An epistemological critique of the Conservative (Hazony's) Political tradition's Experimental Science

There is a popular argument that genuine conservatives in politics trot out that on the surface should be of some appeal to (more left leaning) liberals who care (recall) about collective experiments in living. So, for example, in his (2022) Conservatism: A Rediscovery (recall my series of posts on Hazony's book first one here; second; here the third; fourth; fifth on Hazony on Meyer here; sixth on Hazony on Kirk here), Yoram Hazony attributes the following argument — which after embracing epistemic humility involves treating different political units or nations as engaged in social experiments — to Hooker (who in turn is said to anticipate an argument in Selden):

It is this suspicion of claims to universally valid knowledge that leads Hooker to nationalism. Where we are unable to obtain certainty by examining nature and revelation, the best way to proceed is by experiment, with each nation maintaining its own customs and practices until a repair is obviously required. Such a procedure will not please the revolutionaries, who insist that all questions have certain and universally valid answers. But it will uphold laws and a way of life that is suited to the history and character of a particular people. Conservatism: A Rediscovery, p. 10

This language of ‘repair’ and what it entails for the practice of political leadership I explore below. In the quote, Hazony treats Hooker as being committed to the idea that differentiated political history is a source of knowledge about discovering laws and mores apt for a nation in virtue of being a series of social experiments in living.

Not unlike the liberal and progressive use and analysis of experiments in living these are collective affairs, but Hazony’s Hooker focuses on the experiments by very large scale unities — political and national units — not the relatively smaller bottom-up collectivities within these larger units that are of interest to liberals and progressives.

As an aside, I don’t mean to suggest there is no analogue at all within liberalism for Hooker’s top-down, large scall treatment of experiments in living. So, in the liberal theory of federalism and confederation, one of the virtues of federalism is that it allows for (natural) social experiments at (large) scale among different federal units.

Be that as it may, Hazony develops this theme when he turns to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, where Burke “explicitly declares” that construction of a national state is an “experimental science,” a body of knowledge that cannot be attained “a priori”—that is, by the methods of the rationalists.” (p. 26) By ‘rationalists’ Hazony means Locke (and Rousseau).

Hazony then quotes Burke as follows:

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in the remoter operation. . . . The science of government being therefore...a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any one person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or of building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes. (Conservatism, p. 26)

Before I get to the substance of the matter, three bits of terminology. First, in my view Burke treats ‘experiments’ in politics as short-run (and usually deplorable) affairs. For example, the “experimental government” of the French revolution is not a term of praise. And this is to be contrasted with much more long-running ‘experience.’ As Hazony discerns for Burke experiments are informed by speculative reason, whereas long-running experience informs ‘experimental science’ which is a cautious, inductive and comparative affair. Second, by ‘utility’ here Burke means ‘serving the public interest.’ (That’s pretty standard during the eighteenth century.) Third, I treat Burke’s ‘moral causes’ as if they are ‘social scientific causes.’ (That’s a bit anachronistic, but not badly so.)

But terminology aside, I agree with Hazony’s interpretation that for Burke the experience that goes into such experimental science are a kind of large-scale experiments in living. Crucially, the evidence of these large-scale experiments has a time-span of potentially centuries.

Hazony is right that for Burke once a society requires (to use Hooker’s phrase) repair, Burke is no gradualist. Rather, he advocates relatively decisive reconstruction “in accordance with models and patterns that have proved themselves.” (p. 27) And Hazony plausibly suggests that for Burke “where there is no such model or pattern available from the historical experience of the nation in question, Burke advocates seeking “models and patterns of approved utility” in the traditions of other nations.” (p. 27)

Let’s stipulate (accepting Hazony’s authority) that Hooker and Burke are part of a conservative intellectual reflection on the science and art of government. We might claim, then, on its behalf that it is rooted in a cautious approach to experiments in living. In these political societies (nations) discover the institutions and mores that work tolerably well over time for them. And thereby it’s possible for a student of politics to build up a stock of comparative experience of what works for different kind of political societies. The latter stock generates the storehouse of “models and patterns of approved utility.”

In Hooker and Burke, we can discern a science of man that is not far from Hume’s and Smith’s conception which also deals with political life as it develops over centuries. Even so, I would argue that in Hume and Smith theory plays a much larger role in how one should analyze the evidence of experiments in living. But on that see here.

Now, some other time I want to critically engage with Hazony’s (and Burke’s) treatment of the self-constitution of a political unity. But here I want to close with a kind of epistemological critique of the Burkean experimental science that Hazony embraces. My criticism is not from the vantage point of modern statistical or experimental technique about the nature of identification of models and patterns of approved utility. That is, my criticism will not require a debate about what science is or is not. For, I am willing to accept that the kind of large-scale political/national trial-and-error that Hazony’s conservative tradition embraces generates a kind of knowledge.

Rather, Hazony’s Hooker and Burke misdiagnose what their approach to history can teach. And we can begin to discern that once we notice that Hooker and Burke treat history as offering up a certain kind of rough revealed preferences of society. That is, on the view attributed to them at any given time an enduring social edifice (e.g., institution, mores, practices, etc.) answers in a tolerable degree the common purposes of society. So, that lurking here is a kind of justification of any enduring social edifice in terms of the wants and needs (or social preference function) of a given society.

Feel free to ignore the use of pseudo-jargon in the previous paragraph. I only use it because it’s pretty clear that the conservative would not want to embrace it. So, something has gone off the rails.

Now, before I get to that, I am sure that many of my readers will be able to generate political critiques of this kind of status quo bias lurking here. (For example, the institution of slavery seems to have answered in a tolerable degree the common purposes of society in all kinds of places.) But that’s not my present interest.

Rather, that society has an enduring edifice is nearly always and everywhere part of the structure that generates that thing we may call society and even the appearance of common purpose. For these presuppose a framework to generate relatively robust and stable common expectations. (Perhaps this is what any society that works tolerably well requires.) Where there are relatively robust and stable common expectations uncertainty is reduced and a whole range of other good effects follow over time. (The previous sentence captures the common ground between Hobbes’ and Adam Smith’ science of man.) These good effects will create the social patterns that look like common purpose(s).

So, at bottom I claim that the Hooker-Burkean-Hazony experimental science conflates cause and effect. That is, any enduring status quo will seem to generate ‘models and patterns of approved utility.’ But these models and patterns are not, thereby, real patterns (in Dennett’s sense) absent that status quo. Somewhat surprisingly, then, my charge against the conservative political tradition is that it generates reckless political action when it inspires political agency based on this way of doing science.