As the U.S. presidential election enters its final days, the American people have weathered an alarming amount of shrill talk from ostensibly responsible journalists and news analysts, about ‘dictators’ and ‘threats to democracy.’ We desperately need a better approach to evaluating presidents, prime ministers, and other candidates for high office. As rational beings we are called upon to be impartial and discerning; as moral beings we are implicated in the political culture we create. That our search for method might be credible, we must distinguish a president or candidate’s deeds and ideas from his personal style.
Putting aside our emotions will help American-style democracy navigate through the very rough waters in which it finds itself. Intellectuals may scoff at our pursuit of objective criteria but we cannot allow these sophists to wriggle out of our conversation so easily.
Human Destiny and Politics
Against them I would cite the famous skeptic Sextus Empircus. Though he maintained that our perceptions are qualified by doubt, in his work Against the Ethicists he left room for a rational discussion of civic life. For Sextus, ataraxia, or tranquility, is the limit of our common effort. I hesitate to call it the greatest good, as Sextus leaves the question of human destiny unresolved. What is important is that the philosopher is free to pursue philosophy and the cobbler to pursue cobbling. If lawgivers try to create elaborate and highly organized societies, they stray into dogma.
Aside from a little tidying up, that would be the end of my essay. Thankfully, the Western political tradition has much more to offer. In Against the Academics, St. Augustine rejected the skeptical view on the grounds that 1) things obviously can be known (even the skeptics assert that something is true, even if that’s only their own skepticism), and this is good news because 2) we are clearly not the source of our own fulfillment. Having rejected the minimalist or reductionist viewpoint, then, our next question is: what role does the lawgiver play in our quest for the greatest good?
While Plato favoured a highly-organized society and Aristotle opposed the excessive quest for unity (see his Politics, 2.5), it is important for my purposes to note that both taught that the divine order is knowable via contemplation of nature, and that human political activity involves more than attaining a state of tranquility. This is not dogma but, instead, observation. Humans by nature seek 1) virtue—a fullness or completeness—through the pursuit of various goods, and 2) friendship and the good life. That is to say, humans are social. A community is born of individuals seeking “self-sufficiency,” say both Aristotle in the Politics and Plato in the Republic, a term we tend to associate with individualism and isolation. Self-sufficiency is achieved when an individual pools his talent and resources with others. As more people join, each member of the community is afforded more opportunity, or leisure, for the pursuit of virtue.
To preserve order, a person or persons will be chosen to guide the community. Just as God has established measure and proportion in nature, so the lawgiver—who will possess knowledge of the divine order—is needed to determine what is “the mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due” in civic life, as Plato puts it in the Statesman. Through persuasion and law, he will direct the community toward a fitting, common good.
While it is important for a ruler to be naturally discerning, Plato and Aristotle held that the lawgiver must also possess good character. This became an unquestioned tenet of the Western political tradition as it merged with Christian revelation. Blessed John of Ruusbroec, in his work The Spiritual Espousals, expressed the connection between the intellectual life and moral virtue this way:
Only a person who is especially diligent and zealous for maintaining his soul and body in righteousness can hold to the proper measure in matters of sobriety. Sobriety preserves the higher powers as well as the powers we have in common with the animals from intemperance and excess … By means of spiritual sobriety and moderation from within himself, a person maintains … a pure understanding, a power of reason calm enough to understand the truth.
Plato and Aristotle would have agreed. In an age of flashy politicians, Ruusbroec would have us consider only those who are patient, humble, kind, and generous, among other traits. These qualities strengthen the habit of good judgement.
Though Plato and Aristotle held different views concerning the extent of the ruler’s power, their work to place soul and body—and family and city—into a unified context started a transformation in Western thought. What emerges from their study of politics is not merely a sophisticated analysis of justice, but of human destiny. The ruler maintains his traditional role as an intermediary between the civil and divine order, but the city exists for the sake of man—there is nothing that God wants from it, e.g., bloody sacrifices or athletic contests. Far from being banished from civic life, God is the ultimate object of human existence and civil society will, in some way, express this reality. This shift away from the irrational theocracies of Minos or Philistia comes in the wake of Plato and Aristotle’s groundbreaking theory of natural law, their coherent account of free will, and their revised theology of God as pure intelligence.
Evaluating candidates and leaders
Returning to the U.S. election, it is not my goal to suggest that either Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris is Plato or Aristotle’s ideal ruler. The rhetoric from both candidates has been inflammatory, whereas Aristotle would say that the art of ruling should produce concord, goodwill, and beneficence. Both parties have also greatly expanded the federal legal code through the years; Aquinas held that law should not try to address every situation but only the most general or common. Both parties are also addicted to cheap labour and unrealistic economic growth. Decades of flawed labour and immigration policies have brought disruption, crime, and suffering. Both sides have also been accused of either flaunting the law or using it for political ends.
I would now like to propose some questions that have emerged from this study, by which to assess the candidates: Does the candidate possess a sense of the sacred? Does he or she possess a sense of the equal application of law? Would the candidate strive to craft laws that have the greatest possible benefit? Does he or she fashion laws that cater to the least worthy of political participation—that is, that serve base appetites—or rather laws that promote virtue? Does the candidate respect the authority of the household and the community? And does the candidate understand the concepts of mercy and charity?
The political tradition of Plato and Aristotle, as adapted by St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suarez, and other successors, allows for many solutions to the ordering of the human community towards its proper destiny. When we hear people bemoan the ‘polarization’ of politics, we must first acknowledge that many valid and important conversations end in passionate disagreement, but it is also true that our political life is weighed down by unnecessary conflict. We should, therefore, distinguish between essential and contingent or non-essential matters. In other words, there are situations that allow for only one outcome and others that are open to numerous morally acceptable solutions. Let us take the example of a president who wishes to build an interstate highway. This is not contrary to the common good because roads are important for travel. Nor is it unjust to collect a levy for the construction of a highway. Libertarians may prefer that roads be built and maintained by private companies but there is no basis in reason to claim that the ruler in question is unjust for pursuing the public option. If the ruler were profligate with those funds or if he failed to build the highway, then censure would be warranted. Raising taxes to build a highway may be inefficient or unpopular but it is not in the same category as, for example, failing to secure a robust middle class.
In the foregoing, I have been to proposing that we refresh our approach to choosing leaders. I am appealing for reason and calm. Reclaiming the Western political tradition will help us to express our true needs as a society and evaluate candidates for office. It will also help us to avoid unnecessary social unrest and misunderstanding. We are currently in a cycle of profound voter pessimism. This helped Trump in 2016 and was reflected in the fall of two candidates associated with the professional political class, Jeb Bush and Hilary Clinton. With the return of Trump and the candidacies of Dean Phillips, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Cornell West, the citizens of the United States have signaled their desire for responsive leaders and a deep, common-good agenda.
In my state—California—ideology has obscured our elections and stifled progress. As our middle class disappears, are we residents consoled by the fact that our state is at least a transgender sanctuary? Candidates for state office should be evaluated on the basis of their familiarity with infrastructure, water conservation, farming, the power grid, and other issues that impact all Californians. On a national level, are we content with a president who supports unlimited abortion but who has also fumbled every international challenge? While many of my fellow citizens are committed to designer causes, I have spoken with many liberals in my community—non-Boomers, I should add—who are tired of dilettante candidates and social experiments.
The challenge before us is not unlike that faced by Socrates, or for that matter the Stylite Fathers, the Dominicans of San Marco, or the Rhineland Mystics: to change the terms of important debates, re-centering serious inquiry on the topic of virtue. This begins with liberating public discourse from partisan loyalty, and superficial or irrational assumptions about law and nature. We can then frame our advocacy in terms of true goods or ends.
If we insist that any debate over law be placed in the context of the most noble and rewarding aspects of our nature, we will not only continue to affirm our dignity but also our tragic limitations. This latter point is critical: we cannot eliminate contingency through endless legislation, as liberals wish, but must also throw ourselves at the feet of our Creator. In Scholasticism and Politics, Jacques Maritain observed that only when civic virtue is wedded to grace will we be free to “direct our social work toward an heroic ideal of brotherly love.”
