Tuesday, 4 December 2007
The right thing to do
In recent interviews, and indeed at the time, Tony Blair justified invading Iraq and many other things in the last years of his premiership because it was “the right thing to do”. This flavour of conviction politics apparently brooks no argument. “I know what’s right, so whatever reasons you may advance against doing it must be bad reasons, even if I can’t explain why.” At least two interesting questions are raised, though.
First, how come I know what’s right and you apparently don’t? How do I know what I know? If it’s just obvious to me, for example, why isn’t it obvious to you? Second, leaving aside any judgement of Blair’s particular decisions, is this kind of conviction politics to be admired, or feared? Because we do rather admire the convinced politician, the person of principle, even when we disagree with them.
On the first, it seems to me that the rightness of the decision either rests on reasons or it doesn’t. If it does, give us the reasons and convince us and the claim of rightness is little more than a rhetorical flourish. But if, as Blair increasingly tended to do, you offer rightness instead of reasons this is something very different. At the very least, it amounts to a claim of superior moral insight, coupled perhaps with a challenge to others to consult their own moral compasses. It suggests that there are moral absolutes, moral knowledge, which certain people can be aware of while others perhaps lack the capacity, a sort of refined sense akin to being able to hear ultra high frequencies or see infra red light but concerned with ethical matters. Is this true? Personally I need convincing that there are such truths quite independent of any reasons which might support them. If it were true our difficult task as voters in a democracy would be to choose leaders on the basis of their abilities to sense things of which we have no perception. Democracy, in fact, would have to give way to priesthood.
Which leads us to the second issue. I don’t think we should admire politicians who tell us that they are passionate in their beliefs without being able to justify those beliefs with understandable reasons. I think we should run like hell. Perhaps we confuse consistency with fervour. We admire the politician whose decisions are consistent one with another even when some are uncomfortable. If that is conviction politics, let us applaud it or at least grudgingly concede it makes sense even if we disagree with the underlying principle. (The recent PM was incidentally not a conviction politician in this sense – for understandable practical reasons there were no invasions of North Korea or Zimbabwe to unseat their tyrants. Principle was allowed to bend to practicality when occasion demanded.) But fervour without reasons or consistency is another matter. It may make a person interesting (although it may make them a bore!) but it is no basis for exercising power. It makes government subject to an individual’s whim, even (especially) if the individual thinks they are inspired. Tyrants, demagogues and theocrats govern with moral fervour. Let us hope it does not become fashionable.
First, how come I know what’s right and you apparently don’t? How do I know what I know? If it’s just obvious to me, for example, why isn’t it obvious to you? Second, leaving aside any judgement of Blair’s particular decisions, is this kind of conviction politics to be admired, or feared? Because we do rather admire the convinced politician, the person of principle, even when we disagree with them.
On the first, it seems to me that the rightness of the decision either rests on reasons or it doesn’t. If it does, give us the reasons and convince us and the claim of rightness is little more than a rhetorical flourish. But if, as Blair increasingly tended to do, you offer rightness instead of reasons this is something very different. At the very least, it amounts to a claim of superior moral insight, coupled perhaps with a challenge to others to consult their own moral compasses. It suggests that there are moral absolutes, moral knowledge, which certain people can be aware of while others perhaps lack the capacity, a sort of refined sense akin to being able to hear ultra high frequencies or see infra red light but concerned with ethical matters. Is this true? Personally I need convincing that there are such truths quite independent of any reasons which might support them. If it were true our difficult task as voters in a democracy would be to choose leaders on the basis of their abilities to sense things of which we have no perception. Democracy, in fact, would have to give way to priesthood.
Which leads us to the second issue. I don’t think we should admire politicians who tell us that they are passionate in their beliefs without being able to justify those beliefs with understandable reasons. I think we should run like hell. Perhaps we confuse consistency with fervour. We admire the politician whose decisions are consistent one with another even when some are uncomfortable. If that is conviction politics, let us applaud it or at least grudgingly concede it makes sense even if we disagree with the underlying principle. (The recent PM was incidentally not a conviction politician in this sense – for understandable practical reasons there were no invasions of North Korea or Zimbabwe to unseat their tyrants. Principle was allowed to bend to practicality when occasion demanded.) But fervour without reasons or consistency is another matter. It may make a person interesting (although it may make them a bore!) but it is no basis for exercising power. It makes government subject to an individual’s whim, even (especially) if the individual thinks they are inspired. Tyrants, demagogues and theocrats govern with moral fervour. Let us hope it does not become fashionable.