Two Texts: An Election Eve Meditation

Scott Horton

"It may be that despotizing moralists, in practice blundering, often violate rules of political prudence by taking or proposing decisions too quickly; but experience will gradually set them aright and lead them on to a better course. However, the moralizing politician, by glossing over principles of politics which are opposed to right with the pretext that human nature is not capable of the good as reason prescribes it, only makes reform impossible and perpetuates the violation of law.

"Instead of possessing the practical science they boast of, these politicians have only practices; they flatter the power which is then ruling so as not to be remiss in their private advantage, and they sacrifice the nation and, possibly, the whole world. This is the way of all professional lawyers (not legislators) when they go into politics. Their task is not to reason too nicely about the legislation but to execute the momentary commands on the statute books; consequently, the legal constitution in force at any time is to them the best, but when it is amended from above, this amendment always seems best, too. Thus everything is preserved in its accustomed mechanical order. Their adroitness in fitting into all circumstances gives them the illusion of being able to judge constitutional principles according to concepts of right (not empirically, but a priori). They make a great show of understanding men (which is certainly something to be expected of them, since they have to deal with so many) without understanding man and what can be made of him, for they lack the superior perspective of anthropological observation which is needed for this. If with these ideas they go into civil and international law, as reason prescribes it, they take this step in a spirit of chicanery, for they still follow their accustomed mechanical routine of despotically imposed coercive laws in a field where only concepts of reason can establish a legal compulsion according to the principles of freedom, under which alone a just and durable constitution is possible. In this field the pretended practical man thinks he can solve the problem of establishing such a constitution without the rational idea but solely from the experience he has had with what was previously the most lasting constitutions constitution which in many cases was opposed to the right.

"The maxims which he makes use of (though he does not divulge them) are, roughly speaking, the following sophisms:

"1. Fac et excusa. Seize every favorable opportunity for usurping the right of the state over its own people or over a neighboring people; the justification will be easier and more elegant ex post facto, and the power can be more easily glossed over, especially when the supreme power in the state is also the legislative authority which must be obeyed without argument. It is much more difficult to do the violence when one has first to wait upon the consideration of convincing arguments and to meet them with counterarguments. Boldness itself gives the appearance of inner conviction of the legitimacy of the deed, and the god of success is afterward the best advocate.

"2. Si fecisti, nega. What you have committed, deny that it was your fault--for instance, that you have brought your people to despair and hence to rebellion. Rather assert that it was due to the obstinacy of your subjects; or, if you have conquered a neighboring nation, say that the fault lies in the nature of man, who, if not met by force, can be counted on to make use of it to conquer you.

"3. Divide et impera. That is, if there are certain privileged persons in your nation who have chosen you as their chief (primus inter pares), set them at variance with one another and embroil them with the people. Show the latter visions of greater freedom, and all will soon depend on your untrammeled will. Or if it is foreign states that concern you, it is a pretty safe means to sow discord among them so that, by seeming to protect the weaker, you can conquer them one after another.

"Certainly no one is now the dupe of these political maxims, for they are already universally known. Nor are they blushed at, as if their injustice were too glaring, for great powers blush only at the judgment of other great powers but not at that of the common masses. It is not that they are ashamed of revealing such principles (for all of them are in the same boat with respect to the morality of their maxims); they are ashamed only when these maxims fail, for they still have political honor which cannot be disputed--and this honor is the aggrandizement of their power by whatever means.

"All these twistings and turnings of an immoral doctrine of prudence in leading men from their natural state of war to a state of peace prove at least that men in both their private and their public relationships cannot reject the concept of right or trust themselves openly to establish politics merely on the artifices of prudence. Thus they do not refuse obedience to the concept of public law, which is especially manifest in international law; on the contrary, they give all due honor to it, even when they are inventing a hundred pretenses and subterfuges to escape from it in practice, imputing its authority, as the source and union of all laws, to crafty force.

"Let us put an end to this sophism, if not to the injustice it protects, and force the false representatives of power to confess that they do not plead in favor of the right but in favor of might. This is revealed in the imperious tone they assume as if they themselves could command the right. Let us remove the delusion by which they and others are duped, and discover the supreme principle from which the intention to perpetual peace stems. Let us show that everything evil which stands in its way derives from the fact that the political moralist begins where the moral politician would correctly leave off, and that, since he thus subordinates principles to the end (putting the cart before the horse), he vitiates his own purpose of bringing politics into agreement with morality."

- Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden – II. Anhang über die Mißhelligkeit zwischen Moral und Politik (1795) in Sämtliche Werke (Großherzog Wilhelm Ernst ed.), vol. 5, pp. 695-97


"Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted--and few have been able to resist the temptation for long--to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also.

"The lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and ruled. That equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations-in the name of moral principle, ideal, or God himself."

- Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, pp. 10-11).


In one day, America votes. This election cannot be viewed as a series of individual candidates contesting specific seats, though American tradition counsels such an approach. It must instead be viewed as a referendum on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the troika who have wielded America's awesome power in a series of historic misadventures. This is what Bush called an "accountability moment." As my friend Andrew Sullivan says, it is an opportunity for an intervention of the sort that social workers counsel for alcoholics and drug addicts. An intervention for those intoxicated with a lust for power. At this juncture it is important to see Bush and his conduct with some rigor and clarity, but also to consider the moral underpinnings of his actions. For this I propose that we look to the great moral philosopher Immanuel Kant, the man whose writings provided the fundamental architecture for the world order that emerged following the Second World War.

Kant welcomes the political moralist, but he warns us ardently of the moralizing politician, a species best viewed with great circumspection. In a fascinating passage of the Appendix on Divergences Between Politics and Morals, Kant gives us some practical tools. When can we distinguish between the two? How can we identify the wolf in sheep's clothing who presents himself on the public stage as a man of morals but in fact is morally corrupt? There is, writes Kant, a three-part test that gives us an unfailing peek at the political scoundrel.

First, does he seek every opportunity to assert the right of the state he controls over its own people and over other peoples? This is a question of aggrandizement of power, but for Kant it must be measured simultaneously – against his own people, and against other states.

Second, does he accept the principle of accountability for his own misdeeds – or does he in fact try to pass off to others every mistake that occurs?

Third, does he rule through the sowing of discord and division? After coming to power, does he identify other potential rivals to power and attack them or set them to battle, one against the other? Is he a "divider" or a "uniter" of his people?

America in its history has known great, mediocre and truly lamentable presidents. But in its entire history, America has had only one leader who clearly passes Kant's three-point test to detect the political scoundrel. His name is George W Bush. Is it even necessary to reherse the test?

First, Bush more than any other leader in the nation's history has asserted an ahistorical theory of presidential power, claiming ascendancy over the other branches of government and the right to act above the law, even in violation of the criminal law. This asserted tyrannical power is aimed both at the American republic, and even more menacingly, at states abroad. The fundamental strictures of skepticism and care are disregarded. The vital role of public debate and discourse as a precursor to use of the awesome war-making powers is corrupted. An Orwellian National Surveillance State is being crafted, the extent of which few in this country appreciate.

Second, Bush's refusal to accept responsibility for his erroneous judgments is now legendary. Hurricane Katrina was a defining moment for most Americans. But in this election, the war in Iraq reflects colossal, tragic misjudgments that have brought ruin and destruction to the Middle East and cost America immense blood and treasure. Yet, even now, Bush lies about the situation, talks about "winning" and "victory" and calls the performance of his Secretary of Defense "fantastic." (Which as Christopher Hitchens notes, it literally is, namely performance based on fantasy rather than reality).

Third, as the New York Times recently observed in an editorial, the historical moniker for Bush is now fixed: he is the Great Divider. No president has consciously worked to vilify his political rivals in quite so disgraceful and destructive a fashion as he has. He has been enabled in this horrifying project by a press which was pliant for six years, and only now shows ambiguous signs of awakening from an extended trance. Too late, perhaps.

Bush can be judged by his words and his conduct. More precisely, his words should be weighed against his conduct, as Hans Morgenthau writes. With some prompting from Greg Djerejian, I include his thoughts here for this proposition. Morgenthau may well be the anti-idealist; the anti-Kant. He is nevertheless a powerful and important thinker. And he too grasps the proper role of morality and the critical need to form careful judgments about those who cloak themselves in moralizing garb. Is his view fundamentally all that different from Kant's? Not on this point.

I fear for my country at this time. I fear for all of us and our world. Many of you may disagree with me. But I ask all to weigh this vote with care. This vote may be your last.
Posted 11:00 AM by Scott Horton [link]