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OPUS General Editors

An Introduction to

Christopher Butler
Robert Evans

Political

John Skorupski

OPUS books provide concise, original, and authoritative

introductions to a wide range of subjects in the humanities

Philosophy

and sciences. They are written by experts for the general

reader as well as for students.

Jonathan Wolff

Oxford

New York

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

\u

^s

Preface

book with me, or have commented on all or part of drafts (in

Introduction

some cases, on many versions) include Paul Ashwin, Richard

Bellamy, AlanCarter,ElaineCollins, IssiCotton, VirginiaCox,

Tim Crane, Brad Hooker, Alya Khan, Dudley Knowles,
Annabelle Lever,VeroniqueMuiiozDarde,Mike Martin, Lucy
O'Brien. Sarah Richmond, Mike Rosen, Mike Saward, Mario

Scannella, Raj Sehgal, John Skorupski, Philip Smelt, Bob Stern,

and Nigel Warburton. I am very grateful to them all.

We do not say that a man who showsno interest in politics

is a man whominds his own business;we say that he has no
business here at all.

(Pericles' funeral oration, in Thucydides,

The PeloponnesianWar, 147)

It has been said that there are only two questions in political
philosophy: 'who gets what?', and 'says who?' Not quite true,
but close enough to be a useful starting-point. The first of these
questions is about the distribution of material goods, and of
rights and liberties. On what basis should people possess property? What rights and liberties should they enjoy? The second
question concerns the distribution of another good: political
power. Locke defined political power as 'the right of making
laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties'.
This probably goes further than we need, but we can see the
point. Political power includes the right to command others, and
to subject them to punishment if they disobey. Who should hold
this power?
As soon as we reflect on these questions puzzles emerge. Is
there any good reason why one person should have more property than another? Are there any justified limits to my liberty?
And what should the relation be between political power and
economic success? In some countries few obtain political power
unless they are already wealthy. In others, those who gain political power soon find themselves rich. But should there be any
connection at all between possession of wealth and enjoyment of
political power?
Indeed, political power is puzzling enough on its own. If someone has legitimate political power over me then they have the
right to force me to do certain things. But how could another
person justify the claim to have such rights over me? It often
seems outrageous that someone else should tell me what to do,

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Introduction 3

Introduction

worse still that they think they are entitled to punish me if I

the question 'who holds wealth?' Why are we interested in this

descriptive question? Primarily because the distribution of
wealth is relevant to normative questions about justice. (Com-

disobey. Yet there is, of course, another side to this. Perhaps I

should also consider howothers might behave-how unpleasant
they could make my life-if they were left unrestrained by the

pare the question: 'who holds string?'-inequalities in the pos-

law and the threat of punishment. Reflecting on this, perhaps

sessionof string are of no political interest.)

there is something to be said, after all, for the existence of

Furthermore, questions about human behaviour often seem

political power. Sowecanidentify withboth the anarchist's plea

to straddle the descriptive/normative divide. A sociologist seekmg to explain why people generally obey the law, for example, is

for the autonomy of the individual, and the authoritarian's

claims for the power of the state.
One task for the political philosopher, then, is to determine

the correct balance between autonomy and authority, or, in

other words, to determine the proper distribution of political
power. This example also illustrates what is distinctive about

political philosophy. Political philosophy is a normative disci-

pline, meaning that it tries to establish norms (rules or ideal

standards). We can contrast the normative with the descriptive.
Descriptivestudies attempt to find out howthings are. Normative studies try to discover how things should be: what is right,
just, or morally correct. Politics can be studied from both a

descriptive and a normative standpoint.

Characteristically, descriptive political studies are undertaken

by the political scientist, the sociologist, and the historian. So,

for example, some political scientists ask questions about the
actualdistribution of goods within a given society. Who in the
United States ofAmerica holds wealth? Whoin Germany holds
power?Thepoliticalphilosopher,like all ofus,hasgoodreason
to beinterestedin the answersto thesequestions,buthisor her
primary concern is elsewhere: what rule or principle should

govern the distribution ofgoods? ('Goods' hereincludes not only

likely to appeal at some point to the fact that many people

believe that they ought to obey. And, of course, factual

questions about human behaviour arejust as relevant to norma-

tive issues. For example, there is no point in putting forward a

theory of the just society without having some knowledge of
human behaviour and motivation. Some theories ofjustice, for
example might make unrealistic assumptions about people's
capacity (or lack ofcapacity) for altruism. Inshort, studying how

things arehelps to explain howthings canbe, andstudying how

they canbe is indispensable for assessinghowthey ought to be.
But how can we answer the question of how things ought to
be? We know, broadly, how to go about answering purely descnptive questions: we go and look. This is not to say that
political science or history is easy, for very subtle and detailed
work is often involved. But in principle we do think we know
how to do it, even if often we cannot find the information we
seek. But what can we do to find out how things ought to be?

Where can we look?

The uncomfortable fact is that there is no easy answer. But,

despite this, very many philosophers have attempted to solve
these normative political problems, and they have not been

short ofthingsto say.Wewill examine some ofthemost impor-

property, but power, rights, and liberty too. ) The political philosopher will ask, not 'how is property distributed?', but 'what

tant contributions throughout this book, and we will see that.

wouldbea just orfairdistributionofproperty?' Not 'whatrights

by andlarge, philosophers reason about politics in just the way

and liberties do people have?', but 'what rights and liberties

they do about other philosophical issues. They draw distinctions,

should people have?' What ideal standards, or norms, should

they examine whether propositions are self-contradictory, or

whethertwo or more propositions arelogically consistent. They

govern the distribution of goods within society?

The partition between normative and descriptive studies,

though, is not quite asclear-cut as it might seem. Consider again

try to show that surprising theses can be deduced from more

obvious ones. In short, they present arguments.

Introduction

And philosophers argue about politics for good reason. In

political philosophy, unlike many other areas of philosophy,

there is no hiding-place. In philosophy, agnosticism ('the
English translate their ignorance into Greek and call it agnosticism', said Engels) is often a respectable position. Perhaps I
cannotfinda satisfactorypositionon the questionofwhetheror
not wehavefree will, so I professno view. In a widercontextthis

hardly matters. But in political philosophy agnosticism is self-

Introduction 5

If we have a state, how should it be organized? Should it be

democratic? What does it even mean to say that the state is

democratic? Is there any rationale for preferring rule by the

people to rule by an expert: a benevolent dictator? These are the
questions pursued in Chapter 3.
How much power should the state have? Or, viewed from the
other side, how much liberty should the citizen enjoy? Chapter
4 considers the theory that, to avoid the 'tyranny of the major-

defeating. It may not matter if a society hasno officialpolicy on

the solution to the problem of free will, but in every society

ity', we should be given the liberty to act just as we wish, pro-

someone (or no one) holds political power, and property is

distributed in some wayor other. Ofcourse, any one individual's
influence on society's decisions is likely to be minute. But potentially we all have some say, if not by voting then by making our

If we give citizens such liberty, should this include the liberty

to acquire and dispose of property however they see fit? Or are
there justified restrictions on economic activity in the name of
liberty or justice? This is the topic of Chapter 5: distributive

views known through debate and discussion, whether on the

public stage, or by 'underground' means. Those who prefer not

to participate will find their political decisions made for them,

whether they like it or not. To say or do nothing is, in practice,

to endorse the present situation, howeverrepellent.
In the course of this book we shall raise and discuss the main

questions of political philosophy, examining some of the most

mfluential answers, from the ancient Greeks to the present day.
Each chapter takes on a particular question or controversy. The
natural starting-point is political power, the right to command.
Why should some have the right to pass laws to regulate the

behaviour of others? Well, suppose no one had such a right.

What would life be like? This is the question pursued in the
first chapter: what would happen in a 'state of nature' without
government? Wouldlifebeunbearable?Or animprovementon
how things are now?

Suppose we come to accept that life under government is

preferable to life in the state of nature. Does it follow from this
that we have the moral duty to do as the state decrees? Or is
there another argument that will deliver this conclusion? This is
the problem of political obligation, which we shall discuss in
Chapter 2.

vided that we do no harm to others.

justice.

The five main chapters of this book take us through topics of

enduring concern: the state of nature, the state, democracy,
liberty, and property. The final chapter looks briefly at some of
the assumptions underlying my choice of topics, and examines
those assumptions in the context of recent work in feminist
political theory. By this point, with two and a half thousand

years of hindsight, we may have some sort of answerto a question raised, yet not satisfactorily answered, in this Introduc-

tion-howdowedo politicalphilosophy? Onthis topic, ason all

those discussedhere, my aim is not to force an opinion on you;
I hope insteadto present somematerials that will help you form
your own view. Of course it will be possible to read this book
and end up as uncertain as before. But we must not underesti-

mate the progress made by advancingfrom muddled ignorance

to informed bemusement.