Sjahss-66-1276-1287

Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN 2347-5374(Online) Abbreviated Key Title: Sch. J. Arts Humanit. Soc. Sci. ISSN 2347-9493(Print) ©Scholars Academic and Scientific Publishers (SAS Publishers) A Unit of Scholars Academic and Scientific Society, India Commonsense Political Philosophy Panayot Butchvarov* The University of Iowa, Iowa, USA Abstract: Some concrete or specific political truths are obvious, evident, indeed self- *Corresponding author evident, even though the relevant, indeed any, abstract or general principles are not. Panayot Butchvarov We might say that they are matters of common sense, meaning by the latter the mature and thoughtful judgments we all share and any serious theorizing, scientific or Article History philosophical, must at least begin with and thus respect even if eventually reject. A Received: 12.06.2018 number of examples are discussed. Accepted: 27.06.2018 Keywords: philosophy, political, commonsense, concrete, abstract, abortion, Published: 30.06.2018 democracy, collectivism, individualism, poverty. DOI: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 10.21276/sjahss.2018.6.6.15 Questioned, “What are you going to say when they ask you the political philosophy behind TVA?” Franklin Roosevelt replied, “I’ll tell them it’s neither fish nor fowl but whatever it is, it will taste awfully good to the people of the Tennessee Valley [1]”. The reply implied a distinction between concrete or specific political truths, in which Roosevelt often exhibited utmost confidence, and general political principles or theories, which he famously mistrusted, agreeing perhaps with Edmund Burke that they are condemned to “the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction [2]”. It also implied that some of these truths are obvious, evident, indeed self-evident, even if the relevant abstract or general principles (if any) are not. We might say that they are matters of common “formulating hypotheses...and subjecting them to sense, meaning by this the mature and thoughtful confirmation or disconfirmation by the intuitive moral judgments we all share and any serious theorizing, credibility of their various substantive scientific or philosophical, must at least begin with and consequences....The method depends on taking thus respect even if eventually reject. Indeed, Richard seriously the evidential value of strong moral intuitions Price defined common sense as the faculty of self- about concrete cases, including imaginary cases[4]”. evident truths [3]. Nagel informs us that “[T]hese convictions form the deep common element in...Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, There may be abstract or general principles in Dworkin’s Taking Rights Seriously, Walzer’s Just and politics that are true. But none so far seems to be known Unjust Wars, Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion,” and to be true, even in the loose everyday sense of “know.” Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia.” But he does not At most, we only know concrete political facts. A explain how and why such “strong moral intuitions” superficially unkind yet appropriate way of expressing should enjoy “moral credibility” and “evidential value.” this would be that in politics principles really do not He does not hold that they are Platonic awarenesses of matter, only facts do, that in politics there is room only moral Forms or Kantian a priori cognitions. Rather, for data, none for ideology. If this is true of politics, they seem to be just personal convictions accompanied presumably it would be true also of political by strong moral feelings. But, as Mill remarked, “one of philosophy. We would need to be satisfied with a the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling” is “the politics and a political philosophy without principles, odium theologicum, in a sincere bigot[5]”. More theories, or ideologies. Saying this may sound recently, Richard Brandt warned, “Various facts about blasphemous, but to appeal to principles we know that the genesis of our moral beliefs militate against the we do not know to be true would surely be worse. mere appeal to intuitions in ethics[4]”. If this is clear in the case of moral feelings, it is even clearer in the case In his Foreword to the 2013 edition of Robert of political feelings. Neither Plato nor Aristotle, neither Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Thomas Nagel Locke nor Hume, neither Kant nor Hegel, neither Mill writes of the “belief in the reality of the moral domain, nor Marx, neither Russell nor Wittgenstein would have as an area in which there are real questions with right put much stock in their evidential value. But I am not and wrong answers.” He claims that “progress...toward proposing a return to any of their own views. There is a discovering the [se] right answers” could be made by Available online: http://saspjournals.com/sjahss 1276 Panayot Butchvarov., Sch. J. Arts. Humanit. Soc. Sci., Jun 2018; 6(6): 1276-1287 third option. I shall call it commonsense political Political philosophy is neither politics nor philosophy. political science, but also it is not ethics, partly because ethics is concerned with far more than political matters, Political philosophy is not politics. Neither is it but also because claims to true principles from which political science or even ethics. If politics is “public life interesting conclusions may be drawn are much less and affairs involving matters of authority and plausible in political philosophy than in ethics. Political government” (Oxford English Dictionary), clearly philosophy asks what a political social organism, political philosophy is not politics: philosophers are not especially the state, ought to be and do, ethics asks what politicians, except per accidens. As to political science, an individual person ought to be and do. Both aim at insofar as it is science rather than philosophy, it belongs telling us what is good and right. Thus, both face the among the empirical disciplines, even if only some that challenges of moral skepticism (which says that even if are still developing – economics, sociology, there is such a matter of fact as being good or being anthropology – parts of which indeed it already right it is unknown and perhaps unknowable) and moral includes. None of these disciplines has achieved the antirealism (which says that there is no such matter of cognitive status enjoyed by physics or biology, but their fact). I have discussed skepticism and antirealism in method of investigation is the same as that of physics ethics elsewhere in detail [10]. Suffice it here to say that and biology; it is clear, plausible, and noncontroversial though their opposites, moral cognitivism and moral – that of empirical research. realism, have always been suspect in ethics, in political philosophy they have seldom been even defended, In contrast, philosophers, whether in political except with unconvincing inferences from metaphysics philosophy or metaphysics, in epistemology or logic, in (as in Plato), ethics (Bentham), economics (Marx), or ethics or aesthetics, etc., do not engage in empirical thought experiments (Rawls). In ethics, for example, research at all – most probably lack the needed that happiness is good and pain bad, or Aquinas’s first inclination and perhaps talent for it. They also, it must principle of natural law, that “good is to be done and be noted, lack special expertise regarding "concepts" or promoted, and evil is to be avoided,” are unlikely to be “ideas,” as well as regarding "meanings" or "uses" of questioned. In political philosophy, even the thesis that words, the “workings of language.” As the exponents of justice is fairness remains controversial, unless intended the 17th century “new way of ideas” eventually learned, as a trivial tautology by gerrymandering the senses of and some of the linguistic philosophers of the 20th the Latinate "justice" and the Germanic “fair,” and century are still learning, these too are empirical ignoring the Latinate “equity.” matters, investigated by psychologists and brain scientists in the case of ideas or concepts and by COMMON SENSE linguists and lexicographers in the case of meanings or In Principia Ethica, G. E. Moore wrote that a uses of words. Philosophers, of course, have a good ear self-evident proposition is one that is evident though not for the nuances of some segments of speech, as J. L. by virtue of inference from other propositions, meaning Austin famously did, but Austin himself insisted that by “evident,” we may suppose, “seen” to be true, videre such an ear was not a substitute for actual empirical being the Latin for “to see”[11]. In “A Defence of research[7]. Philosophers are also good at Common Sense,” he called such propositions “truisms” argumentation, much as lawyers are, but this does not of common sense[12]. I shall just call them “obvious” imply mastery of the subject matters under (one of the senses of “obvious” is “plain or evident,” argumentation nor does it involve research in them– for according to the OED), in order to avoid the technical those lawyers routinely call on experts, witnesses, and here irrelevant controversies in epistemology detectives. regarding the notion of evidence and especially of self- evidence. Sometimes, for stylistic reasons, I shall use Human wellbeing, happiness, and prosperity the adverb “obviously.” I shall also point out have been the central concerns of both political occasionally that certain judgments are not parts of philosophy and ethics. But they are empirical matters, commonsense by prefacing them with “it is not obvious and so are the means of achieving them. They lie, that.” therefore, beyond the particular competence of political philosophy and ethics[8]. Indian utilitarians who hope In “A Defence of Common Sense” Moore to learn in American universities how to reduce merely listed the propositions he found evident – he did suffering in India presumably go to colleges of not argue for them, presumably because he was agriculture, public health, and business administration, convinced that none of the standard deductive and not philosophy departments.

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