Recently, I heard a friend who identifies as “progressive” complain that “there has never been any real progress in human history.” After being startled for a brief moment, I realized that I’d heard such statements before, usually from college students in political theory classes trying to convince me that liberal democracy was no improvement on some kind of tyranny. After continuing our conversation, it became clear that my young friend’s real concern was not science, advancement of knowledge, or any kind of “progress” at all, but human flourishing. He had become convinced that, no matter the advancements in other endeavors, human beings are really no better off now than they were in ancient Egypt under the pharaohs. 

Since I have been arguing for the better part of my life that American constitutional democracy is an improvement on all earlier forms of government, I was prompted to reflect on the historical relationship between human flourishing and constitutional order.

Serious philosophical concern for human flourishing is first evident in the dialogues of Plato, in which Socrates questions the early preoccupation of philosophers with the material world, launching classical moral and political philosophy in the process. Plato’s account of the education of philosopher-kings in the Republic adds to this discussion a systematic analysis of the cardinal virtues that constitute a well-ordered individual. Plato believed that the attainment of such virtue was an essential characteristic of a flourishing individual, but was open only to a gifted few, and so held that aristocracy was the only acceptable constitutional order for a society.

Aristotle widened Plato’s analysis of virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics, extending the discussion beyond the four cardinal virtues, distinguishing intellectual and moral virtues, and suggesting that the inclination to seek the good according to reason was an essential feature of human nature that calls for satisfaction. For Aristotle, the pursuit of virtue is a natural inclination, the possession of a large measure of which is required for the attainment of happiness (eudaimonia, or spiritual well-being), the chief good for human beings.

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Aristotle did not see either the pursuit or attainment of virtue as limited to a select few, and thus he set about inquiring into the social and political conditions that would allow the cultivation of virtuous habits by larger numbers of people. This inquiry is carried out in the Politics, and resulted in Aristotle’s famous typology of regimes. Aristotle concluded that the form of government most conducive to the widespread attainment of virtue and happiness was a “mixed” constitution with an abundance of good citizens who know both how to rule and how to be ruled.

In this sense, Aristotle views a constitutional polity as the best form of government, because he envisions a community that provides the conditions for the widest possible exercise of virtue by the citizenry. This, in turn, requires wide participation in the public affairs of the polis and entails a large amount of freedom. A regime of this kind represents a constitutional “mean” in which the amount of virtue that is within the reach of ordinary people may be actually realized in society as a whole, thereby enhancing general well-being.

An important implication of this view is that the distribution of authority in the polis should be commensurate with (should “match,” in some sense) the distribution of virtue in the citizenry. Since virtues are the tools of self-government for individuals, a polity consisting mainly of virtuous individuals capable of governing their own thoughts, passions, and appetites will need fewer laws and regulations of an external authority than a polity not so fortunately situated. Thomas Aquinas would later imply a similar idea in his commentary on the Politics: the best form of government is a mixed form in which each member of society has a share of governing power equal to that member’s measure of virtue.

The rise of Christianity, while it posed a significant challenge to the pagan cult of state worship in the ancient world, posed no significant challenge to the Aristotelian ethics of human flourishing, as was clearly demonstrated by Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Indeed, it added four important addenda: 1) a set of theological virtues (e.g., faith, hope, charity); 2) the all-important moral virtue of humility, which had not been sufficiently recognized by the ancient Greeks and Romans; 3) a recognition that the natural human inclination to seek the good according to reason pointed to a destiny beyond nature; 4) a sharper recognition that human freedom made possibleeven inevitablethe intrusion of sin into the world.

Combining these classical and Christian ideas with later developments during the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment and revolutionary periods, the American founders set about deliberately trying to create the political conditions for human flourishing by designing a constitutional framework that would enable the advancement of essential values, principles, and traditions required for a flourishing citizenry, and restrain forces that might impair their advancement. By the time of the American founding, the following essentials of human flourishing had become reasonably clear and were becoming articulated as matters of principle by thoughtful people.  

Freedom

Human beings are creatures possessed of inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. Such beings are rational animals (in Aristotle’s phrase) made in God’s image (in Aquinas’s phrase). As such, we are creative beings who cannot flourish without a wide space for the exercise of our reason and our creative faculties.

Equality

Since all human beings possess these rational and creative natures, the wide spaces described above must be available to all who possess that nature. Aristotle’s defense of slavery and the ubiquity of the institution throughout much of human history notwithstanding, there can be no justification for limiting the availability of such opportunity to a subset of the human species. Thomas Jefferson proclaimed this loudly in the Declaration of Independence. Most of the American founders understood it, and though unable for political reasons to abolish the institution directly, began moving toward that goal by constitutionalizing the eventual abolition of the slave trade.

Democracy

Since equality of opportunity is required by the necessity of freedom, and since no one is by nature entitledor even fitto govern another, some form of democracy is morally required for all government.

Virtue

In order to exercise our rational and creative faculties to the fullest extent, we must cultivate virtue, which is essentially individual self-government. That is, in order to flourish, individuals must learn to govern themselves. We must cultivate wisdom to govern our thoughts, courage to govern emotions, temperance or moderation to govern appetites, and justice to govern our relation to others. This is the basis of all government, and a large proportion of self-governing citizens is necessary for the health of any society.

Education

Since human beings are rational creatures, our most distinctive quality is intellect. Thus human flourishing requires, above all, the development of our intellectual and spiritual capacities, which cannot be effectively done without libraries, schools, foundations, churches, and other social institutions that serve similar ends. In a free society, many of these institutions arise naturally from networks of localized civic associations that compose what may be called  “civil society.” Such institutions serve as intermediaries between individuals and government, protecting individuals from the overweening power of the state.

Family

Like many other higher-order social animals, humans naturally form intimate bonds with each other, and these bonds are particularly strong in biological kinship groups. The traditional family is the fundamental biological kinship group, and thus calls for legal protection. In truth, the traditional family is the most potent enemy of tyrannical government, because it is the civic institution most likely to claim the loyalty of its members in opposition to the state.  

Faith

Human beings are spiritual creatures who possess a natural inclination to seek and know their Creator. This transcendent orientation drives humans toward veneration and worship. Attempts to stifle the religious impulse result not in its elimination, but only in its misdirection toward the worship of things not worthy of veneration. Thus this crucial characteristic of human nature must be left free from the interference of political authority, even as it receives necessary legal protection from the state. George Washington appropriately warned in his farewell address of the ruin that would result for a nation that loses its religion. 

Property

Since humans are physical beings that require food, shelter, and other provisions in order to develop their higher capacities, maximal human flourishing requires at least a moderate provision of these goods for the largest possible number of people. Historically, market economies have performed better at providing these conditions than alternatives, and these are the only economies consistent with the individual freedom required for unleashing the creative energies of a people. Since free markets require legal protection for individuals engaged in commercial activities, the institution of private property is essential for enhancing human well-being.

Law and Society

Humans are social creatures who cannot thrive to the fullest as solitary beings. This facet of human nature means that we must have government in order to organize our societies in ways that conduce to human well-being. Since we are naturally free and not instinctually driven like other animals to organize our societies in any particular way, we must make rules to direct and circumscribe many of our dealings with one another. Law is thus necessary to human flourishing, but like government, it must be regarded as a necessary evil because of its dangerous tendency to overpower human freedom.

There has indeed been “progress” in human history. It is a progression of ideas in which humans slowly but surely come to recognize God’s image in the mirror and struggle to act upon its implications.

 

Limited Government

Historically, the greatest impediment to human flourishing on a wide scale has been tyrannical government. Tyranny comes in many forms and is an ever-present danger at all times and in all places. It derives from the corrupting influence of power which, in Lord Acton’s phrase, tends to corrupt in the measure of its degree of possession. That is why no holder of power can be fully trusted, and hence must be carefully checked, balanced, and controlled by constitutional restraints, by other holders of power, and by the people themselves. Rousseau, perhaps unwittingly and from an altogether different perspective, captured the sense of Lord Acton’s famous statement when suggesting that all governments, in the never-ending quest to enlarge their authority, are driven to undermine the very constitutions from which that authority derives.

The American founders made a great advance in the effort to limit the always dangerous power of government while nevertheless enabling it to govern; but in many ways, their effort has been seriously compromised in the past century. Progressivism, the dominant political ideology of the twentieth century, abhors limits on government power and is based on a worldview alien to that of the founders. Beginning with leaders like Woodrow Wilson in the early twentieth century, progressives have successfully advanced centralized government control of the economy; wrested control of education, public health, and welfare from the states and localities; assaulted time-honored traditional institutions such as marriage and the family; and restricted fundamental freedoms of speech and religion on the basis of a secular public philosophy alien to traditional American constitutional principles.

Paradoxically, the progressive effort to overcome constitutional limits on government power—purportedly justified on grounds of efficiency—hardly seems to have enabled government to govern well. Instead, the unwieldy and often conflictual morass of agencies and officials in the administrative state has more often than not resulted in governmental paralysis, perhaps thankfully leaving Americans as ungovernable as we have always been. In one way or another, each of the fundamental principles, values, and institutions noted above has been compromised by the progressive assault on constitutional democracy. This assault has led us into the dream worlds of wokeism, racialism, paganism, identity politics, groupthink, and a host of other ills that have destroyed any semblance of the common ground required to sustain a healthy civil society.

A late and beloved mentor was fond of saying that “man is the historical animal,” and political philosopher Eric Voegelin once suggested that “the existence of man in society is historical existence.” This brief historical review suggests that there has indeed been “progress” in human history. It is a progression of ideas in which humans slowly but surely come to recognize God’s image in the mirror and struggle to act upon its implications. The struggle has been difficult and is certainly incomplete, but the constitutional foundations of human well-being have been laid in this intellectual progression. It is ironic that this is the kind of progress that contemporary progressivism, in its seemingly endless pursuit of utopian fantasies, threatens to undermine. Is this progress or regress?

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