Conservatism Considered, II

My humble conservatism post kicked up some lively commentary, so I'm going to try the brevity thing again - though I don't think it really suits me.

It is sometimes suggested that conservatism is a 'temperament'. Now I must confess that I haven't read many of the sustained treatments - by Oakeshott, Scruton, Kristol and others - in this vein. But I'm sort of thinking about undertaking a minor course of study. And here's a question I would like answered. A temperament is, in an obvious sort of way, not reason-giving. Specifically, the fact that you have a certain temperament - which causes you to believe certain things - does not give me any reason to believe those things. But surely conservatism is supposed to be reason-giving.

Not clear what I'm saying? Compare: if Smith tends to weep at the thought of the plight of the poor (this is his temperament) he may be caused to become a socialist. If Jones does not tend to cry at the plight of the poor, the fact that Smith is so lachrymose gives Jones no reason to become a socialist. Why should the fact that some people like things to stay the same give other people a reason to keep them the same?

Like last time, this is way too simple. But at least it's simple.I'll just pad it out with a nice passage from Mill's On Liberty I stumbled on today while preparing to teach that fine little book in 10 days time:

All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are accustomed to believe and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many people's liking instead of one.

What would Oakeshott, Scruton, et. al. say about that last bit? It seems they would resort to formulating justificatory doctrines. But it strikes me that these doctrines will be not so much unbelievable as not in fact believed.

Not that I think I've got anyone pinned to the ground, begging for mercy just yet. Just asking.

Comments

[Joshua]

Um. Isn't utilitarianism just the enshrinement of many people's liking instead of one as The Good?

Anyway, I would think that someone devoted to conservatism as a principle could very well say if something is all but universal and hardly any progress has been made despite repeated attempts to change it, that something may well be beneficial or necessary, even if the reason for it isn't readily apparent. If you must have rules of conduct, and Mill admits you must, and the decisions on what those rules should be are hard to arrive at, and emphasizing their historicity and arbitrariness would tend to undermine their effectiveness as restraints that make existence valuable, then unless you really have a knock-down argument for why specific things should be different custom should be valued and the human tendency to be influenced by its magic should be applauded. Put that way, I almost believe it. Certainly I wouldn't want to live in a society where the ground rules for every human interaction had to be hashed out anew from first principles which themselves would have to be argued out each transaction, even if it were in principle possible. Should I decide which side of the street to drive on each time I get in the car, or from moment to moment based on road conditions and surrounding traffic? If custom is useful or necessary, then it is possible for an appeal to many people's liking instead of one to be a valid reason.

[dsquared]

The move that Scruton and Oakeshott would make would definitely *not* be to start putting up "justificatory doctrines". You can no more justify a custom than you can calculate the Fourier transform of a wardrobe. A custom isn't an argument and it doesn't command agreement in the same way that an argument does. Custom and tradition are a different method of getting one's beliefs than rationalism, and in most cases superior. C'mon, re-read your Berlin on the development of anti-rationalism in the conservative tradition.

[baa]

Though for Oakeshott I might phrase the point differently, I think dsquared has pegged one aspect of the conservative response fairly well. Basically, it amounts to a meta-argument about arguments not being the best motive force for certain practical activities.

What is interesting here is that modern American conservatives are much more inclined to mount direct justificatory arguments. That's what I was alluding to when contrasting the conservatism of Kristol with that of Oakeshott.

There are many "generic" arguments against political change to which conservatives resort. (one of Dsquared CT colleagues took a stab at this, my version is a bit different --maybe again, just in phrasing)

1.Change is beset with unintended consequences and transition costs
2. Social stability is paramount, and tradition is its chief bulwark.
3. Tradition is the democracy of the dead, and contains lots of knowledge that isn't readily identifiable

Argument number one was a staple of neoconservative policy analysis, and got nice theoretical backing from public choice theory. The latter two are the arguments that most frequently bleed into the kind of "meta-arguments" mentioned above.

[ogged]

You can no more justify a custom than you can calculate the Fourier transform of a wardrobe.

But I'm not sure justifying a custom is the issue. It's a matter of justifying custom, as such, as a basis for behavior. That needn't be anti-rational. In fact, there are very good arguments for it.

In any case, the word "temperament" is pretty misleading as an explanation for conservatism, isn't it? It seems like a sloppy stand-in (now there's a job) for baa's 3 above. Rather than make the available arguments for respecting the not-always-articulable wisdom of custom and tradition, people attribute bias to temperament and call it ideology.

What conservatives ought to be doing (apologies if they're already busy on this) is getting over their fear that articulation leads down the path to destructive rational critique. It's a bit like not wanting to read a poem closely for fear the magic will vanish. But a close reading is what makes it interesting to the unconverted.