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A Democratic Theory Of Judgment 1st Edition Zerilli
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3.
Kenneth Ruscio
13. Patriotic Leadership in Democracy
Haig Patapan
List of Contributors
Elgie, Robert, Professor of Politics, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Dublin.
Galston, William A., Senior Fellow and Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, Brookings Institution, Washington DC.
Helms, Ludger, Professor and Chair of Comparative Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck.
Kane, John, Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Brisbane.
Miroff, Bruce, Professor of Politics and Collins Fellow, Department of Political Science, State University of New York, Albany, NY.
Patapan, Haig, Director, Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Brisbane.
Ruscio, Kenneth, Professor of Politics and University President, Washington and Lee University, Lexington.
Saunders, Elizabeth N., Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington DC.
Shapiro, Ian, Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven.
Smith, Rogers M., Professor of Politics, Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Williamson, Thad, Associate Professor, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond.
1 Good Democratic Leadership
John Kane and Haig Patapan
This book is a contribution to the study of democratic leadership, an important but relatively neglected area of leadership studies. 1 We first explored the subject in Dispersed Democratic Leadership (Kane, Patapan, and ’t Hart 2009), which investigated the democratic tendency to disperse leadership throughout society and the implications of this for democratic governance. Then in The Democratic Leader (Kane and Patapan 2012) we examined the unique challenges that democratic leaders face because of democracy’s core animating principle, sovereignty of the people, which necessitates them acting as specifically representative leaders who must daily exercise sovereignty on the people’s behalf. We argued that the combination of sovereign power and representative role creates a permanent tension in democracies that imposes onerous demands on leaders that must nevertheless be sustained and managed if genuinely democratic authority is to be safeguarded. In this final book of the trilogy we confront the perennial hopes of democratic citizens for good leadership and address the question of how such leadership may be fostered and secured in modern democracies. Each contributor takes up an important aspect of this question to see whether and to what extent democracy may be said to support good leadership.
In this introductory chapter we will first reflect on the meaning and nature of modern democracy by focusing specifically on its historical amalgamation with liberalism. We then examine the notion of practical reason or judgment on the assumption that good leadership must depend crucially on a capacity for good judgment. We contrast classical conceptions of judgment with modern ones to argue that modern theorists effectively “democratized” judgment in a way that caused its reduction to two mutually incompatible conceptions: amoral, self-interested calculation on the one side; and the application of
strict moral imperatives on the other. We claim that, if good leadership is to be properly understood, we need to return to a more unified account of judgment in which interests and ethics are not necessarily opposed. We then outline five major themes this book seeks to explore, namely: the definition or meaning of good democratic leadership; the question of the education of leaders and of citizens; the conditions required to make democratic leadership effective; the importance of institutions and their influence on leadership performance; and, finally, some enduring challenges to securing good leadership in democracies.
Democracy and Liberalism
Modern democracies share many common features, though their specific histories, cultures, and traditions differ greatly. General definitions of democracy usually focus on institutions, such as a foundational constitution, the entrenchment of rule of law, representation based on one-person-one-vote and regular, free, and fair elections. Democracies are also defined in terms of what they protect and secure, notably freedom of speech, the rights of minorities, and human rights. More broadly, there is the sense of democracy as the political system that recognizes the dignity and equal political authority of each person.2 The important thing to note for our purposes, however, is that modern democratic regimes embody two distinct principles, the liberal and the democratic, which impose different demands on leaders.
In terms of historical origins, democracy is certainly much older than liberalism, tracing its sources to the distant past, most famously to ancient Greece where democracy was the regime in which the “demos” or people ruled. Though of more recent provenance, liberalism, with its theoretical architecture elaborated in sixteenth-century Europe, precedes the democratic revolutions initiated by the French Revolution that subsequently washed across the modern world.3 Though liberalism could be made compatible with democratic government (as our modern forms prove), the central principle of democracy was arguably at odds with that of liberalism. The extreme modern form of the democratic principle, developed by the French political philosopher Rousseau in his famous The Social Contract (1978), alleged that the people’s sovereign will should be untrammelled by constitutions, rules, and laws, whether divine or natural. This presented a stark contrast with the core principle of liberalism, which posited individual rights and freedoms as both the source of government authority and the measure of that authority’s proper limits. In liberal thought the people’s will must always be subject to constitutive and constitutional or legal constraints that seek to protect natural (later, human) rights.
When we speak of contemporary democracies, therefore, we are in fact referring to an historical amalgam of popular sovereignty and liberalism, each of which endorses a certain suspicion of leadership, though for different reasons. Liberalism is perennially wary of executive government because it suspects that leaders will inevitably seek power that may threaten individual liberties. Democracies may sometimes endorse powerful leaders—hence the perennial fear that they will lapse into demagogic populism—but democrats also typically fear that leaders will subvert the regime by favoring rule by an elite few. These different ways in which democracy and liberalism regard rule present overlapping but distinct challenges to leadership, and thus are important in understanding what we mean by good leadership in a modern democracy. In general we may say that liberalism forces leaders to act always within the confining constraints of law (constitutional and otherwise), while democracy places them under the necessity of a permanent and pervasive accountability to the public.
The combination of democratic and liberal suspicion has resulted in the imposition of an extraordinary web of constraints on democratic leaders that requires a peculiarly alert and circumspect form of judgment to negotiate with any success. Before addressing that, however, we must consider the meaning of judgment, and note its radical diminishment in modern political thought.
Leadership and Judgment
Leadership studies have, until quite recently, suffered some neglect in political science, although the role and significance of leading individuals in politics are themes of long lineage. Even a cursory glance at classic works—Plato’s Republic, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Aristotle’s Politics and Ethics, Cicero’s On Duties and Offices, Plutarch’s Lives, the pious admonitions of Augustine’s Confessions, Renaissance “mirrors of princes” like Erasmus’ famous The Education of the Christian Prince and the provocatively modern and innovative The Prince of Machiavelli—reveals an extended meditation on what makes a good leader. The discipline of history, too, before it aspired to be a science, was conceived as the study of the political actions of those who exercised power and authority, and considered essential for the education of good leaders. Central to all such literature was the issue of leadership judgment.
One of the most influential strands of classical thought relating to this was Aristotle’s discussion in his Ethics of phronesis (usually translated as prudence or judgment). This he located within a wide range of human cognition— from thought itself (dianoia), to wisdom (sophia), understanding or sense (nous), cleverness (deinos) and perception (aesthesis)—though judgment was
the preeminent political virtue. Good judgment (which was to be distinguished from poiesis, the knowledge of how to make things) comprehended both virtue of character and the exercise of sound reasoning, and it required practice and maturity for its development. Though Aristotle thought we may meditate in private on the nature and meaning of judgment, he contended that good judgment could be discerned only in practice, when someone acts decisively within a context of immediate and particular demands and constraints.4
This Aristotelian understanding of judgment did not fare well, however, in the early modern world. Influential thinkers, intent on liberating human thought from scholasticism (which had made Aristotelian philosophy the handmaiden of theology), produced a much diminished version of Aristotle’s account of judgment. Later currents of thought went even further in seeking to limit, or in some cases deny altogether, the significance of what we now call individual “agency.” Under a prevailing preoccupation with the systemic economic, historical, or material forces that shape politics, individual practical judgment became a matter of minor significance or even irrelevance. Contemporary leadership studies might therefore be seen as, in an important sense, an attempt to recover individual judgment from this historical occlusion.
There remains, however, a significant obstacle to retrieving a comprehensive account of judgment of the Aristotelian kind in our modern world. The capacity to judge well was, for Aristotle, a practical and ethical virtue acquired over time, one to be nurtured and developed in political life both by citizens and those in office. Yet because this judgment is a matter of character, ability, and experience, it cannot be supposed to be possessed by everyone to the same extent. This would seem to raise the problem of how a political system may ensure that its leaders are among those who possess the quality of judgment the polity needs. Yet a more serious obstacle is presented by regimes founded on a principle of fundamental equality, which may have serious difficulty in acknowledging or deferring to the supposedly superior judgment of the relatively few.
The strong egalitarian strain in modern political thought tried to meet this challenge by democratizing judgment, which is to say by claiming that everyone possesses good judgment. In doing so, however, it split the unified Aristotelian conception into two mutually exclusive parts. In Aristotelian judgment, a person with practical wisdom was assumed to act for the best in a way that did not divide, nor even distinguish between, what we now call “ethics” and “interests.” The modern movement, however, reduced judgment on the one hand to an instrumental calculation of selfish interests (upon which one will inevitably act) and, on the other, to a recognition of selfless moral imperatives (upon which one ought, ideally, to act). The consequences of this double reduction are still evident in contemporary political thought and practice.
One of the seminal thinkers in the first reduction was Hobbes, who repudiated claims to superior judgment by saying: “A plain husband-man is more Prudent in affaires of his own house, then a Privy Counseller in the affaires of another man” (Hobbes 1968: 138). All of us, according to Hobbes, possess sound judgment in relation to our own welfare. In fact prudent judgment for Hobbes turns out to be nothing more than a calculation or chain of reasoning (admittedly pursued with variable celerity, depending on the individual) that determines how I can gain what I desire. This democratization of judgment led ultimately to the shallows of modern utilitarianism and the positivist’s dead-end of rational choice theory, or the narrow, egoistic bargaining of game theory.
Immanuel Kant, on the other hand, defeated the inegalitarianism of Aristotelian judgment by arguing that the most important judgments were moral ones, and these were within reach of all. Like Hobbes, Kant interpreted prudence as an instrumental virtue serving self-interest, but argued that its requirements were always veiled in impenetrable obscurity so that “much prudence is required to adapt the practical rule founded on it to the ends of life, even tolerably, by making proper exceptions.” By contrast, the moral law defining duty was accessible even to the “commonest unpractised understanding.” For Kant, the concept of duty “in its complete purity is incomparably simpler, clearer and more natural and easily comprehensible to everyone than any motive derived from, combined with, or influenced by happiness, for motives involving happiness always require a great deal of resourcefulness and deliberation” (cited in Beiner 1984: 64–65). Kant’s democratization of judgment thus severed moral duty from broader practical judgments in a manner that made their reconciliation almost inconceivable, placing an intolerable burden on political leaders expected to effect such a reconciliation in their actions. High moral demands for ethical leadership inevitably produced an idealism that was often oblivious to or disdainful of “grubby” political judgment.
The attempt to democratize good judgment by making it general thus led in two contradictory directions, producing the radical bifurcation of attitude characteristic of our age: on the one hand, judgment is treated as, at best, amoral calculation; on the other it is taken as the discernment and pursuit of moral duty, oblivious of consequences. Methodological cynicism confronts unworldly idealism in a perpetual, irresolvable stand-off.
Any study of good leadership must find a way of binding together what modernism has thus rent asunder, comprehending political judgment as transcending a simplistic choice between selfish calculation and ethical action. Such a binding requires that we regard good judgment as a holistic faculty that can be nurtured and developed through exercise.
We may also learn from studies of exemplary leadership, though equally but contrarily instructive may be cases where leaders have shown poor judgment.
In either case, any lessons learned will depend on a sound appreciation of the specific context of demands and constraints leaders face when exercising judgment. A focus on judgment and agency makes individual character central, but capacities of character have meaning only within specific contexts of decision and action. Making sense of the actions and thoughts of leaders demands a clear understanding of the contingent historical circumstances that gives meaning to their acts of leadership, making those acts determinative, for better or worse, without ever being imagined to be predetermined.
Democratic Leadership Themes
Specific contexts inevitably include particular historical circumstances, institutions, and offices, and the variable constraints and opportunities these impose on what may be assessed as either feasible or impossible.5 In this book we are concerned with specifically democratic contexts which, while showing commonalities across countries, are also variable due to such different institutional arrangements and histories.
It is worth stating that we take it for granted that leadership matters in a democracy, whatever its institutional form. Yet we also observe that leaders occupy an always ambivalent place in democracies. This may seem surprising since, if we take leadership to be the exercise of prudent judgment for the sake of the common good, democracy would seem on the face of it to provide an ideal context. It is, after all, the most inclusive of regimes, valuing open and transparent government and allowing extensive deliberation, the very conditions, we might imagine, for permitting good judgment and fostering good leadership. If we presume that democracy is the best form of government, surely we should expect it to produce the best type of leadership.
And yet we know that democratic peoples are often deeply disappointed in their leaders, whatever hopes they may entertain for them initially. Indeed it has been argued that the features of a democracy that make it distinctively democratic also make it the regime least favorably disposed toward good leadership. Democratic citizens might prefer to believe that democracy will in general nurture, encourage, and sustain good judgment, but the heads of authoritarian regimes typically claim otherwise, pointing to the fickleness, messiness, and short-termism of democratic politics to argue that these provide infertile ground for wise judgment. We have argued elsewhere that the ever-questionable legitimacy of leaders in democracies, the strict and comprehensive institutional limits placed on leadership discretion, and the constant need to seek a mandate through political speech and electoral cycles make the democratic leadership role uniquely difficult and challenging (Kane and Patapan 2012).
The research program we have set here, therefore, is to investigate whether democracy can be considered conducive to good leadership judgment or whether, contrarily, it tends to inhibit it. Each contribution in this book addresses in subtle and nuanced terms this seminal issue. Despite the rich variety of themes and approaches exhibited, each essay deals in different ways and to varying extents with one or more of five significant, interlocking themes. These are: how to define good democratic leadership; the importance of education of both leaders and citizens; the issue of leadership effectiveness; institutional influences on leadership; and some specific and enduring challenges to good democratic leadership. Let us briefly introduce each in turn.
Defining Good Democratic Leadership
All the contributors to this collection consider what good democratic leadership might mean, both ideally and in practice. Several note its intrinsic difficulty. William Galston (Chapter 2) observes that leadership is generally distinguished from simple command by the fact that leaders must of necessity, through speech and example, persuade followers to follow with more or less willingness. In democratic contexts the ability to craft persuasive speech is obviously central, but rhetoric will be popularly judged as empty unless backed by meaningful action that is seen to align with it. Consistency of speech and action is, however, more difficult to achieve than might be thought, precisely because of what Galston calls “the psychology of democracy,” which includes: a leveling tendency; suspicion of power, authority, and hierarchy; mistrust of representatives; and a demand for complete transparency and accountability. These attitudes tempt leaders to flatter rather than to be frank, to evade or conceal difficult but necessary choices rather than face public outrage, and to make promises that cannot be met. Galston argues that democratic psychology thus produces a tension with leadership that can deform the polity, but that good leadership is not therefore in principle incompatible with democracy. It demands, however, a specific (and perhaps uncommon) virtue in democratic leaders, namely “democratic humility: the belief that the legitimacy of your power ultimately depends on the will of the people and not just on your own merit.”
This is a question that recurs in Thad Williamson’s fine-grained study of democratic leadership in the challenging local politics of Richmond, Virginia (Chapter 3). Williamson gives us compelling portraits of three mayors with three very different styles of leadership, not all of whom display Galston’s democratic humility. His paper also touches on several of our emerging themes, especially effectiveness and institutions, as he asks us to consider the tensions between the demand for effectiveness and what might be considered a model of democratic leadership that emphasizes participation, deliberation,
and the distribution of power and authority. The perhaps disturbing lesson is that even a talented and instinctively democratic leader, lacking institutional control and authority, inevitably fails to deal with the city’s deep structural problems, while “strong” leaders who attempt to centralize and utilize institutional power suffer a democratic backlash leading to stalemate. The chapter is also instructive on what makes for good democratic leadership in such difficult circumstances.
Ludger Helms (Chapter 4) takes the negative road to the question by considering what bad democratic leadership looks like. In confronting the contrary issue of defining “badness” he notes how the cultural and institutional restrictions of liberal democracies generally prevent the worst types of badness—oppression, violence, murder. Democratic citizens more often identify bad leadership with ineffectiveness or inefficiency rather than with unethical behavior. Helms performs a comparative survey seeking patterns of bad leadership across democracies but finds none that are compelling. Bad leadership, it seems, can occur anywhere at any time and, moreover, is suspected by citizens of being more prevalent now than formerly. Helms notes that the already difficult conditions for providing effective, authentic, and responsible public leadership in democracies have become radically worse since the efflorescence of “an increasingly hostile, complex and fragmented media environment.” The lesson seems to be that, while democracies are effective in institutionally minimizing certain types of bad leadership, they have no clear way of normatively ensuring or promoting good leadership.
Democratic Leadership and Education
Helms believes that to promote good leadership smart institutions and a firm commitment to good democratic leadership among both citizens and leaders have to come together. It is a statement of necessary mutuality that echoes arguments by other contributors to this volume, especially those who address leadership and education. As noted above, much of the classical treatment of leadership focused specifically on the education of leaders, but in the democratic context this theme must also encompass the possible educative role of leaders with respect to democratic citizens.
Thus Nannerl Keohane (Chapter 5) reflects on citizen engagement in civic associations as an important means for providing an education in specifically democratic forms of leadership and citizenship. Addressing the inevitable tensions afflicting leadership in a political system in which “the people” are supposed to rule, either in person or through representatives, she draws on Aristotle’s conception of political rule as equal citizens learning to rule and be ruled in turn, and Tocqueville’s impressions of American civil associations as intermediaries between state and citizen. Through participation in the best of
these associations, Keohane argues, citizens gain practical skills while developing self-confidence and a sense of mutual respect. They learn what it means to govern through contest, compromise, and the formation of effective alliances, in the process honing their faculties of political judgment. Leadership in civic society thus becomes (or can become) a “school for democratic leadership”—which leads to concern about the health of democratic culture if, as Robert Putnam has observed, these associations are in decline.
Bruce Miroff (Chapter 6) is also concerned with citizen capacities and virtues but approaches them from the perspective of political leaders and their responsibility to educate citizens. Does good democratic leadership, he asks, necessarily include such responsibility? Clearly, continuous communication is necessary between leaders and citizens in a democracy, but such communication, Miroff argues, can take any of three forms: instrumental (simple and sometimes manipulative communication suited to a minimalist democracy in which leaders compete for the electoral support of an essentially passive citizenry); civic republican (the most self-consciously educative form, aimed at transcending self-interested motives and creating an active, deliberative, self-governing citizen body committed to the common good); and populist mobilization (which assumes an adversarial view in which citizens must be mobilized to protect their rights against powerful domestic forces that distort democracy and make a mockery of any supposed common good). Miroff notes that leaders may employ each of these modes of communication on different occasions. Unusually, he has a particularly good word to say for the educative effects of the conflictual politics of populist mobilization. He takes seriously the scepticism of those who question the long-range effectiveness of any attempts of leaders to educate, but concludes that historic democratic transformations usually feature a symbiosis between leadership vision and the heightened commitment of followers. Thus for Miroff: “Civic education that illuminates the field of power and calls citizens to take a stand in an ongoing political struggle remains one of the hallmarks of good democratic leadership.”
Democratic Leadership and Effectiveness
That good leadership must be measured, at least in part, by its apparent effectiveness in achieving goals is an assumption that informs all of the chapters assembled here. In two, however, it is explicitly central. Rogers Smith’s (Chapter 7) contribution on emancipatory movements in America looks at the effectiveness or otherwise of historical leadership attempts to promote a progressive agenda in American politics. His instructive study is the informal alliance between Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery activists of his day, which led ultimately to the end of slavery in the United States. This was, to
John Kane and Haig Patapan
say the least, a very awkward and contentious alliance, but Smith’s point is that that was precisely its virtue. At issue was the question of how far and how fast forces of progress might go before the forces of reaction and resistance brought matters to a halt and further entrenched the status quo. The Lincoln–abolitionist alliance represented an effective division of labor in which the impatient activists stirred up reform ardor at crucial moments while the more conservative, but sympathetic and politically adept, leader leveraged governmental power to the common end as circumstances permitted. It was a pattern that subsequent reformers tried to repeat but with less success due to a combination of poor choices, unfavorable circumstances, or the lack of a leader of Lincoln’s acuity, at least until the alliance of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson that brought about the outlawing of racial segregation.
Smith’s essay reveals how difficult good democratic leadership (defined in terms of effectiveness) can be, and how dependent it is on crucial political alliances. The same point is made by Ian Shapiro (Chapter 8), who examines the qualities required of good leaders—tactical and strategic judgment, empathy, moral judgment, a good deal of luck—but also notes the importance of courage. He demonstrates the latter point by examining the long and difficult negotiations between F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela that led to the new democratic South Africa. The unlikelihood of this alliance holding under the pressure of mutual mistrust and the spoiling maneuvers of extremists on either side meant that the leaders had to take a strategically hopeful but very risky stance. The positive outcome achieved was a tribute to the courage and leadership shown by both men but never a foregone conclusion, a point demonstrated by a comparison with the cases of Northern Irish and Palestinian–Israeli negotiations. Lastly, Shapiro notes that democracy depends absolutely on leaders relinquishing their hold on power when the time comes. “For much of human history,” he notes, “the most powerful have prevailed until their hold on power began to atrophy. . . . The democratic experiment appeals to the idea that a world in which no one can dominate in that way is better for all concerned.”
Democratic Leadership and Institutions
As Helms notes, democratic institutions with their legally entrenched array of limitations and constraints are generally efficacious in controlling and moderating the worst excesses of unlimited leadership, but can in no way guarantee good leadership. Indeed the very dense web of legal restrictions that liberal democracy endlessly spins can often be seen as an obstacle to effective leadership, which must by its nature be afforded some discretionary space. Yet there is a wider question about the relative influence of different
types of liberal democratic institutional arrangement on the capacities of leadership. These are addressed specifically here by Robert Elgie (Chapter 9).
Elgie writes that, in the institutionalist approach to leadership, there has long been the theoretical assumption that parliamentary systems are more likely to generate better leadership outcomes than presidential ones, but surprisingly, he notes, empirical research fails to support this. Elgie’s chapter, which amounts to a cogent critique of reductionist institutionalist approaches, shows how poorly institutionalists have handled the problems of equifinality (where different starting points can lead to identical outcomes) and multifinality (where similar starting points lead to quite different outcomes). He illustrates his argument by using the debate about the relative impact of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential regimes on democratic performance, concluding that we must be “very careful drawing conclusions about the implications of institutional analysis for good and bad leadership.” Political leadership is shaped by multiple institutions, while factors of individual personality and particular circumstances will always make the institutionalist approach essentially probabilistic at best. Elgie nevertheless holds out the hope that a suitably reformed and more complex institutionalism will make an important contribution to reducing the uncertainties of political analysis and establishing an agenda for good leadership.
Enduring Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership
The remaining four chapters in our volume each examine a different enduring challenge to good democratic leadership, specifically in the conduct of foreign policy, in economic management, in securing intergenerational justice, and in negotiating the perils of modern patriotism.
Elizabeth Saunders (Chapter 10) notes the decisive importance of good leadership in foreign policy, given the security stakes involved. She also observes that leaders often have a more significant impact on foreign than domestic policy, while citizens are generally quite uninformed on foreign issues. Her question, then, is how democracies may choose leaders who will perform well in this arena. Her answer is that this must be a field in which an elite-centric account of democracy holds sway, because it is among various elite actors and groups that foreign policy issues are debated and studied. Elites therefore will be in the best position to judge among leaders, good and bad. Yet elites are not monolithic, being generally divided among themselves while also remaining within the orbit of public accountability and public education. They must play a central moderating role between leadership and citizenry, especially as leadership in foreign policy implies independent, timely, level-headed strategic judgment in the name of the national interest, sometimes possibly in defiance of prevailing popular sentiment.
John Kane and Haig Patapan
She concludes that, “While imperfect, this system can insulate the leader enough to permit him significant autonomy on foreign affairs, while an elite audience serves as the voters’ first line of defense if he steps outside the range of acceptable policies.”
John Kane (Chapter 11) tackles the problem of leadership management of the economy, which in commercial democracies, is absolutely central to citizen concerns and to leaders’ electoral survival. He takes a sobering view of the odds against good leadership judgment in this field because leaders are the essential hinge between economy and democratic polity, and face the problem of satisfying the sometimes conflicting demands of both. Being generally non-economists they must rely in their judgment on the advice of economists or economic “players” whose theories may be skewed by ideology and vested interests. The overbearing influence of commercial interests in political processes is also perennially problematic, an issue that took on greater significance during the recent crisis when large financial firms were treated as not only too big to fail but too big to jail, therefore above the law, because their collapse would irreparably damage the global economy. The very openness of democracy, Kane argues, seems to have resulted in an inadvertent transfer of power to non-accountable corporations against whom democratic leaders, with their ever fragile and contingent authority, find it very difficult to mount an effective challenge. Yet at critical historical points democratic leaders have managed to respond effectively to these challenges and may have to do so again if severe crises recur.
Kenneth Ruscio (Chapter 12) examines another, perhaps even more intractable issue for democratic leaders, namely the problem of intergenerational justice. Our democratic political systems, says Ruscio, enable us to capture benefits for ourselves and transfer the costs to others, most notably to future generations. Current structures and assumptions exacerbate this problem rather than relieving it. Thus in an era when policy questions with a long time horizon are becoming more prevalent and pressing, Ruscio suggests it is time to offer a new normative argument to leaders and citizens, one that transcends normal calculations of interest. By considering what the current generation has inherited from the sacrifices of generations past, he argues, we may admit our obligations to, and need to sacrifice for, those that will come after us. Our task, he concludes, is to do as James Madison and even Adam Smith have done before us, which is to appeal to the “better angels of our nature.”
Finally, Haig Patapan (Chapter 13) considers what he calls the challenge of modern patriotism to good democratic leadership. It is naturally demanded of democratic leaders that they act patriotically in putting the interests of their own nation and state above those of all others, yet democratic procedures and ideals are, of their nature, universal and thus transcend the
parochial demands of patriotism. This seems to present potential policy dilemmas for democratic leaders. Patapan explores the issue theoretically by examining the nature of modern patriotism, contrasting the classical political conception of love of one’s own country with the Hobbesian innovation of modern constitutionalism, and then the modern nationalism that developed in reaction to the coolness of Hobbes’s constitutional patriotism. He argues that these three forms did not simply supersede one another but continue to coexist in contemporary politics. Democratic leaders thus must confront a modern politics of patriotism where at any one time three powerful contending notions of patriotism—traditional, modern, and nationalistic— vie for authority, with perplexing results that he illustrates with the example of illegal immigration in the United States. This patriotic challenge to good leadership presents a problem, he argues, that democratic leaders must perpetually negotiate but cannot resolve.
Concluding Comment
These summaries can only hint at the richness and depth of the scholarship presented in these chapters, but we believe that our five themes provide an important starting point for understanding good democratic leadership. The nature of democratic leadership and its relation to judgment are topics that have received insufficient attention from contemporary scholars of political science. We would like to see that deficiency corrected, and hope that the current contributions will be a stimulus for others to engage in a broader and deeper conversation on good democratic leadership and its prospects for the future.
Notes
1. Research for this project was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, in collaboration with the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University. We are pleased to acknowledge the participants of a 2013 Symposium held at Yale University where these chapters were first presented, as well as the able editorial assistance of Dr Daniela di Piramo.
2. See, for example, Democracy Index <http://www.freedomhouse.org>; Polity Data <http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm>; Human Development Index <http://hdr.undp.org/en>.
3. On the ‘waves of democracy’ see Huntington (1991).
4. See especially the discussion of judgment in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6.
5. The recent scholarship on followership shows the importance of this aspect of context: see, for example, Kellerman (2008).
John Kane and Haig Patapan
Bibliography
Beiner, Ronald 1984, Political Judgment, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Hobbes, Thomas [1651] 1968, Leviathan, C. B. Macpherson (ed.), Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.
Huntington, Samuel 1991, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Kane, John, Patapan, Haig and ‘t Hart, Paul (eds) 2009, Dispersed Democratic Leadership, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Kane, John and Patapan, Haig 2012, The Democratic Leader: How Democracy Defines, Empowers and Limits Its Leaders, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Kellerman, Barbara 2008, Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques [1762] 1978, On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Discourse on Political Economy, R. Masters (ed.), trans. J. Masters, St Martin’s Press, New York.
2 Populist Resentment, Elitist Arrogance: Two Challenges to Good Democratic Leadership
William A. Galston
Good democratic leadership honors two principles—legitimacy and capability. The principle of legitimacy asserts that all rightful political power rests, directly or indirectly, on public authorization. (James Madison termed this the “republican principle.” ) The principle of capability asserts that leaders should possess the ensemble of knowledge, skill, and character needed to do their job well in the circumstances within which they must act. A democratic process for selecting leaders is well ordered to the extent that it enables the people to authorize leaders with the requisite characteristics. Good democratic leaders meet both tests; the willingness of those with knowledge, skill, and character to honor the people’s right to choose their leaders is what I call democratic humility.
This schematic account suggests that good democratic leadership is subject to two opposed deformations. On one side stands populism, in which the principle of legitimacy trumps capability. The moral and civic quality of citizens is held to imply that all citizens are equally capable of governing. The practical expression of this distortion is the use of the lot to choose leaders. On the other side stands elitism, in which capability trumps legitimacy: the superior ability to govern is taken to imply the right to govern. At the end of this road lies the seizure of power, irrespective of what the people may want.
Between populism and elitism stands good democratic leadership—men and women with the relevant capacities who have also developed democratic humility. These capacities include the ability to understand and articulate the public culture of democratic community; to do what is required to maximize
A. Galston
persuasion and popular consent; to time key decisions and actions so as to seize moments of opportunity; and to maintain moral balance in times of national emergency.
Democratic Leadership and Human Excellence
Everywhere and always, political communities need good leaders. It does not follow that all forms of political organization are equally hospitable to the leadership they need. There is a perennial worry that democracy and leadership are fundamentally at odds. I shall argue that while there is no contradiction between leadership and democratic principles, there is certainly a tension between leadership and the psychology of democracy. Some of this tension is productive, but much of it is not. Taken too far, the passions and emotions characteristic of democracy become a syndrome that weakens democracy.
We may wonder whether the excellences of leadership are everywhere and always the same. In Politics (1984: III, 4), Aristotle famously argues that the virtues of citizens are relative to the regime, which means that good citizens are not necessarily good human beings. But what about leaders? Aristotle seems to suggest that the virtues of good rulers are the same as the virtues of good men, which are the same in all times and circumstances. If that were so, there would be nothing distinctive about democratic leadership.
But the matter is more complicated. Near the beginning of Politics, Aristotle grounds politics in the human capacity for speech, and he goes on to argue that political leadership is qualitatively different from other kinds of rule in that it is “over free and equal persons” (1984, 43: I.2, I.7). Politics involves a relationship among human beings who are not in principle rightly subject to either coercion or command. The core of political rule is persuasion—the ability to induce agreement about what should be done to preserve and improve the community. On the eve of Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration, outgoing president Harry Truman is said to have remarked that Ike “will say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ and nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the army” (cited in Singh 2003: 128). Although Truman failed to grasp how much of Eisenhower’s success as supreme commander of the allied forces had rested on his powers of conciliation through persuasion, he was right about the underlying principle: the essence of politics is coordination of wills through persuasion rather than through unchallenged commands and unquestioning obedience.
Whether good leadership is always and everywhere the same depends on whether the capacity for persuasion is the same in all political circumstances. To clarify this issue, we must turn to Rhetoric, in which Aristotle identifies three sources of persuasion—character, emotion, and argument.
On inspection, all three prove to be relative in different ways to the political context in which one is operating.
In the first place, certain kinds of character traits will commend speakers to their audience in particular contexts but not elsewhere. As Aristotle puts it, “We ought to be acquainted with the characters of each form of government; for in reference to each, the character most likely to persuade must be that which is characteristic of it” (Aristotle 1967: 89). While certain traits—such as probity in financial matters and devotion to the common good—are universally prized in politics, others are more regime-specific. The latter are traits that promote a regime’s distinctive ends. If the end of democracy is liberty, then democratic citizens will prize traits seen as defending liberty. (From a democratic perspective, it would be hard to improve on “Give me liberty or give me death.”) In an Aristotelian spirit, we can add that while some valued traits promote a regime’s ends, others reflect and honor its core beliefs. So if equal opportunity and upward mobility are prized, as they are in the United States, then some who started with nothing and took advantage of the chance to “work her way up” will be regarded as possessing admirable traits of character—grit and determination, among others. As American history repeatedly shows, these traits commend themselves to democratic electorates and to their representatives. (No doubt Sonia Sotomayor’s inspiring rise from obscurity eased her confirmation as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.)
Similarly, there are passions and emotions more characteristic of democratic polities than others. For example, people who prize liberty will tend to be on their guard against those who might deprive them of it if given the chance, and those who wield power are in a position to do just that. So democracy and suspicion of authority tend to go together. Another example: if the equal freedom of democratic citizens leads them to regard themselves as possessing equal worth and merit, then they will resent individuals seen as “giving themselves airs”—that is, as claiming to be better than others. Populist resentment is an enduring staple of democratic politics. To avoid resentment, democratic leaders who are to the manor born must display an unfeigned common touch, treating their fellow citizens (and others) as their social equals. Franklin Roosevelt, who came from an aristocratic family, successfully conveyed his commitment to democratic equality, once serving hot dogs to the King and Queen of England at a Hyde Park picnic, a decision the New York Times treated as front-page news.1 A third example: as Plato was perhaps the first to observe, the democratic preference for liberty tends to generate a certain mildness toward, and tolerance of, varying ways of life. The desire to live just as one desires softens antipathy to those who live differently but do not impede one’s own choices. Live and let live is a perennial democratic sentiment to which would-be leaders can appeal.
William A. Galston
Finally, the content of premises that are generally accepted as bases of public argument will vary in accordance with political context. For example, claims erected on the foundation of individual rights are more powerful in the United States than in most other nations—even other advanced democracies. Each country possesses a distinctive public culture—beliefs that amalgamate principle, shared history, and distinctive ethnicities.
Leadership is Consistent with Democratic Principles but not with Democratic Psychology
Is there a fundamental tension between leadership and the democratic principle of popular sovereignty? In a path-breaking book, John Kane and Haig Patapan argue that there is. Democracy rests on the principle of equality, which “affords democrats no completely satisfying way of justifying leadership roles” (2012). The reason is that: supporters of democracy who believe in the necessity of leadership “must reconcile this with the belief that none among equals has any innate or inherent right to rule over others” (2012).
The Kane/Patapan thesis rests on a syllogism that is implied rather than stated. It runs like this:
Premise 1: The justification of leadership requires the belief that some individuals have an innate or inherent right to rule over others.
Premise 2: Principled democrats reject the idea that anyone has such a right.
Conclusion: Democrats who understand their creed must believe that leadership cannot be justified in principle. To the extent that democrats feel the need for leadership in practice, they run up against a fundamental tension than can at best be managed but can never be eliminated.
It is clear, I think, that the second premise is an accurate statement of a basic democratic commitment. But the syllogism fails because neither democratic principles nor the nature of leadership require us to accept the first premise. Democrats can embrace leadership as legitimate when it comes into being through popular authorization and as appropriate when it serves democratic purposes. A democratic people can constitute leadership for instrumental reasons—because certain individuals have the capacities that the situation requires—without affirming that those individuals have a right to rule, simply by virtue of those capacities. Not even the singularly right person to lead a democracy has the right to lead it—unless the people have vested him or her with the power to do so. In democracies, the capacity to lead does not by itself confer a right to lead.
There may of course be prudential reasons for preferring some individuals over others to fill specific positions. In the same way that we seek a skilled plumber to fix a leak, we want able generals to conduct a war, and superior politicians to shape policy, because they know how to do something that promotes our good, as we understand that good. The people would be wise, then, to choose the ablest politicians as their leaders, and their leaders would be wise to select the best generals to command their forces. But in a democracy, generals do not legitimately lead unless the people’s representatives have authorized them to do so. Individual ability is relevant, but legitimacy is dispositive, and democratic legitimacy comes only through public consent. The people’s representatives may err, of course, and choose leaders who prove unequal to their task. President Lincoln promoted and then dismissed many generals before finding a few who could get the job done. As Army Chief of Staff, George C. Marshall did the same thing during World War II. The people have the right to make mistakes, but only their decisions can confer legitimacy. There is no conflict—in principle—between democratic equality and leadership. Moral equality—I have my own life to lead, and my interests count no more and no less than yours—is consistent with inequality of talents in every walk of life, including politics. Moral equality is the basis of popular sovereignty, which James Madison called the republican principle—a form of government that “derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.” This principle is the core of democratic legitimacy. Consistent with legitimacy so understood, the people may authorize whatever institutions they choose, including institutions of leadership, with the proviso that they may revise or revoke such authorization as they see fit.
That said, well designed democratic institutions endeavor to narrow the gap between the authorization to lead and capacity to lead well. Odd as it may sound, elections may be understood as an example of this effort. While they reflect the public’s will, they are also designed to select individuals with the requisite talent and character to discharge the duties of public office. As Aristotle observed, a lottery is the most purely democratic way of selecting public officials; elections have an aristocratic tendency (1984: IV, 9). America’s founding generation was well aware of this tendency, and celebrated it. Defending the proposed Constitution’s means of selecting the president, Alexander Hamilton declared in Federalist 68 that it would afford a “moral certainty” that the office would seldom fall to any man “who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications” (The Federalist Papers 1961: 414). Indeed, he continued, “there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue.” In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. . . . May we not even say that that form of government is best, which provides the most
William A. Galston
effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?” This, he argued, was the genius of our constitution order, “to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudoaristoi, the separation of the wheat from the chaff.” As a general matter (though not in every case), we can rely on the people to make discriminating judgments, to “elect the really good and wise” (Mason 1965: 385).
Although selecting leaders by lot is more consistent with anti-elitist sentiments, I am unaware of any modern democracy that has used this procedure for offices of any significance. William F. Buckley once remarked that he would rather be governed by the first four hundred people listed in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, but this represented a judgment on the deficiencies of Harvard rather than the merits of the lot. Some small towns have resorted to randomizing devices such as coin tosses to break tie votes for local offices, but invariably not much is at stake in such choices. Even in America, the people recognize that elections allow them to make comparative judgments about qualifications for office. The candidates may be equal in the sight of God and the law while differing in their capacity to fill positions of responsibility.
The Populist Challenge to Good Democratic Leadership
Leadership comes into conflict, not with the principle of democracy, but with the psychology of democracy. One aspect of this psychology is populism. This stance—a complex of sentiments and beliefs—includes at least the following:
• leveling—the belief that common sense trumps expertise and that ordinary citizens are better suited to make decisions than are the experts;
• animus against hierarchy—an instinctive bridling against taking orders from anyone;
• suspicion of power as inherently corrupt and self-dealing;
• fear of discretionary authority as unaccountable and prone to abuse;
• mistrust of distance between the people and those chosen to represent them and with it, the desire for officials they can see and judge directly;
• relatedly, mistrust of anything less than full transparency;
• and finally, the demand for constant, as opposed to episodic, explanation and accountability.
Kane and Patapan are right to see this populist syndrome as at odds with the exercise of leadership. Carried too far, it is at odds with the people’s own interests, as they themselves understand their interests. They are also right to
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Title: Kant prolegomenái minden leendő metafizikához
Author: Immanuel Kant
Translator: Bernát Alexander
Release date: May 31, 2022 [eBook #68216]
Language: Hungarian
Original publication: Hungary: Franklin, 1909
Credits: Albert László from page images generously made available by the Hungarian National Digital Archive
START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KANT
Megjegyzés:
A tartalomjegyzék a XIX. oldalon található.
FILOZÓFIAI IRÓK TÁRA.
KANT PROLEGOMENÁI MINDEN LEENDŐ METAFIZIKÁHOZ, MELY TUDOMÁNYKÉNT FOG SZEREPELHETNI.
FILOZÓFIAI IRÓK TÁRA.
A MAGYAR TUDOMÁNYOS AKADÉMIA TÁMOGATÁSÁVAL
SZERKESZTIK
ALEXANDER
BERNÁT ÉS BÁNÓCZI JÓZSEF.
NYOLCZADIK KÖTET.
KANT PROLEGOMENÁI MINDEN LEENDŐ METAFIZIKÁHOZ, MELY TUDOMÁNYKÉNT FOG SZEREPELHETNI.
BUDAPEST.
FRANKLIN-TÁRSULAT
MAGYAR IROD. INTÉZET ÉS KÖNYVNYOMDA. 1909.
KANT PROLEGOMENÁI MINDEN LEENDŐ
METAFIZIKÁHOZ,
MELY TUDOMÁNYKÉNT FOG
SZEREPELHETNI.
FORDITOTTA S BEVEZETÉSSEL ELLÁTTA
ALEXANDER BERNÁT.
MÁSODIK JAVITOTT ÉS BŐVITETT KIADÁS.
BUDAPEST.
FRANKLIN-TÁRSULAT
MAGYAR IROD. INTÉZET ÉS KÖNYVNYOMDA.
FRANKLIN-TÁRSULAT NYOMDÁJA.
ELŐSZÓ A MÁSODIK KIADÁSHOZ.
Hogy Kant Prolegomenáinak magyar fordításából új kiadásra van szükség és a Tiszta Ész Kritikájának első kiadása is immár teljesen elfogyott, annak biztató jeléül tekinthetjük, hogy hazánkban is a komolyabb filozófiai tanulmányoknak ideje elérkezett. Kötelességemnek tartottam ezt a fordítást is, mint Descartes-ot és Hume-ot gondosan átnézni, simítani, kijavítani, magyarosabbá tenni, hogy az olvasót a fordításból származó idegenszerűségek és nehézségek mentül kisebb mértékben akadályozzák tanulmányában. Fölhasználtam a porosz akadémia nagy Kantkiadásának kritikailag javított szövegét, melynek alapján a szöveg néhány helyét szabatosabban és helyesebben fordíthattam. A bevezetésben tekintettel voltam az azóta fölmerült kutatásokra, ámbár a legtöbb esetben az eredmény negativ volt; mind Erdmann, mind Vaihinger föltevéseit el kellett utasítanom. A fordítás fárasztó revizióját és javítását örömmel végeztem. Mennél tovább foglalkoztam e művel, annál inkább éreztem, hogy örökbecsű remekművel foglalkozom, melynek az első megjelenése óta lefolyt százhuszonöt év semmit se tudott ártani.
Budapest, október havában.
Alexander Bernát.
A FORDÍTÓ BEVEZETÉSE.
A «Prolegomenák» 1783-ban, két évvel Kant főműve, a « Ti s z t a é s z k r i t i k á j a », után jelent meg s e kis mű már e körülménynél fogva is kiváló fontosságú Kant gondolatainak megértésére. A «Tiszta ész kritikája» mint architektonikus rendszerességgel szerkesztett nagyszabású s terjedelmű munka, e rendszeressége mellett is, vagy talán épen miatta bonyodalmas, belsőleg nehezen áttekinthető egész; mint hosszú, tizenegy évig tartó megfeszített gondolkozás eredménye pedig, mely teljesen uj útat tör magának, sok helyütt homályos is, nem az előadás külső, hanem a gondolatkifejtés belső okainál fogva. A soká egy pontra összepontosított gondolkodás könnyen elveszti közvetetlenségét s azt az elfogulatlanságát, melynél fogva az író saját gondolatait a felvilágosítandó olvasó szemével is tudja nézni s ennek szükségletei szerint előadni; az író nem uralkodik többé gondolata fölött, hogy részeit az olvasó számára leleményesen elrendezhesse, hanem a gondolat uralkodik ő rajta s keletkezésének előttünk ismeretlen körülményei szerint jut kifejezésre. Mindez megváltozhatik, mihelyt a mű kilép a világba s ezzel némileg idegenné válik saját irója előtt is. Fogyatkozásai könnyebben feltárúlnak előtte, főleg az előadásbeliek, mert az író most az olvasó szemével látja a művét s részben innét van, hogy oly gyakran elégedetlen vele. Némi efféle elégedetlenséget érzett Kant a «Tiszta ész kritikája» megjelenése után. Szilárd meggyőződése volt, hogy korszakos munkát végzett, mely új fejlődést szab a filozofiának, de jogosúltnak ismerte el azt a kifejezést, «hogy műve itt-ott homályos» (9. l.1)), hogy e homályosságnak részben legalább az előadás az oka, melyet első izben nem lehetett mindenütt elég jól berendezni. (11. l.) Ez indította a «Prolegomenák» megírására. A «Prolegomenák» Kant saját
nyilatkozata szerint «előkészítő gyakorlatok» a főműhez (9. l.), melynek alaprajzát, tervét adják. (11. l.) «E terv alapján azután áttekinthetjük az egészet, egyenkint megvizsgálhatjuk a főpontokat, melyeken minden megfordúl s az előadást «egyben-másban jobban berendezhetjük, mint a mű első kidolgozása alkalmával lehetett.» (11. l.) A «Prolegomenák»-ban tehát Kant újra, rövidebben s áttekinthetőbben adja elő a «Tiszta ész kritikája» tartalmát s minthogy a «Tiszta ész kritikája» homályosságáról még ma sem szüntek meg a panaszok, érthető, hogy ama nagy vitában, mely Kant gondolatairól több mint száz év óta folyik, a «Prolegomenák»-at mindig a legfontosabb okiratok egyikének tekintették. E szempont vezette a «Filozófiai Írók Tára» kiadóit is, hogy mielőtt a «Tiszta ész kritikája» magyar fordítását kiadnák, ennek különben se könnyű útját a «Prolegomenák» fordításával egyengessék.
Kantnak idézett nyilatkozata azonban, hogy a «Prolegomenák» t e r v r a j z á t adják a «Tiszta ész kritiká»-jának, csak metaforikus módon, tehát tökéletlenűl jelzi a «Prolegomenák» sajátosságát. A «Prolegomenák» puszta tervrajznál sokkal többet foglalnak magukban. Némely része valóban nem egyéb mint a főmű megfelelő részeinek puszta kivonata, néha csak tartalomjegyzéke, mely magában kevéssé érthető, tehát csekély jelentőségű is; de a műnek első fele igazi átdolgozása a «Kritika» megfelelő szakaszának, meglepő világosságú új feltüntetése, mely nemcsak mint előkészítő gyakorlat a rendszer tanulmányozásához, hanem mint vezérfonal a rendszer megvizsgálásában is fontos szolgálatot tehet. Az a gondolattömeg, mely a «Kritiká» – ban némely helyütt oly nehézkésen rendezkedik el, a «Kritika» megjelenése után nem merevedik meg azonnal; kezd átalakúlni, tisztúlni, habár némelykor úgy, hogy a rendszerben megoldatlan s megoldhatatlan kérdések szirtjei tisztább előadásban csak láthatóbbakká válnak.
E világosodási folyamat hat évig tart a «Tiszta ész kritikája» második kiadása megjelenéseig 1787-ben, s ez út mentében a Prolegomenák fontos állomást jeleznek. Még ma is vitatott az a kérdés, hogy a «Tiszta ész kritikája» második kiadásának az elsőtől való eltérései mily jelentőségüek, pusztán formaiak-e, vagy pedig elvi változtatásokat foglalnak-e magukban? E kérdés eldöntésére is
a Prolegomenák figyelmes vizsgálata mellőzhetetlen. A Prolegomenák mind a rendszer fejlődésének, mind pedig értelmének megértésében egyaránt fontos szolgálatot tehetnek.
A következőkben nem térhetünk ki mind e kérdések tárgyalására. Ez megkívánná a rendszernek bő ismertetését, mely feladatra egy külön műben ( K a n t Élete, fejlődése és filozofiája, írta A l e x a n d e r Bernát. I. kötet. Budapest 1881. A. m. t. Akadémia könyvkiadó vállalatában) vállalkoztunk. De ez föltételezné azt is, hogy akik a Prolegomenákat olvassák, a «Tiszta ész kritikáját» már ismerjék. S habár ezekre is kell, hogy tekintettel legyünk, a következőkben mégis inkább azokhoz fordulunk, kik a «Prolegomenák» olvasásával m e g k e z d i k Kant rendszere tanulmányozását. Ezeket akarjuk röviden a mű keletkezéséről, szerkezetéről, sajátosságairól felvilágosítani, a magyarázatokat s ama kérdések taglalását, melyek Kant gondolatainak fejlődésére vonatkoznak, a «Tiszta ész kritikája» kiadásában fogjuk adni.
I. A Prolegomenák keletkezése.
A mű keletkezése első nyomáról H a m a n n levelei tudósítanak bennünket. (Hamann-nak Kanthoz való viszonyát l. a fordító «Kant»jában 131–137. l.) Hamann 1781 augusztus 5-ikén írja Herdernek: «Kant szándékozik Kritikája népszerű kivonatát laikusok számára is kiadni» (Hamann művei Roth kiadásában VI. k. 202. l.) s nehány nappal később azt írja Hartknochnak: «Kant Kritikájának népszerű kivonatáról beszél, melyet, mint igéri, laikusok számára fog kiadni.» Haman-nak e szavai azonban épen nem tekinthetők a megírandó mű kimerítő programmjának. Ha e szók «népszerű kivonat» magától Kanttól származnak is, azért még nem tudhatjuk, mit értett Kant «népszerű kivonat»-on. Vajjon a főpontok egyszerű, világos előadása, a részletek mellőzésével, nem népszerű előadás-e a szó legjobb értelmében? A P r o l e g o m e n á k -ról nem mondhatni-e, hogy ily értelemben a legkitünőbb népszerű művek közt foglalnak helyet? S hogy mivé válik majd a mű kidolgozás közben, midőn
esetleg egészen más, új körülmények is érvényesíthetik befolyásukat, nem árulhatta el ama cím, mely amúgy is Kant szándékát legfölebb jelezte, de nem jellemezhette. – Mikor fogott hozzá Kant a mű megírásához, Hamann leveleiből nem tudhatjuk meg. Hamann 1781-ben s 1782 elején folyton kérdezősködik barátainál, mikor lesz meg a mű (l. az illető levélrészek összeállítását Emil Arnoldt kis művében: «Kant’s Prolegomena nicht doppelt redigirt.» Berlin, 1879. 26–28 l. továbbá újabban az említett porosz akadémiai kiadásban Benno Erdmann tanulmányát IV. k. 598–607 l.), de úgy látszik, csak 1782 ápril táján tud meg valami biztosat. Mert mindaddig majd «kivonatnak», majd «tankönyvnek» vagy «olvasókönyvnek», majd a Kritika «pótlásának» nevezi a megírandó művet; 1782 ápril 21-én már egy még megírandó metafizika «prolegomenáinak» nevezi, tehát körülbelül a végleges címet adja meg neki (Prolegomena einer noch zu schreibenden Metaphysik), habár igen jól tudja, hogy voltakép csak a Kritika «magyarázatát», «mellékletét» fogja benne találni.
Közben ugyanis, 1782 január 19-én megjelent az első birálat a Tiszta ész kritikájáról, a Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigenben (L. «Kant» I. 433. l. ff.), mely nagy mértékben hatott Kantra és a Prolegomenák megirását is siettette. Ama birálat írója teljesen félreértette, jobban mondva, nem értette meg Kant gondolatait s általában nem is sejtette a mű jelentőségét. Ama számos kisérletek egyikének tartotta, melyek homályos nyelven régi gondolatokat elevenítenek föl s nem az igazságot, hanem a feltűnést keresik. Kant el volt készűlve rá, hogy gondolatai mind újságuknál, mind mély s alapvető voltuknál fogva csak lassan s nehezen fognak érvényesűlni, de e küzdelem első tünete a göttingai bírálatban mégis mélyen bántotta. Nagyítva a bírálat jelentőségét, mintegy kockáztatva látta hosszú, fáradságos munkájának lassan megérlelt gyümölcsét s e balesetet részben annak is tulajdonította, hogy nem adta meg művének azt a közérthetőséget, mely hatását biztosíthatta volna. Ha eddig talán bele sem fogott még a tervezett kis mű irásába, most nemcsak megírja, de határozottabbá vált céllal és szándékkal írja meg. Ha egyáltalán ilyenre gondolt volt eddig, most már szó sem lehetett többé tiszta kivonatról. Népszerűséget se kereshetett többé a szó
közönséges értelmében. Nem a nagyközönséget kellett első sorban felvilágosítani, hanem azokat, kik ily könyvekről bírálatot írnak, a filozófia tanítóit. Azért mindjárt első sora a műnek mondja: «E prolegomenák nem tanulók, hanem leendő tanítók használatára valók.» S már a mű címében fel kell tüntetni nemcsak a Ti s z t a é s z k r i t i k á j a tendenciáját, hanem a P r o l e g o m e n á k polemikus élét is. Mert a Ti s z t a é s z k r i t i k á j a abból a szempontból itélendő meg, hogy metafizika eddig egyáltalán nem volt s a Ti s z t a é s z k r i t i k á j a veti meg először annak a tudománynak az alapját, mely ezentúl a metafizika helyébe fog lépni. Még ezt sem vette észre ama bírálat szerzője, s azért a P r o l e g o m e n á k főleg erre fogják a közfigyelmet terelni. Ki fogják mutatni, hogy az eddigi metafizikának egyáltalán nincs értéke, s a Ti s z t a é s z k r i t i k á j a valósággal forradalmat idéz elő a filozófia terén. Azért a «Prolegomenák» nem közönséges prolegomenák (bevezetés) a metafizikához, hanem prolegomenák «minden leendő metafizikához, mely tudományként fog szerepelhetni». S azért a mű elején is, végén is olyatén módon jelzi a P r o l e g o m e n á k célját, hogy e mű mintegy tervnek tekintessék, melynek alapján a főművet, minden pontját egyenkint, meg lehet majd vizsgálni. (L. 11. és 125. l.) S annyira beleélte magát e gondolatba, hogy nem tekintve keresztülvitelének lehetetlenségét, komolyan ajánl formális vizsgálatfélét. «Azt ajánlom, minthogy lehetetlen terjedelmes épületet futólagos áttekintéssel azonnal egészben itélni meg, hogy vizsgálják meg alapjától kezdve részenként s használják ennél e Prolegomenákat általános tervrajz gyanánt, melylyel azután alkalmilag maga a mű hasonlítható egybe.» (125. l.) «A vizsgálat tervrajzáúl s vezérfonaláúl pedig azért ajánlom e Prolegomenákat, nem pedig magát a művet, mert ami az utóbbinak tartalmát, rendjét, tanítási módját s azt a gondosságot illeti, melyet minden tételre fordítottam, hogy mielőtt felállítom, pontosan megmérem s vizsgálom, még most is egészen meg vagyok vele elégedve (mert évek kellettek hozzá, míg nem csak az egésszel, hanem némelykor csak egy tételével is forrásait illetőleg meg voltam elégedve); de előadásommal az elemtan némely szakaszaiban nem vagyok teljesen megelégedve, példáúl az értelmi fogalmak dedukciójában vagy a tiszta ész paralogizmusaiban, mert
bizonyos terjedelmesség ott kárára van a világosságnak. Ezek helyett a vizsgálat alapjáúl az szolgálhat, amit e szakaszokra vonatkozólag a Prolegomenák mondanak.» (126. l.)
«Hogy a tudósoknak ily célra való törekvéseit mikép lehetne egyesíteni, ennek eszközeit kigondolni másokra kell bíznom.» (127. l.) – Egy külön függelékben pedig egyenesen ama bírálattal s egy időközben megjelent más bírálattal is foglalkozik (1782 aug. 24. a Gothaische gelehrte Zeitungenben jelent meg Ewald bírálata, amelyet Kant második helyen 125. l. említ) s az első ellen sújtó ellenbírálatot ír.
A munka megírása pedig gyorsan halad előre, valószínűleg 4–6 hónap alatt készűl el. 1782 ápril havában már tudták Königsbergben, hogy a P r o l e g o m e n á k készülnek s augusztus havában már azt írja Hamann, hogy, amint hallja, Kant már tisztába is írta a művet. 1782 végén már megkezdték a mű nyomását, mely 1783 elején megjelent a könyvpiacon.2)
II. A mű szerkezete.
A Prolegomenáknak az előbbiekben elmondott keletkezési története egy sajátságos föltevésre adott alkalmat. Benno E r d m a n n , ki nehány kitűnő művel gazdagította a Kant-irodalmat, abból a nézetből indul ki, hogy ama kivonat, melyről Hamann szól, jóformán készen volt, mikor a göttingai bírálat megjelent. A bírálat megjelenése Erdmann nézete szerint arra birta Kantot, hogy a kivonat hátralevő részét rövidítve befejezze, s ebbe a most már kész kivonatba számos történeti s kritikai toldásokat közbeszúrjon. A «Prolegomenák» tehát két alkotó részből állanának, a kivonatból s a polemikus élű toldásokból, melyek oly különböző természetűek, hogy pusztán tartalmukat tekintve, határozottan föl lehet ismerni, hogy mi melyik részből való. Erdmann annyira bízik e föltevésében, hogy ennek alapján készítette a Prolegomenák új kiadását, s
tipografiailag is, a toldásokat kisebb betűkkel szedetvén, megkülönböztette a két alkotó részt egymástól.3)
E föltevés szerint:
Eredeti kivonat.
§. 1–2. (12–16 l.)
§. 4. (17–21 l.) két darab kivételével.
§. 5. (22–26 l.) három darab kivételével.
§. 6.–13. az I. jegyzetig (27–33).
§. 14–22. (40–50 l.)
§. 23–26. (51–56 l.)
§. 32–34. (60–62 l.)
§. 35–38. (62–67 l.)
§. 40–48. (73–81 l.)
§. 49. egy mondat kivételével (82–83.)
§. 50–52b. (84 l.)
§. 52c–56. (87–96 l.)
Későbbi toldás.
Bevezetés 3–11 l.
§. 3. (16–17 l.)
§. 4 ben 18 l. De nem tehetem – Voltaképen met. ítéletet és 21 l. A Tiszta ész kritikájában – Szerencsés eset.
§. 5-ben 22 l. De itt nem kell – határait megállapíthassuk; a 22. l. a jegyzet; a 23 l. De a mily mellőzhetetlen – Mind a metafizikusok.
§. 13-ban az I., II. és III. jegyzet (33–39 l.)
§. 22-ben a jegyzet. (51 l.)
§. 27–31. (56–60 l.)
§. 34-ben a jegyzet. (61 l.)
§. 39. (68–72 l.)
§. 40-ben a jegyzet (74 l.)
§. 49-ben ilyetén módon – idealizmust. 83 l. 10. sor al.
§. 52-ben a jegyzet 84 l.
§. 57. – a mű végeig. (96–128 l.)
E r d m a n n föltevése a szöveg éles megfigyelésén alapszik s hasznos szolgálatot is tehet a mű tanulmányozásában, figyelmeztetvén Kant gondolatmenetének kitéréseire, polemikus fordulataira s ez okból közöltük részletesen Erdmann szövegfelosztását; de magát a föltevést jogosulatlannak és szükségtelennek, a szöveg felosztását pedig, amennyiben a művet két különböző időben s különböző célzattal készült részre akarja bontani, teljesen önkényesnek tartjuk, amiért is Erdmann szövegfelosztását fordításunk kiadásánál teljesen mellőznünk kellett.
Külső okok nemcsak nem kényszerítenek e föltevésre, de nem is támogatják. Csakis Hamann révén tudjuk, hogy Kant népszerű kivonatot akart írni; de hogy Kant maga élt-e «népszerű kivonat» szókkal; s ha élt velük, mit értett rajtuk; s ha valóban puszta népszerű kivonatot akart csinálni, bele fogott-e ebbe a munkába; s ha belefogott, fölhasználta-e azt, amit írt, a Prolegomenákban: minderről nem tudunk semmit. Sőt nem is valószínű, hogy a szó közönséges értelmében népszerű művet akart írni; valószínűbb, hogy elejétől fogva csak rövidebben s már azért is áttekinthetőbben, közérthetőbben s ily értelemben népszerűen akarta előadni a k r i t i k a alapelveit. Minthogy azonban Hamann leveleiből tudjuk, hogy 1782. elején, mielőtt a göttingai bírálat megjelent, az erkölcsök metafizikáján dolgozott, semmi sem támogatja azt a föltevést, hogy ugyanakkor a kivonaton is dolgozott. Ha pedig Hamann igazat mondott, ha Kant valóban laikusoknak írt volt valamit, nem valószínű, hogy amit írt, felhasználta abban a munkában, melyet mint mindjárt az első sorban mondja, leendő tanítóknak szánt. Hamann-nak egy odavetett nyilatkozatára semmikép sem lehet oly kényes műveletet alapítani, minő a mű szövegének elejétől végig való ketté osztása s tipografiai, tehát az olvasásban rendkívűl zavaró, megkülönböztetése.
Belső okok sem pótolják a külsők gyengeségét. Mert ha valószínű, hogy a göttingai bírálat előtt Kant kivonatot nem írt, hogy az egész művet a bírálat megjelenése után írta, mi ok szólhat amellett, hogy a mű két alkotó részből lett összeszerkesztve? Az, hogy a bírálatra vonatkozó polemikus, cáfoló s bizonyító szavak akadnak a műben? De hiszen az egész mű a bírálat megjelenése
után készült, miért ne lehetne benne vonatkozás e bírálatra? Vagy talán az, hogy e vonatkozások némikép elkülöníthetők a többi részektől? Ez a vonatkozások természetéből következik, melyeknek a gondolatmenet fősodrától el kell válniok. Talán az adna okot e föltevésre, hogy nagyon sok a műben a kitérés, jegyzet, mellékes észrevétel, nincs egységes szervezete, meglátszik rajta, hogy sok helyütt toldva-foldva van? De melyik műve Kantnak nem ilyen? A többiekhez képest a P r o l e g o m e n á k még művészileg van szerkesztve. A «Tiszta ész bírálatában» némely helyütt a legfontosabb fejtegetések jegyzetekbe szorulnak. A P r o l e g o m e n á k o n meglátszik, hogy egyhuzamba rövid idő alatt készültek, főkép az I. és II. rész, melyek gondolatmenete gyorsan és szorosan halad célja felé. Hogy ismételt átolvasásnál a szerzőnek egyik-másik dolog eszébe jutott, mely vagy mint közbeszúrás, vagy mint jegyzet találta meg helyét, melynek beletoldása vagy észrevétlenül elsimíttatott, vagy többé-kevésbbé kilátszott, az főleg Kantnál oly természetes, de különben is annyira vele jár minden tudományos mű készítésével, hogy legkevésbbé sem adhat jogalapot oly merész föltevésre, minő Erdmannt a Prolegomenák szövegének kiadásánál vezette.
Állíthatni-e végűl, hogy az állítólagos kivonat tartalma más mivoltú, mint a szupponált későbbi toldások, hogy talán ellenmondások, vagy legalább a gondolat nevezetes változásai találkoznak bennük? Az magában is teljesen valószínűtlen, mert még Erdmann nézete szerint is oly rövid időköz választja el egymástól a két alkatrész kidolgozását, hogy ez idő alatt Kantnak 12 év óta megszilárdult gondolatsorai nem bomolhattak szét, vagy változhattak meg. Erdmann maga sem vetemedik ily állításokra. Csak azt fejtegeti, hogy összehasonlítva a K r i t i k á v a l , a Prolegomenák kivonat-jellegű része egyben-másban a bizonyítási mód javítását, a toldások pedig egyes gondolatoknak erősebb kidomborítását, s a gondolatok továbbfejlődésének egyes csiráit mutatják. De ennek az eredménynek a leszármaztatására teljesen fölösleges volt apodiktikus bizonyossággal ketté választani a Prolegomenák egységes szövegét, mintha csak Kant eredeti kézirata vagy önvallomása feküdt volna a kiadó előtt. Igen
veszedelmes præcedens volna, ha szövegkiadásoknál a kiadó képzeletének, szubjektiv vélekedésének ekkora hatalmat engednénk meg.4)
III. A «lapcsere».
Csakhamar Erdmann nagy szövegkritikai akciója után H. Vaihinger is, a ki a Kant-kutatás terén nagy érdemeket szerzett, szövegkritikai fölfedezéssel lépett elő, melyet «Eine Blattversetzung in Kants Prolegomena c. a. a Philosophische Monatshefte»-ben (Ascherson Schaarschmidt. XV. k.) tett közzé (321–332 l.).
Ugyanebben a kötetben ugyanezen a czímen (513–532. l.) ennek az általa fölfedezett lapcserének történeti hatásait fejtegette. E folyóirat XVI. kötetében hozzászólván az Erdmann-Arnoldt-féle vitához, ujra előhozakodik felfedezésével, melyet odáig senki sem bántott volt, míg végre a XIX. kötetben J. H. Witte (Die angebliche «Blattversetzung in Kants Prolegomena» 145–174. l.) igen alaposan végzett Vaihinger fölfedezésével. Ezek után az egész ügy épen csak ezen a helyen érdemel rövid említést; szövegkritikai értéke nincsen, de hozzájárulhat hamis föltevéseivel a Prolegomenák illető helyei gondolatmenetének élesebb föltüntetéséhez.
Vaihinger a Prolegomenák 2. és 4. paragrafusát (l. fordításunkban al. 13–17. l. és 17–21. l.) nem találja rendben. A 2. §. felirata ez: Az ismeretnek ama fajáról, mely egyedül metafizikainak nevezhető. Célja tehát a metafizikai megismerés sajátosságát feltüntetni. Melyik az a sajátosság? Az, hogy a metafizikai itéletek szintetikusok, még pedig a priori. De ebben a §-ban c) alatt szó van a tapasztalati és a mathematikai itéletekről, mint a melyek szintetikusak. Hogy a metafizikai itéletek is szintetikusak, még csak nem is említtetik. A dolog annál feltűnőbb, mert az idézett helyen (14. l. c első pont vége) külön megmondja, «előbb osztályozni akarom a szintetikai itéleteket», föl is sorolja sub 1. a tapasztalati, sub 2. a mathematikai itéleteket, de a metafizikai itéleteket nem említi. A 2. §-ban tehát hiányzik a metafizikai itéletek említése. Ezt
megtaláljuk a 4. §-ban, a hová pedig nem való. Ebben a 4. §-ban az első pontban szóvá tétetik, hogy metafizika mint tudomány nem létezik, mintha már előbb szó lett volna a metafizikai itéletekről; sőt határozott utalás is történik a 2. §. lit. c-ra (18. l. 2. sor felülről), holott az említett helyen az illető gondolatot nem találjuk meg; ellenben a 4. §. 4 pontja egyszerre megadja azt a fejtegetést, melyet a 2. §-ban hiába kerestünk. («Voltaképi metafizikai itéletek mind szintetikaiak stb. 19. l.) Ez a 4. pont semmiféle összefüggésben nincsen a 2. és 3. ponttal, melyekben a mathematikai itéletekről van szó; ellenben az 5. és 6. pont logikai folytatása a 4-nek. A 6. pont így kezdődik: Der Schluss dieses Paragraphes ist also, holott a 4. §. nem ezzel a ponttal végződik, még három jő utána. Továbbá a 4. §. felirata ez: Lehetséges-e egyáltalán metafizika? az előbb idézett német szavak után pedig ez következik, dass Metaphysik es eigentlich mit synthetischen Sätzen a priori zu thun habe. Ez nem felelet arra a kérdésre, melyet a §. felirata kitűzött; erre a kérdésre azonban igenis a következő pontok adnak feleletet. Mindezek és még néhány itt mellőzhető okadat alapján Vaihinger abszolut biztosnak mondja, hogy a szedő tévedése folytán állott be ez a zavar. A szedő a 4. §nak 2., 3., 4., 5., 6. pontját (a mi fordításunkban a 18. lapon onnét kezdve: A tiszta mathematikai ismeret lényeges… a 20. lapon egészen odáig: a filozófiai ismeret szinthetikai a priori tételeinek megalkotása) tévedésből tette ide a 4. §-ba, holott ez a 2. §-ba tartozik, a végére (fordításunkban 16. l. az utolsó mondat után: hanem csak valamely szemlélet segítségével járul). Ez a csere véget vet az egész zavarnak, melyet most találunk. Hogy a szedő mikép tévedhetett így, mellékes. Ha Erdmannnak igaza van, akkor a kézirat egy része úgyis külön betoldott lapokból állott. Nevezetesebb az, hogy Kant miért nem tesz valahol említést erről a nagy tévedésről. Talán csak észrevette? De a birálók és fordítók közül senki sem tesz róla említést, sem Hamann, a ki oly feszült érdeklődéssel várta és olvasta a művet, sem a többiek, sem Tissot a franczia, sem Kunhardt a latin fordító. Ellenben Kant ellenfeleit ez a lapcsere vitte veszedelmes tévedésekbe, így Eberhardot és másokat. Itt azután Vaihingeren is megesik, hogy míg a 330. l. azt állítja, hogy K. bizonyára észrevette a lapcserét (der doch wohl diese Blattversetzung merkte), néhány hónappal később (519. l.)
