Education, Selection, Discipline

Consider the problem of virtuous leadership in politics. It would seem to be pretty uncontroversial to say that a government is better the more its leaders are virtuous individuals, and that a regime is better the higher the probability that virtuous leaders will be consistently selected to lead it over time. If our political leaders were just and courageous, fair and wise, that would seem to be a good thing, right? To be sure, there are important disagreements about what counts as virtuous leadership and what counts as a political virtue, and at any rate virtuous leadership is not the only thing that matters in politics, but let us put these questions aside for the moment and consider a different question: assuming a certain conception of virtue, what are the possible institutional solutions to the problem of ensuring the rule of virtue, or a close enough approximation? What possible institutions either increase the chances of virtuous leadership, or reduce its need? 

It seems to me that there are basically three solutions to this problem, which we can call selection institutions, disciplinary institutions, and educational institutions.

“Selection” institutions more or less efficiently select the virtuous as rulers and leaders (via properly structured elections, for example), taking the distribution of character and virtue in society as given, or else efficiently select good policies directly by institutional mechanisms that amplify the good qualities of citizens and dampen their bad qualities (via deliberative or aggregative mechanisms, for example). Theories of “epistemic” democracy from Rousseau and Condorcet onwards tend to emphasize these solutions, but the basic idea is quite old. For example, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, none of whom were “democrats” in any important sense of the word, all suggested that though regular people are not individually virtuous, collectively they may yet be good judges of character, especially in small communities where everyone knows everyone else, so that properly structured elections under the right conditions (and there is a lot riding on the qualifications) can result in a relatively good chance of selecting virtuous leadership. The same logic can be applied to the direct selection of policy: if virtuous leadership cannot be ensured, perhaps specific institutions can be created (e.g., referenda or other forms of “direct democracy”) that amplify and aggregate the good qualities of citizens (their private information and local knowledge, for example) so that the kinds of policies that a virtuous leader would implement tend to be selected (I hasten to add that the justification of referenda and other direct democratic institutions is not simply or solely that they tend to result in policies that would have been chosen by ideally virtuous rulers; typically they are justified by the values of participation, autonomy, and the like).

“Disciplinary” institutions more or less efficiently discipline rulers and leaders to act in virtuous ways even if they are not virtuous, taking the outcomes of selection as given. This is the focus of the many theories of political regimes that prescribe separation of power and other such mechanisms; public choice normative theories are an obvious contemporary example, though the basic idea, again, is quite old. So, for example, the theory of the mixed constitution in antiquity is in part a theory of how to induce behaviour that is approximately virtuous by diminishing the incentives towards arrogance and hubris among those who are powerful; it assumes that people who are overly wealthy or overly secure in their power will tend to act in ways that are not beneficial to the community, and hence that other parts of the community need to be given the tools to act as counterweights.

“Educational” institutions, finally, attempt to increase the supply of virtuous individuals in society (who can then be selected into positions of power and responsibility). Many classical writers certainly emphasized such solutions, but one can find examples in contemporary calls for civic education. Educational institutions may aim to directly increase the supply of potential leaders, or may aim to increase the overall level of virtue in the population so that selection institutions will work more efficiently (because more virtuous citizens will be more likely to select leaders properly, perhaps). They may also work directly (e.g., through laws or explicit curricula and in formal settings) or indirectly (as a by-product of other interactions, or as the result of interventions into the broader cultural environment). But the basic point is in both cases to construct institutions, or to shape the cultural environment, in ways that increase the supply of virtue, whether at the citizen level or at the level of candidates for leadership.

It is worth stressing that particular institutions may serve more than one of these purposes. For example, selection institutions such as competitive elections also serve as disciplinary institutions (they are typically selective ex ante and disciplinary ex post). And deliberative mechanisms are typically both selective (of policy) and educational (of participants). But the general analytical distinction between selection, discipline, and education is still, I think, generally useful, as the power of particular effects in any given institutional setting will vary: so elections may, for example, be more efficient at disciplining politicians (i.e., making them behave in ways that approximate virtuous behaviour) under some conditions than at selecting virtuous leaders ex ante.

At any rate, the relationships between these institutions are complex, both within a static context and in the longer run dynamics of a particular system of institutions. From a static perspective, the appropriate balance between selective, disciplinary, and educational institutions (or between the selective, disciplinary, and educational effects of institutions) will depend in great part on a judgment about the relative “efficiency” of institutions for the production and selection of virtuous leaders or the disciplining of non-virtuous leaders. It seems to me, for example, that the greater emphasis on education characteristic of classical thought reflects in part a greater confidence in the effectiveness of the educational technology available to smaller face to face societies; educational institutions for virtue do not seem to scale well in modern, large-scale societies. Similarly, it may be that in modern mass-mediated societies it is increasingly hard to select virtuous leaders ex ante (the noise to signal ratio about their characters is too high, and too susceptible to manipulation or distortion), so that elections need to be reconceived more and more as disciplinary institutions, a thought that most classical thinkers did not seem to consider. For them, elections were primarily selection institutions, and hence did not need to be especially competitive; discipline was produced through the use of the court system or specialized quasi-judicial institutions like the audit (euthuna) and short terms of office, not induced by the regularization of competition common today (note also the prevalence of “term limits” in ancient elections). The parts of the institutional context that appear to be immutable also matter; in an age of monarchy (like the middle ages), where selection institutions (hereditary succession, basically, which is equivalent to more or less random selection) and disciplinary institutions (local noble assemblies, basically) are limited in their effectiveness, it is inevitable that educational solutions would be stressed (hence the many “mirrors of princes” we find, and the relative neglect of discussions of disciplinary and selection institutions).

A potentially more interesting but also more difficult set of questions concern the longer-run dynamics of these systems of institutions. I can imagine, for example, that even though from a static perspective all three solutions are equivalent (so that we could in principle substitute a highly efficient disciplinary system for a highly efficient educational or selection system: consider Kant’s famous comment about the possibility of designing a good constitution for a “race of devils”), from a dynamic perspective things might look quite different. Perhaps an over-reliance on disciplinary institutions would tend to induce a downward shift in the supply of virtue, since all disciplinary procedures can catch people who are actually virtuous, so that potentially virtuous candidates for leadership would be discouraged; or perhaps excessive reliance on selection institutions would increase the risk of really bad outcomes (as on occasion a really bad leader or a really bad policy would slip through). Ancient writers accordingly stressed a relatively balanced mixture of discipline, education, and selection as a solution to the problem of good leadership; but perhaps the appropriate balance will always depend on the actual efficacy of the respective organizational technologies and on material and cultural conditions (so that perhaps we are today right to more or less disregard proposals for extensive civic education as unlikely to lead to significant changes in the virtue of leaders).

What am I missing? Are there other possibilities, other than education, selection, and discipline? 

Cicero and Machiavelli on Fear and Love

(Warning: some thinking out loud about some passages of Cicero and Machiavelli, in the course of doing some research for a work in progress. A footnote of interest to historians of political thought or political theorists with a historical bent, perhaps.)

Cicero, Philippics 1.33-34 (the Perseus text is unaccountably missing the last lines of 1.33; a full translation is found here):

What I am more afraid of is lest, being ignorant of the true path to glory, you should think it glorious for you to have more power by yourself than all the rest of the people put together, and lest you should prefer being feared by your fellow-citizens to being loved by them. And if you do think so, you are ignorant of the road to glory. For a citizen to be dear to his fellow-citizens, to deserve well of the republic, to be praised, to be respected, to be loved, is glorious; but to be feared, and to be an object of hatred, is odious, detestable; and moreover, pregnant with weakness and decay. And we see that, even in the play, the very man who said, "what care I though all men should hate my name, so long as fear accompanies their hate?" [The Latin is much more concise and lapidary: "oderint, dum metuant"] found that it was a mischievous principle to act upon.

I wish, O Antonius, that you could recollect your grandfather of whom, however, you have repeatedly heard me speak. Do you think that he would have been willing to deserve even immortality, at the price of being feared in consequence of his licentious use of arms? What he considered life, what he considered prosperity, was the being equal to the rest of the citizens in freedom, and chief of them all in worth.

Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter XVII:

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties.

At first glance, it looks as if Cicero and Machiavelli were presenting diametrically opposed positions: Cicero argues that a political leader should avoid being feared, and that it is better that he be loved, whereas Machiavelli suggests that it is fine if the prince is feared. This fits in with the "standard view" concerning Machiavelli's relationship to Cicero (see, e.g., Skinner; consider also, for example, the discussions in The Prince asserting that generosity or honesty are inessential to political leaders, which clearly reverse Cicero's discussion of the need for these virtues in On Duties). There are some (partial) dissents (e.g., Colish), but in general the consensus seems to be that Machiavelli and Cicero present fairly opposed views of the virtues of political leaders.

Yet it is clear from these passages that both Machiavelli and Cicero agree that being hated is fatal to a political leader. They differ mostly insofar as Cicero seems to think that becoming feared without incurring hatred is unlikely, whereas Machiavelli is more sanguine about this possibility. But even this difference can be attributed to the fact that Cicero is considering the kinds of actions that someone who used to be an equal (Antony) would have to do in order to become dominant; and in his view (perhaps exaggerated for rhetorical effect?) these actions are likely to incur hatred alongside fear, and are unlikely to bring real and durable fame. And that thought does not seem to be in conflict with Machiavelli's views at all.

Unrelated point: working through Cicero's Philippics after reading Boehm makes me think that the upper level of Roman society behaved very much like a tribe with a strong ethos of equality, despite the otherwise tremendous material and status inequalities in Roman society. Like tribesmen everywhere, Cicero and his contemporaries among the senatorial class seemed to be extremely sensitive to suggestions that this or that person aimed to become dominant over them, and expended great energy arguing over the symbols of such domination (the office of the dictator, crowns, funeral monuments, public thanksgivings), even as the real threats to their equality lay in the ability of the proconsuls to basically create private armies during their long periods of imperium away from Italy (by Marc Antony's time, they could sometimes spend 5 years on campaign away from Rome). Also, it is amazing how the Romans of the time, like many of the tribes described by Boehm, had few mechanisms to deal with persistent attempts at domination other than assassination. It's actually kind of astounding the sheer violence present in the background of politics at Rome in the waning days of the republic – people are being killed right and left, the senate is often surrounded by armed men, and prominent political figures, Cicero included, are always conscious of the very real threats to their physical safety. And yet they seemed to think that such extrajudicial killings were often quite legitimate, though they of course disagreed about which ones! Late republican Rome was really a Machiavellian jungle, and Cicero was very good at surviving in it; it would seem unlikely if Machiavelli's ideas about political survival were entirely alien to Cicero.