Erica Simon
11 February 2018
Professor Walker
English 151w – 05
William Godwin and Political Justice
In 1793 William Godwin published Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness (or Political Justice for short). Godwin was inspired to write Political Justice after the publication of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. It was written during the early years of the French Revolution and Revolutionary Wars. Political Justice provides an insightful critique of unjust government institutions and notes that humanity will inevitably progress. Chapter three talks about innate principles and how the moral characteristics of men originate in their perceptions. Chapter four is about the ways in which the human mind can be advanced towards the state of perfection.
One of Godwin’s main ideas in chapter three is the idea of innate principles. People are brought into the world without innate principles and they “are neither virtuous or vicious as we first come into existence.” The phrase innate principles refer to instincts or natural. Children are neutral when they first come into the world – they are neither good nor bad. People are shaped and influenced by the environment and experiences that they are exposed to. Godwin goes on to note that even though children are born without vice or virtue ‘the seeds of error’ are passed down so early on that ‘superficial observers’ believe they are innate. In other words, from moment that children are born they are influenced by the world around them. This reveals that the ‘seeds of error’ are developed so early on, that they are mistaken as innate. In the following excerpt, the author notes that by the end of the first day of birth, children have already been subjected to the corrupt word and he describes newborn infant’s cry for assistance.
“In this neutral and innocent circumstance, combined with the folly and imbecility of parents and nurses, we are presented with the first occasion of vice. Assistance is necessary, conducive to the existence, the health and the mental sanity of the infant. Empire in the infant over those who protect him is unnecessary. If we do not withhold our assistance precisely at the moment when it ceases to be requisite, if our compliance or our refusal be not in every case irrevocable, if we grant any thing to impatience, importunity or obstinacy, from that moment we become parties in the intellectual murder of our offspring.”
This means that when a parent doesn’t know when to say ‘no’ to crying child who will not stop crying – he has already planted the seeds of vice in the following generation, and has become the “intellectual murderer” of his offspring. In summary, chapter three is about instincts and how people are shaped by their experiences and the world around them.
The next chapter explains how the human mind can be advanced towards a state of perfection. There are three ways – literature, education, and political justice. Literature is defined as the “diffusion of knowledge through the medium of discussion whether written or oral.” Literature is powerful and is the most efficient way of eradicating prejudice and mistakes. Godwin also says that even though people all over world have different opinions only one can be true. Literature is also flawed because it alone is “not adequate to all the purposes of human improvement.” Education is a “scheme for the early impression of rights principles upon the hitherto unprejudiced mind” or in different words – the early presentation of idea to unprejudiced minds. “Where must the preceptor himself have been educated, who shall thus elevate his pupil above all the errors of mankind?” Education is flawed because it is circular – the right education is dependent on right teacher. How is right defined? Is it only if the teacher has the right education? Political Justice is the “adoption of any principle of morality and truth into the practice of a community.” It is universal and can be applied to any situation. Out of the three advancements that Godwin gives, political justice is the most important one because it can be universally applied.
Goodwin makes a number of good arguments in his book Political Justice, however, he makes few assumptions that don’t make much sense. For example, in chapter three, he explains that children are corrupted by society in the moment they are born and when a parent doesn’t say ‘no’ to a crying child, they are planting the seeds vice in the next generation. This is an interesting way of looking at the situation of a crying child and it’s appalling the way he describes it. In chapter four, regarding literature he says that “but, if in any science we discover one solitary truth, it cannot be overthrown.” This statement sounds rather naive because there is always evidence that can be found to that proves that the old claim is false. Also regarding literature, he notes that even though people all over the world have different opinions, only one is true – this also doesn’t make any sense, why does there have to be only one right answer?
Godwin uses, Caleb Williams to emphasize ideas that are found in his philosophical book, Political Justice. In both books, the idea of anarchism is present and its development is necessary in order to improve the individual. In volume one of Caleb Williams, there are are two aristocrats, Falkland who is well liked by the poor and upper class and Barnabas Tyrrel who takes advantage of his status and is not well liked. Godwin believes that social hierarchy and political systems were the cause of corruption and society would only stabilize when individuals live by an inner moral code. Also both books were written during times of political change – Political Justice was written during the heart of the French revolution, and Caleb Williams was set in time when there was a lot of political change going on.
Discussion Questions:
- Why do think Godwin talks about literature and education, even though they are flawed?
- Why is anarchism important in Caleb Williams?
- What does Political Justice mean to you?
7 replies on “William Godwin and Political Justice”
These are good questions, especially since anarchist thought is so central to Godwin’s philosophy, but so tricky to define. Godwin essentially believes of government what he believes of education: it is made by humans, who are inherently flawed; therefore, government and education are necessarily flawed as well. But while individuals can be persuaded by reason and discussion — “the collision of mind against mind” — to relinquish old beliefs, the State (and the education system, presumably) relies on the general continuation of the beliefs on which it was founded. This means, to Godwin, that the State necessarily hinders human advancement by binding us to the incomplete knowledge of our ancestors.
I was particularly interested that you picked up on his description of a child’s first experience with “the seeds of error.” I can’t help but think of Paradise Lost — do you think he had the Fall in mind? Similarly, the selection you excerpt — about tyranny originating in the unfettered indulgence of an infant’s whims — very much calls to mind the character of Tyrrell in Caleb Williams. Do you think that Godwin intended Tyrrell to represent the psychological development of a tyrant? What kind of intervention might have prevented his tyranny?
You describe Godwin’s suggestion that parents ignore a crying infant as “appalling.” Can you (or perhaps someone else in class) elaborate? What does Godwin’s parenting style tell you about his values?
I think it’s interesting that Dr. Walker mentioned how Godwin believed the State hinders human advancement by binding us to the past. In my blog post about Edmund Burke, I discussed how Burke emphasized the importance of maintaining the State and past traditions. He had the opposite view of Godwin and thought that removing the State would hinder human advancement. He thought it was wrong to ignore the work of our ancestors and to instead build on their knowledge.
Godwin also seems to believe in nurture over nature – that our personalities are developed by our experiences and are not innately present. The “seeds of error” that Erica mentioned lead people to believe that people have a preset (natural) personality, but Godwin said that isn’t true. His belief that political justice is the most important way of achieving perfection can be seen in Caleb Williams. There is a lack of political justice in that book – neither Falkland nor Tyrrell have adopted any morals in their communities.
Godwin’s perspectives on parenthood likely parallels his values in how, just as Godwin repeatedly emphasizes the downsides of tyranny, so too he believes children should be raised without the concept embedded in their character. As Mentioned, Godwin followed the philosophy that values are a product of exposure where good and bad is realized through others; not innately. Therefore if a parent were to cater to a child’s abuse of power, a parent may unintentionally lead to intellectual murder where the child is raised to believe in the vice of tyranny. Therefore by controlling for this issue, parents can help minimize the chance that a child becomes tyrannical.
This reason is not far from this,”Literature is powerful and is the most efficient way of eradicating prejudice and mistakes Education is a “scheme for the early impression of rights principles upon the hitherto unprejudiced mind” or in different words – the early presentation of idea to unprejudiced minds”. The importance or anarchism is the overall improvement of an individual. Political justice is applicable everywhere in any situation in that it is the application of the principle of moral justification to fight for one’s right based on prejudices and biases of the government on people. It seeks a level playing ground with others
Political justice is the liberalism of humans from laws and stipulations that constraint mans fundamental right such as movement, freedom of speech, religion et al.
All humans are born free, but their fundamental liberty such as choice of religion and unrefined information that pertains to their existence as a being is left to the discretion of other imperfect people.
Political justice also several as a medium for the populace to checkmate and scrutinize the activities of the government; the governments main purpose is to elongate the existence of humanity and to achieve a system that ranks all men as equals irrespective of their social or political divide.
There is nothing like a perfect system of government, and since the government is for the people, they should be allowed to air and adopt the most popular opinions without being trampled upon by the privileged.
One cannot undermine the importance of coordination in a highly exposed society, but people at a particular point in history should be able to formulate and make changes to worn out ideas and methods of governance.
The components of the British system fail Caleb. This is including protecting the innocent and impose security. Anarchism is important in Caleb Williams because it is the center of the story. The idea is that when the system doesn’t work, it should be fixed. Godwin didn’t like the fact that the justice system was flawed, and that at the time there were problems with the abuse of power. In this case, he felt the government was unfair because even the innocent people didn’t really get the justice that they deserved.
It is a very interesting fact that parents should take care of their children since childhood, because as Sarah said in the text “if they dont say no to a crying baby” it will not learn what is right and what is wrong. other statements are not as valid as chapter two because everyone has different experience in the life so they will definitely have different opinions about anything so Goodwin cannot say that only one opinion is right.