WEBVTT 00:01.010 --> 00:05.390 Professor Steven Smith: Let me start today by asking the 00:05.391 --> 00:08.431 question, "what is political philosophy?" 00:08.430 --> 00:13.510 Custom dictates that I say something about the subject 00:13.508 --> 00:17.148 matter of this course at its outset. 00:17.150 --> 00:21.970 This in some ways might seem a case of putting the cart before 00:21.974 --> 00:25.854 the horse, or the cart before the course maybe, 00:25.850 --> 00:30.990 because how can you say, how can we say what political 00:30.994 --> 00:34.784 philosophy is in advance of doing it? 00:34.780 --> 00:40.850 Anyway, let me try to say something that might be useful. 00:40.850 --> 00:43.900 In one sense, you could say political 00:43.903 --> 00:49.163 philosophy is simply a branch or what we call a subfield of the 00:49.161 --> 00:51.791 field of political science. 00:51.790 --> 00:56.360 Yes, all right. It exists alongside of other 00:56.355 --> 01:00.805 areas of political inquiry like American government, 01:00.810 --> 01:05.440 comparative politics, and international relations. 01:05.439 --> 01:08.699 Yet in another sense, political philosophy is 01:08.702 --> 01:12.412 something much different than simply a subfield; 01:12.409 --> 01:17.589 it seems to be the oldest and most fundamental part of 01:17.586 --> 01:19.536 political science. 01:19.540 --> 01:24.080 Its purpose is to lay bare, as it were, the fundamental 01:24.075 --> 01:28.605 problems, the fundamental concepts and categories which 01:28.611 --> 01:31.301 frame the study of politics. 01:31.299 --> 01:35.719 In this respect it seems to me much less like just a branch of 01:35.720 --> 01:39.340 political science than the foundation of the entire 01:39.343 --> 01:40.433 discipline. 01:40.430 --> 01:43.730 01:43.730 --> 01:48.620 The study of political philosophy often begins as this 01:48.616 --> 01:52.946 course will do also, with the study of the great 01:52.950 --> 01:57.560 books or some of the great books of our field. 01:57.560 --> 02:02.140 Political philosophy is the oldest of the social sciences, 02:02.144 --> 02:06.654 and it can boast a wealth of heavy hitters from Plato and 02:06.647 --> 02:10.377 Aristotle to Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hegel, 02:10.377 --> 02:13.867 Tocqueville, Nietzsche, and so on. 02:13.870 --> 02:18.090 You might say that the best way to learn what political 02:18.093 --> 02:21.613 philosophy is, is simply to study and read the 02:21.612 --> 02:25.132 works of those who have shaped the field--yes, 02:25.131 --> 02:27.831 right? But to do that is, 02:27.829 --> 02:30.959 I recognize, not without dangers, 02:30.958 --> 02:34.378 often severe dangers of its own. 02:34.379 --> 02:40.249 Why study just these thinkers and not others? 02:40.250 --> 02:45.950 Is not any so-called list of great thinkers or great texts 02:45.953 --> 02:52.063 likely to be simply arbitrary and tell us more about what such 02:52.057 --> 02:56.257 a list excludes than what it includes? 02:56.259 --> 02:58.759 Furthermore, it would seem that the study of 02:58.761 --> 03:01.961 the great books or great thinkers of the past can easily 03:01.961 --> 03:04.581 degenerate into a kind of antiquarianism, 03:04.580 --> 03:07.180 into a sort of pedantry. 03:07.180 --> 03:12.720 We find ourselves easily intimidated by a list of famous 03:12.723 --> 03:17.363 names and end up not thinking for ourselves. 03:17.360 --> 03:21.380 Furthermore, doesn't the study of old books, 03:21.377 --> 03:25.857 often very old books, risk overlooking the issues 03:25.861 --> 03:30.251 facing us today? What can Aristotle or Hobbes 03:30.245 --> 03:33.925 tells us about the world of globalization, 03:33.928 --> 03:37.428 of terrorism, of ethnic conflict and the 03:37.431 --> 03:41.581 like? Doesn't political science make 03:41.582 --> 03:46.942 any progress? After all, economists no longer 03:46.936 --> 03:50.396 read Adam Smith. I hesitate to... 03:50.404 --> 03:55.434 I don't hesitate to say that you will never read Adam 03:55.433 --> 03:59.273 Smith in an economics course here at Yale, 03:59.270 --> 04:03.420 and it is very unlikely that you will read Freud in your 04:03.423 --> 04:05.013 psychology classes. 04:05.009 --> 04:09.189 So why then does political science, apparently uniquely 04:09.193 --> 04:13.383 among the social sciences, continue to study Aristotle, 04:13.376 --> 04:15.696 Locke and other old books? 04:15.700 --> 04:20.350 04:20.350 --> 04:25.090 These are all real questions, and I raise them now myself 04:25.091 --> 04:30.171 because they are questions I want you to be thinking about as 04:30.172 --> 04:34.662 you do your reading and work through this course. 04:34.660 --> 04:38.700 I want you to remain alive to them throughout the semester. 04:38.700 --> 04:41.470 Yes? Okay. 04:41.470 --> 04:45.530 One reason I want to suggest that we continue to read these 04:45.534 --> 04:49.674 books is not because political science makes no progress, 04:49.670 --> 04:54.350 or that we are somehow uniquely fixated on an ancient past, 04:54.354 --> 04:59.444 but because these works provide us with the most basic questions 04:59.441 --> 05:02.431 that continue to guide our field. 05:02.430 --> 05:07.040 We continue to ask the same questions that were asked by 05:07.036 --> 05:10.466 Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and others. 05:10.470 --> 05:15.740 We may not accept their answers and it's very likely that we do 05:15.740 --> 05:20.160 not, but their questions are often put with a kind of 05:20.160 --> 05:23.050 unrivaled clarity and insight. 05:23.050 --> 05:27.170 The fact is that there are still people in the world, 05:27.170 --> 05:30.020 many people, who regard themselves as 05:30.023 --> 05:33.513 Aristotelians, Thomists, Lockeans, 05:33.510 --> 05:39.800 Kantians, even the occasional Marxist can still be found in 05:39.801 --> 05:42.731 Ivy League universities. 05:42.730 --> 05:45.780 These doctrines have not simply been refuted, 05:45.779 --> 05:48.689 or replaced, or historically superceded; 05:48.690 --> 05:52.930 they remain in many ways constitutive of our most basis 05:52.934 --> 05:54.904 outlooks and attitudes. 05:54.899 --> 06:01.469 They are very much alive with us today, right. 06:01.470 --> 06:06.570 So political philosophy is not just some kind of strange 06:06.574 --> 06:12.704 historical appendage attached to the trunk of political science; 06:12.699 --> 06:18.029 it is constitutive of its deepest problems. 06:18.029 --> 06:23.439 If you doubt the importance of the study of political ideas for 06:23.442 --> 06:28.072 politics, consider the works of a famous economist, 06:28.069 --> 06:31.489 John Maynard Keynes, everyone's heard of him. 06:31.490 --> 06:34.690 Keynes wrote in 1935. 06:34.690 --> 06:37.230 "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, 06:37.230 --> 06:39.770 both when they are right and when they are wrong, 06:39.769 --> 06:44.749 are more powerful than is commonly understood....Practical 06:44.747 --> 06:48.637 men," Keynes continues, practical men "who believe 06:48.637 --> 06:51.917 themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual 06:51.920 --> 06:55.490 influences, are usually the slave of some 06:55.492 --> 06:57.232 defunct economist. 06:57.230 --> 07:02.010 Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, 07:02.007 --> 07:07.897 are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of 07:07.902 --> 07:10.242 a few years back" . 07:10.240 --> 07:16.970 So this course will be devoted to the study of those "academic 07:16.973 --> 07:23.383 scribblers" who have written books that continue to impress 07:23.375 --> 07:28.885 and create the forms of authority with which we are 07:28.894 --> 07:32.564 familiar. But one thing we should not do, 07:32.564 --> 07:36.604 right, one thing we should not do is to approach these works as 07:36.595 --> 07:38.865 if they provide, somehow, answers, 07:38.874 --> 07:41.644 ready-made answers to the problems of today. 07:41.639 --> 07:45.279 Only we can provide answers to our problems. 07:45.279 --> 07:49.759 Rather, the great works provide us, so to speak, 07:49.760 --> 07:53.950 with a repository of fundamental or permanent 07:53.954 --> 07:58.914 questions that political scientists still continue to 07:58.910 --> 08:01.580 rely on in their work. 08:01.579 --> 08:06.409 The great thinkers are great not because they've created some 08:06.413 --> 08:10.123 set of museum pieces that can be catalogued, 08:10.120 --> 08:13.760 admired, and then safely ignored like a kind of 08:13.763 --> 08:18.203 antiquities gallery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; 08:18.199 --> 08:21.949 but rather because they have defined the problems that all 08:21.951 --> 08:25.831 later thinkers and scholars have had to use in order to make 08:25.834 --> 08:27.944 sense of their world at all. 08:27.939 --> 08:33.389 Again, we still think in terms of the basic concepts and 08:33.386 --> 08:38.036 categories that were created for us long ago. 08:38.040 --> 08:38.600 Okay? 08:38.600 --> 08:42.910 08:42.909 --> 08:49.069 So one thing you will quickly note is that there are no 08:49.072 --> 08:55.352 permanent answers in a study of political philosophy. 08:55.350 --> 09:01.520 A famous mathematician once said, "Every question must have 09:01.517 --> 09:06.937 a correct answer, for every question one answer." 09:06.940 --> 09:12.800 That itself is an eminently contestable proposition. 09:12.799 --> 09:17.209 Among the great thinkers there is profound disagreement over 09:17.213 --> 09:21.703 the answers to even the most fundamental questions concerning 09:21.702 --> 09:24.692 justice, concerning rights, 09:24.693 --> 09:27.023 concerning liberty. 09:27.019 --> 09:31.969 In political philosophy, it is never a sufficient answer 09:31.974 --> 09:37.024 to answer a question with a statement "because Plato says 09:37.019 --> 09:41.649 so," or "because Nietzsche says so." 09:41.649 --> 09:45.819 There are no final authorities in that respect in philosophy 09:45.822 --> 09:49.572 because even the greatest thinkers disagree profoundly 09:49.571 --> 09:52.401 with one another over their answers, 09:52.399 --> 09:56.549 and it is precisely this disagreement with one another 09:56.546 --> 10:00.916 that makes it possible for us, the readers today, 10:00.922 --> 10:04.462 to enter into their conversation. 10:04.460 --> 10:09.580 We are called upon first to read and listen, 10:09.575 --> 10:13.615 and then to judge "who's right?" 10:13.620 --> 10:15.590 "how do we know?" 10:15.590 --> 10:20.980 The only way to decide is not to defer to authority, 10:20.983 --> 10:26.163 whoever's authority, but to rely on our own powers 10:26.164 --> 10:31.204 of reason and judgment, in other words the freedom of 10:31.204 --> 10:35.804 the human mind to determine for us what seems right or best. 10:35.800 --> 10:39.890 10:39.890 --> 10:40.840 Okay? 10:40.840 --> 10:44.320 10:44.320 --> 10:46.720 But what are these problems that I'm referring to? 10:46.720 --> 10:51.910 What are these problems that constitute the subject matter of 10:51.912 --> 10:53.992 the study of politics? 10:53.990 --> 10:58.680 What are the questions that political scientists try to 10:58.678 --> 11:02.168 answer? Such a list may be long, 11:02.171 --> 11:04.771 but not infinitely so. 11:04.769 --> 11:10.339 Among the oldest and still most fundamental questions are: 11:10.340 --> 11:15.600 what is justice? What are the goals of a decent 11:15.600 --> 11:19.310 society? How should a citizen be 11:19.312 --> 11:23.702 educated? Why should I obey the law, 11:23.698 --> 11:30.028 and what are the limits, if any, to my obligation? 11:30.029 --> 11:33.659 What constitutes the ground of human dignity? 11:33.660 --> 11:36.450 Is it freedom? Is it virtue? 11:36.450 --> 11:39.680 Is it love, is it friendship? 11:39.679 --> 11:42.499 And of course, the all important question, 11:42.500 --> 11:45.730 even though political philosophers and political 11:45.732 --> 11:51.162 scientists rarely pronounce it, namely, quid sit deus, 11:51.157 --> 11:54.187 what is God? Does he exist? 11:54.190 --> 12:00.020 And what does that imply for our obligations as human beings 12:00.018 --> 12:03.258 and citizens? Those are some of the most 12:03.260 --> 12:06.990 basic and fundamental problems of the study of politics, 12:06.985 --> 12:09.895 but you might say, where does one enter this 12:09.897 --> 12:13.157 debate? Which questions and which 12:13.156 --> 12:17.166 thinkers should one pick up for oneself? 12:17.169 --> 12:21.719 Perhaps the oldest and most fundamental question that I wish 12:21.722 --> 12:26.122 to examine in the course of this semester is the question: 12:26.119 --> 12:27.739 what is a regime? 12:27.740 --> 12:30.810 12:30.810 --> 12:32.710 What are regimes? 12:32.710 --> 12:35.470 What are regime politics? 12:35.470 --> 12:39.110 The term "regime" is a familiar one. 12:39.110 --> 12:43.480 We often hear today about shaping regimes or about 12:43.481 --> 12:47.141 changing regimes, but what is a regime? 12:47.140 --> 12:50.050 How many kinds are there? 12:50.050 --> 12:52.360 How are they defined? 12:52.360 --> 12:55.440 What holds them together, and what causes them to fall 12:55.435 --> 13:00.575 apart? Is there a single best regime? 13:00.580 --> 13:04.020 Those are the questions I want us to consider. 13:04.019 --> 13:07.739 The concept of the regime is perhaps the oldest and most 13:07.738 --> 13:09.968 fundamental of political ideas. 13:09.970 --> 13:13.960 It goes back to Plato and even before him. 13:13.960 --> 13:17.330 In fact, the title of the book that you will be reading part of 13:17.332 --> 13:20.892 for this semester, Plato's Republic, 13:20.885 --> 13:26.735 is actually a translation of the Greek word politea 13:26.739 --> 13:30.539 that means constitution or regime. 13:30.539 --> 13:35.149 The Republic is a book about the regime and all later 13:35.148 --> 13:39.598 political philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, 13:39.600 --> 13:44.000 and that means that it must provide a series of variations, 13:43.995 --> 13:47.025 so to speak, on Plato's conception of the 13:47.027 --> 13:48.237 best regime. 13:48.240 --> 13:51.510 13:51.510 --> 13:52.600 But what is a regime? 13:52.600 --> 13:56.230 Broadly speaking, a regime indicates a form of 13:56.225 --> 13:59.845 government, whether it is ruled by the one, 13:59.850 --> 14:03.470 a few, the many, or as more common, 14:03.469 --> 14:07.829 some mixture, a combination of these three 14:07.833 --> 14:11.963 ruling powers. The regime is defined in the 14:11.955 --> 14:16.915 first instance by how people are governed and how public offices 14:16.918 --> 14:21.188 are distributed by election, by birth, by lot, 14:21.189 --> 14:26.569 by outstanding personal qualities and achievements, 14:26.570 --> 14:33.350 and what constitutes a people's rights and responsibilities. 14:33.350 --> 14:38.370 The regime again refers above all to a form of government. 14:38.370 --> 14:42.620 The political world does not present itself as simply an 14:42.623 --> 14:45.643 infinite variety of different shapes. 14:45.639 --> 14:51.769 It is structured and ordered into a few basic regime types. 14:51.769 --> 14:56.049 In this, I take it to be one of the most important propositions 14:56.046 --> 14:58.526 and insights of political science. 14:58.530 --> 15:02.910 15:02.910 --> 15:07.500 Right? So far? 15:07.500 --> 15:12.150 But there is a corollary to this insight. 15:12.149 --> 15:15.999 The regime is always something particular. 15:16.000 --> 15:21.320 It stands in a relation of opposition to other regime 15:21.318 --> 15:27.248 types, and as a consequence the possibility of conflict, 15:27.250 --> 15:33.840 of tension, and war is built in to the very structure of 15:33.841 --> 15:36.971 politics. Regimes are necessarily 15:36.971 --> 15:41.541 partisan, that is to say they instill certain loyalties and 15:41.539 --> 15:46.339 passions in the same way that one may feel partisanship to the 15:46.344 --> 15:49.814 New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox, 15:49.809 --> 15:55.679 or to Yale over all rival colleges and institutions, 15:55.679 --> 15:57.749 right? Fierce loyalty, 15:57.749 --> 16:00.739 partisanship: it is inseparable from the 16:00.737 --> 16:03.187 character of regime politics. 16:03.190 --> 16:06.760 These passionate attachments are not merely something that 16:06.757 --> 16:10.727 take place, you might, say between different regimes, 16:10.729 --> 16:15.009 but even within them, as different parties and groups 16:15.009 --> 16:19.289 with loyalties and attachments contend for power, 16:19.290 --> 16:23.840 for honor, and for interest. 16:23.840 --> 16:28.710 Henry Adams once cynically reflected that politics is 16:28.708 --> 16:32.358 simply the "organization of hatreds," 16:32.360 --> 16:36.380 and there is more than a grain of truth to this, 16:36.382 --> 16:41.522 right, although he did not say that it was also an attempt to 16:41.516 --> 16:46.386 channel and redirect those hatreds and animosities towards 16:46.394 --> 16:49.394 something like a common good. 16:49.389 --> 16:53.669 This raises the question whether it is possible to 16:53.669 --> 16:58.039 transform politics, to replace enmity and factional 16:58.037 --> 17:03.977 conflict with friendship, to replace conflict with 17:03.980 --> 17:07.530 harmony? Today it is the hope of many 17:07.528 --> 17:12.308 people, both here and abroad, that we might even overcome, 17:12.309 --> 17:17.289 might even transcend the basic structure of regime politics 17:17.289 --> 17:22.009 altogether and organize our world around global norms of 17:22.011 --> 17:24.931 justice and international law. 17:24.930 --> 17:27.510 Is such a thing possible? 17:27.509 --> 17:30.239 It can't be ruled out, but such a world, 17:30.236 --> 17:33.796 I would note--let's just say a world administered by 17:33.802 --> 17:38.252 international courts of law, by judges and judicial 17:38.246 --> 17:43.156 tribunals--would no longer be a political world. 17:43.160 --> 17:48.390 Politics only takes place within the context of the 17:48.390 --> 17:52.750 particular. It is only possible within the 17:52.754 --> 17:55.964 structure of the regime itself. 17:55.960 --> 18:01.520 But a regime is more than simply a set of formal 18:01.515 --> 18:05.765 structures and institutions, okay? 18:05.769 --> 18:11.169 It consists of the entire way of life, the moral and religious 18:11.166 --> 18:15.586 practices, the habits, customs, and sentiments that 18:15.589 --> 18:18.419 make a people what they are. 18:18.420 --> 18:21.750 The regime constitutes an ethos, 18:21.753 --> 18:26.313 that is to say a distinctive character, that nurtures 18:26.314 --> 18:28.774 distinctive human types. 18:28.769 --> 18:33.399 Every regime shapes a common character, a common character 18:33.397 --> 18:37.047 type with distinctive traits and qualities. 18:37.049 --> 18:41.499 So the study of regime politics is in part a study of the 18:41.499 --> 18:46.419 distinctive national character types that constitutes a citizen 18:46.424 --> 18:49.054 body. To take an example of what I 18:49.051 --> 18:52.881 mean, when Tocqueville studied the American regime or the 18:52.875 --> 18:55.335 democratic regime, properly speaking, 18:55.344 --> 18:58.564 in Democracy in America, he started first with our 18:58.561 --> 19:02.411 formal political institutions as enumerated in the Constitution, 19:02.410 --> 19:06.060 such things as the separation of powers, the division between 19:06.057 --> 19:08.547 state and federal government and so on, 19:08.549 --> 19:13.149 but then went on to look at such informal practices as 19:13.147 --> 19:17.627 American manners and morals, our tendency to form small 19:17.626 --> 19:20.796 civic associations, our peculiar moralism and 19:20.801 --> 19:23.561 religious life, our defensiveness about 19:23.558 --> 19:24.888 democracy and so on. 19:24.890 --> 19:30.360 All of these intellectual and moral customs and habits helped 19:30.357 --> 19:33.817 to constitute the democratic regime. 19:33.819 --> 19:38.629 And this regime--in this sense the regime describes the 19:38.630 --> 19:41.570 character or tone of a society. 19:41.569 --> 19:46.019 What a society finds most praiseworthy, 19:46.020 --> 19:49.300 what it looks up to, okay? 19:49.299 --> 19:54.089 You can't understand a regime unless you understand, 19:54.087 --> 19:57.277 so to speak, what it stands for, 19:57.279 --> 20:01.949 what a people stand for, what they look up to as well as 20:01.948 --> 20:06.618 its, again, its structure of institutions and rights and 20:06.616 --> 20:07.886 privileges. 20:07.890 --> 20:12.860 20:12.859 --> 20:15.899 This raises a further set of questions that we will consider 20:15.904 --> 20:19.554 over the term. How are regimes founded, 20:19.551 --> 20:22.491 the founding of regimes? 20:22.490 --> 20:26.090 What brings them into being and sustains them over time? 20:26.089 --> 20:29.059 For thinkers like Tocqueville, for example, 20:29.062 --> 20:33.242 regimes are embedded in the deep structures of human history 20:33.238 --> 20:37.198 that have determined over long centuries the shape of our 20:37.202 --> 20:41.522 political institutions and the way we think about them. 20:41.519 --> 20:44.899 Yet other voices within the tradition--Plato, 20:44.904 --> 20:48.214 Machiavelli, Rousseau come to mind--believed 20:48.212 --> 20:52.142 that regimes can be self-consciously founded through 20:52.135 --> 20:56.435 deliberate acts of great statesmen or founding fathers as 20:56.443 --> 20:58.523 we might call them. 20:58.519 --> 21:03.229 These statesmen--Machiavelli for example refers to Romulus, 21:03.225 --> 21:06.625 Moses, Cyrus, as the founders that he looks 21:06.632 --> 21:09.292 to; we might think of men like 21:09.294 --> 21:13.564 Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the like--are shapers 21:13.563 --> 21:16.063 of peoples and institutions. 21:16.059 --> 21:19.549 The very first of the Federalist Papers by 21:19.552 --> 21:23.922 Alexander Hamilton even begins by posing this question in the 21:23.917 --> 21:26.537 starkest terms. "It has been frequently 21:26.538 --> 21:29.448 remarked," Hamilton writes, "that it seems to have been 21:29.447 --> 21:31.707 reserved to the people of this country, 21:31.710 --> 21:35.440 by their conduct and example, to decide the important 21:35.439 --> 21:39.889 question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of 21:39.886 --> 21:44.186 establishing good government from reflection and choice, 21:44.190 --> 21:48.300 or whether they are forever destined to depend for their 21:48.304 --> 21:51.974 political constitutions on accident and force." 21:51.970 --> 21:55.960 There we see Hamilton asking the basic question about the 21:55.960 --> 21:58.380 founding of political institutions: 21:58.383 --> 22:00.883 are they created, as he puts it, 22:00.883 --> 22:04.973 by "reflection and choice," that is to say by a deliberate 22:04.969 --> 22:08.839 act of statecraft and conscious human intelligence, 22:08.839 --> 22:13.139 or are regimes always the product of accident, 22:13.140 --> 22:16.580 circumstance, custom, and history? 22:16.580 --> 22:20.340 22:20.339 --> 22:25.179 But the idea that regimes may be created or founded by a set 22:25.182 --> 22:29.782 of deliberate acts raises a further question that we will 22:29.779 --> 22:33.159 study, and is inseparable from the 22:33.155 --> 22:34.855 study of regimes. 22:34.860 --> 22:37.640 N'est pas? 22:37.640 --> 22:39.840 Who is a statesman? 22:39.840 --> 22:40.270 What is a statesman? 22:40.270 --> 22:43.710 22:43.710 --> 22:48.130 Again, one of the oldest questions of political science, 22:48.126 --> 22:52.536 very rarely asked by the political science of today that 22:52.543 --> 22:56.963 is very skeptical of the language of statesmanship. 22:56.960 --> 23:01.190 In its oldest sense, political science simply was a 23:01.189 --> 23:03.219 science of statecraft. 23:03.220 --> 23:08.300 It was addressed to statesman or potential statesmen charged 23:08.295 --> 23:11.215 with steering the ship of state. 23:11.220 --> 23:14.510 What are the qualities necessary for sound 23:14.514 --> 23:18.354 statesmanship? How does statecraft differ from 23:18.349 --> 23:20.569 other kinds of activities? 23:20.569 --> 23:25.409 Must a good statesman, as Plato believed for example, 23:25.408 --> 23:29.688 be a philosopher versed in poetry, mathematics, 23:29.688 --> 23:33.198 and metaphysics? Or is statesmanship, 23:33.198 --> 23:36.988 as Aristotle believed, a purely practical skill 23:36.988 --> 23:41.848 requiring judgment based on deliberation and experience? 23:41.850 --> 23:45.510 23:45.509 --> 23:51.759 Is a streak of cruelty and a willingness to act immorally 23:51.756 --> 23:57.326 necessary for statecraft, as Machiavelli infamously 23:57.333 --> 24:01.383 argued? Must the statesman be capable 24:01.378 --> 24:07.498 of literally transforming human nature, as Rousseau maintains, 24:07.500 --> 24:14.530 or is the sovereign a more or less faceless bureaucrat in 24:14.531 --> 24:19.001 manner of a modern CEO, as, for example, 24:19.000 --> 24:22.660 someone like Hobbes seems to have believed? 24:22.660 --> 24:24.950 All of our texts that we will read--the Republic, 24:24.945 --> 24:27.225 the Politics, the Prince, 24:27.230 --> 24:30.350 the Social Contract--have different 24:30.353 --> 24:34.473 views on the qualities of statecraft and what are those 24:34.465 --> 24:39.255 qualities necessary to found and maintain states that we will be 24:39.263 --> 24:41.773 considering. All of this, 24:41.767 --> 24:46.697 in a way, is another way of saying, or at least implying, 24:46.704 --> 24:49.944 okay, that political philosophy is an 24:49.941 --> 24:54.761 imminently practical discipline, a practical field. 24:54.759 --> 24:58.739 Its purpose is not simply contemplation, 24:58.735 --> 25:04.745 its purpose is not reflection alone: it is advice giving. 25:04.750 --> 25:09.060 None of the people we will study this semester were 25:09.062 --> 25:13.032 cloistered scholars detached from the world, 25:13.029 --> 25:17.799 although this is a very common prejudice against political 25:17.799 --> 25:22.649 philosophy, that it is somehow uniquely sort of "pie in the 25:22.653 --> 25:25.753 sky" and detached from the world. 25:25.750 --> 25:29.350 But the great thinkers were very far from being just, 25:29.349 --> 25:31.979 so to speak, detached intellectuals. 25:31.980 --> 25:39.680 Plato undertook three long and dangerous voyages to Sicily in 25:39.681 --> 25:44.431 order to advise the King Dionysius. 25:44.430 --> 25:49.140 Aristotle famously was a tutor of Alexander the Great. 25:49.140 --> 25:53.600 Machiavelli spent a large part of his career in the foreign 25:53.601 --> 25:58.291 service of his native Florence, and wrote as an advisor to the 25:58.293 --> 26:01.943 Medici. Hobbes was the tutor to a royal 26:01.941 --> 26:07.371 household who followed the King into exile during the English 26:07.365 --> 26:11.195 Civil War. And Locke was associated with 26:11.195 --> 26:16.415 the Shaftsbury Circle who also was forced into exile after 26:16.415 --> 26:21.355 being accused of plotting against the English King. 26:21.359 --> 26:24.739 Rousseau had no official political connections, 26:24.736 --> 26:28.696 but he signed his name always Jean Jacques Rousseau, 26:28.700 --> 26:32.590 "citizen of Geneva," and was approached to write 26:32.586 --> 26:37.296 constitutions for Poland and for the island of Corsica. 26:37.299 --> 26:41.669 And Tocqueville was a member of the French National Assembly 26:41.666 --> 26:45.886 whose experience of American democracy deeply affected the 26:45.885 --> 26:48.545 way he saw the future of Europe. 26:48.549 --> 26:52.659 So the great political thinkers were typically engaged in the 26:52.655 --> 26:56.825 politics of their times and help in that way to provide us, 26:56.829 --> 27:01.669 okay, with models for how we might think about ours. 27:01.670 --> 27:22.670 27:22.670 --> 27:25.760 But this goes in a slightly different direction as well. 27:25.759 --> 27:28.989 Not only is this study of the regime, as we've seen, 27:28.990 --> 27:32.770 as I've just tried to indicate, rooted in, in many ways, 27:32.765 --> 27:37.115 the practical experience of the thinkers we'll be looking at; 27:37.119 --> 27:42.219 but the study of regime politics either implicitly or 27:42.222 --> 27:48.112 explicitly raises a question that goes beyond the boundary of 27:48.111 --> 27:50.271 any given society. 27:50.269 --> 27:54.229 A regime, as I've said, constitutes a people's way of 27:54.227 --> 27:58.487 life, what they believe makes their life worth living, 27:58.490 --> 28:03.500 or to put it again slightly differently, what a people stand 28:03.500 --> 28:06.700 for. Although we are most familiar 28:06.701 --> 28:12.551 with the character of a modern democratic regime such as ours, 28:12.549 --> 28:15.739 the study of political philosophy is in many ways a 28:15.744 --> 28:19.454 kind of immersion into what we might call today comparative 28:19.449 --> 28:22.399 politics; that is to say it opens up to 28:22.400 --> 28:26.420 us the variety of regimes, each with its own distinctive 28:26.422 --> 28:31.562 set of claims or principles, each vying and potentially in 28:31.563 --> 28:35.133 conflict with all the others, okay? 28:35.130 --> 28:40.530 Underlying this cacophony of regimes is the question always, 28:40.529 --> 28:43.549 which of these regimes is best? 28:43.549 --> 28:49.229 What has or ought to have a claim on our loyalty and 28:49.232 --> 28:51.352 rational consent? 28:51.349 --> 28:56.459 Political philosophy is always guided by the question of the 28:56.457 --> 28:59.367 best regime. But what is the best 28:59.367 --> 29:02.587 regime? Even to raise such a question 29:02.585 --> 29:06.045 seems to pose insuperable obstacles. 29:06.049 --> 29:10.089 Isn't that a completely subjective judgment, 29:10.086 --> 29:13.556 what one thinks is the best regime? 29:13.559 --> 29:18.449 How could one begin such a study? 29:18.450 --> 29:22.220 Is the best regime, as the ancients tended to 29:22.221 --> 29:25.651 believe, Plato, Aristotle, and others, 29:25.650 --> 29:31.300 is it an aristocratic republic in which only the few best 29:31.302 --> 29:35.552 habitually rule; or is the best regime as the 29:35.552 --> 29:39.552 moderns believe, a democratic republic where in 29:39.548 --> 29:44.668 principle political office is open to all by virtue of their 29:44.673 --> 29:47.543 membership in society alone? 29:47.539 --> 29:52.919 Will the best regime be a small closed society that through 29:52.917 --> 29:57.277 generations has made a supreme sacrifice towards 29:57.275 --> 30:02.385 self-perfection? Think of that. 30:02.390 --> 30:06.530 Or will the best regime be a large cosmopolitan order 30:06.530 --> 30:10.600 embracing all human beings, perhaps even a kind of 30:10.599 --> 30:15.319 universal League of Nations consisting of all free and equal 30:15.319 --> 30:16.679 men and women? 30:16.680 --> 30:19.800 30:19.799 --> 30:23.239 Whatever form the best regime takes, however, 30:23.242 --> 30:27.622 it will always favor a certain kind of human being with a 30:27.623 --> 30:30.443 certain set of character traits. 30:30.440 --> 30:35.150 Is that type the common man, is it found in democracies; 30:35.150 --> 30:40.910 those of acquired taste and money, as in aristocracies; 30:40.910 --> 30:44.570 the warrior; or even the priest, 30:44.569 --> 30:46.629 as in theocracies? 30:46.630 --> 30:50.380 No, no question that I can think of can be more 30:50.378 --> 30:53.388 fundamental. And this finally raises the 30:53.387 --> 30:57.467 question of the relation between the best regime or the good 30:57.468 --> 30:59.788 regime, and what we could say are 30:59.786 --> 31:02.966 actually existing regimes, regimes that we are all 31:02.974 --> 31:06.024 familiar with. What function does the best 31:06.018 --> 31:08.458 regime play in political science? 31:08.460 --> 31:12.330 How does it guide our actions here and now? 31:12.329 --> 31:16.789 This issue received a kind of classic formulation in 31:16.785 --> 31:22.115 Aristotle's distinction of what he called the good human being 31:22.115 --> 31:24.295 and the good citizen. 31:24.299 --> 31:27.809 For the good citizen--we'll read this chapter later on in 31:27.809 --> 31:31.189 the Politics--for the good citizen you could say 31:31.193 --> 31:35.453 patriotism is enough, to uphold and defend the laws 31:35.447 --> 31:40.817 of your own country simply because they are your own 31:40.823 --> 31:44.163 is both necessary and sufficient. 31:44.160 --> 31:48.830 Such a view of citizen virtue runs into the obvious objection 31:48.827 --> 31:53.417 that the good citizen of one regime will be at odds with the 31:53.417 --> 31:57.617 good citizen of another: a good citizen of contemporary 31:57.617 --> 32:02.287 Iran will not be the same as the good citizen of contemporary 32:02.285 --> 32:05.235 America. But the good citizen, 32:05.243 --> 32:09.493 Aristotle goes on to say, is not the same as the good 32:09.485 --> 32:11.275 human being, right? 32:11.279 --> 32:14.999 Where the good citizen is relative to the regime, 32:15.001 --> 32:18.961 you might say regime-specific, the good human being, 32:18.956 --> 32:21.976 so he believes, is good everywhere. 32:21.980 --> 32:26.030 The good human being loves what is good simply, 32:26.028 --> 32:31.218 not because it is his own, but because it is good. 32:31.220 --> 32:36.620 Some sense of this was demonstrated in Abraham 32:36.615 --> 32:42.845 Lincoln's judgment about Henry Clay, an early idol of 32:42.851 --> 32:46.311 Lincoln's. Lincoln wrote of Clay, 32:46.313 --> 32:51.023 "He loved his country," he said, "partly because it was his 32:51.015 --> 32:54.985 own country"--partly because it was his own 32:54.987 --> 32:59.687 country--;"but mainly because it was a free country." 32:59.690 --> 33:03.010 His point, I think, is that Clay exhibited, 33:03.013 --> 33:07.923 at least on Lincoln's telling, something of the philosopher, 33:07.920 --> 33:12.270 what he loved was an idea, the idea of freedom. 33:12.269 --> 33:17.949 That idea was not the property of one particular country, 33:17.952 --> 33:22.622 but it was constitutive of any good society. 33:22.619 --> 33:25.639 The good human being, it would seem, 33:25.635 --> 33:29.505 would be a philosopher, or at least would have 33:29.512 --> 33:33.392 something philosophical about him or her, 33:33.390 --> 33:37.940 and who may only be fully at home in the best regime. 33:37.940 --> 33:42.620 But of course the best regime lacks actuality. 33:42.620 --> 33:43.430 We all know that. 33:43.430 --> 33:45.020 It has never existed. 33:45.020 --> 33:49.090 33:49.089 --> 33:52.089 The best regime embodies a supreme paradox, 33:52.087 --> 33:55.537 it would seem. It is superior in some ways to 33:55.542 --> 33:58.702 all actual regimes, but it has no concrete 33:58.703 --> 34:00.403 existence anywhere. 34:00.400 --> 34:04.110 This makes it difficult, you could say and this is 34:04.112 --> 34:06.312 Aristotle's point, I think, 34:06.309 --> 34:11.689 this makes it difficult for the philosopher to be a good citizen 34:11.694 --> 34:13.664 of any actual regime. 34:13.659 --> 34:19.069 Philosophy will never feel fully or truly at home in any 34:19.065 --> 34:21.125 particular society. 34:21.130 --> 34:27.450 The philosopher can never be truly loyal to anyone or 34:27.447 --> 34:30.847 anything but what is best. 34:30.849 --> 34:34.309 Think of that: it raises a question about 34:34.308 --> 34:37.938 issues of love, loyalty, and friendship. 34:37.940 --> 34:41.670 34:41.670 --> 34:45.330 This tension, of course, between the best 34:45.333 --> 34:50.923 regime and any actual regime is the space that makes political 34:50.921 --> 34:53.121 philosophy possible. 34:53.119 --> 34:57.359 In the best regime, if we were to inhabit such, 34:57.358 --> 35:02.608 political philosophy would be unnecessary or redundant. 35:02.610 --> 35:07.080 It would wither away. 35:07.079 --> 35:13.049 Political philosophy exists and only exists in that... 35:13.050 --> 35:18.840 call it "zone of indeterminacy" between the "is" and the 35:18.844 --> 35:23.484 "ought," between the actual and the ideal. 35:23.480 --> 35:27.870 This is why political philosophy is always and 35:27.872 --> 35:32.852 necessarily a potentially disturbing undertaking. 35:32.849 --> 35:37.749 Those who embark on the quest for knowledge of the best regime 35:37.751 --> 35:42.171 may not return the same people that they were before. 35:42.170 --> 35:45.440 35:45.440 --> 35:50.020 You may return with very different loyalties and 35:50.021 --> 35:54.311 allegiances than you had in the beginning. 35:54.309 --> 35:59.839 But there is some compensation for this, I think. 35:59.840 --> 36:04.000 The ancients had a beautiful word, or at least the Greeks had 36:03.998 --> 36:06.218 a beautiful word, for this quest, 36:06.216 --> 36:09.886 for this desire for knowledge of the best regime. 36:09.889 --> 36:18.229 They called it eros, or love, right? 36:18.230 --> 36:24.450 The quest for knowledge of the best regime must necessarily be 36:24.446 --> 36:29.946 accompanied, sustained, and elevated by eros. 36:29.949 --> 36:34.369 You may not have realized it when you walked in to this class 36:34.367 --> 36:38.337 today, but the study of political philosophy may be the 36:38.343 --> 36:40.923 highest tribute we pay to love. 36:40.920 --> 36:44.400 36:44.400 --> 36:48.900 Think of that. And while you're thinking about 36:48.904 --> 36:52.834 it you can start reading Plato's Apology for Socrates 36:52.833 --> 36:56.033 which we will discuss for class on Wednesday. 36:56.030 --> 37:00.800 Okay? It's nice to see you back, 37:00.796 --> 37:04.996 and have a very good but thoughtful September 11^(th).