The State

(...the suffering of the concept.)

“God wills not evil but human existence and human existence is a freedom for good and evil” ("Heidegger and German Idealism" by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in "A Companion to Heidegger,” p.20)[Pdf].

"But isolating the individual is intolerable to mystical thinking where God is always joined to the individual being. In such thinking this God needs the community even when the I imagines that it can become whole without the community..... (Dorothee Soelle. The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, p.158 ).

Schleiermacher distinguishes four types of ethical relations of right, sociability, faith, and revelation. Right is “moral co-existence of individuals in common action” (Munro, p. 239). And this moral co-existence implies possession, community, wealth and trust. Sociability is the moral relationship between individuals as “exclusive proprietor.”  Domestic right and hospitality are the necessary conditions of Sociability. The word “Faith” is used to describe this type of ethical relationship in a secular sense meaning faith as the universal “trust-worthiness” of both thought and speech within a community of shared knowledge. Revelation is the “self revelation” of the moral relations between persons in spite of their separateness each person has a sympathetic connection for other human beings. These relations wherein the highest good is sought for the person define all ethical actions. These four spheres of relationships create “moral organisms” which he calls “perfect ethical forms” that include the societal institutions of the State, Society, the School, and the Church. Schleiermacher's ethics does not ignore the influence material existence has on the human spirit, ”Material being does not exist by itself and alone: there enters into it spiritual being; and spiritual being does not exist in the world as simple being: it is always spiritual being as influenced by the material”(Munro, p. 229).

Schleiermacher was also a politician known to be “one of the most active leaders in the Liberal Party in its struggle for freedom and advancement”(Ibid., p. 102). With Thomas of Aquinas he could say, “Theologus sum humani nihil a me alienum puto,” (I am man. I consider nothing that is human alien to me):

”The State, the first of the perfect forms of ethical being, is the creation of the universal organizing activity of reason. It is a vast, living unity composed of groups of families allied together for the general good and the general action of the whole. Its natural ground is the horde, or the common individuality of tribal masses. Only, the State is related to the horde as the conscious to the unconscious. It is a higher development of the individual fellowships, and community, than obtains in the lower and more primitive stage” (Ibid., p. 241).

In contradiction to the present Neo-liberalism--an ideology that dares not say its name--seeks to dismantle state authority except for military power. Schleiermacher believed, “The ethical aim of the State is not therefore simply the protection and benefit of the individual; it is the perfecting of the whole by means of the individual, and the individual by means of the whole”(Ibid., p. 242).

Schleiermacher rejected the political theory accepted during his era that the State is created by the “mutual contract,” or “agreement” of the populous. Hobbes, Hume (close friend of Adam Smith), and John Locke wrote about the authority of the state. A systematic analysis of the atomistic egocentric individual can be found in Thomas Hobbes’ (1588-1679) book, Leviathan, wherein he describes the self-interested economic man and a theory of the State. Hobbes’ philosophical anthropology of human behavior has a familiar ring with today’s popular version of Libertarian philosophy and Market Fundamentalist ideology.

The Leviathan’s theory of state is linked to a belief in the intrinsic competitive nature of human beings. For Hobbes the natural condition of men is “war of all against all” for without the nation-state each person has a right to everything. A world with such self-interested human beings seeking advantage would be chaotic in which commerce is impossible since no one would be secure against violence. In order to avoid this natural state of war for economic advantage, the self-interested rational human being accepts a social contract by which all persons give up some freedom for state protection. According to Hobbes this state could have the form of a Monarchy, Aristocracy, or a Democracy.

For Hobbes there are no absolute values. Where there is no social covenant, no act can be called unjust. Hobbes writes in the Leviathan, “…the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud in the war of “all against all” are the two cardinal virtues.” And there is “…no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get: and for so long as he can keep it."

David Hume (1711-1776) views society as primary since the individual first exists as a member of a group for “Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society from necessity, from natural inclinations and from habit.” (Of the Origin of Government, Hume, 1777) . The family is “the first and original principle of human society” (A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume, 1888 ). This concept of government is based on the family-society model of social relations.

Agreeing with Hobbes, Hume understands society as having great utility for humanity. However, for Hume the concept of justice is artificial in the sense it is based on self-interest and public utility. The state provides against want, accident, and violence. Hume writes,“Society provides a remedy for these three inconveniences. By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented: By the partition of employment, our ability increases: And by mutual succour we are less exposed to fortune and accidents. It is by this additional force, ability, and security that society becomes advantageous”(An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume, 1751).

Hume believes government is an invention, not a social compact as John Locke claims. As a radical empiricist, Hume denied Lockean ethics that claim Natural Law is based on universal categorical moral law derived from Reason. Hume believed government arose from war and human utility. Hume rejected the Lockean state of nature thesis that the original social contract is an actual historical event by which humans voluntarily agreed to form an organized society to protect freedom and political rights. There is no empirical evidence of any such natural state. Hume wrote:

“...it is utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition which precedes society, but that his very first state and situation many justly be esteemed social. This however, hinders not but that philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the supposed state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never could have any reality. …This state of nature, therefore, is to be regarded as a mere fiction”(A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume, 1888). 

Hume rejects Hobbes’ theory of the state of nature as a historical fiction, or philosophical parable. However, David Hume’s close friend Adam Smith postulated a similar primordial state of nature by presenting individuals as an accumulating economic bartering savage.

All of these theories of society and government discussed so far view the individual as an isolated economic unit of activity driven by self-interest, competition, distrust, and greed. The view of the individual driven by utilitarian and hedonistic principles is a gross oversimplification of human motivation and ethical behavior. William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) professor of mathematics at University College, London, was critical of this scientific conception of the individual. Historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston, wrote in summary of Clifford’s views:

“…the concept of the human atom, the completely solitary and self-contained individual, is an abstraction. In actual fact every individual is by nature, in virtue of the tribal self, a member of the social organism, the tribe. And moral progress consists in subordinating the egoistic impulses to the interests or good of the tribe, to that which, in Darwinian language, makes the tribe most fit for survival. Conscience is the voice of the tribal self; and the ethical ideal is to become a public-spirited and efficient citizen"(Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy, Bentham to Russell, Vol. 8, Part I, Doubleday, 1967, page 135).

Without government a state would be like modern Somalia, as Hobbes claimed, ruled by warlords and gangs—that is your free market Neoliberal Libertarian paradise. However as George Orwell wrote of Hayek’s book “The Road to Serfdom,”

”Professor Hayek is also probably right in saying that in this country the intellectuals are more totalitarian-minded than the common people. But he does not see, or will not admit, that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter…Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.”