From Republicanism to Liberalism: Corruption and Empire in Enlightenment Political Thought
Debates about the relationship between empire and corruption were prominent in eighteenth century British political thought. Some of these debates were framed within classical Republican or Civic Humanist discourses, of which Charles-Louis Montesquieu and Adam Ferguson were emblematic exemplars. Within the terms of this discourse, corruption represented a collective moral failure, and was closely connected to a supposed cycle of imperial greatness and decline. Yet, similar fears of empire motivated the articulation of more modern, proto-liberal notions of corruption as forms of activity that blurred the boundaries between private interests and public responsibilities. In his analysis of the economic distortions and trading monopolies caused by empire (especially the East India Company), Adam Smith articulated and pioneered this proto-liberal concept of corruption. Between Smith’s proto-liberal and Montesquieu/Ferguson’s Republican concepts of corruption, however, stood the work of Edmund Burke. Motivated in part by concerns about empire, Burke shared Smith’s strong opposition to the EIC, an organisation he considered to be corrupt and corrupting. Emerging from his work, then, was an understanding of corruption that shared the Republican emphasis on moral decay, but also anticipated a proto-liberal concern with keeping distinct the boundaries between public (political) and private (economic) activity. In the work of these four thinkers corruption thus emerges as a central concept in the transition from Republican to Liberal political thought in the late eighteenth century.
The writings and speeches of Edmund Burke
Our understanding of the little known formative years of Edmund Burke's political career will be enhanced by the appearance of The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, edited by McLoughlin and Boulton, for the years 1745 to 1761. The volume assembles Burke's major writings published before his entry into Parliament, together with a selection of lesser pieces of the period. (Tracts on the Popery Laws appeared in Volume IX with his other writings on Ireland). Some readers may be disappointed to find that his contributions to the...
Edmund Burke and the Natural Law
Today the idea of natural law as the basic ingredient in moral, legal, and political thought presents a challenge not faced for almost two hundred years. On the surface, there would appear to be little room in the contemporary world for a widespread belief in natural law. The basic philosophies of the opposition-the rationalism of the philosophes, the utilitarianism of Bentham, the materialism of Marx-appear to have made prior philosophies irrelevant. Yet these newer philosophies themselves have been overtaken by disillusionment born of confl icts between "might" and "right." Many thoughtful people who were loyal to secular belief have become dissatisfi ed with the lack of normative principles and have turned once more to natural law. This fi rst book-length study of Edmund Burke and his philosophy, originally published in 1958, explores this intellectual giant's relationship to, and belief in, the natural law.