Ares will come into conflict with Ares, Dike with Dike.
––Aeschylus, Choephori
Having explored the sources of this Dialectic of Might and Right, fields in which the dialectic plays out, the sketch laid out in the introduction has been filled-in somewhat. That is, the definitions and distinctions outlined, in the abstract, at the outset, having been applied to the various subject-areas, now have some substance to them. We have arrived at “the last definition in the series, the opening definition”.1
The first of these is the conflict of truth and appearance. Truth is the way things actually are in reality. Appearance is the way things seem or are perceived to be. This conflict has correlates in the various fields explored in the previous chapters, nature, law, religion, myth and metaphysics. It corresponds to the question of nature and convention, natural and positive law, God as truth and God as lie, antimyth and myth, and metaphysics and anti-metaphysics. This conflict is also the basis of the distinction between modes of thought. The defenders of truth are the theorists, who constitute the traditional mode of thought. The traditional, theoretical mode of Having started at the end, we have arrived back at the beginning. The purpose of this conclusion is to expand on those definitions and distinctions, on the basis of the preceding chapters, and offer a fuller picture of the dialectic of might and right, which incorporates the elements of those chapters. It will also provide a summary of the findings, in terms of the aims set out in the introduction, namely to provide a taxonomy, genealogy and critical account of the major discourses of power and justice. Two overarching conflicts are at the heart of this study, and of the dialectic it sets out to describe, and these will form the basis of these final sections in summing up the present study.
thought is characterised by its commitment to truth, and subordination of practise to theory. Theory itself is the pursuit of truth through reason. In line with its commitment to truth and reality, traditional moral and political thought is naturalistic, theistic, anti-mythical and metaphysical. The opponents of truth, and defenders of appearance, are the antitheorists, who comprise the alternative way of thinking. Antitheory (antilogos) is itself the refutation of truth through reason. In line with its rejection of truth and reality, ethical-political antitheory is conventionalistic, atheistic, mythical and anti-metaphysical.
The second of these conflicts is the conflict of the physical and the moral. This is the basis of the question of might or right, and the “tension between…ethics and politics”. This conflict also has its correlates in each of the subject-fields covered by the previous chapters. It corresponds to the debate between negative and positive conceptions of human nature, legalistic and moralistic conception of law, a conception of God as ultimate power or supreme goodness, myths of descent and descent, and metaphysical realism and idealism. This conflict is also the basis of the debate between political realism, moral realism and moral and political antirealism. Political realism advances a negative conception of human nature, a legalistic conception of law, a political conception of God, a myth of descent and realist metaphysics. Moral realism embraces a positive conception of nature, legal moralism, a moral God, a myth of ascent and metaphysical idealism. The two sides of these debates correspond to the two basic ideological tendencies, conservatism and radicalism. Moral and political antirealism rejects both sides of each of these debates. It denies that either conception of nature, law, religion, myth and law prevails, as it denies that there is such a thing as human nature, natural law, God, non-fiction, or reality. As such, it lacks the ideological implications of either side. At the same time, it brings the two sides of the debate together, allowing them to stand side by side, as master and slave morality.
These conflicts form a dialectic, which is designated the dialectic of might and right, after the concepts at its core. The first phase of this dialect comprises the traditional mode of moral and political thought, ethical-political theory. This traditional discourse is ‘dyadic’, divided between political and moral worldviews, embodies in the Grand Theories of ethics and politics, Realism and Idealism. This arises, once again, from the “tension between…ethics and politics” and the “conflict of principles, the physical and the moral”. The second phase of the dialectic of might and right comprises the alternative mode of moral and political thought, ethical-political antitheory. The addition of the alternative discourse transforms the Realist-Idealist dyad into a
triad: Realism-Idealism-Relativism. In many ways, Relativism, while antithetical to both Realism and Idealism, to the traditional mode of moral and political thought as a whole, is also their synthesis, in that it presents them as two sides of the same coin, in the rubric of master and slave morality. This is the dialectic of might and right. Like the conflicts themselves, this dialectic plays out in each of the subject-fields surveyed, the topics of the preceding chapters. There is the dialectic of might and right in nature, in law, in religion, in myth, and in metaphysics.
This corresponds to a number of other dialectics, identified by various thinkers. It corresponds closely to the Lefebvreian intellectual-dialectic, which holds that traditional, ‘philosophical’ modes of thought form dyads, which, in the presence of an alternative, an “Other”, are reduced to “image and reflection, a mirror effect, a rivalry that is derisory to the primacy of either one. Hence…their arrival at the logical compromise of mutual representation.”2 It also corresponds to certain aspects of the Hegelian/Marxian historical-dialectic, the ‘Master- Slave Dialectic’,3 and especially its central premise, that history and society is characterised by the conflict between conservative ruling classes and revolutionary underclasses.4
The opposite ideologies (conservative and radical) inherent in the Grand Theories represent the two sides of this conflict, as do the opposite forms of life (“ascending and descending”) and the moral- syndromes associated with these (“master and slave morality”).5 Certain facets of this dialectic correspond to others. This is particularly evident in case of the dialectic of might and right in myth, which corresponds to Adams’ “dialectic of myth and antimyth”,6 and Mannheim’s distinction between ideological and utopian myths, which, Von Hendy says, are “in dialectical motion” with one another.7
As regards the objectives of the present study, the hope is that these have been reached. The taxonomical, genealogical and critical aspects of the study should now be clear. The taxonomy is the familial relationship between discourses of might and right it describes (the bipartite/tripartite division between broad modes, and major schools, of ancient and modern moral and political thought), and the shape or pattern ascribed to them (that of the dialectic). The genealogy is its account of the points-of-origin of these discourses (the subject-fields in which
2 Lefebvre, ‘Triads and Dyads’, 2003: 50 3 Flew and Priest, A Dictionary of Philosophy
4 “All hitherto history is the history of class conflict.” Marx, The Manifesto of the Communist Party 5
Fairfield, The Ways of Power: Hermeneutics, Ethics and Social Criticism, 2002: 36–7
6
Adams, The Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, 1983: 329
they emerge, which form the topics of the chapters – nature, law, religion, myth and metaphysics), and their lines-of-development (from pre-philosophy (religion and myth), to first- philosophy (metaphysics), to practical philosophy (ethics and politics proper, nature and law); and through ancient, medieval, renaissance and early-modern intellectual epochs). The critical aspect is its discussion of the relationship between theories of ethics and politics and social practise and political ideology, in both the modes of moral and political thought identified, in each of the topic-areas considered. The hope is that it has accomplished its task, but judgment belongs, as always, to the reader.