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Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration by Alan Levine

Review by: Cary J. NedermanThe American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 177-178Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2586400.

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8/12/2019 Nederman, Review Sobre Un Libro Sobre La Tolerancia

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AmericanPoliticalScience Review Vol. 94,No. 1

mercial society. Logical or not, Searle shows that theywerenever doctrinaire.The author presents a wide range of detailed examples toillustrate the Victorian response to thepermeation of marketideas, including the question of the moral standing of capi-talism and of profits frauds, joint liability,entrepreneurial-ism, business integrity), slavery, problems of poverty andpauperism, the effect on domesticityand women (politicaleconomy and the woman question, contract and marriage,prostitution),the principles and practice ofcharity-giving,heliquor question and temperance reform, gambling and bet-ting, militarism and the just war, the ethical standing ofprofessions (advertising, professional competition, and soon). God versus mammon is, as one would expect, a majortheme: the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount versusbuying cheap and selling dear, and the duties ofcharity ersusthe merciless imposition upon the destitute of the lessereligibility principle of the political economy-inspired PoorLaw.Searle well bringsout the ethical parameters within whichVictorians wrestled withthese contending values, particularlythe moral easement affordedby the fact that the economicprinciples in terms of which the claims of mammon weredefended were themselves highlymoralized anywayvia no-tionscentralto the tradition ofpolitical economy fromAdamSmith to J.S. Mill, especially the notion of self as characterand the associated edifyingview of the connection betweenmarket competition and the Smilesian cardinal virtues ofindividual independence and self-reliance. In these termseven the predicament of the anguished cleric (cited bySearle), torn between the precepts of the evangel and theinjunctionsof political economy on the question of whetherbibles should be given away or sold to the heathen at fullmarketprice, is perhaps (just) understandable. Indeed a veinof fascinating incidental information runs through Searle'sentire account. How manyreaders know thatSir Robert Peel,inventor of the English police force, secretly and illegallysanctioned free trade in corpses (for the medical dissectionbusiness) eighteen years before he legislated free trade incorn?Apart from ts strictly istorical value, however, this bookwill, or ought to be, of particular interest to economists,political scientists, nd political theorists, mong whom thereis perhaps still a tendency to theorize questions of marketsand morals in sublime neglect of time, place, and circum-stance. The message needs to be heard with some caution,however. Searle's political subtext is that the Victorianattemptto set moral limits to the Carlylean cash nexus, farfrombeing negative in itseffect, ontributed to the long-termstabilityof the market in Britain, something that the authorbelieves needs now to be essayed again in post-ThatcheriteBritain. The problem is that Victorian experience can offerbut limited help here. Although the intellectual currencyofthe Victorian markets and morals debate was largely thatminted by the great political economists themselves-Smith,Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill-it was inevitably, given thecontext,carried on in the form n whichtheir economic ideasactuallysedimented themselves in thepopular consciousness,via national political debates over the Corn Laws and the like,by way of popularizations of the principles of politicaleconomy by Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Marcet, andthrough novels critical of hard-nosed Manchester liberal-ism by the likes of Charles Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell.Consequently, the discourse is saturated with Victorian cul-tural assumptions long ago discarded, and in any event themoral values inscribed in the conceptual frameworkof clas-sical political economy-character,the place of labor in

wealth creation,merit and reward n the market, nd soon-no longer carry, specially fterHayek, thatkindofauthority.Moreover, after 1870, collectivists f variousstripes ntered he ring o challenge heentirenotion fthelegitimacy f ndividualistic arket elations. hese, too, arenow equally obsolete. But the combinedresult s that theinheritance f thinkingn moralityndmarkets s currently,at least n the British ontext, o profoundlyroblematic hatVictorian deas appear to have lost virtuallyll moralpur-chase.Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase The Condition ofEngland Question in his prescient tractfor the times,Chartism 1839). The 1840swas a decade of profoundsocial and political difficultyor Britain:deep economicdepression, rishfamine,unsettling evolution n Europe,and unprecedentedmass agitation Chartism) nBritain.nwhat s basically teaching ext,MichaelLevin has the deaofusingtheresponsesofCarlyle, ngels,and J.S. Mill tothese events s a way nto,and as a usefultouchstone or,their espectiveocialtheories. ll threewriters egarded herepeal of the Corn Laws as a political limacteric,epresent-ing a decisive tep n the shift f powerfrom he aristocracyto themiddle lasses.Beyond hat herewas ittlencommon.For the semisecular rophetCarlyle, nglish troubleswerebut a symptom f a human, especiallyaristocratic,moralfailing, nd the solutionwas greatmen and firm overn-ment.For the Germanrevolutionaryngels, only heaboli-tion of the entire class systemand the end of workerexploitationwould answer.Mill was much ess apocalypticthan either, ooking nstead to a gradual amelioration fconditions rising romgovernmentarriedon withproperrespectforprinciples f political conomy.Carlylecomes awaybest fromLevin's snapshot tech-nique as, unlike the others,his positionnever reallydevel-oped; hisvoicesimplyecame ouder ndmore rritable. ndit works well enough for Engels, althoughhis analysisofEngland's woes in his 1844 The Condition f the WorkingClass inEngland sbasically nchoate, waitinghe benefit fthe theoreticaltiffeningoontobe suppliedbyMarx.As themostopen-minded nd reflective fthe three,Mill suffersmost.Levin reliesuponMill's ournalism nthe rish amine,his review f the Claimsof Labour, and thefirst dition(1848) ofPrinciples fPolitical conomy.The latter s surelythemajor piece of evidence,but in the courseof its seveneditionsMill's view of the causes ofpoverty,nd oftheroleof theworkinglass ncounteringheproblem,volvedfromone of passivism o significantctiveparticipation. hesereservations side, Levinpresents well-judgedmixture fhistorynd theoryn a book thatteachers of nineteenth-century olitical deas willwelcome.Early Modern Skepticism nd the Origins of Toleration.Edited byAlan Levine. Lanham, MD: LexingtonBooks,1999. 282p. $60.00 cloth, 22.95paper.

Cary J.Nederman, Universityf ArizonaUntil quite recently, he history f religioustoleration nEurope was a drearynarrative n the literature f politicaltheory. s thestorys recounted, he monolithicharacter fLatin Christianityendered olerance theoreticals well aspractical mpossibility. ith theReformation ame an un-precedented pportunityor heemergence f new tructurescapable of supporting olerantpractices;and the rise ofliberalismn the seventeenthentury an be creditedwithsupplyinghe conceptualprinciples n which he pragmaticgainsachieved during heReformationouldbe grounded.

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Book Reviews:POLITICAL THEORY March 2000

The storypits a heroic few-John Locke, J.S. Mill, and someof their sympathizers-against a vast conspiratorial networkof authoritarians who would suppress freedom at any cost.This tedious comic book version of the modernizing Enlight-enment tale remains popular among those unfamiliar withthe cutting edge of scholarship, but advances in the historicalliterature call it into serious question as an interpretation ofthe record.Many of the contributors to this collection make furthersubstantial advances in the scholarly dissent against theconventional narrative of toleration. In doing so, they areguided by the dual goals espoused by the editor in theIntroduction: to advance an historicallyplausible account ofthe unfolding of tolerant thoughtwhile also exploring thecontemporaryrelevance of these ideas for current theories oftoleration. At theirbest, the chapters meet these aspirationsvery well indeed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz's masterful pre-sentation of the free thinkers, who, under the influence ofBodin, wrote in the era immediatelyfollowing the Edict ofNantes, demonstrates the breadth and power of the intellec-tual arsenal arrayed against the enemies of toleration. Al-though manyof thefigures he surveys re unknown to all butthe most specialized historians of political thought, theirideas more than stand up when compared to Eng-lish-speaking early modern advocates of toleration. Similarcases are made for the historical importance as well asrelevance of several other authors or traditions commonlyignored in the literature on tolerance in sixteenth- andseventeenth-centuryEurope. Deserving special mention areSteven B. Smith on Spinoza, Alan Craig Houston on theLevellers, Kenneth Weinstein on Bayle, and PatrickRiley onthephilosopher.The theme that is supposed to hold together this diversearray is the relationship between toleration and anotheremerging trend in philosophy of the early modern period,skepticism. I am less convinced than Levine, however, thatthevolume fully ccomplishes thisaim. Levine's own essay onMontaigne is a paradigm for how the themes may fruitfullybe joined. But too often skepticism is highlighted to thedetriment of toleration,or vice versa. It is hardlyfeasible toequate skepticism withsomethinglike chastened reason,as Joshua Mitchell does in order to make the case for atolerant dimension in thewritings f Calvin and Luther. Andhow comfortable can we be with Descartes's skepticism as abasis for toleration when even his advocate, Michael AllenGillespie, admits that blasphemy, atheism, polytheism, andany questioning of God's existence do not merit the protec-tion of Cartesian tolerance, since they all violate one oranother tenet of manifest reason? At the other extreme,some essays-such as those by Houston, Nathan Tarcov onLocke, and Diana Schaub on Montesquieu-barely touchupon skepticism at all, focusing instead upon toleration.Part of the problem may be a failure in the volume todefine the meaning of skepticism very precisely. For somecontributors, t seems loosely to designate any position ofdoubt about human epistemic capabilities; for others, itseems to pertain to a narrow and rigorous set of doctrines. Itis certainly true that early modern skepticism embraced arange ofpositions, but thisdoes not exclude the possibilityofidentifyingsome common standard of what renders anargument minimally skeptical. If such a question had beenposed, of course, the volume as published might have asomewhat altered table of contents.

Close attention to the detailed arguments of original textsis a hallmark of all the contributions.Unfortunately, here isless consistency in careful examination of the secondaryscholarship. No mention is made of Preston King's classic

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1976 book (recently reprinted), Toleration, with its powerfulattempt to connect the conceptual principles of skepticismtothose of tolerance. Reference to Richard Tuck's classic essay,Skepticism and Toleration in the Seventeenth Century,which offers significant historical evidence against King'sthesis, is also noticeably absent from any of the chapters.Those familiar with the literature on skepticism will besurprisedto find no citationof J.C. Laursen's 1992 study,ThePolitics of Skepticism n the Ancients, Montaigne, Hume andKant.Given the large number of scholars who have usefullyinvestigated the topic of Lockean toleration, Tarcov's com-plete refusal to engage (even to recognize) these commenta-tors detracts from one's ability to evaluate the worth of hisown contribution. And those who follow recent research onearly modern theories of tolerance may wonder why GaryRemer's several articles and his 1996 volume, Humanism andtheRhetoric of Toleration, meritno acknowledgment. Moregenerally,the contributors eem unaware ofthe large body ofliterature on the historical development oftolerance that hasappeared during the past decade or so in continental Europe,including work by Klaus Schreiner, Mario Turchetti, SimoneZurbuchen, and Antonio Rotond6.Finally, the typographical errors are excessive in a bookwhose contributions are of such high quality. It is incumbentupon publishers to demonstrate the same sort of concern forthe presentation of volumes under their imprintas authorsand editors show in the impeccability of their research.Nonetheless, Levine and his contributorsmust be congratu-lated for producing a uniformly earned and elegant set ofinquiries into the foundations of early modern toleration.

The Noblest Minds: Fame, Honor, and the American Found-ing. Edited by Peter McNamara. Lanham, MD: Rowman& Littlefield,1999. 256p. $60.00 cloth, $22.95 paper.

George W. Carey, Georgetown UniversityIn Federalist 72, Hamilton characterized the love of fame asthe ruling passion of the noblestminds. Some 35 years ago,the noted historian Douglass Adair, in an effort o show thatthe motivations of the Founders extended well beyond nar-row and selfish economic interests,built upon Hamilton'sobservation. He advanced the proposition that the Founders,or most of them at any rate,were motivated by the love offame, a passion that reconciled self-interestwith the pursuitof noble goals that advanced the common good. This collec-tion of essays is devoted to a close examination of Adair'sthesis. Each of the seven contributions that comprise theheart of this volume (Part 2), although they differ n emphasisand scope, deals with a major figureof the founding periodand addresses three basic questions: what the subject of theessay thought of fame,what role the love of fame played inhis life, and how and in whatway he won fame (p. vii). Whatemerges is a picture of the Founders' motivations far toocomplex to be understood simply in terms of the love offame.Paul Rahe, whose Fame, Founders, and the Idea ofFounding in the Eighteenth Century constitutesthe wholeof Part 1, significantlyndercuts Adair's contentionby notingthat the Founders, unlike the ancients, never wholeheart-edly embraced the ethos of honor and fame (p. 26). JamesWilson, he remarks, n stressingthe primacyof private life(p. 28) in the firstof his Lectures on Law, expressed thereigning opinions of the founding era (p. 29). Rahe con-cludes that the Founding Fathers ... never gave fullrein totheir onging for fame, although theydid seek a measure of

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