The Public Interest vs. Old Rights

Hume Studies Volume XXI, Number 2, November 1995, pp. 165-188 The Public Interest vs. Old Rights JOHN B. STEWART Both Donald W. Livingston and I engage in retrospective labelling. I present David Hume as one of those who helped create the British political movement known initially as Reform Whig and later as Liberal. By his ardent advocacy of commerce, by his attack on protectionism, by his indifference to empire, by his debunking of the inherited constitution, by his efforts to make philosophers and politicians focus on the public interest, and by his denunciation of "religious Whiggery," Hume, I submit, helped create the Liberal reform program. Those who opposed that program, and called themselves Conservatives, saw it as starting yet another battle, perhaps the last great battle, in the long war between Old England, the England of squires and the Church, and the urban commercial interests, with their large nonconformist component. The reforms, some Conservatives said, really were deforms inspired by the kind of thinking behind the French Revolution. If in 1834—when Queen Adelaide expected to share the fate of Marie Antoinette—a philosopher had told a Conservative meeting that their opponents' measures were conservative and ought to be supported, there would have been much shaking of heads and dark muttering. In terms of British political history, that program was liberal, not conservative. But let us go higher, for Livingston's distinction is between conservatism and "foundational liberalism." Conservatives, he says, defer to inherited beliefs and customs; they see false philosophy as the enemy of such beliefs and John Stewart is at The Senate of Canada, 140 Wellington Street, Ste. 801, Ottawa, Ontario KlA 0A4 Canada. 166 John B. Stewart customs. Now, since "foundational liberalism" is a form of false philosophy, and since Hume was the first to expose false philosophy, we can call him the first conservative philosopher. Because conservatives defer to the inherited way of life, one can live the liberal way of life, Livingston tells us, and still be a conservative. How helpful is this distinction at the level of common politics and history? Who was conservative, Charles I or the revolutionaries who sought to restore "the ancient constitution"? Were those who defended the status quo with Divine Right arguments conservatives? Was the American Revolution tainted by metaphysical ideas popularized during the Puritan Revolution? Do the High Church electors of Oxford University who voted against Peel in 1829 on Catholic Emancipation qualify as conservatives? Did those who called themselves Conservatives in the 1830s merit that name? Does David Hume qualify? Livingston states two criteria. The first is denial of the validity of moral rules emanating from sources outside common life. He tells us that all who make this denial are conservatives, and that Hume, unlike "foundational liberals ," made it, indeed was the first to make it. The second criterion, which Livingston presents, not as discrete, but as a consequence of the first, is recognition that the narrative order is the only legitimate order. This criterion has two branches. Of these the first is exclusive reliance on a certain process of change. Always the presumption favours the status quo: it is established; it is regarded as right by the people. Yet legitimate change is possible. This takes place by, only by, the evolutionary, case-by-case method. If a new requirement arises, the principles of the prevailing order are applied to it, and a statement of what is right relevant to that requirement is made. Step by step, incrementally, the society's beliefs about what is right are modified. Thus a new status quo gradually takes shape on the loom of time. Implicit in this insistence on no change except by concatenation is the second branch of Livingston's second criterion, namely that there is no best social order. Mislead by having transferred to property a statement made by Hume about right to govern, Livingston writes: Conflict over particular claims to property or over established property rules are settled by reference to other established property rules. Grievances are settled by the established rules, and by virtue of retrospective narrative associations the settlement changes the interpretation of the rules. Such changes may lead to a gradual evolution of...