10.3 - Conservative Key Thinkers

Question 1

Who are the Conservative Key Thinkers?

Answer 1

Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Micheal Oakeshott, Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick.

Question 2

What was Hobbes’ view on Human Nature?

Answer 2

Extrememly negative.
Humans are selfish and individiualistically driven by self-interest.

Question 3

What was Hobbes’ view on the state?

Answer 3

The state only exists because of a ‘social contract’ between the sovereign and his subjects.
Some freedoms are lost to ensure security and the rule of law.

Question 4

What was Hobbes’ view on Society?

Answer 4

Society did not exist in any form prior to the creation of the state.
The sovereign brings order and authority.

Question 5

What was Hobbes’ view on the Economy?

Answer 5

Economic activity is only possible after the creation of the state, with the sovereign bringing order and authority allowing the economy to develop.

Question 6

What was Hobbes main book?

Answer 6

‘Leviathan’

Question 7

What is the most important quote from Hobbes’ book?

Answer 7

The life of man would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’ if society was not maintained.

Question 8

What did Hobbes believe about authority?

Answer 8

Any authority is better than no authority as without authority we have no society. With no society, we enter a period of bloodshed and violence.

Question 9

What did Burke believe about Human Nature?

Answer 9

Somewhat negative, but not as much as Hobbes.
Humans are morally and intellectually fallible.

Question 10

What did Burke believe about the state?

Answer 10

The state emerges and grows like an organism, rather than just appearing at once.

The state is hierarchical, with the hereditary elite ruling with paternal noblesse oblige over their subjects.

The state should ‘change to conserve’.

Society should be guided by empiricism.

Question 11

What did Burke believe about society?

Answer 11

Society is like a multifaceted organism.

Communities, traditions and customs all have a symbiotic relationship.

Question 12

What did Burke believe about the economy?

Answer 12

The free market is the true and natural organic state of the economy.

The state should protect laissez-faire economics.

Question 13

What was Burke’s famous quote?

Answer 13

‘Evolution, not revolution’

Question 14

What did Oakeshott believe about human nature?

Answer 14

Somewhat negative, on a similar level to Burke.

Conservatism is based on intellectual imperfection.

Decisions of the human and the state should be grounded in empiricism rather than rationalism.

Question 15

What did Oakeshott believe about the state?

Answer 15

The state should be guided by tradition and experience rather than rationalism.

Rationalistic state intervention should be met with scepticism.

Change, should it be necessary, should be guided by pragmatism and empricism.

Question 16

What did Oakeshott believe about society?

Answer 16

Society is a multifaceted organism.

Communities, traditions and customs all have a symbiotic relationship.

Question 17

What did Oakeshott believe about the economy?

Answer 17

The free market is the natural state of the economy and market.

State involvement should be considered very carefully and should be limited to pragmatic moderation.

State management / economic politiices underpinned by rationalism should be avoided as humans are intellectually imperfect.

Question 18

What wing did Oakeshott sit on?

Answer 18

He had a foot in both traditional Conservatism and one-nation Conservatism.

Question 19

What were Oakeshott’s books known as?

Answer 19

‘On Being Conservative’
‘On Human Conduct’

Question 20

What was Oakeshott’s famous quote?

Answer 20

‘to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried.., the actual to the possible’

Question 21

What does Oakeshott believe about the methods of understanding social organisation?

Answer 21

Enterprise Association
Civil Association

Question 22

What is enterprise association?

Answer 22

The state is understood as imposing a universal purpose on its subjects. This tends to follow with dictatorships. (Nazis with racial domination is an example).

Question 23

What is civil association?

Answer 23

Laws impose obligatory conditions of action.
They do not require choosing one action rather another.
This requires a faith in humanity to grasp a universal good.

Question 24

Why did Oakeshott get criticised?

Answer 24

Many felt he was selling short the possibility of political progress.

Question 25

What was Rand’s view on human nature?

Answer 25

Positive.

Humans are capable of rational though and should be objectivist in persuing their self-interest.

Question 26

What was Rand’s view on the state?

Answer 26

The state should be so minimal.

The state should only secure a free market, law and order, national security.

Question 27

What was Rand’s view on society?

Answer 27

Society should pursue atomistic individualism.

A collection of autonomous individuals are motivated by self-fulfilment.

Individuals resist state and societal obligations as they restrict individual freedom.

No welfare state whatsoever.

Question 28

What was Rand’s view on the economy?

Answer 28

Free-market capitalism with no state intervention whatsoever.

Privatised and deregulated economy.

Question 29

What wing of Conservatism did Ayn Rand lie in?

Answer 29

New Right, although she stated on many occasions she was not Conservative in any way.

Question 30

How did Rand think people could behave rationally?

Answer 30

By being selfish.

Question 31

What were Rand’s books known as?

Answer 31

‘Atlas Shrugged’
‘The Fountainhead’

Question 32

What do both of Rand’s novels involve?

Answer 32

Protagonists that follow their own goals relentlessly and are opposed by regulations of government in a dystopian USA.

Question 33

What type of Darwinism did Rand believe in?

Answer 33

Social Darwinism.

Question 34

What were Rand’s more, (bizarre, interesting, strange?) ties, non politically?

Answer 34

She had ties to modern Satanism, with many of her policies being adopted by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.

Question 35

What did Nozick believe about human nature?

Answer 35

Positive.

Individuals are rational and driven by self-ownership of talent and their abilities and labour.

Question 36

What did Nozick believe about the state?

Answer 36

A minarchist state.

The state should be limited to law and order, enforcement of contract and defence.

Question 37

What did Nozick believe about society?

Answer 37

It is essentially atomistic.

A collection of autonomous individuals with liberatarian values who realise it is in their self-interest to be together.

Individuals resist state or societal obligations as they restrict individual freedom.

No welfare state.

Question 38

What did Nozick believe about the economy?

Answer 38

A minarchist state.

Free market capitalism.

Privatised and deregulated economy.

Question 39

What was Nozick’s main book?

Answer 39

Anarchy, state, and utopia

Question 40

What did ‘Tales of a Slave’ detail?

Answer 40

A 9 stage progression within slavery that asks at which point you are no longer a slave.

Question 41

Why did Oakeshott get criticised?

Answer 41

Many felt he was selling short the possibility of political progress.

Question 42

What was Hobbes’ view on the state?

Answer 42

The state only exists because of a ‘social contract’ between the sovereign and his subjects.
Some freedoms are lost to ensure security and the rule of law.