Rajapaksa Dream and Ground Realities In Sri Lanka — Round 2

A typical democracy consists of a centralized legislature or authority and a bureaucratic management which delivers services to the civis or the social body of citizens united by law.  

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne-Sep 20, 2018

“I once watched several criminals engage in an organized argument, while an audience of supporters cheered them on, but I was so disgusted that I had to turn off the political debate.”  ~ Jarod Kintz

( September 20, 2018, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) I read Professor M.O.A. de Zoysa’s article of 19 September with sustained interest and curiosity, if only for the fact it was au fait and erudite. It is well reasoned and wonderfully written.  He explains lucidly the American analogy of two terms of the executive presidency in its historical setting and the adoption of the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution in 1951. Most of all, I liked Prof de Zoysa’s last paragraph where he correctly says inter alia:  Should we allow such anti-democratic and nepotistic forces to come into power? All those who love democracy should ask their conscience this very important political question. We also have to understand one important point here: that there is a legal as well as a moral and ethical base to politics…

Like Professor de Zoysa, I will leave the legal issues to the experts on constitutional law; the political issues in Sri Lanka to expert political analysts, and address generally the moral and ethical base of politics. Harvard University defines morality and ethics in politics as: Political ethics (sometimes called political morality or public ethics) is the practice of making moral judgments about political action, and the study of that practice. As a field of study, it is divided into two branches, each with distinctive problems and with different though overlapping literatures. One branch, the ethics of process (or the ethics of office), focuses on public officials and the methods they use. The other branch, the ethics of policy (or ethics and public policy) concentrates on judgments about policies and laws. Both draw on moral and political philosophy, democratic theory and political science. But political ethics constitutes a free-standing subject in its own right. Most writers on the subject do not try to apply foundational moral theories but rather work with mid-level concepts and principles that more closely reflect the considerations that political agents could take into account in making decisions and policies. 

According to this definition there are two aspects of morality and ethics in politics: process; and policy. In other words, conduct of politician and officials; and moral judgments that justify such actions, both of which are grounded on various aspects of democracy, philosophy and political science.  On the face of it this sounds like a complex cocktail of arcane intrigue. However, it may be unravelled with a look at the historical evolution of political philosophy, starting from the father of history – Herodotus – to the much-reviled Machiavelli and onwards to Thomas Hobbes, claimed by many as the greatest philosophical thinker that ever lived.

A typical democracy consists of a centralized legislature or authority and a bureaucratic management which delivers services to the civis or the social body of citizens united by law.   The largely accepted democratic model in early times was centred around the Athenian ecclesia or Assembly composed of the legislature, judiciary and executive that is now referred to as the powers of a State and are stringently separated.  Democracy then  was grounded on peace and security of State as well as free access to both the rich and the poor. This is where process and policy come in to play, where a distinction is drawn by historians between the defeat by the Persians of the Greeks and their types of governance where the former were process driven while the latter were policy driven.  Herodotus spoke of the Persian process in glowing terms, calling service to have been delivered irrespective of rain, snow, heat or gloom of rain.  There is also the distinction drawn between the Greek and Roman notions of governance, where the former, in Athenian terms, espoused unfettered freedom in the practice of democracy while the latter tempered governance with structured and strict rules of control.

Plato, in his Republic, posits that ethics in governance (or any other process) must be preeminent and be based on virtue, goodness and happiness of the subject.  Plato’s teacher Socrates held that virtue was found primarily in human relationships, love and friendship, not through material gain. Aristotle, in his Politics, fundamentally held that a government is good when it aimed at the good of the whole community, and bad when it cared only for itself. Aristotle was emphatic when he made the distinction between oligarchy and democracy by using the economic status of the governing party as the only criterion for the distinction: oligarchy is when the rich govern without consideration for the poor; and democracy is when the sovereign gives power to the hands of the poor and needy in initial disregard for the interests of the rich. In later years, the 18th century British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, recognized democracy as being composed of four essential and basic elements: subsistence; abundance; security and equality.

Machiavelli, who was born during the renaissance (in 1469) had a different perspective where he ascribed autocracy to the ruler.  This has overtones of a unique interpretation of the process or service to the nation. According to Machiavelli’s argument, the king, who in medieval belief was considered to be benevolent and virtuous, would only be successful if he ignored the tenets of law, morality, conscience or justice and pursued the preservation of his own power at whatever cost in order to maintain order of the State. The philosophy that resonated during the Renaissance period was that royalty was the embodiment of goodness which offered protection to the State and its people, prompting Machiavelli to ascribe to his book the satirical mockery that was meant to go with the title “Prince”. In modern parlance, this has led to the general acceptance that a Machiavellian character is a schmuck who appears benevolent and caring whereas he would really be a mendacious, treacherous scumbag who bilks the State and its people while maintaining an aura of sincerity and nobility.

Thomas Hobbes, who, in his Leviathan said the life of man was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, requiring a power to control him,  is seemingly bent toward the Roman approach of controls as against unfettered freedom in a democracy that the Athenians espoused, when he said that even if a sovereign were to be despotic, the worst despotism was better than anarchy. Hobbes maintained however, that the interests of governments become singularly identifiable with the interests of the subjects and was emphatic that rebellion by the people was wrong in any circumstance not only because it usually fails; but also, if it succeeds, it sets a bad example.

Morality and ethics of politics seem to boil down to process in the interests of the people, where a true democracy should ensure that whatever freedoms a citizen might have, they should be enforceable by a credible and effective system set up by government. This should be implemented in a state of unity that is sustainable as, according to Aristotle, once a State exceeds that level of unity, it ceases to remain a State.

All this having been said, and history examined, our present-day morals and ethics that are brought to bear by politics are grounded on fundamental rights, and to that extent, we are ahead of our philosophical ancestors and ancient Athenian democracy.  As Alan Ryan, Professor of Political Theory at both Oxford and Princeton and author of two monumental and encyclopedic volumes On Politics says: In the modern Western world, individuals have a host of rights – to free speech, to worship as they choose, to occupational freedom, to live where they like     – that earlier ages  never dreamed of conferring on ordinary people.: the poor have votes; and women play a role in politics that would once have been thought impossible; dangerous, wicked,  or unnatural; if not all four at once.

With these at hand, the voter should not have much difficulty in separating the wheat from the chaff – the inanity of persuasive ideologues from their ethics and morals.