The Science of Modern Virtue: On Descartes, Darwin, and Locke

5 - Locke’s Explanation of How the Science of Civil Society Corrects the Natural Authority of Virtue

LoCKe’s eXPLanation of How tHe sCienCe of CiViL soCiety CorreCts tHe naturaL autHority of Virtue James R. Stoner, Jr. hAVING BeeN ASSIGNeD the QUeStIoN of how the British enlightenment philosopher John Locke contributes to the science of virtue, I want first to raise the question of the relation of the classical and modern accounts of virtue, society, and politics, and to begin with the classical question of the relation of the order of the city and the order of the soul. for being “stuck with virtue” means at least this: “being stuck” with paying attention to the human soul, or at least to what friedrich Nietzsche called (for those whose scientific conscience cannot quite abide the notion that the soul is a real entity) the “soul hypothesis.”1 Whatever virtue is (in the precise sense), every virtue is an excellence of soul, and the crisis of virtue in the modern world is derivative, I think, from the collapse of the idea of the soul. Now, classical political philosophy—most famously in its first great text, Plato’s Republic—was founded on the analogy between the city and 5 82 James R. Stoner, Jr. the human soul. As Socrates there explains, the classes of the city mirror the parts of the soul: The lower “money-making” classes resemble the appetites, the military or auxiliary class corresponds to spiritedness, and the philosopher-kings exemplify intelligence.2 Socrates and his interlocutors discover justice in the city when each class minds its own business, or in other words, when the spirited class follows the precepts of reason and masters the appetites. Justice is not the whole of virtue—the dialogue finds prudence as the virtue of the calculating part, courage as the virtue of the spirited part, and moderation in harmony among the parts—but in every case virtue in the soul and virtue in the city reflect one another. The political good is congruent with the human good, the analogy would have us suppose, and the happiness of the city is congruent with the happiness of man. I will address in a moment some of the problems with the analogy that its author probably meant for us to notice, but I want to start by discussing its advantages. Within the dialogue, Socrates proposes looking at the city rather than the soul, because justice will be seen more clearly there than in a single soul, which is after all invisible, even or especially to itself. This seems to me to be a good and true argument, and therefore fundamental to any science of virtue: Throughout nature one learns about invisible causes from visible effects, and it hardly seems to be a stretch to consider the city to be a creature of human soulfulness. Moreover, we learn about ourselves by seeing ourselves or our likenesses in others. Left alone any soul might experience terror or hubris, but among others, souls naturally find their place, learn to strive, gain comfort, and even find love. You may or may not agree with the way Plato’s Socrates describes the soul, much less the way he and his companions design their city, but there is nothing foolish about the plan to seek to find the good of the individual in the way we understand the common good. If the analogy holds, then the science of virtue and the science of politics are the same, or at any rate as congruent as the soul and the city. Political science, then, would grow naturally out of ethics, or ethics would complete political science: The good city would be a city of good men and would encourage men to be good, while an association of good men built upon their goodness would be a good city. Aristotle does not stress the analogy as Plato does, but these very consequences are the principles of his Politics and Ethics: The city exists by nature, its end is to promote virtue and thereby secure happiness, and the best city is the city of best men.3 Locke’s Explanation 83 Aristotle does not restrict himself to the best in his analysis of politics: Even lesser cities are built upon human virtues, though lesser ones, as fortune or necessity allows, indeed on virtues of the body not only the soul. So widespread—or again, so natural—is the strength of the analogy of the city and man that it endures long after...