British Social Philosophy (PL 3370)
Lecture 8 – Feudalism as a Social Philosophy (The Feudal Ideal)
We are making a transition from the social history of England to the supporting
social philosophy. Remember that we are testing a thesis that the philosophy
of a period arises as a response to social context – particularly to when old
solutions do not met new problems. By implication the dominant social
philosophy explains or justifies existing social institutions and provides a basis
or means of criticizing those same institutions.
For example, our modern notion of popular democracy argues that social
institutions like education are the result of popular will and are justified or
legitimate insofar as they are responsive to popular needs and desires. Thus,
you feel you have a stake and a voice in what happens to you in school or in
classes. Education is not something that happens to you, but something in
which you actively participate and you participate only as long and in so far as
education meets your needs, desires and interests and the interests, needs
and desires of society as a whole. Thus, we believe that education ought to be
practical, train people for useful employment, and provide entry into socially
responsible activities, promote citizenship or contributory behavior, and the
like.
This is not the only way of conceive education. Even a hundred years ago
education was for learning’s sake. It separated the leisure class from the
working class, training ladies and gentlemen who would take up their proper
role as a social elite. This view of education was legitimated by a social
philosophy.
In other words, a social philosophy provides REASONS why certain forms of
social living are obligatory, when and under what conditions force or coercion
(or power) should be applied, whose interests will dominate social decisionmaking, who gets how much of what is produced and why.
My argument is that social philosophies are NOT the product of philosophers
thinking about what kind of social arrangements are ideal but rather social
philosophies emerge as JUSTIFICATIONS of forms of social order. The
philosopher expressed this social philosophy in words and as required
CRITIZIES existing social institutions and forms of order as reflecting or failing
to reflect the forms of order in which human flourishing can occur.
This latter claim is critical. All social philosophy is an explicit argument for how
human beings OUGHT to live to as to promote human flourishing. Or we may
say how human beings can best realize (bring into being) salubrious human
development.
Now as we proceed there are a couple of temptations that we need to avoid.
FIRST, we must not judge unfamiliar social philosophies from a stance in our
own social philosophy. It is easy, for example, to be critical of feudalism
because it is undemocratic, authoritarian, and demeaning of children, women,
and justified slavery. All this it did, it is true. And there is a basis for criticizing
these aspects of social philosophy but the basis is not merely because we do
not do these things.
It may well be that ‘we’ are wrong or that our notions of what promotes human
flourishing are biased in favor of our own familiar institutions! This is a kind of
historical ethnocentrism that assumes we have achieved all there is to be
achieved as human beings. Nothing could be further from the truth. For
example, we have greater economic poverty than the feudal period and our
wars (in this century) have been more barbaric! So we should not be so
historically smug.
SECOND, we must try and understand what good these unfamiliar social
structures are trying to realize as a corrective of our own undersights and
oversights about human living. There is in fact something that we can learn by
allowing other to become critical of us. We are who we are in large measure
because if who we have been. By understanding our own roots we can better
tend our own time.
The Human Good and Social Order
(The basis of order or what every social philosophy must account for)
Throughout the course, we have affirmed that social living is a form of order –
it constitutes a pattern of predictable relationships. Order seems to be
fundamental to human being human. But what is the basis of this order? What
composes it? What elements do we have to account for?
Let’s start with a very basic notion that all human beings act to bring about
some good. We may differ what constitutes the good but there is little doubt
that we act with some good (some desired state of affairs) in mind and act to
bring that good into being.
So we might say that the good begins with human interests and desires.
However, we do not pursue the good alone or in isolation from others. Indeed
we act with others to bring about goods that we could not bring into being
along. (For example a farmer must clear a field of stones. Working alone he
carry out the job. However, cooperating with others, he can do the job faster,
clear more land, and lift heavier rocks [which he could not do alone]. So, we
might ask what is the basis of such cooperation. Is it because other farmers
might expect his help later? (self-interest) Is it that other regard themselves in
some sense obligated to others because of kinship or other relationship?
(altruism). Perhaps, it is because of social pressure or expectation? (social
convention) We could multiple such questions.
What we recognize is that we pursue our good with others. We collaborate
and cooperate. However, our notions of the good – or what is good is shaped
by what we believe is possible or necessary. (Many of us would not regard
juicy caterpillars as something food to eat, for example). So, our notions of the
good are shaped with some view of what is desired and desirable for us as
human beings – which means that we have fundamental beliefs about what a
human being is and what promotes human flourishing. It is on the basis of
these beliefs that we enter into some forms of cooperation and reject others
(thievery, for example, is a form of cooperation but few of us would choose the
form of order of thieving because we do not believe that thievery promotes
human flourishing).
Ok, these elements desire, forms of cooperation, and fundamental beliefs
about being human are the elements that we shape into our fundamental or
basic forms of order. Order (part of the world constituted by meaning) is a
predictable pattern of interactions that allow us to pursue our good with other
and for others. Order is not imposed on us. Order is something that we create.
As there is order so there can be disorder. We act to promote order and avoid
or repair disorder. However, what we have to remember is that order is a
product (a result) of human consciousness.
Now we can take these basic elements of desired, cooperation, and beliefs
about being human and discuss them in terms of a framework of
understanding. This human good consists of three dimensions. (Dimension
dog and pony show)
The particular good
–
The good of order
–
the particular,
concrete objects that
satisfy particular,
concrete desires
(interests)
the set ups and
routines that enable
people to satisfy
many desire of
many people over
relative long and
stable periods of
time regularly &
recurrently
Terminal Value –
what promotes human
flourishing . . . the full
development of person
as person
The basic building block is human desire (interest) whose objects
(satisfactions) are particular to person and satisfaction. We call this the
“particular good(s)”
However, as we have already acknowledged pursuit of our goods (interests)
does not occur in a vacuum but with others. Moreover, we exist with others in
the world. So a second dimension of the human good is the good of order. The
good of order are the routine and schemes (institutions, patterns of interaction)
by which we act to satisfy large ranges of desires of many people over relative
long spans of time.
This acting with others has five dimensions. There is the natural world that
supplies the materials that satisfy our desires. Technology is the means we
use to improve human living by transforming the natural world into our living.
Technology means, however that goods are produced that need to be
distributed. So the economy is the means by which we produce and deliver a
standard of living. Polity concern power and how we determine who gets how
much of the goods produced, how often and when. Polity (or politics)
administers the power to force or coerce our participation in the collaborative
structures of order. Above the polity stands the culture – the meanings and
values that inform a concrete way of life and beyond culture stands the
transcendent world – the meanings and values that exceed our complete
understanding – the ultimate justification of our institutions and their meanings
and values.
However, forms of order to not exist in isolation from human consciousness.
Beyond particular forms of order stands the good of value or terminal value –
what we believe about being human and what promotes human flourishing
and minimized decay, loss, and disorder.
With that background, let us try and understand feudalism as a form of social
living.
Feudalism
Feudalism arose at a particular time of Western history. We know from our
study of English history that for 500 years the basic form of order was supplied
by the Roman Empire. This ‘order’ existed from Iran to England and included
most of what we know as modern Europe. Rome ‘fell’ to the barbarians
(actually mercenary soldiers from Eastern Germany and Hungary) in the fifth
century. By 410 B.C. Roman had abandoned England and the Anglo-Saxons
whose basic form of social order was tribal filled the ‘gap’.
What persistent problem did the Anglo-Saxons face in managing their ‘English’
life? Other tribes from the North –the Norsemen. What problem became
particularly acute by 800 B.C.? The raids of the Vikings. They did not come to
stay and settle but to raid and grab. This made personal and community
security – especially in the coastal areas - very insecure. Crops and livestock
were taken. Subsistence (making a living on a seasonal basis) was hard and
precarious. It was all but impossible to raise an army to defend the country
against these kinds of raids.
What was needed was a way to defend the country, which meant a standing
security force (or army). So feudalism arose as a means to provide the
security necessary to support relatively spread-out and remote communities.
How? (What does Fink say?)
Right – give each community/region a strong defense force based on mutual
loyalty and reciprocal obligations based on the feodum or fief
Strategic
Castle
Supporting farms & communities
The community was self
sufficient economically,
socially and politically.
The system support this structure was hierarchical.
The King who ‘owned’ the land and its resources.
Nobles (who owned the land in fief - pledge) from the King.
The knights who fought for and defended the community.
The peasants/farmers who supplied the labor (produced the goods and
services required to support the community and its order).
Since this order was regarded as a divine order – one given by God – the
Church also played its role in the order – especially after the Alfred the Great
and the Norman, William the Conqueror. The Church ‘prayed’ for the
community – supplied the transcendent justification. As religious communities
had to be supported and protected (as well as civil communities). The land
received its fiefs and its strategic castles were the monasteries.
It had its own hierarchical order as well:
The Pope (Vicar of Christ and ‘holder of the “keys” of heaven
Bishops and Abbots
Priests (ordered and secular)
Laity
Now what is important to realize is that this view of the order of things was not
based on the sheer application of power. It was grounded, it was believed, by
a basic or fundamental order of the universe and created world created by
God. God had created each thing and given its place in the universe. There
was (it was believed) a natural (or created order). Just as birds fly and stones
fly (never the contrary), so the order of the human universe was given by God.
The order of creation
God (uncreated being)
Spiritual beings (angels)
Human beings (spirit & flesh)
Animals (animated flesh)
Plants (inanimate flesh)
Inanimate being (rocks etc)
Each thing in the universe was differentiated from the every other thing by the
‘law’ (or reason) that governed it. So a rock fell because its ‘natural place’ was
the ground. A bird flew because its natural place was the air. A human being
was human because of REASON – the capacity to understand and act
according to the dictates of REASON that governed human existence. While
human being might act according to baser (or less powers or instincts) to do
so was to be less than or other than human.
As Thomas Aquinas expressed it in the Summa Theologica (1265-1273)
Law is a rule or measure of action through which a thing (including the
human thing) is to act or restrained from acting . . . . the rule of measure
of human activity is reason . . . .the first principle of human acts.
Following Aquinas’ logic, a first principle is what makes a thing what it is. The
‘first principle of an inanimate object, like a stone, is rest (no movement) and
so comes to rest when put into motion. So a human being is human because a
human being is governed (as human) by reason. It is through reason that a
human being comes to know the law (the measure of action) and so to guide
his/her activity by law – or reason.
This “law” transcended the particular to give a universal order. Reason
confirmed to the law. Conformity to the natural law was the basis of human
flourishing – it enabled humans to become what they were created to be.
Failure to conform was distorting – human (and human society) did not
become what it was intended (by God) to be.
This natural law was also hierarchized. There is the eternal law [the law of
creation], divine law [the specific precepts of God], the natural law, and
positive or civil law. Positive, civil or human law [that was valid] mirrored or
expressed the requirements of the natural law in concrete situations. Likewise
the ‘natural order of society’ was an expression of the natural law.
On this view, human beings were inherently (essentially) social. It was only in
society that humans fulfilled their being (or essence). Systems of cooperation,
like institutions, were given (by God) for humans’ good. Take marriage, for
example. The natural end of marriage was procreation and education of
children. Family order required leadership (father) and nurturance (mother)
and compliant children. The father was the ‘head’ of he household who
managed the household for the good of all members of the household.
Likewise, the state was an enlarged household. It required a ‘head’ and each
member of the household has his or her place and function in relation to the
good of the whole so the whole could deliver its natural good.
Changes in the natural order were distorted the ‘natural’ or ‘universal’ order.
Good was disrupted. The flow of goods was disrupted. The resultant disorder
was evil. Human actions were disordered and practices were ineffective.
So the original source of order was God whose ‘deputies’ or ‘representatives’
exercised their leadership and guidance as stewards or representatives of
God to fulfill the requirements of the natural law.
One of the key questions in the 12th century (evidenced by the John of
Salisbury text) was whether the King (or Prince) was subject to the law
(including his own positive law). John of Salisbury’s conclusion (based on the
Natural Law) is that the ‘true Prince’ is bound by the law (he does not stand
above it). A Prince who does not submit to the law is not a true Prince and so
may be removed (in this time such removal would have been by death or
‘regicide’). There are two things that stand out in Salisbury’s text.
First, the Law transcends the immanent (here and now order) to provide a
criterion or standard of the ‘good’ that transcends our desires and wishes. We
cannot shape the Law to our purpose but must conform to the Law as it is
known by reason. Even a Prince is subject to the Law.
Second, the Law may be known through reason. We have access to the
transcendent order of the Law. The transcendent order stands as a guard
against tyranny and despotism.
Some preliminary conclusions
Feudalism provided a form of stable social order for over 500 years. Fink
argues that it arose as a social system in response to the need for security
after the loss of Roman order in Europe. Because of the Anglo-Saxon
presence which achieved its own forms of non-feudal order, it was a relative
late-comer in England (1066).
As a social philosophy, feudalism was justified by an appeal to God and
creator of a transcendent order – we might say a universal order that was the
‘plan’ for all particular orders (communities, kingdoms, etc.). This created order
known was known by reason ( the ‘law of the heart’). Knowledge of the
transcendent order was the basis of human, earthly orders.
In retrospect, we can affirm that feudalism was abusive of what we might call
individual rights. But the individual was regarded as less important than the
community. The view was as the community prospered so did each individual
in his place in the order of the whole. One might also criticize the transcendent
justification as only affirming existing social practices.
However, we can also affirm three things about feudalism as a social
philosophy.
First, feudalism as a social philosophy grasped the reality of the community
more firmly that we do. Social living does require our taking roles and fulfilling
the requirements of those roles – not just for our own good but the good of the
whole. The life of the individual is shaped by the condition of the community
and community is more than the mere collection of the individuals who make it
up. Community exists before our being born and after we are gone.
Second, feudalism as a social philosophy affirmed that the basis of social
order is cooperation – working together to produce a good - not competition –
for pre-existing goods.
Thirdly, feudalism grasped the significant importance of the LAW (that exists
independently of any individual) as the basis of social order. All people,
including the Sovereign, are subject to the LAW. The law as a reflection of
transcendent order is the basis of justice.
While feudalism as a social system declined and disappeared, the social
philosophy the grounded it continued.
First, the notion of ‘natural law’ – the regulation of human action by an
appeal to reason – remained a hallmark of Western thinking.
Second, our characteristic emphasis on the ‘rule of law and justice’
extends directly from this social philosophy.
Third, the view that social living is cooperative and must be
characterized by just (fair) social relations was the basis of Christian –
especially Catholic – thinking about human being and society.