This is an essay I wrote before becoming an anarchist. I think it stands true still with the small editing chore of deleting the conclusion I had, stating that people should vote but be VERY careful. Everything else is the same.
[u]David Hume's Theory of Benevolence and Its Application in Politics[/u]
In 1777, David Hume wrote “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, in which he posited that benevolence is the most important value to human beings, he argued that whoever possessed it would win the support of all. Now a days, this theory is used as a tool in politics where politicians strive to gather the largest amount of followers possible.
To understand this, we must explore Hume’s theory of benevolence, what it means to be a politician in our society, what democracy is and how the combination of these elements leads to what we know today as populism.
The most esteemed values in the hearts of people are not bravery, stoicism, rationality, prudence, or any value that determines a person’s capacity or success in their field. These values garner admiration and respect, but also envy and feelings of inferiority towards the person in question. They don’t lend themselves to the direct benefit of anybody but their possessor. They insure the person’s capacity, and by themselves, only his/her own prosperity.
Refinement, civility, luxury and self-love also lack an effect in the hearts of people. These qualities influence their possessor only and garner no admiration or respect. They present no potential direct benefit for others. If anything, they make the possessor more likeable, but likeability cannot be said to be as profound a feeling as admiration, nor can it be said that it reaches the hearts of men/women.
Vices and anti-values (selfishness, dishonesty, corruption, disrespect, etc.) actually garner hate and dis-like, because they not only guaranty the exclusive benefit of the possessor, they imply a negative effect on other people.
In the end, that which, according to Hume, garners the respect, admiration and even love from people is benevolence. Someone who is good to people, and shows a constant determination to help them, will be seen as a good person, worthy of trust. A person that, for example, is brave, capable, successful, ambitious, and other such things, would be, as previously stated, envied and resented. But if this person is also benevolent, he will be loved. Even the people that still resented and envied him/her would find themselves forced to praise them, whether because they also concurrently admire them or because they would be ostracized for not doing so.
A benevolent person is loved by their parents, not just because she/he is their son/daughter, but also because of how they are treated by him/her. He/she is loved by his/her children, and does not practice authority over them except for their benefit. All of the person’s friends will genuinely like and feel love for him/her. In general, the person would be genuinely liked by those that know him/her.
So we see that the benevolent person is loved, and there is a recurring element in their benevolence: the happiness and satisfaction of the people that are affected by that person. The benevolent acts of generosity, pity, amicability, solidarity, among others, all effectively lead to the happiness and satisfaction of people.
Anything that is useful to humans is worthy of praise by them. Anything that helps us or is useful to us in any way is agreeable and good. Anything that, on the other hand, presents an obstacle to the pre-arranged way of carrying out a task is seen as disagreeable and bad. A large big thing is better enjoyed than a small thing. Air conditioning is agreeable because it creates an ideal temperature. In general, anything useful is agreeable to people.
To go no further, a person will invariably be offended by the suggestion that their profession or works are useless to humanity. In the words of Hume: “…is not a monk and inquisitor enraged when we treat his order as useless or pernicious to mankind?”. People like to think that what they do works for the common good of all, or at least some. “In general, what praise is implied in the simple epithet USEFUL! What reproach in the contrary!"
All of these observations about benevolence and its impact on people are closely linked to the world of politics. A politician is a person that dedicates his/her life to being a leader on some level to some segment of population. There are different degrees of power, depending on the amount of population being controlled, the assigned responsibilities, the assigned capacities and the amount of people that share the position.
A senator, for example, shares his position with some dozens of fellow senators, is leader to the population of an entire country and has the responsibilities of creating, modifying, eliminating and generally discussing the laws that govern the country; aside from approving important decisions of the executive. It can be said, then, that a senator is a powerful person.
This power that politicians have is a power they have over their subjects. In other words, they control certain aspects of their lives.
The reason for the existence of a politician is, in theory, to organize a segment of population under their jurisdiction, insure its proper functioning, and represent it to other population segments (among other things). In modern western tradition, the general idea is that a politician must always strive for the good of those he rules. He/she must understand his population and carry out its will, using his power, like the benevolent parent, only for its benefit. He practices authority only to protect and better it, never to harm it and never minding his own benefit if it gets in the way of his objectives.
If this is to be so, it may be said that the politician must be first and foremost a benevolent person, one that seeks the common good, is generous, solidary, pious, amicable, beneficent, etc. He/she must also be capable, ambitious, brave, secure, clear-headed, with concrete and logical ideas that are geared to the benevolent ends that are his purpose, etc. In short, it could be said that the modern western politician must ideally always have benevolence in his objectives and his methods as a primary characteristic, and must have the capacity to insure that the chosen method and objectives are truly benevolent.
To use the example used by Hume to explain something similar: when Pericles, the Athenian general and politician, was dying, his friends began to name his victories, conquests and successes. Hearing this, however, Pericles said: “…you forget the most eminent of my praises, while you dwell so much on those vulgar advantages, in which fortune had a principal share. You have not observed that no citizen has ever yet worne mourning on my acount.”
This being the our society’s ideal politician, representative democracy has been chosen as the system of government that best leads to the attainment of it. In representative democracy, leaders are chosen by the people to represent them. Among the politicians that apply, they attempt to elect the one that they think would best represent them and is most honest, trustworthy and, above all, benevolent.
As regards capacity, or lack of it, the only way to ensure their existence is to elect the politician and find out. By then, the choice will be made. Additionally, there are ways to hide obtusiveness and falsify capacity, so this element plays a truly small role in the list of things to take into account on election day.
At the moment of having to elect a representative, politicians will carry out election campaigns. With these campaigns, they will attempt to convince the largest possible amount of people to elect them. Additionally, the candidate’s party affiliations, television appearances and actions prior to the election will help voters get an idea of who they are and what they are after.
But the fact that a large amount of people don’t keep themselves informed, whether for lack of interest or capacity, capacity being determined by the voter’s access to media and the candidates public activities, about the real actions and achievements of the candidates. These people’s knowledge is often limited to what is shown during election campaigns.
Remembering the control given to a politician, it is fair to say that they have great power over the people, who is often forced by their lack of knowledge to believe whatever the politician says and give him this political power on the basis of it. In this sense, the politician has a moral obligation to claim and promise only that which is true and which he/she truly planes to do or is true to her/his actual beliefs and ideals. However, they have the obvious possibility to completely disregard this obligation.
It is only necessary for one politician to do this for all others, whether their intentions be benevolent or not, to be forced to do the same in order to compete. It is here that the use of benevolence for not-necessarily-benevolent-reasons enters. Politicians begin to give public displays of generosity, goodlyness, amicability, solidarity, among others, to convince the population that they are benevolent. These displays, be they actions or just declarations, apparently benevolent, have full potential of being falsehoods with no actual foundations that lead to the benefit of the people. They simply offer a promise, possibly unfounded, of beneficial ends for the public. In other words, they merely show intentions, authentic or not, of wanting the good of the people.
Benevolence reaches the hearts of people, and often reaches their feelings without going through their logic, making voters give candidates political power without really knowing what they do, want to do, or even claim to do.
This is the genesis, for example, of the tradition of kissing the head of random babies. An action that shows affection and tenderness, and reaches one of the basic human instincts by putting babies in the spotlight.
In short, genuine benevolence is a theoretically necessary element for politicians, and can be falsified with actions and claims that have no benevolent foundations.
Text Used
- David Hume, (1777). “An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals“, gutenberg.org/files/4320/4320-h/4320-h.htm
