Is there a highest political value? by Mariana Correia da Fonseca Rodrigues

Universidade Catรณlica Portuguesa

Is there a highest political value? Professor John Kekes Mariana Correia da Fonseca Rodrigues 104515101 MA in Governance, Leadership and Democracy Studies

May, 2017

Index Introduction

Ideological Politics

Is there a highest political value?

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The present essay deals with political values. However, how important is it to think about political values considering that political values are lacking in our society? This is an important topic not just because it make us think what the political values of our society are but specially because ideologues tend to be used in politics and thinking about this issue become indispensable. The main topic is to understand whether “there is a highest political value”, focusing on the seminar gave by Professor John Kekes in the Catholic University of Portugal and on the Professor Kekes’ books. The first chapter will focus on the study of Liberalism and Pluralists regarding the topic of political values. Liberalism believes that there is a higher political value. On the other hand, pluralists believe in various political values. However, what is the highest political ideal in liberalism? On the other hand, what are the more important political ideals for pluralists? As Professor Kekes said, “ideologues aim to politicize society by continually expanding the sphere of politics to make more and more activities conform to their unfounded ideal. And as politics expands, so liberty shrinks.”1 The second chapter will evaluate the two different ideologies presented in the first chapter and understand if there is a highest political value or if, instead, there are several political values. Furthermore, should we also emphasize the context in which these values exist? What are these values based on? Finally, the conclusion is my own point of view regarding the class, readings and understandings of the topic.

John Kekes., “Chapter One, The Balanced view”, in The Art of Politics. (Encounter, 2008)

Ideological Politics “Reasonable people in contemporary Western democracies will agree that equality, justice, liberty and rights are indeed good, but why should any of them be regarded as the highest?”2

Following the lines of Professor John Kekes in his class, what is wrong with liberalism? Why thinking about some political values like justice or human rights and not think instead of peace or prosperity instead? It is also visible that ideological politics differ vastly, for example, contemporary Western democracies and Middle-Eastern politics. Regarding this topic, Professor John Kekes cites that ideology has a theoretical and a practical component consisting of the beliefs about human nature and an ideal system of political goods. The ideal system of political goods identifies the good things from a political point of view. However, as Professor Kekes explained during class, there is a distinction between Liberalism and Pluralism that is important to the current essay. Liberalism, in one sense, has some areas like liberty, justice, human rights and equality as the basic politic values. But the core of liberalism is to allow people to make autonomous choices and live life autonomously. Considering this, liberalism can be characterized as having a positive and negative impact. Usually the ideologies differ in what is the highest political value but those basic political values of liberalism, as Professor John Kekes cited in his book, are probably the most favoured candidates to the highest political values. “But why is it more important for a society to have more equality than to have more justice or liberty?”. How does one recognize the highest political value? As it is expressed in “The Art of Politics”, the Nazis made a mistake on the issue of racial purity, and they though it was the highest good. So, the Professor asks, “How do we know that any supposed political good is really good or really the highest? Through experience”3. In Liberalism, one problem arises: the basic value of autonomy. This value gives space for evils and bad actions because once there is autonomy there is also individual autonomy which allow individuals act according with the basic values of the society but also they can act in opposition of that values. Thus, individual autonomy is the highest political value in the ideology of Liberalism. Moral Pluralism, on the other hand, believes that there are several different moral values. There are primary and secondary values, but we cannot live a good life without both primary and

2 3

John Kekes., “Chapter Three, The Plurality of Goods”, in The Art of Politics. (Encounter, 2008) John Kekes., “Chapter One, The Plurality of Goods”, in The Art of Politics. (Encounter, 2008)

secondary values, even if they are different. The primary values represent the more fundamental values like human rights, liberty, justice and so on. The secondary values represent values depending on society like sex, money or friendship. Liberals defend that if values conflict with each other, the first values should prevail. For Pluralists, on the other hand, the international context plays an essential role, as they believe that values are also conditional of the international dynamics such as a war. As Professor Kekes says in his book, “the idea behind primary values is that human nature dictates that some things will normally benefit all human beings and, similarly, that some things will normally harm everyone. (…) “secondary goods” and “secondary evils” have been taken to refer to benefits and harms that derive their status not from the universal requirements of human nature but from historically, socially, and culturally conditioned conceptions of a good life”4. In this sense, and following the lines of Professor, there is conflict in Pluralism, since they have values that are incompatible in the sense that if you have more of a value, you will have less of other. But supposing that there is a highest political value, who decides what is the highest political value? These ideologies try to create homogeneous societies to live under these conditions and if people do not follow what is seeing as the correct value they will be condemn by society. So, a question arises: if there is a high political value, is it correct to underline it to have a peaceful society?

John Kekes. “Chapter three, The Plurality and Conditionally of Values” in The Morality of Pluralism. (Princeton University Press. 1993) 4

II. Is there a Highest Political Value?

As we saw in the chapter before, when comparing the two different ideologies, Liberalism believes that there is a single highest political value; that is, the value of autonomy. How can this value be the highest? Why is this specific value the highest instead of other values such as justice? It can be argued that the value of autonomy cannot be the highest political value. According to the text of “The Illusion of Autonomy” from Professor John Kekes, in the current political situation in international dynamics, we are watching cruel actions. It is not only in Middle East or in Africa. We are currently seeing them in Europe as well, with terrorist attacks, with loss of tolerance for different religions and ethnicities or even the example of the increase of populism in Europe. If autonomy is the highest political value, according to the liberalists, how can a society live in accordance with the basic political values such as liberty, justice, prosperity and peace? In the case of the rise of populism, political values changed according substantially. In “The Illusion of Autonomy”, the author claims that it is an “illusion to suppose that improvement of human condition depends on the capacity for autonomy”5 based on the fact that numerous autonomous conditions have created such bad actions. Those who defend autonomy as the highest political value believe that bad actions were not related with autonomy because they were, in fact, immoral and irrational actions. But if we look to Assad’s Regime, and if we analyze the chemical bombs used by Assad in his own country, can we reasonably say that his decision was not rational? His decision was immoral, but rational. In doing this, Assad is pursuing his goals of keeping himself in power; however, he also knew that the chemical weapons would affect innocent people. So, it cannot be accepted as a valid reason or an irrational decision. It was an autonomous decision and this sentence exemplifies that: “if the perpetrators understood that they were murdering their victims and that murder is normally immoral, then their understanding was sufficient for autonomy”6. To sustain this argument, there is a specific sentence by Professor John Kekes in his book “The Nature of Philosophical Problems: Their Causes and Implications” that represents the question of the false assumption on the highest political value:

John Kekes. “The Illusion of Autonomy”, provided by Professor for the seminar at Catholic University of Portugal

“The key is not to follow a plan for approximating whatever the highest value is thought to be, but to protect the institutions and pursue the policies that enable people in a society to live in the conventional ways in which they are accustomed to pursue the betterment of their lives”. 7 The second argument will try to understand if, in opposition to the liberalism ideology, there are pluralistic political values. If there is not a single higher political value, what are the higher political values? What are the primary or the secondary values? As it was shown in the chapter before, primary values are our values while member of a society, like justice, education, health, human rights and so on. The secondary values are the ones related to our own happiness like culture, friendship, and love. But should we evaluate something as the primary or highest political value? No, we cannot. And we cannot because we can be mistaken about what is good or not and this always depends on the differences existing in social, cultural, individual or historical contexts. According to Professor John Kekes’ book, “The Morality of Pluralism”, “different societies have different authorities, institutions, conventions, and rules. But no society can do without them, and we cannot do without some participation in social life, provided we seek the satisfaction of our physiological and psychological needs. We have now reached the end of this list of truisms. They allow us to conclude that there is a universal and unchanging human nature. It is composed of the facts of the self, intimacy, and social order. We can now go on and ask what bearing human nature, thus understood, has on good life”8. In this sense, the second point arises. We cannot have a higher political value, because if we want to live a good life, we need both primary and secondary values and we cannot dispose the latter. Of course, if some societies are living under difficult conditions (such as Syria), they do not have or experience the secondary values but they need the primary values like security or health. This means that the primary values are the minimum requirements for life, but secondary values are a continuation of the realization of the primary values, “For, as we have just seen, secondary values make concrete the primary values and give us possibilities of life beyond the level where only our most elementary needs are satisfied”9. It is understandable that our values depend also of our societies and transitions. Primary values are essential to fulfil our basic needs, but to live a happy, balanced, and peaceful life with love, education and prosperity we have the secondary values. While these values are interconnected,

John Kekes.”The Political Mode” in The Nature of Philosophical Problems: Their Causes and Implications. (Oxford University Press. 2014) 8 John Kekes. “Chapter three, The Plurality and Conditionally of Values” in The Morality of Pluralism. (Princeton University Press. 1993) 9 John Kekes. “Chapter three, The Plurality and Conditionally of Values” in The Morality of Pluralism. (Princeton University Press. 1993)

secondary values cannot happen without the primary values that are much more related to the specific tradition of the society we live in. However, primary values can prevail without the secondary values.

Conclusion The main goal of this essay was to evaluate if there is a higher political value. Following the class at Catholic University of Portugal in which Professor John Kekes explained several topics like autonomy, justice, values, liberalism, pluralism and also different books written by the Professor, two different arguments were pointed out. The first argument explained how the view of liberals regarding autonomy as the higher political value is wrong and how it is also a dangerous assumption, since it gives space for evil actions. However, I can accept that for Liberals there is a higher political view but my point of view is that there is not a higher political view and this can be explained in the second argument. Pluralists believe that there are many values that are important but that these values tend to be in conflict. But primary and secondary values are connected and inter-related. We can see that for our basic needs we will always need the primary values but if we want to live a happy life we will need the second values. This leads us to conclude that there is not a higher political value but instead, a plurality of values that are interconnected and that are dependant on external contexts such as the international context, our society and our values. I think that we cannot assume that even the primary values are the same for everyone because societies are different. If we look for what is happening nowadays, with the growth of populist political leaders, we can see that there is a lack of tolerance and acceptance in political leaders and this tends to shape the morals and values of a society. A muchneeded primary value in the present moment is definitely tolerance. This show us that times and circumstances will be always important, more than ideologies. Every political value that is good is important and should not be put above the other, because if we do that we will lose in the other value.

“The key to these highly desirable goals is to keep ideology out of politics”10

John Kekes., “Chapter One, The Balanced view”, in The Art of Politics. (Encounter, 2008)

Bibliography

Pereira Coutinho, João. “Tratar dos Pobres é impedir que os pobres tratem de nós”. (Folha de S.Paulo. May/2017).

(Available

at:http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/joaopereiracoutinho/2017/05/1880228-

tratar-dos-pobres-e-impedir-que-os-pobres-tratem-de-nos.shtml) Kekes, John. “Chapter one, two and three” in The art of Politics. (Encounter, 2008) Kekes, John. ”The Political Mode” in The Nature of Philosophical Problems: Their Causes and Implications. (Oxford University Press. 2014) Kekes, John. “Chapter three, The Plurality and Conditionally of Values” in The Morality of Pluralism. (Princeton University Press. 1993) Kekes, John. “The Illusion of Autonomy”, provided by Professor for the seminar at Catholic University of Portugal