technically the best political system, Aristotle preferred aristocracy for several reasons. There is always a danger that the one man holding all the power will turn bad, so that the best system would degenerate into the worst (i.e., tyranny). The only protection against such a man being overcome by his own selfish desires is for him to accept the rule of law; thus "it is laws-correctly enacted-that should be authoritative", not persons (AP 1282a-b(103)). The nature of law is such that it protects people against the ever-present danger of being corrupted by their own appetite, for as Aristotle explained (1287a(114)): "One who asks law to rule ... is held to be asking god and intellect alone to rule, while one who asks man adds the beast. Desire is a thing of this sort; and spiritedness perverts rulers and the best men. Hence law is intellect without appetite."

 

          Another problem with kingship in Aristotle's mind is that there is likely to be more than just one good man in most cities, so the good men who are not allowed to rule may not be satisfied with the inequality between themselves and the king. Such an unjust situation is almost inevitably resolved by replacing the king with an aristocracy, where all the rulers are good men (AP 1286b(112)). (They cannot be good women because, according to Aristotle, women are not even be allowed to become citizens!) Hence, Aristotle suggested that, ironically, the less power a king has (i.e., the less he is like a true king), the longer he will be able to preserve his rule (1313a(173)).

 

          An "aristocracy ... is in some sense an oligarchy" (oligos means "few"), since in both types of political system "the rulers are few" (AP 1306b(159)). The difference is that, unlike a typical (i.e., deviant) oli­garchy, where the rulers are chosen merely "on the basis of wealth", the rulers in an aristocracy are chosen "in accordance with virtue" (1273a (82)). (When property ownership is the type of wealth used as one of the main qualifications for choosing who is given the power and authority to rule in an oligarchy (see e.g., 1279b(96)), the system could also be called a timocracy. One way of accounting for the potential ambiguity between the terms "oligarchy" and "timocracy" would be to note that a timocracy would be a polity if the amount of property required to be a citizen is very low, whereas it would be an oligarchy if the amount is high, since only a few people would then be wealthy enough to be citizens.) Oligarchy is usually bad for a city, because there is no guarantee that the rulers will be virtuous (e.g., by looking after the welfare of the poor) just because they are rich. An aristocracy, by contrast, is by definition (in Aristotle's sense of the word) a political system where the few men who are given the power and authority to rule will, being virtuous, look after the interests of those who are not members of the ruling class.

 

          The distinction Aristotle devoted the most attention to in Politics is between the two extreme forms of non-monarchical government, oli­garchy and democracy. This is probably because these two systems are the ones found most frequently in real historical cities, both in ancient Greece and in modern times. For example, he said "law may be oligarchic or democratic" (AP 1281a(100)), in the sense that "in democratic politi­cal systems the people have authority, while by contrast it is the few in oligarchies" (1278b(94)). In AP 1279b-1280a(96-97), he explained:

 

oligarchy is when those with property have authority in the political system; and democracy is the opposite, when those have authority who do not possess a [significant] amount of property but are poor ... What makes democracy and oligarchy differ is poverty and wealth: wherever some rule on account of wealth, whether a minority or a majority, this is necessarily an oligarchy, and wherever those who are poor, a democracy. But it turns out ... that the former are few and the latter many ...

 

 

Whereas "the defining principle of aristocracy is virtue" and "that of oligarchy is wealth", the defining principle of democracy is "the majority [i.e., the poor] having authority" (1310a(167)).

 

          Democracy is a political system where a partnership between the "common people" (démos) determines how power and authority are distributed in the city. It is therefore characterized by a type of "freedom" that involves "being ruled and ruling in turn" (AP 1317a-b (183)). Such an arrangement of reciprocal ruling among equals "is law" (1287a(113)). As with most of the other political systems, Aristotle discussed several varieties of democracy, including the type where "the people become a monarch", in the sense that "the many have authority [over the law, though] not as individuals but all together" (1292a(125-6)). In the narrow sense of a political system (i.e., as excluding monarchies), "a democracy of this sort is not a political system. For where the laws do not rule there is no political system."

 

          Aristotle warned that the best political system for a given city cannot be determined in advance: any of the systems (except tyranny) may end up being the most appropriate, once the specific situation is taken into consideration. Thus, for example, he admitted that sometimes a kingship will be the best system for a city, even though in general "to have law rule is to be chosen in preference to having one of the citizens do so" (AP 1288a(115-116)). Polity, the political system Aristotle thought is most often to be preferred, is midway between aristocracy and democracy. Yet even in the case of polity, he granted that "there is nothing to prevent another political system being more advantageous for certain [cities]" (1296b(136)).

 

          Polity is a political system based on the "golden mean" (see e.g., NE 1106a-1109b(65-75)), Aristotle's famous principle telling us always to avoid extremes; in this case it tells us that "the middling sort of life is best" for both the city and the individual (AP 1295a(133)). In other words, polity is a political system where the "middle class", as we would now call it, forms a majority of people who have the power and authority to rule in a way that mixes elements of the other three republican systems. The mixture Aristotle had in mind involves a combination of democracy and oligarchy (the two extremes) in such a way that their extreme elements will cancel each other out: a polity requires "a mixture of ... the well off and the poor" (1293b-1294b(129-132)). But it might also mix elements of aristocracy and oligarchy, as when a polity requires "a law distributing offices on the basis of merit [as in aristocracy] to those who are well off [as in oligarchy]" (1288a(116)). When we read Aristotle saying that the best sort of oligarchy "is very close to so-called polity" (1320b(190)), we must assume this good oligarchy is actually an aristocracy. For aristocracy and polity are the good "means" between the bad "extremes" of oligarchy and democracy.

 

          With this in mind, we can now map the relations between the four republican (non-monarchical) political systems, by using either a simple flow chart (as in Figure IX.1a), or a 2LAR cross (as in Figure IX.1b) based on the following two underlying questions: (1) Are there only a few rulers? and (2) Is the system good (i.e., "correct")?

 

 

(a) As a Flow Chart             (b) Mapped onto the Cross

 

Figure IX.1: Four Forms of Republican Political System

 

 

These maps help us see why Aristotle sometimes virtually equated polity with aristocracy (e.g., AP 1286b(112)): these systems, as the "means", are good for most cities, while democracy and oligarchy, as the "extremes", are bad.

 

          The remaining political system in Aristotle's framework is "tyranny". Technically this is the opposite of (i.e., deviation from) kingship. Yet Aristotle also called it "the extreme form of democracy", and added that some forms of oligarchy and democracy are "tyrannies", divided among many persons (AP 1312b(172)). He explained the relation between tyranny and the other two deviant political systems as follows:

 

Kingship accords with aristocracy, while tyranny is composed of the ultimate sort of oligarchy and of democracy-hence it is composed of the two bad political systems and involves the deviations and errors of both of them....

      .... Having wealth as its end comes from oligarchy ..., as does its distrust of the multitude.... From democracy comes their war on the notables ... (1310b-1311a(168-169))

 

 

He then explained why kingship is not worth the risk of tyranny:

 

Kingships no longer arise today; if monarchies do arise, they tend to be tyran­nies. This is because kingship is a voluntary sort of rule ..., but [nowadays] there are many persons who are similar, with none of them so outstanding as to match the extent and the claim to merit of the office.  (1313a(173))

 

 

          If we now add the two forms of monarchy to the four forms of republican political system, we can put all six systems together in the form of a circular flow chart, enabling us to see the entire framework at a single glance.

 

 

 

Figure IX.2: Aristotle's Six Forms of Political System

 

 

In his discussion of political revolutions, Aristotle argued that, although each system can change into virtually any other system, they tend to "undergo revolution more frequently into their opposite than into a political system of a neighboring sort" (AP 1316a-b(179-80)). In other words, a revolution is more likely to be influenced by the internal logic of the relation between different political systems than by the empirical factor of what type of system is in effect in a neighboring city.

 

          In AP 1286b(112) Aristotle described more fully how the progres­sion of political systems, as represented by the arrows in Figure IX.2, typically works itself out in real historical situations: political systems normally start out as kingships, pass over into aristocracies or polities, degenerate into oligarchies, fall into the grips of a tyranny, and are liberated from oppression by a democracy. Even though moving from an aristocracy to a democracy does "harm to the political system" (1270b (76)), he regarded democracy as the almost inevitable political system, inasmuch as it serves as the best protection against tyranny. Yet Aristotle hoped this historical fact could be overcome by reason, so that the least extreme of the truly good systems, polity, can become a reality, even though it had rarely existed in the past. This progression can also be mapped onto a 6CR triangle (with a few extra arrows added) by placing the three "good" systems on an upward-pointing triangle and the three

"bad" systems on a downward-point­ing triangle, as in Figure IX.3 (cf. Figure V.8). The lines pointing up­ward to polity are dashed in order to represent the difficulty of implement­ing a transition to this ideal system.

          Aristotle's helpful summary of his framework for political systems in Book VIII, Chapter 10 of Nico­machean Ethics adds several addi­tional points worth mentioning in conclusion. Here kingship is treated as the best option, for any truly good king will always have the best inter-

 

Figure IX.3: Aristotle's Framework as a 6CR

 

 

ests of his subjects in mind. Since he has absolute power and authority over all the people, no one will be able to prevent the king from putting his good will into practice. Even though an aristocracy consists of the "best" men, it is not as good as kingship, because it is more likely that a few bad men will infiltrate the aristocracy and corrupt the intentions of the otherwise good rulers. And when all property owners are allowed to influence the way laws are formed and rights are distributed among the citizens, such corruption becomes even more likely.

 

          Aristotle compared the relationship between the citizen and the city in these three good political systems to three types of family relationships. In kingship the king is like a father and the citizen is like a son. In aristocracy the ruling class is like a husband and the other citizens are like a wife. And in timocracy (or polity) the relationship between property owners is like that between siblings. But just as family relationships are not always harmonious, each of these political systems can be perverted, thus giving rise to tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, respectively.

 

          As we have seen, kingship is the most risky option, because "the worst is that which is the opposite to the best." When choosing a political system, we must therefore keep in mind that when we aim at a particular system, we might end up with its opposite instead. This is why, as we have seen, Aristotle elsewhere defended polity (i.e., timocracy) as the safest option: even if it slips into democracy, the negative effect on the average citizen is kept to a minimum, since democracy is "the least bad" of the three bad political systems. In a "majority rules" system the will of the majority is likely to be adversely influenced by the selfish motives of the many bad people who live in any society, though in some cases this will be balanced by the good motives of the virtuous people. In the next lecture I shall suggest a rather surprising way of breaking through the boundary of politics as defined by Aristotle's system. We shall then conclude Part Three by considering what type of political system is wisest for modern western societies as we enter the third millennium.

 

 

27. Theocracy: The Ultimate Breakthrough

 

 

 

          We hear so much these days about how wonderful democracy is that it probably came as quite a shock for you to learn in the previous lec­ture that a philosopher as great as Aristotle regarded it as a bad system! Why do people believe democracy is so good? Most of you are probably thinking: "because it gives us maximum freedom." But this myth is highly questionable. What democracy gives its citizens is power and authority to elect officials and enact laws. If Aristotle is right, the net result is likely to be bad, because the good men will probably be in the minority. And in that case, these good men will be unable to exercise enough control to implement truly wise policies for the city. The stories of Socrates and Jesus provide two good examples of how the majority tends to make the wrong decision, for they were both sentenced to death as a direct result of something like a democratic vote. Despite the many differences between these two events (e.g., Socrates defended himself at length, whereas Jesus remained silent before his accusers), there is a basic similarity. In both cases the majority of the people allowed to voice their opinions felt it would be better for the city to have these men executed.

 

          With this in mind, let's examine more closely how Aristotle's three pairs of political systems differ in the level of freedom they offer to their citizens. It is often said that there is no such thing as unlimited freedom: indeed, freedom is normally defined by reference to some limitations, such as the self-imposed limitations of loyalty to an authority, or obedi­ence to laws. So the question here is, how does each type of political system set up a boundary defining the citizen's freedom? A king requires a high level of loyalty from his subjects, to the extent that they cannot properly be called "citizens" at all; but in return a good king gives his subjects a high level of freedom. Their daily lives need not be encum­bered by excessive laws as long as they remain loyal to the king. The ruling class in an aristocracy requires a more moderate level of respect and loyalty, but offers in return only a moderate level of freedom. More laws are needed to keep the lower classes under control, and these laws restrict the freedom of all citizens. Finally, in a polity (or timocracy), and even more so in a democracy, the level of freedom for the citizens is actually at a comparatively low level-despite the common belief to the contrary. Why? Because in these systems there is little or no need for the citizen to be loyal or respectful to fellow citizens; so instead, a complex network of laws must be instituted in hopes of preventing the stronger citizens from mistreating the weaker ones.

 

          In a polity or a democracy the laws take away freedoms and replace them with rights. Aristotle's framework of political systems clearly reveals that such a sacrifice of freedom is the price that must be paid by those who wish to minimize the risk of tyranny. For a system boasting a higher level of freedom can quickly change into its opposite, offering little or no freedom to the citizens, but promoting injustice and oppression of a type that is unlikely to occur in a democracy. (This inverse relationship between freedom and risk is a key component of the table given in Figure IX.6, summarizing the Aristotle's six basic types of political system, plus the two new extremes we will examine today.) As we shall see in Lecture 27, Aristotle's terminology is now somewhat outdated. Nevertheless, by providing a clear framework for understand­ing how political systems operate (whatever we call them!), he has demonstrated how loyalty to those in power forms the boundary that enables political systems to make freedom possible for their citizens.

 

          This paradox, that higher degrees of freedom are possible only by sacrificing more and more of our rights to a higher power, is closely related to another problem-one that is actually a fairly common theme among political philosophers. Indeed, many introductory philosophy courses would devote most or all of the lecture(s) on political philosophy to a discussion of this other problem, produced by the conflict between freedom and equality. Both freedom and equality are typically regarded as ideals that ought to characterize a good (and today that usually means a "democratic") political system. Yet if everyone were totally free to do as they pleased, then there would be a great deal of inequality: the strong would tend to overpower the weak; the rich would tend to deprive the poor; the powerful would tend to disregard the powerless; etc. Such an extreme state of having no ruler (and no rules) is called "anarchy". By contrast, a state of total equality between everyone could come about only by taking away the freedom of the people involved. B.F. Skinner's famous novel, Walden Two, gives a good example of this option. The ideal society he imagined is one where psychological conditioning is used to determine the relationships between everyone, so that the people live in a state of harmonious equality, even though they have no freedom.

 

          There are two fundamentally different ways of responding to this problem of the conflict between freedom and equality. The first is to attempt a compromise. This is the option taken by democratic political systems (i.e., by "republics", to use Aristotle's term [see Figure IX.1]) . There are, of course, many different ways of conceiving how that com­promise can best be made. For example, socialists do so by tightening governmental control of the economy, thus reducing the level of in­equality by reducing the level of freedom, whereas libertarians do so by loosening such governmental controls and trusting in a natural economic force that will regulate the changing levels of both freedom and equality.

 

          The second response to this problem is to refuse to compromise, on the grounds that what is needed is a breakthrough. This is the option taken by utopian political systems. For example, in its original, Marxist form, communism is a political philosophy that claims it is possible to have a society where individuals enjoy the highest degree of both freedom and equality. Karl Marx (1818-1883) believed work is the most important factor giving meaning to a person's life, for we are what we do. Marx saw that in the capitalist societies of his day most workers were alienated from the product of their labor by the greedy entrepreneur, who used the workers as objects, as a means of making money. If only the people would stand up and revolt against this and other evils perpe­trated by capitalism, he proclaimed, a new society would be ushered in. Marx's vision of this society of perfect communion between people was one where everyone would give work "according to their ability" and take the products of labor "according to their need". Unfortunately, the twentieth century gave us ample proof that the character and motivations of the people who revolt against injustice simply are not as pure as Marx dreamed they would be. Communism as a political system has failed for precisely the same reason that Marx believed capitalist-style democracy had failed: in both cases the more people try to take freedom and justice into their own hands, the more they ironically become slaves of the injustice they themselves have created!

 

          There are numerous other models for utopian societies; but today I shall focus special attention on one alternative to communism that is rarely acknowledged as a viable political system, even by those who are supposed to believe in it. This is the vision of a utopia quite different from Marx's communist state or Nietzsche's Superman; for it is a vision of the purpose of the earth as determined and controlled not by people breaking through the alienating limits of a life-denying outlook, but by God breaking through the hardened shell of human hearts. Most religious people believe not only that God exists and that we can somehow communicate with God, but also that God has a plan for this world-a plan whose ultimate fulfillment cannot be thwarted by any counter-efforts on the part of humanity. Some religious people believe this plan is confined to a "spiritual" realm, and that in the "material" realm of (for example) economics and politics, human systems can function quite apart from this divine plan. However, the deepest (and most philosophically-minded) religious thinkers have always affirmed that such an artificial distinction is illegitimate. If there is a God with a plan, then this plan relates just as closely to the political activities of entire societies as it does to the personal activities of any individual within a given society.

 

          The best name for the idea that God's rule applies not only to the operation of divine power in human hearts, but also to its operation in the courtroom and the market-place, is "theocracy" (with theos meaning "God" and kratos meaning "power"). Unfortunately, this term has often been used in the past to refer to a deceptively similar idea that is actually quite opposed to theocracy in its pure form. Traditionally a political sys­tem has been called a "theocracy" if a religious group (such as a church) regards itself as God's mouthpiece on earth, so that whatever policies the leaders formulate must be accepted by the people as direct commands from God. In order to distinguish this traditional usage from what I believe to be the proper meaning of "theocracy", I have coined the term "ecclesiocracy" to refer to any political system where the power is wielded by the leader(s) of an "assembly" (ekklesia) of religious people. Typical examples of ecclesiocracy would be the nation of Israel during the period following Ezra and Nehemiah (i.e., after returning from Babylonian exile), most of southern Europe during the time of the Holy Roman Empire, and the city of Geneva during the latter part of John Calvin's life.

 

          The reason it is so important to distinguish between ecclesiocracy and genuine theocracy is that, although the latter is really a vision of the "kingdom of God on earth" that religious people ought to be regarded as the best of all possible political systems, the former is a perversion of this ultimate ideal that fools many sincere believers. Moreover, as we learned from Aristotle, the perversion of an ultimately good system would be an ultimately bad system. Ecclesiocracy perverts theocracy by replacing God's autonomous rule in the heart of each individual with a religious version of one of the humanly-rooted political systems. This means one or more human beings end up wielding power over the ordi­nary members of the religious assembly, using the name of God as an authenticating guarantee. Yet this is the tragedy of human religion: that in trying to lead other people to God many religious believers end up blocking other people from receiving the very spiritual power they believe they are promoting. Indeed, this happens whenever one person imposes a set of standards upon another person, claiming that God only works in this particular way, so that everyone who does not conform to this particular conception of "God's Way" will be rejected by God.

 

          Among the many problems with this all-too-common attitude to religious beliefs is that it assumes we human beings can actually grasp God; theocracy, by contrast, assumes only that to follow God's plan a person must be willing to be grasped by God. And this usually means being ignorant of God's Way until the moment it is actually revealed in your own heart. I believe this "pure" form of theocracy is presented throughout the Bible (and in the Scriptures of many other world reli­gions, though not in such a pure form) as an actual political system. The difference between theocracy and all other political systems (including ecclesiocracy) is precisely in the fact that theocracy alone renounces all rights of human beings to govern themselves, acknowledging God as the only true governor. In this sense theocracy can be called a "non-political political system", provided we understand that his phrase must be inter­preted using synthetic logic. The political philosophy called anarchy (i.e., "no ruler") actually shares with theocracy the notion that people only perpetuate injustice when they try to use laws to govern themselves; however, since it rejects all rule, it cannot properly be called a political system as such. Viewed from the perspective of someone who does not believe in God, theocracy would be hard to distinguish from anarchy. The difference, of course, is that theocrats believe in a common guiding principle that unites everyone together inwardly, whereas anarchists are left with nothing but infinite diversity and an irresolvable struggle between opposing wills.

 

          In the Bible, as in other religious literature, the kingdom of God is presented as something that comes suddenly, invading the realm of human justice with a divine justice that can neither be predicted nor comprehend­ed in human categories. This divine invasion is primarily directed toward the human heart; yet, as the New Testament makes clear in many ways, a person's response to this change should not be merely interior, but should revolutionize every aspect of the person's life. Jesus' suffering in particular should be seen as a thoroughly political kind of suffering, directly related to his radical rejection of any human means of achieving

justice on earth. The message of the cross and resurrection is a theocratic message: only when we die to human ways of gov­erning ourselves will we allow God to per­meate us with a new life characterized by divine justice. The contrast between this notion and that of Nietzsche's Superman suggests that we can call this way of resolv­ing the problems of human injustice "God's transvaluation of values". The way God's justice breaks through all forms of human justice (including those upheld by support­ers of ecclesiocracy), imparting a new meaning to words like "equality" and "rights", is depicted in Figure IX.4.

          Many of the implications of theocracy

 

 

 

Figure IX.4:

God's Transvalua-

tion of Values

 

 

as a political system are too complex to be discussed here. However, I will mention one of the most significant implications: it rejects the idea, so often taken for granted in modern western culture, that we have rights, such as the rights to "life, liberty, and happiness". In place of this assumption it claims that human rights should never be regarded as anything other than gifts from God. Only if we recognize that we have no rights of our own, and that we therefore owe absolute loyalty to God, will we be given absolute freedom. In the Bible this freedom is not just spiritual, but also thoroughly political. Theocracy is therefore the direct opposite of democracy; for the latter emphasizes human rights in return for strict limitations on our freedom. Yet theocracy does not require the destruction of other systems. On the contrary, it can coexist with any of Aristotle's six systems (even democracy). For the freedom it offers starts in the human heart, and loosens our attachment to any and all of the limited, man-made political system under whose control we live.

 

          The fact that theocracy is described most often in the Bible in terms of a kingdom suggests it is most properly viewed as a type of monarchical political system, rather than a republican one. Indeed, if we consider theocracy and its perversion, ecclesiocracy, together with Aristotle's two forms of monarchical political system, kingship and tyranny, we can depict their relationship as a perfect 2LAR, arising out of the two questions: (1) Is the system a religious one? and (2) Is the sys­tem good (or "correct")? Just as theocracy is a religious form of king­ship (regarding God as the king), ecclesiocracy is a religious form of tyranny. The same two maps used in Figure IX.1 to describe the relations between the four republican political systems can therefore be used to map the relations between the four monarchical political systems:

 

(a) As a Flow Chart        (b) Mapped onto the Cross

 

Figure IX.5: Four Forms of Monarchical Political System

 

 

Figure IX.5a shows how ecclesiocracy is the extreme form of theocracy, just as oligarchy is the extreme form of aristocracy. Moreover, just as kingship degenerates into tyranny, theocracy degenerates into ecclesioc­racy when the role appropriate only for a divine being is usurped by human beings. In this sense, ecclesiocracy is the root form of all tyranny, because its oppression is spiritual as well as physical.

 

          By putting the 2LAR cross here in Figure IX.5b together with its republican correlate in Figure IX.1b, we can now construct a perfect 3LAR. The three questions that give rise to the complete set of eight possible political systems are: (1) Is the system monarchical? (2) Is the system either religious or ruled by a few people? (3) Is the system good (or "correct")? These eight systems could be mapped onto a double cross (i.e., a pair of concentric crosses, with one rotated at a 45˚ angle from the other). But instead of drawing such a complex figure here, I have provided a more detailed summary of the relationships between the eight systems in the table given in Figure IX.6. This table lists the eight types of political system from the best to the worst, together with the 3LAR component corresponding to each. The second column provides a simple description of how the name for each system is derived from some key Greek word referring to its source of political power. The third and fourth columns compare the levels of risk, freedom, and rights provided by each system. And the fifth column summarizes and expands

 

 

 

Figure IX.6: Eight Basic Types of Political System

 

 

Aristotle's analogy between the citizen-state relationship and the relationship between various members of a family.

 

          The truth or falsity of theocracy is not something that could ever be demonstrated by any philosophical or scientific proof. Rather, it must be accepted as a "myth", in the special sense introduced in Lecture 3, as a truth that is so true that it cannot even be questioned by those who live their lives by its guiding light. This does not mean there is no reason for believing in theocracy. On the contrary, upon stepping into the myth, a person will discover God breaking into their life in real, concrete ex­periences, whose validity can hardly be doubted. But for this reason-that is, because theocracy can be validated not by science and the love of wisdom, but only by experience and the wonder of silence-I shall refrain from discussing this religious point of view any further at this point; instead we shall return to the topic of religious experience in Week XI.

 

 

27. Wisdom on the Boundary: Ideas vs. Ideology

 

 

 

          If we now take a step back and look at the variety of solutions we have considered to the problem of finding the best political system, we might easily become discouraged. Indeed, the same could be said for most of the other topics we have discussed, especially here in Part Three. Without a doubt, the theme I have come across most frequently in read­ing students' insight papers has been the idea that philosophical questions have "no definite answers"; and this is sometimes used as evidence for the view that the realities such questions refer to are either nonexistent or irrelevant to real life. However, I hope I have demonstrated by now that both of these views are incorrect. Far from finding no definite an­swers to the questions we have been considering, we have usually found many definite answers! For good philosophers seek definite answers, just as much as natural scientists do; the problem, of course, is that philoso­phers are unable to attain the level of agreement reached by natural scientists, because philosophical questions are concerned with ideas, rather than empirical objects. In other words, the problem raised by the experience of coming face to face with a reality we are necessarily igno­rant of is usually not the problem of having nothing to say about it; on the contrary, the problem is that we have many, apparently conflicting things to say about it. The task of the philosopher, therefore, is to seek to fit each part of the puzzle together in such a way that the true aspects of each answer can be recognized for what they are. Philosophers who regard the love of wisdom as an essential part of their task will never be satisfied with a single, supposedly all-encompassing answer; yet this is not because they doubt such an answer exists, but because they have seen a glimpse of its awesome reality!

 

          The alternative to loving wisdom "on the boundary" between our knowledge and our recognized ignorance is to single out a single idea or set of ideas and raise it to the level of absolute truth. When this happens, those who claim to possess this "truth" typically regard it as their duty to share this gospel (the "good news" that absolute truth can be knowable!) with others who remain in the dark. Unfortunately, this goal is all too often taken to the extreme of forcing others to "agree" with the single definite answer that is being taken as absolutely true. As a result, a set of philosophical ideas that may have a wealth of insight to offer us is trans­formed into a political ideology, the very antithesis of good philosophy. An ideology, as I am using the term, is any set of ideas-often very insightful ones when viewed objectively, outside their political (mis)ap­plication-that is presented in such a way that the "believers" regard themselves as having a monopoly on the truth. That is, when a person denies at the outset the very possibility of other legitimate perspectives, an ideology is sure to be at work. An ideology is a well-developed system of thought that is not only treated as a myth by those who "live in" it, but is forced on those who do not wish to accept the myth as it stands. 

 

          The twentieth century could well be called "the century of ideology". Ideology in politics produced the east-west divide, reaching its climax during the Cold War years, when the terms "Marxist" and "Capitalist" seemed almost to define "evil" to those standing on the other side. In the realm of morals, the various sorts of religious fundamental­ism that cropped up around the world illustrate the dangers of ideology better than any other single example. Whenever people would rather kill those who disagree with their ideas than dialogue with them, an ideology is sure to be operating. But ideology operates just as powerfully, though less obviously, in the sciences-especially the social sciences, where the differences between (for example) behaviorists and depth psychologists are often so vast that no dialogue whatsoever is possible. Rather than seeking out genuine insights wherever they may be found, those under the control of an ideology will be unwilling even to consider that other approaches to their field might be legitimate. And even the natural sci­ences are not totally immune to the power of ideologies, though scientists tend to excuse themselves by using  terms such as "paradigms" to account for their irreconcilable differences. The point is that, if we learn any lesson from the twentieth century, it should be ideology backfires. To quote from the last book of the Bible: "those who live by the sword die by the sword" (Revelation 13:10).

 

          With this in mind, I would like to warn against turning theocracy into an ideology, an "ism" that might be treated as a final solution to all humanity's problems. If someone who has tasted theocratic freedom refuses to return to the boundary of political reality by recognizing that not every­one accepts the theocratic vision, then such a person will risk turning a system of potentially insightful ideas into a frightening ideology: theocracy will degenerate into eccle­siocracy. In this final lec­ture of Part Three I want us to explore the challenges of living wisely with in the real world. The key to doing so, I believe, is to be confident enough to uphold our ideas as ideals to live by, yet humble enough to resist the temptation to turn them into an ideology.

 

          In discussing various branches of applied philosophy here in Part Three, we first considered the question of causality that arises in the philosophy of science. Hume's view of "habit" is a definite answer: it defines his idea of how we come to feel that objects and events are governed by a power of necessary connection. Kant's argument that the "law of causality" is necessary for the very possibility of experience is a definite answer to the same question. These contrasting ideas were not put forward as mere opinions, as if Hume were saying he preferred to live in England rather than Scotland, and Kant were responding that he would prefer Scotland, because his grandfather had lived there; these men were expressing views they believed everyone who wishes to think philosophically ought to affirm as true. In this case these two definite answers to the same question appear to contradict each other, though there may be some way of viewing both as correct. For example, we could regard Hume's answer as correctly describing what we can discover by limiting ourselves to the empirical perspective, while Kant's describes what we discover by also adopting the transcendental perspective.

 

          Next we considered moral philosophy and the question of right action. Once again, we saw how Kant, Mill, and Nietzsche each proposed a definite answer to this question; yet their answers came out looking very different. Likewise this week, when considering political philosophy and the nature of right government, we saw that Aristotle had six definite answers; yet subsequent philosophers have proposed still other alterna­tives that Aristotle never imagined. When such inevitable conflicts of ideas arise between different philosophers, we should not infer that such questions must, in fact, have no answer at all. On the contrary, we should take it as a challenge, to determine which of the definite answers is the most adequate and/or to show how two or more of these answer can be true simultaneously, each in its own unique way. In doing the latter we will not only be establishing a set of justifiable perspectives within which knowledge (i.e., science) can arise; we will also be practicing the art of loving wisdom, and thereby guarding against the danger of such ideas being misused as ideologies.

 

          In light of this distinction between wisely respecting the perspecti­val basis of all insightful ideas and foolishly raising one set of ideas to the absolute status of an ideology, let us devote the remainder of this lecture to an examination of what political philosophy best suits the real world as it now exists, at the dawn of the third millennium A.D. Without a doubt, the political ideology that "won" the twentieth century's battle of ideologies is democracy. Despite the bad press democracy has had from many philosophers, from Aristotle down to Nietzsche, nearly everyone in modern western society now regards it as the "correct" political system-perhaps the least questioned of all our cultural myths.

 

          Kant is often regarded as one of the ideological founders of modern liberal democracy. Half of his book, Metaphysics of Morals (1797), and several influential essays written toward the end of his life, defend a system of universal human rights as enforced by a "league of nations"-an idea that has significantly influenced the subsequent devel­opment of western political systems, including what we now call the "United Nations". However, what Kant meant by "rights" is actually quite different from what we nowadays mean when we use this word. For him our "rights" must arise out of the concept of right action:

 

 

Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all in action, according to a universal law. (SR 45)

 

 

That is, an external act (as governed by the domain of politics) can be right only if it can coexist with the free (right) acts of all other individu­als. This principle is not only the basis for a Kantian theory of rights, but also lies at the foundation of theocracy! Unfortunately, Kant's understanding of human rights is often taken out of its proper context and used to make rights-based democracy into a political ideology.

 

          If we were to use Kant and other influential modern philosophers as the basis for constructing an updated version of Aristotle's framework of political systems, it would look quite different. The main distinction would be between "democratic" and "totalitarian" systems (instead of "republican" and "monarchical"); socialists and libertarians would repre­sent the "extreme" forms of democratic systems, while liberals and con­servatives would represent the "mean" forms (cf. Figures IX.1 and IX.5). In this system "democracy" takes on a far more sophisticated meaning than it had for Aristotle. Yet our use of "democratic" and Aristotle's use of "republican" both refer to types of federal system, whereby the people agree (at least implicitly) to abide by a certain politi­cal structure in the hope of maximizing mutual freedoms without depriv­ing essential rights. Likewise and by contrast, our use of "totalitarian" and Aristotle's use of "monarchical" are both akin to the feudal system, whereby local and/or national monopolies of land ownership operate without allowing widespread participation in political decision-making.

 

          The philosopher generally recognized as having put forward the most sophisticated defence of modern liberal democracy is John Rawls (1921-). His classic book, A Theory of Justice (1971), proposes two essentially Kantian principles as a theoretical foundation:

 

 

      First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.

      Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all. (TJ 60)

 

 

These principles guarantee equal rights and equal opportunity, respec­tively, to all citizens. Governments should use the first principle as a guide for assigning a basic set of rights, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (as in the U.S. Bill of Rights), to all persons, regardless of their race, religion, sex, etc. Rawls' own examples of such rights include the right to vote, to own property, to speak freely, etc. The second principle likewise requires governments to insure that posi­tions such as political offices and high paying jobs (or any paid employ­ment, for that matter) are open to all persons without discrimination that is unrelated to their suitability for the position. The second principle is an attempt to preserve a sense of justice in spite of economic and social inequalities by defining "injustice" as inequalities that are not to every­one's mutual benefit.

 

          A considerable portion of Rawls' book is devoted to clarifying and qualifying these two basic principles of justice. Among the numerous points made in this regard are that basic political rights cannot be traded for social or economic advantages, that one person's (or group's) mis­fortunes cannot be excused by appealing to another person's (or group's fortunes (as a utilitarian politics might allow), that the principles apply to the way institutions are to be structured but not necessarily to the way we treat any specific person(s) known to us in real-life situations, and that policy-makers must consider the rights and opportunities of past and future generations just as much as those of the present generation.  In a word, Rawls defined justice as "fairness", arguing that governments are responsible to look after the less fortunate members of society. His posi­tion sparked such a huge debate that we cannot even begin to consider the pros and cons in this introductory course, except to say that the chief opponents of such a position are libertarians (e.g., Robert Nozick), who argue that governmental intervention deprives people of their basic lib­erties, and communitarians (e.g., Alasdair MacIntyre), who argue that different principles of justice arise out of different communities and therefore cannot be generalized so neatly.

 

          From a Kantian perspective, the major problem with such attempts to defend a socialist version of liberal democracy is the tendency to assume that "society" (i.e., government) bestows rights and opportunities onto people. Kant defended a more individualistic view, whereby each person (in the form of a "noumenal self") bestows or fails to bestow these rights (along with corresponding duties) on himself or herself-a differ­ence Rawls himself acknowledges (TJ 257). This is a problem because it tends to shift responsibility away from persons and toward institutions, thereby tending to make individuals feel like insignificant "cogs" in the social "machine". Indeed, for many political theorists nowadays, the re­sponsibility for bestowing and protecting rights is regarded as being the role of an international political body, the United Nations. That this way of defending democracy is essentially ideological is evident from the fact that the ultimate goal of most such proponents is one-world government. Kant himself regarded this as a desirable stage in the development of human political history; but only if those in positions of power remain aware that the power resides not in the institutions but in the people themselves, without whom there would be no rights to bestow.

 

          Virtually all proponents of democracy as a prelude to one-world government unfortunately tend to ignore an aspect of Kant's theory that was crucial to his overall vision: that democracy is merely a stage in the long-term development of the human race's political evolution. The ideal goal we ought to see all political structures as pointing toward, in Kant's view, is something very similar to what I have called "theocracy". Kant looked forward to a day when all outward forms of control people impose on each other (i.e., all "coercion", whether political, religious, or ideological in any other way) will give way to a world wherein every person lives freely and responsibly according to their own awareness of the moral law within them. This can happen, of course, only when the human race learns once and for all that the most important virtues in life -the philosophical virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty-cannot be imposed on others by fiat; rather, we should encourage each person to use their own reason to decide for themselves what is true, good, and beautiful. This, he thought, is an essentially religious vision, yet it is religion without any outward, ideological form that will cause it to clash with other ideologies. This conception of a moral religion, a way of experiencing the meaning of life without forcing an ideology onto others who may not be open to it, can come about only when religion and politics merge. Kant referred to this merger as the "kingdom of ends" in his moral theory and as "the kingdom of God on earth" in his theory of religion. The latter is such a significant (and often grossly misunder­stood) part of Kant's philosophy that I shall devote two lectures to the subject in Week XI.

 

          The way forward from democracy, if we take into consideration this wider context of Kant's political vision, is to begin doing away with the common assumption that morality can be legislated. The more democracies can move toward anarchy (i.e., fewer laws, and even­tually no laws), the better off we will be. For one thing, this will give people the opportunity to be genuinely moral, rather than just "politically correct". In the current situation in most western countries, the majority of people don't care much about being moral because they have come to believe that the government legislates morality; this leads to the mythical belief that, as long as I am a "law abiding citizen", I am morally good. But as Kant's arguments demonstrate, legal (external) goodness does not necessarily coincide with moral (internal) goodness. Ironically, legal systems that try to enforce so-called "moral" laws end up taking away  the potential praiseworthiness of the citizens' good actions.

 

          Has the human race developed to the stage where all outward political forms can simply vanish in the near future? Obviously not! That this ought to be our ultimate goal is the grain of truth in Marxist ideology. But to attempt to implement such policies in the short term would not be a step forward, but a grave setback to humanity's political development-as the twentieth century's experiment with Marxism so poignantly illustrated. Instead of trying to force the goal ("peace on earth") through ideological coercion, our aim should be to seek to implement political structures that have an in-built self-negating form-i.e., structures that discourage by their very nature anyone who would seek to raise them to the status of ideology. The more this happens, the more human beings will learn to trust their own inner principles above the feeble attempts of politics to determine right and wrong by external means. Perhaps the single most important lesson we can learn from our study of wisdom here in Part Three is that, as we live in waiting for the day when human beings can live in peace without outward political structures, we must welcome differences of opinion rather than resisting them. The more we can incorporate the idea that "opposition is true friendship" into our understanding of political reality, the closer we will come to bringing the entire human race to a deep awareness of wisdom on the boundary.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT/DIALOGUE

 

1.  A. What is power?

     B. Where does law come from?

 

 

 

2.  A. Is anarchy ("no ruler") a political system?

B. Is absolute freedom possible?

 

 

 

3.  A. How can God have a "kingdom" on earth?

     B. Would philosophers make good kings?

 

 

 

4.  A. Do human beings have any inborn rights?

     B. Is anything in the world really fair?

 

 

 

RECOMMENDED READINGS

 

1. Aristotle, The Politics, Book 4, Ch. 2 (AP 1289a-b).

 

2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Ch. 10 (NE 1160a-1161a).

 

3. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, tr. G. Bull (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1961).

 

4. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, tr. Katherine Woods (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1943).

 

5. Stephen Palmquist, Biblical Theocracy: A vision of the biblical foun­dations for a Christian political philosophy (Hong Kong: Philopsychy Press, 1993).

 

6. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, tr. Samuel Moore (Moscow: Progress Press, 1952[1888]).

 

7. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, ?1, "Two Principles of Justice" (TJ 60-65).

 

8. Stephen Palmquist, "'The Kingdom of God is at Hand!' (Did Kant really say that?)", History of Philosophy Quarterly 11 (1994), pp.421-437.

 

 

 

 

Send comments to the author: StevePq@hkbu.edu.hk

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