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NOTE 5. The Task of Political Philosophy

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Chapter 5 The Task of Political Philosophy

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It is not the intention of this book to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural

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law, or to elaborate a natural law ethic for the personal morality of man.

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The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, that is, to elaborate that subset

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of the Natural Law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the

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proper sphere of politics, that is, with violence and nonviolence as modes of interpersonal relations.

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In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty.

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In our view, the major task of political science, or better, political philosophy, is to construct

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and the edifice of natural law pertinent to the political scene.

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That this task has been almost completely neglected in this century by political scientists

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is all too clear.

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Political science has either pursued a positivistic and scientistic model building in vain imitation

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of the methodology and content of the physical sciences, or it has engaged in purely empirical

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fact-grubbing.

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The contemporary political scientist believes that he can avoid the necessity of moral judgments

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and that he can help frame public policy without committing himself to any ethical position.

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And yet, as soon as anyone makes any policy suggestion, however narrow or limited, an

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ethical judgment, sound or unsound, has willy-nilly been made.

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The difference between the political scientist and the political philosopher is that the

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The scientist's moral judgments are covert and implicit, and therefore not subject to

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detailed scrutiny, and hence more likely to be unsound.

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Moreover, the avoidance of explicit ethical judgments leads political scientists to one

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overriding implicit value judgment, that in favor of the political status quo as it happens

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to prevail in any given society.

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At the very least, his lack of a systematic political ethics precludes the political scientist

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from persuading anyone of the value of any change from the status quo.

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In the meanwhile, furthermore, present-day political philosophers generally confine themselves,

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also in a vert-frei manner, to antiquarian descriptions and exegesis of the views of

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other long-gone political philosophers.

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In so doing, they are evading the major task of political philosophy, in the words of Thomas

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Thorson, the philosophic justification of value positions relevant to politics.

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In order to advocate public policy, therefore, a system of social or political ethics must

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be constructed.

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In former centuries, this was the crucial task of political philosophy.

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But in the contemporary world, political theory, in the name of a spurious science, has cast

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out ethical philosophy and has itself become barren as a guide to the inquiring citizen.

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The same course has been taken in each of the disciplines of the social sciences and

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of philosophy by abandoning the procedures of natural law.

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Let us then cast out the hobgoblins of Wertfreiheit, of positivism, of scientism. Ignoring the

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imperious demands of an arbitrary status quo, let us hammer out, hackneyed cliché though

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it may be, a natural law and natural rights standard to which the wise and honest may

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repair. Specifically, let us seek to establish the political philosophy of liberty and of

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The Proper Sphere of Law, Property Rights, and the State.