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Diderot's Political Thought Diderot’s Political Thought Between Activism and Utilitarianism By Willem Verhoeven 1 2 Abbreviations OP X. M. Delon (ed.), Diderot, Œuvres Philosophiques (Paris 2010) OPH P. Vernière (ed.), Diderot, Oeuvres Philosophiques (Paris 1964) OPOL P. Vernière (ed.), Diderot, Oeuvres Politiques (Paris 1963) 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Diderot and the Historiography of the Enlightenment 5 Research Questions and Methodology 9 The Historiography of Diderot’s Political Thought 11 Diderot’s Ontology and Epistemology 16 Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 16 Ontology and Theology 19 Diderot’s Naturalism 22 The Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville 24 Commenting on European Society 25 Constructing a Natural Morality? 30 Reason and Nature 34 Utilitarian Morality 38 Human Rights and Anti-Colonialism 44 From Natural Rights to Human Rights 44 Human Rights in Action: Anti-Colonialism and the Abolition of Slavery 50 Constitutional Thought 57 The Political Thought of the Encyclopédie 57 Diderot as a Political Actor 62 The Origin of Society and Popular Sovereignty 64 Popular Representation, Civil Liberties and Democracy? 69 Towards Revolution 73 Conclusion 78 Bibliography 81 4 Introduction Diderot and the Historiography of the Enlightenment During the past decade, the enlightenment has received an increasing amount of attention from historians, philosophers and the general public. After several decades in which the eighteenth century intellectual movement – especially due to the influence of the criticism and objections voiced by postmodernism – seemed discredited in the eyes of many, the history and ideas of the enlightenment again feature prominently in the scholarly world and intellectual arena. Partly this resurgence of interest could be attributed to the effects of globalism and the changing balance of power on the global scale. These developments have prompted Western intellectuals to research, expound and reaffirm the important moral and political concepts that were first devised by enlightenment thinkers. At the same time, politicians have followed suit and have started to increasingly invoke enlightenment ideas, either to refine their policy or to enhance their rhetoric. This resurgence of interest of the general public in the enlightenment is mirrored by a revitalised preoccupation discernable in the discipline of historical scholarship.1 In line with these circumstances, the question that has been behind many of the scholarly efforts of the past decade has been the age old problem: what is enlightenment? This question was most famously answered in Kant’s essay Was ist Aufklärung? However, the question has proved to be especially enigmatic and even today scholars disagree on the defining characteristics of the enlightenment.2 The most recent trend in historical scholarship on the intellectual phenomenon has been the representation of the enlightenment as a multi- faceted movement in which several schools or currents of thought – each with its own set of doctrines and ultimate goals – co-existed within a larger intellectual framework. In line with this outlook, some historians have substituted the question ‘what is enlightenment?’ with the query: ‘what kind of enlightenments make up the general phenomenon of the enlightenment?’ 1 As well as in the appearance of books on the enlightenment directed at a non-scholarly readership such as Philip Blomm’s A Wicked Company, The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment (New York 2010). 2 J. Schmidt (ed.), What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth Century Questions and Twentieth Century Answers (Berkely 1996) contains, among many others, Kant’s answer to the question. D. Edelstein, The Enlightenment, A Genealogy (Chicago 2010); J. Israel, ‘Enlightenment! Which Enlightenment?’ Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (2006) 523-545; J.G.A. Pocock, ‘Historiography and Enlightenment: A View of their History’ Modern Intellectual History 5 (2008) 83-96. 5 Research focusing on the latter question has already yielded a number of studies displaying distinct currents within enlightenment thought.3 The most extensive and probably most influential study discussing distinct enlightenments has been conducted by Jonathan Israel. In two hefty tomes – soon to be supplemented by a third – Israel has posited the existence of two diverging schools of thought within the enlightenment as a whole.4 Separating enlightenment thinkers and ideas into the two categories of ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ thought, Israel has effectively split the enlightenment in two. In short, Israel has described the ‘radical’ enlightenment as based on an ontology of monist materialist inspired ultimately by Spinoza.5 Emanating from these first principles, the radical tradition endorses a number of distinct political and social ideas which include human rights, freedom of speech, complete religious toleration and what Israel has called ‘democratic republicanism.’6 Similarly, moderate enlightenment thought is ultimately based on a deist perspective invoking Lockean physico-theology.7 The political consequences of this ontological standpoint are among others an endorsement of limited religious toleration combined with a choice for either enlightenment absolutism or limited monarchy based on the English model.8 Israel thus associates the ‘radical’ enlightenment with the progressive political ideals that would gain widespread acceptance during the nineteenth and twentieth century, while connecting the ‘moderate’ school of thought with a conservative politics largely striving to preserve eighteenth century status quo. This notion is repeated explicitly by Israel when he maintains that the intellectual origins of what he refers to as ‘modern democratic republicanism’ lie exclusively in the ideas propagated by the ‘radical’ enlightenment.9 Because Israel fails to explain the exact meaning of the term of ‘modern democratic 3 M. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment, Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (Lafayette 1981); J.D. Burson, The Rise and Fall of the Theological Enlightenment, Jean-Martin de Prades and Ideological Polarization in Eighteenth Century France (Notre Dame 2010); D. Edelstein (ed.), The Super-Enlightenment, Daring to know too Much (Oxford 2010); D.J. Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment, Protestants, Jews and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton 2008). D. Van Kley, ‘Introduction’ in: Burson, Theological Enlightenment 1-32 provides an excellent introduction in recent historiography of the enlightenment. 4 J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (Oxford 2001); Idem, Enlightenment Contested, Philosophy Modernity and the Emancipation of Man (Oxford 2006); Idem, Democratic Enlightenment, Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750-1790 (Oxford forthcoming October 2011). 5 Israel, Enlightenment Contested 249-250; 257. 6 Ibid. 240-263; 866. 7 Ibid. 201-214; 772-780. 8 Ibid. 295-325; 344-371. 9 Ibid. 240-263; Idem, ‘The Intellectual Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism (1660-1720)’ European Journal of Political Theory 3 (2004) 7-36; Idem, A Revolution of the Mind, Radical Enlightenment and the Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton 2010). 6 republicanism,’ the concept is particularly vague. Although it cannot be denied that in histories of the development of modern political theory and culture the contribution of the group of thinkers referred to by Israel as ‘radical’ is often neglected, Israel’s claim is so strong that a detailed re-assessment of the issue seems warranted. A similar reconsideration is desirable concerning the trend in recent historiography to view the enlightenment as consisting of a limited number of intellectual currents. Underlying this notion – most notable but not exclusive to Israel’s analysis – that the enlightenment can be split into a limited number of currents or schools of thought that are manifest in all realms of thought is a fundamental but debatable assumption. This supposition is that philosophical thought in the fields of ethics, psychology and politics is ultimately linked to a fundamental ontological premise. Thus Israel contends that not only do the central tenets of the ‘radical’ enlightenment form a coherent intellectual tradition and programme of reform, these ideas are also ultimately linked to – or even caused by – the monist materialist ontology that is endorsed by the proponents of ‘radicalism’ he has identified. Although Israel focuses mainly on the analysis of ‘radical’ opinions, this mechanism seems to apply also to ‘moderate’ thought, whose proponents as deists or progressive Christians have preferred a less revolutionary programme of political, social and moral reform. It is difficult to deny that, especially in the case of enlightenment thought, wider philosophical opinions may have a defining influence on the political views of a specific thinker. However, any intellectual historian is aware of the fact that the political thought of a certain thinker is not only conditioned by his wider philosophy, but also by the events and circumstances of his political environment. This perspective, emphasised by Quentin Skinner, maintains that the political theorist is not primarily a detached philosopher who constructs his political views on the edifice of his ontology and ethics, but is mainly influenced by and engaged with the context of the society in which he lives.10 This objection is solidified in the particular case of the enlightenment by Cassirer’s observation that the enlightenment as a whole was characterised by an aversion of abstract and
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