Customer Reviews

Natural Right and History (Walgreen Foundation Lectures)

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Now here's a puzzle. We have Leo Strauss, an obscure political philosopher of the 1950's at the University of Chicago. He primarily writes on ancient philosophers, such as Xenophon and Plato. Thirty years after his death, we find neoconservatives like Allan Bloom and Paul Wolfowitz saturated in the mainstream, apparently tutored under Strauss. What's the connection?

Amid the recent Leo Strauss craze, perpetuated by a largely sensationalist media blindly driven towards the holy grail of conspiracy theory, I decided to pick up Natural Right and History. While, obviously, one cannot ascertain his entire political message by merely one book, reading Natural Right and History helps obviate the connection.

Natural Right is a "biography" of the idea of natural right. Strauss traces the idea of natural right, from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity. In classic "Straussian" form, to understand the political implications of this book, you have to read painstakingly between the lines.

Strauss starts the book with a rather standard critique of historicism (historical relativism) and conventionalism. His argument against value relativism is very straight forward; hardly any social scientist today makes the claims that Strauss refutes. The new relativism is a more sophisitcated one, couched behind postmodernist word-games.

However, social science is largely built upon the theories of Max Weber. Thus, Strauss uses a reduction proof. If he can reduce social science to Weber, and if he can reduce Weber to historicism, then he can effectively show that the methodologies social science are fallacious, since he shows that historicism is false. Consequently he can show that a historicist understanding of natural right is also bunk. To be sure, this is an extremely risky strategy since the argument relies on a lengthy chain of reasoning.

Having attacked postmodern notions of natural right, Strauss restarts at antiquity and works his way up to modernity. Strauss shows the evolution of the idea of natural right, from "Socrates" to Plato to Aristotle to Hobbes to Locke to Rousseau to Burke.

So which conception of natural rights does Strauss believe in - the classical or the modern (enlightenment)? In short, he subscribes to the classical. Why? Succinctly, Strauss contends that natural right became doomed the second that Hobbes injected his hedonism into natural right.

A different way approach is to look at Strauss's juxtaposition of (classical vs modern) as (republicanism vs. liberalism). By liberalism, I mean classical liberal, i.e. enlightenment liberal. Classical liberalism is the view that individuals are prior to society. By republicanism, I do not mean anything related to the republican party. Republicanism means that individuals are willing to sacrifice their private interests to the public good, i.e. civic virtue. Republicanism means, in extremely superficial terms, that civil society is prior to the individual.

With that said, I totally disagree with Strauss's analysis, for more reasons I can delve into here. I think that the rights of classical liberalism, as Locke conceived it, is largely correct. However, Strauss plays a vital role in the ongoing conversation of rights in political science and philosophy. For producing a very challenging, thought-provoking analysis, this book gets 5 stars. Beware: it's not a light read!

This book contains a critique of modern relativism coupled with a historical investigation of the development of the idea of natural right. As moderns we consider our philosophical predecessors as caused by history rather than causing it. Strauss demolishes this view by giving a history of Western thought that explains the historical origin of the idea of natural right far better than those who treat all thought as historically limited.

Although Strauss writes "compactly" (he doesn't waste words in getting to the point), his book is quite revealing about the rationales for certain ancient, medieval, and modern political ideas. For those of us who usually find these ideas outlandish or even perverse, this book is extremely rewarding (contrary to another reviewer's vague suggestion). If you have trouble comprehending everything, consume the book in smaller bites. Those interested in the American founding, for instance, should probably concentrate on the chapter entitled "Modern Natural Right"; others may want to explore what political thought looked like before the rise of "science"; for that look at the chapter entitled "The Origin of the Idea of Natural Right". Etc. Etc.

This book is essential for anybody interested in getting a picture of the whole of Western (and even non-Western) thought, but who finds himself disenchanted with glib postmodernist glosses of what is a very complicated subject.

I first encountered this book in high school, spurred by my american history and american government teachers. It is therefore somewhat elitist to state that this will go over anyone's head. The ideas and the prose may be complex, but it just requires some patience. If it's worth it to you, you'll be able to read it.

Strauss gave these lectures to counter what then was called historicism, the position that, because conceptions of such things as freedom and right have been so varied throughout time, that because nobody has been able to agree on what right is, that right is relative to the time. The upshod of the arguement is then, since nothing can count as right definitively, there is no right. Strauss argues that historicism, by being another appearance in history, is subject to the same criticism (therefore interally inconsistent) and that even if nobody has been able to agree on "right" doesn't mean that there isn't any such thing, but because debate has been so heated on the subject, it is only all the more evident that there is such a thing such as right.

I may be a slightly biased source, but i've read my share of Levi-Strauss and Foucault. Sure, Strauss confines himself to political philosophy, but the larger issues are there. Postmodern thought is showing strains of its own now, and Strauss pointed them out before they realized they were postmodern. Essential reading for both camps.

I apologize for my review title. This is one of the cases when I am not sure I recognize the book I just read from the other reviews. I propose to try to tell you something about actual content and structure of the book. I think it is worth doing because I believe this to be one of the most important books on political philosophy written during the twentieth century.
Strauss' history of Western political philosophy can be summed up as follows. In the beginning there were the Greeks. They lived in their politeia (which Strauss translates as regime- see circa p.136 for his discussion). At first they believed that the laws of their particular cities were handed down from god(s) either directly or through divine inspiration. But then they began to reflect on the fact that their different politeia contradicted each other in their ideas of what was just, godly and noble.
Two things happened as a result. The ideas of nature and convention developed.
-Important methodological aside- As has been pointed out by Kennington and many other commentators, Strauss' use of the word `idea' (see. p. 123) is very particular and could be called Socratic-Platonic. In NRH, he uses the word very sparingly, and only to indicate the philosophical issues that are central to his story. The discussion of each chapter of the book and the book as a whole is built around these ideas. By my listing they are as follows: philosophy, history, natural right, science, nature, justice, man, best regime, man's perfection, the city, and virtue (I may have missed some of these). Now some of these, I would claim, Strauss sees as fundamental issues that have alternate solutions between which it is impossible to rationally decide and some of these issues are dead ends for philosophy. Part of the fun of reading Strauss is deciding which is which. And now back to our story.-
Out of these related ideas- convention and nature, the classical vision of political philosophy developed. Strauss covers this in his central chapters 3 and 4. There is only a few points I want to make about his presentation. He believes that the classical understanding of natural right and of man is based on " the hierarchic order of man's natural constitution" (127). Because our nature is hierachial, our ends are as well. Our highest end is the philosophy which is not a body of knowledge but a life of contemplation on the nature of the whole and on the nature of the parts.
Back in the political realm, the result is an investigation as to what constitutes the best regime- what form of politea encourages the development of gentlemen (from whom the philosophers will come-note the type of person that Socrates typically converse with in the Platonic dialogues) and the fostering of the virtues that will be necessary for both the city and the citizen (the virtues required for the philosopher are much more difficult to grasp). Note also that there is no discussion of individual rights here- it is of the duties of the citizen that we speak.
The beginning of the modern version of natural rights is almost an inversion of this view. Instead of focusing on what is highest (and therefore rarest) in human nature, the moderns (e.g., Hobbes) decided to focus on what was most common, indeed, what was universal in the hopes of actualizing their philosophies. Hobbes and Locke (according to Strauss) therefore focused on the passions, particularly on the desire for self-preservation. Strauss' reading of Hobbes and Locke is brilliant and is based on a very broad reading in their works. He sees modernity as undergoing three waves (see the essay, The Three Waves of Modernity, in Strauss' book An Introduction to Political Philosophy). The second wave, started by Rousseau, exposed the presumptions in the philosophies of Hobbes and Locke and ruthlessly critiques their philosophies on the basis of their own presumptions (see p. 269 of NRH for an example). Not discussed in NRH is how Nietzsche initiated the third wave by doing the same thing to Rousseau and his followers.
The third wave of modernity self-implodes in the philosophies of Heidegger (the radical historicist of the early chapters of NRH) and the vacuousness of positivism.
Thus my summary of NRH. Note that there is little content as to what natural right really is in Strauss' opinion. Strauss felt that we would get nowhere on understanding natural right unless we confronted the two major traditions in Western philosophy: historicist (modern) philosophy and nonhistoricist (ancient philosophy). His book is best seen as his attempt to reconsider the most elementary premises of those traditions (p. 32). After all of our careful reading, we are back at the beginning. Running as fast as we can to stay where we are. I am being glib.
I would love to have other readers of NRH comment on how I might improve my understanding of this book. I am nowhere near done with the book or the author. Like other reviewers, I disagree w/ Strauss in many of his fundamental presumptions (where is his argument for the soul?), I suspect many of his interpretations (although many are revelations) but I love learning from him and debating internally with him. He very rarely tells you what to think. He spends almost all of his time exploring the issue at hand in its full complexity. And he has driven me back to rereading Plato and Locke. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

"Nature was discovered when man embarked on the fundamental distinctions between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes, on the one hand, and between things made by man and things not made by man, on the other."

Strauss provides a powerful and scholarly work in his tracing the idea of natural right. Strauss explains the origins of natural right, classical natural right, modern natural right and more. He includes arguments against Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, and Weber. The depth of thought may be too much for the common reader, I found it difficult to fully grasp all of Strauss's ideas myself, but it is well worth reading for anyone interested in natural law or the history of ideas.

There is a hidden danger when the social sciences reduce America's claims to truth to mere products of history and culture. What happens when generations of American students are taught that America's founding happened strictly for economic reasons? Or that far from being heroes, the framers are guilty of genocide? Or that we only believe what we believe because we are 21st century, middle class, American consumers of mass culture? Strauss shows us that once we realize that our ideals have no basis in ultimate truth or reality, we no longer believe in them. In fact, our way of life is no more defendable than the life of the cannibal, for he too is a product of his history and culture. The modern assault on the natural right tradition has consequences beyond the ability of the modern student to grasp. It is beyond his grasp because he no longer bothers to tangle with the most important questions. They no longer have meaning. There simply isn't anything worth believing in, let alone dying for.

Strauss dares to question the superiority of modern thought. Could it be that the classics had it right? And that the modern confrontation with nihilism is a radical misadventure? How do we know that all truth is relative? Can this be demonstrated or is this widely held belief based on surprisingly weak assumptions about man's inability to know what is good? Strauss shows that the rejection of natural right in the name of history is a contradiction. He also demonstrates that the distinction between facts and values in the social sciences is problematic at best. He then goes on to reacquaint the reader with the natural right tradition, as he traces it from its earliest beginnings to its modern form, including it's current crisis.

I don't claim to understand everything in this book. But because it's so far above me it's the gift that keeps on giving. In some ways I see Strauss as not only a political philosopher, but also as a prophet. A rare mind who saw darkness on the horizon, and did his part to stand against a rising tide. He engaged the greatest minds in human history, and wrote down his arguments for everyone to see. If you read this book slowly and carefully, you are guaranteed to learn something valuable. Only the most rank ideologue would fail to see Strauss' love of philosophy. Some may politicize his thought, but Strauss himself rose far above partisanship. To view him as the architect of the war in Iraq, for example, is to do violence to who Strauss was. Why not read him for yourself, and make up your own mind?

Strauss does a wonderful job of illustrating how natural right has changed between classic and modern. In doing so, he reveals the world of difference on the views of reality between these times. An area of particular interest and importance is Strauss's discussion of the distinction between fact and values: for those in the social sciences, it should be a required read. While sometimes hard to read, this work is certainly worth the effort.

Several of the poor reviews for this book state that they don't understand why historicism isn't "allowable" in a rationalist critique of society.

1. Historicism is an offshoot of the German Historical School of economic criticism--an entirely dead school outside of literature departments, where good economics is a term of abuse--which stressed that the decisions people make can be treated historically rather than objectively. Why is this wrong? There are systemic processes of cause and effect in an economy that cannot be explained by aggregate "intentions" of individual actors in history. Every individual in society acts upon needs at any one point in time, and the hierarchy of values and needs is in constant flux. For instance: you think you need a new DVD player. You drive to the store with the intention of buying a DVD player. You get to the store, look at the players, their prices, and then begin to get second thoughts. You decide not to buy the player. In the process, you have consumed half a tank of gas, you put some other activities on the backburner (cleaning your home, walking your dog, etc., which may have required the exhaustion of other goods that you own). When you get home, you'll think taht you just acted irrationally, because you found that your intention of buying the DVD player was only a fleeting impulse. Nevertheles,, you acted rationally--you just chose to keep your cash for another course of action--and you used up economic goods. How can you explain your increased gas usage for the week and lower consumption of house cleaning products? You can't, not in historical terms, since your intentions did not produce results you intended. Nevertheless, you acted on an objective framework the whole time--you rationed your time, chose one course of action over another (Marginal Utility Law), and consumed goods in one sphere rather than another. No historian could ever write a history of hte consequences of your actions on a weekly basis. The equations would be WAAAAY too complex. The market is the expression of every individual's decisions, but the systemic historical revelation of decisions (your increased gas consumption and decreased Pine Sol consumption) is not the expression of your intentions. You could never predict, based on empirical evidence, that you will continue increasing your gas consumption. After all, your increased gas guzzling was accidental, or incidental, and not at all intentional. Hence, when Socialists or German Historicists set out on a plan to improve society by pimping communal ownership of capital goods industries, they immediately fail in their endeavor. Their intentions were good, but they used the worst means by making slaves of society (after all, you no longer have any rights and goods that the State doesn't specifically give to you).

2. Natural Law--Natural Law is not theological. Most atheist rationalists uphold natural law, either through genetic or logical patterns of thinking hardwired into the brain. Natural Law is the discovery of the patterns we all follow. We all desire things, act according to teleological operations, and engage in action. We are not "tabula rasae" and we are not minds of wax. After all, we all speak the same grammar (Subject-Predicate-Object) despite the forms of our words, and we all sense time, space, and Cause-Effect in the same way. Natural Law maximizes human freedom, human choice, and economic liberty by fighting governments that tell us "what" to think and "how" we should think--according to a prescribed plan. The formula behind human action is objective, and Natural Law deals with the theory of human action, not its empirical revelation. Historicism is a creed for mystics, seers, and idiots, which always sets a noble goal that it can never reach by the means that it employs. Natural Law is the Law of human reason, and natural law is the law of individual liberty--freedom of choice, regardless of what a "majority" says is right.

Leo Strauss was a 20th century philosopher who spent his life studying and espousing the teachings of classical philosophical ideas. "Natural Right and History" delineates the fight between those who believe in the predominance of societal rights over individual rights. Here are a few quotes that help explain Strauss's thinking in this tug of war. "The contemporary rejection of natural rights leads to nihilism." "When liberals have to make a choice between natural right and individualism they gave up natural right, they want to be politically correct and tolerant of diversity and `individualism'". "In the case of man, reason is required for discerning what is by nature right with the ultimate regard to man's natural end".

Strauss writes that John Locke is most famous and influential teacher of modern natural right philosophy. Locke was certainly the most influential philosopher of our "Founding Fathers." Locke is the author of the phrase, "life, liberty and the pursuit of property" that should sound very familiar to most Americans. I enjoy reading Strauss, I agree with his and Aristotle's philosophical view on "the good life." The best state provides a guarantee of freedoms, less economic regulation, provide a safety net for people with bad luck, provide a good education so that we can be trained to make us morally virtuous citizens.

As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this to be a great book to continue one's journey into political philosophy.

Leo Strauss was a 20th century philosopher who spent his life studying and espousing the teachings of classical philosophical ideas. "Natural Right and History" delineates the fight between those who believe in the predominance of societal rights over individual rights. Here are a few quotes that help explain Strauss's thinking in this tug of war. "The contemporary rejection of natural rights leads to nihilism." "When liberals have to make a choice between natural right and individualism they gave up natural right, they want to be politically correct and tolerant of diversity and `individualism'". "In the case of man, reason is required for discerning what is by nature right with the ultimate regard to man's natural end".

Strauss writes that John Locke is most famous and influential teacher of modern natural right philosophy. Locke was certainly the most influential philosopher of our "Founding Fathers." Locke is the author of the phrase, "life, liberty and the pursuit of property" that should sound very familiar to most Americans. I enjoy reading Strauss, I agree with his and Aristotle's philosophical view on "the good life." The best state provides a guarantee of freedoms, less economic regulation, provide a safety net for people with bad luck, provide a good education so that we can be trained to make us morally virtuous citizens.

As a retired Army officer and graduate student of political philosophy, I found this to be a great book to continue one's journey into political philosophy.