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The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory

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The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:11 Page Number: 1 The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory After several decades in which it became a prime target for critique, universalism remains one of the most important issues in social and political thought. Daniel Chernilo reassesses the universalistic orienta- tion of social theory and explains its origins in natural law theory, using an impressive array of classical and contemporary sources that include, among others, Ju¨rgen Habermas, Karl Lo¨with, Leo Strauss, Weber, Marx, Hegel, Rousseau and Hobbes. The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory challenges previous accounts of the rise of social theory, recovers a strong idea of humanity and revisits conventional arguments on sociology’s relationship to modernity, the Enlightenment and natural law. It reconnects social theory to its scientific and philo- sophical roots, its descriptive and normative tasks and its historical and systematic planes. Chernilo’s defence of universalism for contemporary social theory will surely engage students of sociology, political theory and moral philosophy alike. daniel chernilo is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Loughborough University. Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:12 Page Number: 2 Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:12 Page Number: 3 The Natural Law Foundations of Modern Social Theory A Quest for Universalism Daniel Chernilo Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:12 Page Number: 4 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sa˜o Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107009806 © Daniel Chernilo 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Chernilo, Daniel. The natural law foundations of modern social theory : a quest for universalism / Daniel Chernilo. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-107-00980-6 (Hardback) 1. Natural Law–Social aspects. 2. Sociological jurisprudence–Philosophy. I. Title. K460.C55 2013 300.1–dc23 2012027742 ISBN 978-1-107-00980-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:12 Page Number: 5 Contents Acknowledgements page vii Introduction 1 Part I On the relationships between social theory and natural law 13 1 Contemporary social theory and natural law: Ju¨rgen Habermas 15 2 A natural law critique of modern social theory: Karl Lo¨with, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin 39 Part II Natural law 71 3 Natural law and the question of universalism 73 4 Modern natural law I: Hobbes and Rousseau on the state of nature and social life 97 5 Modern natural law II: Kant and Hegel on proceduralism and ethical life 121 Part III Classical social theory 147 6 Classical social theory I: Marx, To¨nnies and Durkheim on alienation, community and society 149 7 Classical social theory II: Simmel and Weber on the universality of sociability and reasonableness 182 v Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:13 Page Number: 6 vi Contents 8 Social theory as the natural law of ‘artificial’ social relations 203 Epilogue 222 Note on original versions 227 References 228 Index 240 Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:14 Page Number: 7 Acknowledgements I would not have been able to complete this book without Robert Fine and Aldo Mascaren˜o’s support and friendship. They read and reread innumerable versions of the materials that now make up this book, offered advice on most aspects of it and encouraged me to keep going at key moments of doubt. My personal and intellectual gratitude to them is immense. My thanks to Sabina Mihelj who carefully commented on various chapters at different stages of this project and to the Press’s anonymous reviewers whose suggestions were most helpful in sharpening up my original ideas. I have also benefited a great deal from conversations, discussions with several friends and colleagues, and from their suggestions and objections: Omar Aguilar, Rafael Alvear, Margaret Archer, Luis Campos, Rodrigo Cordero, Se´rgio Costa, Jose´ Maurı´cio Domingues, George Lawson, William Outhwaite, Csaba Szalo´, Chris Thornhill and Bryan Turner. Material support during the early part of this project was provided by a research Grant from the Chilean Council for Science and Technology (1080213). The usual disclaimer of sole responsibility for all errors contained here applies in full. Paula has once again generously shared the satisfactions and tribulations of the past few years of our life together. My daughter Leonor has been the main inspiration throughout this project and it is a wonderful coincidence that a printed copy of this book may reach her hands just at a time when she is beginning to put words together. She will be able to read by herself that I dedicated it to her: Leonor, aquí está tu libro. vii Comp. by: KNarayanan Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: FrontMatter Title Name: CHERNILO Date:27/10/12 Time:16:10:14 Page Number: 8 Comp. by: K.VENKATESAN Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: Introduction Title Name: CHERNILO Date:1/11/12 Time:10:04:59 Page Number: 1 Introduction Without universality, there would be no mankind other than the aggregate of members of a biological species; there would be no more a history of mankind than there is a history of catkind or horsekind. (Eric Voegelin 2000b: 377) ‘Metaphysics’, ‘mythical and religious thought’, ‘old European thinking’, ‘foundationalism’, ‘rationalism’, ‘Platonism’ are all terms that have been used over the past two centuries or so to mark the kind of intellectual sources, traditions and ways of thinking that modern social theory, and the social sciences at large, have been systematically trying to overcome and leave behind. This book reassesses the historical, philosophical and normative foundations of modern social theory by reconsidering its inter- relationships with the tradition of natural law. I understand ‘natural law’ as a long-standing intellectual tradition whose intellectual core lies in the problem of universalism, and I use it as an umbrella term to capture some commonalities that are implied in the opening terms of the first paragraph. Natural law asserts that a universalistic orientation is needed in order to understand human life, society and justice; it is a tradition that seeks to advance, and rationally justify, transcultural and transhistorical propositions. While below I will distinguish between traditional and modern natural law and elaborate on their differences, I shall remain mostly interested in the substantive problem of universalism as the core component of the natural law tradition as a whole. For its part social theory is here conceived as the modern intellectual programme that, over the past two hundred or so years, has sought to understand the rise and main features of a number of socio-historical trends that still very much configure the world we live in: capitalism, democracy, the international system of states and the (functional) dif- ferentiation of different spheres of social life. The radically enhanced experiences of historical transformation, socio-cultural variety and normative disagreements to be found in modernity have made apparent the difficulties that are involved in keeping a universalistic orientation 1 Comp. by: K.VENKATESAN Stage: Revises1 Chapter No.: Introduction Title Name: CHERNILO Date:1/11/12 Time:10:05:00 Page Number: 2 2 Introduction alive. But a main contention of this book is that the very idea of social theory depends on the ways in which it is able to refine and recast, rather than to abandon and ‘definitively overcome’, a universalistic orientation. Intellectual developments in social theory come from, and enter into dialogue with, different intellectual traditions; so although I will work with a ‘conventionally sociological’ understanding of social theory (from Marx and Weber to Habermas), it will soon become apparent that the idea of social theory I have sought to reconstruct and would like to promote is not particularly troubled by disciplinary boun- daries. I will draw insights equally from political and moral philosophy, the history of ideas, political theory and indeed natural law theory itself. While below I will use the terms ‘sociology’, ‘social science’ and ‘social theory’ depending on the context and nature of the argument, my commitment to the last term is justified, I hope, because a wider (and admittedly somewhat loose) use of social theory allows it to be connected with general intellectual trends and debates. We need philo- sophically inclined, historically grounded and normatively conscious social science, and that is precisely the reason why I think the case must be made for more and better social theory. The interrelationships between the two traditions will be pursued below through the working hypothesis that social theory constantly tries to overcome, but in so doing also systematically reintroduces, the uni- versalistic orientation that is at the centre of natural law.
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