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ideas and themes of conservatism
The three main schools of conservative thought that O'Sullivan outlines in his book - "theological" (or moral), historical and sceptical - share some of the same themes and ideas. The ideas and themes listed below are drawn from Edmund Burke's speeches and writings and present what I would prefer to call natural law conservatism rather than a theologically based conservatism.
The natural law designation indicates that a discussion of a divinely created order, man's nature, and a scheme of unchanging moral principles is philosophical and not theological, if theology is understood as explaining and deepening an understanding of Revelation. For Burke, as it was for the greatest philosophers of Christendom, Augustine and Aquinas, man's unaided reason is capable of perceiving and understanding God's existence, his order in the world, and his moral law. All Burke's discussions of political issues are set against this perception and understanding. It is this starting point that especially distinguishes natural law conservatism from historical and sceptical conservatism. And here we have the key to Burke's thought. It is his notion of reason and the acquisition of knowledge. All that he said and wrote about contemporary issues was underpinned by this notion. He pitted this integral concept of reason and knowledge against the "reason" of the theorists of the French Revolution.
- There is a divinely created order in the world. That order is moral and physical. And it is unchangeable. Its author is God. It is both irrational and blasphemous to deny or struggle against this order. All political arrangements and behaviour must be situated in and governed by it - or court disaster.
- God's Providence is continually at work in the world. The ways of Providence are ultimately inscrutable. It is only man's willing delusion, overweening pride and perversity that motivates him to think there could be no power above him or one that is not susceptible to his rational analysis and approval - or disapproval.
- Man by way of sense perception and his reasoning faculty (properly understood) is able to have certain knowledge of his material surroundings. His daily life continually confirms in the most basic manner his confidence in that knowledge. He gets up in the morning, for example, catches the same train to work each day, unfailingly finds his place of work, completes a range of tasks and so on. That confidence in the knowledge of his material surroundings gives him a platform from which to "see" beyond to the immaterial - to God, his created order, his laws and so on. Nevertheless, man's reason and knowledge, though adequate for his material and immaterial welfare, are limited (even severely) in their extent and by the influence his fallible nature can have on him.
- The rejection of man's limitations in reasoning and knowledge acquisition on the one hand, and the denial of his moral fallibility (his essential imperfection) on the other, coupled with the raising of reason to the final arbiter in all matters, lead directly to clear consequences:
First, in making his reason the final arbiter in all matters, man actually perverts his reasoning faculty which is more than the mathematical a priori mode he has reduced it to. The operations of reason are more than mere abstract thinking.
Second, reducing reason to an a priori mode takes one out of the reality of one's life - out of one's concrete circumstances. One's anchor in life is lost and one commits oneself to an anxiety causing disconnection.
Third, this perverted way of reasoning inevitably leads to scepticism which makes one's daily life an epistemological absurdity: while intellectually holding steadfast to the view that one can have no certain knowledge in life, one acts on the supposition that most of one's daily actions and decisions are based on true judgments. The absurdity of this contradiction is equally anxiety causing.
Fourth, the reasoning process is more than the mind in operation. There is also the heart. Natural moral feeling has epistemological content and direction. We know some actions or policies are wrong because our feelings (the heart) tells us so.
Finally, manners, settled arrangements, customs and traditions that have proven their worth over time, reflecting the natural law to different degrees, have also epistemological content - in a third person sense. They contain knowledge that is not directly apparent to the individual mind, but in which the individual mind can have confidence.
A great deal more with links is to be added to this page which I hope will happen in the not too distant future.
Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com