What character traits ought we to look for in
our elected representatives? The question may seem odd at a time when our
expectations of our representatives have never been lower. The idea that
politicians should be “respectable” and that they, if not we, should aspire to
some higher ideal, seems to belong to a bygone age. Political idealism is to be
sneered at, and politics, it seems, no longer has any place for outmoded
concepts such as truth, honesty or integrity.
Politicians with integrity? |
British politicians themselves, when asked by the Hansard Society
(Sylvester, 2010), highlighted integrity as the most important characteristic that
a politician can possess.
Strangely, there is not a lot of research about what
characteristics voters look for in their representatives. We do know that generally
the public has a low opinion of professional politicians. One indicator is that
trust in politicians is at an all-time low. To qualify that slightly it was
never that high to begin with. In the latest Ipsos-MORI Veracity Index (2016)
just 15% of respondents said that they trusted politicians. More people trust
estate agents and journalists than politicians. Admittedly, not by much but
that’s not the point.
Being seen as
generally untrustworthy is as clear an indication as we are likely to get that
we so not see politicians as the embodiment of integrity. Whilst this is
probably a very harsh judgement on many hard working public servants it does
represent a political reality. Politicians are viewed as “self- serving and as
failing in their role as representatives of their constituencies”(Gidengil & Bastedo, 2014). The general impression is of a group of people
who are in it for themselves and who therefore lack what we might call ‘moral
gravitas’.
What politicians think and what motivates what they do is important. There
is little clear evidence that honest politicians fare better than less honest
ones at the ballot box, indeed the opposite may even be true. Even if we don’t
trust them there is a clear desire we should be able to regard politicians as
what the theologian Denis O’Callaghan (1967) described as moral leaders.
If
politicians do not act in ways which raise the moral capacity of society, then
the vacuum will be filled by those with less secular views. The level and tone of political debate can be a reasonable indicator
of the way in which a society views its members. It can also set the tone for
the way in which we treat each other, but particularly sets the tone for the
way we treat those regarded as outsiders.
The philosopher Richard D. Ryder has argued:
“Governments seem prone to be motivated by mere whim and sentiment. Many of their policies appear to be undisciplined either by science or philosophy”.
The implication is
that politics is conducted for short-term electoral gain, with only a passing
consideration of fact or principle. Even where facts are presented their use is
often utilitarian used as much to disguise as to illuminate the truth.
The idea
that a “fact” is indisputable is itself under considerable strain. Facts are
treated as if they are mere interpretations and which interpretation we accept
is a personal choice. In such a scenario politicians do not make decisions
based on applying their firmly held moral beliefs, but rather weigh up the pros
and cons of what is in their narrow self-interest. If truth is a casualty in
this war of words then so are any underlying moral principles. Ryder’s argument
that politics needs to have a moral basis was well made then and appears to
need remaking today.
None of this is new, of course, but without moral conviction it is
difficult to see what the political class are doing beyond mirroring what they
perceive as public opinion. It is important here not to become misty eyed about
a time gone past when all political debate was conducted as if part of a rather
refined debating society. Or, to a time when fact was more in evidence than
hyperbole. Facts and hyperbole, truth and statistics have forever been uneasy
bedfellows in political debate.
Since the advent of political polling in 1938,
opinion polls have had a greater and greater influence over political debate. This
has exacerbated a trend whereby politicians rather than trying to shape public
opinion through argument, simply try to reflect public opinion, even when this
may contradict their own views or the known facts. Politicians are increasingly
reluctant to express an opinion until it has been filtered through focus groups
and opinion polls. Better to have no opinion at all, than one with which the
public do not agree.
Public opinion is often public prejudice |
The problem of relying on public opinion to inform political decision
making is that too often it allows prejudice to win out over compassion, it
allows a mob mentality which has only been exacerbated by social media.
And it
increases what we might call the tyranny of the majority, a phrase used by
deToqueville (2010/1840). He argued that democracy, specifically American
democracy, with its checks and balances guarded against such a tyranny, but he
of course had never encountered Twitter or Facebook (or for that matter the
Daily Mail).
We want politicians to make the right decisions, we need them to do the
right thing, so somewhere in all this decision making we need something to fall
back on. For politics to retain its legitimacy it has to be based on more than
rhetoric, hyperbole and self-interest. In my view that something is a moral
infrastructure (Middleton, 2004). Too often morality is presented as if it is a
set of individual life choices, rather than a collective vision of the type of
society we want to live in. As the moral philosopher Roger Trigg (2005) has argued morality cannot be
just what is in the interest of individuals (especially MPs), or what is in the
interest of the majority. Rather morality “should provide the context in which
all affairs are conducted and nations governed.” (Trigg, 2005:10) Indeed,
deToqueville made a similar point.
To
say that morality should underpin our political decision-making seems almost
incontrovertible. The problem is that we tend to treat morality as something
separate from politics. Largely this is a consequence of living in a society
that has redefined itself in terms of individual freedoms as opposed to a
collective good. That is not to say that morality can only be about the
collective but it is, at heart, the collective response to individual actions.
What morality does, that politics often doesn’t is give meaning to particular
actions. As Aristotle, no less, would say “while it is desirable to secure what
is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a
state is something finer and more sublime” (Vardy & Grosch, 1999:22) For
Aristotle the ‘good’ was defined as eudaimonia
which translates, roughly, as happiness or ‘human flourishing’.
Do we have a right to happiness? |
The idea that ‘happiness’ should be the goal of human society found its
most cogent expression in utilitarianism, developed by Jeremy Bentham but given
its most accessible formulation by James Stuart Mill.
But if happiness is some
kind of ultimate goal, we are entitled to ask: what is it about happiness that
makes it so valuable? The truth is that it is not happiness per se, but human
happiness. We don’t tend to care very much whether parrots, snakes, bugs or
dogs are happy (actually we might care about dogs, but put that thought aside
for a moment).
We do care whether humans are happy. To say this is to state the
obvious. It was so self-evident to Aristotle that all humans wanted to be happy
that the goal was not to define happiness but to devise a society where each
could obtain it. But, it is also true that we do prefer our own species over
others. If I ask you if you want your child to be happy, you would have to be
perverse to say ‘no’. And, if we want our own child to be happy, then clearly
it would be wrong not to want other children to be equally happy. And, if we
want all children to be happy it is not a big stretch to imagine that this is
something we want for all humans. The point is that a moral foundation is based
not so much on happiness, but something about humanity. We value humanity in a
way which we do not, necessarily, value other life forms. Or, for that matter,
inanimate objects (despite the seeming love affair some people have with their
cars).
All humans have an inherent dignity |
It is this human capacity for happiness, pleasure and suffering that is
at the root of our moral outlook. Indeed, it is precisely this respect for the
“dignity inherent in every human” that seems to be what David Schmidtz (2002) has
described as our “basic moral desiderata”. To return then to our original
question which was about decision-making, what I want to suggest is that
decision-making removed from our moral infrastructure is decision-making which
can be reduced to naked self-interest, or what is often referred to these days
as ‘populism’, which is another way of saying ‘tell the people what they want
to hear’. It is this tendency which removes the morality from politics. A moral
infrastructure reminds us why we engage in political debate. It gives us
reasons to favour one outcome over another. Rather than appealing to prejudice,
self-interest and greed it enables us to develop policies and societies that
are driven by a desire to enhance the dignity of every human being.
References
deToqueville A (2010/1840) Democracy In America Edited by Eduardo Nolla Translated from the
French by James T. Schleifer (Paris: Liberty Fund)
Gidengil E & Bastedo H (2014) ‘Perceptions and
Performance: How Do MPs Shape Up?’ Canadian
Parliamentary Review 25-30
Ipsos-MORI and Mumsnet (2016) Enough of Experts. Trust and the EU Referendum available online at https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/publications/1896/Enough-of-Experts-Ipsos-MORI-Veracity-Index-2016.aspx
O’Callaghan J F (1967) ‘The Meaning of Moral Principle’
The Furrow, 22(9), 555-563
Middleton D (2004) ‘Why We Should Care About Respect’ Contemporary Politics 10(3-4), 227-241
Ryder R D (2006) Putting
the Morality Back Into Politics (Exeter: Imprint Academic)
Schmidtz D (2002) ‘Equal Respect and Equal Shares’ Social
Philosophy and Policy 244-274
Sylvester J (2010) ‘What makes a good politician’ The Pyschologist 23(5)
Trigg R (2005) Morality
Matters (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
Vardy P & Grosch P (1999) The Puzzle of Ethics
(London: Harper Collins)
Very interesting stuff... especially in light of the recent proliferation of 'alternative facts', from the Trump administration. An inherent mistrust of politicians might also go some way to accounting for the outcome of the Brexit referendum, of course. I do wonder if there are some politicians who represent the exception that proves the rule. Justin Trudeau appears to be riding a wave of popularity that links directly to the perception of him as someone who (at least, ostensibly) behaves with integrity. I guess it remains to be seen whether that's accurate.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I agree that there are some politicians whose integrity puts them above the crowd, as it were. Jeremy Corbyn's appeal was largely based on the perception of him as being an MP who had integrity. Unlike Justin Trudeau that has yet to translate into poll success. The bigger point I guess is that so little political debate has any moral substance at all, which means that there is little or no context to the policies that are proposed.
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