Key Question: Are there moral obligations that the present owes to the past, to the future?
1. Conservatism versus Liberalism versus Reactionism
- Tradition is good, sometimes small change (adjustment) is necessary to maintain tradition.
- The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and American Revolution of 1776 versus French Revolution of 1789
- The central tenets of conservatism include wisdom of tradition, human imperfection, organic perfection of social institutions, goodness of heirarchy and authority, sacredness of property rights and wealth inequality.
2. Dangers of abstraction - society is a complex organic whole that we tamper with at our risk.
3. Liberal versus Conservative view of rights
- Rights as universal, unconditional, existing prior to and independent of human society versus existing only within and as an expression of the inner, historical tapestry of social relations. (53)
- Rights as connected to social relationships (57)
- Abstract view of rights undermines restraint, the key civil right. (57)
4. Against radical equality, change - the example of Le Terreur - The Reign of Terror, during the French Revolution.
- Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris
- M. Robespierre, in February 1794 in a speech explained the necessity of terror:
If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie [homeland, fatherland].
5. Aristocracy and Hierarchy are good
- Virtue is the only rational criterion for rule.
- Wealth inequality is good - supports investment in the future.
- We have a natural inclination to respect aristocracy
6. The Principle of Caution
- society is too complex to be able to control, reengineer, remake. (58)
- New insights into morality are unlikely (59)
- slow is beautiful (63)
7. Limits to Rationality, science
- too simplistic to serve as a critique of the status quo.(59)
- there is wisdom in prejudices (59)
- Religion is natural in humans, society cannot be secularized (60)
8. The Social Contract is intergenerational
- The world does not belong per se to the living. (61)
- Cannot be broken like a commercial contract (62)
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