WEBVTT NOTE Comments 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.800 Well, I'd like to begin by apologizing to three of the panelists. 2 00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:16.880 Stephen Crowe sent me his paper last week, so I had a chance to read it in some detail. 3 00:00:16.880 --> 00:00:23.880 And I only saw Huntouli's paper yesterday, and the other two papers I just glanced at, 4 00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:26.200 so I have to apologize to three of the people. 5 00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:32.080 Well, I haven't really had time to study your papers very much in detail. 6 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:41.800 Now, on Stephen Crowe's paper, I thought it was an excellent paper, but the basic difference 7 00:00:41.800 --> 00:00:48.040 I have with him is that he gives what I consider an excellent argument for anarchism. 8 00:00:48.040 --> 00:00:54.060 He said, well, people in a state of nature could establish certain rules of governance 9 00:00:54.060 --> 00:01:02.420 Among Themselves, and this wouldn't require having one person or one group, a sort of 10 00:01:02.420 --> 00:01:08.180 sovereign ruling over them. Now, as a follower of Murray Rothbard, I of course find this 11 00:01:08.180 --> 00:01:15.660 a very good argument, but I don't see at all that this is a Hobbesian anarchism. Now, he 12 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:21.020 said it fulfills his three conditions, but one of the, I mean, his third condition was 13 00:01:21.020 --> 00:01:26.860 something like you have a sovereignism man or a group of men and it isn't if you 14 00:01:26.860 --> 00:01:31.860 have an anarchist system it's just system governance if you want to say well 15 00:01:31.860 --> 00:01:39.020 something would fulfill the conditions of what it would do what Hobbes wants 16 00:01:39.020 --> 00:01:45.620 much better than the idea Hobbes has that's fine but then you're not giving a 17 00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:50.660 Hobbesian solution you're rejecting what Hobbes is doing so I don't see in what 18 00:01:50.660 --> 00:01:56.340 What senses is a Hobbesian anarchism? It's taking Hobbes's starting point and saying 19 00:01:56.340 --> 00:02:05.220 that Hobbes was wrong about things. Now, on the criticism of Levin, I'm not sure the two 20 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:12.100 points were right. Now, the first of his criticisms was, well, if people surrendered their swords 21 00:02:12.100 --> 00:02:17.940 to the sovereign, then this doesn't change human nature. People would still want to fight, 22 00:02:17.940 --> 00:02:22.180 the propensity to fight each other just as they had this state of nature they 23 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:25.780 wouldn't have changed their nature now that's certainly right I don't think 24 00:02:25.780 --> 00:02:28.980 Levin is assuming the contrary it's not that he thinks people would all be 25 00:02:28.980 --> 00:02:34.820 converted into pacifists it's just that he's thinking that in the state of 26 00:02:34.820 --> 00:02:38.940 nature there would be somewhat of an arms race you want you want to have a 27 00:02:38.940 --> 00:02:43.560 sword because the other person has one then if he has a better sword you'd want 28 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:49.960 have more of that, so you could kind of avoid this arms race by giving all your weapons 29 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:50.960 as sovereign. 30 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:55.080 Of course, again, the difficulty, well, then we're all having to rely on the sovereign, 31 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:58.640 the person with all the swords, doesn't seem like a very good deal. 32 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:03.640 And then on the second criticism was that, well, if you did that, in what sense would 33 00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:07.520 the state be minimal, you know, then the state would be, the sovereign would be having enormous 34 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:08.520 amount of power. 35 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:11.720 Well, I think that's certainly right, but I think what Levin means by minimal would 36 00:03:11.720 --> 00:03:19.800 would just be minimal functions, not minimal power, but it would just be not having other 37 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.440 functions. Of course, you'd have a problem how you could stop the sovereign from doing 38 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:30.960 other things, but I think that's what he means by minimal. Now, turning to Huntouli's paper, 39 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:37.000 as I said, I didn't have a chance to study this. I just saw it yesterday. The only suggestion 40 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:44.840 I'd have for him is, there is a very good book, an interesting book that came out around 41 00:03:44.840 --> 00:03:52.840 1921 by Nesta Webster called The French Revolution, a study of democracy that has a very much 42 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:57.980 detailed study of Philippe Gallet's role in the early stages of the French Revolution. 43 00:03:57.980 --> 00:03:59.560 She stresses that very much. 44 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:05.060 She of course was very controversial because some of her later works on conspiracy theories, 45 00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:12.500 I mean, when she stuck to French Revolution, she was quite good, in fact, in A. J. P. Taylor, 46 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:19.140 a great British historian, in a review of her two-volume book, Louis XVI and Ruy Antoinette, 47 00:04:20.580 --> 00:04:25.460 said in Manchester Guardian around 1937, this was one of the outstanding books on French history. 48 00:04:25.460 --> 00:04:29.380 So I think he should, I would suggest that that book, the French Revolution, 49 00:04:29.380 --> 00:04:34.340 is studying democracies worth adding to. Now, the only criticism I had of his paper 50 00:04:34.340 --> 00:04:41.060 is one, sadly for me, he rectified in the later part of his paper. In the first part, he referred 51 00:04:41.780 --> 00:04:46.580 to Louis Philippe as King of France, and it's correctly, as he had later correctly, 52 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:52.020 as King of the French, not King of France. He's very important because he was indicating that 53 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:57.780 his power came from the people, you know, just like Napoleon was crowned French emperor, not 54 00:04:57.780 --> 00:05:04.760 not Emperor of France, so unlike Louis XVIII and Charles X, Louis-Philippe was, as Hunt 55 00:05:04.760 --> 00:05:06.760 said, a citizen king. 56 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:14.420 I want to turn now to the paper by Colin Pearce, again an excellent paper, but it sounds like 57 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:19.060 I'd want to study this in detail, sounds like this is the one of the papers I'd have the 58 00:05:19.060 --> 00:05:21.900 most to disagree with. 59 00:05:21.900 --> 00:05:31.500 Now what Professor Pierce is indicating, he said, well, Rothbard was criticizing modern 60 00:05:31.500 --> 00:05:41.180 philosophy, particularly saying that Hume's dichotomy, saying this is a mistake, but that 61 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:49.020 in fact the real dichotomy between classical and modern philosophy came about with Hobbes 62 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:57.020 And the reason this gets Rothbard into trouble is not just that he's made a mistake in saying while we have, 63 00:05:57.020 --> 00:06:04.020 he's talking about Hume as the division when he should have said Hobbes, but this really strikes at the heart of his system. 64 00:06:04.020 --> 00:06:15.020 It isn't just a historical mistake because Rothbard is relying in his views on natural rights on Locke, 65 00:06:15.020 --> 00:06:22.460 Locke and Locke has really taken over Hobbes' view, sort of a passionate view that says 66 00:06:22.460 --> 00:06:30.420 that there isn't really a classical reason, but they're sort of reducing reason to the 67 00:06:30.420 --> 00:06:31.420 passions. 68 00:06:31.420 --> 00:06:40.900 And I think a problem with this view, it depends very much on the interpretation that Strauss 69 00:06:40.900 --> 00:06:47.500 Strauss in Natural Writing History gives of Locke where he thinks Locke is really somewhat 70 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:53.620 of a Hobbesian, but he's just trying to conceal this, that according to the way Strauss views 71 00:06:53.620 --> 00:07:01.220 things, Locke is someone who is kind of a hedonist, he just reduces morality to self-interest 72 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:06.900 and he doesn't really recognize an objective morality. 73 00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:13.020 Now, I tend to think this interpretation of Locke is quite questionable. I mean, that 74 00:07:13.020 --> 00:07:21.780 Locke talks about a natural, I mean, does think there's a natural law ethics in a pretty 75 00:07:21.780 --> 00:07:28.940 standard sense. I don't think that he's making this up. I find some of the arguments that 76 00:07:28.940 --> 00:07:34.500 Strauss and Barry Strauss has given in support of that reading of Locke are wrong. My opinion, 77 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:42.780 For example, Strauss and other Straussians like Michael Zuckert have said, well, according 78 00:07:42.780 --> 00:07:53.220 to law, natural law would depend on proving that, on thinking that the soul is immortal, 79 00:07:53.220 --> 00:07:57.180 but Locke admits he has no proof for that. 80 00:07:57.180 --> 00:07:59.260 But I don't find that argument convincing. 81 00:07:59.260 --> 00:08:03.420 I mean, you could just take that as an argument, that's what his argument is, that the soul 82 00:08:03.420 --> 00:08:08.140 was immortal, that morality depends on it, somewhat of like an argument that Kant gives 83 00:08:08.140 --> 00:08:14.740 in the critique of practical reason, you see. So, I mean, I don't find that at all a convincing 84 00:08:14.740 --> 00:08:22.100 line of attack. I don't think it's been shown that Locke just reduces morality to the passions 85 00:08:22.100 --> 00:08:26.660 in the way that Strauss and his followers have suggested. One could also raise criticism, 86 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:32.740 well, is this correct interpretation of Hobbes? I think here probably the Straussian argument 87 00:08:32.740 --> 00:08:37.520 is stronger, but still there are arguments to the contrary, for example, as you find 88 00:08:37.520 --> 00:08:43.700 in Howard Warander's book on Hobbes or Francis, who had defined politics of Hobbes, take a 89 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:45.060 very different view of Hobbes. 90 00:08:45.060 --> 00:08:50.940 So I think that questionable view, somewhat questionable view of Hobbes and much more 91 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:53.700 questionable view of Locke. 92 00:08:53.700 --> 00:08:59.740 So I don't think it's right that Rothbard would get into trouble because taking over 93 00:08:59.740 --> 00:09:05.700 or a Lockean view of rights, he's sort of reducing morality of the passion. 94 00:09:05.700 --> 00:09:13.380 I think what's actually involved here is Strauss was very much influenced in his views by the 95 00:09:13.380 --> 00:09:19.580 British socialist R.H. Taney, who was his great friend when he was in England in the 96 00:09:19.580 --> 00:09:20.580 1930s. 97 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:28.380 So he was taking over essentially certain anti-capitalist assumptions that Taney had 98 00:09:28.380 --> 00:09:32.700 about the development of modern world. I think you find this sort of that sort of 99 00:09:32.700 --> 00:09:40.180 there there's been a decline of virtue from the medieval and ancient world to 100 00:09:40.180 --> 00:09:43.980 the modern acquisitive world. This is exactly the view of Tawny, you know, his 101 00:09:43.980 --> 00:09:48.380 famous book, The Acquisitive Society and the English title of Sickness, the 102 00:09:48.380 --> 00:09:53.860 Acquisitive Society. So I think Strauss really took that over from Tawny and it's 103 00:09:53.860 --> 00:10:02.020 That's my view, great question of view. Now, on the separation of personal morality from 104 00:10:02.020 --> 00:10:07.560 political philosophy, I think the thing for Rothbard is key, that he has a very restricted 105 00:10:07.560 --> 00:10:13.940 conception of what political philosophy is, just when is it justifiable to use force. 106 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:20.900 So he isn't saying that you couldn't have, say, people like torture to people, we couldn't 107 00:10:20.900 --> 00:10:28.380 have social disapproval of this, but he asked the question, when would it be legitimate 108 00:10:28.380 --> 00:10:34.260 to use force to suppress agreements among people? 109 00:10:34.260 --> 00:10:41.240 And I think if one said, well, well, one just to return to the class, I think inequality 110 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:45.740 of the class, I think difficulty in that view is it would be very difficult to come up with 111 00:10:45.740 --> 00:10:51.180 with a Good Argument Against Slavery, if you accepted this classical view. 112 00:10:51.180 --> 00:11:14.420 And then just one minor point, I think Professor Pierce said that something that Strauss had 113 00:11:14.420 --> 00:11:23.100 refuted and really refuted Carl Schmitt's conception of Hobbes before, but I mean Schmitt's 114 00:11:23.100 --> 00:11:28.500 book on Hobbes really came out, although of course he talked about Hobbes before, his 115 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:35.220 book on Schmitt, the Levinathan State Theory, Thomas Hobbes came out in around 37 or 38, 116 00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:42.900 and that was after Hobbes' famous review of Schmitt in 32, I think, so I mean it wasn't 117 00:11:42.900 --> 00:11:49.340 that Strauss had refuted Schmidt on Hobbes in a way that Schmidt hadn't responded to. 118 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:56.540 Schmidt came on real stuff on Hobbes was later, not before. 119 00:11:56.540 --> 00:12:11.060 Now, the last paper by Mr. Bielen, I thought was an excellent paper I agreed with most 120 00:12:11.060 --> 00:12:14.900 Professor, but I find myself a little bit in the uncomfortable position of having to 121 00:12:14.900 --> 00:12:18.580 defend Hegel. 122 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:26.140 Now the title of his paper was something like, is history going anywhere? 123 00:12:26.140 --> 00:12:32.980 But what Hegel seems to be saying is not predicting that history is going somewhere, he's trying 124 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:37.140 to sum up where history has come to now. 125 00:12:37.140 --> 00:12:42.020 Now, you know, he says in the preface of the philosophy of right, you know, that the famous 126 00:12:42.020 --> 00:12:47.180 passage where he says the owl of Minerva takes flight only with the coming of dusk, meaning 127 00:12:47.180 --> 00:12:53.300 that philosophy will start talking only after events have happened. It's an interpretation 128 00:12:53.300 --> 00:13:00.140 of the past, not an attempt to predict what's going to happen. And there was one point in 129 00:13:00.140 --> 00:13:05.860 the paper, again, I'd want to study the written paper, they seem questionably, Mr. Buhlen 130 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:13.860 The reason seems to be suggesting that ideas or logic applies only to other ideas, not to the real world. 131 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:21.860 Well, I mean, supposing that only if you had a view that everything is composed of ideas, would you have the... 132 00:13:21.860 --> 00:13:29.860 could you say that the reason would apply to the real world? 133 00:13:29.860 --> 00:13:32.860 Well, I mean, supposing you take just the simple syllogism. 134 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:37.540 Socrates' men are mortal, Socrates' men, therefore Socrates is mortal. 135 00:13:37.540 --> 00:13:48.300 Well, that seems to me quite a valid conclusion about Socrates, the real person who existed 136 00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:55.060 in the past, not an idea of Socrates, it's actually using reason, we're talking about 137 00:13:55.060 --> 00:13:56.060 the real person. 138 00:13:56.060 --> 00:14:01.180 So I don't see any reason, I'm not seeing why one would have to have some sort of odd 139 00:14:01.180 --> 00:14:06.180 and a view of metaphysics to think that logic applies to the world. 140 00:14:06.180 --> 00:14:10.180 But again, I want to study these papers in much more detail, 141 00:14:10.180 --> 00:14:14.180 so don't take my comments very seriously, I certainly won't.