Does political philosophy reduce to ethics?

[Yeahsayyeah]

Not necessarily, especially as the aspect of power is important, too. Carl Schmitt comes to mind, who clearly was a political philosopher. While Machiavelli clearly had a system of political ethics and good governance in mind in the Discorsi and Il principe can be seen either a political emergency program or a tongue-in-cheek satire against the Medici, its clearly not a book of Platonian or Aristotelian ethics. Max Weber's political philosophy also stresses the aspect of power (while clearly also adressing an ethical framework.

[Associate Justice PiT]

PiT's objection is a strange one to me.

     I'll admit, I misunderstood the question. I am basically agreed with the proposition, which is related to the argument I've advanced elsewhere on this forum that all laws impose a morality. Even something as seemingly neutral as having stop lights is predicated on the idea that the state has the moral authority to restrict the action of individuals for the common good. People will say that one should not impose their morality, but everyone constantly advocates for imposing morality that they do agree with; what they really mean is that they disagree with the presuppositions of the proposed law.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I am basically agreed with the proposition, which is related to the argument I've advanced elsewhere on this forum that all laws impose a morality.

This is obviously not true. That VAT is 20% instead of 17.5% is not "imposing a morality." It's a law promulgated for the instrumental purpose of funding the government, not for any ethical goal. There are thousands of laws like this. That the government provides a grant to primary schools for the provision of chess sets is not imposing a morality either. Much of what the state does is boring stuff like this.

People will say that one should not impose their morality, but everyone constantly advocates for imposing morality that they do agree with; what they really mean is that they disagree with the presuppositions of the proposed law.

Okay, this is entirely beside the thread topic, but I find this argument silly.

The distinction implied in "morality should not be imposed by the state" (if we take your brute formulation) has always been a distinction between the public and the private sphere. It has always been universally acknowledged that the state has a right to regulate morality in the public sphere (e.g. interpersonal violence, driving on public roads), but that does not mean the state has the right to regulate morality in the private sphere (e.g. religious belief, consensual sex between adults.) Even though most governments of the 19th and 20th centuries consisted of those who believed Judaism was essentially sinful in that it was not Christian, they did not believe that gave their government the right to force convert Jews to Christianity, because even though religion is a moral concern, that was a matter for the private sphere.

Honestly, it bodes very ill for liberal democracy that nowadays even politically educated people are apparently ignorant of this basic distinction between the public and private, that they mischaracterise centuries-old liberal precepts in such a silly manner ("if you think the state can regulate road traffic then you grant that it can force convert us all to Mormonism!!!")

[Associate Justice PiT]

I am basically agreed with the proposition, which is related to the argument I've advanced elsewhere on this forum that all laws impose a morality.

This is obviously not true. That VAT is 20% instead of 17.5% is not "imposing a morality." It's a law promulgated for the instrumental purpose of funding the government, not for any ethical goal. There are thousands of laws like this. That the government provides a grant to primary schools for the provision of chess sets is not imposing a morality either. Much of what the state does is boring stuff like this.

     But it says that the people have a binding duty to support the government, and that the government has the right to change the degree to which we support it without consulting the citizenry. This is especially significant because many of the things your tax dollars go to support are things that you may strongly oppose, but regardless of what you think the government can simply force you to fund it. Since we normally would regard it as deeply unethical to force someone to support things that they personally oppose, it is significant that the government is exempt from this and can simply demand that the money I earn goes to make bombs to drop on a random country somewhere else in the world.

People will say that one should not impose their morality, but everyone constantly advocates for imposing morality that they do agree with; what they really mean is that they disagree with the presuppositions of the proposed law.

Okay, this is entirely beside the thread topic, but I find this argument silly.
The distinction implied in "morality should not be imposed by the state" (if we take your brute formulation) has always been a distinction between the public and the private sphere. It has always been universally acknowledged that the state has a right to regulate morality in the public sphere (e.g. interpersonal violence, driving on public roads), but that does not mean the state has the right to regulate morality in the private sphere (e.g. religious belief, consensual sex between adults.) Even though most governments of the 19th and 20th centuries consisted of those who believed Judaism was essentially sinful in that it was not Christian, they did not believe that gave their government the right to force convert Jews to Christianity, because even though religion is a moral concern, that was a matter for the private sphere.

Honestly, it bodes very ill for liberal democracy that nowadays even politically educated people are apparently ignorant of this basic distinction between the public and private, that they mischaracterise centuries-old liberal precepts in such a silly manner ("if you think the state can regulate road traffic then you grant that it can force convert us all to Mormonism!!!")

     I think the issue here is much more complicated than public vs. private, because there are some private matters that historically have been and today still are subject to such, e.g. animals are considered property under the law and therefore what one does with their pet dog is in principle a private matter, yet there are still laws that govern this relationship. One could point out that the average person doesn't think of this as private, but there are two ways that I can see to resolve this discrepancy and both of those are extremely fringe.

     With this in mind I don't think observing the existence of a "public-private distinction" is sufficient as a response because society broadly accepts that there exist some private matters that are nevertheless worthy of legislating, and this makes the judgments of what private matters are or are not judiciable morally laden. You use the example of opposition to forced conversion by the government, but Medieval societies did permit such things to occur and so the practice of modern liberal societies in forbidding such does speak to a judgment on the part of society that such practices were unethical and immoral.

[Alcibiades]

Right, I understand that different types of goods can come into conflict and thus need to be weighed against one another. What confuses me is that this weighing itself strikes me as a pointedly ethical question. In the examples you cite, the question seems to be whether the aesthetic value of art is enough to justify its potentially negative social effects. It seems to me that this question is only worth asking if we accept that aesthetic value is a pro tanto moral good, although that good might be outweighed by other considerations. If aesthetic expression was of truly no moral value, then shouldn't we all agree with Plato and banish all art to safeguard society from potential harm? On the other hand, if we have an ethical theory which values aesthetic expression (together with other forms of virtue and well-being), we have a framework by which to assess how these competing factors are to be weighed. And if you're a Nietzsche (a deeply moralistic thinker himself, however much he might protest otherwise) you might assign such a high value to aesthetic expression as to excuse even grievous harm done in its name.

I certainly agree that it is an ethical question, in the sense that the Greeks understood the word as relating to the question how to live a whole life. But I don’t think that aesthetic value is even mostly reducible to moral value. There are a number of very important contrasts between the two: moral value relates to our relationships with others; the central component of aesthetic value is inner experience. Creativity is a core artistic value; constraints are very important to morality. For that reason, I find it very doubtful that moral and aesthetic value can ultimately be made entirely commensurable with one another. Even if Plato were right, and art’s moral costs outweighed its moral benefits, we could still be justified in allowing art in our society because of the intrinsic, non-moral value it provides.

Likewise, governments spend billions upon billions on promoting the instrumental goodness of health among its citizens, despite the fact that one being healthy is not ethically superior to one being unhealthy.

Fully agreed with your point about art, but I don’t think health is the best example here. This seems to me just one facet of a broader role of government, to secure a certain distribution of wellbeing among the citizens; and it is this role which provides arguably the central question of normative political philosophy. To take an analogous example, whether one is rich or poor does not reflect morally on one’s character, but it is surely a moral question how government should distribute wealth. More broadly, moral philosophy rests on specifying a set of legitimate self-interests such as these, without which it would be contentless. That is, there are certain goods which do not have any moral bearing on their possessor, but which it is immoral to try and deprive others of. To return to health: it is (usually) wrong to deliberately injure another person, but that does not mean that that person is less virtuous because they have been injured.

     But it says that the people have a binding duty to support the government, and that the government has the right to change the degree to which we support it without consulting the citizenry.

In a democracy, this is obviously false?

This is especially significant because many of the things your tax dollars go to support are things that you may strongly oppose, but regardless of what you think the government can simply force you to fund it. Since we normally would regard it as deeply unethical to force someone to support things that they personally oppose, it is significant that the government is exempt from this and can simply demand that the money I earn goes to make bombs to drop on a random country somewhere else in the world.

Unless the 2.5% rise in VAT has been ringfenced to fund a morally dubious war, I’m not sure how this is relevant to Statilius’ example.

I think the issue here is much more complicated than public vs. private, because there are some private matters that historically have been and today still are subject to such, e.g. animals are considered property under the law and therefore what one does with their pet dog is in principle a private matter, yet there are still laws that govern this relationship. One could point out that the average person doesn't think of this as private, but there are two ways that I can see to resolve this discrepancy and both of those are extremely fringe.

The answer to this is obvious: because pets are sentient beings, they have some rights claims against their owners. Similarly, the family is largely part of the private sphere, but you cannot do whatever you want to your spouse or children.

You use the example of opposition to forced conversion by the government, but Medieval societies did permit such things to occur and so the practice of modern liberal societies in forbidding such does speak to a judgment on the part of society that such practices were unethical and immoral.

Yes, medieval societies were obviously not remotely liberal and did not observe liberal norms on personal freedoms. I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove. Liberalism does make a higher-order moral judgement on which state interferences in the private sphere are illegitimate, but this is not just another moral exercise of state power: higher-order is very much the operative phrase here. Liberals make a moral judgement about when governments may legitimately make moral judgements.

— — —

To return to the original topic of this thread, there are important discontinuities between public and private morality which mean that political philosophy is not entirely derivable from individual ethics (although they may ultimately both share the same moral source; it is just that this must be directly applied to both, rather than first to private morality, after which private morality is applied to politics). For instance, unless you are an extreme utilitarian, you probably agree that in individual ethics, our own projects, concerns and relationships make claims against us which exempt us from constant maximisation of the impersonal general welfare. But obviously governments and institutions do not have personal lives (as they are not persons), so there is no analogous principle. That is why, for instance, most of us think that governments are obligated to devote a far greater share of their effort and resources to reducing poverty than individuals are, and why government favouritism to certain groups or individuals is far less excusable than private citizens being partial to their family or friends.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     But it says that the people have a binding duty to support the government, and that the government has the right to change the degree to which we support it without consulting the citizenry.

In a democracy, this is obviously false?

     In theory, sure. In actual practice, the government can do pretty much whatever as long as doing that does not make the ruling party/coalition less appealing to voters than the alternative. Depending on that alternative this can afford a substantial amount of leeway for them to act as they like. This decoupling is a major factor in the malaise descending upon American politics today wherein voter satisfaction is low and a huge proportion of people are simply voting against the other side.

This is especially significant because many of the things your tax dollars go to support are things that you may strongly oppose, but regardless of what you think the government can simply force you to fund it. Since we normally would regard it as deeply unethical to force someone to support things that they personally oppose, it is significant that the government is exempt from this and can simply demand that the money I earn goes to make bombs to drop on a random country somewhere else in the world.

Unless the 2.5% rise in VAT has been ringfenced to fund a morally dubious war, I’m not sure how this is relevant to Statilius’ example.

     It's not a secret where the bulk of government spending goes to; in America defense and healthcare make up a majority of expenditures, and a 2.5% increase in taxes unless earmarked otherwise will go to support more of those things. As a taxpayer, those are priorities that are defined for you and that you are obligated to support. I will concede that all laws may have been too strong of a statement on the basis that there are going to be societies where this visibility does not exist and even a reasonably informed voter might not actually know where tax dollars are going to.

I think the issue here is much more complicated than public vs. private, because there are some private matters that historically have been and today still are subject to such, e.g. animals are considered property under the law and therefore what one does with their pet dog is in principle a private matter, yet there are still laws that govern this relationship. One could point out that the average person doesn't think of this as private, but there are two ways that I can see to resolve this discrepancy and both of those are extremely fringe.

The answer to this is obvious: because pets are sentient beings, they have some rights claims against their owners. Similarly, the family is largely part of the private sphere, but you cannot do whatever you want to your spouse or children.

     I wasn't asking why this exists, because that is obvious. Explicitly stating the rationale supports my position however, because it is clear that it is making a claim on values, i.e. that sentient beings have inherent rights that can be enforced in both public and private spheres.

You use the example of opposition to forced conversion by the government, but Medieval societies did permit such things to occur and so the practice of modern liberal societies in forbidding such does speak to a judgment on the part of society that such practices were unethical and immoral.

Yes, medieval societies were obviously not remotely liberal and did not observe liberal norms on personal freedoms. I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove. Liberalism does make a higher-order moral judgement on which state interferences in the private sphere are illegitimate, but this is not just another moral exercise of state power: higher-order is very much the operative phrase here. Liberals make a moral judgement about when governments may legitimately make moral judgements.

     I didn't say that I was limiting myself to liberal societies, other than in my first post where I misunderstood the topic question. I think contrasting with other forms of societal organization is highly informative precisely because it does reveal these sorts of higher-order judgments that are taken for granted. The liberal society very much carries its own applied ethical framework that advances a series of moral claims about human society, and anyone living in such a society is obligated to abide by these claims. I will say that I do appreciate your efforts here and elsewhere to defend that framework, particularly because many people don't realize it exists and are baffled by any skepticism towards it; that is a very dangerous space to occupy as a society because institutions that are no longer understood may find themselves being abandoned.