It’s a bit tricky to establish what the rules of the game are in figuring out what the relationship is between a broad programmatic ideology that is has different streams (like liberalism) and certain important concepts (the death penalty, or balance of power).
Thanks for this discussion. I find it very interesting. Just a couple of notes:
1. Cobden's 1836 Russia pamphlet attacked "balance of power". If found that to be the most poorly argued and least persuasive part of the pamphlet.
2. About your remarks on Hume on "balance of power", and Hume as a liberal. Hume's essay "Of the Balance of Power" simply acknowledges the naturalness and long history (back to the ancients) of considerations lately termed "balance of power" ("lately" to Hume, that is, as ngrams show a start in the 1730s). The drift of the essay is clearly against imperialism and military adventurism. Indeed, the piece winds up by analogizing modern Britain with the hubristic, over-extended, and ill-fated Roman empire.
3. I don't understand being "against" the idea of balance of power. What that term signifies is a simple reality, as considerations go, and the object calls for just estimation. Also, the signifier "balance of power" seems apt. I think Cobden (in 1836 Russia pamphlet) lashes out at "balance of power", but, really, what he should have targeted was people's wrongly assessing and wrongly invoking balance-of-power considerations. Cobden should simply have said that they get those considerations wrong, or, even when they get them them right they err by treating them as far more dispositive than they should. They fail to do justice to "the total effect" (Coase 1960).
4. BTW, just for my curiosity: Did Cobden or Bright affirm social contract/political consent? I don't imagine so, and I hope not. Would be interested to know.
2. I think Hume's views are a bit more complicated than you allow. Recall that my argument (August 29 &30, 2023) relied on the principled analogy that Hume draws between ostracism (which nobody thinks liberal) and balance of power thinking. On my view Hume thinks balance of power thinking is a second-best way of engaging with political reality, and so a useful instrument in a more prudential form of empire.
3. I think the confusion you point to is something I am trying to diagnose; that some principles or policies come to be identified with a worldview/ideology and so cannot be treated as wholly neutral. I would have expressed what you express here that there is a model of reality in which balance of power thinking figures as a feature.
4. I have never seen them defend social contract. I haven't read all of Bright's speeches on the franchise, to feel confident about his views on consent. (Cobden was decidedly uninterested in the expanded franchise.)
RE point 3: I just looked up "ostracism" in the Hume essay, to try to figure out what you're saying there. I see his one usage on p. 334 and the editor's footnote. I don't get what you're pinning on Hume, but let's just say I'm mighty suspicious.
RE point 4: Thanks. Let me just say, in case it is needed here, that being pro democracy and pro expansion of the franchise by no means implies being pro social contract/political consent in one's political theory.
Ha, I wish you re-read my essay on the topic back in the day. But I read Hume as claiming that (i) that engaging in balance of power politics is quite ancient, and (ii) that it occurs naturally in certain contexts; (iii) that it is a fine tactic in second-best theorizing about political life. In fact, (iv) Following balance of power politics is prescriptive. And I think Hume thinks that in many contexts this is sound policy.
Thanks for this discussion. I find it very interesting. Just a couple of notes:
1. Cobden's 1836 Russia pamphlet attacked "balance of power". If found that to be the most poorly argued and least persuasive part of the pamphlet.
2. About your remarks on Hume on "balance of power", and Hume as a liberal. Hume's essay "Of the Balance of Power" simply acknowledges the naturalness and long history (back to the ancients) of considerations lately termed "balance of power" ("lately" to Hume, that is, as ngrams show a start in the 1730s). The drift of the essay is clearly against imperialism and military adventurism. Indeed, the piece winds up by analogizing modern Britain with the hubristic, over-extended, and ill-fated Roman empire.
3. I don't understand being "against" the idea of balance of power. What that term signifies is a simple reality, as considerations go, and the object calls for just estimation. Also, the signifier "balance of power" seems apt. I think Cobden (in 1836 Russia pamphlet) lashes out at "balance of power", but, really, what he should have targeted was people's wrongly assessing and wrongly invoking balance-of-power considerations. Cobden should simply have said that they get those considerations wrong, or, even when they get them them right they err by treating them as far more dispositive than they should. They fail to do justice to "the total effect" (Coase 1960).
4. BTW, just for my curiosity: Did Cobden or Bright affirm social contract/political consent? I don't imagine so, and I hope not. Would be interested to know.
Thank you for this!
1. Agreed.
2. I think Hume's views are a bit more complicated than you allow. Recall that my argument (August 29 &30, 2023) relied on the principled analogy that Hume draws between ostracism (which nobody thinks liberal) and balance of power thinking. On my view Hume thinks balance of power thinking is a second-best way of engaging with political reality, and so a useful instrument in a more prudential form of empire.
3. I think the confusion you point to is something I am trying to diagnose; that some principles or policies come to be identified with a worldview/ideology and so cannot be treated as wholly neutral. I would have expressed what you express here that there is a model of reality in which balance of power thinking figures as a feature.
4. I have never seen them defend social contract. I haven't read all of Bright's speeches on the franchise, to feel confident about his views on consent. (Cobden was decidedly uninterested in the expanded franchise.)
Hi Eric,
RE point 3: I just looked up "ostracism" in the Hume essay, to try to figure out what you're saying there. I see his one usage on p. 334 and the editor's footnote. I don't get what you're pinning on Hume, but let's just say I'm mighty suspicious.
RE point 4: Thanks. Let me just say, in case it is needed here, that being pro democracy and pro expansion of the franchise by no means implies being pro social contract/political consent in one's political theory.
Best, /Dan
Ha, I wish you re-read my essay on the topic back in the day. But I read Hume as claiming that (i) that engaging in balance of power politics is quite ancient, and (ii) that it occurs naturally in certain contexts; (iii) that it is a fine tactic in second-best theorizing about political life. In fact, (iv) Following balance of power politics is prescriptive. And I think Hume thinks that in many contexts this is sound policy.
4. Agreed.
Please share link to the earlier essay, thx.