I like to imagine that, for any given culture, in an ideal sense, a people might already share 1)

fundamental descriptive propositions, such as regarding anthropological realities, e.g. how we know what
we imagine we know, how angelic or beastly we are, and 2) foundational evaluative dispositions, such as
our constitutional preambles, e.g. freedom, peace, general welfare.
Choosing a polity, then, becomes an essentially 3) normative exercise, presupposing that descriptive and
evaluative consensus. It also presupposes a moral consensus, at least for the most general precepts
(justice), though certainly not regarding thornier bioethical realities, which often sort out more so from
our metaphysical stances, less so from our common sense and sensibilities.
Even more narrowly, then, politics, normatively, mostly deals with a) practical, not b) moral, norms.
Hence, it pertains to the art of the possible, as they say. With our ends well established, evaluatively, our
boundaries mostly set, morally, a political stance, essentially, advocates suitable means. Those ways "
means represent tools employed in processes which aim toward desired end products.Ideologues treat
such means as ends, in and of themselves, or, as you well put it, for their own sake. The process gets
perverted into the product. The tools become the teloi.
Principled biases, which norm our choice of means (e.g. least coercive), then get treated as ideological
absolutes (e.g. statism, antistatism, anarchism), rather than default positions, which apply only when all
things are otherwise equal vis a vis realizing our chosen ends, which represent values that can compete
(i.e. freedom, peace and general welfare or common good) due to our human finitude.In the above
perspective, politics reduces to the pragmatic exercise of choosing the best solutions, which we all might
disagree on, for those problems, about which we all agree. Since we all want the same outcome, let's just
figure out what works!
Problem is, though, our politics does not, in fact, reduce to the simple matter of choosing the best means,
while not mistaking them for ends, although that well summarizes what I said above. That's because what
I said that I'd like to imagine, above, exists only in my imagination. There is no consensus regarding how
angelic or beastly we are and, further, no agreement regarding either how it is that we know what we
imagine we know or how much we actually know (about this, that or the other reality). Neither is there a
consensus of which values trump which other values when they, inevitably and unavoidably, get placed in
competition.
Political styles and stances thus present as rather complicated orientations regarding --- not only practical
solutions (pragmatist), but --- epistemological assumptions (fallibilist), anthropological presuppositions
(moderate), normative propositions (realist) and evaluative prioritizations (humanist: freedom, peace "
general welfare).
My favorite quote defending my own conservative bias is from Michael Oakeshott's On Being
Conservative:
"To be conservative ... is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to
mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to
the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss."
Oakeshott's expression resonates, at least on the surface, with my own anthropological and
epistemological account, which I ground philosophically in the conservatism of Charles Sanders Peirce,

associate of Oliver Wendell Holmes and William James. If interested, see attached essay regarding
Peirce's rationale for conservatism, which I'd summarize in the two words: epistemic humility.
We have, appropriately, a default bias toward the traditional, as traditionalists, even while eschewing the
turning of that means into an end, for its own sake, traditionalistically. On matters of vital, urgent
interests, we should proceed cautiously and heed accumulated wisdom.
All that said, I agree with Churchill, who suggested that any 20 year old who's not a liberal has no heart,
but any 40 year old who's not a conservative has no brain.
The conservative orientation entails a stance toward --- not only practical solutions (pragmatist " integral),
but --- epistemological assumptions (fallibilist), anthropological presuppositions (moderate), normative
propositions (realist) and evaluative prioritizations (humanist: freedom, peace " general welfare).
Conservatives norm social and political strategies with a fallibilist stance (epistemic humility), moderate
anthropology (neither angelizing nor demonizing humanity) and normative realism (epistemic, prudential
and moral).
Regarding the integrality of solutions, conservatism recognizes that the means employed to foster
freedom can interfere with the ends of maintaining the peace and establishing the general welfare; the
means employed to maintain the peace can interfere with fostering freedom and establishing the general
welfare; the means employed to establish the general welfare (flourishing) can interfere with fostering
freedom and maintaining the peace.
The subsidiarity principle thus norms the use of coercive means in realizing each of these ends; it wisely
balances all means to ensure that each of those ends are realized to a sufficient (although not absolute)
degree. Ends get sacrificed to various degrees to optimally realize that all supremely valued ends get
realized to a sufficient degree. Freedom doesn't trump peace which doesn't trump flourishing, the latter
which refers to a virtuous sufficiency not an unjust surfeit.
It is a tradition of justice, then, that wisely balances such means to ensure that those ends are realized to a
sufficient (not absolute) degree.
An epistemic humility employs a traditionalist bias, deferring to the accumulated wisdom and communal
experience located in our common sense and sensibilities in vital human affairs. It's decidedly realist,
epistemically - in imagining there's there's something to be known in the first place; evaluatively - in
imagining that there's something worth knowing; prudentially - in imagining that there are helpful and
unhelpful ways to approach what's worth acquiring or avoiding; so, why not morally? for one could only
ad hoc object to that type of normativity while accepting the others?
conservatism, conservative politics, traditionalism, conservative pragmatism, michael oakeshott, charles
sanders peirce, william f. buckley, jr, moral realism, normative realism, subsidiarity principle, fallibilism