I attended recently a paper given by Christopher Insole (one of my supervisors) on Burke. I was surprised by how much the Burke that emerged reminded me of Hegel (or some versions of Hegel at least). I’ve not read Burke but I was impressed: he is a thinker who gives particulars great weight, who is very focused on time and experience, who thinks reason is contextual and tradition based but also capable of reflecting critically on that tradition; who is aware of the unintended consequences of social action; who was willing to change his mind. Those familiar with Insole’s book The Politics of Human Frailty will know some of the story he tells here, a story about an alternative version of liberalism, one that is neither Hobbesian nor Kantian, one that is aware of human weakness and has a mistrust of power and so wants it to be dispersed, but also one that thinks policy should be tested by the subjects not the rulers. This is an important addition to the stories that are told about liberalism and modernity, especially in theological circles. Insole is very good about being fair to the different ‘textures’ within genealogies (his phrase) and I felt in this case it was particularly important because it appears (to me at least) there’s still so much in Burke that could be appopriated now that would improve things.
At some point this year the Cambridge Companion to Burke will be released that Insole has co-edited and his chapter will focus on Burkes natural law heritage. Before I’d encountered Insole’s work the only Burke I knew was the Tory Burke and so I had an unfavourable knee-jerk reaction to him. I’ve now discarded that attitude. This paper also addressed Burke’s natural law and it made me re-think my attitude to natural law. Burke’s natural law was integrated with a teleological view of anthropology but emphatically not of history; it was very flexible but also provided a way of critiquing state violence (Burke worked very hard to curb British oppression in India, America and Ireland).
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