The Moral Foundations of Politics
In this Yale lecture, Sterling Professor of Political Science Ian Shapiro talks about the effect the enlightenment has had on the moral foundation of politics. He starts off his lecture with the subjects of the enlightenment. “Enlightenment is the idea of basing our theories of politics on science instead of religion, tradition, superstition and natural law” he says. Science is the core of politics and individual freedom is the most important political good. The enlightenment revolves around the question: “How do you scientifically design a society to maximize individual freedom?
The enlightenment has three traditions: the utilitarian tradition, the Marxist tradition and the social contract. The utilitarian tradition is the way in which you create a scientifically organized society is you maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The Marxist tradition is based on the idea that we can have impersonal scientific principles that give us the right answer for the organization of society. In the ideal society, politics will be replaced by administration because moral disagreement will have faded. Even though Karl Marx is often described as someone who wanted equality, he still is an enlightened thinker. This is because he wanted everyone to be equally free, which is the core of enlightenment. The third is the social contract. This contract is described as the way we get a scientific theory of society is to think about what agreement people would make if they were designing society for the first time.
This lecture doesn’t seem like the obvious choice, looking at business administration. That is partly true, but this lecture is very important looking at my professional development. Because I’m very interested in coaching, it is important to know how people think and what their behaviour is based on. The enlightenment didn’t just lay the formation of modern politics, it formed the foundation of modern society. The reason western behaviour is so different from middle eastern behaviour is because of the enlightenment. Europeans always try to see the bigger picture and put things in perspective. This is developed during the enlightenment. My point being, understanding behaviour begins at the foundation, which is the enlightenment.
