by on
Freedom and its betrayal
by Isaiah Berlin
Overview
Six Enemies of Human Liberty.
Some things that these six thinkers have in common, and a tiny history of political philosophy in the form of answers to the question: "Why should anyone obey anyone else?".
Helvetius came up with a principle intended to perform for the social sciences the role which Newton's laws of motion performed for physics. The pleasure principle.
Rousseau is credited with enormous influence in the history of ideas. Berlin provides a cogent analysis of the source in his work of this influence.
Introduction
Some things that these six thinkers have in common, and a tiny history of political philosophy in the form of answers to the question: "Why should anyone obey anyone else?".
What they had in common
  • All born at the dawn of liberal democracy, i.e. around the French revolution the beginning of the 19th Century.
  • All visionary thinkers, whose vision impressed upon readers a complete change of world-view.
  • All champions of "liberty" whose doctrines were in fact detrimental to liberty as is it usually understood.
Why Should Anyone Obey Anyone Else?
Berlin provides a highly condensed long list of answers which had been given to this question. I shan't attempt to precis his list, its a couple of pages which can't be further condensed.

The point of it is that the contrast between the recent achievements of Newton in physics and the proliferation of irresolvably conflicting view on matters of politics and ethics was a source of dissatisfaction. People wanted to see the successes of Newton emulated in politics and ethics. They sought a simple principle on the basis of which the facts and values of social life could be brought to order.

To quote Condorcet:
"As one meditates on the nature of the moral sciences one really cannot avoid the conclusion that since, like the physical sciences, they rest upon observation of the facts, they ought to follow the same methods, acquire a language no less exact and precise, and so attain to the same degree of certainty."
Helvetius
Helvetius came up with a principle intended to perform for the social sciences the role which Newton's laws of motion performed for physics. The pleasure principle.
1. The Principle
Presented as the word of God to man (though Helvetius was an atheist):
"I endow thee with sensibility. It is by this alone that thou, blind tool of my wishes, incapable of plumbing my aims, thou must, without knowing it, fulfil my purposes. Over thee I set pleasure and pain; the one and the other will watch over thy thoughts and acts, excite thy aversions, friendships, tender sentiments, joys, set on fire thy desires, fears, hopes, reveal to thee truths, plunge thee into error, and after causing thee to generate a million various absurd systems of morals and legislation, will one day disclose to thee the simple principles on the development of which depend the order and happiness of the moral world."
which Berlin takes as a formulation of utilitarianism.
2. Factual to Moral
It appears that Helivetius believed that from his factual or descriptive principle (that men in fact seek pleasure and avoid pain) the evaluative or moral principle (that men should do so) followed. So far as it is put by Berlin it would seem to be on the ground that they cannot be expected to do something which is not possible, though surely if these considerations totally determine behaviour, moral vocabulary becomes gratuitous.
3. Why are Men not Happy?
Because they are kept in ignorance of the proper functioning of nature by a deliberate piece of chicanery on the part of "the rulers" (kings and others).
"... an age old conspiracy by the few against the many has been organised and kept going, because unless they do this the few cannot keep the many in subjection"
but also
"... by the weakness of their nature, by their ignorance, by curable diseases of this kind."
It is the job of the philosopher to remedy this situation, by reform of institutions.
4. The Slide
So far so good, but the reform envisaged is not so liberal. Though Helvetius blamed the unhappiness of men on their having been deceived by their oppressors, his remedy is more deception, and more sophisticated if well-meant control through appropriate legislative sticks and carrots. In his philosophy Helvetius proposes that his "principle" be used by the few to control the many, for their own benefit. The intent is totalitarian.

Once questions of value are thought amenable to scientific resolution it is natural to entrust them to scientific specialists, and the conduct of the many is then to be determined by the few.
Rousseau
Rousseau is credited with enormous influence in the history of ideas. Berlin provides a cogent analysis of the source in his work of this influence.
1. Some Red Herrings
  • the prose
    some suppose that Rousseau's influence arises not from the novelty of his doctrines but from in his eloquent hypnotic style
  • glorification of passion
    that Rousseau was novel in glorifying the passions in preference to reason
Berlin's answer to the first red herring comes eventually in his identification of the novelty of content which is in his view the primary source of Rousseau's influence.

In relation to the second point it is first observed that many other philosophers not thought of as romantic had written about passion and sentiment (he mentions Diderot, Helvetius, Shaftesbury and Hume). However, in relation to the centrepiece of Rousseau's influence, his "Social Contract", this is presented as a rational argument rather than an appeal to sentiment.
"Rousseau simply repeats the opinions of his predecessors in saying that it is reason which is the same in all men, and unites, and emotions which are different, and divide."
3. Rousseau's Answer
Each man :
"in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody"
According to Berlin:
"He uses deductive reasoning, sometimes very cogent, very lucid and extremely well expressed, for reaching his conclusions. But in reality what happens is that this deductive reasoning is like a straight-jacket of logic which he claps on the inner, burning, almost lunatic vision within"
and this is for him the source of Rousseau's power.
2. The Key Question
"How is men's desire for liberty to be reconciled with the need for authority?"
Previous philosopher's had adopted various compromises between individual liberty and necessary authority, Rousseau's originality is that he brooked no compromise:
"To renounce liberty" he says "is to renounce being a man ... Such a renunciation is not compatible with man's nature."
4. Against Liberty
Rousseau has resolved the conflict between liberty and authority by (covertly) redefining liberty, so that his eloquent and uncompromising advocacy of personal liberty becomes an advocacy for something no longer recognisable to liberals. This is conspicuous in Rousseau's famous phrase about the right of society to force men to be free.
Fichte
Freedom
Berlin says (p. 61):
"Autonomy, true freedom, consists in issuing orders to myself which I, being free to do as I will, obey."
"This is Rousseau's concept of moral freedom, and it is Kant's"

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