Digressions&Impressions

Tremain on The Inductive Risks of Bioethics, Pt 1. (And *In the Shadow of Justice*, pt 4)

My argument is that the academic discipline of bioethics relies on an epistemology of domination and is an institutionalized vehicle for the biopolitics of our time, that is, bioethics is a technology of government that provides intellectual resources designed to facilitate the “strengthening” (read: fitness) of a certain population and the elimination of others. I submit, furthermore, that the implicit and explicit governmental tenor of bioethical inquiries and discussions contributes substantially to the hostile environment that disabled philosophers confront in philosophy.--Shelley L. Tremain (2017) Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (University of Michigan), 160-161.

As the quoted passage suggests, Tremain diagnoses two kinds of inductive risks from the way bioethics is practiced: (i) it is eugenic in character: it promotes the "elimination" of populations with characteristics thought undesirable; (ii) it creates a hostile work environment for disabled philosophers within professional philosophy. Today's post is focused on (i). For on her view, it is constitutive of bioethics to "posit conceptions of the normal from which the possibility and probability of deviations are measured and classified in order to prevent and control their actualization." (169) Within the discipline, the normal is taken to be an objective feature of reality (often understood as something statistical or species functional), and the deviations -- in particular below the norm -- are treated as objective defects or harms (or costly). Following Foucault, Tremain treats the disciplinary articulation of this conceptualization a step in what she calls 'normalization.'

For the articulation of these conceptualizations and their understanding as objective (social) facts constitute a field of inquiry and creates a discursive power with normative authority in the university, the hospital, and in wider society. More subtly, Tremain argues that normalization shapes, by various looping effects (Hacking's terminology) the self-conception of ordinary agents in society and the possibilities available to them as they make, what they take to be, autonomous choices. Such normalization becomes eugenic once it becomes constitutive of (autonomous) reproductive choices by individual would-be-parents and by social (and sometimes legally mandated) technologies of risk-management and prevention to facilitate the creation of populations without characteristics thought abnormal (defective, costly, or not conducive to full participation/cooperation in society, etc.).

Before I offer some critical reflections on Tremain's position, I want to note two things: first, I agree with Tremain that until quite recently contemporary bioethics (both in its Rawlsian and Utilitarian guise) is eugenic in character and that it has badly theorized -- mostly by ignoring -- the inductive risk of its own activity. In fact, while it councils 'do-no-harm' to medicine and patient autonomy, it has been long reluctant to explore the possible harm that is the possible effect of social and institutional uptake of normative theorizing. For most of my adult life, analytic applied ethicists simply disparage those disciplines (Critical X) where inductive risk is taken seriously (recall my criticism of Heath). In so far as it is agreed that normative theory has possible bad social effects that's never due to the theory itself, but only due to bad people or bad social implementation. The character of the foreseeable uptake of a theory is not treated as a legitimate (professional) evaluative feature of the theory.

Second, and only a partial aside, while Tremain uses a Foucauldian framework (and linguistic register) to analyze these features, it converges with the decidedly non-Foucauldian treatment of the development of applied ethics offered by Katherine Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy (recall here; here; and here). In particular, I want to highlight a structural feature of applied ethics, the significance of which only became clear to me while reading Tremain. Forrester notes that:

Applied ethics soon also encompassed medicine, law, and business. But the fact that moral thinking about war, with all its extremities and appeals to necessity, was one of the first test cases for applied ethics had a wider impact on the development of moral and political philosophy. Its focus on dramatic and extra ordinary moral choices was soon imported into other realms of inquiry. Crucially, it was imported back into the realm of domestic politics, which was turned into a case of its own: public morality.--Forrester In the Shadow of Justice, pp. 74-75 (emphasis added)

Appeals to the necessity of choosing function as a mechanism to prevent the development of questions about the proper form of thought and its institutional embeddedness. The focus on existential social choice facilitates the rise of casuistry without thinking through what the structure of the demand for casuistry does to the supply of ethical theory (as the worth having). (An analogous problem shows up in normative decision theory.) To simplify greatly, we saw the after-effects of this in the most recent pandemic: bioethicists were primed to discuss the rationing of medical care and the justification of vaccine requirements, but had little guidance to offer on how to think about the integration of many different kinds of fast moving (and sometimes still immature) sciences and the complex trade-offs of major social policies.  

Now, let me return to Tremain's analysis; it is important to recognize that normalization (mediated by various social and governmental practices) produces "people with certain kinds of subjectivities, that is, these practices have constituted subjects whose actions are governed through the exercise of their own capacity to choose in accordance with the norm(al)." (190) And while the structure of Tremain's argument is akin to an ideology critique, she recognizes that there is no sense in which she can claim that these subjects have "been duped by the ideological forces of some distant and overarching external power," nor is she in a position (as she admits) to claim "these subjects make morally bad personal decisions." (190) 

Tremain is a very clear writer, and she puts her assumptions and commitments transparently on the table: she is a nominalist, a historicist, and a relativist. And she makes clear that the problem with ("epistemological and ontological assumptions" embedded in) disciplinary practices that are invested in normalization is that "the potentially detrimental effects for disabled people" is ignored. (192; this is also true of embryo research.) Part of these detrimental effects are the widespread uptake of the thought that the disabled have "diminished lives" and so nudge (and legally facilitate) abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia of them. (200)*

I hinted above that I would offer a criticism. The problem is that acknowledging, even internalizing detrimental effects in a (bioethical) theory is neither necessary nor sufficient to undermine such a theory. Again, I draw on Forrester and the implication of appealing to necessity. It is characteristic of applied ethics to use "abstract, personal, and interpersonal modes of justification to explore the most concrete of existential questions of life, death, and killing— questions that continued to remain at the core of applied ethics." (82) To put the point starkly: the 'heroisms' of applied ethics is precisely its willingness to face up to the existential nature of its questions.** That something is eugenic and has harmful externalities is certainly something that -- once pointed out -- has to be faced, but with theoretical equanimity. 

I'll put the dilemma facing Tremain and her partisans as follows: because she is unwilling to develop a normative theory of her own that can meet contemporary applied ethics on its own terms (I almost wrote 'ethical battlefield' there), merely stating and naming, even unmasking, an inductive risk is not sufficient to change a disciplinary practice. If anything, once it is domesticated as inductive risk her insights can feed into other technologies of biopower. (So she may well rightly object to this whole post.) And because such domestication is always a live risk, Tremain is probably prudential in avoiding the development of a normative theory of her own. But as her own analysis shows, society will confer authority on normative theory (and as Forrester shows it will create all kinds of rewards for those who develop it 'best'), so avoiding the contamination of normative theory seems to consign oneself to political and professional wilderness. But that conclusion would be victim blaming, and to understand that we need to look more closely at (ii), the marginalization of disabled philosophers in the profession. To be continued.

 

Descartes on Indignation

The 195 Article. Of Indignation.

Indignation is a sort of Hatred or Aversion, that a man naturally beares to those who doe some evil, of what nature soever it be. And it is often mixed with Envy, or Pity, but yet, the object thereof is altogether different from them. For he carryes an Indignation onely against those who doe good or evil to persons unworthy of it: but he envies those who receive this good, and pities those who receive this evil. It is true, in some respects it is evil to possesse a good whereof a man is not worthy. Which may be the reason wherefore Aristotle and his followers, supposing that Envy is alwayes a vice, have cal­led that Indignation which is not vicious.

...

The 198 Article. Of the use of it.

Furthermore, Indignation is observed to be more in those who would seem vertuous, than those who really are. For althought they who love vertue cannot without some Aversion look upon the vices of others, they are Passio­nate onely against the great and extraordinary ones. For it is to be nice, and squamish, to have much Indignation for things of little concern­ment; it is to be unjust to have any for those which are not blameworthy; and it is to be im­pertinent and absurd not to confine this Passion to the Actions of men, but extend them to the works of God or nature: as they do who being snever contented with their condition or fortune, dare controule the government of the world, and the secrets of providence.--Descartes, René, 1596-1650., 2013, The passions of the soule in three books the first, treating of the passions in generall, and occasionally of the whole nature of man. The second, of the number, and order of the passions, and the explication of the six primitive ones. The third, of particular passions. By R. des Cartes. And translated out of French into English., Oxford Text Archive, http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12024/A81352.

I was triggered to return to Descartes' Passions while preparing a review of Michelle Schwarze's wonderful book Recognizing Resentment: Sympathy, Injustice, and Liberal Political Thought (Cambridge: 2020). This book is primarily focused on Butler, Hume, and Adam Smith, but it has a preliminary chapter on seventeenth century ideas on resentment and indignation in which Descartes is omitted. This omission is no surprise because Schwarze is focused on recovering and articulating a distinctly liberal understanding of sympathetic resentment and Descartes is no precursor to liberalism or especially interested in promoting commerce and sociability.  Even so, I think Descartes plays an important part of the story she wants to tell, so, here goes.

Early in Passions (article 65), Descartes define or characterizes indignation as follows "evil done by others, having no relation to us, breeds only in us Indignati­on against them." Indignation is, thus, an impartial response ("no relation to us") to the witnessing or experience of harms done to others by third parties. It has, thus, a kind of spectatorship and impartiality built into its very possibility. In addition, it presupposes that these harms are in some sense moralized and intentional ('evils').  This is nicely conveyed by the seventeenth century Dutch translation by Spinoza's acquaintance Jan Glazemaker, where Descartes' indignation is translated as 'euvelneming' literally the experience of evil. 

As an aside, when we are harmed by others, according to Descartes, we feel something stronger than indignation: colere translated nicely as 'wrath'. This passion is very similar to indignation, but also includes the desire of revenge. So it is action-guiding (and can actuate bold and/or courageous actions (see sect 199 of  the Passions). In fact, the somatic instantiation of wrath divers among people, and Descartes is careful to distinguish between a sudden wrath and a carefully nurtured wrath, which when it is joined with love for another may well be a kind of indignation on their behalf. ("interest themselves in the behalfe of those they love, as if it were for themselves;" sect 201).

If we now look at Descartes' treatment of indignation in sections 195-198, we see that he adds an important qualification, that is, that we only feel it when we judge the victim unworthy of the harm ("he carryes an Indignation onely against those who doe good or evil to persons unworthy of it"). It has, thus, an evaluative feature built into its very triggering conditions. So, to sum up the discussion so far, according to Descartes indignation is a  moralized reactive attitude that presupposes considerable impartiality by an observer to intentional harm done to someone not deserving of it. That is to say, the spectator most share a moral universe with the perpetrator and victim. It's not especially action guiding, and seems to have more a role in what we might want to call moral score-keeping and, perhaps, recognition of harms done to other.

When we to turn to the section on the use of indignation (198), we see that Descartes de facto distinguishes two uses of it: first, it has a social role -- I will call it virtue-signaling -- to make us seem virtuous in the eyes of others. And we can infer from Descartes' terse analysis that in its signaling capacity, there is a tendency for an overuse of indignation. This clearly suggests that being thought virtuous creates what we might call social credit. And since indignation is not action guiding (and so has little consequences or negative feedback), there are incentives for being too oft indignant on  behalf of others without qualification because there are no drawbacks. 

It's worth noting that Descartes does not really spell out what's wrong with excessive virtue-signaling, except that he seems to rely on some kind of proportionality requirement that the passion needs to be commensurate with the triggering cause(s). I actually think this kind of principle plays a huge role in Hume's and Smith's moral psychology, and I am kind of sad I just noticed this feature in Descartes today. Of course, that causes and effects have to be proportional to each other is an important element in Descartes' physics (see, for example, his letter to Huygens, 5 October, 1637: “L’effet doit toujours être proportionné à l’action qui est nécessaire pour le produire.” [Quoted from S. Roux]), so  it is not ad hoc. But it has moved from a natural principle to a normative one that can be violated (and again that's not untypical of Hume and Smith). 

Be that as it may, presumably Descartes things that too-frequent indignation destroys the signaling quality of indignation when it is proper. (If X is a cheap source of social credit then X may well become inflationary.) So, second, there is a proper form of indignation of those who truly love virtue (and are not merely virtue signaling) at "great and extraordinary harms." Unlike, say, Hobbes (as described wonderfully by Theresa Bejan (recall)), Descartes really takes (to be anachronistic for a second) micro-aggressions for granted as not needing to be registered by bystanders and spectators. Perhaps this is due to the Stoic element in his thought.

It's not quite clear what the measure is that allows a spectator to distinguish between small-ish harms not deserving a passionate response and those so worthy. But indignation at the harms to others worthy of note is appropriate according to Descartes. Since it's not action guiding its primary function seems to be let victims (and their aggressors) know that evils done to them are recognized by outsiders. So I infer that its main role according to Descartes is as a kind of social score keeping that make victims of harms be seen by the community (and which establishes, thereby, to perpetrators that the have violated important social norms).

Interestingly enough, Descartes wants to rule out indignation at the greatest cause of all (and he puts this in surprisingly Spinozistic fashion) God or Nature [Dieu, ou de la Nature]. Again, we see a kind of appeal to a normative proportionality principle here. But lurking here is also an idea that we cannot make our indignation felt on God or Nature, and that in an important sense we are not fundamentally equal. 

I think it's pretty clear that by Descartes' lights, wrath -- as action guiding and nurtured over time under the sway of, say, anger or revenge, -- is taken as potentially more destabilizing to society than indignation. For, wrath can undermine good judgment. And so wrath must be moderated according to Descartes by generosity (sect 203).

You haven't read Schwarze's book, but I hope you trust me when I say that Descartes's account of indignation has already a lot of the building blocks that will be deployed by Butler, Hume, and Smith and that she analyzes with great skill. From the eighteen century perspective, what's really lacking in Descartes is a proper analysis of the role of sympathy in calibrating indignation. (Descartes was famously averse to sympathy because he associates it with the kind of philosophy he thinks is baloney.) And Descartes does not spell out the normative features that enter into judgment of the impartial bystander. If I am right about this it does raise an interesting historical-sociological question why Descartes' view of indignation was only really developed and elaborated during the eighteenth century by folk commonly portrayed as his critics.

 

The Virginia School and Carl Schmitt: Wagner's Entangled Political Economy (pt 1)

    The second type of tension points to some challenging issues of dialectical theorizing. Perhaps most significantly, it appears in Buchanan’s distinction between constitutional and post-constitutional politics. This distinction was central both to The Calculus of Consent and The Limits of Liberty, and it was the dominant theme within his body of work. This tension appears clearly in the Calculus of Consent, and continues in his various subsequent efforts to use the playing of parlor games as serving as a useful framework for thinking about problems pertaining to the organization of human affairs. This scheme of thought is closed and deterministic and not open and creative. Yet there can surely be no doubt that despite his flirtations with closed schemes of thought, the Buchanan (1982) who asserted that order could be defined only through some emergent process was someone who necessarily embraced open schemes of thought that is not reducible to a few people deciding what kind of parlor game to play.
   This tension within Buchanan’s scheme of thought points toward a distinction between sentimental and muscular versions of liberalism. Perhaps nowhere is this distinction illustrated in sharper relieve than in comparing John Stuart Mill’s (1859) On Liberty with James Fitzjames Stephen’s (1873) Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. For Mill, a liberal order was easy to achieve and maintain because personal liberty, equality before the law, and humanity were universal values, so human nature provided a bedding ground within which liberalism could flourish. Stephen agreed with Mill about liberty and equality, but not about the fraternal imperative being resident within human nature. Hence, Stephen thought that force would always be part of a well-ordered society, though he recognized that force could be used to subvert a liberal order as well as to support it. For the sentimental version of liberalism conveyed by Mill and later John Rawls (1971), human governance could be reduced to ethics, law, and commerce, leaving no room for the political insertion of force into society. For the muscular version of liberalism, free societies are not self-sustaining, and can degenerate without the proper use of force. While Stephen illustrated the muscular version of liberalism luminously, James Burnham (1943) traced that muscular version back to Machiavelli, and also associated it with such figures from the early 20th century as Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Roberto Michels. Burnham could very well have added Carl Schmitt (1932) and his recognition of the autonomy of the political to his menagerie of thinkers in the spirit of muscular liberalism.

    Buchanan’s position relative to the divide between sentimental and muscular liberalism is ambiguous. Much of this thinking reflected an “end of history” style of thinking whereby political force could be abolished through the creation of the proper constitutional rules. Yet, Buchanan never fully embraced this style of thinking. Sentimental liberalism treats liberty as a universal value. If so, people should readily embrace the challenge of living as free persons. But if a good part of the population is thought to be afraid of living freely (Buchanan 2005), either sentimental expressions of liberalism will transform liberty into servility (Belloc 1912) or political power will be
marshaled to lead protesters into accepting the liberal order. --Richard E. Wagner (2017)) James Buchanan’s "Liberal Theory of Political Economy: A Valiant but Failed Effort to Square the Circle" [published in Buchanan's Tensions: Reexamining the Political Economy and Philosophy of James M. Buchanan Edited by Peter J. Boettke and Solomon Stein , 2018.]

There is persistent strain of scholarship that aims to link important theorists of neo-liberalism -- Hayek, Eucken, Buchanan, Milton Friedman, etc. -- to Carl Schmitt's legal theory in order to unmask or show the true character of neo-liberalism. This is often illustrated with some references to their entanglement with Pinochet's dictatorship. While I do not want to dismiss such scholarship out of hand -- in some neoliberals, especially in Hayek, there is a strain of accommodation with temporary benevolent dictatorship --, but it is often not very illuminating. Sometimes, more rarely really, the point of the exercise is self-consciously to rehabilitate Schmitt as a kind of liberal, although one "free from democratic contamination." The quote is from a fascinating (1984) article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science by F.R. Cristi, a philosopher then at Wilfred Laurier.

I became aware of Cristi because I have been recently reading Richard E. ('Dick') Wagner's late works (at the urging of some of his students and admirers). Wagner is James Buchanan's first PhD student (or among the first), and also among his most prominent ones who played an important role in the development of 'Virginia school' public choice (alongside Buchanan, Tullock, and Nutter). More recently, Wagner has been developing an approach within public choice -- entangled political economy -- which draws on network theory, systems theory, polycentrism, and the Italian elite school (especially Pareto, Mosca, Michel, etc.) as well as the left strain of Austrian economics (associated with Wieser). Wagner also has a fondness for the sociologist, Elias. Wagner is widely read in social theory, and unusually for an economist, does not hide it. One reason to be interested in Wagner's entangled political economy is in its sober analysis of political life. For if corrosive rent-seeking by the powerful and connected is one of the Achilles-heels of liberal democracy then liberalism, or at least a realist liberalism (say of the sort defended by Matt Sleat) needs to come to terms with it. 

Much to my surprise, in Wagner's late works, Schmitt repeatedly shows up as an 'authoritarian liberal' and he cites Cristi's work repeatedly as source for this. (To be sure not the 1984 article I quoted above, but Cristi's 1998, book Carl Schmitt and Authoritarian Liberalism. But judging by Wagner's description of the latter the view is close to the 1984 article.) My own view -- which I share with Perry Anderson (no friend of liberalism) is -- that (recall) "Schmitt...never had any truck with liberalism." Leaving aside Cristi's motives and project, the question that I wish to pursue here is to what degree Wagner's position -- with its advocacy for a 'muscular' species of liberalism -- remains broadly liberal. 

The problem is that Wagner inserts his analysis in a historical set of contrasts attached to familiar names in the liberal tradition. On one side are Mill, Rawls, and much of Buchanan. These are sentimental liberals. And they are so called because and now I re-quote Wagner "human governance could be reduced to ethics, law, and commerce, leaving no room for the political insertion of force into society." I suspect that strictly speaking this claim is false about all three purported sentimentalists. But it's also a sufficiently familiar (realist) criticism of the latter two that I will accept something like it for the sake of argument.* In another work, Wagner explains this point (about the reduction of human governance to ethics, law, and commerce) as follows:

To assert the autonomy of the political seems superficially to clash with the traditional or classical notion of a society of free and independent individuals, perhaps still associated most strongly with John Stuart Mill (1863). This notion of liberalism appears to seek to reduce the political to some combination of economics, law, and ethics. The reduction to economics reflects the autonomy of economizing action. The reduction to law reflects the idea of a rule of law as replacing a rule of men, about which Rajagopalan and Wagner (2013) voice skepticism. The reduction to ethics reflects a presumption that humanity can will itself to be governed along the principles of one of those peaceable kingdom paintings where lions are lying with lambs. "The logic of economizing action: Universal form and particular practice" in (2016) Politics as a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy.

Before I get to this, I have to admit I find the way Wagner draws a contrast (in the material quoted at the top of this post) between Mill and Stephen a bit puzzling. While Stephen had many perceptive criticisms of the kind of hypocrisy and ideological blinders required to call Victorian England in any sense 'equal', his own underlying commitment was (as was clear to then contemporary commentators like Morley) un-egalitarian. To quote a key line from Stephen: "Men are fundamentally unequal, and this inequality will show itself arrange society as you like." See Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (LF ed.). Liberty Fund, 1874, pp. 152-153. (This is from the chapter 5, on the 'modern creed' of equality.) I return to Stephen's position below. I also found it odd to see Mill characterized as holding that "a liberal order was easy to achieve and maintain because personal liberty, equality before the law, and humanity were universal values." After all, Mill thought, to simplify, that many societies required English tutelage to be prepared for a liberal order.

Burnham was not confused about these matters during the phase when he was most enamored by Machiavelli and the Italian elite thinkers. In that period he did not think of himself as a liberal (either in the progressive twentieth century sense or the more nineteenth century classical sense that Buchanan ended up identifying himself with). After all, Burnham (a philosophically trained ex-Trotskyite) thought that managerialism would make liberalism (and Marxism) obsolete. One reason why his writings from the 1940s [recall The Managerial Revolution (1941) and The Machiavellians: the Defenders of Freedom (1943)] are so fascinating is that he is extremely insightful on the implosion of early twentieth century liberalism and the contours of the post WWII settlement, while completely missing the possibility of a neo-liberal revival.

I don't mean to suggest that there are no liberal ideas in Burnham. Burnham is explicitly not laissez-faire, and he denies that respect for private property is the end all or be all to defend what he calls 'freedom.' Rather he thinks that what's required for freedom is the possibility to provide criticism of the government, which must be constrained by law. And he thinks (in Madisonian fashion, and certainly this picks up a strain in Machiavelli) that it is competing powers/forces that maintain this freedom (beyond mores/norms). For Burnham the lesson is that concentrated power is dangerous. So, here Burnham is an accord with the ordoliberals of his own age, and trustbusters of the progressive era. But he argues this without much interest in much of what characterizes liberalism. (Burnham's rejection of equality slides into outright racism and sexism in his later work see (e.g. Suicide of the West)).

As an aside, I don't mean to suggest that there is no route into liberalism from Pareto (who was a liberal for most of  his life) and Italian Elite theory (as mediated by Burnham). The French political sociologist, Raymond Aron, read Burnham carefully and did develop a species of liberalism in which responsible elites play an important role.+

If we turn to Wagner's own use of Burnham and Schmitt, we see that what's crucial for him within his development of entangled political economy is what Wagner calls the 'autonomy of the political.' By this he means I think three distinct (but mutually supporting) claims: (i) politics is not reducible to economics or the economy (and so also has a proper form of activity of its own [and that analytically must be captured by its own methods])--sometimes there is an added claim that politics is 'parasitic' on the economy; (ii) the use of force is intrinsic to the political and, ultimately, unavoidable in political life. (The "parlor games" tend to obscure this fact.) Liberals who take liberal values for granted, and democrats who take democratic commitments of the people for granted, ultimately miss this point. (iii) Left to their own devices, the liberal economic order and civil society are not self-sustaining (hence the recurring crises within liberalism). What's needed is political will and force to save the liberal economic order from its own impotence (or crises).

In my view the great significance of Wagner's entangled political economy is its willingness to address the possibility (and dangers accompanying) the fact that liberalism may not be self-sustaining. And I hope to return to it before long. But I do want to register that Wagner's purported realism has slid into illiberalism in two characteristic ways. First, it's bedrock in liberalism, and anachronistically or not, Locke is the godfather of the idea, that force has to be backed by (legitimate) law and that if such law is unavailable, but the survival of individual members of society requires discretion, the use of force can be made accountable after the fact. (I owe this way of formulating it (recall) to Hume and Nomi Claire Lazar's States of Emergency in Liberal Democracies.)

It is by no means obvious that Wagner embraces this bedrock idea because his repeated invocations of Schmitt are meant to convey the idea "that the autonomy of the political within society is bound up in the ability of those who hold political power to act on and grant exceptions to rules and to act on and reinforce distinctions between friends and enemies." (from "Parasitical political calculation" in (2016) Politics as a Peculiar Business.) And accountability is never paired with this principle. 

Second, I have a sneaky suspicion that Wagner agrees with Stephen's rejection of egalitarianism. This is clear from another passage in Politics as a Peculiar Business that I will quote at length:

The autonomy of the political reflects recognition that power is ever present in society, along with recognition that people differ among themselves in both abilities and interests as these pertain to the relative attractiveness of comparatively introversive and extroversive lines of activity. In this respect, participation in political activity seems likely to hold generally stronger appeal for relatively extroversive types who find public interaction to be a source of energy rather than draining it away. While the autonomy of the political appears in the surface impression that a small number of rulers dominate large masses of citizens, that surface impression hides the sub-surface recognition that power is latent in human nature, and which manifests itself in numerous particular ways historically. That latency and its particular manifestation starts from recognition that humans could potentially be studied within the rubric of ethology as the study of the higher mammals, as against being studied as an independent species....While there may be little difference between a street porter and a philosopher (Levy and Peart, eds. 2008) when operating alone in Crusoe-like fashion, differences arise in societal settings, increasingly so as societal complexity increases as represented by an increasingly stratified division of labor, and with those differences both promoting hierarchy and intensifying the autonomy of the political.
To refer to human sociality is not necessarily to refer to something pleasant. Sociality might be pleasant, but often it is not. Sociality refers simply to orientations and activities that involve a multiple of people, and so are not phenomena recognizable to a Robinson Crusoe. The social mammals mostly exist in cooperative packs. A pack of wolves can bring down a moose even though the aggregate weight of those wolves is less than that of the moose. From time to time, quarrels will arise among the wolves in a pack, and with one of the quarreling wolves emerging as the leader of the pack. The social mammals display cooperation, conflict, and hierarchy as inseparable or entangled qualities, and human societies are no different in this regard.

It is possible that Wagner here is merely making a descriptive claim about the inevitability of social hierarchy in societies characterized by an advanced division of labor. But it is notable that he does so while stipulating that Levy & Peart's analytic egalitarianism only holds in small societies. For it is central to their analytic egalitarianism (which I tend to defend) -- which treats humans as broadly equal [in the way that Hobbes does] -- that any observed differences are due to social causes (not necessarily reducible to innate human differences). And so it looks like Wagner wishes to emphasize those features of elite theory that emphasize innate differences and social hierarchies and so implies that the elite that rules (with calibrated force), does so by nature (not law).

 

On the Origins of Liberalism in a Critique of Mercantilism: a note on Duncan Bell's Famous Political Theory essay

While the term “liberal” had long been used in English to denote assorted aristocratic dispositions, mores, and pursuits, it only assumed a specifically political meaning in the early nineteenth century. Borrowed from the Spanish Liberales of the 1812 Constitution, the term was first employed in a derogatory manner by Tories to malign their Whig opponents. During the 1820s it was reclaimed by some radical Whigs, in a classical example of rhetorical redescription, to characterise individuals and policies dedicated to non-revolutionary reform, although it also became associated with the small but vocal group of “philosophic radicals,” including the young John Stuart Mill. “Liberal” was increasingly utilised to describe the politico-economic demands of the emergent middle classes. Yet it was still an obscure and marginal category: during the 1820s and 1830s ‘“liberals’ were not a firmly defined group and ‘liberalism’ did not securely mark out a single intellectual phenomenon.” It was only during the second half of the century that usage proliferated, though it remained closely tied to the creed of the newly named Liberal Party.--Duncan Bell (2014) "What Is Liberalism?" Political Theory, 2014, Vol. 42(6) 6 693

Throughout these Digressions I have been making passing references to Bell's important article since I read it last Summer. But it might be useful to state my disagreement with it in a more forthright manner. But before I get to that it is worth stating that for anyone interested in the construction(s) of (a) liberal tradition(s) it is full of sober and sobering analysis. And, in particular, it is very interesting on the utilitarian attitude toward Locke and also has a very plausible story to tell how Locke became a kind of canonical ur-Liberal. (Along the way it also makes some very useful historiographical distinctions that I will return to some day.)

A natural reading of Bell's piece is that 'liberal' in a political sense originates in the start of the nineteenth century in a Spanish political context and then later -- not unlike some other phenomena -- used in a derogatory matter before it became a kind of self-description. Unfortunately, Bell does not explain what he means by 'a specifically political meaning.' And that might mean that what follows attacks a straw man in some sense. But even so, the intended contrast is with the (somehow unpolitical?) attitude associated with liberality as an aristocratic disposition. Fair enough. 

Now consider the following passage published in 1776:

Mr. Colbert, the famous minister of Louis XIV, was a man of probity, of great industry and knowledge of detail, of great experience and acuteness in the examination of public accounts, and of abilities, in short, every way fitted for introducing method and good order into the collection and expenditure of the public revenue. That minister had unfortunately embraced all the prejudices of the mercantile system, in its nature and essence a system of restraint and regulation, and such as could scarce fail to be agreeable to a laborious and plodding man of business, who had been accustomed to regulate the different departments of public offices, and to establish the necessary checks and controls for confining each to its proper sphere. The industry and commerce of a great country he endeavoured to regulate upon the same model as the departments of a public office; and instead of allowing every man to pursue his own interest in his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice, he bestowed upon certain branches of industry extraordinary privileges, while he laid others under as extraordinary restraints. He was not only disposed, like other European ministers, to encourage more the industry of the towns than that of the country; but, in order to support the industry of the towns, he was willing even to depress and keep down that of the country.--Wealth of Nations, 4.9.3 (emphasis added)

I have quoted context because in it Smith is criticizing mercantilism severely. (Recall my post from yesterday in which I suggest this is an important stream for the development of liberalism.) And mercantilism is not merely criticized economically it is criticized politically--it's a system of 'restraint and regulation.' In fact, mercantilism is here presented as an ordering of the economy on the model of political bureaucracy and political functions ("different departments of public office.") that creates a kind of system of checks and balances within the economy by using incentives and prohibitions. In fact, Smith is explicit that it's a system biased in favor of the town and against the country. 

Now, a lot can be said about Smith's analysis of mercantilism (as a kind of ideology--Enzo Rossi and Paul Raekstad have some neat ideas on this). But what matters here is his motive to do so: and that is to draw a contrast with his own system: the "liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice." Now, undoubtedly Smith is relying on the positive valence of 'liberal' as in 'generous' (associated with liberality)--I will discuss this below. But the terms he uses -- equality, liberty, and justice -- suggests that we're not in the realm of an aristocratic disposition, but in a political characterization of a system of political economy: the liberal plan.

To be sure, in Wealth of Nations, Smith most frequently uses 'liberal' to mean something like 'abundant' (as in 'liberal wages' or 'the liberal reward of labour.') And in a note added to the fourth addition he starts the book while thanking Henry Hope for his "liberal information" on the Bank of Amsterdam, where the information is not just abundant but clearly given in a generous spirit (of liberality) by Mr. Hope. And Smith also sometimes uses liberal in the still somewhat familiar sense of 'liberal professions' (which are, in fact, liberally rewarded and draw in most liberal spirits) and the 'liberal arts' (less rewarded). And in this abundant sense, landlords, governments, princes, and even banks are described as 'liberal' (although according to Smith such liberality was the undoing of a might yScottish bank (the Ayr bank)). In general 'liberal' in this sense is contrasted with 'moderate' or 'scanty.' When used like this, 'liberal' and 'liberality' are generally descriptive terms. 

Near the end of Wealth of Nations, Smith draws a distinction -- one important in The Theory of Moral Sentiments -- between two kinds mores/ethical systems: one austere, the other "the liberal, or, if you will, the loose system." (WN 5.1.g.10) And this is indeed the system apt for higher ranks. So, I do not want to deny that Smith also uses the non-political sense of 'liberal.'

The first time that Smith uses 'liberal' to refer to something like his own system, occurs also in Book IV: "Were all nations to follow the liberal system of free exportation and free importation, the different states into which a great continent was divided would so far resemble the different provinces of a great empire." (WN 4.5.b.39) What's notable about this instance is that it looks like the liberal system merely denotes free trade. Although Smith is quick to point out (anticipating an idea that Kant runs with) that the political effect of such a system is to turn a free trade zone into a kind of empire. Again, while there is no doubt that Smith wants to evoke his system as the generous one, the meaning of 'liberal' here is if not outright political at least clearly economic. Later in the same paragraph (the second use of 'liberal' in the sense that interests me), Smith writes "But very few countries
have entirely adopted this liberal system." What's nice, for my purposes, is that the adoption of the liberal system is clearly presented as subject to political decision. And these passages set up the material I quoted from WN 4.9.3

In fact, there are instances of Smith's use of 'liberal' that are ambiguous.  Smith describes free trade with colonies, as a liberal policy (WN 4.7.b.24). But here he is not quite describing his own system, and I think it's natural to understand him as suggesting it is a generous policy. (Something similar occurs when he speaks of "The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce..." (WN 4.7.b.40) And he also describes the mercantile trade policy of "Great Britain" as "illiberal" (WN 4.7.b.50) So, the coupling of free trade with 'liberal' as generous occurs throughout book IV in Wealth of Nations, even though it's not always 'the liberal plan.' Smith, a professor of rhetoric, clearly is using liberal for rhetorical effect when describing his own system: "According to this liberal and generous system, therefore, the most advantageous method in which a landed nation can raise up artificers, manufacturers and merchants of its own, is to grant the most perfect freedom of trade to the artificers, manufacturers and merchants of all other nations." (WN 4.9.24)

So, my claim is the following: Smith clearly appropriated the term 'liberal' to apply to his own system and also used it as a name of his system (which he also sometimes called 'the system of natural liberty.') This system is a proper ancestor of nineteenth century liberalism (which often explicitly referred to Smith or evoked him). I actually believe this is also what happened in Spain. Smith's Wealth of Nations was translated into Spanish and very important to the debates surrounding the Spanish 1812 constitution (see this piece by Javier Usoz). I leave it to others to decide and figure out to what degree by adopting themselves as liberales this political group intended to evoke Smith's liberalism.

I am happy to learn from Duncan Bell that 'liberalism' was still fairly obscure in the 1820s and that to be a 'liberal' meant little to most (despite the non-obscurity of Smith's works throughout this period--his followers were not known as liberals). But by ignoring Smith's role in the genesis of liberalism, and his use in describing his own theory as 'liberal', Bell ends up obscuring a very important episode in the history of liberalism as an intellectual and political tradition. Many of the most important liberals of the nineteenth century -- Cobden, Bright, etc. even Mill to some degree -- were Smithians in non-trivial sense. And I worry that by suggesting that 'liberal' is merely an early nineteenth century Spanish import, something important to liberal self-understanding today gets lost.

 

 

 

 

 

Why Liam's blogging promotes the cause of Liberalism (or why I am not a Conservative.):)

Finally this blog post has a couple of issues specific to the left I wish to address. First, at some level it is clear that identifying as a liberal is just to identify as uncool and mainstream-in-a-boring-clueless-way among left cohorts. I don’t mind liberalism having a bad name, why would I?, but a result of this is I think people often miss the affinities of their thought with the liberal tradition and neglect its insights. A proper rejection of liberalism ought to involve understanding it as more than just a loser thing boring normies do — there is a reason it has won out in modernity. That reason may not (indeed I think should not) lead you to endorse liberalism; but you will get nowhere if you do not understand it, what liberalism responds to and addresses, and what of it one may wish to carry forward. Second, I think if we are being real with ourselves, a great many leftists in the academy who consider ourselves left of the Overton window should admit that we are de facto small-c conservatives — and in at least my society, to uphold the status quo just is to uphold a liberal social order. We are de facto conservatives in the sense that the modern university has clearly slotted into an important credentialing role for the approximation to meritocracy that dominates our economic, political, and ideological order. Materially speaking then just by going in to work and doing our job, however we may feel about it, we are playing the role of functionaries helping this system perpetuate itself. I think we ought be precise about the sense in which we are not liberals if only to self-acknowledge the many senses in which we are, and thereby cut out the bad faith pretences of pseudo-radicalism that so tiresomely dominate many academic spaces.---Liam Kofi Bright Why I Am Not A Liberal April 04, 2022

When I switched professionally from professional philosophy to political theory and from a focus on early modern science and metaphysics to political philosophy, I was reminded that most political philosophers are left egalitarian liberals. Within the profession, they work with or against Rawls in order to promote redistribution of income, wealth, or status/recognition. And Liam reminds them -- these 'leftists' -- that they are de facto conservative with a small c theorists. The nostalgia visible in the Corbynista left -- with its fellow-traveling lexiters, and the fondness for the era of the family wage -- is actually a nice illustration of Liam's case. 

Liam rejects liberalism on three grounds (I quote representative claims by him): (i) "there is no neutral position or viable overlapping consensus or anything of the sort;" (ii) "once market societies are allowed to develop I think they tend towards the concentration of wealth and capital, and so ultimately the ability to buy the state and shut down competition;" (iii) liberalism has :always existed along an imperial-core vs brutally proletarianised outer periphery model. " And before I say anything else, I want to state for the record that these are excellent reasons to reject really existing liberalism. And I wholeheartedly agree with Liam!

Now regular readers know that I self-identify as a 'skeptical liberal' and with that term I wish to distance myself from both the left egalitarian liberalism that dominates professional journals as well as the 'classical liberals' who tend to embrace markets. Readers may be left puzzled how I can agree with Liam's three grounds to reject liberalism, and reject the small c conservatism he ascribes to much of academic liberalism. Simply put: there is a lot more to liberalism than redistribution.:)

Before I get to that I want to mention an omission in Liam's account of "contemporary liberal ideology as the confluence of three factors that led us to where we are today." According to Liam the three factors are (a) the response to religious wars of the seventeenth century; (b) "the desire of the bourgeois to band together to create the conditions of that fair playing ground and drive the wasteful decadent aristocrats from their thrones, the peasantry from their common lands, and the blacks to the fields;" (c) "A nominalist picture of the individual person paints us as in some sense constructing our own worldview from our experiences rather than receiving the set concepts of a pre-ordered world." Liam himself actually likes (c). These three factors are very important and they also explain some of the path dependencies we see in liberalism today, and its difficulties in facing up to its challenges.

Even so, I want to suggest the bourgeoise and capital are not as unified as Liam suggests. To make this point I distinguish conceptually  between mercantilism and liberalism. Historically mercantilism came first and it has never been fully vanquished.  It's worth noting that the first theorist to call himself a 'liberal', Adam Smith, was much concerned with mercantilism, which just is another bourgeois and capitalist ideology. In this ideology the state is captured by capitalist interests (often this is described in terms of 'rent-seeking'), and these use the state's capacity to inflict violence internally and externally to promote their ends. I view (d) the fight to combat mercantilism as the fourth factor that led us to where we are today.

Now, as Liam's second ground to reject liberalism (recall ii) suggests, he views this -- the enduringness of mercantilism -- not as a bug, but as a feature of all really existing capitalism. In this Liam echoes (recall) Lenin after reading (the liberal) Hobson's explanation for imperialism. But the threat of mercantilism, and really existing imperialism which resulted in two bloody world wars, led to a renewal and rethinking of liberalism. For it is embarrassing that some of liberalism's greatest lights ended up defending colonialism, imperialism, and slavery; that Montesquieu, Kant, and Mill are better known and better read than, say, Gouges, Grouchy, and Liam's name-sake John Bright is not accident. (Even Hobson has too much fondness for racialized settler colonialism.) But such canonical choices are not inevitable. And a better liberalism is also lurking in the varied riches of the tradition.

This liberalism I would characterize as a mistrust of concentrated power. Concentrated power always presupposes hierarchy and means to dominate. Such mistrust requires from the state an active anti-trust policy, and a willingness to tackle concentrated powers where they arise, including state functions themselves. In so far as liberals ought to defend markets, these should be policed by vigilant anti-trust institutions. No liberal, for example, should feel at ease with de facto technology monopolies today and should be skeptical about using such technology to promote liberal ends. In fact, no liberal should feel wholly at ease with the way contemporary central banks have concentrated power that is largely unaccountable and makes us all like lab rats in various monetary social experiments. (This is one reason why crypto-currencies are welcomed by more radical liberals.)

The omission in Liam's presentation is important because so-conceived liberalism is a never ending challenge and constantly open to change because social problems change permanently. In fact, the fondness for markets among many classical liberals should be understood, on my more skeptical view, as just one mechanism among others that prevent concentrated powers from enduring. So part of the liberal response to Liam is that where monopolies do arise, they tend to rely on government sanctions (patents, copyright, and skewed labor regulation, etc.). But markets in combination with other important social institutions (education, the sciences, the arts, etc.) create unceasing change of a sort that left egalitarian liberals can't stomach, but that are exhilarating to skeptical liberals like myself.

Liberalism understood as an attack on concentrated powers -- and so as a kind of ideological war within the bourgeoisie -- cannot be neutral about the state and the ends it pursues. The skepticism about enduring hierarchies (i.e., concentrated powers) is the effect of substantive views about the good and good lives (including important roles for the arts and sciences). So, I agree with Liam that liberalism that embraces for itself (and its conception of the state) a purported neutral position and some kind of consensus cannot survive scrutiny. The defense of liberalism that I embrace is indirectly perfectionist: people will be happier and live more meaningful lives, even more moral lives, under properly liberal regimes. This kind of indirect perfectionism was the mainstream of liberalism through the early twentieth century.* It's the liberalism that embraces experiments in living such that better living is possible.

I think there is a lot of empirical evidence (including lots of poor people voting with their feet) that supports such indirect perfectionism. Unfortunately, a lot of the folk who end up stating views close to my own end up uncritical defenders of the status quo--the very status quo that has states impose evil and cruel borders that prevents people from moving where they want to move and drowns or kills people at borders. For, the truth is that within liberalism, the center-periphery dynamic can only be undermined if we do not police borders against migrants.

Liam might grant all of this and still note that really existing liberalism seems vulnerable to rent-seeking by really existing mercantilism. He might even note that liberal democracies, especially, seem rather conducive to promoting such really existing mercantilism because in them electoral majorities may well conspire to abolish estate taxes and to promote public spheres in which capital predominates and in which anti-trust (tackling monopoly media companies) is undermined and in which majorities want to keep some kind of newcomers out. After all, in really existing liberalism, judges don't always defend the rule of law, and don't always protect the innocent. And Liam would be right!

This is why a skeptical liberalism never defends the status quo without considerable qualification (and this is why one should be skeptical about liberals who always promote more markets as the answer). She always has to be willing to look at really existing institutions and confront them with a skeptical eye. Maybe human judges have to be replaced by AI systems? If the baseline is contemporary racist and sexist judiciaries, there is a lot to be said for it. (Of course, there are also good grounds for caution!) Maybe central banks have to be replaced by crypto currencies? A basic income or a birth share in capital may be useful strategies to combat some of the hierarchies produced by really existing capitalism. Really existing liberalism, as a vital force in permanent adjustment - in the spirit of adaptation -- to new social challenges, should never let any privilege endure without introducing countervailing experiments. 

After all, one reason why non-liberals are properly welcome and to be celebrated as state functionaries in liberal institutions of higher learning (or their private counterparts) is that they can help liberals better understand the weaknesses in their own position, and help us all imagine better futures for our societies. In fact, as long as Liam and his critical allies forswear violence, their critical acumen indirectly promotes the cause of liberalism as they promote experiments that are alternatives to the status quo worth having. We might call it, the cunning of the bourgeoisie. 

 

 

On the Marketplace of Ideas: on Mill, Holmes, Kalven, Condorcet and Carl Schmitt

Since the work of Jill Gordon (1997) it ought to be common knowledge that J.S. Mill did not defend the idea that the market place of ideas would inevitably lead to truth. (This fits with my own view that I have expressed over quite a number of digressions: see, for example, here; here,  and here.) Unfortunately, this leaves a bit puzzling how the phrase and idea came to be associated with his name and a kind of (providential) liberal faith. (And depending one's political commitments this is a sign of liberal naivete or well grounded liberal optimism.) Moreover, most sophisticated liberals would never assert that markets always produce optimal outcomes, so lurking here is also a question about the mechanism. (I return to that below.)

I suspect that true scholars are familiar with the fact that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's dissent in Abrams v United States (1919) is often thought to originate the idea and closely associated phrase. (As it happens Holmes did re-read Mill's On Liberty that year.) But Holmes wrote, "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." This does not actually claim that truth will prevail in the market for ideas (and does not use the phrase 'marketplace of ideas' at all). Holmes' position is more sober than that. I am persuaded by Vincent Blasi (2004) that Holmes never intended the providential claim about the competition of ideas. (Blasi is also the source of my claim that Holmes did read Mill.)

In a footnote (41), Blasi suggests that in 1935, David M. Newbold used the phrase "market place of ideas" first in a letter to the New York Times. But as quoted by Blasi that letter does not connect it to generation of truth (but to 'public opinion.') It's likely that this Newbold was the author of a book called Notes on the Introduction of Equity Jurisdiction Into Maryland:1634-1720. So he was probably a lawyer or law professor. In a Denver Law Review article of 1940, one can read that "Our entire system of free public education is based upon it and out of it has developed the American type of government of public opinion. Our people from the earliest days, unconsciously perhaps, have been demonstrating in every generation their faith in the doctrine that the test of truth is its "ability to get itself accepted" in the marketplace of ideas." This clearly quotes Holmes, but with Newbold's phrase. The first connection between the 'market place of ideas' and 'truth' that I have been able to find with some googling is in Senate testimony in June, 1941, by Mr. Louis G. Caldwell, an attorney representing mutual broadcasting system to the Interstate Commerce committee (here). The context is freedom of speech (and the role radio has in expanding it or not). A decade later the phrase, and its connection to truth is much more widespread. But I have been unable to find anyone expressing the idea that the marketplace of ideas leads to truth, and that somehow Mill had defended it before 1960. 

In 1960, the very eminent law professor, Harry Kalven Jr. did a kind of retrospective in The Chicago Law Review on the Scopes trial to celebrate the (near) centenary of Darwin's Origin of Species. To people who have any association with The University of Chicago, and those who have studied debates on academic freedom, Kalven's name is quite familiar (recall here on the Kalven report). The retrospective is interesting in its own right. But here I just quote a passage: "It is keyed, in the tradition-honored phrases of Milton, Mill, and Holmes, to confidence that truth will not be bested in a fair fight, to competition in the marketplace of ideas." (p. 516) Kalven's own view is not quite this, I think. But that's for another time. The quoted passages does come pretty close to the idea usually associated to Mill. (And unusually for memetics, also provides evidence for the role of Holmes in the process.)* And since Kalven was important and influential it is not unlikely he is the source of connecting Mill to truth prevailing in the marketplace of ideas (which starts to circulate widely in the 1960s).

That's the best I can do on this. I am open to learning from other people's search abilities. I could close here, but I was still left with a puzzle how the idea mistakenly associated with Mill came to be thought of as somehow intrinsic to liberalism. And I think I have a (surprising) answer to that, although it is a bit convoluted. I quote a long paragraph:

De Maistre and Donoso Cortes were incapable of such "organic" thinking. De Maistre showed this by his total lack of understanding of Schelling's philosophy of life; Donoso Cortes was gripped by horror when he was confronted with Hegelianism in Berlin in 1849. Both were diplomats and politicians with much experience and practice and had concluded sufficiently sensible compromises. But a systematic and metaphysical compromise was to them inconceivable. To suspend the decision at the crucial point by denying that there was at all something to be decided upon must have appeared to them to be a strange pantheistic confusion. Liberalism, with its contradictions and compromises, existed for Donoso Cortes only in that short interim period in which it was possible to answer the question "Christ or Barabbas?" with a proposal to adjourn or appoint a commission of investigation. Such a position was not accidental but was based on liberal metaphysics. The bourgeoisie is the class committed to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and it did not arrive at those freedoms from any kind of arbitrary psychological and economic conditions, from thinking in terms of trade, or the like. It has long been known that the idea of the liberal rights of man stemmed from the North American states. Though Georg Jellinek recently demonstrated the North American origin of those freedoms, the thesis would hardly have surprised the Catholic philosopher of the state (nor, incidentally, would it have surprised Karl Marx, the author of the essay on the Jewish question). Further, the economic postulates of free trade and commerce are, for an examination within the realm of the history of ideas, only derivatives of a metaphysical core. Donoso Cortes in his radical intellectuality saw only the theology of the foe. He did not "theologize" in the least; there were no ambiguous, mystical combinations and analogies, no Orphic oracle. The letters about actual political questions revealed a sober attitude, often frightening and without any sort of illusion or any touch of the quixotic; in his systematic train of thought there was an effort to be concise in the good dogmatic tradition of theology. His intuition into things intellectual was therefore often striking. His definition of the bourgeoisie as a clasa discutidora and his recognition that its religion resides in freedom of speech and of the press are examples. I do not consider this to be the last word on Continental liberalism in its entirety, but it is certainly a most striking observation. In view of the system of a Condorcet, for example, whose typical meaning Wolzendorff, perhaps because of intellectual affinity, recognized and superbly described, one must truly believe that the ideal of political life consists in discussing, not only in the legislative body but also among the entire population, if human society will transform itself into a monstrous club, and if truth will emerge automatically through voting. Donoso Cortes considered continuous discussion a method of circumventing responsibility and of ascribing to freedom of speech and of the press an excessive importance that in the final analysis permits the decision to be evaded. Just as liberalism discusses and negotiates every political detail, so it also wants to dissolve metaphysical truth in a discussion. The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.--Schmitt (1922/1935) Political Theology, translated by George Schwab, The University of Chicago Press (2005), pp. 61-3 [Originally published as Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveranitat]+

Okay, there is much going on here. Donoso Cortés (1809 – 1853) is a fascinating character who was familiar with the first political group to call themselves 'liberal' and eventually became an ardent opponent of them. (Since Adam Smith describes his system of natural liberty as 'liberal,' I don't think it's anachronistic to claim him also as a liberal--despite learned protestations in Cambridge.) Schmitt admires both Maistre and Donoso Cortés, but as this passage reveals he also sees some of their intellectual limitations.

It is by no means easy to establish in each sentence where Donoso Cortés ends and Schmitt begins. But it's pretty clear that for them liberalism is identified with freedom of speech and the bourgeoise as the disputational/discussing class (clasa discutidora).** (Schmitt almost certainly made a transcription error because Donoso Cortés used the phrase 'las clases discutidoras' in a letter of 1851.**)

But$, strikingly, that freedom of speech will generate truth is then associated with 'the system of Condorcet.' And, in fact, given the significance given to voting in Schmitt's argument, it's pretty clear we have a kind of reference to Condorcet's famous Jury theorem. And, indeed, in the jury theorem the more voters there are (alongside some minimal assumptions) the more likely one is to reach truth. And, over time, as voting population keeps growing, this becomes pretty infallible. Here truth is a kind of outcome of a process, and it is correct to say of it that (give some modest assumptions) "truth will emerge automatically through voting." 

However, I use a 'kind of reference' because the original jury theorem requires no communication among voters. So it's a pretty bad model for thinking about free speech/press.++ It's unclear to me if the conflation is in Wolzendorff or in Schmitt. Part of the historical problem is that Condorcet did also defend freedom of speech (with some attenuations) in a famous fragment from 1776. 

So, here's my suggestion: Schmitt is the source of the idea that liberalism is intrinsically committed to the idea that truth naturally will emerge from free discussion. This idea is associated with Condorcet (who was indeed a proponent of freedom of speech). But it's based on a (perhaps honest) misunderstanding of the jury theorem and the role it plays in Condorcet's thought! 

Schmitt's criticism of the idea he attributes to liberalism is not that it's false or a bad mechanism to discover truth, or somehow naïve. Rather, it's that it's a device to avoid decisive, existential decisions: "The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion." That's actually a sound interpretation of the liberal ideal of rule by discussion, which is all about avoiding fighting (worst possible outcome) if one can continue talking (probably bad, but not so bad).

Schmitt, a jurist himself, was very widely read. So, my hypothesis is that Schmitt's idea about the nature of liberalism as a regime of talk that will produce truth circulated among jurists (perhaps with the reference to Condorcet being dropped once it moved into Anglophone world), and at some point merged with Judge Holmes' idea to produce Kalven's formulation. Okay, that's enough speculation -- I almost wrote 'cheap talk' -- for a day.