Harvey Mansfield on Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws"

[Music] welcome to conversations I'm bill kristol joined today by my friend and teacher Harvey Mansfield Government at Harvard always a pleasure always a pleasure to have you and our topic today is Montesquieu someone you've been doing some work on recently and extremely influential on the American founders maybe slightly neglected I would say by students of political philosophy but we can correct that today yes do our best somewhat to skewer his real name it's full name I guess charles louis ii ii ah baron de my bread into Montesquieu but always notice much is good yes lived 1689 to 1755 and maybe that's enough biographical information yes major works I wrote three works three major works and I want is a Persian letter is a kind of epistolary novel right and then a shorter work on the greatness and decline of the Romans and his great work the spirit of the laws that lists pleadian why the spirit of the law so you can try to work out that title maybe a little bit later but then that's that's the that's the book which had the great influence on the founders right 1748 I think 1748 the middle of the 18th century and mm-hmm quoted I think several times in the photo quoted directly in the Federalist and he himself cited just the celebrated Montesquieu everybody right that's right I'm the Federalists begin with that why is why why celebrate why was so interested in celebrating and at the same time called an Oracle yeah Oracle's are enigmatic and that certainly applies to more visca he's not easy to understand this book the spirit of the laws is very long and very complicated and it treats doesn't treat anything somatically really and so everything gets treated in different places very much scattered and one of the passages that i'm going to talk about later is really from almost at the end of this book so very complicated and he was cited by police as he said but also by the anti-federalists both of them thought that won't ask it was on their side so there and the issue was should a republic be large or should it be small small and homogeneous close to the people the popular government this was the view of the anti-federalists who were the opponents of the the Federalists so-called supporters of the new constitution and there was an argument over the ratification of that Constitution so the anti-federalists supported a rather small Republic view they wanted a union but it was to be a league of small colonies than states rather than a unified Union that the Federalists wanted and they cited multi-cut because multiscale in the first eight books this is his his book is divided into books of the spirit of the laws discusses Republic's but rather ancient than modern Republic's ancient Republic because a Republican virtue began under the ancients the Republican virtue is a kind of passion and it's a passion for patriotism to your country but also a passion for equality those two things together so Republican virtue is essentially something Democratic anyway these in these first eight books mallika becomes quite critical of ancient Republican virtue because in fact he says they cried so hard to bring people together that they made them marshal that the main virtue of that that the passion of equality led to was a warlike desire to defend yourself and to defend yourself in such a way that you even began to what others so he ends his treatment of Republic's by making a distinction between defensive war and offensive war and the ancient republic was so small and so unified and so proud of itself that it had a tendency to move from self defense in to aggrandize Minh and to become something large which couldn't support so it's a his mortises first treatment of Republic's is rather critical and the anti-federalists fixed on this smallness of Republic's not really appreciating that smallness was being criticized and that virtue to was being criticized so the the Federalists I think they're therefore had a better understanding of Montesquieu but it is interesting that once he was on both sides of there doesn't count there of their Republic is sympathetic enough that the idea Federalists could find something in it for very young to defend the kind of young for plastic old type republicanism but I guess separation of powers is what the Federalist sites Montesquieu for anything else it is so separation of powers is a complication of power and this is characteristic of water skill he was against any concentration of power because power had a tendency to and then now he uses this word which is very famous in the Federalist to encroach the in Croton a tendency of power to encroach on that right and so and and so it it it it tends to get larger and more powerful than what it needs to be and if you compare this to Aristotle who also has a view of Republican virtue our städel speaks of the best regime in a way that motor skin never does and in the best regime also has a tendency toward imperialism because if you're better than someone else why shouldn't you have a right to govern that other person so the when the best regime is is encounters a less good regime on its borders perhaps in its tempted you might say they were eaten by the principle that the best shred rule to to become imperialistic and so Moscow is against this he's also against the simplicity of of power which makes you think that power after power is that the men are never satisfied they always have a restless desire for power after power that's a quotation from Thomas Hobbes a 17th century writer so but Morris Cohen wants to have powder power counteract powder so he admits the necessity of power but then does his best to turn it against itself power turned against itself I think that's in Madison's quotation and or America's is his remark which is frequently quoted in Federalist 51 ambition must be made to counteract ambition comes directly from motor skill in the spirit of water skill complication the anti-federalists opposed the Constitution for two reasons they said it was too concentrated and they also said it was too complicated there was a kind of contradiction then if you don't want concentration you need to have complication so that's what I want is gear brings to to the American founders and if you want a remedy against imperialism said in the aristotelian tendency of the best regime to want to impose itself on less good regimes he has an answer for that and it's an answer also for the martial character of of the ancient republic and that is commerce so he he's he's perfectly willing to see a republic expand but this expand in the way of Commerce so he was very interested in commercial republics like Carthage in ancient times and Venice and Holland in modern times and this too becomes a a part of a part of America but it's the the the theme is is complication is that also the theme of our Constitution you might say that the Declaration of Independence is based on not so much Thomas Hobbes as John Locke and it has simple principles say all men are created equal this results in the right to consent to government and the right to consent to government results in the right to to withdraw your consent or the right to revolve around right of revolution so that's all that is simple but it needs to be put into an actual working structure so that you could say then that that the Constitution is the work of motor skill and the Declaration work of of John Locke I think them would make some sense although the Constitution or the the very idea of Constitution can also be traced back to walk that walk is friendly to Commerce and to yeah sort of separation of powers some of that yes more to skew maybe yeah so most ending Locke slippery yeah that's right so Monica brings complication to america's liberalism to america's form of government into its even to its society and I think that's his great contribution so he is justly celebrated though somewhat by our founders and deserves to be by us but maybe a little neglected it seems to be just from my being courses to put his locks may be a little easier to teach that's right use and then skip over and get right you so and the rebellion against liberalism and some I want to skew gets a little bit that's right neglected their baby he does the easiest of all modern electro philosophers to teach is Hobbes so every political theorist has as sort of begun at least an article if not a book on Hobbes that's an exaggeration but it you get the idea and lion lark is is almost as easy when it blocks Second Treatise of government as he says is on the principles of political right and the motor skill never has any such thing the spirit of the laws so what does that mean now spirit makes you think of the essence or the gist or the essential feature of a thing and that's a one way of looking at politics and in terms of essences political science today is divided between political scientists who treat in essences of people like me the theory types and and then others the empirical ones they call themselves and they use this nice expression they are data-driven right you know so there in time theta is means things that are given so we theorists are not driven by data because we're dissatisfied with what is given we want to examine and analyze and improve on it but people who are data-driven present themselves as not you know having ideas that they pursue or which inspire them but by being oh well almost receptacles of facts and countable countable facts that that they receive and merely present to us scientifically so they have a greater claim to scientific so and Montesquieu is in his title of the book as something of the essentialist when he uses the word the spirit but then something of the data-driven when he refers to laws so he's not so interested in the definition of law as in a variety of different laws circumstances and he describes him he's right he's his erudition is unbelievable he's not only read every philosopher every historian but and so much in the way of early law the development of law both Roman law Frankish law China Japan he's looked through the whole world and and he and his his his book is is therefore difficult to read and and as you say to teach fun to read because it's full of interesting that's right you know it's fun but it's difficult it difficult to put together they don't have that you might be slightly vague but nonetheless clarity that Locke and pretends to have at least deduction from principles and so that's right why does Montesquieu want to avoid presenting his political philosophy the way block chose to or was the kind of deduction from principles that must be part of this you only part of his intention yes I think it clearly is yeah so he comes in the second wave of modern political philosophy after the 17th century ones like knocking they are so well Machiavelli comes first but then Hobbes and spa notes lock the first ones and they they do have much simpler principles they simplify and that's to make their pilot their political science more powerful more capable so that you have fewer inhibitions or hesitations in reading it or in applying it and they want to be clear and distinct that's a you could say phrase from Descartes but and clear and distinct enables it to be more powerful with your words now Machiavelli I mean multisig it comes in the in the next century and he's to some extent reacting against this first wave which promotes simplicity and revolution ISM he and Hume you could say also and in the 18th century a contemporary of Montesquieu and so he doesn't he doesn't he thinks that's simplify he leads to a glorification of power as as most obviously in Hobbes that what you consent to is the sovereignty of an absolute sovereign and that sovereign can become very despotic so Mariska is is most concerned with preventing despotism he sees despotism arising from the desire to be too good like Plato and like Aristotle and also from the desire to be too powerful and simple like especially harms also Locke he begins his spirit of the laws with an analysis of the state of nature which is a fundamental principle that Hobbes really invented and Locke accepted and followed and he does it differently so he thinks that in the state of nature there's two kinds of laws natural physical laws which operate with necessity and then human laws where human laws are made by human beings and it and that's because human beings don't operate efficiently with necessary predict predictable results and so they have to make for themselves laws which counteract their waywardness and their which you could say is their their desire for freedom their desire to run their own lives instead of and the rest of nature is content with being bossed around by nature by laws of the necessary laws of physics so there is a discrepancy between the laws of non-human nature and the laws of human nature and this is more like Aristotle and less like Hobbes harvest wants you to think that the simplicity of his of his scheme his political scheme makes it more scientific than then it would be otherwise now but so so monoski agrees with Plato and Aristotle that there're that we human beings are different and that their laws are different from the laws of of non human nature but he doesn't think that there can be one reason which unites them or one general moving principle this is an Aristotle RK he called it which combines the intelligibility of nature was the intelligibility of human nature and so he worries that human beings Montesquieu worries that human beings will give themselves up to blind fatality which is to have to live according to the simplicity of of natural laws physical laws and and and and therefore he understands human laws is different and they're different because they're based on a reaction of human beings to what is given so in this way though a writer wasn't that much data many data he sees that human beings are not determined by what is given to them by nature but they they react against it and then so what that a a principle of human action is what he could cause a ruse or which it means a spring the spring as you react against something it's not taking you in a certain direction so all so and so that that's in a way his principle of teaching as well he tries to speak indirectly he thinks that a legislator can often make a greater impression by not not by going directly passing a law directly on what he wants but on by showing by drug by getting an indirect effect so for example he wants to make political life more equal I think that's necessary publican as he said but it criticizes an ancient legislator named Phaleas who was discussed in Aristotle's politics and who lived in Chalcedon criticized him for trying to make a republic more equal by just by passing a law that requires everyone to be equal and he says what that doesn't in fact is create a civil war between the poor and the rich so you have to find some way of finding a principle that will bring the poor and the rich together without directing them to do so and that could be something like Commerce or today we don't say the free market in which everyone can participate in a way equally because you have equal opportunity even if the results are unequal and that's a way of making our society more equal without forcing it for without trying to level then bringing the poor up and the rich down so that would be just one example of doing something indirectly and also multi-skilled wants to be less direct by opposing the notion that government should be based on fear and that was of course the great principle of Thomas Hobbes that you would consent to what was reasonable if you were properly afraid of what would happen if you didn't and in the state of nature and Hobbes was designed to put you in a frame of mind so that you would see that what would happen the fear you would have if there were no laws and government and what a skier wants to replace this with a sense of security or comfort and here again is something quite modern which we recognize today and and and the way to give security is not so much to actually yeah pass laws passed criminal legislation against criminality but as to give but as to affect the opinion that people have of security so you you want to feel secure you're you know maybe it doesn't matter whether you actually are secure but we human beings need to feel that way and that's very important to us and so our government was mustn't put us in fear the criminal legislation must be relaxed or that with much lighter punishment than then in the past it or in the tradition and and so there's a whole book of the spirit of the laws on punishment and how how it must be more light say didn't less fearful and so and and this goes together with a government which is so this is a it's constitutional rather than concentrated so in this he follows Locke as against Hobbes but it's it's a way of making your government less scary no and the separation of powers one one of the main the main principle the main part of the feet the separation of power if it appraises is the independence of the judiciary and the independence of the judiciary especially contributes to the opinion of security because it separates the punishing of people from the rest of the government so the resident so that those who govern you are not the ones who are actually in enforce editor or punish it that's something separate and it's a heart the harsh the dark side of of government any even free government or popular government has to punish that that he agrees with but if it's done sort of separately and legally by judges who appear to be impartial because they are separate from the rest of the government then that's the that that's the way to to make people feel have an opinion that they are secure and the due process I suppose and procedural safeguards that's the spirit of what to skew for the citizens to they'll join it it's not arbitrary that's important yeah that's right and the due process of very many different places and so he that he doesn't have one view of what due process consists in but every legal system and there are many has its own variety and its own eccentricities so you must look always at circumstances and there is one the model Constitution the English Constitution which he gives but he doesn't give it in such a way as to demand that everyone imitated or follow it and in fact he denies that and partly because he's French he doesn't want to get himself in a situation where a Frenchman demands of France that it modeled itself on historical enemy right across the channel so even so that's a bit of a difficulty for him but he yeah he has a separate view I think of what to do for England and what to do for for France so so all this means that that that he that you must look at the whole of the world and not just European countries but South America Australia China and Japan everywhere that Europeans had travelled and there was sent back there was a kind of travel literature you know the 18th century especially and so motor skis read all that as well as all their legal documents or whatever that might exist that anything that could be read and that tells you about different peoples different ways in which human beings live and and and govern themselves he did his best to to capture and accommodate and put in his book with his hundreds of footnotes so it's it's really something so and he's very famous to for the emphasizing the influence of climate day as a book on that and the influence of terrain or the importance of knowing are considering population so all these all these things said books on religion the oddities of different religious religions and different places and how they are connected so that's what these he's interested in this might to use a modern word a system or network is another well and so he said in Frenchy says to Sathya everything holds together everything but not obviously and not under some ruling principle an unsub doctrinaire or dogmatic the right that's right or simplistic quasi illogical for us right yeah in the best sense yeah so our freedom consists in variety and and circumstantial 'ti the in the data and then and into the the the but but in the eccentricity of the data not trying to gather it all together under one thought or one principle and so he's not a fan of founding and so this is really distinguishes him from from America or Americans ooh so he doesn't really to him a founding is really more a result of historical development and his his book ends with a description of ancient law of France that developed into the modern monarchy and how that very gradually changed as a result of both accidents and and and sort of various legislation of different Kings and influences from different places so that he could be taken as a founder of a school of 19th century political thinking called historical jurisprudence so the principles that would be the jurisprudence of a country that have developed over time must be understood historically and that is how they developed how they were changed its from looking at this way that they were developed that you can see methods of reform or how things might be changed and and also how one of the bad ways and how not to change so in yeah so it's this historical jurisprudence becomes a kind of lesson in practical politics and all this up is opposed to the notion of having a foundation and trying to start off with something simple like America's Declaration of Independence you could say so that's sounds a little bit like Burke and and even Tocqueville afterwards right the kind of is your emphasis on circumstance and historical development and skepticism about too simple an application of your principle or doctrine or which I spawned they were both influenced but well Tocqueville I think phrase and small to see you very highly he does yes yes and so does burn convert you I didn't go now they are yeah oh yeah that's sort of a strained of liberalism that feels a little bit different from this you Hobbes Locke you know Burton Turkus great credit to mosuke a Frenchman who told the British the of the beauties of their own Constitution better than they knew themselves so that's a face yes that's that is high praise so he tries to he thinks it's friendlier to Liberty not on the one hand not that excessive ancient pride I suppose you'd say on the one hand or maybe religious pride too but on the other hand not too much of the modern fear that you know debunks the pride but you know but by itself could also lead to a kind of failure to defend Liberty I suppose or to appreciate Liberty year young and the comforts of Liberty then the consolations and the comfort the blessings of liberty but yeah but it like the blessings of liberty are not obvious in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes right so that's not really interesting kind of liberalism that I suppose isn't as fast one reason maybe it's not as popular is that it's too complicated you know not an ism caught it that's right it doesn't yeah yond Hobbs knew what he was doing if you want to create a revolution yeah yeah make keep it simple yeah yeah maybe that was by the century before maybe there's a different circumstances Yeah right but mostly says that that kind of revolution will lead to despotism what you did yeah say maybe not in and not in England just because they kept things complicated in England and Locke helped on that right but young yes that's right it's yeah it's to be that's more to secure and his and his complication he said he is difficult to appreciate so that he was celebrated was impressive yeah yeah he makes these canny remarks which attract ones attention so that that could be a way to lead to say one appreciation or the reason why one celebrates every wise we have Tocqueville oof many many people liked and enjoy reading and initiate particular comments of without putting it together really right the way what should ultimately yeah maybe there was a little some of that was about to scare - yeah I'm work since you mentioned him you know so three political philosophers who are difficult to put together and perhaps deliberately so yeah yeah you know the Machiavelli also whom you've yes yes all right now now let me say something about Machiavelli and I and to do this I wanted to give an analysis of of just one short chapter in book 29 chapter 19 of the spirit of the laws and and and let me just read it to you look I can so [Music] there's what once good citizen and the title of this chapter is of legislators when you read a way to inside yes lady title but only seven sentences long and it turns out that only philosophers are named them so he says Aristotle sometimes wanted to satisfy his jealousy of Plato sometimes his passion for Alexander Plato was indignant at the tyranny of the people of Athens Machiavelli was full of his idle Duke Valentino Thomas More who spoke rather of what he had read then of what he had thought wanted to govern all states with the simplicity of a Greek town and they here's there's a footnote utopia if you didn't know that book that Thomas Moore had written he tells you Harrington saw only the Republic of England while a crowd of writers found disorder wherever the they did not see a crown the laws always meet the passions and prejudices of the legislature sometimes they pass through and are and they were tinctured sometimes they remained there and are incorporated that's it that's of legislators well those are the seven sentences and that's it and the only they are so five philosophers arraigned so philosophers and it's rather shocking if and the scene philosophers treated so cavalierly by another philosopher and but he he doesn't mind shocking you right in this instance he is shocked by those people who are impressed by philosophers so that now he's following tradition tradition both ancient and modern when he calls philosophers legislators that philosophers can't just address other philosophers because they need to protect themselves against people who don't like or don't understand or who disagree with what they're teaching philosophically and this begins with a Plato's apology of Socrates in which he gives a defence of Socrates against the charges Oh capital charges which for the sake of which he was actually punished and killed in Athens so that's that seem the importance of of of legislation for philosophers they want to defend themselves protect themselves against the political thoughts or the political objections to what they say and do but another reason might be that philosophers want to learn something from politics and you can see that it's clear in Montesquieu since he speaks of the human reaction human resistance to nature that non philosophers people who aren't philosophers have a reaction a resistance to being bossed around by philosophers who are more intelligent than they but some how remote and not very sympathetic often right so so you couldn't as a philosopher you can learn from the resistance of non philosophers to philosophy and that's I think what he's trying to teach you here philosophers are human beings too right and they have passions passions which deflect to that mara which give a teacher to the laws which they which they propose and announce so let's look at each of these philosophers that he names now he starts with Aristotle for some reason Aristotle ahead of of clay level out of order yeah it's out of order for sure so he says Aristotle that was jealous of Plato and he had a passion for Alexander jealous of Plato his teacher for his revered teacher of frontiers this is especially unfair of malesko because i resettles very well known one of the most famous passages and Arenal of Aristotle is in the beginning of the ethics where he disagrees with Plato but but precedes his disagreement with an apology said and he says and says very famously say I love Plato but I love the truth more than my friend and perhaps because the basis of friendship is truth and so now to call him jealous of Plato seems seems especially unfortunate and unfair but he had a passion for Alexander Alexander was his student and Alexander wanted to conquer the world but the the insinuation is that Aristotle wanted to conquer the world like his student as if you go by one of the principles of Machiavelli that we'll come to in a moment the the effectual truth of something that the truth of a thing can be known better from what it results in the outcome then you could say that the truth of a philosopher is better shown in his students so what they actually do then what they what they actually or than what they say or intend and so already motor skill has said that the the real truth of Plato is to be found in Sparta that very harsh virtuous Republic that one it's been it's life it's common life in warfare and in educating education for warfare and now he's saying suggesting of Aristotle that the effectual truth of him is to be seen in his student Alexander he wants to conquer the world and as he wants to rule over the world and he's a philosopher it was a legislator and you could say this is a necessary thought that would arise from his ambition to to give good advice to legislators later on or not rather before this in another chapter montesque speaks against Aristotle he says Aristotle didn't understand monarchy he didn't understand that the power of a monarchy could be better more effective and better directed if it were divided into three powers so I suggest that Aristotle needed to learn from motifs ago about the separation of powers then we go to Plato whose was indignant against the tyranny of the Athenian people well he was at the indignant against them because they killed Socrates so that is a reasonable principle which I wished to inspire the indignation yeah but Plato used just one person in his dialogues to represent philosophy so Socrates was kind of a one represented the one representative of philosophy this modest guy I think is hinting makes it to two despotic and in its effect it suggests that a philosophy is concentrated in one person and one person alone it was the best so that's I think it says something he wants to reprove he himself refers to many philosophers throughout in his book he does refer just once to Socrates in a footnote but one interesting philosopher the Vettii never mentions whom I've already mentioned and it was his companion might say in influencing America he never mentioned start Locke very striking his fellow liberal this obvious comparison there so Monica has many philosophers so then Machiavelli so their five philosophers mentioned and Machiavelli's the third the central figure of those who are mentioned and he says when Nike Valley was full of his Idol Duke Valentina or Valentine Valentine Valentino idol and Idol is a image of a false God or a false image of God the image of a false God well if you if you look carefully at Machiavelli this is in Machiavelli's Prince he does refer to the Duke Valentino but he mainly refers to Cesare Borgia when he says had another name Duke Valentino by a name that he was given that was given to him by the people or by the vulgar so and in the prince this is the only jazz reborn is the only person with two names that makes me think of Jesus it was had two names and whom and so that when Machiavelli says that he wants to imitate the doings and exercises of Cesare Borgia that that means I think that he wants to imitate the wonderful success of Christ who was the one unarmed prophet that and most obvious unarmed prophet in Machiavelli's day who succeeded who came to success despite Machiavelli likes to say that an unarmed prophets never succeed but he was armed in a certain way he had a powerful doctrine of that even was able to propagate propaganda this was a main force that and power that that christianity had it it conquered the world like Alexander but it did so surreptitious later subversively not by conquering peoples and killing people are and taking over territories like Muhammad and Moses and David but indirectly so with propaganda so Montesquieu I think is sees this perfectly well when he refers to Deakin took Valentine instead of Jerry Borgia as and perfectly he sees that perfectly well and understands this this is what Machiavelli is up to in the prince and the chapters especially chapter seven in and it later eighteen and in the prince and so this raises I think a more general question of the debt of of multi skirt to Machiavelli and I think he in the first place learned from Machiavelli and in the second place disagreed with Maggie Valley what he learned from Machiavelli was the principle of effectual truth and I've already spoken of this is occurs in the fifteenth chapter of Machiavelli's Prince and he says I want to go to the factual truth of the thing rather than to the imagination of it and then immediately applies this to morality he says and politics he speaks against the imaginary Republic's and kingdoms that the ancient writers and speakers spoke enough like Plato's Republic or Saint Augustine's City of God and uses this phrase that he died effectually means effectual truth that the truth of a thing is in its effect and strangely very strangely Machiavelli uses his phrase only once in all of his writings not just in this one book but the prince but anywhere he doesn't use it in a letter or any of his ambassadorial writing system it's that's really amazing I think that so so important a thing would be left to this single expression and if you look in the Italian Renaissance I argue this elsewhere you've seen this phrase effectual truth never and it seems that Machiavelli invented the word effectual and especially the combination of the two effectual truth that it doesn't seem to have any any source or previous and so this is what my cue motifs get picked up from Machiavelli the importance of of the effectual truth of for example understanding philosophy through the passions of human beings as he's doing in this chapter and on all the way all the way through so then so the the effectual truth of a thing is is this is is what it reduces to it's a principle not of not only of morality but also of of science of modern science and morality an example would be if someone says to you I love you the effectual truth is I want something from you and in science the effectual truth is that the only real cause is the cause that produces an effect so that what Aristotle called the efficient cause and in modern science the only so that it speaks only of effects of because I love the out of the of the causes that produce effects and not formal or final causes that are for the sake of some and their purpose so so this is this the factual truth is sort of scientific reductionism that applies to human affairs as well and that's quite striking the way in which Machiavelli anticipates modern science and the way in which motor skill who makes use of some scientific sort of human understanding of the nerves and how nerves can produce an effect that and instead of you then that's a factual truth the effectual truth of what you think you're thinking is a thought thought it may be just motion of your nerves so this again this is what Montesquieu learned from Machiavelli but what he disagreed with was the notion that Makaveli had that in order to protect yourself and to understand yourself you had to try to become dependent on no one but yourself so the the freest person is the most powerful person then because the most powerful person is is now it doesn't depend on other people and if you depend on other people it's the same thing as depending on chance because you don't you can't be sure how they're going to treat you or how they react to you so for my Covelli the goal we might say of human action is to become one alone uno solo in in Machiavelli's phrase and then the prince several times he speaks over and in the discourses to the need for not just a politician but but anyone to put himself in a situation where he is uno solo that's but you know solos really that a tyrant in Venice that is a timer this person who can call on anything or everything so and in his depends and done nothing or thinks he is or tries to become that way Lord God yeah or God young God is by himself so Moses who picks up this fray so no solo and the track puts it in French cell one alone and that any repeats says throughout the spirit of the laws in many contexts and it's always something that produces despotism so it's it's the the power of things which results in there is a factual truth is to make one person powerful and it applies to philosophers as well as to just politicians or to ordinary folk so so so then you see I so I you see this I think throughout motor skill his his acceptance of the effectual truth and his denial of much said the effectual truth of the effectual truth which is which is despotism so Machiavelli understands the need of of every human being as acquiring you have to acquire you can never take for granted what you inherit or what you already have you have to acquire because other people are after you essentially other people are your enemies even your friends will betray you or or put themselves first so you have to acquire and uses this sort of economic word and a political sense to so you can acquire the world or you can acquire the state when you would expect the word conquer conquest re and so he uses it politically as well as economically and multiscale replaces that with commerce commerce is the spirit acquisition but they moderate in such a way as to prevent despotism so so so commerce is has been said bloodless killing but but it's also without despotic concentration of of power and at the same time it makes you richer and more powerful and the things that riches can give you so that's Machiavelli and now Thomas More the fourth legislator in who spoke of what he read and not what he thought and who wanted to govern all states with a simplicity of a Greek town and that was utopian that Greek island and which by which more meant Plato's Republic his utopia was a kind of redoing of Plato's Republic which is again the you see the the oneness of that is a philosopher who was also I was also King this simplicity is in general bad the simplicity of a Greek town because it leads to the mastery of one of one and two the and then also he leaves out the fact that he says that Thomas More spoke of what he read rather than a thought so which did he read read Plato's Republic or did you read the other thing that he might have read Ling Li the Bible and then it's the mo Thomas More is famous for being Sir Thomas More and st. Thomas More as that as a Christian martyr and his time only recently after maliska made a saint so so he was one person but which was he they ippolit a politician for a philosopher politician then or a martyr or for for for God so and then last we've got Harrington and these crowd of Royalists and so now Harrington wrote a book called Oceania which was an imaginary England and so he he focused entirely on England and Harrington has mentioned one other place in waterskis book and criticized that he said he built child Chalcedon that was a famous city in in Asia Minor right right on the coast with that what the coast of manure of the coast of Byzantium so be yet Byzantium is really England this is a this is what Mona says at the end of us chapter praising the English Constitution and Harrington's attempt to improve on it so the zantium is really England said that he and he tried to build something else to be more beautiful but next to this beautiful city so so he tried to make a an improvement on something that was all that was much better than than his invitation is so and so this is what is what his view of Harrington and and and what he did was to make England totally Republican and were Anwar and and with no monarchy no monarch no one again same and then the royalist writers they wanted a crown but they didn't care about the rest the Republican side of thanks and so Montesquieu seeing so once again that's a question of one that that in each of these cases the the philosopher makes his mistake by not understanding them the dangers from the rule and the thought of one and once again aus brings up the the need to have a kind of one in a republic an executive a powerful moderate who's an executive so be has a strong president and American Constitution but at the same time in in company with Republican features popular features so that it was not just a monarchy that Royalists writers might might approve of for my minded might require so this is motor skill he's a effectual truth but opposed to the concentration of power in one he himself as you'd say therefore a kind of embarrassed or prudent inconspicuous philosopher who wants to stay behind the scenes and not present himself in such a way that he is not just celebrated but worshipped are or followed without without hesitation so so I think he would he is he's not a revolutionary but he would be happy to be celebrated he's entitled to be unfair to these philosophers because he could say he is and these general dismissing psychologizing judgments about them because he wants to you know keep philosopher and philosophers in their place I said in their place yeah and they have a place and then because after all he is legislators he only mentions the philosophers right he doesn't he doesn't contrast them with others that you might have brought up like so long you see something called of legislators you see you know doesn't one sort of expect so long or something like yeah that's that's interesting yes am I wrong to think that the thing about Aristotle not appreciating that monarchy would be more powerful than three parts that somehow sounds like a Christian also a comment on exactly the Christian yes use of Aristotle yes that was very perceptive of you but yeah so that's somehow yeah Aristotle didn't understand that he could be misinterpreted to to support the Christian way of thinking which is some more powerful monarch so to speak yeah yeah but that somehow was underlying this to some discussion is Christianity and religion I suppose and you know it's need to be kept in its place yeah and the post in in that way he was still with the early modern Stu who had the same than a desire to might bring Christianity to heal to make it listen to the requirements of a reason and peace and does he I just don't you know does he discuss Machiavelli explicitly elsewhere or is this he uses yes oh and wait Roger you there is another chapter in which he discusses both Aristotle and and Machiavelli and he makes this remark about Machiavelli we are beginning to be cured of Machiavelli ISM and so that's that I think is in saying that that contains both the idea of effectual truth as Machiavelli is now turned into medievalism what Anna in other words a kind of cynical dirty trick politics and in the idea of opposing one alone because what do you what he said Marky hoody said Mac evil ISM was in this case was the use of great strokes of authority sensational executions which are a feature of of Machiavelli's political science so we're replacing the great strokes of authority sensational revolutionary impressive appearances that will rule people and fear make them fear by commerce gradual gradual change constitutionalism they sell together separation of powers altogether goodbye to Machiavelli in his in his bitterest and strangest and most tyrannical moments so and you could criticize multiscale from this standpoint I think that reading this you wouldn't expect that human beings were capable of the terrible things that terrible events of the 20th century so beginning to be cured selves like you can't baby be yeah fully cure that's always an element of yes Machiavelli says that's right her hand of alts also of condition conditionality here we're it's still it's not definite right but but he thinks we're on the road to to what nature called the last my hand is often it you haven't had medicine right to get this to security and and freedom and moderate moderate freedom yeah that's interesting hmm final words on what to skill for FIFA this is hopefully encouraged people to take a fresh look and appreciate both the spirit of the laws and the other two works too which are both those two I'd say having read the decades ago but I mean our fun our ease they're not really easier I'm sure but seems to be easier that's true to read and the fun reads really in a way right the person letters is novel it well that's just not ballistic I guess it is actually a novel and the grandeur and decline of the Romans is a kind of apparently breezy kind of walk through Roman history kind of yes I would say more dusk is is wonderfully French and and and wonderfully cosmopolitan yeah he's something to teach us all so we should follow the founders and studying him not to celebrate him but see why it is that he should be celebrated by reading his books yeah I think they say justly celebrated somewhere right so yes so reasonably you know hey it's good well this has been great and I'm sure many people will benefit from this and really go read much ask you where they haven't before we can one carefully certainly them they have before so thank you for teaching us about Montesquieu you're welcome but it's a pleasure always thank you very much Phil for joining me today and thank you for joining us on conversations

Channel: Conversations with Bill Kristol

Views: 7,395

Rating: 4.7862597 out of 5

Keywords: Political Philosophy, Montesquieu, French History, Histoire de philosophie politique, L'Esprit des Lois, The Spirit of the Laws, Harvey Mansfield, Liberalism, Conservatism, Separation of Powers, Monarchy, Republican Theory, Commerce, Bill Kristol, French political thought, Science politique, Political Science, history of political thought, Straussianism, Leo Strauss, Thomas Hobbes, Aristotle

Id: vUGIt7bkdy8

Length: 72min 0sec (4320 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020