Metaphysics and Monarchy

Arguments against monarchy--and authoritarian, non-representative government in general--tend to focus on the possible evils of such a government. The argument generally goes something like this.

(1) In monarchy, if you get a bad monarch, then the whole country might easily go to hell for the next half-century.
(2) In democracy, if you get a bad president, the whole country (probably) won't go to hell for the next-half-century.
(3) So democracy is better than monarchy.

One might question the premises of this argument: presidents can also easily convert themselves into despots. But leaving that aside, the argument at least appears to work. Why?



Well, (a) Presidents leave office on a regular basis, so they don't have a chance to run the country all the way into the ground; (b) in constitutional government, their powers are limited, so their ability to do so is limited; (c) most of all, those who elect them probably don't want to be slaughtered or to see wide-scale slaughter in the nation.

One might argue that (a), (b), and (c) are all false. As for (a), term limits are not found in every government (see FDR) and even if they are one can get around that (see Putin). As for (b), Joseph de Maistre more or less said that no government was in fact governed by a constitution but by custom, and a look at the "constitutionality" of the United States government confirms his theory. As for (c), well, this still allows unpopular minorities or the unseen to be killed--see Hitler and Roe v. Wade.

But suppose, just for the sake of argument, that (a), (b), and (c) are all true. And so suppose that premises (1) and (2) in the argument above are true. It still does not follow from (1) and (2) that (3) is true, unless one grants something else:

(2.5) A system of government that reduces risk of massive failure must be better than a system of government that has a higher risk of massive failure.

If (2.5) is true, then (1) and (2) imply the truth of (3). But is (2.5) true?

Well, let us turn Plato on his head, and see if we can understand something about the state or polis by looking at the individual. Examine (2.51):

(2.51) A life that reduces the risk of massive failure must be better than a life that brings about the chance of massive failure.

This, I would submit, is clearly and obviously false. A life that avoids the risk of massive failure is not necessarily better than one that embraces it. The people who wish to avoid failure are those who remain single, at the same job for years, perhaps tepidly embracing some religion, dulling their yearning for the infinite through the media-supplied catharsis of movies and music. You think this is merely a modern, romantic sentiment? Carlyle, I believe, said that the "tragedy of life is not so much what we suffer, but rather what we miss." And Someone rather more eminent than he said that "he who would save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will save it." As C.S. Lewis remarked, this not obscure religious mysticism: to those who have experienced life, it is quite true and quite shrewd. In war, in love, in writing, in politics, in argument, in careers, in the spiritual life, in life in general, one very often cannot attain something worthwhile unless one risks something great. To risk nothing is to risk everything.

Or look at the simpler version yet:

(2.52) Whatever reduces risk of massive failure is better than that which brings about the chance of massive failure.

Suppose it were possible for all children, at 10 days of age, to be put in an efficient child-care system run by a vast benevolent bureaucracy. Suppose, contrary to fact, that this bureaucracy would guarantee that none would starve and that none would be abused, and that they would even grow up to be adults that could function, with sufficient psychiatric help, normally enough in society. But they would never be loved by their parents. Would you choose the world free of parental love and free of parental abuse over the world with both?

I wouldn't. The decision to choose the opposite seem the characteristic liberal trait. It seems they run from existence, from life, from being, from the metaphysically good, because they see that all created things can fall, and they are unwilling to take the risk. I agree that the risk is there, but the risk is worth it. God knew what He was doing when He created; He knew the risk He was running, for Himself as well as for all created beings; He even knew that we would fail, and fail again, and continue to fail over and over again. But He still created.

To wax yet more metaphysical for a moment: created metaphysical excellence and perfection seems to require the risk of moral failure and disaster; to flee the latter is to flee the former. You can survive without pursuing excellence, but you cannot live.

So if (2.51) and (2.52) is false, what about (2.5)? To remind you:

(2.5) A system of government that reduces risk of massive failure must be better than a system of government that brings about the chance of massive failure.

To govern well is difficult. But to govern well, one will need a long view of things to be done and a concern for things to come ten or twenty or fifty years hence; one will need the power to steer policies for a long time, for an inconsistent foreign or domestic policy can be disastrous; one will need to have the ability to exercise prudence and care in one's decisions; one will need the wisdom gained from long experience and not from a popularity contest. It is simply impossible to govern well without these things. And democracy renders it impossible for the one in power to have any of them, or at least renders it extremely unlikely.

So, it may be the case that monarchy has greater risks than democracy; it is debatable. But even if it is the case that monarchy has greater risks than democracy, it also has a greater power and value. The corruption of the best is the worst. At least a monarch might steer his nation toward the good and away from evil; he has the ability to infuse the state with an order and with a virtue it might otherwise lack. A president, however, is far more likely either to be a demagogue with hidden and personal designs or a simply a tool of the masses; in either event, he will be incapable of acting for the good as a monarch can.

Democracy's ability to avoid evil seems to me outweighed by its incapability of pursing the good. A driving record with no accidents is unimpressive if you never learned to drive a car.

Thus, this argument against monarchy, at least as it is usually phrased, fails.