Morality, Religion and Politics: Pt. 2
The strange thing about the enlightenment was that the better policies and institutions worked, the more people took them for granted and criticized them for their imperfections. (This tendency is still very much with us.) Koselleck thus argues, in Crisis and Critique, that the Enlightenment was an inevitably hypocritical process in which various societies – both secret and formal as well as public and informal – attacked absolute monarchism by willfully ignoring the concrete historical problems to which it was a solution. Absolute monarchism had ended the civil and religious wars by placing a strong division between politics and morality/religion, and it was only within such a context of relative peace that Enlightenment criticisms were able to maintain an air of plausibility.
Thus, while Hobbes saw the authoritarian state as protecting our very lives within a civil war of all against all, 38 years later, Locke would argue that the state was a mechanism for protecting property and happiness within an otherwise peaceful environment populated by people who were both rational and tolerant. Locke had thus fallen into the traditionally British snare of taking the peace and tolerance which he then observed in his own society as timeless, natural and thus in little need of vigilant safe-guarding when it had actually been the historical product of authoritarian state control. The historical transition from a Hobbesian to a Lockean idea of the state thus lies at the heart of Koselleck’s argument, it being the antidote to such timeless and quintessentially British thinking.
The authoritarian state did not prohibit religious or moral discourse amongst its subjects. Rather, it prohibited 1) religious and moral violence and 2) religious and moral legislation over the state. For this reason, the authoritarian state provided a common enemy for wildly differing religious creeds and social strata while at the same time preventing the violent intolerance that had previously divided such groups from each other. This provided the grounds necessary for the creation of “societies” in which vice and virtue were measured by the non-violent approval and disapproval of its members through mutual criticism. Thus, while Hobbes had relegated all religion/morality to each person’s individual and non-binding opinion, this opinion was now organizing itself into a public phenomenon with, at least some, accompanying legislative prerogatives. In this way, “society” and it’s “public opinion” came to be perceived, first, as a morality based in mutual and decentralized criticism that thus stood apart from religion and, subsequently, as standing in competition with the sovereign will of the monarch. As such, when these societies began seeking political influence, the monarch was quick to censor them – just as one might expect. There were, however, two (somewhat incompatible) ways in which such societies adapted to this censorship: secrecy and neutrality.
The first adaptive strategy was that of secrecy. Masonic lodges and other such secret societies arose and multiplied across Europe and the American colonies. Such societies attempted to create a “law of private censure” in opposition to both the divine law of religion and the civil law of the state. (Note ambiguous tension between privacy and legislation.) There was, however, an increased sensitivity to “betrayal” within these societies that contributed to a new gradation with a corresponding hierarchy of enlightened mysteries within the such lodges. The true and basic (political) purposes of these orders were not revealed to neophytes, but only gradually. In this way, “freedom in secret became the secret of freedom.” (pg. 75) Indeed, this secret allocation of unequal political influence and influence became almost a mirror image of the public allocation of unequal political authority and decision-making. Finally, as their members came to silently occupy administrative positions within the absolute state, these secret societies found themselves very well organized and positioned as (what would become) political parties at the outbreak of the French Revolution.
The second adaptive strategy in the face of political censorship was a pretense of neutrality and innocence. The clearest embodiment of this pretense is to be found within the Royal Society in which members consciously sidelined all religious and political aspirations and legislative relevance for the very survival of the society. (It is from these very practical constraints that the neutral, objectivity to which modern science still pretends found its historical impetus.) The strong separation of morality from politics within these organizations thus allowed them to maintain a semblance of innocence and universality that was tightly bound up with and contingent upon their political impotence. Indeed, such an image of innocence and universality is relatively easy to maintain when one is never forced to make a socially relevant decision. (It was this fear of having to make a decision for which one could be held responsible that liberal society, according to Carl Schmitt, “answer[s] the question ‘Christ or Barabbas?’ with a proposal to adjourn or appoint a commission of investigation.”)
There thus emerged a kind of division of labor in which the political state concerned itself with particularistic decision-making and peace-keeping while moral societies, both secret and public, concerned themselves with public opinion, virtue and vice. The Enlightenment is thus a process in which moral society increasingly sees, or at least claims the political state to be superfluous. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before the iterative process of mutual and de-centralized moral criticism would seek to stand in judgment of everything, including the political state. By positioning itself above politics, morality essentially eliminated politics, thus construing any amoral exercise of political power or any decision which does not submit itself to the dictates of “moral reason” (note the symbiotic terminology!) as an affront to virtue itself:
“Not the King, but moral law was to rule him and through him. This moral view of the political duties of the King deprived sovereign power of its political freedom of decision, that is, its absolute sovereignty… Once law is taken out of the political sphere and defined in moral terms, all violations of law that do not conform to morality become acts of pure force… Nothing but ‘the law’ is supposed to rule… The prince’s power is stripped of its representative and sovereign character… Being directly non-political, society nevertheless wants to rule indirectly through the moralization of politics… the King is to rule in the name of morality, that is, of society.” (pg. 145-6)
In review and summary, absolute monarchy created the conditions necessary for and ideally suited to the emergence of “public opinion”. When this public opinion became a threat to the state, it was censored, thus compelling it to repress its political ambitions through various forms of secrecy and feigned neutrality. Pretenses to neutrality, secrecy and decentralization all contributed to the illusion that laws rather than person could and ought to rule. Thus, as the relative peace and tolerance created by the authoritarian state came to be taken for granted, moral society similarly came to see the sovereignty of the political state as superfluous and, by very definition, immoral. Such claims, however, clearly belied both the secrecy as well as the pretended neutrality of previous thinkers.
Questions for Mormons:
Whereas absolute monarchy had created a strong separation between private morality/religion and public politics, the Enlightenment further divided public morality from private religion. Which, if any of these divisions do Mormons accept? Is claiming an organized religion to be private a contradiction in terms? Do Mormons see such divisions between morality and religion as historical or in some sense natural or eternal?
In what ways has Mormonism embraced both secrecy and pretenses to neutrality throughout its history? In what ways have hierarchies of secrecy paralleled or supplemented the hierarchies of authority that structure church?
“Moral law” was the guise under which “public opinion” (having distanced itself from “private religion”) sought to assert itself politically in opposition to and above the will of the political sovereign. What is the relationship between “moral law”, “public opinion” and “sovereign will” in Mormon doctrine, and what relevance does the morality/religion distinction play in this relationship?
The Enlightenment insisted that nothing but impersonal law ought to rule – a claim that was well adapted to both the secrecy and the supposed neutrality of its advocates. Do Mormons accept that principles of an unchanging moral law rather than the decisions of a sovereign will should govern the church? If so, does this constrain, if not stifle the kinds of authoritative revelation that we are willing to expect and accept?
Germans don’t know jack about England.
Comment by Martin James — March 7, 2016 @ 4:55 pm
But I will try to engage your questions.
1. Which, if any of these divisions do Mormons accept?
I think that mormons accept that there is a separation between public politics and private morality, particularly with respect to religion.
I don’t think mormons categorize the world according to “public morality” at least not until recently. For example, the church did not advocate for prohibition. I think utopian schemes through government have been counter-cultural within mormonism. Negative liberty as compared to positive liberty have been emphasized. The government taketh away much more readily than it provideth.
Is claiming an organized religion to be private a contradiction in terms?
Do Mormons see such divisions between morality and religion as historical or in some sense natural or eternal?
In what ways has Mormonism embraced both secrecy and pretenses to neutrality throughout its history?
There are some examples of both, obviously.
“In what ways have hierarchies of secrecy paralleled or supplemented the hierarchies of authority that structure church?”
Well, since they are secret I either don’t know or wouldn’t tell.
“Moral law” was the guise under which “public opinion” (having distanced itself from “private religion”) sought to assert itself politically in opposition to and above the will of the political sovereign. What is the relationship between “moral law”, “public opinion” and “sovereign will” in Mormon doctrine, and what relevance does the morality/religion distinction play in this relationship?
I don’t think Mormon doctrine says much about either public opinion or sovereign will except that public opinion is usually worldly and therefore bad and that one should be subject to political sovereignty.
“Do Mormons accept that principles of an unchanging moral law rather than the decisions of a sovereign will should govern the church?”
I would say yes because mormons often refer to eternal law and unchanging principles of truth.
“If so, does this constrain, if not stifle the kinds of authoritative revelation that we are willing to expect and accept?”
I would say no because authoritative revelation would be in accordance with eternal truth so there can be no conflict.
Comment by Martin James — March 7, 2016 @ 5:28 pm
Are you making an analogy between political authority and religious authority? Is so, how do you account for what only applies to the sacred and spiritual and not other forms of authority?
Comment by Martin James — March 7, 2016 @ 5:56 pm
1. JS liked German thinking.
2. “Well, since they are secret I either don’t know or wouldn’t tell.” That’s fair, but I think we can say a bit more than that. I find it especially telling that JS’s political ambitions were very much centered around the council of 50. I would also point that the most politically relevant covenants, and those having most to do with our own mortality are typically reserved for non-public contexts.
“I don’t think Mormon doctrine says much about either public opinion or sovereign will except that public opinion is usually worldly and therefore bad and that one should be subject to political sovereignty.”
I think you’re kind of dodging the issue here. For starters, we most definitely do speak of the sovereign will of God. Thus, the question becomes how does “eternal law” interact with this Sovereign will? The other main point is that the idea of “moral law” is, practically speaking, inescapably tied up with popular opinion. When we say “he can’t tell us X, because ~X is an eternal law” we are inevitably appealing to a public opinion regarding what the eternal law is.
“I would say yes because mormons often refer to eternal law and unchanging principles of truth.”
There seems to be an awful lot of cases where God decides on an exception to the law. (Think Abraham, Nephi, etc.) If a law has exception, then have posited a sovereign will who decides such exceptions. (This is Schmitt’s main argument in The Concept of the Political)
“I would say no because authoritative revelation would be in accordance with eternal truth so there can be no conflict.”
But the whole point of placing law above sovereign will was to constrain how much and what the sovereign can command. Why does this argument stand in one case but not the other?
3. “Is so, how do you account for what only applies to the sacred and spiritual and not other forms of authority?”
Without an example, I’m not sure what you’re point is here.
I’ve decided to switch up my approach a bit in that I plan on unpacking some thinker’s ideas and then asking questions aimed at dislodging various beliefs that are dogmatic from a secular perspective but quite negotiable from an LDS perspective. My hope is that loosening these dogmatic beliefs will prevent them from ever being leveraged against the church. Thus, I’m not really concerned about convincing anybody of anything so much as raising pointed doubts.
Comment by Jeff G — March 7, 2016 @ 8:38 pm
As a side note, I don’t understand how you think that interpretation of a living authority is a problem, but interpretation of some impersonal and unobservable moral law that exists independent of all people is not.
Comment by Jeff G — March 8, 2016 @ 9:00 am
Here is a specific example. One type of authority has the power to resurrect the dead and give eternal life and another type does not. Why would we think that what applies to one type would apply to the other?
I think I understand where you are going with this a little better in that you want to provide alternatives to thinking that the enlightenment version of universal and external moral law is a valid basis for critiquing the church. I don’t have much problem with that aspect of what you are doing because I don’t think the enlightenment version of universal moral law is actually universal or moral or a law. It is just that I don’t think the problem with the enlightenment is universalism.
I think the critical issue is the way we identify legitimate authority. The point is how to distinguish legitimate authority. Think of the story of Nathan and David. Why did Nathan instruct him by analogy and how did David recognize he had sinned?
I can see how historical example of secular authority show us what authority and morality are not, but I can’t see how they help us identify what it is.
How do I get the benefits of your critique of the secular without what seems to be the downside of losing the ability to distinguish different types of authority and what makes an authority an authority?
Comment by Martin James — March 8, 2016 @ 10:43 am
It may be that you are playing defense and I’ve been thinking you are playing offense.
Comment by Martin James — March 8, 2016 @ 10:57 am
“I think I understand where you are going with this a little better in that you want to provide alternatives to thinking that the enlightenment version of universal and external moral law is a valid basis for critiquing the church. I don’t have much problem with that aspect of what you are doing because I don’t think the enlightenment version of universal moral law is actually universal or moral or a law. It is just that I don’t think the problem with the enlightenment is universalism.”
That’s fine. My new approach is aimed at letting the reader pick and choose what they like from the enlightenment rather than being forced to pick and choose from the gospel.
“One type of authority has the power to resurrect the dead and give eternal life and another type does not. Why would we think that what applies to one type would apply to the other?”
Still not sure what you mean. It seems like you’re saying “If one cubic liter of pure water is positioned in Germany and another is positioned in the US, why would we ever assume that they have anything in common?” In the same way that geographical location doesn’t seem to matter, I don’t see how raising the dead matters either. In other words, nobody is claiming that both kinds of authority are totally equal in every sense, but it is up to you to show how some difference actually does make a relevant difference.
Comment by Jeff G — March 8, 2016 @ 11:06 am
Let me see if I understand in very simplistic terms. So before the Enlightenment, kings claimed divine right and sought to unite their authority with that of the morality of the church. The Enlightenment pushed out both kings and the church in favour of natural law and individual moral autonomy. This vacuum was filled by a plethora of protestantism and revolution.
The Mormons came along and created a strong authoritative theocracy which filled the void, but at the same time invited individual members to get their own personal revelations and follow their own personal moral code, which ideally should be the same of the church, but which is often not. This created a tension that fuels 90% of the angst on the bloggernacle today.
As far as the secrecy side of the Enlightenment, I don’t really see much influence in Mormonism, other than the endowment’s masonic connections. The Mormon church does not see itself as underground or subversive in any way, but rather universal. Of course it is NOT universal, but rather only for “the elect,” and I think Mormonism SHOULD adopt a more Masonic view of itself, instead of upsetting itself and everyone else by insisting that its authority is universal rather than tribal.
Comment by Nate — March 10, 2016 @ 4:32 pm
Well, the LDS applications aren’t quite to clear to me. Since most of the enlightenment thinking is based in European history, it’s tough to draw direct parallels with American events.
As for the overview, I think it’s worth recapping, if only for my own clarity:
Before the reformation, politics/morality/religion were all one and the same thing. Because of civil war, absolute monarchy pushed morality/religion away from politics. Afterwards, the enlightenment attacked religion, thus pushing it (religious opinion) away from morality (or moral reason) in a way that came to challenge politics.
This morality, however, in order to preserve its own claim to universality were forced to present themselves publicly as neutral and universal while privately wielding power through secret societies and their clandestine hierarchies. This dualism is what Koselleck calls the hypocrisy of the Enlightenment.
I think a similar dualism can probably be read into JS’s council of 50 and the kingdom of God that he sought to establish in secret. Again, there are public pronouncements of political neutrality and universalism which parallel – to some extent – a cover organization of instructions and power.
Comment by Jeff G — March 10, 2016 @ 9:10 pm
“the hypocrisy of the Enlightenment” as being both universal and secret, could apply equally well to the church. Maybe you could call Mormonism, like gnosticism, an “open secret,” available to all based on universal principles of faith, repentance, etc, but in reality, so eccentric and peculiar that it is effectively closed to the vast majority of people, good and bad.
Mormons should rejoice at their status of being “chosen,” like the joy of Masons in a lodge, but they feel bad about it, preferring condescension and perplexity instead, singing “ye simple souls who stray.”
Comment by Nate — March 11, 2016 @ 1:39 am
“Before the reformation, politics/morality/religion were all one and the same thing.”
I think this is too simplistic. To say that they were one and the same thing would mean that they were synonyms before the reformation. An example, of where I don’t think that is the case is that religion and morals have been used as words to describe an adherence to a set of practices in a way that I think differs from politics as understood as having to do with something done by citizens. Domestics and slaves could be said to have religious practices in a way that was not political when they had no power to act politically.
I also think that priests and warriors were not doing “the same thing” in times before the reformation. They may not have had the same distinction they have now, but that doesn’t mean they were identical.
I think there are other cases were the social divisions in what we think of as “religious” practices were not a one to one map with what we would think of as “political” practices.
Comment by Martin James — March 11, 2016 @ 1:38 pm
Another simple example of the difference between politics and religion that predates the reformation are class distinctions where political differences based on wealth wouldn’t have mapped one-to-one with differences based on what gods, if any, were worshiped.
Comment by Martin James — March 11, 2016 @ 1:41 pm
What do you make of the distinctions that Aristotle makes between was is covered in Ethics and in Politics?
Comment by Martin James — March 11, 2016 @ 1:50 pm
“I think this is too simplistic. To say that they were one and the same thing would mean that they were synonyms before the reformation.”
No, nothing that strong is required. It just means that their meanings were mutually implicating in such a way that it was impossible to speak of one without also speaking of the others. Thus, in order for such things to come apart, the very meaning of these words had to change.
For example, before the 18th century or so, to be “religious”, inasmuch as this phrase had any meaning at all, simply meant to be in the clergy. To ask whether a common, everyday person was “religious” was simply meaningless. This is all that is meant. Thus, your slave example doesn’t really apply since they – as slave – were NOT religious by very definition.
To be sure, there were societies prior to medieval Europe in which these concepts were linked up differently, but I reject the idea that they had a strong separation. The Greeks thought that virtue and politics were one and the same, and virtue was closely related to the gods (see the Euthyphro dilemma). To be sure, such claims had a very specific person in mind, but such is the way in which dominant classes can transform language for those “beneath” them.
In summary, within the premodern worldview, one could not be moral unless they were also (what we now call) religious and political and vice-versa. They had simply not invented any sharp distinction between these categories of persons and activities.
Comment by Jeff G — March 11, 2016 @ 3:09 pm
There is a big difference between saying something moral is always religious and political and saying there isn’t a sharp distinction between them.
Take Augustine’s City of Man and City of God. He goes on at length on the differences between the politics of the City of Man and the religion of the City of God.
Comment by Martin James — March 11, 2016 @ 5:19 pm
I still think you’re splitting hairs over nothing. I don’t see anything important that hangs on your objections.
What matters is that before the Civil wars, politics answered to the demands of morality/religion and prior to the Enlightenment, morality answered to the demands of religion. For this reason there were no “religious/non-religious” people only “righteous/unrighteous” people since moral and political evaluations were inescapably framed in religious terms.
This isn’t a very bold claim.
Comment by Jeff G — March 11, 2016 @ 6:42 pm
Put differently, there was no separation between church and state and public society.
Comment by Jeff G — March 11, 2016 @ 7:23 pm
Jeff, it seems to me that while what you say is most definitely true in many areas, really what you are after is the development of pluralism. After all what counts is how tightly the state (which can include the Church typically) limits expression and difference.
Comment by Clark — March 16, 2016 @ 9:15 am
I’m not sure it’s that simple. The question is “the pluralism of what?” The absolutist fully tolerated a huge plurality of morals and religions so long as they did not pretend that the state had any obligation to answer to any of them.
The enlightenment, by contrast, consisted 1) in rejecting the absolutist claim to independence from moral criticism while at the same time 2) denying to religion that same right which moral society was claiming for itself. Neither of these. Neither of these are very pluralistic aims.
Lessing explicitly pointed at three targets of enlightenment attack: 1) divisions between states, 2) stratification within states and 3) separation of people by religion. Such a universalistic cosmopolitanism is clearly not very pluralistic.
The anti-pluralistic ambitions of the enlightenment can be seen in how, as soon as absolute monarchism was taken down, the enlightenment coalition began fighting among themselves as to who would “carry the true torch” of freedom. Each dominant group is perfectly open to pluralism – but only among the dominated groups.
Comment by Jeff G — March 16, 2016 @ 10:35 am