Conservatism key thinkers

ORDER- an ordered society should balance the human need to live a free life

• total obedience to absolute government as freedom without authority would have disastrous consequences
• 'state of nature' is a hypothetical situation where people are equal and free with no authority, humans would have a ‘’restless desire’’ for power 
• this would lead to a 'state of war' where life would be ''solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short''

HUMAN NATURE- needy, vulnerable and easily led astray when trying to understand the world

• people seek reputation so others will be too afraid to challenge them, compete violently for necessities and fight out of fear to ensure their safety

SO... people want a strong gov authority that gives them order and security so will enter into a social contract in which they surrender their rights to an authority (except right to self-defence)

• people need ''a common power to keep them all in awe'' (a 'Leviathan')
• humans have ''a perpetual and restless desire for power that ceaseth only in death''

CHANGE- should be undertaken organically and with great caution

• the French revolution was based on abstract principles so drastic changes could only lead to chaos or tyranny
• the state is a living organism that should be ''pruned''- revolution thretens ti cut off ''roots''
• any reform should be limited and take account of past

TRADITION and EMPERICISM- practices passed down for generations should be respected

• accumulated and ''tested'' wisdom is seen in long-standing institutions,customs and parctices
• respect for tradition promotes social continuity and establishes an obligation to protect and pass on traditions to successors

SO... any change should be gradual and uphold tradition

• ‘’we procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age and... from whom they are descended’’ 
• ''society is but a contract between the dead, the living, and those yet to be born''

HUMAN IMPERFECTION- society is unpredictable and humans are naturally flawed

• people don't have the mental capacity to make sense of the complex modern world 
• ideologies fail because people are intellectually flawed

PRAGMATISM- conservatism is about being pragmatic

• actions should be made based on what works, not ideology
• theories and ideologies oversimplify complex situations
• modern society is too unpredictable and complex to be understood with abstract principles
• parliamentary institutions developed pragmatically over many years

SO... politics should- accomodate for existing traditions, practices and prejudices, be in the best interests of the people, maintain social stability through historical continuity and reflect complex and changing social realities

• to be conservative is to ''prefer the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, the actual to the possible''
• ''in political activity men sail in a boundless and bottomless sea''

OBJECTIVISM- advocates the virtues of rational self interest

• as rational beings we have a duty to be selfish and self-interested (ethical individualism)
• the prime moral purpose of life is the individual pursuit of happiness
• altruism and self-sacrifice are immoral as they create an 'artificial' sense of obligation 

FREEDOM- supporting a pure, laissez-faire capitalist economy

• the unrestricted expression of rationality is compatible with the free market
• a free market is morally superior as it fully respects rational self-interest

SO... trying to control people stops them from working freely by undermining their practical use of reason, this means gov welfare and wealth redistribution programmes should be rejected as they rely on the implicit threat of force to ensure people contribute through taxation

• called for a ''full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire'' economy
• libertarian conservatives ''must fight for capitalism, not as a practical or economic issue, but as a moral issue''

LIBERTARIANISM- based on Kant's idea that humans are not a resource

• minimal/night-watchman state limited to powers to protect against violence, theft and fraud

SELF-OWNERSHIP- individuals own their bodies, abilities, talents and labour

• individuals cannot be treated as a thing or used against their will as a resource
• humans have a right to their lives, liberty and the rewards resulting from their labour
• gives individuals the rights to various elements that make up one's self
• anythimg more extensive than a minimal state compromises self-ownership

SO... taxes are immoral, they treat individuals as a means to further the goals of social justice, thus violating the principle that humans should be seen as ends in themselves, taxation is ultimately a form of slavery

• taxation is ''legalised theft''
• ''there are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. using one of these people for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. nothing more. what happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others.''