Traditions of Freedom

Recommended Reading:

Edmund Burke, The Great Thinkers 

Readings:

• Winston Churchill, Excerpt from “Consistency in Politics” (1932)
• Burke, “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies,” Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, pp. 225–28, 235–46, 253–56, 278–79, 284–89
• Burke, “A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol,” A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful and Other Pre-Revolutionary Writings, pp. 399–441

Questions:

1. What is the source of Burke’s opposition to “refined policy”?
2. Why is it imprudent to try to subdue the Americans by force?
3. What does Burke say is the predominant temper and character of Americans? What are the six reasons he cites that made Americans this way?
4. What is Burke’s reasoning for complying with the American Spirit as a “necessary evil”?
5. Why is Burke uninterested in “the right of taxation” as a philosophical question? What does this suggest about his political and philosophical disposition overall?
6. In his “Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol,” why is Burke so concerned with the partial suspension of habeas corpus law? Why according to him is the partial suspension so insidious?
7. What is Burke’s attitude toward moderation?

Readings:

• Burke, Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 2 (Reflections on the Revolution in France) [1790], 88–158

Questions:

1. What is the relationship between “circumstances” and “metaphysical abstraction”? Which does Burke prefer and why? (p. 93ff.) How is this related to his later claim (p. 118ff.) that revolution is not a matter to be settled by “positive rights”?
2. What does Burke mean by “a manly, moral, regulated liberty”? As opposed to what
3. How does Burke respond to the purported “three rights” that the English acquired during the Glorious Revolution? (p. 102ff.)
4. What can we deduce about Burke’s views on prudence from his claim that an exception from a principle is not the same as a principle? (p. 110ff.)
5. What does Burke’s metaphor of liberty as an “inheritance” (p. 119ff.) say about his politics more generally? What does he mean by “preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state”?
6. Why does Burke argue against a government founded on “natural rights”? (p. 152ff.) He claims to support “real” rights and liberty. What does he mean? What are the foundations of British rights and liberties?

Readings:

• Burke, Reflections, pp. 158–211

Questions:

1. Why is the French revolution in manners and chivalry important to Burke? (p. 163ff.)
2. Burke prefers prudence to abstract reason and “barbarous philosophy” (p.171). What is the difference between the two? Why does Burke prefer prudence?
3. Can prejudice be good? Under what circumstances?
4. What is Burke’s view of the social contract, and how does it differ from those of other social contract theorists?
5. Why is Burke concerned about “political Men of Letters”? (p. 208ff.)

Readings:

• Burke, Reflections, pp. 211–30, 269–78, 292–94, 307–09, 361–65
• Burke, “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 3, 62–64, 67–69, 75–78, 119–43, 170–72

Questions:

1. According to Burke, governmental power is not enough to stabilize society. How do property, religion, and prejudice help governmental power to stabilize society?
2. Is Burke opposed to all social and political change? Under what circumstances, if any, is revolution justified?
3. Is politics an art (a matter of practical know-how) or a science (a matter of theoretical knowledge)?
4. On p. 272, Burke draws a contrast between “the boasting of empirics” and the “vastness” of philosophical promises. Which side is he on, and why?
5. What is Burke’s case for moderation in political change (pp. 274-275 ff.)?
6. What are Burke’s standards for political change (p. 364ff.)?
7. In the “First Letter on a Regicide Peace” (pp. 63-64), why is it difficult to “find any proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign, and their known operation”? What is the significance of this observation for Burke’s politics?
8. How does Burke define Regicide, Jacobinism, and Atheism? (p. 124ff.)

Readings:

• Burke, excerpts from “An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” Further Reflections on the French Revolution, pp. 88–93, 99–116, 146–201

Questions:

1. Who are the “New Whigs,” and how do their political ideals differ from the “Old Whigs” with whom Burke identifies?
2. What does Burke mean in saying that “nothing universal can be affirmed” in politics and morals? (p. 91) Does this mean he is a moral relativist?
3. Does Burke oppose republican government? Why or why not?
4. What is Burke’s case for his consistency between his early positions on America and his later ones on France?
5. How do we incur obligations to others (p. 161ff.)? What political conclusions can we draw from Burke’s view?

Recommended Reading:

Adam Smith, The Great Thinkers

Readings:

• Theory of Moral Sentiments: I.i (pp. 13–33); I.iii (pp. 55–78); IV.1 (pp. 209–17)

Discussion Questions:

1. What is “sympathy”? How does it compare to what we today might call “pity” or “compassion”? What role does Smith think that sympathy plays in moral life
2. What role do ambition and “vanity” play in commercial life, on Smith’s account? What sorts of virtues does Smith think commercial life can encourage? What sorts of “corruptions” does he think it can lead to?
3. What is the point of the story of the “poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger visited with ambition” (p. 211)? What does it reveal of Smith’s understanding of the relationship of economic ambition to human happiness?
4. What is the “invisible hand” (p. 215)? And more importantly: what effect does it have on the distribution of goods?

Readings:

• Theory of Moral Sentiments: II.ii (pp. 95–110); III.3 (pp. 156–80); VI.1 and 3 (pp. 250–56, 280–308)

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the difference between justice and beneficence for Smith? Why does he consider justice to be more important politically? Does this lead him to dismiss beneficence as worthless?
2. Who does Smith consider to be “the man of the most perfect virtue” (p. 175)? How does this individual compare to conceptions of human excellence and perfection that various ancient and religious traditions value? That we value today?
3. What is prudence, according to Smith? What sorts of concerns does the prudent man focus on? What sorts of actions does prudence prompt him to undertake?
4. What is self-command, according to Smith? What sorts of actions does self-command lead us to perform, or not perform? What place might self-command have in a capitalist order?

Readings:

• Wealth of Nations: Introduction and Plan of the Work (Vol. 1, pp. 104–06); I.i–ii (Vol. 1, pp. 109–21); I.vii (Vol. 1, pp. 157–66); II.iii (Vol. 1, pp. 429–49), pp. 3–70

Discussion Questions:

1. Reread the end of TMS IV.1. What does Smith have in mind there when he speaks of “political disquisitions” (p. 217)? Is the Wealth of Nations a “political disquisition” of this sort?
2. What role does the love of beauty play in the opening chapters of WN? What is it about the rhetorical presentation of the story of the pin factory that makes it so effective?
3. Smith says that market orders are “not originally the effect of human wisdom” (p. 117). What then accounts for their regularity? What light might the story of the butcher, brewer, and baker shed on this?
4. WN II.iii returns to the question of our efforts to “better our condition” (p. 441). How does Smith’s account here compare to that given in TMS? Does he still think that vanity drives this, or are there other dispositions in human nature that encourage our commercial ambitions?

Readings:

• Wealth of Nations: III.i (Vol. 1, pp. 479–84); III.iv (Vol. 1, pp. 507–20); IV.ii (Vol. 2, pp. 29–49); IV.ii.c (Vol. 2, pp. 66–77)

Discussion Questions:

1. What does Smith consider to be the likely social effects of the individual’s desire to better his condition? What role should the government play in encouraging or restraining this desire?
2. WN III offers a history of the end of feudalism and the birth of commercial society. To what particular historical actions and human passions does Smith trace this transition? What are the specific beneficial effects of this transition?
3. What is the difference between the practices of a “vulgar politician” and the true “science of the legislator,” according to Smith (p. 45)? What general rules does Smith think legislators should strive to follow?
4. Why does Smith defend free trade? What are the specific benefits that he thinks it brings? Why is he so skeptical of political efforts to regulate trade?

Readings:

• Wealth of Nations: IV.ix.48–52 (Vol. 2, pp. 272–75); V.i.a (Vol. 2, pp. 279–97); V.i.f.1–18 (Vol. 2, pp. 348–54); V.i.f. 48–61 (Vol. 2, pp. 368–75)

Discussion Questions:

1. Under the “system of natural liberty” (p. 274), to what three duties is the state limited? Why does Smith charge the government with these three responsibilities? What sorts of functions that we today commonly associate with government does he exclude from this list?
2. What is Smith’s complaint with university education? How does he use market-based mechanisms to improve it? Do you think that these are likely to work? Why or why not?
3. What is this “mental mutilation” that Smith discusses (p. 374)? How is it related to the division of labor for which he argues earlier in WN 1? What are its effects on political life? How does Smith propose to cure or manage these effects?
4. What does Smith emphasize in his discussion of religion? What are its effects on political stability? How does he propose to cure or manage these effects? How does this cure or scheme of management draw on certain market principles that he elsewhere emphasizes?