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Adam Ferguson's Republicanism POLITICAL HISTORY AND THOUGHT Dorota PIETRZYK-REEVES Institute of Political Science and International Relations ADAM FERGUSON’S REPUBLICANISM INTRODUCTION This article has two aims. First, it presents an analysis of Adam Ferguson’s concept of civil society and polity in the context of the civic republican tradition which origina- ted in Aristotle and the philosophy of stoicism. The civil society tradition began in ancient Greece and Ferguson renewed the concept in modern times. The contempo- rary revival of the idea of civil society brings back the old questions about the nature of a good and free society. I argue that Ferguson’s critical reflections on society and citizenship was much influenced by the classical republican tradition that can still be inspiring today.1 The second aim is to present a methodological argument that con- cerns the contemporary relevance of the philosophical concepts of politics that belong to the traditions of political thought, and the way we should theorize about them. Adam Ferguson, a Scottish moralist and the author of An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), applied the concept of civil society to modern political theory. He understood it as a polished and refined society and characterised it as having reached a certain stage of social, political, and economic advancement. In other words, civil society was a product of civilization, it was a civilized society. Such view differs from today’s predominant views in which civil society is frequently viewed in terms of as- sociationism. As a political moralist and a founder of sociology, Ferguson based his analysis of the progress of society on a historical and sociological rather than a pure- ly philosophical reflection. In order to uncover his ideas to a contemporary reader, I should like to illuminate the manner in which the history of political thought and contemporary political theory have influenced one another. My approach is based on the assumption that our reflection on politics does not arise ex nihilo and does not de- 1 See E. Gellner, Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Rivals, Hamish Hamilton, London 1994, pp. 61-80; ‘Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society’ in E. Gellner, C. Cansino (eds.), Liberalism in Modern Times, Central European University Press, Budapest 1996. This content downloaded from 149.156.234.28 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 10:45:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 68 Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves POLITEJA 2/1(10/1)/2008 velop in a vacuum simply because the political concepts that we use today are a part of the long tradition of thinking. It can of course be argued that even if the concepts that are used today, such as democracy or civil society, have the same names, they are not the same in semantic terms and their current meanings can hardly be derived from their historical meanings and uses. Quentin Skinner has argued in his works on the methodology of the history of ideas, ‘there is no hope of seeking the point of study- ing the history of ideas in the attempt to learn directly from the classical authors by focusing on their attempted answers to supposedly timeless questions.’2 I would take issue with this view and argue that when we use political ideas today we are crucially dependent upon our traditions of political thought and that by reflecting on our phil- osophical predecessors we can expand our own visions of politics. The question thus addressed concerns the role of the history of political thought as a discipline and the mode of thinking about both the past and the present. Since the late 1960s much of the research on the history of political thought has been highly specialised and had very little if anything to say about the relevance of the tradition of political thought to problems faced by political theory today.3 This specialisation was influenced by the methodological debate that began in the 1960s and was concerned with the importance of the meaning and context in the history of ideas. The main lesson of this debate was the famous statement made by Skinner that ‘we must do our thinking for ourselves;’4 classic texts in political philosophy have not been written in order to give us instructions and we can hardly learn from them as to how we should theorise about current social and political issues. This essay is not an attempt to seek for instruction what can be derived from Ferguson’s thought; instead, my analysis aims to draw some conclusions about the lessons we can learn from the close study of the questions and concerns which Ferguson addressed in his works. I do not suggest that there is an explicit connection between the questions faced by the political philosophers in the eighteenth century and by contemporary political thinkers, nor that we can find in Ferguson or Adam Smith possible answers to them, but only that the tradition of political thought, despite its partiality, is our tradition, and the questions that it poses are challenged by us as its descendants. CIVILIZATION AND PROGRESS The main concern of Ferguson and such prominent Scottish thinkers of the eigh- teenth century as Lord Kames, John Millar, and William Robertson, was an at- tempt to create categories for the explanation of material, economic, and social 2 Q. Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’ in James Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context. Quentin Skinner and His Critics, Polity Press, Cambridge 1998, p. 65. 3 D. Runciman, ‘History of Political Thought: the State of Discipline’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 3 (2001), p. 86. 4 Q. Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding…’, p. 66. This content downloaded from 149.156.234.28 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 10:45:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms POLITEJA 2/1(10/1)/2008 Adam Ferguson’s… 69 progress.5 Ferguson argued that progress was a measure of civilization; mankind aimed to remove inconveniences in order to gain advantages, which would lead to an improvement in its present stage of development, and would arrive at ends that could not be planned, such as the foundation of civil laws and political establish- ments.6 The progress of civilization is spontaneous and gradual; it is a hard process of trial and error, the empiricist approach shared by Scottish moralists suggested. Whether it is a barbarian or a polished condition, no government can be construc- ted from a plan. If we looked back at the history of mankind, we would notice that the progress of society, civilization, has never been predictable, and has never been the result of a single project or projects. Social organization and different types of government emerged out of the natural differences between people. Civil society developed spontaneously along with the refinement of manners, the development of commerce, and the division of labour. Ferguson traces the progress of man thro- ugh various stages of society – from primitive savagery to advanced civilization – viewing society as a dynamic, changing pattern of behaviour reflected in its insti- tutional arrangements. In his account of the refinement of nations, Ferguson does not identify specific causes of the progress from a barbarous to a polished society but stresses two features of such a progress: its gradualness and its spontaneous character. In this he continues Mandeville’s evolutionary account of society.7 Like Montesquieu, Ferguson emphasises that there are different forms of gov- ernment which fit different social conditions and suit the needs of people: ‘Forms of government are supposed to decide of the happiness or misery of mankind. But forms of government must vary in order to suit the extent, the way, and the manners of different nations.’8 In emerging from rudeness and simplicity individuals learn to subordinate themselves to rules and customs. The development of private property, which is considered by Ferguson to be a feature of progress, distinguishes rude and barbarous nations from the ones in the advanced states of the mechanic and com- mercial arts. Following Locke, Ferguson finds the origin of property in labour. The right which is derived from it is viewed as the right of possession or property: ‘It is a right, in the labourer, to the exclusive use of his powers, and of their lawful effects, even during the intermissions of that use.’9 Property combined with reflection and 5 F. Oz-Salzberger, ‘Introduction’ in A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge–New York 1995, pp. vii-xxv. 6 On the contradictions contained within Ferguson’s account of progress and the decline of societies see L. Hill, ‘Adam Ferguson and the Paradox of Progress and Decline’, History of Political Thought, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1997), pp. 677-706. 7 See G. Bryson, Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1945, pp. 213-214. See also R. Lis, ‘Spontaniczny ład a problem korupcji społe- czeństwa obywatelskiego. Z myśli politycznej Adama Fergusona’, Politeja, No. 6 (2006). 8 A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, ed. by D. Forbes, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1966, p. 62 [hereafter An Essay]. 9 Idem, Principles of Moral and Political Science, 1792, Garland, New York–London 1978, Vol. 2 [hereafter Principles], p. 208. This content downloaded from 149.156.234.28 on Fri, 16 Oct 2020 10:45:34 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 70 Dorota Pietrzyk-Reeves POLITEJA 2/1(10/1)/2008 foresight makes the individual care about his interest. ‘He apprehends a relation be- tween his person and his property, which renders what he calls his own in a man- ner a part of himself, a constituent of his rank, his condition, and his character, in which, independent of any real enjoyment, he me may be fortunate or unhappy […].’10 Although Ferguson viewed property rights and their protection as a neces- sary condition for the individual freedom of citizens, it was Hume that first provided the insight that property must be founded on justice, for the relationship between man and his property is not natural but moral.
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