1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content
3.1 Biography of Edmund Burke
3.2 Burke Critical Views on Natural Rights and Contracts 3.3 Burke Philosophical and Historical Writings
4.0 Conclusion 5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Edmund Burke, author of Reflections on the Revolution in France, is known in the philosophical world as a classic political thinker. It is well known that his intellectual achievement depended upon his understanding of philosophy and use of it in the practical writings and speeches by which he is clearly known. This unit explores the character and significance of the use of philosophy in Burke’s political thought.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
1. examine Edmund Burke life and works
2. discuss Burke critical views on natural rights and contracts 3. analyse Burke philosophical and historical perceptions.
3.0
MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Biography of Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland in January 1729, the son of a prosperous attorney, and, after early education at home, became a boarder at the school run by Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker from Yorkshire, at Ballitore in County Kildare. Burke received his university education at Trinity College, Dublin, a bastion of the Anglican Church of Ireland.
Then he proceeded to the Middle Temple at London, to qualify for the Bar, but the legal practice was less attractive to him than the broader perspective which had captured his attention at university. It was first as a writer, and then as a public figure that he made his career. Burke’s
intellectual formation did not suggest that his career would be purely philosophical. Burke married in 1756 and had a son by 1758.
He was a political conservative, it is said that conservativism began with him, although he was termed as a liberal, pluralist and progressive conservative by other scholars. His major work was the reflections on the revolution in France and on proceedings of certain societies in England relating to that event which was published in 1790. Edmund Burke died July 9, 1797, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England.
In 1756 he published anonymously A Vindication of Natural Society…, a satirical imitation of the style of Viscount Bolingbroke that was aimed at both the destructive criticism of revealed religion and the contemporary vogue for a “return to Nature.” A contribution toaesthetic theory, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which appeared in 1757, gave him a reputation in the world of philosophy and his contribution was acknowledged by Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, and G.E. Lessing among others. Thereafter he was co-author of An Account of the European Settlements (1757) and began An Abridgement of English History (c.1757–62).
Burke, who was always a prominent figure there and sometimes an effective persuader, gave a great many parliamentary speeches. He published versions of some of these, notably on American Taxation (1774), Conciliation with America (1775), andFox’s East India Bill (1783). These printed speeches, though anchored to specific occasions, and certainly intended to have a practical effect in British politics, were also meant to embody Burke’s thought in a durable form.
In that respect, they parallel his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), amongst other non-oratorical writings.
He was a British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker prominent in public life from 1765 to about 1795 and important in the history of political theory. He championed conservatism in opposition to Jacobinism in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
3.2 Burke Critical views on Natural Rights and Contracts
The natural rights theory emerged in the seventeen centuries mainly found in the writings of John lock, it was basically built on the freedom of man and was against absolute authority and power. The natural rights advocate that man is born free that is, he is natural free hence no form of conclusion, coercion should be inflicted on man, also no man has a right to take another man’s life, even man himself can't take his own life because life is a God-given gift. The theory of natural rights also includes natural lawswhich advocate for equality, human rights, rights to property, right to land etc.
Burke did not agree with the natural theory of rights nor the social contract. To him they were all chaffs and rags, the State he argued was a complicated process which the efforts of man had helped to shape but the evolution of state cannot be understood by anyone. His own origin of state was more of an organic one, State to him could be seen as an organism rather than an organisation which had an organic growth and old institutions give place to newer ones.
Burke was against the natural rights, to him humans had no natural rights like that in Locke's state of nature. To Burke, human beings started having rights when they joined the state. The only rights recognised was that granted by the state and protected by civil laws. In his view, natural rights are vague and in-understandable. Rights are only secured within the State. All rights exist in the state and none exist outside the state.
According to him, there are two types of rights, civil and political rights.
The civil rights are to be given to everyone within the state, however political rights are to be given to only those capable of understanding it.
Burke was also against the separation of Church and State. To him the only laws where the laws of God and laws of a civilized society. Burke was against natural rights, absolute liberty, equality, democracy, popular sovereignty and general will. He favoured an elitist leadership in the society.
He also saw natural rights as abstract ideas, which to him were the cause of many troubles, societal problems to him couldn't be solved on by thinking abstractly and making up abstract rights, to Burke societal problems could be solved on expediency, effectiveness and experience.
3.3 Burke’s Philosophical and Historical Writings
Locke’sEssay concerning Human Understanding of 1690 was the first attempt to give a survey of the mind’s workings that was both comprehensive and post-Aristotelian. It soon fostered an intense interest in epistemology, psychology and ethics. Burke seems to have worked on the imagination, the faculty of devising and combining ideas and continued to do so into the 1750s.
The result, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) emphasised the activity of the mind in making ideas and the influence of these upon conduct. It was in the first place an exercise in clarifying ideas, intending to refine how the arts affect the passions: in other words, a refinement of complex ideas was taken to
be the precondition of refinement of practice. The roots of human activity, Burke thought, were the passions of curiosity, pleasure and pain.
Curiosity stimulated the activity of mind on all matters. Ideas of pain and of pleasure corresponded respectively to self-preservation and society and society involved the passions of sympathy, imitation and ambition.
Imitation tended to establish habit, and ambition to produce change.
Sympathy did neither, but it did establish an interest in other people’s welfare that extended to mental identification with them. The scope of sympathy could embrace anyone, unlike compassion, which applied only to those in a worse situation than oneself. The passions, understood in Burke’s way, suggested at once that society as such answered to natural instincts and that it comprised elements of continuity and improvement alike. Burke then proceeded to show that self-preservation and its cognates suggested the complex idea of the sublime and not least the idea of a God who was both active and terrible. Beauty, on the other hand, comprised a very different set of simple ideas, which originated in pleasure. Sublime and beautiful therefore sprang from very different origins.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
i. What do you learn about Edmund Burke life and works?
ii. Analyse Burke critical views on natural rights and contracts.
iii. Give a brief account of Burke philosophical and historical perceptions.
4.0 CONCLUSION
The name of Edmund Burke (1730–97) is not one that often figures in the history of philosophy.Besides Burke’s writings and some of his speeches contain strongly philosophical elements, philosophical both in our contemporary era and in the 18th century, especially ‘philosophical’
history. These elements play a fundamental role within his work and help students of political thoughts to learn and understand why Burke is a political philosopher. His writings and speeches, therefore, merit recognition to both ideas and to history, and of the role of his contribution in practical thought. His work is also as we already learned in this unit, was an achievement that challenges assumptions held by many of our contemporaries.
4.0 SUMMARY
In conclusion, we can say that Burke’s stance on natural rights and social contracts was based on abstractness and lack of facts. He thus supported a more rational and reasonable mode of looking at rights, the state,
government, and equality. Since thought is of the very first importance for the intellectual history and the conduct of politics, Burke’s postulations are the first attempt to examine its philosophical character and to connect the latter with Burke’s political activity. In doing so it shows the importance of the philosophical elements in Burke’s thought and that these contribute important ways to his political thought.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What do you learn about Edmund Burke life and works?
2. Analyse Burke critical views on natural rights and contracts.
3. Give a brief account of Burke philosophical and historical perceptions.
7.0 REFERENCES/ FURTHER READING
Charles, W. P. (2020). The Moral Basis of Burke's Political Thought.
University of Cambridge.
Kelly, J. (2014). ‘A Missing Letter by Edmund Burke’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 29: 142–8.