Peter Johnson - Politics, Innocence, and the Limits of Goodness

Volume 31

POLITICS, INNOCENCE, AND THE LIMITS OF GOODNESS

PETER JOHNSON

First published in 1988 by Routledge

This edition first published in 2020
by Routledge
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1988 Peter Johnson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-367-21961-1 (Set)
ISBN: 978-0-429-35434-2 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-24629-7 (Volume 31) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-28357-4 (Volume 31) (ebk)

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The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

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The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

PETER JOHNSON

First published in 1988 by
Routledge

a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Published in the USA by
Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001

1988 Peter Johnson

Set by Hope Services, Abingdon
Printed in Great Britain by
TJ Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Johnson, Peter, 1943
Politics, innocence, and the limits of goodness.
1. Politics. Ethical aspects
I. Title
172

ISBN 0-415-01046-2

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Johnson, Peter, 1943
Politics, innocence, and the limits of goodness/by Peter Johnson.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-415-01046-2
1. Political ethics. 2. Innocence (Psychology)
3. Politics in literature. I. Title.

JA79.J64 1988 172dc19

he who loves a person or a thing without knowing him or it falls prey to something that he would not love if he could see it. Whenever experience, caution and measured steps are needed, it is the innocent person who will be most thoroughly ruined, for he has blindly to drink the dregs and the bottommost poison of everything.

(Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)

Innocence to the extent that it is more than not guilty, cannot be proved but must be accepted on faith, whereby the trouble is that this faith cannot be supported by the given word, which can be a lie.

(Hannah Arendt, On Revolution)

In his Essay on Cruelty, Montaigne refers to those who are innocent, but not virtuous: in what follows I explore the political implications of this remark. Perceptive readers will identify the texts of modern political philosophy which have provided most guidance, and I have been conscious too of Sophocles powerful and elusive statement that nothing tests moral character better than the practice of authority and rule.

For specific assistance I am grateful to Professor Raymond Plant who was the first to risk reading my original draft; to Janet Coleman, whose detailed and thoughtful comments on it raised more questions than I could hope to answer; to Geraint Williams who provided help at a difficult stage; and to Professor Peter Calvert who, on behalf of the Department of Politics at Southampton University, eased the practical difficulties of preparing a manuscript for publication. Thanks, too, are due to Mrs Jean Ballard who efficiently transformed my handwritten material into legible typescript. Finally, I must thank my wife, Sue. Without her encouragement and assistance an unwieldy manuscript would never have become a book. Of course, for the form it takes here I am responsible.

My theme is the place of moral innocence in politics. My aim is to analyse its nature, and to explain why it is that it may threaten politics. Innocence is a neglected concept in recent moral and political philosophy. It eludes the net of both consequentialist and rights-based moral theories which seek to establish formal grounds for moral obligation. My central intellectual problem is the paradox of innocence. We are familiar with the idea of innocence being harmed or destroyed, and we know what is meant when innocents are victims of circumstance, policy, or outrage. We are not so clear, however, about the nature of the human harm and damage which can result from innocence.

In an imperfect and frequently duplicitous world we often speak of innocence as something which is lost. But this neglects the active sense of innocence. It implies that innocence is of moral significance only for the person who possesses it and who may have to suffer its loss. In politics this is not so. The public nature of political action means that innocence has a wider moral reference than simply the person in whose life it features. One of the victims of innocence may be the political community itself. Innocence can produce political dismemberment, resulting in political suffering and disintegration. The role of innocence in war and civil war raises moral dilemmas and conflicts of an acute kind. We are made aware in these circumstances of the dangers of innocence and the reactions of its victims. But how can this be so? The values associated with innocence truthfulness, candour, and compassion have traditionally been seen as crucial to a rapprochement between morality and politics. How can the same values render this rapprochement impossible? The conjunction of innocence and politics, therefore, represents a challenge to moral and political philosophy which ranges across a broad front of ideas. It is my contention that there is a closer connection between moral disposition and political outcome than that allowed by consequentialism: what characterizes moral innocence disqualifies it from constructive political engagement.