How princes should keep faith

I t is a consequence of this approach, which will be paradoxical only at first sight, that the most solemn agreements will be those between parties whose normal relationship includes the most conflict and the least spontaneous cooperation. But this has often been denied. It is not only who holds that prince, and especially a new prince, cannot observe all those things which are considered good in men, being often obliged, in order to maintain the state, to act against faith, against char-ity, against humanchar-ity, and against and that prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer Hume too says that is a maxim very current in the world, which few politicians are willing to avow, but which has been authorized by the practice of all ages, that there is a system of morals calculated for princes, much more free than that which ought to govern private Hume does not assert the most solemn treaties ought to have no force among princes'. Treaties be-tween princes serve the same kind of purpose as agreements between individuals, and are therefore binding in the same sort of way. But, he argues, they are less binding, and lawfully be transgressed from a more trivial The reason he gives is that the intercourse of states be advantageous, and even sometimes necessary, yet it is not so necessary nor advan-tageous as that among individuals, without which it is utterly impossible for human nature ever to This was no doubt true in Hume's time, and if it was true it was a good reason for the conclusion that he drew from it. But it is evidently no longer true, and the same line of argument would now support the opposite conclusion. It is now utterly impossible for human nature to go on subsisting unless there are some limits to

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must necessarily give a greater indulgence to a prince or who deceives another, than to a private gentleman who breaks his word of Deceit is all very well as a possibly

move in the competitive game; but breaking the solemn treaties is another matter; that corrupts a device without which conflicts which in themselves are acceptable and inevitable can hardly be kept within tolerable bounds.

But as well as the agreements that terminate conflicts, there are international agreements whose fulfilment extends hos-tilities. What if the rulers of country A have promised those of country B that i f country C attacks B then A will go to war with C? If C does attack B, should the promise be kept? On a particular occasion, this may be very hard to decide. N o r is it easy to say when, i f ever, i t will be right to give such assurances.

But once again it is better to turn from the problem of deciding in a particular case to the choice of a regular pattern of con-duct. One fairly clear point is that as a standing practice the giving of shaky assurances of this sort, promises which may or may not be fulfilled, is likely to be worse than either giving no such assurances or giving only ones which will be fulfilled, and of which it is known that they will be fulfilled, i f the occasion arises. For where there are shaky assurances, the opposing parties are likely each to interpret them optimistically from their own point of view. That is, the rulers of C are likely to believe that A will not go to war i f they attack B, while the rulers of B are likely to believe that A w i l l do so. The rulers of B are then likely to take greater risks than they otherwise would in their dealings with C, while those of C be cor-respondingly restrained. It is easy to find historical illustrations of the conclusion to which this reasoning points, that unreliable promises are more likely than either reliable promises or none at all to turn a conflict of interests into open war.

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6. Virtue

Aristotle tells us that the well-being or which is the good for man is an activity in accordance with virtue; each virtue is a disposition for making (right) choices, and one that is trained or developed by experience rather than inborn; with most virtues, the right sort of choice which it enables its pos-sessor to make is somehow intermediate between two wrong sorts of choice; one can do or show too little or too much of something, one can go too far or not far enough; what con-stitutes the right amount, the virtuous choice, is determined as the man of practical wisdom would determine it; and he is the man who is good at choosing the means to the end of As guidance about what is the good life, what precisely one ought to do, or even by what standard one should try to decide what one ought to do, this is too circular to be very helpful.

A n d though account is filled out with detailed de-scriptions of many of the virtues, moral as well as intellectual, the air of indeterminacy persists. We learn the names of the pairs of contrary vices that contrast w i t h each of the virtues, but very little about where or how to draw the dividing lines, where or how to fix the mean. As Sidgwick says, he indicates the whereabouts of We must, then, take this mainly as a sketch of the structure of the good life, which leaves the specific content still to be filled in. To fill in this specific content, to mark off each virtue from the contrasting excesses and defects, we can draw on three sources. One will be the ways of behaving that are, at a particular place and time, conventionally admired; another will be one's own conception of the good. The third is at once more objective and less often noticed. When Hume maintained that reason alone can never be a motive for or against any action, that it can neither oppose nor support any passion or preferences, he was right in so far as he was stressing the logical independence of preferences on the one hand and

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also admit that in practice some degrees of emotion, some states of feeling and spirit, harmonize with seeing things as they are, and some do not. The man who w i t h his

think with his mind at the same time on the same sub-ject. Yet it is not being completely or detached, a total absence of feeling, that fits in best w i t h seeing things as they are. It is rather a certain degree of enterprise and in-volvement that goes along w i t h understanding. Also, some states of feeling can, and others cannot, survive an honest scru-tiny and clear-sighted realization of their causes. As Spinoza says, emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of This gives us a possible ground of distinction between a virtue and the con-trasting vices of excess and defect: a virtue is a disposition which harmonizes w i t h understanding, w i t h seeing things as they are, while a vice is which distorts appreciation of the qualities of the relevant situation, which needs such distortion in order to maintain and which is manifested by states of mind which cannot stand honest reflection on the ways in which they have themselves arisen. This approach would define cour-age, for example, as a disposition for choice in relation to danger which neither cultivates nor depends upon either the exaggerating or the minimizing of those dangers, and which is compatible w i t h self-awareness. We may compare this with, for example, Locke's definition of courage as a man to be undisturbed in danger [which he perceives], sedately to consider what is fittest to be done, and to execute it Other traditional virtues could be in systematically analogous ways. Though there is a lot of sophistry in the details of the argument by which Plato, in the Protagoras, tries to establish the unity of the virtues by assimilating them all to knowledge or wisdom, there is considerable force in the general suggestion that the virtues can be identified as dispositions that harmonize with knowledge. must be conceded, however, that this ap-proach would not narrowly determine the sort of choice to which a virtue would lead: it equates each virtue (or rather the corresponding choices) w i t h a broad band rather than with a

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particular point on some scale; it leaves room, therefore, reference to one's own conception of the good or to what is conventionally admired (or to both) to help to determine just how much of this or that can go into what is to count as an action in accordance with virtue.

But however this specific content is to be filled in, there is merit in Aristotle's formal sketch taken simply as such. The good life will consist in activities that manifest and realize de-veloped dispositions for choice. To say this is to avoid two contrary errors. These activities w i l l manifest dispositions', that is, the good life is not just a collection of separate choices (either separately calculated or arbitrary) or of equally separate pleasures and satisfactions, or of both. But on the other hand these are dispositions for choice - preferential choice - not just instincts or habits.

Though dispositions can change and develop, they are fairly J persistent They cannot be switched on and off at will. Also, though dispositions can be discriminating, there are practical limits to the fineness of the discriminations they can make. A disposition for choice can express itself in differential choices only if the agent not only judges but also the cases to be significantly different One can have a complex disposition, say of being honest w i t h friends and deceitful towards enemies. It is more difficult to be deceitful on a particular occasion towards someone who is normally a friend but who has now taken on the role of an enemy. On the other hand being poker-faced is itself a disposition that can be cultivated. One can treat a special class of persons, or persons in some special setting, as opponents towards whom one is not honest by disposition, but to whom one offers a judicious mixture of truth and falsehood without betraying which is which.

The part that virtues play in the good life depends crucially on the fact that they are dispositions of this sort: fairly per-sistent and not too finely discriminating. The virtues that go w i t h a particular conception of the good w i l l be dispositions

given that conception, it is advantageous their

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to have. But not every choice in which they are fested will be advantageous considered its own.

For example, courage - in a fairly conventional sense which is included in but more narrowly than that given by the above-mentioned third approach - is a kind of strength. It makes its possessor more likely to achieve whatever he sets out to do, whereas the foolhardy man is likely to destroy himself or his enterprise or both, and the timid man is too easily turned aside. Besides, most worthwhile enterprises involve risks of some kind, and the courageous man can the activity, risks and all, whereas the coward cannot. Again, both vice and virtue in this area are hard to conceal, and the brave man will be a more acceptable partner for others than either the foolhardy man or the coward. There can be no doubt that such courage is in general advantageous to its possessor - more advantageous than a tendency to calculate advantage too nicely. In so far as one can choose dispositions - say by cultivating them - this is one which it would be rational, even on purely egoistic grounds, to choose. Admittedly there will be particular occasions when rashness would be rewarded, and others when only the coward would survive. But it is hard to calculate which these are, and almost impossible to switch the dispositions on and off accord-ingly. To be a coward on the one courage is fatal one would have had to be a coward on many other occasions when it was much better to be courageous. The real alternatives are the various persisting dispositions, courage and those that contrast with it, and it is clear which of these the rational egoist would prefer. A far from negligible part of discretion is valour.